[fire crackling]
[pensive instrumental music playing]
[gasps] Oh!
Jesus! Mamma mia, Mae! Jeez!
Hey. Sorry. [sighs]
Marshmallow?
Uh… No, I’m good.
Rubber band?
Sure, I’ll take one.
All right.
Thanks. [laughing] Oh! Story time.
Nice. Well, I’ll settle in.
Okay. Um… [sighs] Mae, I just got mine replaced. [kisses] [kisses] Hope you backed up the pictures from your wedding. [sighs]
Um, can you introduce me?
Okay. [clears throat]
Can you do the “And now” one?
The “And now”? Okay, got it.
Thank you. And now, please put your hands together, and welcome to the stage, the one, the only, Mae Martin!
[crowd cheering]
Hi! [crowd continues cheering] How we doing? [chuckling] Hey. Hi. Nice to see you. Oh my God. This is the best. Thank you so much for being here. What’s… Uh… Okay. [laughs] I have so much to tell you, genuinely. Um… What is everybody’s name? Should we just start… On the count of three, everybody say your name. Ready? One, two, three.
[crowd yelling names indistinctly]
Hello, uh, I’m Mae. I’m so pumped to be in Canada right now.
Just, I really…
[crowd cheering] Um, I… I am Canadian.
I’m very Canadian.
[scattered whoops]
But, please, I’ve been living in England for the past 12 years. I’ve been living in London. So I do sound a bit like an asshole. I do have a slight, like, Madonna lilt. And I’m trying so hard to fight it. I’m really sorry. But it’s… My dad’s British. Like very… He’s very, very British. He’s like… My dad’s like a mystical British gentleman. He’s very… He’s a magical man. He’s very into, like, the phases of the moon. He’s… He’s a moon man. He’s into, like, um… He knows all the birds that ever visit his garden and he has a specific relationship with each bird. And my childhood, like my whole childhood, was pretty mystical. Like, the best example I can think of… Okay, when I was about eight years old, my dad was driving my brother and I to karate class. And it was a very Canadian scene. It’s like 5:00 p.m., the sun’s already going down. It’s snowing, we’re on the highway. We’re going to the karate dojo. Me and my brother in the backseat. I’m eight, my brother’s 12. I was a green belt in karate, my brother was a yellow belt. So he was four years older, two belts lower. Um… Which is not important, but I thought I would flag it. And, uh, we’re driving along the highway and suddenly my dad, like, swerves to the side of the highway in, like, a panicked move. And tires are screeching, people are honking. Really dangerous. He pulls over, and he’s really shaken up, and he goes, [British accent] “I’m so sorry, children, but we have to get out of the car.” [regular accent] We’re like, “What?” And so we get out of the car. We’re standing by the side of the highway, in the snow. My brother, 12 years old, so embarrassed, he’s like, in his karate uniform. And people are driving by, they’re like, “Is he a yellow belt? ‘Cause…” “Hang on a second. He looks older…” “We’re gonna turn the car around. Check this out.” And so we’re like, “What is going on?” And my dad goes, “I’ve just seen the new moon through glass.” So, he had seen the sliver of the new moon through the windshield and we had to pull over, get out of the car, and he made us bow to the moon three times. We had to do this whole ritual. We had to say, “Good evening, Lady Moon.” It was… It was mystical. He’s a moon man. He’s deep into the moon. And, um, I was just visiting recently, uh, visiting home. This is my childhood home that I grew up in, and they’ve had it since long before I was born. And I’m in the kitchen with my mom and dad, and my dad comes up to me and goes, “Meet me in the study at dusk.” I’m like, “But I…” I go to my mom, I’m like, “What time is dusk?” She’s like, “I don’t know.” [laughs] And I go up to the study, which is like… It’s been many things over the years, it’s been like a spare room or whatever. My dad’s there with a glass of wine, looking out the window. He wanted to show me there’s a family of raccoons that lives in a tree in the neighbor’s yard. And, like, every night at dusk, they emerge, and he’s got, yeah, a relationship with them all. Um… So, we’re standing, waiting for the raccoons, and he just really dreamily goes, um… “Do you know you were conceived in this room?” Which… So I was like, “Oh…” And I don’t like to shut him down when he’s being vulnerable, so… I was like, “Wait. You remember the specific night that I was conceived?” And he said this phrase, which truly has haunted me ever since. He said, he goes, “Yes, of course I remember it.” “I remember it well.” This is what he said. “The moonlight shone in over your mother’s bottom.”
[crowd gasps, laughs]
Over your… I feel like you’re not fully getting, like… I now know the position I was conceived in. I’m horrified. Nobody wants to be conceived doggy style. It’s so bleak. You don’t want… You want to be conceived face to face. Eye contact. At the moment of ejaculation, just like we… “We’re making a choice to make a life.” Not like, “Ah! Bite the pillow!” It’s horrible. It’s… It’s bleak. It’s like… It’s changed how I see myself. Like, how I… I’m like, “I’m a doggy-style baby.”
[crowd laughing]
Makes a lot of sense, actually. Explains a lot. It’s, like, affected my posture. I’m just a little more… I’m like… Just a little hunched. [laughs] I feel like I can spot other doggy-style babies when I’m out in the world, 100%, there’s… I’ll be getting on the subway, and there’s someone… [grunting] Smoking on the subway. I’m like, “Oh, yeah.” Or I’ll be in a bar, and the bartender’s like, “Sorry, someone’s just sent you a drink.” I look down the bar, and… [grunting] Another doggy-style baby. There’s some in here tonight. I can see us. Several. [Mae laughs] They… Every time I go home to visit, something like this happens. Something that derails my… my grasp on reality. Like, um, okay, my parents have this anecdote, and it’s a story they’ve been telling my whole life. Like, once a year, they’ll have a few drinks and tell this story at a dinner party or whatever. Um… And it makes me feel crazy, because I’m like, “It cannot be true.” So, why are you doing this to me? What is this? Um, and my brother and I get really upset. I’ll tell you the story and then you can be the judge, if you think it’s true or not. Okay?
[audience whoops]
Okay. So, my parents swear that when they were in their late twenties, they were driving through Northern Ontario, down a winding road through a forest, and they drove under a moose.
[crowd laughing]
[scoffs] They swear. They swear. My mom says they were driving down this winding road, the moose was horizontal on the road, and they drove under its belly. It makes me feel insane. I’m like, “What are you talking about?” It’s… And so it’s… [laughs] She does a sound effect of the sound of the belly fur of the moose gently grazing the roof of the car. Just like… [whooshes softly] Can you imagine? It makes me feel insane. It makes me feel crazy. And, uh, it makes my brother irate, as well. Because… So, the last time I was visiting, me and my brother were like, “We need to get to the bottom of this.” We need to find out if this is even possible. So we did research and we found out the height of a Toyota Tercel. That’s the car they were driving. So, the height of the roof of the car. We Googled the largest ever recorded moose. And the infuriating thing is it could just have happened. It could just have happened. If they happened to stumble upon the biggest-ever recorded moose, I guess it’s possible. It makes me feel insane. [sighs] You think it’s true? Give a cheer if you think it’s true.
[crowd cheering]
Really? Give a cheer if you think it’s bullshit.
[loud cheering]
See? I don’t know. I think it says a lot about your worldview. Like, if you believe in the moose, you’re young at heart. You… You’ve retained a sliver of, like, childlike enthusiasm about life. And if you don’t believe in the moose, you’re… Look, it’s been a tough couple years. It’s been tough, hasn’t it? Oh my God. It really has. We got to do whatever it takes to get by. You know? Whatever makes you feel good. Like… So my father sent me a news article recently. Uh, he sent me this news article, and was like, “I thought you’d like this.” “I thought you’d relate to it.” Those are the words he used. “I thought you’d really relate to this.” This was the story, and I haven’t stopped thinking about it. I’m going to tell it to you. So this, it happened in the Netherlands, in a small town in the Netherlands, where basically this family noticed that they weren’t getting any mail. They were like, “We haven’t received any mail in a long time.” Weeks start going by. They’re like, “Wait. We’re not even getting our bills or pamphlets in the mail. This is really weird.” So they go to their neighbors. “Are you guys getting your mail?” They’re like, “No. This is so weird. Not for so long.” So they go to the post office and speak to, like, the boss. The mail boss, you know. [chuckling] You know, the mail boss… that you have to defeat to pass Level 10. [laughs] He’s like… [growls] And, um… They’re like, “We’re not getting any of our mail.” He’s like, “I’ll look into it.” He goes to speak to the mailman who’s responsible for that block. And I can’t remember the mailman’s name, so we’ll call him like… Gary. We’ll call him Gary. He’s like, “Gary, these people are saying that they’re not getting their mail.” “What’s going on?” And Gary’s like weirdly defensive right away. He’s like, “I don’t know what to tell you. I deliver the mail.” “If they’re not getting mail, it means no one’s writing to them.” They’re like, “Okay.” So the mail boss is like, “Okay, Gary.” But privately, to his coworkers, he’s like, “What’s up with Gary?” Gary is being really weird. So they decide they’re going to keep an eye on Gary and investigate the sitch. And so, the next day, Gary comes to work and first red flag, he picks up the mail and gets in his personal vehicle. Not the mail truck or whatever. Gets in his… And he drives out of town. So they’re like, “Fuck.” And they followed him. They follow him, and he drives into the forest in the Netherlands. And they follow him at a distance. They watch him park. They park. They’re keeping an eye on him. They see him get out of the car. He takes the bag of mail, he goes into the woods, he’s gone 45 minutes. He comes back out with no bag. Gets in his car, drives away. So they go in after him. Into the forest. And… Imagine this. This is the sight they’re confronted with, okay? Beautiful, dappled sunlight, you know. Mist rising from the moss. There’s a lone moose. A huge moose in the background. Just towering over the trees, truly. Um… [laughs] And they see, as far as the eye can see, there are hundreds of piles of freshly turned earth. Little… In neat rows stretching through the forest. And they dust, they brush the dirt up. Gary’s been burying the mail. He’s been burying the mail for ages. This has obviously been going on a long time and it’s now amped up. They’re like, “Fuck.” And, uh… They approach him the next day at work. Gently. They approach him gently. They’re like, “Hey, Gar. Um…” [clicks tongue] “I…” “We noticed you’ve been burying the mail.” “And we were just wondering, why are you doing that?” And in the news article, this was the direct quote from the mailman, in answer to the question, “Why are you burying the mail?” This is what he said. He said, “I did it once, it felt good.” “And now it’s just kind of what I do.” I love him. He’s my hero, I… Guys, Gary went to jail. He went to jail for eight months. Yeah. You can’t fuck with the mail, that’s a federal offense. Um… He went to jail. And I wanted to write him fan mail in jail, but I don’t want to stress him out. ‘Cause he’d be like, “I want to bury it. Argh!” [laughs] But, no, I really was, like… I’ve never felt so seen by my father. Um… That’s… [chuckles] It has been tough. Like, I’m trying to get back into life and sort of feel that enthusiasm again of pre-pandemic life. Especially, I’m struggling to feel that enthusiasm in my romantic life. I don’t know if anyone is in the same boat.
[scattered cheers]
But post-pandemic dating, like, I’m… ‘Cause I’m 35, like… In my early 20s, so romantic. Obsessed with finding “the one.” My parents are very in love and that was my model. So I just… Somebody would be, “Do you have the time?” And I’d be, “I love you as well.” Is that… “And I…” “And I want to go with you.” [awkward laugh] “Where are we going?” Um, and now I’m just a bit like… I don’t know. Last summer, I dated someone. A man, actually, a lovely man, if you can believe. Not if you… Wait, not if you… Not “if you can believe that men can be lovely.” Of course they can. But if you can believe that I… Um… Yeah, so we dated for like six months, me and this guy and, uh… You know it was really nice, but I’m 35, he’s 36. Like, at this point, we both have big exes in our past. You know what I mean? We’re never going to be that big ex for each other. Like, we’re never gonna properly traumatize each other, so it’s kind of like… What’s the point? Um…
[audience laughter]
And… [laughs] So, we were in bed one night, and we were just chatting, we were having a nice light-hearted chat. He wasn’t trying to be heavy. He just goes, “If we had kids one day, what would we name our kids?” I was, like, “I don’t…” I was like, “I don’t know.” At this point, I’ve had that conversation with so many people. I was like… [sighs] “I don’t know.” “Let me just wade through this graveyard of dead hypothetical children to try to get to the new hypothetical kids.” I’m passing the ghosts of ’em. I’m like, “Oh, look!” “There’s Olive and Basil, the twins.” [laughs] They’re there. They’re like, “You forgot about us.” I’m like, “Oh, fuck off.” There’s little Clementine, I sent her to a private school. You know? She’s got a clarinet through her head. [in child’s voice] “Come and play with me.” [regular voice] I’m like, “No.” [chuckling] And I finally find the new hypothetical children, I’m like, “I have no creative energy left to name these children.” Like, “Can we just call them both Ian?” I don’t know. Did you guys know that…? This is true. In 2018, there were no new Ian’s born. There were no… It’s a true story. In 2018, not a single new Ian registered on this planet Earth. That is true. And if you’re watching this, and you hate the show, at least take that with you. You know? Wait, so do you guys know what I mean when I say big ex?
Like, you have your exes.
[scattered cheering]
Okay. Really? You’re like, “Yes, we know.” Like you have your normal exes and then you have, like, your big exes. Where you reach a certain page in the novel of your life… No. Uh, I do feel you reach a certain age and you just have to accept that for the rest of your life there’s certain names, where every time you hear them, all of your organs are gonna dissolve. And just fall out of your vagina. Or your bum hole, if you don’t… And you have to carry around a plastic bag just in case you have to collect your… [laughs] It’s disgusting. Um… So, I have a couple of significant big exes, but I have this one who… I want to tell you this story. So basically, this ex, it was a really intense relationship, it was like four years. And it was a secret relationship because it was her first non-heterosexual relationship. She was like, “We can’t tell anyone.” And we lived together. It was so stressful. And she broke up with me, which is not allowed. Um… Which… I thought I had made that clear. [chuckles] Um… It was a long, drawn-out break-up. Anyway, so at the point where this story takes place, I hadn’t seen her in a year and a half or had any contact. I was in London and I was doing a show, and I was feeling good that night. You know what I mean? Like, I had a fresh haircut. I was freshly shorn. You know the feeling? I was wearing a crisp black T-shirt and… [laughs] Crisper than this. I’m sorry about this. This is… crumpled. Crumplestiltskin over here. [laughing] Do you remember Rumpelstiltskin?
[crowd cheering]
What happened to him? He used to be everywhere. We used to always talk about him. When you’re a kid, Rumpelstiltskin this, Rumpelstiltskin… Now you never hear about him. I get it. It’s hard to stay relevant. You know? He’s, like, faded into obscurity. Anyway, so I’m feeling good on this particular night, feeling crisp. Feeling shorn, and, uh… And also my best friend Joe was with me that night. He was in the audience of my show. I love having Joe in the audience, he’s a generous laugher. He’s a real angel, like, my best, best friend. And, um, I do the show, it goes well. And I go to the green room afterwards. Out the green room door to meet Joe. And I’m… It was a good show. I’m like, “Hey, man. Fun show.” But he’s like green. Just all the color has left his face, and he just goes, “She’s here.” And I’m like, “Fuck.” I know exactly who he means right away, so I’m like, “Okay.” And he goes, “Look, she’s upstairs.” “She doesn’t know you’re in the building. She came to the bar to have a drink with some of our mutual friends.” He goes, “Let’s just sneak out the back.” “Let’s have a fun night. We’ll go to a different bar.” And I thought about it. And then I thought, “No.” “I don’t want to have a fun night.” So, I’m like, “No, we’ll go upstairs.” We go up, I’m feeling confident. I see, there she is with our mutual friends and, um… You guys would have been very proud of me. I walk over very cool. [laughs] What does that mean? I walk over… Uh… Um… No, I walk over feeling confident. And… I’m also… I have the element of surprise. She doesn’t know I’m in the building. I think this is gonna work in my favor. So I walk over, go, “Hey.” Our mutual friends, they all know how bad the breakup was by this point, so they see me coming. I go, “Hey, how’s it going?” She’s like, “Oh my God, hi.” She stands up. We hug. It’s really nice. I go, “Great to see you.” “Hey, I heard you got that part, that’s so great.” She’s like, “Yeah. Congrats on stuff.” And I’m like, “Yeah, great.” It’s going well, and I suddenly think, “You know what, I need to be the one to end this interaction.” Right? I need to retain control of the situation. Like, I need to… We talked for a while, and I go, “Listen, so good to see you…” She goes, “You want to sit down?” I’m, “No, no, I’m gonna hang with my friends at the bar, but it’s really nice to see you.” We hug again, she sits down. I’m walking to the bar and she’s still kinda casting glances over her shoulder as I walk to the bar. And, as I’m walking to the bar, I suddenly realize, “What friends at the bar?” There are no friends at the bar. Joe has sat down at her table. He’s a snake. He’s dead to me. I’m panicking ’cause she’s still kinda looking. And I’m walking to the bar. Thank God, at the last second, I see three girls who were in my show. They were in the front row of my show. So I’m approaching the bar, thank God, one of them goes, “Hey, great show tonight.” So I think… I think probably what she wanted out of that interaction, like, what she expected from that interaction, was kind of like, “Hey. Great show tonight.” “Oh, cheers, thanks for coming.” What she got was so intense. I was like, “Hi, how are you? What are all of your names and jobs?” So tactile as well. Weirdly tactile. Like my arm around all their shoulders, like my head on their shoulder. I’m like… Mm! [laughs] They’re like, “Whoa, okay. Uh…” We’re chatting. Then, thank God, we start chatting, it’s going well, we’re getting along. So I’m like, “Crisis averted.” They’re like, “You want a drink?” I’m like, “Yeah.” We’re having a drink and I suddenly feel a tap on my shoulder, and I look around and it’s my big ex. This time she has the element of surprise, because I wasn’t expecting it. She goes, “Hey, sorry to interrupt, I want to say bye, I’m leaving now.” I’m like, “Yeah, yeah.” And we hug. And she said something awful, like… Like… “I’m sure our paths will cross one day.” You know what I mean? Something like that, where all my organs dissolve. Get the plastic bag out. Oh God. Um… [laughs] And so we hug, and she’s leaving, she turns. She’s still kind of saying goodbye to some people here, and I turn back to my “friends,” and suddenly, like, I guess I just got overwhelmed. And the floodgates just open and I just start sobbing. So… No, my face like crumbles, my shoulders… I’m literally just like… [sobs] They’re like, “Oh my God, are you okay?” And I just go, “Laugh, laugh!” [sobs] “Laugh!” It was psychotic behavior. I’m literally like, “Fucking laugh. Ah!” [sobs] And they’re all like… “Ha-ha-ha-ha.” [laughs] [sighs] There’s no real punchline to that story, it’s just… a vignette, if you will. To illustrate the level of emotion I’m operating on. I mean… I have a lot of feelings. Do you guys have a lot of feelings?
[crowd whooping, clapping]
It’s exhausting, you know. I’m full to the absolute brim with feelings. I always visualize, um… like Campbell’s tomato soup. That it’s… You know what I mean? Campbell’s cream of tomato soup. And then I’m full to brim. Right to the top of my skull, just trying to keep it contained. Just trying to keep it from sloshing out of my orifices as I make my way through life. That’s how I feel about my feelings. All it takes is one person goes, “How are you?” And it’s like… fling! Like, it shoots out my ear. They’re like, “Oh God.” I’m like, “I’m sorry.” [sobbing] [sadly] “That’s not about you.” [chuckles] No, I’m all right. I got a therapist recently.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[crowd cheering]
Yeah, you have to, guys. You do. Like… Well, if you’re gonna complain as much as I complain, unfortunately, you do have to get one. Um… Yeah. I feel like my friends were starting to be like, “You should pay someone to do what you expect of us.” I was like, “Oh, okay.” I found this therapist and he’s really smart and we Zoom. And he said something interesting where he said, “Remember, you are not the feeling.” “Sure you feel consumed by the feeling, but you are not the feeling.” He said, “Within you, and within everyone, there’s a very still, neutral, eternal self.” “And you experience the feelings, but you’re not consumed by them.” He said, “Rather than identifying so much with the feeling, like, ‘I’m anxious, I’m this.'” He said, “Don’t be consumed by the feeling.” “Just observe the feelings as they come, with curiosity.” Have you heard that before? Apparently that’s the… So I think you’re just supposed to be like, “Huh.” “I’m experiencing rage.” “How curious.” “How curious.” [laughs] I had a really, um, weird thing where, during the pandemic… I spent the whole pandemic in London. I was just in my apartment, in the rain, in London for… years. [laughs] And, uh, I noticed an unexpected feeling bubbling up where I was, “Why do I feel embarrassed?” Like, I would wake up feeling embarrassed. And I was spending a lot of time, obviously, in my apartment. in my living room, and in my bedroom, specifically. And I was like, “Wait, okay, maybe it’s this.” Okay, stay with me. Don’t you think it’s kind of embarrassing that we’re adults and we still have rooms? Okay, stay, wait. That we’re like, “This is my room. Hm.” “This is my room.” “Don’t go in my room.” [laughs] It’s embarrassing. “I have to clean my room.” And, like, please. I, of course, accept and understand that we need rooms. You need four walls within which to lay your weary head each night. But I think what I find so embarrassing about it is, like, the way we decorate our rooms to reflect our individuality. And we’re like, “I’m me.” Right? “I’m myself in my room.” It’s so embarrassing. “I have one Himalayan salt lamp.” “Yes I do, and I’m me.” “I have my picture on the wall and I…” When you finish reading a book, you never get rid of it. You’re like, “I put it on the shelf in my…” “That is my personality on display for all to see.” [chuckles] “No one else is me.” And then I was thinking… Okay, this is a little abstract, but don’t you think, in a way, our brains and our minds are like our rooms, and we furnish our minds with experiences that we collect to then build what we think of as our identity and selves? And that’s all we’re doing. We’re little experience hunters, collecting these to put them on our brain shelves and be like, “I’m me.” And I always visualize every experience that we collect is like a little novelty snow globe. We’re just going around, being like, “One time I saw Antonio Banderas at the airport. Yes, I did.” “I’m myself. And no one else is me.” [laughs] And then all human interaction is, really… I really noticed this coming out of the pandemic. All interaction is just basically taking turns showing each other our snow globes. And being like, “I…” And just pathetically taking turns. And, like, someone will be showing you their snow globe, you know, and you’re trying to be a good listener. It’s a story about a party they went to five years ago. And you’re like, “Yes, and you are you as well.” Like, “Yes, exactly, yes.” “How wonderful to be yourself as well.” But the whole time, your eyes are darting to your own shelf. A hundred percent, the whole time… You’re like, “Mmm, yes. Well, no. Yes.” Waiting for your moment to be like, “And me as well. I have one…”
[laughs]
[crowd cheering]
Thank you. This is so exciting. You know what? I was thinking… Well, I watch a lot of stand-up specials. Then my friend’s special came out recently, and they put out the trailer. I was like, “Fuck, it’s so dynamic.” Like, she’s so physical onstage and doing… I was like, “I don’t really move much.” Like I’m very… Then I was like, “What if?” ‘Cause I really want my trailer to be dynamic. So, I was like, “What if I just…” I know in my head the things I want to see in my trailer. I just haven’t written the jokes that go with the movements. So I was like, “Maybe I just do the movements.” And then I put it in the trailer and it’s just, like… Just like this. That’s in the trailer, how good would that be? You’d be like, “I gotta watch that.”
[crowd cheering]
I should just have, like, a hundred trained dogs. They all come out on the stage like this. And they’re all on their hind legs jumping and then we just have it in the trailer and never in the show. [laughs] Um… Yeah, feelings. I got a lot of feelings. So… rage, embarrassment. These are some of the feelings. Um… Another feeling that I… It’s very dominant in my life, and I think a lot of people relate to this, it’s, like, nostalgia. I’m very nostalgic. You know? And I know that’s kind of a useless emotion, like I’m… I’m nostalgic for pre-pandemic times and we didn’t know how good we had it. I’m very nostalgic, really, for pre-puberty, if I’m being honest. That’s where it all went wrong. Like… Yeah, and my friends are like, “Oh, yeah. You missed the ’90s.” That’s so original. “Do you miss how all of our parents used to have a lot of rubber bands?” Do you remember how everyone had rubber bands? You’d find them around drawer handles and shit. There’d be a whole ball of them. What were they for? I have no rubber bands now. “Do you miss how all parents had one big conch shell in the bathroom?” I’m like, “Yes. Yes, I do miss that.” Yeah. And I miss the easier access to abortion and less populism.
Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah.
[crowd cheering]
I do feel, I think I’m someone who I never really got over puberty. Well, for a couple of reasons. I think puberty hit me like a ton of bricks, really. First of all, I’m exactly the demographic where, um, for me, puberty coincided almost exactly with the arrival of the Internet and the popularization of the Internet. I’m so lucky. I had, like, one to 13, kind of… It wasn’t around. And I remember the one computer in our classroom got the Internet. And overnight, the world just exploded, everything changed, it was like… We all got our first e-mail addresses. Mine was hot-mae-el@hotmail.com.
[audience laughter]
Thank you. Those were the days you could get the good email addresses. But it was like overnight the world went from being very manageable… Everything I needed to know was in just in one set of Encyclopedia Britannica’s in my parents’ basement. It was so relaxing. It was like a finite amount of facts. That was it. The nice, thin paper. You know what I mean? It was manageable. It wasn’t… Also, it was like objective truth. Like, no one was putting out the devil’s advocate set of encyclopedias. You know what I mean? Like, “Well…” “Are you sure Lima is the capital of Peru?” Um… [chuckles] And then overnight it was like… I was obsessed with it. I remember my friends at lunch being like, “We’re gonna go out and play at recess. Wanna come?” I’d be like, “No, there’s so much work to be done on the Internet.” “There’s so much going on.” I was like, “I have to copy and paste images of Buffy the Vampire Slayer into a Word document.” I then have to print that Word document. The paper will be sodden with ink. Just heavy with ink. Like… I have to cut those pictures out, and it’s going to be like cutting wet toilet paper. I then have to stick those pictures onto my homework diary. Like, I’m busy. I… I truly feel like I’ve been busy ever since. I’m exhausted. And another reason that I think puberty really hit me was, like… Okay, so, yeah. Regular puberty stuff, then the Internet arrives and the stuff that brings with it. And then for me, also, puberty triggered kind of a wild gender dysphoria and a gender thing.
You know what I mean?
[crowd] Yeah!
[laughs] Uh-huh? Dead silence. Um… No, but really, like, before puberty, I felt like I was this bounding, androgynous child, very confident, did a lot of Ace Ventura impersonations. And then suddenly puberty hit and my body’s changing, I felt very like… And this was the ’90s too. This was the era of girl bands and boy bands, right? This was the very pop-fueled binary. And I went to an all-girls school, which I just, like… The ubiquitous question, the question you needed to know an answer to at my school was which Spice Girl are you? And it was like, there’s only five possible answers. You needed to know. You’d be in the hall, and a group of girls would corner you, “Which one are you?” ‘Cause they’re organizing lip-syncs and stuff. They need to know, no judgment. They did need to know where you fit into the constellation. It was like, “Which one are you?” And I was like, “Justin Timberlake. I don’t know.” “Nick Carter?” Um… I think, regardless, if you experience gender stuff, puberty anyway is a fucking nightmare. Like, you feel like an alien, and everything that was cool about you just becomes worthless overnight. Like, okay, I had this trick. Okay, well, it’s a noise that I can make with my hand. And I swear, it was really popular. People loved when I did it, it killed at parties. I’m going to do it for you now. Uh… Okay, maybe some of you remember this. Um, okay, this is the noise. [high-pitched vibrating vocalizing of “The Lion Sleeps Tonight”] Do you remember that? Guys, I swear, it used to kill at parties. People would request it, they’d be like, “Do the noise.” I’d be like, “Okay.” I did it in a school assembly once. That was… That was too far, but, um… It was really cool, and then, all of a sudden puberty hit, suddenly I’m at a house party, I’m in a cupboard with a pimply 13-year-old boy who’s got a semi, and I’m like… [vocalizing “The Lion Sleeps Tonight”] And he’s like, “What the fuck?” He’s like, “I thought you were gonna give me a hand job.” I’m like, “No.” “I said… that I could do something cool with my hand.”
[cheering]
He leaves me alone in the cupboard. I’m there in the dark by myself, like… [vocalizing “Mad World”] Really mournful. [cheering] It’s hard to live at that age. It’s really… I mean… Don’t you think that the only way to flirt when you’re 13, the only acceptable way, is to go, “How big are your hands?” That’s… Don’t you think? Do you remember that? “How big are your hands?” I still kinda think that’s a great move to make physical contact with someone that you like. Except I was at my all-girls school, just sort of slightly getting it wrong. “Yeah, my hands are pretty massive.” “Yeah, yours are tiny, of course.” Going around the playground, being like, “Well, you know what they say.” “Big hands, massive labia.” [laughs] [exhales] But… So all that was going on, you know? And I think for everyone, at puberty, you do kind of… You develop critical thinking and suddenly, sort of, the hard facts of life are hitting you. I think if you’re, like, different in any way, like, if the dominant narrative that’s being told to you by everyone doesn’t match what you’re experiencing, know what I mean? Like, with gender, people being like, “There’s two. And you’re a woman and this is what it’s like.” And you’re like, “Okay.” But you’re experiencing something completely different. Then you kind of have two options. You can either question the validity of yourself and your experience or you can question the validity of everything else and the whole system. Once you start pulling that thread, you’re fucked. It’s like… Monogamy, you’re like… Can I bring two people to prom? Why not? I don’t get why not. And I really felt… And also, like… For me, I, um, I started doing comedy when I was 13 and I discovered… I got really into drugs, like psychedelic drugs. So that just exacerbated the general existential wave. Like I felt like I was peeling back the wallpaper on reality and I was seeing this very flimsy scaffolding holding everything up. I was just like, “What is going on?” You suddenly realize your parents are flawed, your teachers are, like, lonely or something. I remember being, “Mm, I think Ms. Buchanan’s lonely.” “I feel a huge amount of pressure to laugh at her jokes. And I don’t know.” Um… And yeah, I remember being really stressed by why don’t we, as a society, talk more about the fact that the movie Antz and the movie A Bug’s Life came out in the same year. Surely, powerful forces are at play here and we’re just not going to address it? Like what the… Um… Yeah. So, yeah, I was stressed and… And also, I think with drugs, it was a way to get out of my body. I was feeling very uncomfortable in my body and it was this trap door. And so I got heavily into drugs, and the bullet points are, I went from psychedelics into, like, the really bad ones. I got kicked out of my house. I dropped out of school. Fast-forward, I ended up in rehab. When I was 19, I went to a rehab day program for nine months. Uh… A rehab day program for teens, objectively, a bad idea. Well, in a way, right? Like, you get a group of teenagers together, all they have in common is they love doing drugs. Every day, at 3:00 p.m., the bell goes and they’re like, “Off you go with your new friends.” “Run along. Bond in the alleyways.” “The only way you know how.” [laughs] Um, but it was very eye-opening for me. It was a big turning point because I got into this program and there were 12 other kids in there. I was suddenly like, “Oh, fuck.” These kids have come from actually difficult lives, and difficult family situations. Like who am I? You know? I’m this privileged, middle-class kid. What am I rebelling against, really? But I needed to be there, and it was good. I wanted to fit in with all these kids. They’d been there a while, they were all really bonded. And they had nicknames for each other. I’ve never had a nickname and I wanted to be in on it. I was very excited because after like two months in the program, I came in one morning and one of the guys goes, “Yo, Bath Water, what’s up?” I was like, “Bath Water?” And they all start calling me Bath Water. Then the teacher starts calling me… It catches on. The teachers are, “Good morning, Bath Water.” I’m like, “What is happening?” But I get into it. I don’t want to admit that I don’t know why they’re calling me Bath Water. I’m like, “Yup. Not much. All good.” Yeah. And then finally, I get comfortable enough with them and we all get close. I’m like, “Guys, I’ve been meaning to ask you for months.” “Why do you call me, Bath Water?” And they said, “Oh, it’s because when you arrived, we all had a conversation and decided you look like the type of kid who would drink their own bath water.” It’s… so specific. So insulting. And creative, yes. Drink their own… I mean, look, I’ve drunk some bath water in my time. Sure. Haven’t we all? I mean, not like with… [glugs] [laughs] With a straw. Just… No, but, like, we all… We’ve all drunk some, haven’t we? Okay, wait. Do you remember bath time? Remember bath time? Did you ever, um, in bath time, take your wet flannel… Do you call it a flannel or a facecloth? Flannel? Yeah. Canada, yeah. [laughs] Did you ever take your wet flannel and lie it on your face, and breathe through it? And then you suddenly feel like you’re waterboarding yourself? You’re like, “Oh no, God!” Or did you ever suck the water out of your flannel? Right? It feels so squeaky on your… What a feeling. Bath time. You know what I mean? Know what I miss most? I’ll move on from bath time, but I will just quickly say what I miss most about bath time is just once a day, somebody going, “Uh, it’s bath time.” How good is that? I feel like we don’t appreciate it when we’re young, but imagine you’re on a shitty Tinder date, and the waiter comes over, they’re like, “I’m so sorry to interrupt. Um, it is bath time for you.” You’re like… You’d be out of there.
[crowd cheering]
Youth is wasted on the young. You know? Youth is wasted on the young. Um… Yeah, so that’s… Yeah. I think the reason that I obsess over my teens, and I’m constantly processing it, is that I feel like a completely different person now. And I did have this kind of chaotic adolescence, and it was really dark, like it was crazy. Now I feel truly like a completely different person. Like, I’m very risk averse now. You… Yeah. You should see me on an escalator, it’s insane. I hold so tight to the railing. I’m very like… [chuckles] As the thing’s approaching, “Oh my God.” I’m like, “One, two, three, go.” Waiting for my moment. [nervous laugh] If I’m not ready and it’s coming, I’m walking backwards. I’m going, “Okay…” “One, two…” [chuckling] Yeah. Yeah. But I do still… I feel different. I do, I guess, still get that self-destructive feeling. Like, that pressure building up. I feel like we all kind of sometimes have those impulses and you have to find the healthy way to deal with those feelings. Um, I do a lot of escape rooms. I’m always escaping a room. Constantly. Um… Like, I was on tour recently and touring is intense. Also, I tour by myself. I don’t usually have an opening act, or a tour manager, or whatever. I just travel by myself. I have these long days in these random cities in the UK. And I was doing a show in Edinburgh. I was Scotland, in Edinburgh, by myself for the day, and I was having the feeling of pressure building up. You know what I mean? And, like, I had just seen Trainspotting, so I was like, “We’re in the danger zone.” And, uh, I said, “What should I do?” So I go online and I found the Edinburgh dungeons were open. That’s kind of like the London dungeons, where it’s like this horror, immersive horror experience, where actors dress up like Victorians and scare you. And you walk through a maze of hell. So I was like, “Great.” Um… And I got the VIP package as well, which is just you pay 20 extra bucks and all it meant was, when I arrived, they take a picture of you in front of a green screen. And then they give you a key and they project a graveyard and give you the keychain of the… That was when I was like, “Oh. This is something you should do with friends.” [laughs] Friends or loved ones. I do now have a keychain that’s just… So, I go down and it’s me and this group of strangers and we’re going to go together as a group through this horror maze. It’s tourists and families, there’s like ten of us. We’re about to go through it, and this guy comes out, and he’s dressed like a kind of Victorian butcher. He’s covered in blood and he’s got a big butcher’s knife, big beard, Scottish guy, and he goes, “I’m the butcher!” I can’t do the accent very well. He’s like, “Welcome to the Edinburgh dungeons, we’re gonna fucking kill you.” And I’m like, “Yes!” “Yes, I’ve been praying for death!” Um… Then he goes, “But first, I do have a few safety announcements. Um…” “If you are pregnant or you do have epilepsy, don’t go in the dungeon.” Uh… I’m like, “Okay.” Then he said, “At no point will any of the actors in the dungeon touch you or grab you.” So I was like, “That’s good.” Right? Nobody wants to be grabbed in the dunge. So I was like, “Sweet.” Um… So we start going through and guys, it’s so scary. Like it’s just… I’m quaking with fear. I’m with these strangers going through. They do this thing where they love to turn off all the lights, pitch-black. And then when they come back on, there’s a woman standing an inch from your face and being like… [growls] It’s so scary, but I’m loving it. I’m like, “Ah.” There’s sort of a narrative arc where, at the very beginning, the butcher was like, “You’re gonna meet the legendary cannibal Sawney Bean.” Does anybody know Sawney Bean? Legendary cannibal, apparently, and… We’re like, “We don’t want to meet him. We’re frightened.” He’s like, “Oh no. He’s going to love you guys.” We know it’s building to something. And we get to this part where there’s a sort of boat underground, we’re in the bowels of Edinburgh, right? And there’s a boat on a track and we all get in it. And we can hear Sawney Bean in the darkness, toward where we’re headed, going, “I’m Sawney Bean.” We’re like, “No!” The butcher goes, “Okay, guys, you’re on your own now. I’m leaving you.” We’re like “No, wait. We’ve learned to love you, we need you.” He’s like “Fuck you, guys” and he leaves. Now it’s me and my group and we’re in the little boat. The lights go off and it’s pitch-black. You can’t see your hand in front of your face, it’s so dark, and it’s damp and it’s cold. We can hear, “I’m Sawney Bean.” And I’m freaking out. Then I feel these hands on my back. Going up my back, and kind of coming around my neck. And I’m freaking out because I’m remembering they’re not allowed to touch you in the dunge. Right? I’m like, “What’s happening?” The lights come back, I spin round, and there’s just this middle-aged woman who’s part of our group. And she just goes… [spookily] “Ooh!” It was… insane. “Ooh-hoo-ooh.” And she was with her two teenaged daughters who are sitting on either side of her. They’re like, “Mom, what the fuck are you doing?” She’s like, “Ooh.” I think about her all the time. She’s like the mailman. She’s a hero, you know. A hero to us all. [laughs] But, yeah, I do things like that to, you know, to feel alive and, um… Yeah, I try to be very vigilant about my brain because I have a lot of shame about my teens. I behaved very badly. You know? I was very self-destructive and I… The weird thing is I was so angry, I was really angry. And, uh… The weird thing is since, like, 2016… I remember when Trump got elected. I was like, “So we can’t deny anymore that the world is slightly off its axis.” It’s a little fucked, right? We have so much information available to us now, it’s hard to deny the system doesn’t work for everyone. Like, billionaires don’t pay taxes and all the stuff we know. So I’m like, “Okay, in a way, my anger was valid.” I think a lot of teenagers feel this righteous indignation and stuff. But the method of my rebellion was garbage. Like, it was so self-destructive and self-involved. You know, it was impotent, ultimately. I got this tattoo when I was 16. It says, “Oatmeal.” Um… It says, “Oatmeal,” twice. I remember being like, “Fuck the man, you know.” Like, what? [chuckles] So that’s there for good. Uh…
[scattered cheers]
I… I remember feeling like… I felt like the world was a house that had been sold to me at a very young age when I was too young to be signing mortgages. A house that was sold to me by a really shady realtor. Like, a kind of greasy, with a… A doggy-style baby realtor. [grumbling] “Sign here, kid.” And I’m like, “Okay.” “All your dreams will come true.” I sign it, suddenly I’m in this house. You develop critical thinking. You wake up in the house in your teens. You’re like, “Wait.” Hang on, the foundations of the house are rotten, the backyard’s on fire ’cause the previous owners kept heating it with fossil fuels exclusively. So my reaction was, I thought, “All right, I’ll just bulldoze the house with myself in it.” And of course, now I realize what I should have done is put any amount of energy into fixing the house, right? That’s what we need to do is… That’s hopefully what we’re trying to do. We have to, right? Put some energy into making the house a nicer place to live.
‘Cause it won’t do it… Yeah.
[crowd cheering]
I do feel we have to consciously do it. Or else it won’t happen. You know? Um… And that’s why I am really… I love… I feel like Gen Z is incredible. I don’t believe that they’re just on TikTok. I think they’re wicked. They’re out there. They’re doing stuff. You know, protesting climate change and dismantling rigid gender binaries. What was I doing? I was slithering around being like, “Does anyone have any acid?” [laughs awkwardly] Just like useless behavior. And they’re wicked. I want to talk about… I want to talk about, like, the gender thing for a sec. So…
[crowd cheering]
Just because I’ve been in the UK, and now I’m in the States, and in both places there’s a real hysteria right now around gender and gender identity. And I think part of it comes from this misconception that it’s a recent Gen Z fad. Or a millennial fad, right? To have this fluidity around gender, it’s like… Of course… As long as there’s been human civilization, we know, right, there’s been variances in gender. There’s been different cultures that recognize third and fourth genders. Not just recognize, revere. Like I could have been revered. I could have been revered. It sucks. And instead I’m like, “Which bathroom am I allowed to use, please?” Um… And really it is a recent colonial fad to have this very rigid gender binary. It’s really like we just went around the world bulldozing over the nuances of all these beautiful things. Um… In the UK, where I’ve been living, I remember in 2018, India decriminalized homosexuality, and it was great. Like, big celebration, really exciting, but it was really frustrating ’cause the coverage of it on the news in the UK was so smug. It was like, “It’s about time, India.” And it’s like, England went into India and criminalized homosexuality in 1896. Like, it’s… It’s the ultimate gaslighting. It’s like lighting someone’s house on fire and being like, “It’s really awkward how long it’s taking out to put that out.” “It’s so embarrassing.”
[crowd cheering]
Yeah. Thanks. Um… Yeah. And the annoying thing is I don’t really want to talk about gender because it’s kind of lose-lose, right? Especially if it’s something that personally affects you and you care about then it’s hard to debate. You get emotional, you’ve already lost. ‘Cause you’re like… [frustrated whimpering] Like, it’s hard, but I feel like I should talk about it because everyone else is. Like, comedians. Big multimillionaire comedians, in their stand-up specials are, like, taking shots and punching down at a time when trans rights are so tenuous, and slipping backwards, it’s just not…
Yeah. And, uh…
[applause]
No, no, no. But I feel… You’re like, “Yeah, they’re slipping backwards, yeah.” No, just kidding. I’m suddenly like, “Oh, fuck.” [Mae laughs] The thing… And I watch those specials so I can be informed when I’m asked in every interview to talk about those guys’ specials. But, like, the thing that kept coming up was, “Gender’s a fact.” That was the refrain of one, “Gender’s a fact.” Then they cut to the audience. “Aw, yeah.” They’re loving it. And it’s like, um… I feel like I’m kind of preaching to the choir a little here, but just to quickly say… Of course, biological sex is real. It’s a thing. Within that, there’s tons of variation, it’s very much like… Scientifically, it’s not as binary as we think. There’s intersex people, there’s hormonal variation, all kinds of stuff. But, yeah, for sure, biological sex, no one denies is real, but gender is so much more ephemeral and much more what to do with what’s in here and in here. Very much like, you know, a social construct. And more fluid. And the way I explain it to people who are trying to understand the difference between biological sex and gender is I picture the gender spectrum. You know the movie Beauty and the Beast? Okay. So imagine if at one end of the gender spectrum, you have Gaston. You remember him? He’s like, “No one fights like…” Hot. He’s hot. He’s like extreme masculinity. On the other end of the spectrum you have Belle, who has Stockholm Syndrome. So dark, but, um… But, guys, she’s still an excellent role model because she can read. She loves a book. You got to hand it to her. Um… And then in the middle of the spectrum, you have the candlestick, right? You have Lumière. And I really relate to Lumière. I connect with Lumière. And obviously the more we empower Lumière, the more fun Gaston and Belle are gonna have. Lumière’s throwing parties. They’re like, “Be my guest!” Yeah. I have this fantasy. I have this fantasy that like… It’s a really clear image in my head of… You got Dave Chappelle, Ricky Gervais, Louis C.K. Throw Joe Rogan in there. And they’re eating a hog roast. In this fantasy, it’s a huge hog, and they’re ripping the flesh off it. [chomping sounds] They’re drinking goblets of mead. That medieval drink. They’re throwing their money. And then they turn the TV on and they see me doing my little Beauty and the Beast gender… Just like… “And the candlestick.” And they’re watching it, and are like, “Oh my God, we… Guys.” “We were wrong.” “Oh.”
And then they just…
[crowd cheering]
That’s my fantasy. Then they just like… You know what I want? I want them to… I want them to cradle each other. I want them to hold each other gently, and just gently rock. I want them to re-parent themselves, basically. Just give a little… That. ‘Cause I do understand too. I get it. It’s hard to learn new language. You know? Although, is it? Like… Omicron, you know? We picked that up pretty fast. Um… But the… The joke I always hear, and this has been a joke… This was hack in the ’90s, this joke. It’s come back with a vengeance on the stand-up circuit. It’s like, “Well, like, I identify as a cactus.” Or, “I identify as a lamp post,” or this inanimate object. And it’s like… Um, yeah, I’m non-binary, which is under the banner of trans identity. In that like the sex I was assigned at birth doesn’t feel like it fit. [giggles awkwardly] Um… And, uh… But it’s like, I don’t want to necessarily identify as non-binary or trans, I just am that, I just am. And to say otherwise would be bizarre. It would be like doing a violence to myself. That’s what it would feel like. It would be like the hot tomato soup thing, times a hundred, just full of tomato soup. It’s tricky because it’s like… You just have to take my word for it that I know who I am. It’s so hard saying that to people. It’s like, I just… You just have to take my word for it. I am certain of it. And it’s like… I may not be certain if a Toyota Tercel can fit under a moose. Very unsure. But I do know this. Also, you don’t have to understand it even. You know what I mean? Like, I do not understand Wi-Fi. How does it work? What is it? But I know that it’s real. I know it exists among us.
I just accept that it’s there, whatever.
[crowd cheering]
I don’t let it keep me up at night. I’m not like… Yeah. Um… Yeah, so I had top surgery last December and I’m on a low dose of testosterone for this past year. And it’s been the best year of my life. Genuinely. And I’m 35 years old. This has been the best year of my life.
Yeah.
[crowd cheering]
Thanks. Um… And it’s like… What’s weird is, like, I’m not that happy. I’m not skipping around. It’s truly just the absence of agony. That’s all it is. And that’s a low bar, and who are we to deny anybody that? The absence of agony, yeah. That’s going to be my… [laughs] That’s going to be my album title. Um… Yeah, okay. And also, I’m really just so grateful to have the language now. Right? Growing up I didn’t have that language. But I always felt this way and I remember being… You know when you’re four or five and your parents tell the story of your birth? You know? And… I feel like my parents… It sounds like they were always talking about my conception and my birth. I swear we had normal conversations as well. But I remember my dad telling me, “Your mother went into labor, we went to the hospital.” He was saying, “Maybe you’ll have your own kids one day.” And I’m imagining having my own kids. In my fantasy of having children, I was never the one having the kids. It was a really specific fantasy where I was this 1950s businessman father, just like pacing the halls of the hospital. Smoking. Just… Really like a very 101 Dalmatians vibe. Then some nurse would be like, “It’s a boy.” And I’d be like, “Cheers, gentlemen.” “I’ll name it Buster.” “Send it down the mines.” Um, yeah. Okay, we’re almost at the end. I have one more thing to tell you. I’m gonna get my mic stand. If I… Yeah, imagine if I lost it? So, I feel like… And by the way, thank you so much. This has been really… You’ve been amazing.
[crowd cheering]
I feel like we’ve been through, like… In terms of our worldview, we’ve been through pessimism and optimism. And I really want to end on a positive note. So I want to tell you this Buddhist parable that I love. Um, this is… Stay with me. So… I love this story. Um… And then I’m gonna go. It takes place in the forest, actually. We’re back in the forest. And, basically, in this parable, this man is being chased, pursued through the forest by what I can only describe as a beast from hell. Like, a really terrifying creature with a lion’s jaws and this monstrous body. Its nature is pure hunger. It wants to devour this man, and it’s been chasing him for days, and he’s been running. And he’s starting to get exhausted. At some point, he’s going to succumb to the beast. Just when he thinks he’s gonna pass out and the beast is gonna get him, he sees this little stone well in the middle of the forest, little circular well. He’s like, “I’ll hide in the well from the beast.” He jumps in. Sure enough, the beast doesn’t follow him It stops at the top and is like… [growls] He’s like, “Great.” He’s falling down the well, and as he’s falling, he feels water splashing up onto his feet. He’s like, “That’s weird.” And he looks down. And below him, where he’s headed, the water is churning wildly, and he realizes… What’s at the bottom of the well? Another beast. Yeah. It’s a double beast situash. Bad. Bad news. Beast at the top, beast below. [growls] Like that. And, at the last second, he sees this branch growing out of the side of the well, like a gnarly branch. So he grabs onto it and he uses his last remaining strength to maneuver himself up onto this branch. And his muscles are quivering. But he’s like, “I made it.” The beast is there, the beast below. And the branch is creaking under his weight, like, this is not a permanent solution. Right? At some point, the branch is going to give out. And he’s sweating… he’s sweating in that crease here. You know? If you’re sweating in that crease, you are in trouble. And suddenly he looks to the end of the branch and he sees something glistening on the end. He’s like, “What is that?” And so he balances and he reaches out with one finger to the end of the branch, and he gets it on his finger. It’s golden, glistening tree sap. It’s tree sap. And he puts it in his mouth and he’s like, “Is that? That’s delicious.” Guys, it’s positive. Wait. That’s… That’s it. No. Hello? [laughs] Okay. Okay. Uh… Trust me, I find it very positive. You got to get on board. Please. I’ve called the show SAP. You truly must get on board. Like, this was not cheap.
[crowd cheering]
No, but I really do find it positive because it’s, like, look. Life might be a double beast situash. That might be just what life… In a way, is it not? Know what I mean? But luckily there’s so much sap, and we have to just to take the time, it’s worth it to enjoy the sap, and cultivate it where we can. And luckily there’s an abundance of sap, I think. Like everywhere you look, if you look hard. You got dogs. Every dog on this Earth. Like a good pair of jeans. That’s sap. That can be sap. The Beatles, for me, are sap. Um… Your friends. The TV show Friends. No, like having friends. Um, sex is good. Sex with your friends is pretty good. Um… Scaring people, “Ooh.” Yeah, if that’s… I like campfires, roasting marshmallows, the song “Bennie and the Jets” by Elton John. Um… Yeah, hugs and sparklers, Christmas lights, all those things are fully sap. All those things can be sap. And genuinely, this may be corny, but truly, this is sap for me. Doing this makes me so happy and it’s sap for me. And I’m so grateful to you all for coming.
[crowd cheering]
Thank you so much.
[continue cheering]
[continue cheering]
[man clapping]
Thank you so much. Thank you very much. Oh, fuck. [sniffles] [sobbing] Oh my God. Oh my God. Are… Wait. Are you crying? Yeah, I mean, it was all just so sad. [sobbing] It was supposed to be funny.
No, it wasn’t.
Yeah, it was. The whole thing. Really? [sighs] Guess you and I just have different senses of humor. Well, thank you for listening anyway. [sniffs] It’s good to get that stuff off my chest. No, it’s… It’s me. I’m me. You are you. It’s wonderful.
Well, should we get started?
Yeah.
[grunts]
[Mae sighs]
Are you excited?
Yeah, I’m a little nervous. I’m excited. Nervous is normal. This is a bit heavy. The Buchanan’s got a lot of mail this season.
Oh, really? Popular?
You’re gonna love this.
Okay.
All right. Shovels.
Yeah.
Yeah? Ooh.
[both laugh]
[pensive music playing]
I’m so happy you came.
[Mae] Yeah, thanks for having me. I can’t believe it was supposed to be funny.
Yeah, well…
That’s crazy. Parts were poignant, I guess. But…
Yeah. All right, so here we go.
Okay. Let’s get a little hole going here. There you go. Get in there. You’re gonna love this, Mae.
Over-the-shoulder?
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, ready.
One, two, three. Yeah!
Feels good, huh?
[Mae laughs] Sick. Should we…?
[man] Yeah, grab some mail.
What do you… What do you usually? Is this one fine?
[both continue indistinctly]
