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David Cross: Oh Come On (2019) – Full Transcript

Transcript of David Cross' latest stand-up show, “Oh, Come On.” Parenting, his "Trump fantasy," and the joys of colonic therapy are among the special's themes.

This is the full transcript of David Cross’ latest stand-up show, “Oh, Come On.” Parenting, his “Trump fantasy,” and the joys of colonic therapy are among the special’s themes.

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[Cross] And you gotta do it, it really makes them… really bothers them, really bothers them. [laughs] Just maybe, add the clapping to it…”Whee!” And– and also, yeah, they have them in D.C., which I just did like last week. And it did the same thing there. And when I was in D.C., and if you ever get a chance to go, it’s… The city itself is not– I mean, every– One thing that’s cool about D.C. is like only good things come from there, and there’s just decent people ev– wherever you walk. And… but the museums are amazing. Uh, they– they truly are. But the first thing I always do when I get to D.C., and I did it this time as well, is I always go and pay my respects to the Tomb of the Unknown Lobbyist. And, uh… it’s great. And except they have this weird rule, when you go into the room, you have to take your shoes off before you enter, which is weird. You don’t have to do that anywhere else. And I asked the guy, “Why do I have to take my shoes off to come in here?” And he said, “Um, oh, you have to be soulless to enter.” And… And just so you know, this is not my set. I’m just dicking around, I’m saying hi. This is– I don’t want anybody to get, you know, like, what, is it just this for a while? Yeah. I’m just… No, the set’s coming up, it’s fucking awesome. It’s 100 percent fresh, Rotten Tomatoes, you’re gonna love it, everybody’s gonna be having a great time. It’s great, I’m just warming up, so, you know, you get to know me, I get to know you, that kind of thing and…

But before I do get into the actual set, I do first want to… address the tragic events that occurred just to address them, acknowledge them, whatever. Uh, there’s nothing, obviously nothing funny about it, the terrorist bombings were awful, and… The terrorist bombings that took place at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics were awful. The loss of life was staggering. And… and they were terrible. But I believe you have to find a silver lining in everything. And as awful as they were, I do think that the… 2024 U.S. Paralympic team should have a very strong showing. Too soon? Too soon. It’s just… it’s too soon.

So I was on the… I was on the internet the other day, just dicking around, whatever, and I saw this story that said AIDS was started by a monkey. And I hope it wasn’t Michael Nesmith, you know? ‘Cause he’s really the most talented one. He wrote all the songs. When we think fondly of The Monkees’ catalogue, it’s… Hm… Too late? Yeah. First joke was too soon, second one was too late.

Right. So I think I speak for everyone in this room here tonight when I say that I recently had a baby. And… No, and you’re right not to applaud. You are, you are right not to applaud. I’m not being facetious. It’s… I don’t know why people applaud that. It happens roughly half of the shows, people applaud. And it always bothered me. Even before I had a kid, that just, you know… Uh, “Yeah, so I had a kid.” “Yay!” There’s… I haven’t– I haven’t done anything applause-worthy yet. You know what I’m saying? I mean, you know, I barely had anything to do with it in the first place. -My wife… -[audience] Whoo! -[applause] -…had an affair. [laughter] I mean, look, come back and find me in 18 years. And if I’ve produced a decent, kind, ethical, moral, charitable, contributing member to society, then I will gladly accept your applause, but, you know, I… you know, it’s a little early to tell is what I’m… I mean, she could turn out to be a cunt. You know? She could, it happens all the time. Fucking happens all the time, and you know it. You know well-intended, well-meaning parents do the right thing, and yet they raise asshole fucking children. Their children are fucking shitty pieces of shitty asshole shit. And… And it happens, you know? It happens. And, I mean, obviously my wife and I are, you know, we’re not going to intentionally raise a TSA agent. But, you know, it… We could put in all the work, and she still ends up being like kinda… half Ann Coulter, half girl who killed her friend ’cause of Slender Man. You know, you don’t know. You don’t know. You can throw as many future feminist onesies on an infant, doesn’t mean shit. She doesn’t know what it means, it doesn’t work through osmosis. You know? When I was growing up, my dad had a coffee mug that said “World’s Greatest Dad” on it. And he was a lying asshole piece of shit. He was a piece of shit. So what I’m saying is those onesies and mugs are just lying straight to your face. They don’t care. You know. I blame the Chinese, really.

Uh… But, you know, I am a first-time father. Longtime listener. And… And just to allay any fears, I’m… I’m not gonna do an hour of dad jokes. All right? Not… just sometimes people… -Yes, exactly. -[scattered cheering] You can feel the tension in the room right about that point where, like, “Wait, he’s not gonna talk about having a kid for an hour, is he?” You know… And… I’m not going to do that to you. One, it’s boring. And two, it would make me quite a hypocrite, you know, based on a lot of the material I’ve done in the past, so… But you know it has been my world for the last year. I mean, that’s… it’s a wholly unique experience to me. So of course I’ve made some observations and thought of some funny things and I’ll share those and hopefully you won’t have to have had a kid to get them and appreciate the jokes. And I’m certainly not gonna tell you, you know, how amazing she is or anything like that. But she is precocious, I will say that. She is… She is precocious. She’s… she’s 54 weeks old. Uh… But if you see her, you’d be like, “How old– what is she, 62 weeks old?” Like, “No, actually, no. She’s actually– I know. Thank you, though, thank you. I know. She’s very mature for her age. You don’t– Yes, you know, she carries herself with a… Or I carry her, but, you know, she exudes a kind of maturity you don’t often associate with a 54-week…”

But, you know, it is a fascinating thing to be a part of, to watch the evolution of this thing. ‘Cause when they’re born, there’s nothing. There’s no communication, it’s nothing. It’s a blob, it’s not, you know, but then over time, you know, it starts to evolve, it starts to become a person and personality traits start to exhibit themselves. And it’s really fascinating, and I’m really looking forward to that… that big shift, you know, that happens, that big change where you finally start to love them. And that’s… [laughs] Hurry up with that part, please. When is it gonna be worth it in any way, shape or form? Please? But I am excited to meet her. I think that’s gonna be cool. I’m looking forward to that. That’s gonna be cool. I’m doing that thing, it’s a very Brooklyn thing, where you don’t meet your kid for the first seven years. You know? You keep them pure, you keep them away, so she’s in a yurt in a bubble underwater and will be there for seven years. And then this way, I can’t taint her with any of my straight, white, hetero, cis, normative maleness things.

And I’ve also decided that I’m not gonna teach her to use pronouns when referring to people. Yes. No “he’s” or “she’s.” But everybody will be “they.” You know? And not necessarily so that she’ll be progressive about sexual and gender identity. But so that she’ll fail English. So… Oh, she said her first word the other day. That’s pretty cool. That’s a milestone that, you know, you can’t help but be proud of. She said “Pyongyang.” Which is… pretty cool. Up on current events. No, she doesn’t talk, but she does that kind of monosyllabic noises, you know, a lot of just sort of like, “Pa, pa! Ta, ta! Ca! Sha! Fa! Ca, ca!” You know, that kind of thing, which is really kind of cute and endearing most of the time. But really quite the opposite early in the morning when, you know, she first wakes up and it’s like 6:30 in the morning and I’m completely out of it and I gotta change her diaper and then I gotta go downstairs and, you know, get the mug out of the thing and fill it with water and put it in the microwave and get the thing… You know, ’cause I’m holding her with my left arm and her mouth is right here, it’s literally right here. It’s… her mouth is right here and I’m doing all this stuff and, you know, getting the milk ready and getting my dog’s medicine and food together, doing all this stuff and it’s… and it’s dark and it’s, again, I’m just groggy and out of it, you know… And I’m doing this by myself. I’m there by myself because my wife is off in, you know, LA or San Francisco or Chicago or somewhere, you know, smashing the patriarchy. And… [cheering] And the irony is not lost on me. It’s not lost on what is currently taking place.

And anyway, so I’m getting all that stuff together, and as I said, it’s dark, and the whole time I’m doing that, she’s sitting there in my ear just going, “Ba, ba… Ta, ta… Sa, sa…” And it’s like I’ve got my own personalized ’80s horror movie soundtrack playing. Like, “Stop it! Stop it. That’s… Don’t do that! You’re creeping me out. Stop it! I’m serious.” And I’ve gotta put her down. I’ve gotta put her down. I can’t put her on the floor, so, you know, I undo the oven door and set her on that. And, um… it’s fine. It’s fine. It’s fine. You know. If nothing else, it allows her to get a little closer to the history of her peoples, you know. And… [audience laughing, groaning] Her great-grandfather built ovens. For the Nazis. Now, here’s the thing. He got out, he got out, Ashville, he got out. You judgmental fucks. So don’t… seriously. But we have to, um… Her one year physical is coming up. We have to take her for her one year physical, which everyone of my friends with kids, which is a lot of them, you know, have all said the same thing. And I know if you have kids you know what I’m about to say. Just like, “Oh, my God, it’s so hard to watch them go through that. It’s really difficult. It’s awful.” You know, ’cause there’s all these needles ’cause there’s vaccinations, they have to draw blood, all this shit happens. “Oh, my God, it’s so terrible to watch them go through that, it’s awful.” And… So what I’ve been doing, with that in mind, uh, what I’ve been doing is… slowly introducing her to pain. Yeah. But I’m having a clown do it, so it’s fun. You know? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so we are taking her in for her one year physical, which means, obviously, my wife and I had the big discussion and, uh, we have decided to let her live. And… And I’m gonna drill that into her head. I’m gonna tell her that repeatedly. Every day, I’m gonna make sure she knows that because when she’s like five years old and she’s having a tantrum, I want her to be able to repeat that out loud in a public place so that she knows it, you know, and we’re at the airport and we gotta get on the flight and she’s having a tantrum, like, “Hey, hey! Hey! Stop it! Hey! What did Daddy tell you? What did Daddy tell you?” “Um… you let me live?” “Yeah, that’s right. Exactly. Not like…” “Not like the others?” “Yeah! Exactly. Now, come on, we gotta get on the plane. Come on. Seriously. You wanna go meet your sister? Or brother, I don’t know, we never found out. Let’s go. Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go!” I truly believe that it’s… a kid is never too young to learn about abortion. I… no reason not to tell them. No reason. I do believe this, though, sincerely. Uh… I truly think that having a kid is one of the most narcissistic things a person can do. I believe that. I do believe that. And I don’t think it’s a conscious decision that people have. I think it’s this subconscious thing that’s in the back of everyone’s head, which is this idea of, “You know, I like me. I think there should be more of me in the world. Look at that shitty lady with her shitty kids. I gotta balance this out.” And I know there’s a lot of different reasons people say they wanna have kids, you know, “You know, I want unconditional love, and I want a buddy,” and where I’m from, in the South, I think people have kids for practical reasons. You know? They can sort of look ahead into the future and pragmatically, you know, realize… [inhales] “Well… [sighs] this emphysema ain’t gonna cure itself. [inhales] My diabetes is getting pretty bad. Pretty soon, I’m gonna out-fat this Rascal I’m sitting on and… [inhales] I’m gonna out-fat it, I’m gonna have to get into the bed for the rest of my days and… [inhales] Hell, I’m gonna need somebody to to go down to the liquor store and get my Pall Mall unfiltered, so I best get to fucking. You know.” -[cheering] –

Sure. Asheville, you must know what I’m talking about. Surely you know what I’m talking about. And, you know, I… I believe that, at least relatively, I’m a good, decent person with good values and good morals, and my wife is as well, and I want to instill those, uh, lessons and values into my daughter and teach her what I think. But I also know that I am cynical, I’m jaded, I’m skeptical, uh, I’m an atheist prone to bouts of depression, I have a jaundiced world view, you know? Because I use my eyeballs and my ears. And… You know, I just know what I know, -but I… -[applause] And I want… I want to tell these things to my daughter, but I can’t just tell her all the things that I believe and I know, ’cause that’s borderline child abuse. You can’t say that to a little kid. I’m not gonna be able to sit her down when she’s like four years old and go, “All right, honey. Come on, let’s go get something to eat. And then we’ll, uh, we’ll go to the playground and we’ll go on the swings, and you know what? You’re four years old, I think you’re old enough to know this. Honey, you were born to a deeply and shamefully racist country, acquired through genocide and built by slave labor, its apocryphal history, a crumbling muddle of lies and deceits, and sweetheart, this profoundly shallow society you are now a part of is fueled by crass consumerism and narcissism and petty tribalism and it worships money and status and places the appearance of being right above basic human dignity. Peanut, your leaders are duplicitous hypocrites who cynically use religion and nationalism to easily manipulate ignorant and fearful… Here comes the airplane.”

And that shit’s not up for debate. You know, but I can’t… I can’t just tell her that stuff. But there are things I want her to know that I think are important for her to know, as she tries to navigate her way through this awful, awful world we’re giving her. And… and there are certain things I think would be helpful for her. So what I do is, at night, when she’s sleeping, I… I quietly go into her bedroom, and I click on the little white noise machine that replicates the sound of the human heart, you know? And then I tell her these things, I whisper, I go… [clicks, imitates white noise] [imitates heartbeat] [whispering] “Marlow… [imitates heartbeat] There is no God. [imitates heartbeat] Bernie would have won. [imitates heartbeat]” [cheering] “Sometimes, feminists can be their own worst enemies.” You know, things that are important that will be helpful for her as she goes through this life. Especially if she’s gonna be raised in part by my wife and I.

My… My wife is a staunch, uh, very vocal feminist. [cheering] Meaning she won’t shut the fuck up about it. And she’s an amazing woman doing amazing work. And she’s really incredible. And we’re different people, you know? Uh, basically. And we had very different upbringings, you know. She comes from a loving family. So, um… And, you know, I was… I had a pretty shitty childhood in Roswell, Georgia. And… And she’s from Santa Monica, born and raised, Santa Monica, California. And I– which I can’t stand. I don’t like Santa Monica. I– I have a general dislike for LA. -[cheering] -But if I… If I had to laser focus on a place, it’s fucking Santa Monica that I hate. I can deal with the rest of LA, Santa Monica fucking bugs me and it drives me up a wall. Because it’s got all this faux-progressive bullshit. They act like they’re so progressive and liberal and advanced, and they’re not. They’re not progressive. They act like they’re so diverse, they’re not diverse. Santa Monica? No. The most diversity you’ll see in Santa Monica is the lettuce selection at the Whole Foods salad bar. That’s it, you know? It’s just varying degrees of pale to tan. That’s how diverse it gets over there. And then, mixed with that, is this weird aggro bullshit beach vibe that everybody, you know, Venice and Santa Monica has where it’s like, you know, you’re walking to the coffee place and there’s always some sunburned dude in a sarape and a three-legged pit-bull playing, you know, Coldplay on a ukulele, and… And you… you truly can’t tell if he’s homeless or a dot-com millionaire. You have no fucking clue. You don’t know! You don’t know. And you’re walking by and the guy’s like, uh, you know, “Hey, bro. Why don’t you smile? Don’t cost nothing.” Like, fuck you. Fuck you and that dumb hippie bullshit. -[cheering] -Ugh! And that’s like your experience 60 percent of your waking hours in Santa Monica and Venice. And… And I remember being a kid, you know, being a young boy in Roswell and going home from school, cutting through the woods to go to the apartment complex I lived in. And getting jumped and beat up by some kids, you know, yelling anti-Semitic shit. And… I remember laying on the ground, you know, getting beat up and thinking, “Well… at least I’m not in Santa Monica.” So, you know, even as… Even as a child… One thing that my wife, for years, tried to get us to do, for years, was to go for a couple’s colonic. Yeah. And… I was pretty naive and ignorant as to exactly what took place during a couple’s colonic. But I knew enough to say, “Fuck no. No thank you. That does not sound good at all. At all.” And she just insisted, and it was a war of attrition, and after years she wore me down and I finally said, “Yes, all right, fine, we’ll go.” And in her defense, she did… She was saying like, “Oh, it’ll be fun. It’ll be funny. You’ll get a bit out of it.” [laughs] And… but here’s the thing, Asheville. She truly thought that at this couple’s colonic, she really believed this, that we were going to be in a room, uh, like on… together, on a bed, you know, holding each other’s hands, looking each other in the eyes, “Honey, I love you so much!” You know, like, she… That’s what she thought was gonna happen. And I want that image… Allow that image to occasionally pop into your head, as I tell you what happened, what I went through, the trauma and the pain that I went through during this colonic. ‘Cause I am going to tell you exactly what happened in great detail, in great detail. And I want that image to pop in your head occasionally. So… fucking relent, okay, we’re gonna go. And she makes an appointment for us, and it’s about six, seven blocks away from our apartment. It’s a place called The Gentle Wellness Center. Gentle… gentle, gentle wellness. [gasps] Gentle wellness… [whispering] You go in, it’s very… it’s very soft and it’s respectful and there’s like low lighting, like amber lighting and it’s very quiet. You know, and there’s like an older hippie woman behind the desk and she’s got really long hair, too long, the hair is too long. It’s just… It’s just… just cut that much off, please? No one… just… it’s making everyone nervous. No one needs hair this long. For safety sake, ma’am, please just cut this much… And… And then it’s, you know, a burbling brook and a bonsai tree and then a CD is playing softly in the background. You know, it’s nature sounds, just, you know, chimes. [imitates chimes ringing] And a wolf howl. [howls softly] And vaguely Native American sounds like… [nonsensical chanting] You know, but all at once, you know. And… I can’t do it all at once. I’m not Michael Winslow, but, you know, you get the idea. You get the idea. So that’s playing. And then so we go and we get our forms and fill ’em out… whatever, and turn them in. And then after a minute or two, this tall, very severe-looking, kind of Germanic woman comes out, really stern. She comes out and she goes, “Amber Tamblyn.” And then next to her is a very short Vietnamese woman who says, “David Cross.” And so we walk up and we go our separate ways. My wife gets taken down the hallway this way, I get taken down there, and so I’m like, “Ha-ha! I knew it! I knew this wasn’t a couple’s thing! I knew were weren’t gonna lay there!” And, you know, like minor victory, tiny victory. And it turns out to be an extremely minor victory ’cause my laughter starts receding as I’m like, “I knew it. Wait, what’s happening?” Where am I going? What’s going to happen to me? Where am I? What’s this room?” And… And I get taken by the Vietnamese lady to this small room, and she has me go in, and she, uh, has me change in the bathroom. So I change out of my clothes and basically, it’s a hospital gown you put on, you know, the thing, it’s open down the back. And I get out of the bathroom, and it’s a tiny room, it looks like a massage room, so there’s basically just the table, next to the table is a stool. And at the foot of this– it’s not a table, it’s a bed. Like, you know, whatever. And… at the foot of the bed is this crystal-clear, pristine, spotless, acrylic, rectangular box. Right? It’s like this deep, about that wide. It’s against the wall. And on the back of it, it’s all one… like, one solid, white, soft white light. It’s backlit by this white light. Right? Inside of the acrylic rectangle, also spotless, a continuous, unbroken, crystal-clear, glass tube. It goes like this. Oh, yes, indeed. Oh, yes, indeed. And then it ends in a little drain in the floor. It’s beautiful. Beautiful. Looks like modern art. Looks exactly– it could be modern art. Some rich asshole’s… no pun, no pun. No pun. No pun. Emanating from the top of the rectangular box, sealed off, is a hose and this goes into the tube, is a rubber hose, comes out, coils around on the floor, ends on the bed. At the end of the tube is roughly about, um, seven, eight inch plastic phallus with a hole at the end. So I come out of the… come out of the room, she has me get on the bed, and she’s on the stool, so her head’s right here, and she’s holding the phallus end of the hose. And I– you know, she’s just holding it like this. And I– I don’t– And she’s not gesturing with it, she’s just holding it, expectantly, you know, and I’m like, I don’t– I don’t… Uh… No, that’s not it. That’s not it. I know that’s not it. I don’t know what she wants me to do. She must think I’ve done this before. I’ve never done this before. Am I supposed to sign off on it? Just like, “Oh, yeah, that’s a… McJohnson 740. That’s the… that’s the brand I use. That’s good. Clearly a reputable colonic house. I’m glad my wife made the appointment here, you know.” I don’t know what she’s doing, and her English isn’t very good at all. And my Vietnamese is not that much better. And… And so finally, I figure it out. After a couple of seconds, like, “Oh, I– she’s– She’s giving this to me.” I’m like, “Oh, you want… Oh, you want me to put it–” And of course that makes sense. Like, “Okay, yes, okay, I understand.” So I take it from her, and she rolls me on my left side, and she lifts up my leg like this, and then she turns her back to me, which I take as my cue, um… And then I spend the next… couple minutes, uh, just… Hang on, hang on! [indistinct] Ow! And then finally, I get it in. After what feels like five minutes, I finally get it in there. And she– and also, uh, apologies to whoever’s using this mic again. Uh, I don’t know who’s here tomorrow or… Is it Cosmic Charlie? [laughs] It is– Cosmic Charlie’s here next. They’re a Grateful Dead cover band. I just love the idea of sound check– Actually, why would a Grateful Dead cover band ever need to sound check? Isn’t the whole fucking show a sound check? [laughs] Bink, bink, bink-bink-bink! Dink, dink, dink! Bink, bink, dink, dink, dink! ♪ Honey in the haystack Feelin’ good, the sunshine– ♪ Anyway… uh… I do love the idea, though, that there’ll be a band, uh, doing sound check, you know, going, “All right, guys. You ready? All right? All right. ‘Ali Baba,’ is that enough… Are– do you have– you have your shoes off enough?” [laughs] “You good? All right. Tater, you got your nose harmonica? All right. You ready to go? Okay. Ready? One, two, one, two, three– ♪ Hey, banker man Don’t tell me when I can ♪ ♪ Withdraw my money ♪ Wait, hold up. Wait, stop, stop, stop. [sniffing] [sniffing] Was David Cross here? Because…” -What was I talking about? -[woman] Colonic! Oh, yeah, yeah. So… yeah. So I got– oh, right. So I got it in there. Right? Okay. So I get, after a couple of minutes, you know, get it in, and I say to the woman, you know, I go, “Okay, okay. I got it in.” And she– she turns and looks at me and she goes… “Like, really? [sighs] Okay, I got– I got it. Okay.” And so I go to do it again, get it in there, uh, and I won’t– I’ll spare you that, I won’t do that again. But it was– and she was right. She was right. I definitely… When I went to get it in there the second time, I clearly did not have it in there enough, satisfactorily, it would have made a terrible mess. It would have been awful. It was… So I spent another couple of minutes, and just, you know, like… [squeaking noise] You know, get it in there. Okay, yes, I got it. And, um, I tell her, “Okay, we got it.” And then she turns back to me and again… “Really? I don’t– Okay.” And then she says, uh, “Do you want I to do it…?” And I was like, “Oh, yeah. Sorry, I guess I don’t know.” And I did not get to the “y” sound of the word “yeah” before she had just dipped it in lube and shoved it in my ass! “Oh, my God! Lady, what the fuck is– How can you do that?! Who does such a thing?! You’re awful! Gentle wellness, gentle! It says it on there, gentle!” And I mean, she’s fuck– she just… foom! And I just immediately start sweating and tearing up and shaking, I’m shaking, and… and… and… -And ladies, I get it. -[woman] Yeah! I get it. I get it. And I apologize, I apologize, on behalf of myself and behalf of every man in this room, I… I apologize. Uh… I completely understand the urgency of the wrong hole! I get it. I get it. I get it, I will not be going near there without a consent form, signed in triplicate, notarized, there’ll be a countdown clock, I get it. I understand. I truly understand, I get it. It’s jarring, it’s, uh… And so she’s– it’s… So she rolls me back– on my back now. I’m back on my back, and this thing is shoved way the fuck up me. And I’m looking at it between… coming from my legs in my hospital gown and I’m laying there just furious. A– just angry. Like, what the fuck? What is happening? And she starts to explain how the process is gonna work. She’s… she goes, “I will turn the nozz…” She’s gonna turn the nozzle, and then I will start to fill with water. And then when I feel pressure, I say release, and she releases and reverses the flow. Okay, okay. So that’s how it’s gonna work. And… [fake Vietnamese accent] So she turn the nozz. [normal voice] And I slowly start to fill with warm water. Which is, no joke, truly a very pleasant experience. It was very nice. It really is. It’s hard to put into words, but it was a comforting feeling. It feels good, and… And I like to be peed in, you know, that’s my thing. Uh… I like to be peed in, um… [man] Whoo! I like to, you know, a guy to fuck me up the ass and then there’s another guy who’s semi-hard next to him, and he’s gotta take a piss, and then this guy pulls out and then he goes in and he pees in me, and… It’s called a San Francisco Gold Rush, and it is… Oh! An American classic. American classic. So anyway, so… I’m starting to fill up with water. I’m laying there, she’s right here. Her head is right here, sitting on the stool. And the silence is just deafening. It’s so awkward, it’s so weird, I don’t– I feel very uncomfortable. Uh, and I want to say something. I’m also feeling oddly guilty. It’s just a strange thing. And I’m trying to think of something to say. Anything that’s conversational, ’cause this is gonna go on for 40 fucking minutes, so I’m just… You know, I’m just sitting there like… [sighs] “When… How do you like Santa Monica?” And I finally say something. Finally, I finally say something. And she starts to… very slowly, in broken English, answer. And as soon as she starts to answer, and I cannot underscore this enough, there was nothing gradual about it. It was zero to 60, it was instantaneous. She’s like, “Well–” “Release! Release! Re–” Screaming. “Release!” And the pressure was insane. It felt like I was going to rip apart and a fucking alien baby was in there waterboarding me, and I’m screaming, screaming. And screaming, “Release!” And she undoes it, and I’m screaming and I’m sweating and crying. And she’s doing this, and then she compliments me on my release, she did. I swear to God. She said, [fake accent] “Very nice release, Mr. Cross.” And it– and it’s all, you know, it’s coming out and going down the tubes, and it’s like you’re giving birth. And she says, “Do you wanna see?” And I’m like, “Sure, okay.” And she lifts my head on the pillow, and I’m like looking at this like, “Oh, my babies! My shit babies! Oh! Be free. Be free, my shit babies! You– you go to a better place and…” And so that happens repeatedly for like the next 40 minutes. And then it’s over. She leaves. She says I can go change and go back out. And I go to the bathroom and I change into my clothes. And I walk out of the bathroom and… walk out of the room, and I walk down the hallway like this. And I’m walking down the hallway like this because it feels like I’m shitting. Not– not like, “Oh, I think I need to shit,” or, “Oops, I may shit.” No, that’s a different sensation altogether. This feels like I am constantly shitting. Like if you’ve ever taken acid or mushrooms, and you go to take a piss, you know, and you’re sitting there going, “Am I done? Yeah. Oh, yeah, I’m done. Oh, no, I’m not! No, I’m not. No, I’m not. Wait. Wait! Yes, I am. Oh, no, I’m not! No, I’m not! No.” It’s that the entire time. And… And I walk down the hallway and I get to the waiting room, and my wife is there flipping through a magazine. And she pops up, and she says, and I quote, “Do you wanna get sushi?” “No. No, I do not want to get sushi. I want to go home and take a rape shower.” And speaking of taking a rape shower… I am starting to– starting to regret my vote for Trump. I… I know! You guys, I know! I was like you, “It’ll be fun! It’ll be funny! Burn it down! Burn the Constitution down.” Oh, yeah. There’s a, uh… There’s a Twitter thing, uh, Twitter site, whatever, uh, whatever you call it, Twitter feed. Right? Yeah, Twitter feed. I don’t know. I’m not– I don’t know– I’m not good at Twitter. I’m not. And… I mean, I know… I know enough– I know how to write something that will ruin my career. That I’ve got down. I know how to respond to people who say something negative about that post and make things even worse. I know– I’ve got that part down. But I don’t know the fun… I truly don’t know how they do the fun, you know, the photo funnies bullshit. You know, where they take photos and they put the memes and stuff. I don’t know how they– I don’t know how that’s done. I’m sure I’d like it more if I knew how to do that. You know, where there’s like the picture of the ladies walking and guy’s going, “Hello.” And then, you know, the girl’s going, “Hey!” You know, and then they put the funny words on them. You know, it’s like… “I’m mustard.” “I’m a hot dog.” “I’m ketchup!” You know, and like… Hilarious shit like that, I’d love to contribute.

But… But anyway, so there’s this Twitter thing, uh, Twitter feed, that I’m on that’s called Trump Regrets or Trump Voter Regrets or something like that. And it’s a compendium of whenever somebody writes that in their tweet, it sends it to this thing. And, you know, it’s been going on, they’ve compiled thousands and thousands of them. You know, there’s– somebody posted a couple days ago. “Dear President Trump, I’m starting to regret my vote.” What– Now? Now you’re… starting to regret. “Yeah, that’s right! I mean, I was fine in the beginning. I– I can overlook and I’m okay with the blatant racism and the crass sexism and the deranged narcissism and pandering to Nazis and supporting pedophiles and proudly bragging about being a sexual predator and paying your mistress to have an abortion and openly cheating your employees and mocking the disabled and praising murderous dictators and the constant pathological lying, the petty, vindictive cruelty, the staggering ineptitude, the unapologetic corruption, the nepotism, the Mob ties, the calculated mendacity, ignorance as to how American government works, encouraging violence against those that question your authority, the theft of our tax dollars to pay off your mountain of debt and/or go golfing. Did I mention the relentless lying? You’re a liar. Being a white nationalist, demonizing immigrants, the obvious disregard of the Bill of Rights, lying about whether Russia had hacked our election when you knew all along it had, then lying about lying about it, the collusion with our sworn enemy and the sworn enemy of democracy, your dereliction of duty, your treasonous activities, and I… -[cheering] -I was with you when you cheated… I was with you when you cheated on your wife with that porn star, the one you compared favorably to your daughter, you cheated on your wife, not the wife you raped, but the current wife who had just given birth to your son, and of course I was with you when we found out you cheated with the Playboy Playmate, the one you compared favorably to your daughter, not– not with the wife you have now, but the second wife whose kid you ignore, and of course I was with you, President Trump, when you– when you took the babies away, you took infants breastfeeding, literally breastfeeding, from their mothers and fathers, families who had made this arduous trek to come here and seek asylum. They just wanted to seek asylum. And you took them and you sent– deported the parents and you took them and separated them, sent the kids hundreds of miles away in a disused Walmart inside of a cage with armed guards pointing guns at them. And then of course, uh, and then, uh, thus ensuring the private prison contractors, CoreCivic and GEO Group, who donated heavily to you can get paid their collective four billion in profit as those toddlers sob and whimper in absolute terror traumatized for life, of course I was with you with that. But this last omnibus spending bill is where I draw the line! -Mm! Mm, mm, mm! -[cheering] I’m sorry, President Trump. But I’m a good Christian. I’m a good Christian and I can’t tolerate that last spending bill.” I have to rewrite this thing almost daily. And I– that’s why I can’t memorize it. This… this is new, this is a couple of days old. CoreCivic and GEO Group, found that out three days ago. I, you know… And I wonder if there were any people in Germany in the early ’40s who were like, “You know, I am really starting to regret my vote for Hitler. I mean, I was with him in the beginning, you know. But come on. Six million Jews? One million I could see. Two million, okay. But sorry, six million, I’m sorry, Mr. Hitler. But I’m a good Christian, so…” And I’m not comparing Trump voters to Nazis. Okay? No, I’m not. I’m comparing Trump voters to the German people who voted for the Nazi Party. -There’s a difference. -[cheering] See if you can find it. I think about this world that we’re giving to my daughter, I think about it daily. I think about it hourly. I’ve got a new kid. There’s a sense of urgency now, and as admittedly cool and interesting as it’s gonna be for her in the future when she’s older, to be able to say, “Well, you know, I lived in the prequel to The Handmaid’s Tale,” I just don’t think it’s a… a good trade-off. And, you know, I do a lot of press for these shows. And there seems to be a general misconception that people have, where people would be like, “Boy, I know Trump sucks, but he must be the gift that keeps on giving for a comic, huh?” Uh, no. It’s quite the opposite. I mean, for a couple reasons. One is there’s no reveal. You know? There’s no, like, he can’t.. There’s no joke you can make, like, “Well, look who turned out to be a real dick.” You know? The guy– he’s is who he is. He was always that person. He’s always an awful, reprehensible, shitty con man. You can’t make fun of a… You can’t do a Trump bit, in other words. Like, that… I had a bit when he said the “shithole countries” thing. It was pretty good. It made a point, it was like three minutes long. And then, you know, about 14 days later, people were like, “What are you talking about? That happened six years ago, right?” ‘Cause there’s no permanence to it. There… You know, there’s– Every awful, outrageous, egregious thing he says is supplanted within an hour by something more awful and outrageous and egregious. And making fun of Trump is like making fun of the way a kaleidoscope looks right now, you know? It’s… pointless. It’s… There’s no permanence to it. And… And I know there’s a lot of speculation as to, you know, how will Trump leave office? You know? Will he serve out a full term? Or will he be forced to resign in shame? Or will he serve out two full terms? -Or… -[audience booing] Or three or four at the rate we’re going? Or will he be arrested and sent to federal prison -for treason? Or… -[cheering] Or will he die of a massive coronary on a golden toilet? -[cheering] -Or… Or will he be assassinated by a group of caring nuns? -Or… -[cheering] Or will he succumb to the polonium-laced tea? Or will he be ripped apart by four horses going in different directions in the town square, as long as we’re gonna keep going back to medieval days? Or will he be shot by a Nazi who travels through time to shoot Trump, going, “You’re making us look bad.” Or, um… or will that time-traveling Nazi be thwarted by time-traveling Richard Nixon who travels through time just past the Nazi so he can land there so when the Nazi shows up, he can shoot the Nazi and go, “Please, please, for my sake, let him live.” You know. Or… Or… will he die of third-degree burns and shrapnel when the polygraph machine explodes? Or will he die of a perforated colon when Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity and Piers Morgan and Devin Nunes and Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell and Paul Rand and all the Fox and Pals all try to mount him simultaneously? We don’t know. We don’t know. We just don’t know. And… [sighs] Here’s the thing. Here’s the thing. I’m… I’m an atheist, so I don’t… -[cheering] -All right. Whatevs. Um… So I’m an atheist, so I don’t believe in heaven or hell. Uh, not that you have to be an atheist not to believe in heaven or hell. But it helps. I think that should be the atheist slogan. There’s a little Jewish rabbi… “You don’t have to be an atheist not to believe in heaven or hell, but it helps!” It’d be very confusing. It’d be very confusing. But yeah, so I don’t believe in hell. So I don’t think that Donald Trump is going to burn in hell for all eternity for the crimes he’s visited to America and other people. And understand, I’m not denigrating the idea of heaven or hell, it’s an awesome… It’s a great concept. It’s a wonderful concept. And I see its purpose, you know, it allows people to feel good about what is, you know, clearly, since time immemorial, the injustice that happens in this world where people treat other people, their fellow human beings, just awfully and you can say, “Well, this guy… Yes, this guy enriched himself and his family directly through the pain and suffering and deaths of others and lived this life of luxury, but he’ll be punished in the afterlife, you know.” And then the inverse is true, of course, “This person who is selfless and lived this impoverished life where they were just trying desperately to campaign for clean water in their village and then they were arrested and tortured and raped and eventually killed by an assassin’s bullet from the United Fruit Company or Monsanto or Union Carbide or Exxon or whoever the fuck it is, you know, they lived that kind of life, but they’ll be rewarded in heaven.” And it’s a great concept. And I get why people, you know, hundreds and hundreds of years ago believed in it, before there was science and… and an understanding of how the Bible was actually written and came to be. And I get it. You know, those people were dumb. You know? I mean, dumber than we are now. And we’re dumb. We are dumb. We’re dumb– we’re a dumb species. We’re… we’re so dumb, mankind didn’t even invent the sandwich until the 18th century. That’s how dumb we are as a species. I mean, literally thousands of years of people going… [grunting] “There’s got to be a better way!” You know… And… but anyway, yes. I’m saying it’s a great idea, great concept. And I wish, you know, I just can’t believe in it ’cause, you know, I’m not a child.

So… So because I don’t believe in hell, and I also… I don’t believe, and I hope I’m wrong, but I don’t believe he’s gonna go to jail. I think he’s guilty, he’s monumentally guilty. But I don’t think he’s gonna go to jail because I think that is gonna be part of the grand bargain that America will make with him because we’ll be so psychically scarred after however many years of Trump we have, that we’re just gonna go like, “Just go away. We won’t put you in jail, just go the fuck away. Just go away, leave us alone, don’t tweet, don’t talk, don’t appear on TV, go away, get out of here, and we won’t put you– In fact, we got you an island. We got you your own island. And it’s great. And everybody chipped in. Canada, Mexico, the EU, everybody chipped in. And it’s great, you’re gonna love it, Donald. It is beautiful. You can do whatever you want there, have as much Diet Coke and McDonald’s and fuck other men’s wives as you want. It’s gonna be great. And we’re gonna pay robots to tell you how awesome you are 24 hours a day. And everything’s gold! It’s all gold! Gold chairs and gold towels and golden showers. You are gonna love it. It’s so up your alley. Just go, get the fuck away from us, take your shitty fucking criminal family with you, and get the fuck out and leave us alone. Let America become a decent place again.” -[cheering] -So… So because I don’t think he’ll be punished, because I think he will get away with it, all I have, really, is this fantasy that I’m going to share with you, my Trump fantasy. And it’s actually viable. We could make it happen. We could make it work if we wanted to. And for the sake of the rest of this bit, just for the next few minutes, uh, I’m going to assume, and I’m probably wrong, but I’m going to assume that everyone in this building wants to get rid of Donald Trump as soon as humanly possible. -[cheering] -So… So if that’s the case, that means you have to vote for whoever the Democratic candidate is in 2020. A bitter pill to swallow, but you have to do it. I’ve done it myself. And it sucks ’cause, you know, Democrats suck as well. They suck, but they’re not evil. They’re not fucking evil. And… and so you have to do that. And also, please, don’t pipe up in the middle and go, “Um, actually, David, I’m in the DSA and we are going to nominate a used copy of Manufacturing Consent to be president. ‘Cause we think that’d be a better candidate than two corporate shills…” All right, yeah. Great. I’m in the DSA as well, I share your philosophies, but let’s be realistic and let’s take those little fantasies, put ’em in a Ziploc bag, we’ll put them in the freezer, we’ll get ’em out after 2020 when America becomes a viable place to live again, if you’re not white.

So… all the Democrats get together and secretly pick a candidate for president of the United States who’s truly a badass motherfucker. Like a true hard guy. A real… you know, somebody who’s very vocally anti-Trump. You know, somebody– and again, an honest, son of a bitch, tough motherfucker. And I’m suggesting Ron Perlman. All right? So… so Ron Perlman is the candidate for president of the United States. And he– you know, ’cause we all learned in school, through movies and TV shows and books, how to deal with a bully. We understand how to deal with a bully. And that’s what Trump is. So we get this fucking badass motherfucker, tough guy, Ron Perlman. He runs for president, and then his vice presidential pick is the person we really want to be president, you know. Whoever that is, whether that’s, you know, Warren or Sanders, Harris or Booker, whoever the fuck it is, so… But for these purposes, the Democratic candidate is Ron Perlman. And then, because we’ve decided all this in advance, there’s no campaigning, there’s no canvassing, there’s no focus group, there’s no polling, there’s no ad buy-outs, there’s not even a convention. And then we take the literally tens of billions and billions and billions and billions of dollars we’d save doing that and we actually pay teachers a decent wage and we feed kids who are hungry and we help with the homeless, we help our veterans, and we take all the money that the Republicans took away and gave to themselves, and then we put it back and actually do some good with it, some social work, some socialistic work you might call it, and… And then we just wait for the debates. ‘Cause that’s what it’s really about. We’re just waiting for the debates. And then finally the big day comes! The big day comes, it’s the debate, “Live from the YMCA in Chinatown in Youngstown, Ohio, it’s the whatever it is debates for the presidency! Sponsored by the Daughters of the Confederacy and My Pillow. Now, please welcome to the stage, President of the United States Donald Trump!” [humming tune] “Yes, I’m Donald Trump. I’m the greatest president that ever lived. I accomplished more in my first nine days than all my predecessors combined. I invented water and I can bend space and time.” All right. Sounds good. “And now here’s the Democratic candidate for president, Ron Perlman!” And Ron could wear his Hellboyoutfit if he wants. It’s fine. He can wear his Sons of Anarchy, doesn’t matter, whatever he wants. Hellboy, Sons…dress up whatever the fuck he wants. And they’re like, “All right, Mr. Perlman, you have five minutes to respond.” He’s like, “Oh, I don’t need five minutes.” And he goes over there and he just fucking pops… He punches Trump, but… but he doesn’t punch him this way. He punches him kind of down, so Trump just immediately crumples to the ground, and he’s pounding him, pound, pound, pound, pound pounding him, pounding him! And I don’t know if you’ve seen Ron Perlman’s fists, they’re fucking huge, his hands are huge. One of his hands is like as big as nine of my asses… Pound! Pound! Pound! And then Secret Service is like, “Holy shit!” You know, and they come running up. But Ron Perlman has anticipated all this. So he’s pre-greased himself, so he’s slipping away. [grunts] He’s got steel-tipped boots on. Boom! Right in the teeth! Boom! And then they separate them, “Mr. Perlman! How… stop that! Stop it! Go over there.” And Trump’s laying on the ground moaning. He’s clearly shit himself.

But the debates have to continue for democracy’s sake. This is America, the great experiment. So Trump’s team gets over, they lift him up, they take him back to the wings, they give him a quick wipe, a quick bump, get him back out there… He’s… [grunts] “I don’t know what… That didn’t hurt. Ahem. Didn’t hurt at all, Rotten Ronnie and his small hands, he has small hands, so it didn’t… didn’t really hurt. My hands are bigger than his hands. He’s got little Rubio hands.” You know. And then, “All right, Mr. Perlman. You have five minutes to respond. And no monkey business. Okay? No monkey business.” “Yes, I get it.” But again, Ron Perlman has anticipated all this stuff so he’s built thrusters into his shoes. So he like launches and he grabs Trump and he slams him! Slams him on the ground! Boom, boom! He’s fucking pounding away! And there’s no give, there’s nowhere for the back of his head to go! And his fist is going through him, it’s like that scene in Irreversible. He’s just fucking pounding him! And… and Trump is just made of rotten, congealed, racist flesh. So bits of esophagus and bloody cheek are coming up. And then Secret Service is like, “Holy shit!” And they get him and they take him out like, “Stop it, Mr. Perlman! You– that’s enough! That is enough. Go to the green room. You’ve upset a handful of people. Now, stop it!” And Trump’s lying there, moaning, a bloody pulp, bloody mess, just moaning. And… barely conscious. But… because it’s my fantasy… I’m there. So I run up. “Please, I’m a trained medic! I’m a trained EMT! Unloosen his tie, loosen his collar! I know how to resuscitate him! I know how to resuscitate him! This… Da,this is good, huh, comrade? Da,you like this, comrade! You… you like this, comrade, wake up, wake up! Usually that works, okay. Ma’am I’m gonna need you to come over here and apply pressure to his sternum. One, two, three. Sir, get up here, unloosen his collar, pull his tongue back, clear a passageway. Clear a passageway!” [farting sound] “Clear it, goddamn it!” [farting sound] “I know what I’m doing! I had lamb vindaloo last night!” [farting sound] “Open up his fucking eyes!” [farting sound] “Nice release, Mr. Cross.” “Thank you very much.” [farting sound] [cheering, applause] Now, folks… I know… that that bit… isn’t particularly clever. It’s not erudite. In fact, it’s crass, and it’s disrespectful. [cheering] But… it makes me feel really good. And that’s all I got in this shithole country.

Thank you, Asheville! Thank you guys so much! Thank you for being a part of this. Thank you, guys. Thank you, guys, so much. Thank you, guys. Thank you, guys. I did not say sit down. So, obviously, I was making all that stuff up about having a kid. I don’t have a kid. I don’t have a kid. No– guys, no. I do not have a kid. No. No, thank you. Before I go, I want to leave you with this one last story. And it’s a story, all true, about a… what I think is a rare opportunity that one could have to find out who they are. You know, what they’re made of. And this is a story about my opportunity… to know what stuff I’m made of. You know what I mean? Like, you know when you read or see a news story about an act of bravery or heroism where somebody had to make an instantaneous decision, they ran into a burning building or a baby was dangling, they leapt across a balcony and they, you know, saved this baby or the guys, the 9/11 guys who stormed the cockpit, you know, in Pennsylvania in that plane, or the three guys on the train in Paris, the one they made a movie out of them, stormed the terrorists. We read stories, we see those stories, and we think, “What would I have done in that situation?” And literally every single person in this room has thought that before. “What would I have done in that situation?” And we like to think we know. But do we really know? And so this is a story about when I was faced with immediate impending danger, and I’m not talking about the kind of slow-motion thing, where, you know, you’ve got time to think it out, where you’re on the subway and there’s… “Boy, this guy’s acting really crazy. And he seems nuts and maybe violent. There’s some kids and an elderly couple and a pregnant lady. Shit, what am I gonna do? All right, if he starts popping off, okay, um, all right, what I gonna– Oh, I know what I’ll do. I’ll jump up and I’ll grab the pole and I’ll pull myself up and I’ll come down with the heel of my boot onto his head, and then I’ll come down and I’ll get him with the fucking elbow right to his eyeball socket and then I’ll go down and I’ll shove my palm into his nose and his nose will splinter into his brain.”

You know, I’m not talking about that, you know, Bas Rutten self-defense type of shit. Um… I’m talking like this. So this is a story about that. So roughly four years ago, my wife and I were upstate in New York, we have a house in upstate New York. In the woods, tiny town, middle of nowhere. There’s no one around. There is nobody. And… my wife had taken a shower. And we have a steam shower, so she had opened up the windows to the bathroom, and it’s a big glass door. So she had opened that to let the steam out and closed, we have like a barn door, sliding barn door, closed the door, and went downstairs. And 20 minutes later, “Okay, I’m gonna take a shower.” And I go upstairs to take a shower. It’s dark out, just one… one light behind me. I go to take a shower. And I’m naked, which is how I like to shower now. And… I go… -[cheering] -Uh… And I open the door, it’s a small bathroom, open the door to go take a shower, and there’s a guy coming at me. And when I tell you all the things I’m about to tell you, when I tell you all the things I’m about to express, these things that go through your head, there’s no time, all these things went through my– But it was like that, instantaneous, how I had to react in this. And we’re– It’s just on the second floor, immediate like, who is this guy, how did he get there, did he climb up, did he come through the window, was he waiting, he’s been waiting there for like 20 minutes? ‘Cause it’s been 20 minutes. When did he fucking get there, who is this guy? And he’s coming– he is coming at me double time. This guy’s coming at me like this with purpose. Looking me right in the fucking eyes. And he’s coming at me, and he’s naked. He’s naked and he’s… And I’m like, “Who’s this fucking crazy naked motherfucker in the upstate naked bathroom killer guy? What the fuck is going on?” And I’m the line of defense between… it’s me and my wife who’s downstairs, you know, in front of the fire with our shitty dog. And then– and I’m… and I’m it. I’m it. And this fucking crazy motherfucker’s coming at me, and I do not have time to process that it’s my own reflection coming at me. And… And this is how I reacted to imminent danger, all right? As the protector of my wife and myself. This is what I said. This is who I am. I went, “Oh, come on.” “Oh, come on?” I don’t even know what the fuck that means! I don’t know what I’m thinking! I don’t know what is– What does that mean? That’s who I am? That’s what I’m made of. I don’t know, am I trying to appeal to his sense of creativity or pride? Like, I don’t know what that means! Like, you know, “Oh, come on. Are you really gonna– Oh, you’re stabbing me. Oh, that’s great. Well, that’s been done a million times. Kind of hacky! No, that’s not a pun. I wouldn’t do that. All right. Well, don’t worry about the dog. The dog won’t give you any trouble. Oh, Jesus. Oh, God. Oh, thank God I’m not a father. I’d be the most useless father. Oh, God, I’m… I’m bleeding out. This is it. This… this is it. Well… at least I’m not in Santa Monica.”

All right, Asheville. All right! You guys… thank you, guys. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. -Thank you, guys. -[music plays] Again, great town. Great club. Orange Peel, thank you to the Orange Peel. Thank all of y’all. You guys are awesome. Thank you.

♪ At the bottom of a swamp ♪
♪ There was no air But to be clear ♪
♪ Darkness was all you wanted ♪
♪ To see the rot in no disguise ♪
♪ Oh, what a time to be alive ♪
♪ The scum, the shame The fucking lies ♪
♪ Oh, what a time to be alive ♪
♪ Oh, what a time to be alive ♪
♪ Oh, what a time ♪
♪ To be alive ♪

[announcer] Yes, indeed, what a time to be alive, ladies and gentlemen, she’s and he’s, they’s and z’s, are you ready to have your funny bones shattered? Are you ready prepared to have your tickle skeletons crushed? I can’t hear you! Seriously, I’m in a recording booth in LA, so I’m gonna assume that you said, “Hell, yeah!” Well, then please welcome to the stage, America’s littlest sweetheart, give it up for David Cross!

[cheering]

[Cross] Asheville! Late show, Asheville! All right! How are you?

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