Stand-up comedy
In “Dusty Slay: Workin’ Man (2024),” filmed at Knoxville’s Bijou Theatre, comedian Dusty Slay delivers a rollicking stand-up performance that interlaces tales of his Southern upbringing, quirky observations, and experiences from a mosaic of odd jobs with his signature self-deprecating humor and laid-back style. Through anecdotes ranging from working in a chicken finger restaurant to the peculiarities of country music lyrics, Slay explores themes of work, life’s absurdities, and the pursuit of happiness in his unique way. His routine is punctuated by country music, reflecting on his roots and the working-class ethos. Slay’s humor is both an ode to and a light-hearted critique of the American South, work culture, and his own life, all while engaging the audience with his charismatic, everyman appeal. His act resonates with a broad audience through its authenticity, relatable humor, and Slay’s ability to find joy and laughter in the simplicity and complexity of life.
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Dusty Slay: Workin’ Man (2024)
Filmed at Knoxville’s Bijou Theatre on May 13, 2023
[country music playing]
[announcer] Please welcome to the stage, Dusty Slay!
[audience cheering]
♪ All day and night ♪
♪ Tryin’ to make my way ♪
♪ Turning wrongs to right ♪
♪ It ain’t a simple job ♪
♪ But I love what I do ♪
All right, we’re having a good time.
♪ Workin’ hard is all this old boy knows to do ♪
We are having a good time. What a hot show. Um, pumped to be here. It is a hot show. I don’t know why I laughed when I said it, but… It is very good. I’m pumped to be here. And sometimes I’ll say that three or four times before I get started with the show. I’d like to let you know the show is hot and I’m pumped to be here. And that we are having a good time. But I am pumped to be here. This is a great job. [audience laughing] You know what I mean? Listen, it’s a hot show and… [audience cheering] Now this is a great job. Best job I ever had. I mean, I will quit if I find a better one, but, uh… I’m not making that up. I’m always looking for the best job and so far this has been the best. And I’m happy to have it. But I’ve had a lot of jobs. I used to work in a restaurant called Jim Bob’s Chicken Fingers. Ever heard of that chicken finger place? Specialize in chicken fingers. I was the sauce guy working my way up to dishwasher.
[audience laughing]
[chuckles] And I came in one day and the dishwasher had not shown up. I was going to be making sauce and washing dishes. So I was like, “Let me go ahead and go on break.” [audience laughing] And then I never came back. [audience laughing] ‘Cause I don’t do two jobs, you know what I mean? You gonna be short-handed, you’re gonna be real short-handed ’cause I’m jumping off this sinking ship, you know what I mean? I am not going down with Jim Bob’s, I’ll tell you that. I walked right out of that place and untucked my shirt. [audience laughing] I hate tucking in my shirt. I do hate it. I got a weird body for tucking in my shirt. My body’s not weird, but I feel like if I tuck in my shirt, I feel like I look like I work everywhere I’m at. [audience laughing] That may not make sense to you, but I got a working man’s mid-section. Like if you can see my belt up here you’re like, “Oh, no. He works here somehow.” “It’s not clear what he does, but he is affiliated with the place.” “He got some kids, I’ll tell you that.” You know what I mean? Like if I tuck in my shirt and go into the grocery store, they’ll start asking me where the bread is.
Then I take them to the bread.
[audience laughing] It gets weird when they find out I don’t work there. Like you didn’t ask me if I work here, you asked me where the bread was. [audience laughing] I do know where the bread is. I know where a lot of stuff is at in this store. Be cool, I’ll show you around a bit. Let me see your list. You know what I mean? Okay, we’re having a good time and…
[audience cheering]
Thank you, thank you. I like to tell people “We’re having a good time.” You know, I don’t like to ask. Lot of comics come out here, they go, “Are we having a good time?” Not me, I can’t risk it. You know what I mean? And yes, I will do that joke the rest of my life, and uh… [audience cheering] It’s my favorite joke, I love it. It’s not even a joke so much, just it is the truth that we are having a good time. I used to work at a restaurant called Western Sizzlin’. I don’t know if you know that one. Buffet-style restaurant with a smoking section, you know what I mean? Eat more than you can breathe in there.
[audience laughing]
I love a smoking section. I like smoking inside, reminds me of my childhood, you know? Sleeping on the top bunk of a single wide trailer. That’s where all the smoke is, up there. [audience laughing] I go to school the next day, smelling like smoke, wearing a NASCAR T-shirt. When I was growing up, my mom was a big NASCAR fan and she liked the driver, Alan Kulwicki. I don’t know if you guys remember him, but he drove the Hooters car. I was the only third grade kid with a T-shirt that said, “Hooters” on the front and “More than a mouthful” on the back. [audience laughing] They didn’t mean to send me home. They were like, “He ain’t got no better shirts.” [audience laughing] Leave in a Hooters shirt, come back in a Marlboro shirt. Still got a little pack of cigarettes in the pocket where I switched out with my dad in the parking lot. [chuckles] I love smoking, smoking’s the best, um…
[audience laughing]
[woman] Yeah! Everybody’s quitting now. I think it’s a shame. [audience laughing] It’s hard to smoke anywhere anymore. Tough to light up a cigarette out here. Some of these cities, you can’t even smoke. I caught a whiff of some second-hand in a Walmart parking lot the other day. There wasn’t even nobody smoking out there. That’s just where the smoke goes now. [audience laughing] That’s the only place it feels welcome. [audience laughing] I worked at Western Sizzlin’ two times. I remember working there one day and this guy was refilling the buffet, and he was working real hard. And as he was pouring green beans into the buffet, he was pouring sweat into the green beans. [audience groans] Yeah, very salty, it’s… [audience laughing] Some would argue too much salt, really. I stopped doing that joke for a while because it was grossing everybody out. I like to bring it back once in a while, just kind of see where we’re at as a society. I like that we’re still grossed out by it, I think that’s a good sign. Western Sizzlin’, and if you don’t know, it’s like a Golden Corral, you know, without all the class, like a…
[audience laughing]
Like a Silver Corral.
[audience laughing]
Or like a Bronze Corral, you know? Like an O.K. Corral, you know what I mean? [audience laughing] Doing all right in there. I liked working there, I learned a lot. That’s where I smoked cigarettes without using my hands. [audience laughing] ‘Cause they wouldn’t give us real smoke breaks. We could only smoke while we were rolling silverware. [audience laughing] But you need both hands to roll silverware, so we’d just go back there and light up and get to rollin’. Got smoke all in our eyes. Customers would be like, “There’s ashes in this silverware.” I’m like, “You should see what’s in your green beans.”
I mean this…
[audience laughing] [clapping and cheering] [chuckles] I wouldn’t worry about those ashes, I’ll tell you that. You can just blow those off. There’s stuff in here you can’t just blow off like that. I used to sell pesticides for a living. I don’t know if you can tell that by looking at me, but…
[audience laughing]
I did that for a long time. I sold pesticides to Lowe’s and Home Depot. I did that for a long time. People would come in and ask weird questions. They’d be like, “I’m looking for something organic.” I’d like to kill the insects, but not harm the environment. I’m like, “Well, how about a shoe?” [audience laughing] ‘Cause I’m selling pesticides here, and…
[audience laughing]
That stuff is poison, all right? I’m hurting stuff out here. I liked that job because I worked in the store, but not for the store. I had a bunch of different stores that I went to. My boss was never around. I had a lot of freedoms. But I had my shirt tucked in, so people thought I worked there. They would ask me to help them find stuff and I would. Unless they got an attitude. Then like mid-help, I’d be like, “I don’t know.” [audience laughing] “I don’t work here.” [audience laughing] Then I’d just walk off, you know. Customers don’t know what to do with something like that. They get the manager. The manager’s like, “I don’t know, he doesn’t work here.” And they can’t find me because I already untucked my shirt. [audience laughing] I disappeared right there in the store.
[audience laughing]
They’re pointing at me, “Is that him?” They’re like, “Kind of looks like him, but the guy I’m talking about works here.” [audience laughing] I’m gone. I’m already out front smoking. [audience laughing] I’m out there trying to calm down. You ever see people try to calm down with a cigarette? Hitting it all hard. Got paper burning all fast. They got a cherry on it that long. They’re like, “I’m trying to calm down.” I’m like, “I don’t think it’s working.” [audience laughing] You might just need some regular breaths. [audience laughing] [chuckles] It could be oxygen you’re looking for. I don’t know. [audience laughing] [chuckles] I used to work with a guy, he hit cigarettes so hard, you could hear it leaving his lips. And he’d be like… [exhales sharply]
[audience laughing]
I was like, “Dang, dude. Take it easy.” [audience laughing] I felt sorry for the cigarettes. [audience laughing] I was like, “I know they’re killing you, but they don’t deserve that.” [audience laughing] They say cigarettes will kill you, but I don’t know. You know what I mean? I saw a bunch of old people out front of this restaurant smoking the other day. I was like, “That’s proof right there it don’t kill ya.” Like they didn’t look good. [audience laughing] But they were alive. Yeah, smoking’s the best. I did quit, but it is the best, though. I quit when I quit drinking. I used to be a big drinker. I love drinking. Drinking’s the best too. I think I was a really good drinker. A lot of my friends disagreed, um… Most of them in fact. I was the type of drinker you could make eye contact with at some point in the night, and look deep into my eyes, and know that I couldn’t see you. [audience laughing] Like the spirit had left the body. [audience laughing] Just floating around out here, looking for a Waffle House. [audience laughing] Cracker Barrel, something like that. Just trying to eat my way back into sobriety.
[audience laughing]
[chuckles] Still got a little bit to get home. I love Cracker Barrel, though. Cracker Barrel’s fun. A lot of good food in there. Chicken and dumplings. You can get dumplings as a side. You can get chicken and dumplings and dumplings in there. You can’t do that at a lot of places. I like Cracker Barrel. They had a lot of billboards in the South. They were all over in the Interstate and I like most of them. But one billboard said this, it said: “Biscuits are like spoons you can eat.” Right? ‘Cause that’s not true, right? [audience laughing] A biscuit ain’t nothin’ like a spoon. Yeah, you can eat it. But that don’t make it like a spoon. The reason I didn’t like it is I felt like these billboards were only in the South and I didn’t want people not from the South driving through here think we’re down here trying to eat spoons. [audience laughing] [chuckling] You know what I mean? [chuckles] ‘Cause we’re not down here trying to eat spoons. [audience laughing] I told this joke down in Kentucky one time, this girl goes, “That’s true. You can dip your biscuit into whatever you’re eating, let it soak up and then put that biscuit in your mouth. I’m like, “Yeah, that’s how you use a biscuit.” [audience laughing] That’s not how you use a spoon.
[audience laughing]
I’ve never seen a spoon that can soak stuff up, you know. That’s tough to clean, man. Just saying you can’t go around replacing biscuits with spoons and spoons with biscuits. I mean nobody is born with a silver biscuit in their mouth. [audience laughing] Nobody in the mountains now is playing the biscuits. [audience laughing] There’d be crumbs everywhere. Nobody’s melting heroin down on a biscuit. [audience laughing] Actually, I don’t know if that’s true or not. I’ve not done a lot of heroin, so I don’t know what people are doing with it. Imagine if you got a lot of heroin, you may want to break it up a bit. Let’s try it on some different stuff here and there. [chuckles] Know what I mean? I don’t know. But we’re having a good time. [audience cheering and clapping] [Dusty] Thank you. Thank you. [audience continues cheering] I like to wave like this and do this a lot. I like this at the end of a joke. Just to let you know that joke’s over. A lot of times, you’ll know, ’cause you’ll be laughing. But other times I’ll have to give you one of these. I got a lot going on up here. I like to touch my hat, my glasses, my belt. I’m like a third base coach up here. [audience laughing] [chuckles] Just tryin’ to get you home. [audience laughing and applauding] Okay. Thank you. I touch my nose a lot when I’m on stage. I don’t know what’s going on with that, but I feel like when I’m on stage, my nose hairs like to get together with my mustache, Kind of like, “What’s going on out there? What’s he up to?” Now I gotta come in here and break it up. At the beginning of COVID, when they were like, “Don’t touch your face.” I’m like, “Well, I’ll be dead.”
[audience laughing]
[chuckling] I can’t stop touching it, you know what I mean? Okay, we’re having a good time. [chuckles] Thank you. I like dippin’ a lot too. I used to be a big dipper. Like Skoal, not the constellation, and… [audience laughing] Okay. You know what I mean. I love dippin’. I didn’t dip Skoal, I dipped Kodiak Wintergreen, but not everybody knows that name brand, so I like to say Skoal ’cause it’s got brand recognition. I used to get lectured by people at the gas station about dip. I go, “Let me get a can of that Skoal.” He’s like, “You know that stuff is gonna rot your lip out.” I’m like, “All right, well, let me get the cigarettes then.”
[audience laughing]
I’ll smoke to the next gas station. [audience laughing] I’m like, “I don’t know what you want me to do here.” Clearly, I’m battling addiction. You sell the stuff, don’t lecture me because I’m trying to buy it. Like, imagine you have a drug dealer. And I realize not everyone in here will have to imagine. [audience laughing] Imagine you have a drug dealer. You go see him, “Hey, I’d like to get some of that cocaine there.” I like to say it like that. Like a narc. [audience laughing] I’m the worst at buying drugs. “Yes, one eight-ball of the cocaine, please.” [audience laughing] [chuckles] He’s like, “You know that stuff’s addictive?” I’m like, “Yeah, I was here yesterday.”
[audience laughing]
Starting to pick up a pattern here. I pawned my grandmother’s necklace to get this money, so let’s move this along here. That was a D.A.R.E. video they showed in high school. They showed me a video of a girl doing cocaine one time, the next thing she’s pawning all of grandma’s jewelry to get more drugs. And that video worked for me because I’m like, “Man I better stay away from this stuff, ’cause my grandmother ain’t got nothin’ but Afghans.” [audience laughing] “I don’t know how much drugs you can get for an Afghan.” I don’t know the street value of a crocheted item. [audience laughing] [chuckles] I’d be hitting up my grandma every day. “Let me get another of them Afghans from you.” She’s just crocheting away. [audience laughing] She’s like, “You love these things, eh?” I got to give her some of the drugs just to keep her going.
[audience laughing]
Now we both got a problem.
[audience laughing]
[chuckles] I love dippin’, though, I was big into dippin’. It’s a lot of fun. I love to dip and drive. I have five or ten beers, get behind the wheel, put a dip in. I’m smoking because I forgot I’m dippin’. [audience laughing] [chuckles] I used to wear contacts back in the day. I was a different guy back then, uh… I’m not always the best about washing my hands. I know that’s gross. I get it, but… Matter of fact I hate washing my hands. [audience laughing] To be honest with you. I know that’s not popular to say these days. And honestly, it’s never really been that popular to say. [audience laughing] But I hate it. I like to compliment people’s bathrooms soaps, so they think I wash my hands.
[audience laughing]
I hate when I’m in a public restroom, and somebody else comes in, ’cause I’m like, “Dang! Now I got to wash my hands.” Sometimes they come right in, go into the stall. I’ll just cut some water on for a minute. Maybe let out some paper towels. I spend more time faking it, then I would just washing my hands. [chuckles] It’s tough to fake it now, though. Lot of these bathrooms got motion sensors in there. You stand over the sink, doing like this… You mess around, you get your hands wet. [audience laughing] Dang, I might as well do the whole thing now. I miss the old days where they had that hand dryer that you can just punch it and it starts blowing. You get right out of there. People think I’m drying my hands. I’m already out in the gas station touching stuff. [audience laughing and clapping] Getting a donut with the tongs. [audience laughing] Self-serve coffee, struggling with the lids. “Aw, touched so many!” [chuckles] [chuckles] Getting a hot dog. Then being like, “Nah, I don’t want a hot dog.”
[audience laughing]
Just put it back on the roller. [audience laughing] [chuckles] Nowadays, the hand dryers, they got a lot of hand dryers that you got to like dip it in there. I don’t know if you’ve seen those, bunch of grown men just dippin’ it. [audience laughing] [audience cheering] Just waiting in line to dip it. [audience laughing] Some got a little thin strip in there, you got to try to avoid touching. Like a game of operation in there. [chuckles] The soap they give you now, they don’t even give you real soap. They just give you foam in there. It’s like used soap. It’s like soap that somebody else has already worked into a lather. I don’t know about you, but I kind of like to work my own lather. That’s not a service I’m looking for. [audience laughing] They say they give you the foam to conserve soap. I had no idea we were dealing with a soap crisis. So I like to do my part by just not using any at all. [audience laughing] [audience cheering and clapping] My cup’s heavy.
[chuckling] Yeah, okay.
[audience laughing]
It is a heavy cup. We’re having a good time and uh… Oh, right, so I love dippin’. One day I’m at home, I’m dippin’. I put in a dip, I’m having a great day. Loving life. I realize I’m late for work. And I’m like, “Oh no, I got to put my contacts in.” I forget to wash my hands, Well, I don’t forget, I just don’t do it… I didn’t do like this good enough. So I run over there, I throw in my contacts, I got dip all over my fingers. I get in the car and I’m just getting blasted in the eyes with dip, you know. And it’s a good buzz. [audience laughing] If you can handle it. It is very painful. But you’re also very calm ’cause you’ve got a lot of nicotine in your system. In the cheek and the eyelids. Borderline an overload here. I showed up to work that day, my eyes were all red. It’s tough to convince your boss you’re not high if you show up with eyes that red. My boss was like, “You high today?’ I was like, “Nah I was at home and I was dippin’, I forgot to wash my hands and I put my contacts in.” He goes, “So you’re high then.” [audience laughing] I was like, “Well, yeah, I’m high.” That’s not why my eyes are red, but I’m high. Of course I’m high, I work at a restaurant.
[audience laughing and clapping]
I didn’t want to do the drugs, I’m just trying to fit in with my peers. [audience laughing] Everybody at a restaurant’s high. If you’re ever in a restaurant, and you’re like, “Where’s my server?” They’re in the walk-in cooler getting high. [audience laughing] Or in the weight station eating off your plate. That’s what I liked to do. I liked to eat off people’s plates after they were done with it. [audience groans] Which is less gross for you, more gross for me. I won’t disrespect the customer, but I will disrespect my own body. I was doing it a lot. I loved doing it. I think it was grossing out some of my coworkers. So I had to come up with a system. A way to justify it to them and maybe to myself a little bit. And I decided I would only eat off the plates of women, and only if I would make out with them. ‘Cause I feel, if you’ll make out with somebody, it’s okay to eat their food. If you give that any moment of thought, you’ll realize it’s a pretty good system. But then there was a lot of food coming to the back that I wanted to eat off the plates of guys, so I had to ask myself… Would the girl that I would make out with make out with this guy? [audience laughing] I found the answer is always yes. I figure if she’ll make out with me, she’ll make out with anybody and… I like crab cakes, you know what I mean? We’re having a good time. [audience cheering and clapping] You guys are very nice. What a great crowd. That’s true, though. When I say something sincere and laugh, it doesn’t seem sincere, and I don’t mean it that way. I’ve quit dippin’ now too. I’ve given up a lot things. I have a baby now so I’m trying to live…
[audience cheering and clapping]
I want to live now, I wanted to live before, but I didn’t care if I died. Does that make sense? I mean I wasn’t sad, but I was like, “I could die.” You know what I mean? I was trying to get healthy a little bit, so I went to the doctor and they gave me a questionnaire. And one of the questions was, “How often do you sit down?” And I never really thought about that. I was like, “Dang. That’s pretty much what I do.” Sometimes I’ll lay down, I don’t know if you count that. So I don’t sit all day. I will lay down a little bit, stretch out my back. [chuckles] The way I see it, my life is just walking to new places to sit down.
[audience laughing]
I don’t know how much standing I’m supposed to be doing out here. So what I figure, what I did, I joined the gym. And I’ll go in there, walk around a bit, touch on some stuff. [chuckling] You know what I mean? Grab a barbell and go, “Dang that feels good.” I’ll lift this next week and uh… Then I hit the tanning bed and get right out of there. I felt like if you look good, you feel good. Who doesn’t look good with a tan? I got a lot of digestive issues, I burp a lot. And I know it’s gross, but I do burp a lot. That’s why COVID was tough on me. I don’t know if you burped into an N95 mask before. It does not go away, man. That’s the best mask. I don’t know if keeps stuff out, but it keeps stuff in. That’s research I’ve done on my own. I don’t know if burp is thicker than virus or not, but… I almost choked out in a grocery store one time. I burped into that thing, had two straps on it, got tangled up in my hair. Couldn’t get it off, my glasses were fogging up. I’m about to pass out. They were like, “You got COVID?” I’m like, “No, I got a burp in here.” “Why don’t you pull out a pocket knife? Cut this thing off.” “I’m trying to breathe a little bit. I’m in here trying to get some grapes.”
[audience laughing]
[chuckles] I get a lot of heartburn. A lot of heartburn. I got heartburn so bad, I ruptured my appendix and I didn’t even really know it. I was just like, “Dang, this heartburn’s getting bad, man.” I’m used to it being up around in here, but now it’s down here. It really feels about the same. I walked around like that for months. I finally went to the doctor and pushed around on my stomach, and then they get down here and they sent me the hospital. I get to the hospital and they do a full body scan on me. The surgeon came back and he said, “It looks like a bomb went off where your appendix used to be.” That was his real words. “Looks like a bomb went off where your appendix used to be.” Everybody was saying it. I heard it out in the hallway. “It looks like a bomb went off…” It was the talk of the hospital. They couldn’t stop saying it. [audience laughing] Everybody was saying it, that’s all I was hearing. They found out I didn’t have insurance, and they were like, “Well, it wasn’t a full rupture.”
[audience laughing]
They’re like, “Get out of here, man.” Yeah. “You take these antibiotics and come back if it gets worse.” And it did get worse. It did get worse. So I had to go back to the hospital, and they cut me open. Did all kinds of things to my body. I don’t know what they did, but I know if they put you to sleep, cut you open and you not wake up, they can do whatever they want to you. And I bet they did. [audience laughing] You know what I mean? [chuckles] And I woke up after surgery, and they had me on an IV drip of ketamine. I don’t know if you’ve done ketamine before, one person does. ‘Cause if… if you’ve done it you can’t contain yourself after somebody brings it up. For everybody else, the best way I can describe ketamine is, if I had two appendixes, I’d try to rupture that other one.
[audience laughing]
[chuckles] Just so I could do ketamine one more time, ’cause that was honestly a lot of fun. I could close my eyes and immediately go into a dream. I’d open my eyes, tell my wife all these things I saw. There was a lot of things and she’d be like, “Your eyes were closed for 10 seconds.” “I don’t know what to tell you, I’ve been doing some time travelling and…” “There’s some darkness coming, that’s all I can tell you.” [chuckles] It’s getting dark. I know people, I bet I could get some ketamine if I started asking around. But I don’t really want to be doing ketamine at the house. It’s fun to do drugs in the hospital. You do some, you start freaking out, then they give you something to correct yourself. You freak out with your friends they’re like, “Get out before you ruin the whole party.” [audience laughing] [chuckles] “We’re not driving you to the hospital tonight, get out of here.” [chuckles] You know what I mean? Okay. [audience laughing] So I don’t have an appendix now, and uh… They say you can live without it and I guess that’s true. But I could also live without my feet. You know what I mean?
I sure like having those things.
[audience laughing]
We’re having a good time.
[audience cheering and clapping]
I did a TED Talk one time. I’ve done a lot of unintentional TED Talks, but I did one on purpose. If you don’t know, it’s where people stand on stage and talk and nobody laughs. I’ve done it a few times unintentionally, but one time I did a TED Talk. And it was a TED Talk on, “We’re having a good time.” You know, like, the power of positive thinking. No matter what’s going on, you say, “We’re having a good time.” and you’ll feel better. Very deep stuff. [audience laughing] So I agreed to do it, and then I ruptured my appendix. I’m laying in the hospital, like, “I don’t know if I believe this anymore.” [audience laughing] You know? But I had already agreed to it. So I was like, “I’m gonna do it.” So I wrote out this great 15 min TED Talk. It was very good. One of the best I bet. And I gave myself two days to memorize it, which is not enough time. Maybe for you, not for me. So I show up to the venue, I get on the stage. I’m up there for about two minutes, and then I forget the rest of that TED Talk. So I forgot 13 of the 15 minutes. And I’m just standing there, and I just start doing jokes.
[audience laughing]
I’m like, I’m not about to bomb this TED Talk here. So it’s very funny, it just doesn’t make a lot of sense. One minute, I’m talking about the power of positive thinking, the next, I’m talking about growing up in a trailer park, making a lot of loose connections. It’s on YouTube, don’t watch it. On the day we’re doing the TED Talk, there’s several people doing TED Talks, one right after another, and the girl who went on before me is talking a lot about pooping in a David’s Bridal. Right? I’m sure it was very good. I wasn’t able to listen to the whole thing. I was in the back trying to memorize my own TED Talk. But I just kept hearing her talk about pooping in a David’s Bridal. Something big went down that day, that’s all I know. And… When I go out, I’m just trying to break the ice a little bit, and I’m like, “Hey, I pooped in a lot of David’s Bridals.” [audience laughing] And when my TED Talk came out, they left that part in.
[audience laughing]
With no context. They have no idea that the girl before me talked a lot about pooping in a David’s Bridal. You don’t even know anyone went before me. For all you know, I was the one and only speaker that night. It was my night to do a TED Talk. People bought tickets just to see my TED Talk. And I decided to open with, “Hey, I pooped in a lot of David’s Bridals.”
[audience laughing]
[audience clapping]
And then never mention it again. I don’t bring it back around at the end. Put a little bow on it. “And that’s why I pooped in a lot of David’s Bridals.” [chuckles] But a lot of people have seen it. They keep watching that thing. I wish they wouldn’t, but they keep watching it. I don’t know how long they’re watching it. I don’t dig into those metrics. I don’t like to see how long people are watching things. One time I checked my website, I wanted to see how long people are on my website for some reason. I don’t know why I wanted to know that. I checked and it is a shockingly low amount of time. It seems like every person who clicks on my website, goes, “Oh, whoops.” [audience laughing] I don’t know how I got here, but… Must be a typo, let’s get out of here. But my website is dustyslay.com And that makes sense ’cause that’s my name. But I opened this website with GoDaddy.com years ago. And I had some problems with it, so I had to call GoDaddy. I’m talking to him, and I don’t know if I’m talking to Daddy or not, but… [audience laughing] [chuckles] [chuckles] They were reading off my website back to me and they go, “So it’s Dusty’s Lay.com.” [audience laughing] I’m like, “Well, it’s not that kinda website.”
[audience laughing]
But that may be the problem, right? People think they’re going to Dusty’s Lay.com and they click on it and I’m like, “Hey, I pooped in a lot of David’s Bridals.” [audience laughing] [audience cheering] And they’re like, “Oh, back, back, back, back.” [audience laughing] Clearing out the search history. [chuckles] I don’t know. [man laughs] We’re having a good time. [audience laughing] That laugh came out of nowhere, didn’t it? [audience cheering] We didn’t see that one coming. I go out to the woods a lot and um… [audience member] Whoo! Lately, I’ve been picking up a lot of ticks. Not like a nervous tick, but like an insect.
[audience laughing]
I get ticks in weird places, man. I got a tick on a body part that rhymes with tick. [audience laughing] That’s not as fun as you’d think it’d be. I got worried that I had Lyme disease. And I looked up some symptoms, and one of the symptoms is you’ll be real tired. I was like, “Dang, I’m tired.” [audience laughing] Then I realized that I’ve been tired for a long time, so… If anything, I gave that tick Lyme disease. [audience laughing] I may be the original carrier of Lyme disease. I’m sorry about that. I knew I should have killed that tick. Just flush them down the toilet every time. Figure if they can live from that, they deserve their life. I used to play out in the woods a lot as a kid. We weren’t afraid of ticks back then, we were afraid of real stuff like snakes and bears. My parents had me afraid of falling into an old well. That was our big fear. “You fall into an old well, people won’t find you for three or four days.” I’m like, “Three or four days?” “How about if I don’t come home tonight…
[audience laughing]
…you go looking for me?” “Like I’m not a world traveler out here.” “You got a pretty good idea of where I’m gonna be.” “Maybe walk around out there, listen for somebody going, ‘Help!'” “‘Help!’ That’ll be me trapped in an old well.” [audience laughing] It’s gotta be an old well, though. New well, people just come by, crank you right out of there. Old well, people just come by, throw change in there. You make a little money down in an old well. Tough to spend it, but you can make it down there. People come try to rescue you, they’re like, “You’re too heavy. Drop all that change.” “Nah, you come back with stronger people.” [audience laughing] “I made this money down here.” “I’m down here doing well.” You know what I mean? [laughing and cheering] Thank you. Thank you. I grew up in Alabama, that’s where I’m from and…
[audience members cheering]
Thank you, thank you. All right. My dad still lives there. My dad lives on a farm. And he used to have this field, where he had this big ditch where he used to throw a lot of trash and old appliances and paint cans and stuff like that. He’s a big environmentalist, and uh… That ditch was just full of stuff. One day, this guy came along, and he wanted to dig around in that ditch. My dad was like, “Nah, there ain’t anything worth digging around in there.” The guy was like, “Nah, man, I love digging around in stuff like that.” So my dad was like, “All right. If you love it, you love it.” “Go dig around down there.” So the guy goes down there, starts digging around in that ditch. About a half hour later, my dad hears this big explosion. And he looks down there and can see that the ditch has blown up. Turns out what happened was the guy got way deep down in that ditch and it got real dark and he couldn’t see. He didn’t have a flashlight, so he pulled out a lighter. Apparently there was a lot of gas and fumes in there. So when that guy struck that lighter, that ditch just blew up. With that guy inside. [chuckles] [chuckles] [audience laughing] I was like, “Dang, was that guy okay?” My dad was like, “Yeah, he was a little disoriented, but, uh…”
[audience laughing]
“He was okay.” Then that’s all he ever really said about it. I don’t know. One time, when I was a little kid, I was about this old, eight or so. I don’t know how old that is and uh… [audience laughing] Me and my dad we were cleaning out this swimming pool, and my dad had a pool vacuum, I had a little net. We’re trying to clean it up and there’s this bullfrog in the pool. We want to catch it, and set it free. We want to save that frog’s life. So I jump in there, try to catch it, it’s too fast. Try to scoop it out with a net, it keeps jumping out. And my dad had this idea. He thought the frog would be too big to get sucked up the pool vacuum. So he thought he could just catch it like this. Then that frog just kind of ride the suction on up to the top. Then we take it off and set it free. That was the dream. [audience laughing] But it turns out that frog was not too big to get sucked up. I don’t know who saw that coming. Sucked up right away. I remember seeing it come up the hose, it was stretching it out all along the way. Real cartoon-like. Like a snake had eaten it. And then when the frog got to the top, it was all busted open and it had died.
[audience laughing]
[chuckles] That’s not what we wanted to happen, but… The frog did die that day. My dad also used to have this VHS camcorder and he used to film everything. He filmed everything. I found a tape labelled, “Christmas and court.” [audience laughing] I was like, “Dang, the holidays took a turn, huh?” You don’t wanna just start a new tape, I guess. Trying to keep it alphabetical. I’m digging through these tapes, he had a bunch of tapes, and I find this one and start watching it. I come across this video, and it’s of me and my dad talking, I’m still a little kid, you know. And we’re talking all about the frog day. We get to the very end and then my dad goes, “And then it just hopped away.” And you could see my face change. Like knowing that my dad was lying, but also not knowing how to correct my dad. So I’m just like, “Mm-hmm.” So I guess what I’m trying to say is, I think that guy died in that ditch that day.
[audience laughing]
[audience clapping and cheering]
All right. All right. That’s what I think happened. There could be hundreds of bodies out there, I don’t know. I don’t know how long that’s been going on. [chuckles] Maybe that’s why I love country music. I don’t know the connection, but… could be something there. I do love country music.
[audience members cheering]
All right. That’s four people. That’s not bad. A room this size, you get four country fans.
That’s what I’m talking about.
[audience laughing] I love country. Country is the one genre of music people tell you they don’t like, even when you didn’t ask. You’re like, “What kind of music you like?” “Everything but country.” Oh, everything, huh? Big polka fan, I guess. [audience laughing] Really into acid jazz. [chuckles] I can’t wait to see you at that Enya concert later.
You guys remember Enya?
[a couple of people cheer] I was listening to Enya a little bit, early 2000s. I was living in a trailer for the second time. I was doing some drugs. You know what I mean? Getting paranoid in the daytime. I tore up some mini-blinds in there. [audience laughing] “What’s going on out there?” I’m worse on blinds than a cat, man. I don’t know how familiar you are with trailers, but they’re narrow. You can go side to side quick checking mini-blinds. From the couch to the love seat, back to the couch. What’s going out there? You ever been so paranoid inside in the daytime? Then you go outside, and go, “Actually, it’s a pretty nice day out here.” [chuckles] Inside, you’re worried people are coming, outside, you’re like, “I wish some people would come.” [audience laughing] “I could use a friend.” But I love country. I’ve been listening to this Travis Tritt song recently. A song called, “The Whiskey Ain’t Workin’ Anymore.” I don’t know if heard that song. Came out in the ’90s. Real classic hit. “The Whiskey Ain’t Workin’ Anymore.”
[couple of audience members cheering]
Two, three people? Good.
[man shouting] Yeah!
All right, there it is. [audience laughing] That might be Travis Tritt, I don’t know. [audience laughing] [audience cheering] [Dusty chuckling] [chuckles] It’s called “The Whiskey Ain’t Working Anymore.” It came out in the ’90s. Classic song. I’ve heard a million times. The other day I’m listening, I caught a lyric in there I had not heard before. This is what he says, he goes, “A woman warm and willing, that’s what I’m looking for.” [audience laughing] I was like, “Dang, those are some low standards right there.” I mean, that’s as low as it gets, man. Warm and willing. You know, warm, like, alive. Or maybe has just died. I don’t know. I don’t know how long it takes a body to get cold. I had a mortician at one of my shows. She goes, “A lot longer than you think.” And I had not spent a lot of time thinking about it. I don’t think a mortician should be dealing with warm bodies. If you’re dealing with a warm body, you got there too quick. You know something. Like if I show up to the morgue and I’m warm I want you to give me a little shake. ‘Cause I’ve slept hard before. [audience laughing] Make sure I’m dead. Don’t be embalming a warm body, you know? That’s something I’ve always said. [audience laughing] There’s another Travis Tritt song I like. This one’s called, “It’s a Great Day to be Alive.”
[audience members cheering]
It’s a great song. It is a fun song. One of my favorites. But, in that song, he doesn’t say, “It’s a great day to be alive,” until you get to the chorus. And if you just listen to the first verse of that song, you would not think that’s what he’s about to say. [audience laughing] The song starts off with him going, “I got rice cookin’ in the microwave.” I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with that, but that’s not really a start to a great day, is it? [audience laughing] If that’s a great day, what were you up to yesterday? Just sitting around eating dry rice… “Dang, this is not good.” If you’re making a list of things that made your day great, I don’t think microwaveable rice makes the list. Little while later in the song, he says he’s making a homemade soup. I got to question what kind of soup you’re really making. You’re making a homemade soup but you can’t boil a pot of rice?
[audience laughing]
I don’t think so. He talks about how good he’s doing, then he says, “Neither drink nor drug induced.” That sounds like he’s doing drugs. [audience laughing] Your friends that don’t do drugs don’t tell you they’re happy and then say, “I’m not doing drugs.” He says two times in the first verse, “I’m doing all right.” Are you doing all right or is it a great day to be alive? [audience laughing] ‘Cause those are not the same thing. Imagine you’re at work and a coworker comes in and goes, “It’s a great day to be alive.” You’re like, “Dang! How you doing today?” And they’re like, “Ah, I’m all right.”
[audience laughing]
You know what I mean? I love work small talk like that. Work small talk is my favorite. I loved it. I loved to walk into a Lowe’s back in the day, be like, “All right, just living the dream!” “Another day, another dollar.” “Workin’ hard or hardly workin’?” Those are my three favorites, I like to rotate those throughout the day. I’d go into this one Lowe’s, talk to the same guy every time. Every time he’d do this. I’d go, “How you doing today?” He goes, “If I was any better I’d be you.” I’d like to go, “Well, I’m not doing good.”
[audience laughing]
[chuckles]
[audience cheering]
“So I’m sorry to hear.” “So I’m sorry to hear it.” I like small talk in general. A lot of people say, if you talk about the weather, you’ve run out of things to talk about, but I like to lead with weather. Weather is what I want to talk about. Like if I go outside and it’s real hot, I have to say it out loud. I can’t just think it. I have to go, “Dang! “It’s hot!” Even when I’m alone, I have to say it. Then if I see anybody on the street, I’ll try to make eye contact. “Oh, it’s hot out here, huh?” And if they’re into it, we’ll talk about the weather for a while. I’ll start telling them about weather of other places I’ve been. It’s hot here, but last week I was in Michigan. Guess what? It was cold. [audience laughing] You believe that? Then I pull out my phone, I show him a screenshot of the weather. [audience laughing] I’ll hold it there until they acknowledge it. “Sorry, that locked up on you there.” [audience laughing] “Didn’t realize I was holding it for two minutes.” [chuckles] I was in Phoenix one time, it was 118 degrees. I carried that screenshot around for about four years. [audience laughing] Anytime I told someone this story, I’d go, “Hold on, hold on.” They’re like, “We believe you.” I’m like “Nah, nah, nah.”
[audience laughing]
“Nah, you got see it, though.” “Yeah, it’s in here somewhere, I’ll find it.” There’s a country song by George Strait called, “The Fireman.” He goes, “They call me The Fireman. That’s my name.” Well, is that your name or that what they call you, ’cause…? [audience laughing] If that’s your name, explains why they been calling you that. They call me Dusty. That’s my name. There’s another song I like by a band called Lonestar. This song is called, “I’m Already There.” Don’t know if you heard that song before. Most dramatic country song of all time.
[audience cheering]
Very dramatic song. Guy leaves for the weekend, you think he’s going for the rest of his life. If you haven’t heard the song, it’s about a guy out working the road. I don’t think he says what he’s doing. I imagine it’s music. And he misses his family ’cause he’s on the road and I get that. He says he calls his wife from a lonely cold hotel room. Which seems like a booking issue to me. [audience laughing] It’s not hard to find a hotel with heat these days. That’s not even something they advertise anymore. Tough to find a hotel without heat, to be honest with you. You get a better hotel, you’ll still be lonely but comfortable. And he’s talking to his wife, he’s crying, I imagine and uh… Then he hears a little kid in the background, his kid’s small, and his kid gets on the phone and his kid goes, “Dad, when you coming home?” This is what he says to his kid, he goes, “I’m already there.” I was like, “Why are you doing that to the kid?” [audience laughing] That kid’s small, man, he doesn’t get the poetry you’re doing. That kid’s probably like, “What? You’re home?”
[audience laughing]
“Why are we doing this weird phone thing here?” “Let’s get together, let’s spend some time together.” “Play catch or something. Mom said you were gone.” “I don’t know why she said that.” [audience laughing] Then the dad goes, says something like this, “I’m the sunshine in your hair, son.” “I’m the whisper in the wind.” “I’m the shadow on the ground.” That kid’s probably like, “Mom, what’s wrong with Dad?” [audience laughing] “What is he talking about?” Maybe the song’s darker than we realize, you know. Maybe the dad’s like, “Son, I am home. You’re my side family and uh…” [audience laughing] He’s like, “I would appreciate if you wouldn’t call me at home.” [audience laughing] “I’ve got a lot going on this weekend.” “If you want to play catch, play with the sunshine in your hair.”
[audience laughing]
“See what the shadow on the ground’s up to.” “Have a little chat with the whisper in the wind.” [chuckles] I’ve talked to whisper in the wind before. I’ll talk to anybody or anything. I love talking. Lot of my friends… I take a lot of Ubers and a lot of my friends get mad if the Uber driver talks to them too much. It’s the opposite for me. I think the Uber driver gets mad at me for talking. He’s like, “You want to listen to the radio?” I’m like, “No, turn it off.” [audience laughing] “I only got five minutes alone with you in this car.” “I got a lot of stuff I need to tell a stranger, okay?” “I’ve got a lot of conspiracies I need to get off of my chest.” “Honestly, my wife is tired of hearing it, so…” “I’m not even Ubering anywhere, I’m just…” “I’m just Ubering to talk, man.” I love the car, I like being in the car. I like driving, travelling. You ever get a fly in your car? And that fly’s in there for a while. You’ve been driving down the road, driving for miles, that fly’s all over the place in there. You’ve been going for miles. All of a sudden, you let that fly out, what do you think it’s like for that fly? Like that fly is way away from home now. That’d be like going into a grocery store and coming out in Arkansas. [audience laughing] “Dang, what happened while I was in there?” That fly’s got to start a whole new life now. You ever do enough drugs to think of something like that?
[audience laughing]
[audience cheering]
All right, lot of drug addicts here tonight. I appreciate it. But you don’t even need drugs now. Weed is so strong now, weed is like drugs. You know what I mean? I don’t know what happened to weed. Weed used to be a good old fun recreational activity, but now it’s like hard drugs, man. I’ve done weaker acid than the weed that’s out here now.
[audience laughing]
[man] Whoo! It’s true, I used to have a lot of fun with weed when I was younger, I could smoke a joint or a blunt with some people. We laugh, have a good time. Listen to some music. Now I take one hit and I’m walking around in the yard praying. [audience laughing] I feel like I’m having a heart attack. I’m just saying over and over again, “Weed’s never killed anyone, weed’s never killed anyone.” I don’t even know if that’s true. That used to be true, but I don’t know if it’s true anymore. Guess weed could be killing people, I don’t know. Weed grew up, got violent, that’s all I know. [audience laughing] I grew up in Alabama and weed used to be scary to get, but fun to do. Now if you live in a state where it’s legal, it’s like, fun to get but scary to do. When I was growing up, if you wanted to get weed, you gotta get 10, 25 dollars together, you go to a bad neighborhood, some guy would come out, you’d give him the money. He may come back with the weed, he may not, right? It’s 50-50, really. You never knew where it’d be in, it’d be in a bag, it might be in a coffee filter. One guy brought me weed right out of his hand one time.
[audience laughing]
[blowing] I was like, “I’m not sure you weighed this.” [audience laughing] If you don’t have money for bags, you don’t have money for scales. You might want to think about investing in your business here. You’re looking to do this long term that is. You got the weed, it was fun, easy light weed, you know. Nowadays, if you live in a state where it’s legal buying weed is like a shopping experience. You go into a store, it’s all well lit. It’s like a Best Buy or an AT&T store in there. Sometimes the cops are there, but to protect the drug dealers. Some of these stores are set up like a pharmacy. Everybody inside’s a little scientist. They’re telling you about all the different strands of weed. One lady was like, “This weed is creative and uplifting.” I was like, “Oh, okay.” “Well, that’s not what I’m looking for.”
[audience laughing]
[chuckles] I was like, “I don’t really know what that means to be honest with you.” I’m not looking to spend time with the weed. Not trying to hear the weed’s ideas on things. They think I’m weird because I’m always like, “What’s the weakest weed you have here?” “Like you got any weed you were thinking about throwing out?” “You got any weed people returned because it wasn’t working good?” That’s the kind of weed I’m looking for. I’m just trying to enjoy some TV out here, you know. I’m not trying to disappear into a different realm. I’m not trying to sleep with a light on all night in my hotel room ’cause the darkness is too thick. [audience laughing] [chuckles] Ever do that, though? You get high, and you’re like, “It’s been a great day. Had a lot of fun.” “But now it’s time for bed.” You turn the light switch off, and it feels like nighttime lays down on you. I’m like, “Well, that’s coming back on.”
[audience laughing]
And the TV and the podcast. I may call a friend, make sure I’m still alive. [audience laughing] I freaked out in a lot of hotel rooms. Nobody knows it’s happening but it is. I’ll hear a noise out in the hallway, I think people are coming to get me. I look out the peephole, it’s just some family enjoying their life. No idea about the darkness going on in my hotel room. [audience laughing] Over one hit of weed. You think I’d been in there doing heroin all week. I’m all strung out, I got biscuits everywhere. [audience laughing] [audience clapping and cheering] Sometimes I’ll smoke weed in the hotel room. And that’s always a mistake for me. I’ll take one little puff, I think I’ve smoked the whole hotel out. It’s made its way down to the front desk, they’re calling the police. The police are on their way. I’m out in the parking lot, like, “I’m not even at this hotel.”
[audience laughing]
“Matter of fact, right now, I’m loitering.” “I better leave before I get in trouble for loitering ’cause I’m not at this hotel.” “That’s something I can tell you right now.” So when I do smoke in the hotel, I like to take it very seriously. I go into the room, I put the “Do not disturb” sign on the door. Then I go into the bathroom and put another “Do not disturb” sign on the door. [audience laughing] So if they come through the first door, they’ll be like, “This is a lot more private than we realized.” “We shouldn’t have come through the first one, but it’s definitely against hotel policy to go through two ‘Do not disturb’ signs.” Then I put a little towel under the door, I take a little hit, blow it into the toilet, close the lid, flush it. [audience laughing] [chuckles] That’s what I do every time. I don’t know if it works or not, but I’ve not been kicked out of a hotel yet, so… Either it works or nobody cares. Smoke’s gotta hit the water by the time that spiral’s kickin’ in. [makes whooshing sound] Sucks it right down. I like to think I’m doing a service. I like to think there’s somebody on the other end of that toilet working down in a sewer somewhere. Hangin’ out with a bunch of Ninja Turtles. [audience laughing] Fighting off all the ticks I’m flushing. [audience laughing] That smoke hits him in the face, he’s like, “All right, I appreciate that.” “Pleasant smell for a change.” “Great day to be alive down here.”
[audience laughing and clapping]
You know what I mean? That’s true. [audience cheering and clapping] My wife doesn’t do drugs and I always think everything’s weird when I’m high. And that’s how she knows. Like if I start saying stuff’s weird, she knows what’s going on. We go to a coffee shop the other day, and we come out and I go, “That was weird in there, huh?” She was like, “Nah, that was the most normal coffee shop experience we could have had.” “You went in, you asked for coffee, they gave it to you, you paid for it, now we’re outside.” [audience laughing] “What was weird?” I was like, “I don’t know, but there was a vibe in there.” [audience laughing] “Felt like they didn’t want us in there.” But it was a real hipster coffee shop, real hip, and if it gets too hip, they don’t want you in there. They don’t want me in there. I know that. They’re very rude to me in there. But I like a rude coffee shop. I like to be treated bad while I’m trying to order a coffee. I like to be berated. I feel like, the ruder the coffee shop employee, the better the coffee. I don’t know why that is, but it seems to be true every time. If you go to a place and they’re real friendly, you’re like, “Ah, there’s gonna be Folgers in here.”
[audience laughing]
Gonna be in a styrofoam cup with a lid that don’t fit that good. Could have made this at home. [chuckles] So I love a hipster coffee shop ’cause I like good coffee, you know. But sometimes they complicate things for no reason. Like all I drink is black coffee. I went to this one coffee shop and I go up to the guy, he figured out a way to complicate that. I go up to him, “Let me get a black coffee.” He goes, “Pour-over or drip?” I was like, “I don’t know. However you get it in there.” You know what I mean? I’m like, “I don’t really know what you’re asking me right now.” “I’m not looking to be involved in making the coffee here.” “Pour it, drip it, whatever you gotta do, man, but wrap it up.” He was like, “Pour-over takes 15 minutes.” I was like, “Well, start dripping then.” [audience laughing] I don’t know how you drip faster than you pour, man. [chuckles] That don’t even make sense. I don’t know how or why you’re doing it like that. Fifteen minutes to make a coffee. I don’t need it to be that good. I like a good coffee, but I don’t need you back there massaging the beans. Fifteen minutes is enough to get to know a person. I’m not trying to form a relationship with the barista here. Turns out a pour-over coffee is when they’re making you your own individual cup of coffee. So I guess you’re taking up one employee in that coffee shop for the next 15 minutes, ’cause you don’t want your coffee mingled with the other coffee. I don’t need it to be that good. I don’t need a pour-over coffee. I have found a place that manages to be rude to you and give you bad coffee. And that place is known as the Waffle House. [audience laughing]
[audience cheering]
You know what I mean? I love the Waffle House, but I’m not going there for the coffee. I’ll have it, but I’m not going there for it. I do love the Waffle House. I was selling pesticides with a guy from New Jersey one time and he told me he had never been to the Waffle House. I was like, “All right. Let’s go right now.” ‘Cause I didn’t want to mess around and let somebody else take him. ‘Cause I like taking people to the Waffle House for the first time. It’s a lot of fun for me to see the excitement on their face. We walk in… I wanted it to be a good experience. ‘Cause he had never been. We walk in and there’s an older waitress in there and she goes, “Welcome to Waffle House.” I was like, “How you doing today?” She goes, “I’m tired and I could use a cigarette but people keep coming in here.” [audience laughing] I was like, “Boom! That’s what I’m talking about.” [audience laughing] “That’s the kind of attitude I”m looking for in here.” I was excited. I made eye contact with my friend. I’m like, “You see what’s going on in here? “This is how we do it at the Waffle House.” We sat down and ate, it was very good. Right after we ate, a roach came from under the table, ran up my shirt, got about right here. I swatted it down. It hit the table, disappeared. I don’t know what happened to it. Honestly, I couldn’t have paid for a better experience in there. ‘Cause you want to see a roach once in a while in the Waffle House. Just make sure they’re still keeping it organic in there. Not using a lot of pesticides in there. You want to see it after you eat. That way it’s like, “Yeah, I’m nauseous, but I’m full.” [audience laughing] You know… Thank you. And uh… [audience laughing] [audience member] Whoo! Thank you. That’s okay, I don’t…-
[man grunting loudly]
Yeah, okay. We’re losing it and um… [audience laughing] You know the best thing about having hair long like this is that if I find a hair in my food, I just assume it’s mine. I just lift it up like this, I go, ‘Yeah, that’s definitely one of mine.” “I don’t know how it got lodged deep down in that omelette…”
[audience groans and laughs]
[chuckles] Definitely one of mine, though. Good thing too or I would have lost my appetite. I could eat my own hair. You know what I mean? It’s tough to eat hair. You ever swallow about half a hair? You can’t get it down all the way. [chuckles] You got to dig it out, it’s like fishing for throw-up. You’re like, “Ah, ah, ah.” [audience laughing] [chuckles] It is true. I’m sorry I did that, that’s gross. [audience laughing] One time I was doing comedy in Arkansas, I was leaving, driving back to Nashville, and I wanted to get coffee on the way. I was looking for a good coffee. But I didn’t know any places, so I typed something into Google, and I pulled up to this place called Cowgirls Coffee. I was like, “That’s what I’m talking about.” I didn’t know what Cowgirls Coffee was at the time, but it seemed cool to me. I was wearing cowboy boots that day. I’m like, “I can’t wait to walk into this place.” “This is gonna be a great time.” And I’m with a couple of other comics, and we pull up to this old warehouse-looking building. And I’m like, “Is this a strip club?” And it was a strip club.
[audience laughing]
Cowgirls Coffee was a little coffee booth in the parking lot of the strip club. And they were affiliated. This is not a coincidence. So I told my friends, “Let’s just go somewhere else.” “I don’t know what strip club coffee tastes like.” Never had it, never been offered to me. I never walked into a strip club and been, “You know what? Start me off with a coffee.” “I’d like to get a real lay of the land here before we get down to business.” “I’d like to be very alert throughout this experience.” I was like, “Let’s go somewhere else.” My friends were like, “We’re already here.” “Let’s just pull up to the booth and see what they got.” I was, “All right, but I don’t want coffee here.” “I want a good cup of coffee, I’m not trying to get it from here.” We pull up to the booth and we can see inside, and there’s a girl in there, wearing lingerie, serving coffee. And I was like, “Well, we could get a coffee.” [audience laughing] Like coffee is coffee at the end of the day. Let’s not make a big deal about it. It’s not our last cup of coffee. If we don’t like it, we can get another one down the road. I was telling them, “Don’t judge the place.” You don’t know what this place has been through here. The girl was like, “What kind of coffee?” I was like, “Pour-over.” You know what I mean? [audience laughing and clapping] All right, thank you very much, guys. I appreciate you.
[audience cheering]
Thank you very much. You guys are great.
[audience continues cheering and clapping]
You guys are great. Thank you very much. I appreciate you.
[country music playing]
♪ Started out in Alabama ♪
♪ In a humble single wide ♪
♪ I heard the wheels a callin’ me ♪
♪ I had to say goodbye ♪
♪ From Bakersfield to Brooklyn ♪
♪ And everywhere between ♪
♪ Now I’m pushing this rig ♪
♪ Back home to Tennessee ♪
♪ Been workin’ hard ♪
♪ All day and night ♪
♪ Tryin’ to make my way ♪
♪ Turning wrongs to right ♪
♪ It ain’t a simple job ♪
♪ But I love what I do ♪
♪ Workin’ hard is all ♪
♪ This old boy knows to do ♪
Hey! Now we’re having a good time.
[Richard] What did we find in the pool yesterday? A big, old humongous frog.
That big.
[Richard] Sure did, didn’t we? Uh-huh. You accidentally sucked him up and busted him.
[Richard] Yeah, sucked him up the pool vacuum. And then it busted him.
[Richard] I think he hopped off, didn’t he? Uh-huh.
[Richard] Okay, we can go in and play Old Maid cards.
