Marc Maron’s HBO special Panicked, directed by Steven Feinartz and filmed at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, marks a transitional moment in the comedian’s career. Though recorded before he announced the end of his long-running podcast WTF With Marc Maron, the looming finale adds emotional weight to the special. As usual, Maron leans into his signature themes: neurosis, aging, politics, and grief, laced with sharp wit and unfiltered honesty.
He opens with politically charged material, poking fun at Trump supporters and fellow podcasters, notably taking a pointed jab at Theo Von. But Panicked is most impactful when Maron shifts to personal stories—like evacuating during the LA wildfires with his cats or dealing with his father’s dementia. These moments balance dark humor with vulnerability, showing Maron’s strength as a storyteller.
Less focused on grief than his previous special, From Bleak to Dark, Panicked still touches on loss and anxiety. Maron admits to “intrusive catastrophic thinking” and jokes that he can’t distinguish happiness from good coffee. As he moves away from podcasting into acting, Panicked isn’t a grand statement—but a thoughtful, funny, and candid reflection on a man coming to terms with change.
Aired on August 1, 2025 on HBO, streaming on Max.
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Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So, uh, I’m great. Um… everything is great. You know, I was a skeptic at first when he said he was gonna make everything great again, but, wow, I had no idea just how great it was gonna be. I mean, every day it’s like, how much greater can this get? It’s just gonna keep getting greater with this sociopathic huckster clown king and his buddies, the autistic billionaire techno fascist. And somehow or another, he managed to find an actual Jewish Nazi for deputy chief of staff. Guy’s really got an eye for talent. [chuckles] And his supporters. I mean, just this army of shills and stooges and grifters, collaborators, unfuckable hate nerds. [chuckles] White nationalists, crypto dorks, wackjob Christian fascists. Yeah, you know, and then there’s just about, like, 50 million people who decided, I just like the guy! And I actually hate them more than the rest of them, to be honest with you.
[cheers and applause]
I don’t like the single issue Republican voters either, you know, ’cause I figure in for a penny, in for a reichsmark, you know? And I have peers, you know, people in my business who were single issue Republican voters, and their issue was, you know, twofold. I mean, they were anti-woke, you know, against any policy or language that could help the vulnerable get a leg up, and God knows that makes sense. So but they also were very worried about their free speech. They didn’t want their free speech to be infringed upon, which it never was. I mean, they’d say things, and there’d be cultural pushback, and they were like, “That shouldn’t be allowed.” But, ultimately, all they really wanted was to be able to say the R word with impunity. That was why they voted. But along with that, you know, comes the collapse of the federal government, the destabilization of the global economy, tens of thousands of people being deported to places they might not have even come from, the actual suppression of speech and rights of LGBTQ people and women, and the rise of authoritarianism, and sometimes I feel like asking them, “Was it worth it, you fucking retard?”
[cheers and applause]
And I guess some of them would be like, “Yeah, it was, ’cause now on our podcast, we can bravely speak power to truth.” Now that truth can no longer defend itself. We have to deal with the shittiest Kennedy. I mean, arguably, all the Kennedys have been flawed, but this guy is definitely the shittiest Kennedy. And now we’re gonna hear questions we haven’t heard in a long time like, “Oh, shit, bro, you got polio?” That sucks, dog. Well, you know Tesla is making an iron lung now. They’re a little clunky looking, but they’re bulletproof, and they come with a trailer hitch so you can still go out with us. ‘Cause we’re not wearing masks in the car, dog. Other questions we’ll probably hear. Maybe something like, “Hey, how was Paris?” I don’t know, I think it was better before it was Russia. Really long baguette lines.
[applause]
And look, I don’t know what to do really. I have no solutions, but, I mean, so much is happening, it’s hard to even know what to protest against. I guess you could just make a sign that says, “Please just stop. This is crazy.” And maybe you can bold, like, stop and crazy and then do your little artwork around it. You know, make it your own. It’ll work. I don’t know what to do. I’ve asked people, you know, “What should we do?” And I had a friend of mine say, “Well, you just have to be “a decent person, “treat other people with respect, and live your life with purpose and meaning.” And then I’m like, “No, fuck, uh…”
What gives my life meaning? Well, I guess errands. You know, errands. Like, if I got a few good errands a day, I’m pretty good with the purpose and meaning. Some people are boycotting Target. They’re boycotting Tesla. They’re boycotting Amazon. Yeah, good luck with that one. Try to run an errand if you’re boycotting Amazon. Out there in the brick and mortar world, that could take weeks. You might have to go all the way to China for your air fryer. I was out there in that world, and I decided to go out and, you know, buy a vacuum, you know, with purpose and meaning. I bought one, and I brought it home, and I just– right on the side of it, I etched, “This vacuum kills fascists.”
So I’m doing my part. I think some of you didn’t get that reference, and also some of you are probably kind of still not over the fact that I actually said the R word. I know my audience. I’ll get, like, probably two emails tomorrow. I know you think it’s OK to say that word in satire, but it’s still a hurtful word. Yeah, I get it. I understand. Progressives have really got to figure out how to deal with this buzzkill problem. I know these are important issues, but you do realize we annoyed the average American into fascism. You do realize that.
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No one can ruin a barbecue quicker than a liberal. [chuckles] So you want something from the grill? What about the genocide? Well, this cookout is a benefit for the victims of the genocide. OK, do you have veggie burgers? No, we don’t. Do you want a hamburger? I can’t eat murder. OK, so go over to the salad table, have some hummus. I don’t know. It’s hard to– it’s interesting, though, about, you know, being lefty or progressive or whatever. You know, we’re all good people, and we lock into these things. There’s no real unity. There’s never been an actual American left that functioned in a unified way. You just lock into these little issues that you put your whole life into, and it makes you feel better, and it’s not nothing. You know, it’s proactive. I’m not saying it isn’t. But I–look, I know what the sort of liberal conundrum is. ‘Cause, OK, so recently I started using this soy milk. OK? And it’s kind of retro, you know, soy milk, but, you know, I’m plant-based now, and, you know, I need it for protein. So I locked into some old-school soy milk, you know, the Edensoy in the box. And I was so excited about, you know, getting that stuff. I’m like, “It’s well-sourced.” I’m very– I’m enjoying Edensoy soy milk. And I talk about this on the show, and the next day, you know, of course, I get an email, and it says, “You might want to rethink Edensoy.”
And there’s a link, and that can go anywhere. A link on an–you know, from an email you don’t know, that could either bankrupt you or you lose your identity, or you could go down a rabbit hole that will make you crazy for the rest of your life. But I’m like– I fucking opened it, so… So I opened it, and there was an article and it basically says that, you know, Edensoy, you know, it’s an old company. It’s a well-sourced company, but they’re kind of religious. They’re pro-life. So now I’m in that situation where it’s sort of the liberal conundrum of, like, oh, fuck. You know, like, I really like this stuff, you know? And then you kind of keep going with it like, “Well, is it really gonna make a difference if I don’t use it?”
You know? And that went on for a few hours, but, uh– but I’m still using it. But I don’t enjoy it anymore, and I think that’s really a progressive victory. And, look, I know, you know, we’re, you know, sensitive and angry people and a bit self-righteous. We’re flawed. We’re frankly broken. And– but we broke left, you know? So at least we’re not hateful douchebags. It’s a room full of empathy whores. You know? Like, can I help? Is there anything I can do to help? No, we’re good. But I want to help. Just let me help. I have other issues. We all have issues. And, you know, I have, you know, mental things, problems that I should deal with, and I don’t know really what to deal with. ‘Cause, people, my brain’s just going all the time, and people say, “Well, you have to rest your mind.” And I’m like, “I don’t even understand what you just said. I don’t even know what that means.” If my brain rests for even three seconds, some other part of my brain goes, “You want me to open the worry folder? “Got a big list here. Let’s do it. What do you want to think about all day long?” I have intrusive catastrophic thinking. That’s my problem. But I’m not sure it’s a problem. I’m not sure it’s not reasonable. But I have, like– there’s an argument to be made that if you think the worst is gonna happen, anything shy of that is a victory. But to what end? You know? I’m exhausted. I’m tired of it. I can’t control it anymore. Like, here’s a good example. Like, I could right now, if you gave me 30 seconds, think, like, oh, did I leave the drawstring down for my blinds so my cat Charlie can hang himself? I’m thinking about it right now. Right now it’s happening. And I can lock into that for hours. If my girlfriend doesn’t text me back, like, within 15 minutes of me texting, I’m like, “Well, she’s dead in a car. Now what am I gonna do with her dog?”
All right, so… I think it’s some sort of survival mechanism. ‘Cause when the world is really as frightening as it is on all levels, I think my brain is like, “Well, “if we use our imagination, we can make your life pretty scary and miserable. Why don’t we do that?” That’ll counter it. Good idea. I’ve gotten into this habit where I get on an airplane. I get on an airplane, and I’m relatively afraid of flying, but I have to do it a lot, but now it’s kind of even more scary because they fired all the controllers now. So now when you get on a plane, you just picture one guy in there going, “I can’t do this myself. “This is crazy. Where is everybody? “Get me a coffee. “I can’t take my eyes off the screen. It’s busy. It’s very busy.” But for some reason, I’ve gotten into this habit where I’ll get on a plane and I’ll just look around at the people sitting around me, and then I picture the plane falling out of the sky, just spiraling down. You know, people are crying. They’re throwing up. Some people are praying. The masks are dangling. Blue water from the toilet is swirling around everywhere. And once I get through that, I’m like, “OK, I’m ready to take off.” You know, I get– But what am I preparing for? I mean, what if the worst did happen and it was crashing? Would I be like, “I kind of saw this coming, and I knew you’d be the crying guy. I knew you’d be the crying guy.” And I don’t know if it’s normal. I don’t. My problem with having the kind of brain I have is that, like, I don’t know if that’s where all my creativity comes from. I don’t know if all I’m doing is mining for gold in a river of panic. I don’t know if that’s the nature of my creativity. ‘Cause I’m sort of exhausted by it all, and I decided I would, you know, see a psychiatrist, and I went in for the full treatment. I didn’t do it on Zoom. I wanted to be on a couch with a guy in a chair that I could judge for an hour. And I’m a little weird about medication. There’s something about taking, you know, an SSRI that kind of bothers me. Now, I know they work for people, and people always tell me, you know, “Don’t put down SSRIs.” I’m not. I’m just talking about me.
Am I–it’s a weird– here’s an analogy about how I feel about those kind of medications. So I have a cat, Charlie, and Charlie’s got problems. When I go away, Charlie will shit all over the house, I believe at me, and he’ll beat up on the other cats. It’s not just shit. I mean, he– diarrhea all over the house when I leave. So coming home, it’s an actual shit show. And all the other cats are hissing at each other. It’s a nightmare. So I finally called the vet, and I was like, “You know, he’s shitting all over the house. He’s beating up on the other cats when I’m gone.” And she goes, “Well, he has separation anxiety, and that’s separation anxiety induced colitis.” And I’m like, “OK, so what do I do?” And she goes, “Well, generally we’ll prescribe Prozac for cats that have that.” And I said, “I don’t know. I don’t know if I’m comfortable with that.” She’s like, “What are you talking about? “He’s shitting all over the house, and he’s beating up on the other cats.” And I’m like, “Yeah, but I want him to be his authentic self. “You know, like, I don’t want to diminish his personality.” So needless to say, I’m looking forward to getting home tomorrow. But I did go to the psychiatrist, and I did tell him what was going on, and he said, “Well, you’re not depressed.” I’m like, “I know that.” And he says, “You have obsessional anxiety.” And the weird thing about anxiety and depression is I thought I was depressed in my life, but then I realized that if you’re really anxious, eventually there’s an arc to it. Your anxiety will exhaust you, and your brain will be like, “Well, let’s just be sad.” [chuckles] That’s like the comfort zone at the end of the arc of anxiety. But he says I have obsessional anxiety. I told him I didn’t want to be on an SSRI. He goes, “Well, there’s another medication they have, but it generally doesn’t work for people.” And I said, “That sounds perfect for me. “That’s really– That sounds like the medicine I need to be on.”
And just to report in, it’s not working. Now, look, I know the world we’re living in, and I know it’s difficult and it’s scary to those of us who are reasonable and rational, and there’s part of me, and this was kind of a revelation I had a few weeks ago. I said to myself, “Marc, why don’t you just be entertaining? People need entertainment.” And this was new to me. I don’t think that I ever got into this to be entertaining. I just don’t think that was my plan. I think I had things I wanted to say, and if I said them here, people would laugh at them and I’d realize, OK, I’m not alone, and it’s working out. But then I realized, like, well, you know, you’ve been doing this a long time. Why don’t you just, you know, try to be entertaining? People at this time could use some entertainment. OK. Now, look, you know me. I’m not an arena act. I turn them down all the time. I think I could do one arena if it were centrally located somewhere in the country, and I could just bus my fans in. You know, buses for Maron show, leaving out of Whole Foods parking lots in these cities. I’m not a casino act because I don’t go to casinos. I find them, you know, disgusting and annoying. It’s a job I could do. It’s available to me. But I don’t think any of my fans would be in Vegas on purpose.
[applause]
I think if you’re my fan and you’re in Vegas, you’re probably walking around saying something like, “Why the fuck did Jenny have to have it here?” You know? And I think if you were my biggest fan and you saw a poster of me in the casino in Vegas, “Marc Maron tonight in the showroom,” even if you were my biggest fan, you’d say, “Oh, that’s a lot. “You know, I love him, but I think “he’s coming to that place near us. “You know, we’re just starting to get the hang of Vegas, you know?” And I understand. I understand. But the entertainment thing, I really believe that we do need entertainment. And I think it can be, you know, lighthearted and fun, and so I’m gonna try to do that now.
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Yeah.
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OK, so we had these big fires in Los Angeles. They were big. They were a scary time. Big fires, like huge ones. Two big ones and a lot of little ones popping up. It was a traumatic, fucked up time. And everybody got this app. I think it’s called Watch Duty. And it was this app where you could see fires popping up in real time. So everybody in the Los Angeles area was refreshing the app every three minutes, and you just see these little fires. None of them were controllable. It was fucking crazy. And I didn’t really understand the app. There was a lot of colors, a lot of different shades of colors. There was like a red that was fire, a red that was almost fire, a red that meant it’s thinking about fire. And then there was other colors. One meant, like, you know, you got to leave. The other meant you think about leaving. And then there was the rest, like, just be ready to go. So I did not understand the app. There were mandatory evacuations. It was fucking crazy. All right. So in the middle of this fire, two fires, three fires, several fires, I was supposed to get, like, my–it was morning, and I was supposed to get my kitchen painted. The ceiling had leaked. So I was having a guy come over at, like, 7:30 in the morning to paint the ceiling in my kitchen. And I looked at my app, and I was pretty sure I was in trouble. So I was like, “Fuck.” And then the guy shows up with his paints at 7:30. He’s like, “Can I paint?” And I’m like, “What about the fires?” And the guy said, “No, no, they’re far away.” I’m like, “Are you sure, dude?” He goes, “Yeah, they’re far away.” I’m like, “All right, then fucking paint.”
So then we go out to his truck to get more stuff out of the truck, and as we’re standing in the street, this cloud of black smoke just starts enveloping the neighborhood, and we’re both looking up at it, and now the once confident painter says, “Oh, you better go.” And packs up his truck and leaves. So I’m like, “Oh shit, we’re doing this.” I’m full of panic. I go into the house. Now, I’ve got three cats and one carrier. That’s not a porno movie. It’s my life. Three cats, one carrier. Now, people that don’t understand cats say, like, “Can’t you just put them all in one carrier?” I’m like, “Are you out of your fucking mind?”
I’ll be lucky if I get one cat into a carrier. I have one cat carrier because I only take one cat to the vet at a time, and when I got to take a cat to the vet, I have to mentally prepare the night before and maybe leave the carrier open somewhere in the house, because I got one shot at getting that idiot in there. And if I don’t get that cat in the box, we’re not gonna find out why he’s shitting all over the house. So now I’m in the house, and I’m filled with adrenaline, and they say that, you know, you can lift a car if you’re filled with adrenaline. So I’m, like, focused, I’m locked down, and I get Charlie into that carrier in, like, a second. I’m like, “Go fuck yourself.” And I shut the door. But I still got dumb Sammy and Buster. And I’m like, “What am I gonna do with these idiots?” And then I realized, on the porch, I have an un-run errand in the form of a wicker hamper that I was gonna bring to Goodwill. And I’m like, “Sammy’s going in that.” So I bring that into the house. I shove Sammy into the bag, I poke a hole in the top, and I wire him in. And now Buster’s just sitting there like, “What’s up?” And I’m like, “That Amazon box buddy.”
So I shoved Buster into the Amazon box, and I tape him in like I’m gonna send him somewhere, and I just poke holes in the top with a pen. And I’m, like, amazed. I’m like, “I did it. Look at this.” And then I’m thinking, like, all right, what now? And then I realize, like, well, you got to get a go bag. Everyone talks about this go bag. That’s the bag you got to get ready. You got to have it ready for when shit happens. So I didn’t know what a go bag was really. I googled go bag, and the one on Google, definitely a post-apocalyptic go bag. Like, you need a hand-crank radio. You need, like, kerosene lamps. You need dried food. I’m like, “I’m just going over the hill to Hollywood.” So in my go bag, I just put two pairs of underwear, a hoodie, and just all the cash I had in the house. I don’t know why I brought the cash. I guess somewhere in my head I’m like, “There might be checkpoints, you know, and you got to grease those guys.”
I’ve seen the movies. So I’m loading all this stuff in the car, the cats in their boxes, and I put the go bag in the car, and then I look at my house for what I think might be the last time ’cause it’s gonna burn down. And part of me was like, “Oh, finally.” Because there’s a lot of stuff in that house I haven’t been able to throw away for 40 years. Like, I could start with a clean slate. I mean, I still have books from college I think I’m gonna read. Like, some part of me thinks, like, I’m gonna get through the collected works of Alexander Pope at some point. He’s a very important satirist of his day, and I should know that stuff. So I say goodbye to my house. I get into my car. I have no plan. I’m just gonna drive away from the smoke. And within five minutes, every cat evacuated its bowels and emptied its bladder into their respective containers. So now my car smells like a poorly run shelter, and my only thought is, “Fuck, I’m gonna have “to throw this car away “’cause whatever is leaking out of Buster’s box is never gonna come out of that seat.”
So I don’t really know where I’m going. And I decide, well, maybe you should get some real carriers for the other two cats. You know, and I was gonna go to Petco and, you know, get the stuff, and I thought Petco opened at 9:00, but it opened at 10:00. So now I’m in the parking of a Petco in a Toyota that smells like shit with three cats going… [meows] And it was kind of a profound moment ’cause I realized this is who I am at the end of the world. This is where I end up. So I go in, I buy two carriers I got to assemble, and I buy litter, litter boxes, and cat food. All this shit I had 15 minutes away, but I did not think to pack a cat go bag. Guess I’m selfish. So now I’m driving, and I still don’t really have a plan. And people are like, “Well, don’t you have friend’s house that you could stay at?” And I’m like, “Why would I do that?” Why would I stay at a friend’s house for any reason? I don’t stay at people’s houses if they invite me on vacation. Why would you stay at a friend’s house if you can afford a hotel? Why would you put yourself through that? Just being up at night wondering, like, can I use this towel? Like, why would you do that? And then you wake up, and they’re all downstairs. We made breakfast. You want a pancake? I’m like, “No, I don’t want a pancake. “I want a hotel. Is there a hotel around here? “I don’t want to be rude, but I just need my space, and I jerked off in that towel upstairs, Which is OK to do at a hotel.” So I find a Hampton Inn in Hollywood, and I pull in, and there’s a lot of other people there who were evacuating. It’s kind of tense. And I go up to the front desk there and I go, “Do you have a room?” And the woman goes, “We do have a room.” And I’m like, “Do you take pets?” And she says, “We’ll take a pet.” And I’m like, “OK, OK.” ‘Cause, well, I knew I just had one pet that looked like a pet. I had the one carrier, right? So I’m gonna put on a show for this woman, you know? Which is ridiculous, ’cause she doesn’t give a shit. You know, people always say service industry people, they don’t care about their jobs anymore. And I’m like, “Yeah, but there’s a good side to that. They don’t care about their jobs anymore.” So I still put on a show. I got the carrier. I’m like, “This is my pet.” You know, and I take Charlie up to the room. And then I get the rolly thing and I put the hamper, the box, I put the go bag on it, and I’m just like, “This is my stuff.” You know? And then out of the hamper, Sammy goes… [meows] And I’m like, “I don’t know what that is. “That’s crazy. “I’ll figure it out when I get to the room. I don’t know. It’s crazy.”
So I get all the cats up to the room. And now, you know, I put together the carriers. I get them all in real carriers, and I’m just sitting on a bed. It’s 10:30 in the morning. I’m sitting on a bed with three cats and carriers and cash. Like some dirty cat deal is gonna go down. You know, like, where are those Armenians with their cats? Let’s get this going. And then I realized I’m gonna have to, you know, let them out, ’cause they’re gonna have to eat and go to the bathroom, and it’s weird when you have cats and you let them out into an alien environment because it’s kind of panicky. I knew it was enclosed, but you don’t know what’s gonna happen. I was afraid that Buster would wedge himself under the bed and I wouldn’t be able to get him out, but I had to do it. So I let him out, and Sam gets out and he’s like, “I don’t know what’s happening.” Charlie gets out, bounces around for like five minutes. He’s like, “Do we live here now? I can live here.” And Buster wedged himself under the bed, so… so now I got the cats out, and I’m feeling, like, you know, exhausted. I’m a little nervous. I’m frightened. You know, there’s fires all over the place. But I’m in a hotel, but I feel kind of freaked out, so I figure I’ll call my girlfriend, who doesn’t really like me, I don’t think. I don’t know why I date women who don’t really like me. I guess I think I deserve it. But, you know, she’s all right. She’s scrappy, you know, Chicago. And I call her up and I’m like, “Hey, baby, look, I’m OK. “You know, I feel a little scared, but, you know, I’m in a hotel room.” And she says, “Well, good. You did what you had to do.” And I’m like, “Yeah, yeah, I just was calling to tell you I’m OK.” She goes, “OK, good.” And I’m like, “Yeah, I’m gonna call some other people, I think.”
So I call everyone I know in LA to see how they’re doing. And, you know, I kind of settle down, and, you know, I’m feeling OK, and night is starting to fall, and I’m finally feeling relatively relaxed. And I’m looking out the window, which is four stories up and it’s facing the Hollywood Hills. And right when I felt comfortable, an entire hillside just explodes in flame. And I immediately take it personal and I’m like, “Why the fuck is this happening to me?” And– but it was a real moment as a cat owner, you know, in terms of what do I do? ‘Cause I really thought, like, I don’t know if I got it in me to get these cats into these cages again. So if this is how we’re gonna die, we’re gonna die together, and it’s gonna be OK. But I pulled up a news site on my phone, and I’m watching them put out the fire that I’m watching a mile away, out the window, and they get it out pretty quickly. So finally, I relax enough to get some sleep, and I wake up in the morning and I’m like, “All right, so now what do I do?” I don’t know if I made it clear that this was not a mandatory evacuation. I just freaked out. I–the– my house was never in danger in any way. I just didn’t know how to read the app, so… So standing here, I’m like, “I guess we’ll just go back to the house, you guys.” So we drove back to the house, and I’m getting the cats out of the car, and I see my neighbors. They’re going to work. And I was like, “How’d you guys make out last night?” And they said, “What are you talking about?” And I said, “Well, I evacuated for the night.” And they said, “Why’d you do that?” And I said, “The painter– I don’t know. I don’t know. “I don’t know why. “I think I’ll be asking myself that for probably a few months.” And then I did sort of have to ask myself, “Well, what did you get out of this? What did you learn?” And, well, I learned I can get, you know, any cat into any box pretty quickly.
[applause]
And I learned that– well, I also picked up a couple new carriers, and I left the shitty hamper at the hotel, so I can check that errand off the list. I was happy to be home, you know, ’cause primarily because I just had my house sealed for rats. This is something you can do. Yeah, I know you got rats in New York. OK, you never– it’s weird. The rats in LA, you never know they’re there, and when you see one, you’re like, “Oh, my God.”
You know, there’s an excitement but a dread, but– I live in an old house, and there’s a crawlspace under it. It’s basically a basement. Not much down there. There’s a sofa, boxes of books, some tools, but I’ve gotten rats here and there down there before, and I generally trap them in kill traps, and I know there’s probably a couple people in here that are thinking, like, well, you know, there are humane traps. And I’m not gonna drive a rat anywhere. I’m not gonna be in a car with a rat… [chuckles] Wondering how far I got to drive it until it doesn’t know how to get to my house anymore. And there’s also the outside chance that midway through the drive, I’ll get attached to it, and I’ll negotiate something like you can live at the house. As long as you don’t bring your buddies over, it’ll be cool. But the reason I’m talking about these rats is that I was in Vancouver for a few months, and, you know, I came back, and I had not been down in the crawl space in three months, and I went down there, and there was more rat shit there than I’ve ever seen in my life. Now, picture a lot of rat shit. Now picture the most you’ve ever seen in your life. It was crazy. And I was like, “What is happening?”
So I go upstairs and I Google, “How much can one rat shit?” It’s a lot. It’s a lot more than you think. But even for a digestively challenged rat, this seemed, like, pretty prolific. So I assumed there was 100 rats down there. So I vacuum up all the rat shit with my Shop-Vac, and, of course, I get an email the next day from a listener who’s like, “Hope you wore a mask with that. Lot of hantavirus out there.” So now I got to be like, “Oh, fuck you.” Now I got to walk around for weeks going, “Ahem, oh, fuck.”
[clears throat] I didn’t get hantavirus, but I put like ten traps out in the basement, like, all over the place, and I came down a week later. No rats trapped. More shit, no rats trapped. So I’m like, “What is happening?” And then I wait another week. More shit. No rats trapped. So now I’m starting to freak out a little bit. So I figure I got to call a rat guy. So I Google rat guy. There’s a rat guy in my neighborhood, not a corporate affiliated. He runs his own rat shop. And when you call him, you get that rat guy on the phone. I tell him what’s up. He goes, “We can have a team over there. “I’ll bring a team over. “We’ll seal the whole house for rats, and you’ll get a year warranty on it.” And I’m like, “That sounds great.” So he comes over, and he’s looking around the crawl space, and he sees some holes. And he’s like, “Yeah, we got to seal those holes.” And then he says to me, “You know, rats can get through a hole the size of a pencil.” And I say, “No, they can’t.” And I say, “Make it a nickel size, and I’ll believe ya.”
So he spends four hours with a team of people sealing the house up, and I’m downstairs with him after they’re done, and I say to him, like, I say, “Look, I got a question for you. “Can they live in the walls? ‘Cause I think I hear them in the walls.” And he says, “They don’t live in walls, but they hang out in there.” And I said, “What do you mean?” He goes, “Well, they move through the walls. “They’ll spend time in the walls, “but they don’t live there. They’re just going from one place to the other.” And I’m like, “Well, I had all traps, and they were still–” and I had this horrible realization, this moment of, like– I think it was probably shame. And I said, “Wait, are they just coming here to shit?” And the guy says, “Yeah, I think they are.” And then I’m like, “Why my house? “Why is my house the rat rest area for the entire neighborhood?” And he goes, “I don’t know, but I found some pretty old rat shit down here.” And my house was built in 1907. So I’m like, “How old?” He goes, “Well, we don’t have carbon dating, but pretty old.”
So then I’m thinking, like, man, word must be out on the rat street. Like, if there’s a rat within two or three miles from my house and they’re hanging out with other rats, and one of them has to take a dump, they’re like, “You ever been to Maron’s? You got to go to Maron’s. “He’s got a couch down there. “I’m halfway through the collected works of Alexander Pope.” My family’s been going there for generations. I’m not happy. Are you? I mean… I don’t even know if I can identify happiness. I don’t even know if I know what the experience feels like. I don’t know if I know the difference between I’m happy and, fuck, this is good coffee. I don’t know. I don’t know if I can identify happiness. And something happened recently that kind of illustrated that. Not long ago, I was changing my cats’ water. I’m not bragging. But I was changing my cats’ water, and one of my AirPods fell out of my head into the water. So I had the same reaction anybody would, which was, “Oh, fuck, God damn it. Not today.” Any day. Any day. But I fished it out. I’m like… [buzzes lips] “Fuck, God damn it.” [blows] And I put it back in my ear, and it worked, and I don’t think I’ve ever experienced that kind of happiness before. I was like, “Oh, my God, everything is turning around. “Maybe fascism won’t work out. “Maybe the Earth will cool down. “This is a big day. I can hear Pink Floyd in both of my old ears.” My ears are old. The whole vessel is getting older. 61 years old. That’s crazy. I know.
[cheers and applause]
I didn’t think I’d make it to 61, and I’m not thrilled that I did. I had a lot of opportunities to get out. None of them were on purpose, but they didn’t work out. So here I stand before you. And as I’m getting older, I’ve become very obsessed with my posture. Like, I feel like, you know, I have to be up, like, around here, right? Because I see guys that are just a few years older than me, and it’s just a slight shift in angle you know, from here to it’s over. And then it’s just the beginning of the slow descent into the hole that you prepaid for. My dad’s around here right now, and I’m sort of like, “Just get in, man. “Just get in. “Come on. Enough is enough. “You don’t even make sense anymore. Let’s do this.” I don’t even know if I want to be buried. I think it’s kind of morbid, and I don’t know who it’s for. It’s definitely not for the person you bury. I think burial is primarily just so generations of people can drive by a cemetery in the distance, and an adult will go, “Your grandfather is buried up there.” And a kid will go, “Can we go up there?” And the adult will say, “No, not today.” Cremation is also an option, because then people get to ask, “Well, what’d they do with Marc’s ashes?” And I imagine the answer would be, “I think they mixed them in with the wet food in small increments…” “Over several months.” And then someone will go, “Ah, that sounds right for Maron.” Then I read about green burial. This is interesting. It’s kind of eco-friendly, progressive. This is where there’s an allotted section of forest with no headstones, and I guess they just put you in a biodegradable bag and they just bury you under a tree out there. But my brain thinks, like, well, that land’s not gonna be allotted for that forever. They’re gonna develop it at some point, which means at some point in the future, some kid could just be digging around behind his house and be like, “I found a head.” Some other kid at another tree says, “There’s one over here too!”
But I think that’s what I’m gonna go with. Because how many opportunities do you get to really change a kid’s life? And that’s a big day, the day you find a head. That’s probably the biggest day of your life. That’s the most fucked up thing that’s gonna happen to you your whole life, no matter how old you get. If someone goes, “What’s the most fucked up thing that ever happened to you?”
When I was eight, dude, we found heads. Wow. What’d you do with them? We put them in a bag and took them to school. What else do you do with heads? I mentioned my dad was still alive. He’s 86 and pretty newly demented. Um, I like to say it that way, as opposed to has dementia ’cause that’s sad. You know, newly demented. It’s like, what’s gonna happen? You know? ‘Cause it’s gonna get weird before it gets sad, and it does. It gets weird. But it’s engaging. It’s interesting. If you can let go of who they were and just deal with what is, there’s a lot to be gained from it. Because eventually the filter goes away. The statute of limitations on what they should or shouldn’t tell their kid, that’s gone. So if you have unresolved issues or questions, just reach into that bingo cage of memories and see if you can pull out that missing piece that’ll make you a whole person. ‘Cause we don’t know our parents. You don’t really know them. And you don’t know yourself sometimes. I mean, we all have issues that we don’t really know where they come from necessarily. Like, for instance, I’m not great with relationships. And over the years, I’ve figured out it’s for a pretty specific reason. I tend to put a premium, or I make– I make sex the priority. In my brain, there’s nothing better or more important than fucking. Now, yeah, well, I’m not saying it’s not important, but as you get older, people are like, “Well, what about, you know, companionship and trust and intimacy?” I’m like, “Eh, I don’t know.”
I find if you’re focused, you can fuck right through intimacy. But as I get older, I realize it’s not a great way to be. So, anyway, I’m having lunch with my dad. I visit him in Albuquerque, and we go to this Chinese place. And we’re sitting there, and the waitress had put the soup down, and she’s walking away, and my dad says, “Did you ever like the Orientals?” Yeah, we’re not fixing that, all right? It’s not even worth having that conversation. That ship has sailed. That’s not what it’s about. But for some reason, I saw an opportunity here, and I said, “Yes, I’ve dated Asian women before.” And then for some reason, I look at my dad, and I said, “Is there anything better or more important than fucking?” And my dad, mid soup, goes, “Nope.” And then you can have that moment where you’re like, “That’s where I get it. I get it– I get it from my dad.” But I guess the liability of that, of continuing to be who I am and not really being able to develop real partnerships, the liability of that mindset is that I’m just– you’re gonna end up alone. You know? I’m just gonna end up alone, just me and my dick sitting at home like, “No, we did it. “Good job. We’ve been through some stuff. Good job.” But I guess if I get what my dad gets, it’ll be more like, “You’re not my dick.” “Where’s my dick? Whose dick is this? Who took my dick?”
But he actually is not in that situation. He’s got a wife that he took hostage years ago, and she’s taking care of him. He’s got this wife, and she’s about 15 years younger than him, and she’s a born-again Christian Latina woman who’s kind of Trumpy. Yeah, but who cares? She’s taking care of him. I don’t want to do it. I don’t believe in Jesus, but I thank Jesus every day for Rosie. My brother and I don’t really have an aftercare plan in place, and we might not need one, because Mexicans generally move the hospital bed right into the living room, and then they can just have Christmas around the dying Jew. I think there’s a certain poetic symmetry to that, but– But we do not have an aftercare plan in place. I know my brother and I have to put one in place, ’cause you have to put these people somewhere eventually, right? Some sort of facility for like-minded people… Where they can all hang out and reintroduce themselves to each other all day long and be just as excited every time they meet the same person again that day. And that’s not nothing. I mean, how fun is your life, you know?
A little backstory on my dad. About 20 years ago, he had a business partner that screwed him out of $200,000. A long time ago. But right now, all my dad talks about is killing that guy. And we’re just so happy he’s having a recurring memory with some consistency, even if it’s a vengeful murder fantasy. If that’s what’s keeping him tethered to reality, we’ll take it. All right? It’s a blessing. It’s a blessing. The plot thickens a little bit. Not too long ago, my brother calls me. He’s in Florida. I’m in Los Angeles. My dad’s in Albuquerque. My brother calls. He’s all worked up. He’s like– I’m like, “What’s going on?” He’s like, “Well, Rosie just called and dad’s yelling at her.” And I’m like, “All right, well, just relax. What’s he yelling at her about?” And my brother says, “Well, he wants bullets for his gun.” And I said, “Well, she took the bullets away. Should be OK.” He’s like, “No, it’s not OK. “It’s not safe, “and when you go out there, you got to try to get that gun out of the house.” So I said, “Well, just hold on. Let’s just talk this through. So he probably wants bullets to kill that guy, right?” And my brother says, “What difference does it make?” I’m like, “That guy is not a great guy.”
Just hear me out. Let’s say we get dad the bullets. He kills that guy. They put him in jail. That takes a lot off our plate. I’m just saying let’s not look a gift horse in the mouth here. You know, we can have the state cover the aftercare, and if we time it out right, he won’t even know the difference. It just seems like a win-win, bro, if you think outside the box. Now, as funny as that is, which I believe it is, my dad really wants to kill that guy. So that means I had to have a conversation with my father about that. This is the kind of things you get to talk about with a parent with dementia. Conversations you never thought you would have. I had to sit my dad down. My dad can barely walk. And I had to sit my dad down and talk to him, man to man, about this situation. And I said, “So what’s going on, Dad? You want to kill that guy?” And my dad says, “Yeah, I’m gonna fucking kill him.” And I’m like, “Not with that gun.” I said, “Well, are you just gonna drive over there and kill him?” He’s like, “Yeah, I’m gonna drive over there, and I’m gonna fucking kill him.” And I said, “Dad, can you even drive anymore?” My dad gets indignant. He goes, “I can drive.” And then he says, “Nah, I don’t know where I’m going.”
So I think that guy is safe for now. So what do you want to talk about? Hitler… Hitler was a fucking dick. And I say it that way for a reason. I mean, we all used to be on the same page with that, but now it’s not so clear, but Hitler was a fucking dick. And, look, you know, I’m a Jew. We were taught our whole lives to stay away from Hitler, you know? If you’re ever walking down the street and there’s Hitler, you know, try to get off that street. If you can’t get off the street, don’t make eye contact, move by him quickly. But the reason I’m bringing up Hitler is we all know that Hitler and the Nazis were the personification of pure evil on the planet Earth. I mean, we have Nazis now. You know, they’re not as well-dressed. They’re kind of ragtag bunches of militia guys wearing Under Armour and camo and night vision goggles, and they get to choose their own hats, which was unheard of in the ’30s. The original Nazis, they looked sharp. You know, Hugo Boss. That Hugo Boss designed a lot of the uniforms for the upper echelon Nazis. That’s crazy ’cause it’s still a brand. No one ever talks about that. People just buy Hugo Boss. They don’t even give a shit. They don’t even know that he designed uniforms for the Nazis. They’re just like, “Look at my Hugo Boss suit.”
And I’m sitting here toiling over soy milk. So… But the thing about the Nazis and the reason I’m bringing it up is, like, look, we know they’re evil, but it’s almost mythic, and, you know, it’s historical, and a lot of us don’t have a personal connection to what the Nazis were really like. There’s a distance there. There’s a detachment to it. And I just want to explore this, because I recently thought, like, well, I want to check in with Hitler. So I watched this six hour miniseries, six different hours, about the Nuremberg trials and Hitler. And you think know most of that stuff, and you might, but the thing that stunned me was there’s this sort of detachment to it. So I’m watching each hour, and I’m kind of– you know, I’m like, “Oh, yeah, sure. “The invasion of Europe. Sure, yep, the Holocaust. Yeah, I knew that.”
But I’m kind of passive about it. It’s not really landing. And then something happens five and a half hours in. Now, I don’t want to spoil it for anybody. He does die at the end. But five and a half hours in, it’s revealed– now I don’t know if you knew this or not, but before Hitler killed himself, he killed his dog, and after five and a half hours of watching that thing, that’s the moment out loud, I said, “What a fucking asshole.” What kind of monster kills his dog? I mean, I knew that other stuff, but God damn it. Hitler is a fucking dick. Jury’s in on Hitler. I think if Hitler were alive today, he’d probably appear on Theo Von’s podcast. And Theo would be like, “So y’all did a lot of meth, right? “I mean, all the Nazis were all fucked up “on meth, right, Hitler? “That shit will make you crazy, dog. “I did some meth once. “I was up for three days, and then I ate a live bird. “No shit, Hitler. A live bird, bro. “Hey, Hitler, you probably didn’t even hate the Jews. “That was just the meth making you crazy, dog. Hey, Hitler…” “Do you want to apologize to all the Jews right now on my show? No? I get it.”
I’d like to think that these jokes are relevant. I don’t really know. I’d like to think my jokes, you know, have impact, but I don’t know the nature of my relevance. You know, I think at best, let’s see, my relevance. This is the arc of my relevance. Maybe, like, a week or two from now, maybe a couple of you will be making coffee or something, and under your breath you’ll be like, “That was funny what that guy said.” That’s sort of the full arc, I think. Maybe if you want to take it a little further, you’ll be in conversation a few months from now with some people, and they’ll bring up something I talked about, and then you’ll be like, “Oh, my God, “I just–I saw this comic talking about the same thing. Do you know that comic Marc Maron?” And maybe two out of the four will be like, “Oh, yeah, I think I know that guy.” And then you’ll paraphrase my joke badly, and it won’t get any laughs, and then you have that awkward moment, and you’ll be like, “Was that even funny?” So… But I like to think I’m relevant, but I know– you know, I’m not totally delusional. I know there’s no joke that I’m going to do that’s gonna go viral and just make all these new young Nazis just be like, “Oh, man, I’m just mad at my dad, I think.” “I might be gay too. This is crazy. “That Jew’s joke really fucked with my head. But that’s what Jews do.”
I’ve learned from doing that joke that gay men don’t like it for a very specific reason. They don’t like the association. They don’t like the idea that these incels and these young Nazis are the way they are because they’re closeted or they’re latent homosexuals. They don’t like the association. And I hear them, and I get it, but I’m gonna stand by it 100%. ‘Cause they’re so gay. Have you ever seen footage of a bunch of young Nazis? It’s like all that’s missing is, like, dance music and a theme of some kind, which I guess would be… ♪ Nazis ♪ You know, like– An older gay guy came up to me after a show, and he put it this way. He said, “We don’t want ’em.”
And I thought, uh, you do kind of, though. I mean, they’re so hot. Have you seen some of those hot young Nazis? Come on, who doesn’t want to turn a Nazi? Come on, old queen. You’ve still got game. Do it for America. Set them free with your cock. All right, so this next bit is gonna be difficult for you as an audience, but I just want you to know that I’m OK. I can handle it. I believe that I can get what I’m about to talk about up to the level where it needs to be. I’ve processed it. I’m OK. So don’t worry about me. Whatever you do with it, that’s on you. But just know heading into this that I’m OK. OK, trauma. Now, I believe that everyone has trauma. Everybody is on the spectrum of PTSD in some way. And I’m a big fan of trauma therapy, which is fairly new. This is– the idea of trauma therapy is where you bring up your trauma into the present, and you process it either through EMDR or talk therapy. And the idea is you sort of disarm it, you integrate it into who you are now, so it’s no longer repressed and constantly retriggered. I think it’s brilliant, and I think one of the benefits of it is that after you process your trauma, you can decide which trauma or traumas had the biggest impact on your life. OK, that’s the setup. All right, so when I was a kid, my father was in the Air Force. He was stationed up in Anchorage, Alaska, for two years. I think I was six or seven. My brother was probably four or five. And during that time, we had a babysitter who was a male babysitter, a guy, and he wanted me and my brother to suck his dick. I’m pretty sure I didn’t do it, all right? But as I get older, I’m like, “How could I not have done it?” All right. We told my dad about it. And all I remember my dad saying, it must have been a bigger conversation, but all I remember him saying was, “Yeah, his dad’s a sergeant.”
Now, I don’t know how that’s helpful, and I don’t know what it really meant. I know it’s a lot to take. A couple of years later, we had moved, and at this point, I’m in elementary school. And I imagine most of your moms know how to fold a lunch bag. It’s not hard. You crease it, fold it, crease it, fold it, crease it again. Make a little handle for your kid to take to school on his lunch bag. And my mom just couldn’t do that. She would just scrunch it up into this pillar of garbage, and she would wrap my peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in tinfoil, which made them this gooey, fucked up mess. All these other kids with their Glad sandwich bags and their neatly folded lunch bags. I got my trash sack. And my mom thought I was a fat kid, so she’d put a half a diet pill in my lunch bag. Yeah, that went on for years. And I’ll be honest with you, much worse than blowing the babysitter. My mom put me in Cub Scouts. Do I seem like the kind of grown man that would be a good candidate for the scouts as the kid you picture? I don’t even know why she did it. I don’t think she cared. I think she just wanted more time to do her macramé and smoke and drink Blue Nun. Now, there’s some parental responsibility involved in Cub Scouts. Your mom’s got to sew the patches on your little uniform and get you a little hat, and there’s a way to do it. It’s in the manual. My mom didn’t read the manual. She just sewed them wherever she felt like she– they looked cool. I think there was one on my pants. There’s, like, a patch on the back of my shoulder. She didn’t get me a fucking hat. My troop failed inspection because of me. So much worse than blowing a babysitter.
Now, look, I don’t want to trivialize anyone’s trauma or abuse, and, you know, it’s obviously horrible. And who knows? Maybe in a couple of years, I’ll figure out that blowing the babysitter is exactly why I’m the way I am. And at that point, I guess I’ll just quit doing stand up and probably just do TED Talks. Yeah, about blowing babysitters and related stuff, you know. But that’s not what’s happening now. And sometimes I wonder, you know, what happened to that babysitter, you know? What happened to that guy? Is he somewhere up in Alaska on stage in some B comedy room doing his side of it? Is he somewhere just standing there going, “So my dad, the sarge, “used to make me babysit when I was younger. “What kind of guy babysits? “So I just made the kids blow me. “Oh, what are you too woke to laugh at that, “you fucking babies? “Am I gonna get canceled for my blowing the babysitter bit, you liberal pussies? Fuck you.”
My dad, the sarge, taught me how to write my name in the snow with his dick. Where you at, people? Too dark? Is it too dark for you liberal babies? My dad… [chuckles] The sarge, used to say things like, “Am I clear for landing,” before he came on my back. Is that the edge? Is that the edge? Too dark for you little pussies? You’re gonna cancel me, you libtard fucks? Takes everything I have not to do a full one man show as that guy. And, look, I… I don’t know where he came from or why I manifested him. I don’t know why. He’s kind of an interesting character though, right? It’s challenging. Like, at the beginning of that story, you didn’t think you’d have empathy for that guy, did you? I’ll let you off the hook a little bit. So I was doing a show, you know, leading up to this special. I was doing a show in Vegas at a club, not a casino, and, you know, I was working out that stuff, and sometimes my dad’s wife, Rosie, drives him hundreds and hundreds of miles to see me perform ’cause he gets a kick out of it. And he came to see me, and, you know, I was working on that bit. And after the show, I was sitting in the green room with him, you know, just me and my demented dad, and I said to him–I said, “Do you remember that? Do you remember that babysitter thing?” He goes, “I do.” And I said, “So did we blow him?” And my dad said, “No, you guys didn’t do that. And I said, “OK, well, that’s a relief.” And then we’re just sitting there for like three minutes, and I just hear my dad kind of mumble, like, “His dad was a sergeant.”
I still don’t know what that means. It was not really a helpful puzzle piece, to be honest with you. I know that bit’s a lot, and I’m not even sure it’s necessary. [laughs] But, you know, you got to challenge yourself. But I can lighten it up. Let’s cleanse the palate a little bit. So my cat, Charlie, is kind of an asshole, but all cats are assholes. That’s sort of why you get a cat. You know, those people who like dogs, they’re just– you know, they’re just needy, and, you know, cat people want a challenge. They want to live with an animal that they really don’t know if it likes them at all for as long as that animal lives, and I think all cats are assholes at the beginning, but that’s– you know, you like them. At first you’re sort of like, “This fucking asshole.” And then within like six months, you’re like, “Aw, look at the asshole.”
You know, so I had kind of a deep moment, kind of a life changing moment with Charlie, and I want to share it with you. So I like to play with the scrunchy ball with Charlie. It’s a little scrunchy ball, and I’ll throw it, and he’ll go play with it. Sometimes he’ll fetch it. Smart cat. I enjoy– I like to watch Charlie play with the ball. But it doesn’t matter where I play with that ball in my house, upstairs or downstairs. Within four minutes, it’s gonna end up under the stove. I don’t see it happen, but all scrunchy balls will end up under the stove. So, recently, I was on my knees with a broom handle trying to get a scrunchy ball out. I got my iPhone light. I’m trying to get a scrunchy ball out from under the stove, and I noticed Charlie’s just sitting there, and I realized, oh, shit, he likes to watch me play with the ball. This whole thing’s been a setup all along. OK, I have to set up a sound cue on my phone for this last bit. Sound guys are always like, “You know, we can do it from the board.” I’m like, “No, no, no. Me and my phone have a thing.” I think my phone is my primary emotional partner, to be honest with you. Right? ‘Cause if you scroll on your phone, you get everything you need. You know? You get laughs. You learn things. Sometimes you cry. Sometimes it’s just moving. You know, you feel understood and seen. You know, all the things you should be getting from your human partner who’s sitting across from you on their phone. You check in with them like, you know, “What are you laughing at?” And they’ll say, “I’ll text it to you.”
So I like to exercise because there’s some part of me that wants to live, and I was doing this hike for a while. I–It was a pretty hard hike, and I was doing it, like, two or three times a week, and it’s a straight up hike. It’s, like, a steep incline for, like, 50 minutes, and then you get to the top, and you can kind of, you know, run or walk down. And I did it not too long ago, and I got to the top, and I just passed out. I was by myself, and I passed out. It was kind of scary. But I’m gonna look at it as a near-death experience, and I’ll explain why. Now, generally when I get to the top, I do two stretches. Like, I’ll do like this one, which I think is called the old Asian lady squat. I think it’s really called that. I’m not making it racial just because. But–and I think if you go to Chinatown and go to a park, you will see at least four or five 87 to 104-year-old Asian women sitting like this. And then you’ll have a moment where you’re like, “Holy shit, Marc is relevant.” Then from this stretch, I usually go straight up into, like, a full-body stretch like that. And for years in the middle of that stretch, I’ve said to myself, “It’s amazing I haven’t passed out.”
But I’m a recovering drug addict, so you get it where you can. You know, you find those little edges in life to push it. But I did pass out on this one particular time. And a little backstory. Well, a lot of you know already that several years ago, my partner, Lynn, passed away tragically and very quickly. And the interesting thing, or the sad thing, but interesting mostly about grief is that when you’re in it at the beginning, it’s all consuming. It takes over your mind, your heart, your spirit, and you can’t stop it, and you don’t know if it will ever go away, and it’s just horrendous. And it doesn’t go away, but eventually it kind of integrates, and you live with it.
I think everybody lives with grief. And the interesting thing about grief is, like, it can be triggered by, like, a smell or a food or, like, a song, even if it’s not attached to the person that you lost. For some reason, some things will just trigger the grief. And usually when it happens to me, I’ll let it come up, because, you know, why not feel it? It reconnects you with that person, and, you know, it’s part of who you are. OK, so when I was driving to this hike the day I passed out, I’m in my car, and I’m wondering, like, you know, like, why is Taylor Swift so popular? And then part of my brain is like, “Well, just–why don’t you just listen to some?” I’m like, “I’m not doing that.”
You know? But then I realized, like, I’m a, you know, open-minded guy. So I downloaded “Midnights,” which, yeah, which was the album at the time, and so I’m hiking, you know, I’m just hiking, and I’m listening to Taylor Swift. And I’m thinking, like, well, this is OK. I mean, I get it, it’s good pop music. I understand why she’s popular. You know, it’s not for me, but I get it, and I’ll probably never listen to this album again, but I’m glad I know why Taylor Swift is popular. And then about halfway up the mountain, this song comes on. All right, shh, shh, shh.
[Taylor Swift’s “Bigger Than the Whole Sky”]
Shh.
[somber pop music]
♪ No words appear ♪
♪ Before me in the aftermath ♪
It’s already sad.
♪ Salt streams out ♪
♪ My eyes and into my ears ♪
She’s crying, you guys. Hold on, hold on. Listen to this line.
♪ Every single thing I touch ♪
♪ Becomes sick with sadness ♪
What the fuck?
♪ Because it’s all over ♪
It’s all over.
♪ All out to sea ♪
It’s all out to sea. Shh, here–oh, here come the three goodbyes.
♪ ♪
♪ Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye ♪
Oh, my God! So now I’m crying. I’m audibly crying. I’m hiking up the hill, and I’m sobbing out loud. But I just put it on repeat ’cause I want to feel the feels. So I’m just hiking, and I’m going… [woefully] “Oh, God, this is terrible.” And then I bend down. I’m like, “Oh, no.” And then I go up and I’m like, “Oh, fuck.” And I just– I go down. I just black out. And I don’t know if you’ve ever blacked out before, but when you do, nothing is happening. Nothing. If you didn’t wake up, you wouldn’t be the wiser. It’d just be gone. Nothing is happening. But I woke up. My head–my face was, like, on the ground. Had a little pebble stuck to my face. I was bleeding. She’s going…
♪ Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye ♪
You know. So, you know, I realized what happened. I get it together, I brush myself off, I drink some water. I don’t exactly know why I passed out, but I feel OK. And I had this very deep realization, this feeling. I just thought in that moment, like, I’m not afraid to die anymore because there’s just nothing. I’m just– you know, I don’t think– I’m not afraid to die anymore as long as it happens quickly and I have time to put that song on. Thanks a lot.
[cheers and applause]
[upbeat guitar music]
♪ ♪
[cat meows]
[bright tone]
