Jerry Seinfeld: 23 Hours to Kill (2020) - full transcript

Mr. Seinfeld,
you have a show tonight, don't ya?

Yes, I do.

They're telling me there's
too much traffic to land right now.

- Oh.
- What do you want me to do?

No problem.
You can let me out anywhere along here.

Thank you!

Thank you very much!

Oh, my God.

What a moment.

What a feeling.

What an accomplishment this is...



on your part.

What you just went through...

going out, dealing with...

natural obstacles of life.

Difficult people, arranging, planning.

Annoying friends, many of whom
you're sitting with right now...

...who, for some reason,

required
unnecessarily complicated back-and-forth,

communicating about "Who's going?"

"When do we leave?"
and "How do we get there?"

"Why don't you pick me up?"
"Why don't I pick you up?"

"It's on the way."
"It's the opposite direction."

"My car." "Your car."

"One car." "Two cars."



"When are we gonna eat? Did you eat?
I didn't eat."

"Are you gonna eat? I'm starving."
"I'm stuffed."

"I've been eating Jolly Ranchers all day.
I need something solid."

"What about the tickets?
Who's got the tickets?

Do you have the tickets?"

How many times
did you hear the word "tickets" today?

"Don't forget the tickets."

"You have the tickets?"
"Yeah, I got the tickets!"

"Did you get their tickets?"
"I didn't get tickets for them.

They gotta get their own tickets!

They didn't pay me
from the last time I got 'em tickets."

Why are your friends so annoying?

The people
you have chosen to be with in life.

It makes no sense.

You'd get rid of all of 'em in a second...

if it wasn't
even a bigger pain in the ass

to find new people,
learn about their annoying problems

that they never do anything about...

...change the names and numbers
in your phone,

delete the old contacts.

"Ah, the hell with it.
I'll ride it out with these idiots.

It's the same meals, holidays,
and movies anyway.

What's the difference who I'm with?"

"Just wanna be out." This is out.

People talk about goin' out.

"We should go out. Let's go out.
We never go out."

Well...

this is it.

Now, the good thing about being out
is you don't have to be out for long.

Just long enough to get the next feeling,
which you're all gonna get.

And that feeling is,
"I gotta be gettin' back."

After all the work

you put into getting your ass
where it is right now...

you're only halfway through this nightmare
at this point.

Wherever you are, really,
anywhere in life, at some point,

you gotta get the hell outta there.

You're at work; you wanna get home.

You're at home.
"I'm working all week. I gotta get out."

You're out, and it's late.
"I gotta get back."

"I gotta get up."
"I gotta get to the airport."

"When are we getting on the plane?"
Plane takes off.

"When's the plane gonna land?"
Plane lands.

"Why don't they open the door
so we can get out?"

Nobody wants to be anywhere.

Nobody likes anything.

We're cranky, we're irritable,

and we're dealing with it
by constantly changing locations.

And so... we come up with things
like this, what we're doing right now.

This is a made-up, bogus, hyped-up,
not-necessary special event.

That's what this is.

That a lot of people
worked very hard to put together

so that we could all just kill some time.

That's why I'm here.
I had nothing to do either, by the way.

I can tell you that. You know me.
You and I...

Come on, you and I know each other
on a certain level...

electronic, though it may be...

for many, many years, at this point.

We're going through life together.
A beautiful thing.

You know what I've done.

You know what I've made.
You know how I live.

You know for a fact...

I could be anywhere
in the world right now!

Now, you be honest.

If you were me,

would you be up here,
hacking out another one of these?

Maybe... or maybe not.

Nonetheless, I am thrilled to be here.

I love it here.

This could be my favorite spot
in the entire world,

right here, right now. Could be.

- We love you!
- Thank you, sweetheart. I love you too.

This is, in fact,
my favorite type of intimate relationship.

I love you, you love me,
and we will never meet.

Yeah, Jerry!

It's all things we do
to convince ourselves

our lives don't suck.

That's another thing this is.
You'll be going tomorrow,

"My life doesn't suck. I saw a comedian
who had a show in the '90s last night

at the Beacon Theatre on Broadway,
in New York City."

Even though your life
does pretty much suck.

And I know that
because I know that everyone's life sucks.

Your life sucks. My life sucks, too.

Perhaps not quite as much.

But still, in the vast suckness...

of human life, everyone's life sucks.
It's okay.

Never feel bad that your life sucks.

The greatest lesson you can learn in life:

"Sucks" and "great" are pretty close.

They're not that different.

We live here in New York.

Over here, I'm so sick of hearing about
great restaurants.

"Jerry, we went to a great restaurant
last night.

It was great. You would love it.

He would love it. Wouldn't he love it?
You would love it."

"You."
You know how your friends single you out?

"You. Wouldn't he?

He would love that place."

"Did you like it?"
"I didn't care for it myself, but you..."

I don't like the great restaurants.
I don't like great anything.

I'm looking for not bad.
"How's that food?" "It's not bad."

"That sounds great. Let's go over there
and get this over with."

"Wanna hear the specials?"
"No. If they're so special,

put 'em on the menu.

I'm not interested in food
that's auditioning to get on the team."

I don't know
what the hell you're talkin' about.

"We're gonna pan-sear it.
We're gonna herb-crust it.

We're gonna drizzle it with something
that's a reduction of somethin' else."

Stop drizzling.
We can't take the drizzling anymore!

It's too much drizzling!

Maybe if you didn't reduce it so much,
you wouldn't have to drizzle it!

The meal takes two and a half hours.

Your ass is hurtin' by the end of it.
It's not half as good

as a bowl of Lucky Charms
and Pepsi anyway.

Check always comes in that book,
the little story of the bill.

Yeah, here's the story.

Once upon a time, you got rib.
That's the story.

You're on the street afterwards
with your friends,

"I-I didn't think that was...
Was that great?" Everyone says "great."

"Yeah, I didn't think it was that great.
What did you think?"

"It sucked, right? That place sucks."

A lot of great places just suck!

Then you go to a baseball game.
You have a hot dog.

The hot dog is cold.

The bun is not toasted.

The vendor is an ex-con
in a work-release program.

You love that hot dog every time.

Does it... Does it suck? Yes.

Is it great? Yes.

That's how close they are!

"Sucks" and "great"
are the only two ratings

people even give to anything anymore.

"Hey, let's go see that new movie.
I heard it's great."

"Really? I heard it sucked."

"How could it suck?
It's supposed to be great."

"I heard the beginning is great,
and then after that, it sucks."

"Oh, that sucks."
"I know. It coulda been great."

I say that "sucks" and "great"
are the exact same thing.

You have an ice cream cone.
Walking down the street,

the ice cream falls off
the top of the cone,

hits the pavement. Sucks.

What do you say? "Great."

Food's a good subject.
Let's talk a little bit more about this.

'Cause we were
in Vegas a couple months ago.

And everybody goes,
"Jerry, you gotta go to the buffet.

They got the buffet.

Oh, come on. You can get whatever you want
at the buffet."

What is the idea of the buffet?

"Well, things are bad.

How could we make it worse?

Why don't we put people

that are already struggling
with portion control...

...into some kind of debauched,
Caligula food orgy

of unlimited human consumption?

Let's make the entrance
a chocolate-syrup water park slide."

The buffet is like taking your dog
to Petco

and letting your dog do the shopping.

You give him your wallet
in the parking lot and go,

"Why don't you go in,
get whatever you think...

is the right amount of dog food for you?

Use your dog judgment.

I'm gonna wait in the car.

Leave the window open a crack
so I can breathe."

People do not do well
in an unsupervised eating environment.

Nobody would walk into a restaurant
and say, "I'll have a yogurt parfait,

sparerib, meat pie, crab leg,
four cookies, and an egg-white omelet."

People are building
death-row last meal wish lists

on these plates.

It's like a perfect working model
of all their emotional problems

and personal difficulties.

They just walk around.
They just kinda hold it out.

"This is what I'm dealing with.

It's a salad
with a scoop of ice cream on it.

I've got some unresolved issues

I'm trying to work out
here at the buffet."

Start accosting strangers.

"Excuse me. Where did you get that?
What is that? I didn't even see that.

What is that?
Is that a caramelized chicken leg?

I gotta try that. Give me yours.
You know where they are.

You can get more. Come on!"

Let's...

Please. Please.

Please stay with the group
as much as you can.

We're gonna be going
through a lot of exhibits.

I don't want any stragglers.

But when I was a kid,

the biggest food thing
that happened to me...

When they invented the Pop-Tart,

the back of my head blew right off.

We couldn't comprehend the Pop-Tart!

It was too advanced!

We saw it in the supermarket.
It was like an alien spaceship.

We were just chimps in the dirt,
playing with sticks. Just...

...grunting, pointing.

"Pop-Tart is here."

Think back to when the Pop-Tart came out.
It was the '60s.

We had toast!

We had orange juice,
frozen decades in advance.

You had to hack away at it
with a knife!

It was like a murder

to get a couple of drops of liquidity
in the morning.

We had shredded wheat.

It was like wrapping your lips
around a woodchipper.

You'd have breakfast,

you had to take two days off
for the scars to heal so you could speak.

My mom made Cream of Wheat.
She didn't get the recipe.

"Mom, the amount of water
in this dish is critical.

You're making it too thick!

I can't even move my little-kid spoon
in the bowl!

I'm seven. I feel like I'm rowing
in the hull of a Greek slave ship.

That was breakfast?"

And in the midst of that dark
and hopeless moment,

the Kellogg's Pop-Tarts suddenly appeared
out of Battle Creek, Michigan,

which, as you cereal fans know,

is the corporate headquarters
of Kellogg's

and a town
I have always wanted to visit...

because it seems
like a cereal Silicon Valley...

of breakfast super scientists...

conceiving of the frosted,
fruit-filled, heatable rectangles

in the same shape
as the box it comes in...

and with the same nutrition
as the box it comes in, too.

That was the hard part.

I don't know how long it took to invent,
but they must've come out of that lab

like Moses with the two tablets
of the Ten Commandments.

"The Pop-Tart is here!

Two in the packet!

Two slots in a toaster!

Let's see ya screw this up!

Why two?
One's not enough. Three's too many.

And they can't go stale,
'cause they weren't ever fresh."

What else is annoying
in the world, besides everything?

What about your device dictatorship

that you live under,
cowering in fear from your phone?

"My phone! Where's my phone?
I can't find my phone. It's...

Oh, here it is. I got it. It's here.
It's here. My phone is here."

I didn't... I moved it from this pocket
to this pocket.

I didn't know where it was for a second.
I'm okay. That was really close.

Phew.

You are so hypno-phonified at this point,
you hand your phone to somebody

to show them something.

After two seconds, you go,

"All right. Okay, give me it back.
Give it back.

You saw it. That... that's it.
Give it back.

I am completely off-the-grid right now."

When that battery gets low...

you feel like your whole body's
runnin' out of power, don't you? I just...

I-I feel tired when the phone battery
gets down to ten or five.

I can't even walk.

"You guys go ahead without me.
I gotta get to a charger."

A call comes in. "Listen,

I don't know how much time
I have left out here.

I wish I could take back
some of the things I've said.

If I go dead on the street,

tell everyone I know
I'll talk to them tomorrow."

"Well, I gotta stay in touch with people,
Jerry.

That's why the phone's so important to me.

People are pretty important, you know."

Really? They don't seem very important,

the way you scroll through their names
on your contact list

like a gay French king.

"Who pleases me today?

Who shall I favor?

Who shall I delete?"

We are not separating from the phone.

It's a part of us.

Now, who are you with no phone?

What access to information do you have?

What you can remember.

What'll you do without your pictures?
Are you gonna describe what you saw?

That doesn't work for us.

We don't wanna talk to anybody
that doesn't have a phone.

That's why it's called an iPhone.

It's half myself, half phone.

That's a complete individual.

I don't even know
what the purpose of people is anymore.

I think the only reason people still exist

is phones need pockets to ride around in.

I used to think Uber was on my phone
so I could get around.

Then I started thinking
maybe they put Uber on the phone

because that makes me take the phone,

'cause the phone is using me
to get around.

Who's really the Uber
in this big prostitution ring?

I'm the little bitch carrying the phone.

The cars are the hos,

picking up strangers
off the street all night.

And the phone's the big pimp
of the whole thing,

telling the drivers,
"You just get who I tell ya to get.

I'll handle the money."

We call it a phone.
We don't even use it as a phone.

Nobody's talkin' on the phone.

Once they gave you the option,

you could talk or type,
talkin' ended that day.

It's over.

Talking is obsolete. It's antiquated.

I feel like a blacksmith
up here sometimes, to tell you the truth.

I could text you this whole thing.
We can get the hell outta here right now.

Why would I wanna get information
from a face when I could get it

from a nice, clean screen?

Don't you feel uncomfortable now?
Faces come up to you,

"Well, I'll tell you
what I think about what you ought to do."

Their lips and their teeth and their gums
and their...

There's a missed shaving spot,
there's a piece of crust, some goo.

You see a little lunch remnant
in their teeth.

"Just send me an e-mail about this,
would ya?

I can't do it anymore.

Your face is the worst news
I've had all day."

We wanna text, text, just text!

We like that word, don't we? "Text!"
It's fun to say. It's got that...

short, tight, got the x in there,
a little bite to it.

"Text it! Text!"

"Don't... I don't...
I don't know where it is.

Don't tell me! Text it. Don't tell me!"

Remember when we first got text?

Not really. Can't really remember that.

I-I can't either.

I mean, I know that we have it.

I know we didn't use to have it.

I don't know how we got it.
I don't remember...

Did they tell us we were getting it?
There was...

Was there an announcement
that we were getting it?

There was no commercial.
I don't remember a commercial.

"Want some human contact
but kind of had it up to here with people?

Try text.

Need to get someone
some information

but don't want to hear their stupid voice
responding to it?

You need to be on text."

We like it. It's fast. It's efficient.

Not fast enough,
apparently, for some people.

Now, instead of "OK,"
a lot of people text me just the "K,"

leavin' the "O" off.

What... what microfraction of a second
did you save?

You think you're efficient?

What does that add up to,

like two free minutes
at the end of your day

that you can watch
a YouTube video of skateboarders

banging their nuts off a railing?

Somebody texted me "TY" the other day
instead of "thank you."

I'd like to bang your nuts off a railing,
TY.

That's not a thank-you.

We're so anxious to get the next text,

they give you
those three little ghosty dots

to tell ya it's coming.

"Oh, we're cooking up a good one for you.
Wait till ya see this.

You are not gonna believe
what this guy's about to say."

I can't show it to you yet.

We're still working on it
in the text machine,

but it's gonna be a beauty.

You can see the pistons pumping.

Sometimes, we get the ghosty dots,
and then no text.

What happened there?

I wanna know what that was.

Is that like somebody coming up to you
and going...

"Ah, uh, never mind."

The phones keep getting smarter.

Why don't we?

Why are people on voice mail
still telling me to wait for the beep?

It's the 21st goddamn century.

I think we're all up to speed
on the beep.

The Maasai tribesmen of the African plain
know about the beep.

They don't leave a message
till they hear: "Ma-ma-lay, ma-ma-lay.

Beep!"

Why are people still telling me
to leave my name and number on voice mail?

Are these necessary instructions
for anyone?

Anyone getting messages like,
"This is a woman. Goodbye"?

Or: "He's dead. Call me back."
"Who was that?"

What about the, uh, camera in the phone?

I always wonder if they...
Before they do those kinds of things,

do they stand around and go,

"Hey, are you sure this is a good idea?

You don't think this one feature,

all by itself,
could result in so many pictures,

videos, posting, comments, and clapbacks

that the entire life force
of the human race just drains out

like a puddle of piss
by the side of the road?

You don't think that could happen
from this one thing?"

"No.

Nor do I think every restaurant dinner
will end with a picture bully going,

'Okay, everyone. Picture.

Come on.

We gotta have a picture.'"

"Why? We didn't have a good time.
I don't wanna remember this."

And let's make sure we get
the least phone-fluent person

in the area to take the picture.

Someone old, nervous, clumsy,
confused, or dim-witted.

Someone that can't hold things,
see things, aim things, press things.

Someone who,
the second they're handed the phone,

it slips off camera mode,
and they can't get it back.

"I don't know. Is anyone...

I don't, uh...

Does anyone know how to..."

Let's get that person
so we can be standing here even longer

with fake, frozen smiles
and our arm around somebody

you would never touch
in any other social situation.

We're picture-addicted.

There's no way to stop it. Sometimes,
I wanna go back to the flip phone.

One of those ones I see on TV.
They have these phones for old people

with the...
with the giant buttons like floor tiles.

You ever see that commercial?

These old people phones,
two buttons: your kid, ambulance.

That's it.

Forget the numbers.
You don't need the numbers.

Why don't we update
some of these terms that we use

in the tech world, like "e-mail"?

Why is the world "mail" even in "e-mail"?

Is there any similarity between e-mail

and whatever the hell is going on
in the Postal Service?

One of them operates on a digital,
fiber-optic, hyper-speed network.

The other is this dazed and confused,

distant branch of the Cub Scouts
out there, just...

...bumbling around the streets
in embarrassing shorts

and jackets with meaningless patches
and victory medals.

Driving four miles an hour,
20 feet at a time,

on the wrong side
of a mentally handicapped Jeep.

They always have this emotional,

financial meltdown
every three and half years

that their business model from 1630
isn't working anymore.

"How are we going to catch up?"

I cannot understand
how a 21st-century information system

based on licking, walking,

and a random number of pennies...

is struggling to compete.

They always push the postmaster general
out on TV to explain their difficulties.

He's all freaked out,
rings under his eyes,

no shave, pullin' all-nighters.

"We can't keep it up much longer.

Looks like we're gonna have to go up
another penny on the stamps!"

We're sittin' at home, "No, dude, relax.

We don't even know
how much a stamp is anyway.

Forty-eight, 53, 61... Make it a buck,
you're gonna get there.

If it ends up
you got some money left over,

buy yourself some pants and a real car."

I would say to the Postal Service,

"If you actually wanted to be helpful
to us,

just open the letters,

read 'em, and e-mail us what it says!

We'll give you a penny
for each one you do...

...since that seems to be a lot of money
in your world."

But we are all human.

Human.

The human is a social species,
as we can see.

We tend to congregate,

aggregate, and coagulate together.

We live here in New York City.

That makes no sense.

If you take a plane out of New York,

and you look down at the city,

what do you see around the city?

Why, there's nothing but empty, open,
beautiful, rolling land out there.

Nobody's there!

"Let's pack in here, tight!"

Uncomfortable, on top of each other,
traffic, congestion!

That's what we like!

Human beings like to be close together

because it makes it easier for us
to judge and criticize...

...the personalities
and activities of these humans.

We like to give our thoughts,
our comments, our opinions.

Sometimes, we run out of opinions.

We make them up.

"It is what it is"

is a very popular opinion statement
nowadays.

I'm sure some idiot said it to you today.

You can't get through a day
without somebody going,

"Well, it is what it is."

Why are you alive?

To just say air words that fill the room
with meaningless sounds?

I'd rather someone blew clear air
into my face

than said, "It is what it is"
to me one more time.

Just... just come up to me and go...

'Cause I get the same data from that!

People like to say those things.
"It is what it is."

You see,
if you repeat a word twice in a sentence,

you can say that with a lot of confidence.

"Business is business."

"Rules are rules."

"Deal's a deal."

"When we go in there,

as long as we know what's what
and who's who,

whatever happens, happens,
and it is what it is."

Jerry!

We also like to say things
to make ourselves feel better.

"Well, at least he died
doin' something that he loved."

Yeah, well, okay...

but he's not doin' that anymore.

Also, not sure how in love with it
he would still be...

after the very negative outcome.

I'd like to die
doin' somethin' that I hate

like cleaning
a row of outdoor Porta Pottis.

Clutch my chest, drop the brush,
keel over, and go,

"Fantastic. At least I'm done with that."

And when one does have occasion

to avail oneself of one of these portable,
plastic, outdoor public toilets,

that's a very different place
than any other place you go in life,

and you're a little different, too,
when you come out.

A little shook up, like a combat veteran

or somebody that works
at a trauma center.

"You all right?" "Yeah, no, I'm fine.

I just need some time. I'll be all right.

I'm gonna take a walk.

I need to think... about my life.

It just doesn't feel like it's goin'
in the direction I wanted it to go."

And by the way, never marry anyone
that comes out of one of these bathrooms

and goes, "It's not that bad in there."

Do not marry that person.

You have a lot of fantastic qualities.
You will eventually meet someone.

Do not settle for
an individual of this caliber.

Because it's very easy to use
these bathrooms.

I always find the spring tension
on the door

to be a little lighter
than I thought it was gonna be.

The door opens so easily, so welcoming.

"Come on in. We have something for you."

A place to relieve yourself
in exchange for a mental image picture

that will cause you to twitch
in your sleep

every night for a year and a half...

with PTSD:

"Portable Toilet Spring Door."

I don't even know
how they're allowed to call it a bathroom.

It's not a bath... You're... you're crapping
in a hole with a box over it.

It's beastly!

It's hyena living!

You wanna do that thing your dog does
after going to the bathroom in the grass.

You know that little move they make?

You wanna do that
after you've used one of these things.

"Why you doin' that?"

"I'm tryin' to get the last few minutes
outta my mind. That's all."

You're a great audience.
This is really fun.

Thank you so much for bein' here.

- Hey, Jerry!
- Dude.

All right.

Let's change gears at this point
in our lovely time together here.

So, those are things
that I see in the outside world.

Now, I wanna take you
into Jerry's little world...

and give you a little perspective
on what's going on in my personal life.

First, I will give you the basic numbers.
Everybody likes the numbers.

I'm 65 years old.

I apologize for the shock value...

...of that number.

I am married for 19 years.

I have three kids.

My oldest is my daughter.
I have two younger boys.

I love being in my sixties.

It's my favorite decade of human life
so far.

When you're in your sixties,
people ask you to do somethin',

you just say no.

No reason, no excuse, no explanation.

I can't wait for my seventies.
I don't even think I'll answer.

I've seen those people. You just wave
when you're in your seventies.

"Hey, you wanna check out
that flea market?"

I like this time.

It's relaxing.

I don't wanna grow. I don't wanna change.
I don't want to improve in anything.

I don't want to expand my interests,

meet anyone, or learn anything
I don't already know.

I don't lie in restaurants anymore.

"How is everything?"
"I don't like it here."

"Want the check?"
"No, I intend to press charges.

This is outrageous."

I don't like to turn around. Like,
if I'm walkin' down the street like this...

"Jerry, check this out.
You gotta see this."

This move. I don't...
I don't like doing this thing anymore.

I just don't wanna do it.

"You gotta see this."

"I disagree."

I don't feel old, I don't feel tired;

I've just seen a lot of things.

I'll see it on the way back,
when it's in front of me.

How 'bout that?

Or I won't see it.

Or I'll Google it.

Or I'll just assume

it's probably a lot like something else
I've already seen.

A lot of people around my age
make a bucket list.

I made a bucket list,

and I turned the b to an f,
and I was done with that, too.

I just want you to have that option.

You can either check off all your items...

or change one letter at the top,

you're in a La-Z-Boy,
watchin' a ball game.

I got married late in life.
I was 45. I had some issues.

I was enjoying those issues quite a bit,
as I recall.

When I was single, I had married friends.
I would not visit their homes.

I found their lives to be pathetic
and depressing.

Now that I'm married,
I have no single friends.

I find their lives to be meaningless
and trivial experiences.

In both cases, I believe I was correct.

Whichever side of marriage you're on,

you don't get
what the other people are doing.

I can't hang out with single guys.

You don't have a wife,
we have nothing to talk about.

You have a girlfriend?
That's Wiffle ball, my friend.

You're playing paintball war;

I'm in Afghanistan
with real, loaded weapons.

Married guys play with full clips
and live rounds.

This is not a drill.

Single guy's sitting on a merry-go-round,
blowin' on a pinwheel!

I'm drivin' a truck full of nitro
down a dirt road.

You single guys here tonight,
looking at me,

"Hey, Jerry, what if I wanna be
a married guy like you?

What do I gotta have
if I wanna be a married guy?"

I'll tell you.
You better have some answers, buddy.

You better have some answers
for that woman.

Women have a lot of questions.

Their brains are strong,

active, and on high alert at all times.

You're sleeping. She's researching.

The female brain is cookin' all the time!

The female brain
is one of the most competent

and capable organs
in all of the biological universe.

Girl power.

You're goddamn right.

There's nothing
the female brain cannot do.

It will solve all problems of earth

and... life.

Having completed that,

it will move on to the hypothetical.

Theoretical situations...

that may or may not occur.

The female needs to know
how you might respond.

"If you faked your own death,
and I found out about it,

what would you say then?"

"What are we talkin' about now?"

"Oh, I dreamt the whole thing last night,
so don't deny it."

Being married is like being
on a game show,

and you're always in the lightning round.

I went out and bought a game-show podium.
I set it up in my living room.

I wake up in the morning,
and I stand behind the podium,

tryin' to answer all my wife's questions
and get on with the goddamn day.

I got a hand button-clicker.

"I'll take 'Movies
I Think We Saw Together' for 200."

My wife, of course,
is the returning champion from last week.

"I'll take
'Details of a Ten-Minute Conversation

We Had at Three O'Clock in the Morning
Eight Years Ago.'

And I would like to bet
everything I have on that, Alex.

I'm going for the win right here."

The husband, of course, never has a clue.

"I'm sorry, sir.
You did not win the weekend sex package...

...or the guilt-free
televised sporting event.

Thank you for playing.
Are you even listening to me?

And don't forget to take
that big bag of garbage

with you on your way out...

of the studio."

One of the things I did not know
before I got married

that I found out after I got married

is that
every single day of my married life,

I would be discussing
the tone of my voice.

I was not aware, as a single man,

that I so often speak
in the incorrect tone.

I thought it was a marriage.
Apparently, it's a musical.

I walk around the house with one
of those round, black glee-club things.

How 'bout that one?

Am I gettin' closer?

"It's your tone." "My tone?"
"Yes, your tone."

"What's wrong with my tone?"
"I don't like your tone."

"What do you want me to...?"
"You better change your tone!"

Ever heard that?

And women are correct, as they always are.

The male tone changes
over the course of the relationship.

In the beginning,
as the male pursues the female,

in the courting or flirting phase,

we speak two octaves higher.

We raise our voice two octaves.

We talk like this in the beginning.

Because Chinese food
or Italian sounds great.

Maybe we'll take a drive
or go for a walk.

My actual speaking voice
that I am using right now

to communicate with you

is not welcome in my house.

That's why I'm out here talkin' to you.

Do you think that I talk like this...

in my house, with this authority?

The little edge in my voice?
You think I speak like that in my house?

I do not.

If I walked into my own house,

which I paid for, by the way.
Not relevant, just wanted to mention it.

If I said, like this...

If I said,

"I gotta get somethin' to eat!"

If I said it like that...
First of all, any guy I know would say,

"Eat whatever the hell you want.
I don't care what you eat."

Any woman will say,
"Why are you yelling at me?"

"I'm not yelling!

I'm just hungry!"

And then the fight breaks out,

and when the fight breaks out,
now you're white-water kayaking.

You got a plastic helmet on.
You're goin' under. You're poppin' up.

Just keep paddling.

That's when the woman's
tone of voice changes.

Yes, the women are included in this, too.

All women, at some point
in every argument with the man,

like to imitate the voice of the man.

In the amazing organizational system
that women have,

they have all somehow worked out
to do the same impression.

"You always say,
'Oh no, I can't do things like that.

That's not what I said I was gonna do.'

You said, 'I might go.'
You said, 'Definitely go.'

'Oh, I don't think... I don't think
that I'd feel comfortable.'

You go, 'Oh, with your friends.
We're goin' with your friends.'

It's not like my friends.
With my friends, you say,

'Oh, I don't think that I could...'"

Who the hell is this guy?

Where did you see this guy?

I never heard anyone talk like this.

"That's because you don't hear yourself.

You should hear how you sound.

You go, 'Oh, I don't think... You know.'"

It reminds me of that Lollipop Guild guy:

♪ Oh, we represent the Lollipop Guild ♪

It's all about listening.

Want some marriage advice?

Ya better listen up!

A lot of wives complain
that their husbands do not listen.

I have never heard my wife say this.
She may have.

I don't know, but...

here's what I do know.

Ladies, your husband
wants to make you happy.

He's workin' on it!

He's planning it.

He's thinking about it every second.

He cannot do it.

He cannot do it.

He does not know how to do it.

Sometimes, we do it.

We don't know how we did it.

We can't ask, "What did I do?"

That looks like you don't know
what you're doing.

Can't do nothing.

Woman says,
"I can't believe you're doing this."

Man says, "Doing what?"

Woman starts crying.

Man says, "I didn't do anything."

Woman says, "Exactly."

So, it's a bit of a chess game, isn't it?

Except, the board is flowing water...

and all the chess pieces

are made of smoke.

And you're not alone.
Don't ever forget that in marriage.

Society, culture, technology, even,

is helping you
on your journey of marriage.

In your car, for example,

dual-zone, separate buttons,
on each side,

climate control systems.

Gee, I wonder if it was a married person
that thought of that...

and thought, "Hey,
this could potentially come in handy

if you're with someone
you're legally bound to

for the rest of your life

and you need them to shut the hell up."

"I'm freezin'! I'm roastin'! I'm boilin'!

It's blowin' on me!"

When my wife says, "The air is on me,"

it is the equivalent of a normal person
saying, "A bear is on me."

That's the emergency level.

And I respond at that level, too.

"Oh, my God.
An evil breeze from a hostile vent

is attacking my mate and life partner,

who incidentally bore me three children
without anesthesia.

Probably could have caught
the babies herself if no one was around,

but cannot survive a waft of air

three degrees
off her optimum desired temperature."

And I'm sure this stupid dual-zone thing
totally works, too,

to keep
different-temperature air molecules

from commingling

inside a three-foot wide,
closed compartment of an automobile.

Because I go to my coffee place
in the morning...

I like to get my coffee black
on the left side of the cup,

cream and sugar on the right,

and that's no problem.

Or you go to fancy restaurants.

Sometimes they say,
"Do you want still or sparkling water?"

I go, "Both.
Same glass, keep 'em separate.

I do it in my car all the time."

Here's a marriage moment I saw for real.

Husband in the car, wife on the sidewalk.

He's picking her up after work.

He did not bring the car
to a full and complete stop!

She had the door open.

She was hopping on one foot...

...trying to get some kind of leverage
on the armrest of...

You can only get one foot in a moving car.

One can only imagine
the spirited exchange of ideas...

that took place in that car
the rest of the drive home.

But that's what marriage is.

It's two people...

trying to stay together
without saying the words "I hate you."

Which you're not allowed to say. Okay?

You can't say that.

You can feel it.

That's okay.

Don't let it come...

...out.

Say something else. Anything.

Say, "Why is there never any Scotch Tape
in this goddamn house?"

"Scotch" is "I," "tape" is "hate,"
"house" is "you."

But it's better.

You don't say,
"I could kill you right now."

You say, "You're so funny sometimes."

"So, Jerry, we would like to understand
in a little more detail

exactly how you pulled this off,
'cause we...

We saw that you were,
uh, just a single, regular,

bachelor guy, 45 years.

And then all of a sudden, you just...
You just turned on a dime.

Marriage, wife, kids, family.
How'd you navigate that?

How'd you acclimate?

How did you procreate and cohabitate,

learning to accommodate

so as not to aggravate?"

It's a very good question,

because a man in marriage will not survive

if he does not have
a strong brain-to-speech

guard-gate control filtration system.

You don't just talk in marriage!

It's risky.

When I'm with my wife,
who I love so dearly,

and a thought enters my head,

the first thing I think is,
"Well, I know I can't say that."

Maybe I could say
I heard someone else say it.

And then she and I can share
a warm moment together,

agreeing on what an idiot
that person must be.

And we get along great.

So, we have three kids. I told you that.

We just came back
from a lovey family vacation,

or what I like to call:

"Let's pay a lot of money to go fight
in a hotel."

I don't know
what the hell else we were doing.

Let's fight on bikes.

"I'm gonna kill you."
"I'm gonna kill you more."

Let's use profanity
on a pristine, white-sand beach.

Let's fight about how well-behaved
those other children seem to be.

I wonder if they were out
on the hotel balcony last night

with 12-dollar minibar cashews,

trying to hit the other guests
in the head.

So, my daughter is, uh, my oldest.

She's 18, and she just, uh, finished
high school, went off to college.

Big... That's kind of a big, you know,
step when you're parents.

Thank you.

We did a great job.

She finished high school.

So, a lot of people...
You know, everybody's asking me,

"How do you feel, Jerry?
You know, first kid leaving the house?"

And I'm good.

I'm okay. I'm okay.

The way I look at it, it's like
if you somehow found a baby alligator

and you put it in your tub,
and everybody would...

"Look at this. I found this. Baby alli...

Look. Put your finger in his mouth.
Feel the teeth?

Little teeth, little bitey, bitey teeth."

And then time passes, and you go,

"You know, I think we gotta get this thing
the hell outta here.

This is, uh...

This doesn't feel right anymore.

This thing is... it's scary.

This thing needs to be out there,

murdering other living things
and eating them.

That... that's what it's supposed to do."

But I love being a dad.
I was there at the birth.

Obviously,
the most dramatic human life moment.

Anytime two people walk into a room,
and three come out...

a major event took place in that room.

At the end of life,
we go back basically into the same room,

same bed, same stuff around.

And again,
a different number of people coming out

than went in,

but that is the human-being business.

We gotta turn inventory, fresh product,

keep the supply chain moving.

We gotta get 'em in. We gotta get 'em out.
That's the hospital's job.

It's rest, cleanliness.

If it doesn't work out,
we help you move on.

It says "hospital" when you walk in,
but it could also be "Bed Bath & Beyond."

'Cause the babies never stop coming.
Babies don't care.

You think babies care
that the world's a mess,

you have issues?

"We're comin' in!

We want in!"

They come in
like racks of fresh doughnuts.

More babies. More babies.
More babies.

Why are they here?

They are here to replace us.

That is their mission.

Don't you see what's happening?

They're pushing us out.

Their first words are "mama," "dada,"

and "buh-bye."

"Oh, we'll see who's wearing the diapers
when this is all over."

That's what the babies are thinking.

But again,
the father, struggling to keep pace.

Moms that are here,
we want to be what you want us to be.

We can't do it!

We want to do it.

The baby's born. I remember...
It's just the most amazing thing.

For the female,
just these instincts just kick in.

For the man, nothing kicks in.

He's just the same guy, standin' there.

It was years into my children's lives,
I'd see them staring at me

from across the room
like they were gonna come and say,

"I'm sorry, is someone helping you?

Mom, the horsey-ride guy is here again.
Do we need anything?"

Avoidance is the male domestic instinct.

Golf, the ultimate avoidance activity.

A game so nonsensically difficult,

so pointless, so irrational,
so time-consuming,

the world "golf"
could only possibly stand for:

"get out, leave family."

And I have a lot of friends that play.
They love it. Oh, they love it.

"Jerry, you would love it.

It's a very challenging game."

"Yes, I am sure that it is.

It's also challenging trying to throw
a Tic Tac 100 yards into a shoebox."

In the fantasy mind of the golfing father,
when he comes home,

the family will come running out

to hear the exciting stories
of his golfing adventures.

In reality, no one is even aware
that he has left or returned...

from eight and a half hours
of idiotic hacking through sand and weeds

while driving drunk in a clown car
through a fake park.

Nonetheless, the father remains proud...

dressing in bizarre outfits
around the house on the weekends.

All fathers essentially dress

in the clothing style
of the last good year of their lives.

Whatever a man was wearing
around the time he got married,

he freezes that moment

in fashion history
and rides it out to the end.

You see fathers on the street:
'05, '91, '83.

Took the kids to the movies the other day.

New announcement in the movie theater
I hadn't seen before:

"Please pick up the garbage
from around your seat after the movie."

"Oh, okay.

Maybe I'll bring my orange jumpsuit
and a wooden stick with a nail in it, too.

Maybe I'll work my way down the highway
after the credits."

I'm not pickin' nothin' up!

I'm the one that threw it down.

There's a deal in place
between us and the movie theater people.

The deal is, you're rippin' us off!

In exchange for that,
when I'm done with something,

I open my hand.

Let it roll down eight rows.

I'm not sticking my arm
into that dark, scary hole...

tryin' to pry out three Goobers
that have been solder welded there

since The Shawshank Redemption.

What have they done for us?

What... what? You gave us a cup holder?
Is that our luxury feature?

How about an automatic popcorn shooter
that fires one in every five seconds...

to complete this corpse-like experience?

The cup holder, that is the object
that defines our culture.

"We're not holding cups!

We don't wanna grip!"

Hands-free.

Give me a cowboy hat
with a beer on each side

and a feeding tube comin' down.

Give me a dog leash
with an extra leash wound up in it,

in case the dog pulls it,
I hit the button,

let the line out like he's a marlin.

I go into a public restroom,

I expect a motion detector
on the toilet, sink, urinal.

I'm doin' nothin' in here.

Why is the sink never as aware of us
as the toilet?

You always have to go
into a David Copperfield magic act

to make that work.

Who designed the bathroom stall
with the under-display viewing window?

So we can all see
the lifeless, collapsed pant legs

and tragic little shoe fronts
that are just barely poking out

from underneath the impotent belt,
lying helpless.

How much more money is it
to bring this wall down another foot?

It's the cheapest wall in the world.

It's a metal panel.

They don't even make the panels
meet up tight in the corners!

Why can't they cinch it up?

Sometimes, you're walkin' by,

you see a frightened,
terrorized human eye.

You ever see just a flash of eye white
in the space?

Just a pupil?

Why are we doing this to people?

I'm not a horse.
I don't wanna be in a stall.

If it's a stall, why don't I hang my head
over the door?

That's what the horses do.

I'm sure my coworkers
recognize my shoes.

Let's let 'em see my face, too.

"Hey, Bob, how you doing?

Yeah, this is why I had to run
out of that big meeting.

I had a little PowerPoint presentation
of my own to do."

Thank you, New York City.
You've been the best!

I love you guys.

You made me. I appreciate it.

Thanks for comin' in to see our show.

Hope you enjoyed it.

Good night.

♪ There's a man
Who leads a life of danger ♪

♪ To everyone he meets
He stays a stranger ♪

♪ With every move he makes ♪

♪ Another chance he takes ♪

♪ Odds are he won't live
to see tomorrow ♪

♪ Secret agent man ♪

♪ Secret... ♪

Now, in the helicopter,
what you would do...

you'd move forward a little bit
before you push out.

- What's this one?
- It's you in the doorway.

- Hey!
- Hey, what's up?

♪ Beware of pretty faces that you find ♪

♪ A pretty face can hide an evil mind ♪

- ♪ Ah, be careful ♪
- Yeah!

♪ What you say ♪

♪ Or you'll give yourself away ♪

♪ Odds are you won't live... ♪

- Very good.
- Thank you.