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Demetri Martin: The Overthinker (2018) | Transcript

With his signature one-liners and drawings, Demetri Martin muses on doughnut holes, dogs, sports bars, the alphabet's most aggressive letters, Halloween, work outs and more.

[cheering, applause] [Demetri] Man, that was a good improv. I’m so glad I asked for notes. I think my favorite animal to look at is probably the squirrel. [man] Yeah! You know what I mean? ‘Cause any squirrel, if you watch ’em long enough, there’s a moment where they suddenly realize they’re late for something. [laughter] “Shit! I gotta go. Excuse me. What?” [laughter] That’s a whole species that’s behind schedule. They’re terrible at keeping their calendar. Probably the most flammable of the small animals would be the squirrel as well. [laughter] The tail. I mean, it’s a…

[Demetri] All right, that worked pretty well. It’s a good room. Got my water. Mic stand feels good. Solid. Looks like I’ve got enough fake fog. That’s important. Maybe show my name. Okay. Anything else? Title? Yeah. All right. This should be fun. What was I gonna say? Oh, yeah.

I’ve noticed that you can carry around a plastic bag with shit in it. Um… if you’re near a dog, you can have a bag of shit. As long as you’re with a dog, it’s like, “He’s got a bag of shit.” That’s fine. [laughter] If you don’t have a dog, then we have a problem. You can’t just… ♪ Tu-tu-ru-tu-ru-tu-ru ♪ Hey, hey, hey. Whoa, whoa. You gotta be holding that for a friend. You can’t just have shit. [laughter] How weird is that from the dog’s perspective? I mean… Pick it up and collect it. You know what I mean? They must be kind of just like, “No! [laughter] Leave that. You don’t want that. Just… What is he doing? This fucking psycho is collecting my shit.”

We probably seem the craziest of all the animals. From their perspective, when they look at our behavior. You know what I mean? ‘Cause– If we show up places we don’t belong… I don’t feel like any other animal really does that, but we do that, you know?
Like scuba diving. [laughter] I’m sure fish swim by and they’re like, “What the fuck are you doing here? [laughter] Look at yourself.” And we’re like… -[mimics breathing under water] -[laughter] “Those are not your feet. Get the hell out of here. Come on. You’ve got all the land. Really? I mean…”
Skydiving. I’m sure birds are like, “That one’s gonna die. Did you see that?” [laughter] “Wow. That was dumb.” I mean, bird watching, that’s gotta be creepy for birds. I mean… [laughter] What are we doing? These birds are hanging out. We ignore them most of the time. Suddenly some fat couple from Ohio is just obsessed with a bird. [laughter] The bird’s like… “What? Me? Are you happy? Piss off. What do you want? Should I shit on him?” “Yeah. If you have some, get over there.” [laughter, clapping]
I wouldn’t be surprised if the birdbath was invented by some sort of bird pervert. I mean… [laughter] Some guy’s in his kitchen looking out there, “Oh, yeah, splash around in there, birds. [laughter] That’s it. Some naked birds bathing together for my entertainment. That’s it. Oh, yeah. Wash up, bird.” It’s just disgusting, man. It’s like an open-top Turkish bath. I mean, there’s no privacy for the birds.
Some people own birds. That’s… That’s a power move, I’ll tell you that. You know what I mean, like, “Hey, there’s something that can fly. I’m gonna change that. [laughter] I think I’ll put that in my kitchen, yeah.” Just like low-grade villain behavior. “My own personal prisoner in my kitchen in a cage. There we go.”

I think my favorite holiday is Halloween. It’s my favorite, yeah. [cheering] That’s a good holiday because you don’t have to celebrate that with your family. [laughter] You never hear, “What are you doing for Halloween?” “I gotta fly back East and go trick-or-treating with my parents.” [laughter] “That sucks.” “They got a divorce. I gotta bring two different costumes this year.” [laughter]

I like reading. I’m a big reader. I, uh… I feel like I just end up reading everything. I don’t know. Like the other day, I was in my kitchen, I opened a drawer and I pulled out the Reynolds Wrap, and ended up reading the box of Reynolds Wrap. It said, “Reynolds Wrap, trusted since 1947.” I thought, “Oh, that’s interesting. Trusted. What an interesting word to use that is.” [laughter] It implies some sort of dark past for Reynolds. [laughter] “Trusted since ’47. Founded in ’37.” [laughter] First ten years, some shady shit going on with Reynolds. You couldn’t trust them, I guess. “Did you get tinfoil?” “Yeah.” “Open the box.” “Shit. There’s just pebbles in here. This is…” “Foiled!” [laughter, applause] A-ha! [chuckles]

I read everything. I was reading a beach ball last summer at a pool party. I guess I was having a great time at the party and… I’m sitting there, reading a beach ball. It says on the ball, “Warning: This is not a life-saving device.” I’m like, “Okay, there’s definitely a story here.” [laughter] Some guy’s drowning, “Get the beach ball!” Just pelt the guy with the beach ball. “I appreciate the effort, I’m having fun, but I’m dying here, you see? I need the donut of this. This is the donut hole of what I need. I need the donut, so I can live, okay? Thank you.”

Donut hole is the most disgusting-sounding thing that tastes the best to me. I put a ladyfinger in a donut hole and it’s totally fine. [laughter] Donut hole is interesting ’cause it’s the thing we call as a donut hole that we took out of the donut. And then the hole itself that was left, the absence of a donut hole is the donut hole. So it’s kind of a paradox. It’s like it is and not is at the same time. That’s impossible, the donut hole. It’s kind of… [laughter]

 

I like cupcakes. That’s a great dessert. Kind of awkward to eat a cupcake, though. Know what I mean? One of the only desserts you have to peel the underwear off if you want to eat it. You have to… undress the cupcake, and it’s kind of a swamp-ass under there. “Am I gonna eat this sweaty-ass dessert here? Is this for me? Yes, I am. I’m gonna eat this swamp-ass pastry.” I’m gonna have a cupcake after the show. Definitely.

I have a book idea. I wanna write an autobiography that turns into a biography. I’ve never seen a book like that before, so… Yeah, so the first three or four chapters would be about, like, my childhood. And then, like, in chapter four, I would just casually mention Benjamin Franklin. I’d say something like, “Speaking of Franklin…” Then the whole rest of the book is about Benjamin Franklin’s life. [laughter] You get to the end and you’re like, “That freaking nerd tricked me into learning about Benjamin Franklin. [laughter] [softly] Damn it.”

When people don’t sleep well, they say they tossed and turned. And, um, I’ve definitely had rough nights where I… I turn a lot in my sleep, know what I mean? But I’ve never slept so poorly that I ended up like, lightly throwing things around the room. [laughter] It’s 4:00 in the morning, and I’m like, “Oh, shit. I’m tossing. Stop it. The hell am I doing? Go to sleep, man. Stop it. You’re tossing. Stop it.” [laughter] You wake up the next day and there’s crap everywhere. I’m like, “Oh, my God. I slept very poorly. And why do I own so many beanbags? This is making it worse.”

I was driving when I saw a guy, he was driving a convertible and he was wearing a hoodie. It’s like, wow, this guy loves convertibles. He’s got two of them on. [laughter] He’s got a little personal convertible inside the big one.

I think it’d be cool when you have a baby to put the baby’s bottle in a paper bag, like a discreet little… paper bag, you know. Babies just drinking all the time anyway. Plus when they try to walk, they look kind of like… [laughter] [mimics baby retching] The baby has a dirty suit on, which I didn’t mention, so it’s kind of like a little wino with a little bit of scruff.

I was thinking recently that “rapper” is kind of a weird job title for someone, to call them a rapper. You know what I mean? Using that word. ‘Cause it sounds like a word we already have like a, you know, candy wrapper or something. I know it’s spelled differently but, you know, sounds the same. Then I realized, well, the alternative is “rappist.” -So… -[laughter] Yeah, I think “rapper” was the right choice.

The other day I was thinking, it’s where I was thinking, I tend to overthink things. And then I thought, “Do I, though? I mean…” [laughter]

Maybe I do. I don’t know. It’s hard to say how much thinking counts as overthinking. What’s the threshold? You never really get a sense of how much any one person thinks. But… Yeah, I guess right now I’m technically overthinking. Seems appropriate because… You know, this is the middle of a joke about overthinking. So…

But I think back to my own childhood and I can think of times when I was trying to almost, like, figure things out. You know what I mean? Trying to, like, strategize. I don’t have a lot of memories like that but I can remember certain times as a kid. Like, I was at a birthday party and it came the time for the kid to blow out his candles. I would sneak in my own wish. Right at that moment when he blew out the candles. I… you know, I was thinking, I don’t know if there’s a wishing radius or portal or something, you know… Some sort of, like, a magical moment. Anybody can make a wish, actually. Once those candles are blown out, like, that’s your chance. It’s people are just not taking advantage of it. “Oh, yeah, maybe me, too.” Some kid would blow out his candles, I’d be like, “Me too.” I don’t know what I was thinking like there’s some sort of Wish Fulfilment Bureau. They’re like, “We got another birthday wish here.” “Oh, yeah? Actually two came in.” “Oh, twins?” “No. Just some other kid decided to piggyback, it was open.” [laughter] “Well, how close to the cake is he standing?” “Five feet.” “That’s good. He’s in the circle.” [chuckles] “Give him his wish. He beat the system.” And I’m like, “Yes!”

All right. What’s next? Maybe I’ll do the drawings now. Yeah. Okay.

 

These are some drawings. [cheering, applause] I wanna start with the design I’m working on. T-shirts are pretty popular for a long time, um… This is a P-shirt, so it’s based on a letter P, rather than the T. Sleeveless on this side and this… sleeve is attached. So, if you’re impatient, it’s a good shirt, like, “Can we go? Come on.” [laughter] The P-shirt. [laughter]

You know, sometimes I get a feeling about a letter. And they just don’t hit me right. I don’t know what it is. Like M always felt a little weird to me, and I just recently figured out what it is. I think M is very aggressive. [laughter] [mumbling] Spread-eagle, you know? The W is even worse. [laughter] Very bony-ass face-plant. Probably the worst would be the A. [laughter] It’s the A-hole as you can see in here. [laughter] Very flirtatious, this guy. [chuckles] The dollar sign doesn’t look like the symbol for money to me. This doesn’t look like money. This looks like the perfect symbol for shish kebab. [laughter]

I love Christmas cookies.
[woman] Yeah!
Yeah, I love the sugar cookies with the different color icing and everything. It’s exciting every time Christmas comes around, you get to have these cookies and they’re in all the stores. It is frustrating though. Because then, Christmas season ends and, you know, they vanish, you can’t have them anymore. But, I think we could have these cookies year-round if we just, kind of reframe the cookies a little bit, you know. Even in the summer time, you’ll be like, “Hey, I got some pine tree cookies here. If anybody wants a, you know, forest-based cookie, it’s just a pine tree or a non-denominational star if anyone’s interested in a star cookie. [laughter] Could I have another girl with a fucked-up back cookie? Those are… [laughter] The saggy hunchbacks are delicious. Do you have any more of those fat, hipster burglar cookies? [laughter]

If you’re trying to learn how to read music, you might know this. There are mnemonic devices to learn where the notes are, kind of on the clef here, so, uh… You know, “Every Good Boy Does Fine” is something they tell you. I think we can do better. I think there are other ways to remember this. More memorable ways. Maybe, “Elephants Go Bald Daily. Fuck.” [laughter] “Eating Gas? Bad Diarrhea Farts.” [laughter] “Entire Generation Blows. Damn it, Facebook.” [cheering, applause] Or tell them just to spell the word “egg” but don’t finish. “E, G, But Don’t Finish.” [laughter] Smart.

This is a magician’s “to do” list. Uh… it’s pretty simple. To Do. Ta Da. Okay, done.

It’s cool when you see a magician pull a rabbit out of a hat. That’s cool. What would even be cooler would be to see him pull a hat out of a rabbit. [laughter] And then a rabbit out of that hat. There we go. [laughter, applause] Ass rabbit. [chuckles]

It’s a classic a balloon. “It’s a boy.” If somebody has a boy. That’s a… That’s a classic. We live in different times now. We’re in much more gender fluid times. You don’t wanna assume anything. I think what might be safer now would be, “It’s alive!” [laughter, applause] We’ll see how the child does. You know what I mean? Instead of “Get well soon.” Maybe “Stay alive!” I think that’s… [laughter] That’s a good balloon there. I tell you what doesn’t work is, “Stay a boy!” [laughter] You can’t do that.

This is my favorite abbreviation of all abbreviations that people have come up with. “TBD,” because this meant what it means before… it meant what it means. It was always TBD before– You know what I mean? So… [laughter] Now here’s a graph. This is how that joke just did. You see? That’s… [laughter, applause] This is what I expected. This is the… So we have a problem. There’s a differential here. This is where I live. It’s like right in here. It’s pretty much my life. Okay. Okay.

Now, laughing and peeing have a pretty interesting relationship, I think, this is a… [laughter] Kind of group dynamics, really. You know what I mean? If you laugh in a group, that’s okay. Yeah, that’s great. If you laugh alone, crazy. I think that’s pretty crazy. If I see somebody just laughing, you know, on his own, on the street, “This guy’s gonna kill me.” You can’t just– You’re not allowed to just laugh. Peeing is kind of the opposite. So if you… pee alone, that’s okay. I think that’s really how it’s intended. That’s a private thing, really, It’s your own peeing time, um… Peeing in a group, that’s crazy. I think, if you need, you know, a bunch of people, “We’re all here? I can pee now. Thank you. Let’s just do this.” If you laugh so hard that it makes you pee in a group… that’s great. That’s okay. You’re having a great time. [laughter] If you laugh so hard that it makes pee alone, definitely a lunatic. I can’t think of anybody– Anything that funny that you can’t control yourself when you’re alone, and actually pee on yourself, this is… If you pee and then laugh, [laughter] alone, crazy, I think. [laughs] “Asparagus!” [laughter] It’s not funny like that, really, I think. Pee and then laugh in a group, that’s the craziest. That’s– That’s a cult. We’re just peeing on a corpse. [laughs] “We did it!” Complicated. Okay.

This is a good sign, I think, for a strip club during the daytime. [laughter, applause] “Sorry we’re clothed.”

I wonder what the drawings look like from the balcony. Oh, okay.

Here we have an “Out of Order” sign that’s out of order, so… [laughter] That doesn’t work, you see. Which makes it work.

This is just me saying this. [cheering, applause]

Here we have a graph. Parties. This is… how fun the party is based on the type of party. Toga party, very fun. Birthday party, also fun. A house party, fun. Big drop-off for search party. So… [laughter] Much less fun, traditionally, a search party. “So we’re looking for a body. Okay.” That’s… more of a get-together at best, I’d say, than a party per se. Toga search party is a little bit more fun than the standard search party. We got a theme here, “Hey, we’re Romans and this guy’s missing.” [laughter]

Here’s a Venn diagram. This is a… Vacation activities. Enemas. Water skiing. That’s where they overlap. [laughter]

Here’s another Venn diagram. This is… tough guys and spandex. And the football is where they… [laughter] overlap right there.

Finally, praying. We have a graph here. This is the amount people pray based on the location that they’re in. In the locker room before championship games, there’s a lot of prayer going on. And church, even more. Kneeling in front of the toilet is off the charts. This is where people really… talk to God, usually. A lot of promises are made just right there. [laughter] In a Jacuzzi, very little. Not much prayer goes on in a… Jacuzzi situation. And things that pray. People and mantises. [laughter] It’s a tie. -It’s the end of the drawings. -[cheering, applause] All right.

You know what? I wanna try something. [cheering, applause] Okay. [cheering, applause] [chuckles] That was kinda cool. What was my next bit? Oh, yeah.

I find that my horoscope is a lot more accurate if I just live, like, less specifically. [laughter] I just live kind of a vague life. It’s kinda like spot-on, you know. “What are you doing tomorrow?” “Making some choices.” [laughter] “You’re such a Gemini.” “You know it, man. That’s me.” [chuckles]

Why do we have half sizes for shoes? That’s kinda weird. We could have picked twice as many numbers and then we wouldn’t have had to have fractions in the shoe sizes, you know what I mean? It seems like a mistake. Maybe they picked the shoe sizes and then people’s feet got more specific somehow or something. “We’re all done with the shoe sizes.” “Excuse me, I don’t fit in the nine or the ten.” “You gotta be fucking kidding me.” [laughter] “We just officialised all the numbers. Where were you?” “Shit. We’re going to fractions. This is unbelievable. I can’t–“

I think it’s cool that we have dashes in phone numbers. That was a good idea. That’s a good move. It’d be hard to get someone’s number without those little dashes in there. “What’s your number? I’ll give you a call.” “Oh, sure. It’s 3,256,568–” “Whoa, whoa, whoa! Jesus Christ, man! Your number’s huge. This is crazy. Just forget it. I can’t count that high to call you.” [laughter]

It’s kind of cool that O and zero work so nicely together. I feel like O will just substitute for zero. Like, all the time and nobody has a problem with it. ‘Cause they look so alike. You know, somebody gets your number, 260-4050, whatever, you know. But you can’t substitute “0” for “O.” It doesn’t go the other way for some reason. “Spell you first name for me.” “T-H-0-M-A-S.” [laughter] “The fuck, are you a robot? You can’t have a zero on your name.” It’s kind of a one-way street, really, with the–

I think it’s weird that they went to double digits so quickly with numbers. I mean, we literally have an infinite number of numbers. There’s so many numbers. But when they were coming up with the shapes, it was like somebody uncreative was working on the shapes or something ’cause they just… they just ran out of ideas quickly. You know what I mean? Even at nine, you could tell they were in trouble. They were like, uh… “Maybe just flip the six? I don’t know.” [laughter] “I’m done, man. I’m out. Just double them up from here or something. I don’t know. That’s all I have. Okay?”

I like sports bars. Sports bars are great. They collect all the people I don’t wanna hang out with and they put them in one room. [laughter] Yeah. I’m not against sports. I don’t have a problem with sports. I’m just not good at it. I’m not coordinated. I’m not drawn to sports. I don’t even look like someone who could spend time on a sports bar. I have a very punchable face in a sports bar. [laughter] It’s not a good look. You know? This is not a sports nose. You know, I know what I look like. Maybe for swimming this is a good nose. If I just keep my face down in the water. Kind of a rudder, I can steady my head. [laughter] It’s not an athletic look I have. I just learned recently that your nose and your ears are the only parts of your body that keep growing through your adult life. And I was like, “You gotta be fucking kidding me.” [laughter] Really? Okay. If I live long enough, this is gonna be a shit show, man. This is– [laughter] “Here comes Grandpa. He’s got that little walker for his nose, just couple of wheels on the front of this thing.” Roll it in.

They should have a stationary bike at the gym that’s in a wheelie position. [laughter] It’ll be kinda cool. I’m like, “Yeah, I’ll ride a wheelie for a half an hour. Shit, yeah.” I’ll get on that thing. Hello. [laughter] Or a Stairmaster that goes downstairs. Just one of them would be like, “I’m not pushing it today. I’m just gonna go down, like, six flights of stairs.”

I’m not a big workout guy. I’ve gone to gyms, but it doesn’t… doesn’t take for me, you know. The gym is too intense. You ever make eye contact with somebody in the mirror at the gym? It’s like way too intimate. That one bounce just makes it very personal. It doesn’t help if you try to diffuse it by like, you know, encouraging the guy. He’s like, “Hey, good job.” “What the fuck, man!” [laughter] [sniffles] Uh… I have tried to work out, though, over the years. I have– I put some effort into it. I’m the kind of person where I can make a really good plan. You know, I really do like charts and graphs and stuff. So make like a big poster by hand, I write it out. Monday, Wednesday, Friday. You know, chest and triceps. Tuesday, Thursday, back and biceps. And I got abs on this day and a whole program I’ve worked out for myself. Done research and everything. I post it up on a cork board at my house and… Nice start. I come out of the gate pretty good. I can do like three days, five days, maybe a week. I don’t think I ever made it to two weeks but I give it a shot. Then I lose steam, you know. It just doesn’t happen for me and I get distracted, I do something else. Um, what’s weird is I’m old enough now that I’ve repeated this pattern. I can see my behavior, like, this pattern repeating itself. Because I take “before” photos, too. I take– I get in the living room, you know, underwear, shorts, no shirt, just kinda… [laughter] You don’t smile on the “before” photos. I kinda have this blank… And then after you work out, you’re supposed to be like, “Hey!” You’ve got a tan. You’re lathered up or whatever a few months later. I just never made it that far, it just never worked out. So, I just had a series of photos of myself… getting older in my underwear. That’s it. [laughter, applause] If somebody found the photos after I died, “What was this guy’s fetish? What is this? [laughter] Just aging sadly in his living room? What the–?”

Sometimes on the news I’ve noticed that reporters are kind of shitty to each other. Sometimes a reporter will introduce another reporter who’s out in the field and just give away their whole story in their introduction. “Now as Judy Wong reports down at the courthouse, there’s a big protest. Judy?” [laughter] “Thanks, asshole. That was my story, I was gonna tell them that but you managed to give away the whole story before I can even speak. Back to you, motherfucker.” [laughter]

I was thinking the next time I buy a picture frame, I could bring a photo of myself and just slip it into the frame before I get to the register. [laughter] When she’s ringing up halfway through, I’d be like, “What the…? [laughter] How did you get one of my before photos?” [laughter]

How do you market a cruise to people? That seems kind of hard. “Hey, do you like hotels?” “Yeah.” “How about one that could sink?” [laughter] Oh! [chuckles] “I can drown in my bedroom? Wow! Okay. [laughter] I like that. Yeah, that does sound fun.” Pretty close to the top of the list of ironic ways I would not wanna die would be to drown in the swimming pool on the deck of a cruise ship… [laughter] in the middle of the ocean. “Do you hear about Demetri?” “Yeah, he drowned in the Pacific Ocean.” “No, he drowned on the Pacific Ocean. [laughter] There’s a boat there that was totally fine. He just found this one rectangle of water and it was in there that he managed to die. What an idiot. That’s terrible. Yeah. Pretty embarrassing.”

Balloons are great. You can use balloons for so many different things. But you can’t grieve with balloons. They are… a little limited that way. You know what I mean? Like you can’t show up to a funeral with a bunch of black balloons and be like, “I am so sorry for your loss.” [laughter] “Oh, thank you, these are… beautiful. Guess I’ll tie them to the casket.” [laughter] “Pop ’em when you’re ready. When you’re ready, just pop ’em.” “Oh, thank you. I appreciate that.”

It’s weird to think about death because it’s the last thing that you do. Your last verb is you die. That’s the last thing you do. Unless you were body surfing, you could argue that you, you know, body surf for another 20 minutes after you die, but… I don’t think that counts really. I don’t know if that’s you so much at that point.

I think I’m thirsty. Yep. Just get a quick drink. There we go. [cheering] Oh, that is warm. -[man] Water! -It’s like I’m drinking bath water.

It’s a hot crowd. That’s a good crowd. [laughs] [laughter] Whoo! “How did your drinking water bit go?” “Oh, it went great, man. [laughter] They liked it. They like me a little bit thirsty for sure.” [laughter] Whoo! It’s amazing being in an audience. It’s one of the few times that you can have a conversation like that. You say, “Whoo!” Like that totally counts as a… [laughter] Your side of the conversation. How you doing? Whoo! Having a good night? Woo-hoo! [audience] Whoo! It’s totally cool. After the show, it would be kind of weird if I ran into you on the street… [laughter] “Were you on my show?” Whoo! [laughter] “You okay?” Woo-hoo! “Do you have like a disorder?” [softly] Whoo! [laughter] [softly] Whoo! “I’m sorry.” [softly] Woo-hoo. [laughter]

I wonder if anybody ever had a near-death experience that just rolled into, like, a regular death. [laughter] Do you what I mean? Like, you’re in the OR… [mimics machine beeping, flatlines] All of a sudden you feel yourself leaving your body. Now you’re in the tunnel and there’s the bright light. You’re being drawn towards the light. You’re not even walking, you’re just floating towards the light through the darkness. And you see a line of people waiting for you and you just feel love and warmth. And here’s your grandmother, “Hello. Welcome.” [laughter] Across from her is your great-grandfather. You’ve never met him but you know it’s him. “Young man, it’s good to meet you. Welcome!” Here’s your dog when you were a kid… [mimics dog barking] But you can understand him. “Hello. Congratulations, sir.” Whatever they congratulate you when you die. [laughter] Some friend from high school, and a line of people smiling and waiting for you. And then suddenly, you freeze. [blowing] You start to go backwards. The light is fading. The line of people is receding. Your grandmother’s like, “Goodbye. It wasn’t your time, goodbye!” [mimics machine beeping] You feel yourself coming back into your body. You’re coming back. Something goes wrong. -[mimics machine flatlining] -[laughter] Now you gotta go back… [laughter] down the tunnel. Everybody’s running back into position your grandma’s like, “Hello again…” Your great-grandpa’s like, “This is very unusual, young man. What are we doing here?” Your dog like, “[barks] What the fuck?” And then… [chuckles] The light’s in your eyes at the wrong angle, the guy is putting out a cigarette, “Shit, this guy died!” I don’t have an ending for that joke, it’s just that… [laughter] The joke dies, just like we do. It’s just that… [cheering, applause] It’s okay.

They should have positive uses for blow darts too. Like if you have to get your kid vaccinated. Go to the paediatrician, he’s like, “Would you like regular or a blow dart for the vaccination?” “Oh! Yeah, let’s try a blow dart. That sounds good.” The kid’s just like waiting on the table, doctor pops in… [blows] Ah! [cheering, applause] “Sweetie, you’re done! That’s it. You’re vaccinated.” Everybody wins. The doctor’s like, “I love my job. This is the best part of the day.” [laughter] The parent’s like, “Yes! Nailed it.” And the kid has no fear, there’s no anticipation leading up to, you know. Until the next time he has to… That is pretty much at the front door of the doctor’s office. The kid’s like, “Where is he?” [laughter]

Which bit should I do next? Hmm… Uh… that one.

This is called, “Fascinating Facts.” Some facts that I just wanna share with you.
It is safer to fly in a plane than it is to fly in a car. [laughter]
Drunk people are about 6,000 percent less interesting than they think they are. [laughter]
The term for the very tip of the scissors is the “snipples.” [laughter]
Pandas are biracial. [laughter]
About 75 percent of German shepherds are dogs. [laughter] The other 25 percent are German shepherds. [laughter]
White people are 50 times more likely than people of any other race use the word “neat-o.” [laughter]
Due to global warming, the polar ice caps are now polar ice yarmulkes. [laughter]
The most popular kind of prosthetic limb in the world is the dildo. [laughter]
Wednesday is spelled wrong. [laughter] [applause]
By simply adding a ponytail, a man can remove up to all of his credibility. [laughter]
Nearly one half of all Americans are torsos. [laughter]
The word “hurdle” comes from the Danish word meaning “testicle paddle.” [laughter]
People who are vegan not only live longer they’re also more annoying. [laughter]
New Jersey is the only state you can smell from other states. [laughter]
In rare circumstances, the leap year falls on a hump day. This is known as the “leap hump.” [laughter]
You’re more likely to die in a terrible accident than in a wonderful accident. [laughter]
The capital of Alaska is “A.” [laughter]
By the age of 90, the average person has already been dead for eight years. [laughter]
No one has ever successfully blown a French kiss to another person. [laughter]
Men are about 800 times more likely than women to fart into a bag at some point in their lives. [laughter]
Experts believe there’s about 25 percent more camouflage in the world than we realize. [laughter]
The term for the very bottom of the banana is the “ban-anus.” [laughter]
There are fewer and fewer magicians in the world due to the difficulty they have reproducing. [laughter]
The Heimlich manoeuvre can also be done on someone who’s constipated. [laughter]
Sex… is the leading cause of people. [laughter] [cheering, applause]

All right.

All right, that worked pretty well. All right, I should keep the show moving. Hurry up.

Okay.

Oh, maybe I could do a bit with the mic stand.

[mimics metal detector beeping] [laughter, applause]

No, that’s not my style.

I was driving and I saw a signage that said, “Hidden Driveway,” and I was like, “Well, you just ruined it! [laughter] Let me figure that out!” Sometimes when I’m driving and I get like, road rage pretty badly, you know, and I don’t have the physique to back it up. I– It’s such a mismatch between my anger and what I could actually do to anybody, I can’t… I can solve some puzzles really quickly in front of them, they’d be like, “Shit, this guy threw me off.”

Part of the problem with road rage is that we don’t have an adequate way to communicate with each other. We have a very limited vocabulary we could say “thank you” and “fuck you.” That’s the two things we can say. That’s pretty limited ’cause sometimes I make a mistake and then I wish I had a gesture to go with it. You can’t really apologize, like, or cut a guy off and like, “Oh, shit.” And he catches up to me and I gotta be like… [laughter] “From your perspective. Fuck me. You see? I’m on your side here.” There’s no “I’m sorry.” I can’t be like, “I’m sorry. [laughter] I’m sad for what I did. Okay?” “What the hell is this guy doing? Is he a mime?”

The car horn‘s even worse. That’s just like instant aggression. It’s like yelling “hey” at someone. You hit the horn and like, “Hey! Hey!” Sometimes I tap it, I’m not trying to be a dick here, I’m just trying to, you know, use it gently. I think it comes out, [softly] “Hey.” But it doesn’t. It comes out, “Hey!” [laughter] You can’t take it back if you make a mistake with the horns. Sometimes I wish I could take it back. I wish there was like a second button next to the horn, that was like a reverse horn sound, you know what I mean? So you could just like, take it back. Like I was waiting to make a left at the light, it was like the second car. The light changes, the guy doesn’t go. [mimics horn beeping] “Fucking go!” you know? Then I see the old man walking through the intersection. Now I look like a lunatic. I was basically saying, “Get him! Hit him!” [laughter] I wish I could take that back, though. [mimics horn beeping] Then I see the old man. -[mimics horn beeping in reverse] -[laughter] “Okay, cool. You’re not a dick. I hear you, that’s fine.”

I love GPS. I use that a lot when I’m driving. For comedians, it’s great. We go to all these cities. We don’t know where anything is. GPS just tells you how to get there. And I learned recently that I could change the gender of the GPS, or the accent, which is kind of cool. You can’t change the tone of voice, though. I wish you could change the tone of voice. You could have like different emotional connection with the GPS depending on what you’re going through, you know? If you’re running late you could pick like “urgent.” “Okay. In two-tenths of a mile, make a right on the light. Go, go, go!” [laughter] Or if you’re driving late at night on a highway, you’re getting drowsy, you just pick, like, “alarming.” “In a quarter mile, you’re gonna die!” “Oh, shit. GPS, thank you.” “My God, you scared the shit out of me. Where am I?” “Reluctant” would be really good for somebody like me. [sighs] “At the roundabout, take the second exit.” “Do you even wanna go to this baby shower?” [laughter] No. “Then make a legal U-turn, and let’s fucking go home.” [laughter] Thanks, GPS, you’re right.

I can’t wait till we have driverless cars everywhere. That’ll be cool. It’ll only be a matter of time before people figure out that they can just get a car for their dogs. “Honey, where are the dogs?” “I got them a car, they’re driving around for an hour.” [laughter] Can you imagine being in a red light and a car full of dogs pulls up next to you? [laughter] Incredible. The dogs are having a great time. The driver dog’s like, “I knew I could do this.” [laughter] If you get into an accident with dogs, how mad are you gonna be? You get out of the car, “Son of a bitch. Hello.” “Where’s your insurance? Get your insurance. Good boy.”

I wonder if in the future, if robots will be such a regular part of our lives, it will be considered offensive to do “The Robot.” [laughter] You’re in a party like, “Hey, man, check me out.” Whoa! “What are you doing?” “Freaking robbies. I don’t give a shit.” “Did you say ‘robbies’?” Those are Technical-Americans.” [laughter]

Sometimes when you make a job title sound more politically correct, it actually sounds worse, you know. “Your father’s not a garbage man. He’s a garbage person.” “Yep.” “Your dad’s a piece of shit is what I’m trying to say. You understand?” [laughter]

Sometimes people say, “I forgive, but I don’t forget.” Sounds pretty cool. I’d like to hear, “I forget, but I don’t forgive.” [laughter] “Who the hell are you, you son of a bitch? [laughter] I’m mad at a lot of people and I don’t know who they are.” [laughter]

Sometimes I feel like people are saying things, like they don’t even think through what they’re saying. I was in a fitting room at a clothing store, and I come out and the lady goes, “How’d you do?” [laughter] “Uh, bad. I did bad. I, uh… I put the sweater on my legs. I just… [laughter] I blew it. I blew it. I panicked. I got in as if I got a plan. Before I knew it, my legs were right in there on those sleeves. And just standing there and I… farted quietly and I came back. I just… But thank you for asking such a patronizing question to a grown man on how I did.”

When I go to buy things, a lot of times, at the register, they ask me if I “found everything okay.” I don’t know if that’s a trend or if I just look like I can’t find shit in a store or something. Or it’s like, “Did you find everything okay?” I’ll just say, “Yes. Yeah, I did. Yes.” You can never say, “No.” right? “Do you find everything okay?” “No. I didn’t find anything okay. Your store’s impossible. I’ve been here for three hours looking for stuff. I can’t find a goddamn thing! This is all random shit. I don’t want any of this. This is just…” I got this because I knew you were gonna ask if I found stuff okay. But I just took random stuff. I…” What if you say no? What are they even gonna do for you? “Do you find everything okay?” “No.” “Okay. Shut down my register, I’m gonna help him find stuff okay. Come on, stupid, let’s find stuff together. You’re dumb.” “Thank you. Yeah, I can’t find stuff okay. Can you carry me by the hand? I want that. Could you–” “You found it? You’re okay?” “I’m okay.” “Good, fine.” “Okay.” [laughter]

At a dinner party, I heard a guy say, “I believe everything happens for a reason.” And I wanted to smack him in the face, you know. [laughter] He’ll be like, “What the hell did you do that for?” “You tell me.” [laughter, applause] [man whistles] [cheering, applause] “That’s your belief, man. That’s your thing. I don’t know. Your… Your Lord lifted my hand and it hit him. This is part of His plan. He will see the reason in the future.” “Okay.”

I love jokes. I love telling jokes because… there’s something really economical about a good joke. It breaks down a bunch of ideas into just a sentence or two. I’ve always loved that, actually. From day one as a comic, I’ve just been drawn to jokes. And I’ve noticed now, being a little bit older, that there have been times in my life where I ended up almost in a joke. Where I’m kind of in my own one-liner whether I like it or not. It doesn’t happen often, but I’ll give you an example. It’s almost 10 years ago, now. I was living in New York alone in a six-floor walk-up. No elevator, this whole building, with six floors up to the top. And I had this tiny apartment. I was single, I was over 30. One night, I was getting ready to go out, it was like a trivial moment. But then I said a sentence out loud to myself. It was like a perfect snapshot of my life at that moment. And right after I said it, I was like, “Oh, my God. I’m probably gonna remember that.” And I think about it often. It was really simple. I was in my apartment, getting ready to go out, and I said angrily out loud to myself…. “Where the fuck is my tambourine?” [laughter] Right there, what series of choices did this man make… [laughter] to be this angry about the location of a tambourine? “I got some jingling to do and I don’t have time to fuck around. People are counting on me.” [chuckles] It just like stayed with me. You know what I mean? It became like a big moment in my life now. It defines me.

Well, fast forward to last winter. Now I’m married. I have two little kids. And I went on vacation with my family. We went to Lake Tahoe for Christmas break. It was great. We had a great time. It was beautiful. It snowed, you know, white Christmas. One morning, my wife said, “Why don’t we go out for breakfast today?” I said, “That’s a great idea, let’s go out.” We put the kids in the car and she navigated, I drove. She’s Yelping. She’s trying to find a restaurant that will satisfy our requirements, which is not that easy because we have dietary restrictions between us. She’s lactose intolerant. She can’t have gluten. She’s one of those people, it messes up her stomach. She’s got her thing. Me, I’ve got life-threatening food allergies. So that’s pretty nice, so… If I eat a peanut, I die. So that’s… [laughter] I can’t see any good use for that. I’ve never really seen a benefit that comes from that allergy, you know. Unless, I don’t know, if I were depressed. If I had a really rough stretch, I don’t need a gun or a bridge or you know, I mean, I could… just go to a 7/11, really. I’ll pop in there and grab a Reese’s peanut butter cup. I’m not paying for it, ’cause I’m gonna kill myself. So, I’ll just grab the peanut butter… ram it in my mouth, and just dead, right in front of the guy at the register. I’m sure he’d be like, “What the hell was that about?” [laughter] I wouldn’t do that. I’m not gonna do that because… If you think about it, that’s the grossest form of littering, in a sense. [laughter]
Anyway, between the two of us, we’re just the worst table you’re ever gonna wait on. It’s just… She finds this place. We find this kind of healthy place. We go, we park. We come inside, it’s totally packed. This is a good sign. I guess this is a popular restaurant. There’s a table way over on the other side over here. We get the table. You got to go up to the register and order your food, then they give you a little metal stand and your number. They’ll bring you the food. So we ordered. We both get eggs and toast and some stuff for the kids. We were sitting, waiting for our food. Story picks up, I promise. So… [laughter] They bring our food out, I get all my stuff. She doesn’t get her toast. See, I got the regular toast and the eggs. But she got the gluten-free toast, which comes like, one piece at a time, It’s got like rocks and feathers in it. It’s this special sort of dust and clay. Whatever this thing is. Looks like a regular piece of toast from a distance. If you get closer, it looks like a kid pieced it together. She didn’t get her toast. Her eggs are getting cold and she’s getting pissed off. She’s looking, the manager comes out, “Is everything okay?” She said, “I ordered the gluten-free toast. I haven’t gotten it and my eggs are getting cold.” And he said, “Okay.”
Here’s where the story picks up. He goes, “Brian!” He calls over. We looked across the room and standing next to the kitchen door is Brian, this very Olympic-looking bus boy with– just big shoulders, a beard, tiny apron. He’s just a big guy, kind of a lumberjack-snowboarder hybrid. He looks like a superhero, but he’s got this ridiculous little apron. He looks funny to me and I’m like, “I’m interested, there’s something here.” “Brian, gluten-free toast.” The guy just nods, disappears into the kitchen. So now we’re eating. And a few minutes later, I see my wife make a face I’ve never seen her make before. So I look where she’s looking, and there’s Brian. He’s come out of the kitchen with my wife’s piece of toast… in his hand. [laughter] He’s just making his way through the crowded restaurant, just holding the one piece of toast. I’ve never had this experience before. Seeing a grown man carry a piece of toast bareback through a restaurant, just… In his hand. In my whole life, I’ve just never seen this move. But he’s got the toast… He gets to our table, doesn’t say anything. He just holds up the toast. My wife just takes it in her hands and she’s like, “Thank you?” And she puts it on the plate. He walks away. We both burst out laughing. We’re just like… I’m immediately taken out of my life which is incredible. I’ve transcended regular experience, and he’s transported me by the simple act of carrying the toast like that. I’m now wondering, “Who’s Brian? What’s his story? I wanna know about him. Tell me everything about this guy. What just happened?” So, I started immediately theorizing and saying to my wife, “I think it’s probably one of two things, what we just witnessed. Number one, he’s being a dick. He’s in a bad mood. He’s having a bad day. And that was it, something just broke.” You know what I mean? “Maybe the manager is his uncle or something? He wasn’t supposed to work today, called him in last minute, he doesn’t even wanna be here. And your gluten-free toast was the last straw for Brian.” And he was like, “Goddamn toast. Here’s your stupid toast, lady.” “If your mouth were open, he’d probably have shoved it right into your mouth. He’s in a bad mood. He’s lashing out. We’re caught in the crossfire here.” And I was like, “Or two, he’s not being a dick. I’m judging him too harshly. Maybe he’s totally nice. He’s a good person. He’s just dumb. He’s not a smart guy.” He was just like, “Toast, toast, got to remember gluten-free toast. Get the lady her toast. Got to get the toast. Here’s the toast.” Trying to remember one thing, “Toast, toast, toast.” There he is back in his position, “More toast, what’s next? Tell me. Tell Brian ‘toast.'” [laughter] Either way, I don’t think it’s a good situation we’ve gotten ourselves into here.”
Then, she wasn’t gonna eat the toast. And then I started to get philosophical, ’cause I was like, “Hold on. Think about it. Okay, so he touched your toast. But think, when the toast pops up, they touch the toast, put it on a plate then bring it to you on a plate. Is there that big a difference between going like that with the toast, and going like this and carrying it for an extra 80 seconds and putting it on your plate?” I’m like, “No. it doesn’t really matter.” I was like, “Your toast has been touched. He touched it in the kitchen. It’s not like they’re catching it on sterile plates. “Can’t touch.” I was like, “They touched your toast. He touched it, wiped his head with it, they passed it around the kitchen. [laughter] It’s just like, that’s backstage.” I went on this whole thing about the “theater” of restaurants and how we’re “out in the house” and that’s “backstage.” In the middle of my speech, I guess we’re making kind of a commotion. The manager comes over, and he goes to my wife, “Is everything okay?” And she goes… And before she can say anything, he goes, “Did Brian carry the toast over in his hand?” [laughter]
This has happened before.

I think I’m done. Am I, though?

Good night, everybody. Thank you. Good night.

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