John Mulaney: Kid Gorgeous at Radio City (2018) - full transcript

Welcome to Radio City Music Hall.

It's time. Any questions?

No.

Walk with me.

Good evening.

Hi, I'm John Mulaney, nice to meet you.

Jon Brion, ladies and gentlemen.

Thank you for coming to see
me at Radio City Music Hall.

I love to play venues where
if the guy that built the venue

could see me on the stage,

he would be a little bit bummed about it.



Look at this.

This is so much nicer
than what I'm about to do.

It's really...

It's really tragic.

What a historic and beautiful
and deeply haunted building this is.

I keep walking through cold spots being like,

"I wonder who that used to be."

I've never seen a ghost, by the way.

I asked my mom if she'd ever seen a ghost.

That's where we're at conversation-wise
in our relationship as a mother and son,

because I'm 35 and I don't
have any children to talk about

and she doesn't understand my career.

So I was home for Christmas and
we were just eating Triscuits in silence

and I was staring at
the floor and I was like,



"Well, here goes nothing.
'You ever seen a ghost?'"

And my mom said, "Yes."

Which is the best answer.

She said, "I never told you this before

but our house, when you
were growing up, was haunted."

I said, "Say more right now!"

She said, "Outside you
and your brother's room",

I used to see the ghost of a
little girl in a Victorian nightgown

"and then she would walk down the
hallway and then she would evaporate."

And then my dad said,
"Let's change the subject!"

And I think he was just
doing that dad-thing of, like,

"This is a weird topic and I want to talk
about a book I read about World War II."

But the way it came off was that
he definitely killed that little girl.

"Let's change the subject!"

Why are we even talking about Penelope...

or whatever her name was?

I didn't kill her!

"Whoever did kill her only did
it to protect her from this world."

None of us really know our fathers. Anyway...

My dad is so weird.

I'd love to meet him someday.

You know, my friend was telling me
that his dad used to beat him with a belt

and that's just the setup to my story, so...

Forget about that poor
son of a bitch. Anyway...

He was talking and I was waiting
for him to be done so I could talk.

So he's "talk, talk,
talk." It's my turn next!

And...

I said, "My dad never hit us."

My dad is a lawyer and he
was a debate team champion.

So he would pick us apart psychologically.

One time I was at the dinner table
when I was like six, because I had to be.

My dad goes, "How was school today?"

I said, "It was good but someone
pushed Tyler off the seesaw."

"And where were you?"

"I was over on the bench."

"And what did you do?"

"Nothing. I was over on the bench."

"But you saw what happened?"

"Yeah, 'cause I was over on the bench."

"So you saw what happened
and you did nothing?"

"Yeah, 'cause I was
sitting over on the bench."

"Let me ask you this. In Nazi Germany..."

"...when people saw what the
Nazis were doing and did nothing,

were those good people?"

"No, those are bad people.
You gotta stop the Nazis."

"But you saw what they were
doing to Tyler and you did nothing!"

"Because I was over on the bench."

And then my dad said,
"Just explain to me this.

How are you better than a Nazi?"

And then my mom said, "I
made a salad with Craisins!"

And the conversation ended.

My dad's a very weird, informal guy.

A lot of people ask me
if he gave me a sex talk.

Yes.

I think.

I was like 12 years old and my dad
walked up to me and he said, "Hello..."

"Hello, I'm Chip Mulaney. I'm your father."

And then he said the following,

"You know, Leonard Bernstein..."

was one of the great composers
and conductors of the 20th century,

but sometimes he would be gay.

And according to a biography I read of him,

"when he was holding back the gay
part, he did some of his best work."

Now we don't have time to unpack all of that.

And I don't know if he was
discouraging me from being gay

or encouraging me to be a classical composer.

But that is how he thought to
phrase it to a 12-year-old boy.

How would that ever work?

Like years later, I'd be in college
about to go down on some rocking twink

and I'd be like, "Wait a second...

What would Leonard Bernstein do?"

I've never talked to my dad about
that, but I figured I would tell all of you.

This is so great.

Thank you for coming. You're
here. That's great. You all showed up.

I appreciate it.

And then we showed up so you got
to see the things that you paid to see.

That's great.

You don't always get to see
the things that you paid to see.

Ever been to the goddamn zoo?

Those guys are never
where they're supposed to be.

Every time I go to the zoo I'm
like, "Hey, where's the jaguar?"

And the zoo guy is like, "He
must be in the inside part."

The inside part?

Tell him we're here.

I love doing stand-up for
crowds because this right here,

this reminds me of assembly in grade school.

And assembly was the only
part of school I ever liked.

Once you leave school, you
don't get to have assembly.

This is the closest we get
in adult life to assembly.

'Cause look at you all, you're
just sitting there in chairs,

looking at a guy with
absolutely no expertise,

who's going to talk for a while.

Although this is different than assembly

because you bought tickets,
you knew this was coming.

Assembly you never knew
was coming when you were a kid.

You just showed up at 8:00 a.m.

and they were like, "Put
down your stuff. Go to the gym."

You're like, "God, I guess they're
finally going to kill us all. All right.

This is younger than I thought I
would be but we are pretty big assholes."

You get to the gym and the
whole school is sitting on the floor.

You're like, "What are we,
about to graduate from Tuesday?"

My principal would always
come out to kick things off.

She'd be like, "Children, rather than
continue to teach you how to read,

we have cleared the entire day

for this random guy."

"I used to smoke crack!"

As you seven and
eight-year-olds probably know,

freebasing is the greatest
orgasm known to man.

But I'm here to tell you there's hope.

I've been sober now two weeks.

Well, weekdays, not weekends.

"Weekends, that's Nunzio's time."

I was once in assembly listening
to a guy talk about smoking crack.

My social studies teacher yelled at
me, "Sit up straight! Show some respect."

I was like, "He's smoking cocaine."

"Sit up straight"? He's
standing on a 45-degree angle.

Or, as junkies call it, first position.

I always got yelled at at assembly.

That's right. There was always assembly
and then, like, that second assembly

to yell at you for how you
behaved at the first assembly.

They'd be like, "Get in here! Sit down.

I want to talk about what
happened yesterday."

You're like eight years
old, "What's yesterday?"

"We invite a woman here with homemade puppets

to teach you about bullying through skits

and you laugh at this woman?

We noticed you had all
been bullying each other

and making fun of everything constantly.

So we invite a woman

with straight gray hair, in a denim dress,

with a wrist-cast and homemade
puppets that all have the same voice

to teach you about bullying through skits,

and you, ha-ha-ha, laugh it up.

What was so funny about that woman?

I want to know.

What was so funny about when
she couldn't fit the box of puppets

back into the trunk of her Dodge Neon?

What was so hilarious that
you all ran to the windows?

"Well, you all missed a valuable
lesson on the danger of cliques."

"What's a clique?"

"It's when a group of
people hang out together."

"Oh, you mean like having friends?"

"No, because these people
make fun of other people."

"Oh, you mean like having friends?"

The greatest assembly of them
all, once a year, Stranger Danger.

Yeah, the hottest ticket in town.

The Bruno Mars of assemblies.

You are gathered together as a school

and you are told never to talk
to an adult that you don't know

and you are told this by
an adult that you don't know.

We had the same Stranger Danger
speaker every year when I was a kid,

his name was Detective JJ Bittenbinder.

Go ahead and laugh. His name is ridiculous.

That was his name.

It was JJ Bittenbinder.

He was from the Chicago Police Department.

He was a child homicide expert and...

Oh, gee.

Very sorry, Radio City, did
that make you uncomfortable?

Well, guess what? You're
adults and he's not even here.

So try being seven years old

and you're sitting five feet away from him.

He's still got blood on his shoes.

And he's looking at
you in the eye to tell you

for the first time in your very young life

that some adults find
you incredibly attractive.

And they may just have to kill you over it.

Okay, c'est la vie, go be kids, go have fun.

Bittenbinder came every year.

By the way, Detective JJ
Bittenbinder wore three-piece suits.

He also wore a pocket watch.

Two years in a row, he wore a cowboy hat.

He also had a huge handlebar mustache.

None of that matters, but it's
important to me that you know that.

He did not look like his job description.

He looked like he should be the conductor
on a locomotive powered by confetti.

But, instead, he made his living in murder.

He was the weirdest goddamn
person I ever saw in my entire life.

He was a man most acquainted with misery.

He could look at a child and
guess the price of their coffin.

That line never gets a laugh.

But once you write it, it
stays in the act forever.

So Bittenbinder came every
year with a program to teach us

about the violent world waiting
for us outside the school gym,

and that program was called Street Smarts!

"Time for Street Smarts
with Detective JJ Bittenbinder.

Shut up! You're all
gonna die. Street Smarts!"

That was the general tone.

He would give us tips to deal with crime.

I will share some of the
tips with you this evening.

"Okay, tip number one. Street Smarts!

Let's say a guy pulls a
knife on you to mug you."

You remember the scourge of muggings
when you were in second and third grade.

You know how a mugger thinks.

"Man, I need cash for drugs right now.

Hey, maybe that eight-year-old
with the goddamn Aladdin wallet

that only has blank photo laminate
pages in it will be able to help."

"Let's say a guy pulls a knife on
you to mug you. What do you do?"

You go fumbling for your wallet.

And you go fumbling for your wallet.

Well, in that split-second, that's
when he's going to stab you.

So here's what you do.

You kids get yourselves a money clip.

Okay, you can get these at any haberdashery.

You put a $50 bill in the money clip
then when a guy flashes a blade, you go,

'You want my money, go get it!'

"Then you run the other direction."

And our teachers were
like, "Write that down."

We're like, "Buy a money
clip. Engraved, question mark?"

You go home to your parents.

"Hey, Dad. Can I have a silver
money clip with a $50 bill in it, please?"

Don't worry.

I'm only going to chuck it into the gutter

and run away at the first sign of trouble.

"The man with the mustache told me to do it."

"Tip number two. Street Smarts!"

"Let's say a kidnapper throws
you in the back of a trunk..."

This was at nine in the morning.

"Let's say a kidnapper throws
you in the back of a trunk."

Don't panic.

Once you get your bearings...

find the carpet that covers the taillight,

peel back the carpet, make a fist,

punch the taillight out the back of the car,

thus creating a hole in
the back of the automobile,

then stick your little hand out
and wave to oncoming motorists

"to let them know that
something hinky is going on."

Can you imagine driving behind that?

I think they're turning left.

"Tip number three. Street Smarts!"

"You kids have no upper body strength."

And we were like, "We know but, hey."

"If some guy tries to grab you,
you can't fight him with fists.

So here's what you do.

You kids fall down on your
back and you kick upward at him.

That'll throw him off his rhythm."

That was a big thing with Bittenbinder,
throwing pedophiles off their rhythm.

"He's not gonna know how to fight back
with two little sneakers coming at him."

"If the Lindbergh baby had steel-toe boots,

he'd still be alive today. Street Smarts!"

Yeah, he was not a "spoonful of sugar
helps the medicine go down" kind of guy.

He was more like, "Brush your teeth.
Now, boom, orange juice. That's life."

Bittenbinder, he didn't
want us to not get kidnapped.

He wanted us to almost get kidnapped

and then fight the guy off using weird,
psych-out, back-room Chicago violence.

Like here's what he
wanted to see on the news.

"We're here with seven-year-old John Mulaney

who fended off a kidnapper earlier
today. How did you do it, John?"

"Well, thank ya for askin'."

I used the Bittenbinder method.

When I saw the perp approachin',

I chewed up a tab of Alka-Seltzer
I carry with me at all times.

This created a
foaming-at-the-mouth appearance

that made it look like I had rabies.

Now I've thrown him off his rhythm.

Then I reach into his jacket pocket
where I had planted a gram of coke

and I went, 'Whoa! What the fuck is this?'

And he goes, 'That's not
mine. I never seen that before.'

I go, 'Boo-hoo, it's in your jacket.

You're doing two to ten and your
kids are going into Social Services.'

Now he's cryin'!

Then I grab a telephone book
and I beat him on the torso with it.

"'Cause as any Chicago cop will tell
ya, a phone book doesn't leave bruises."

"Well, that was seven-year-old John Mulaney,

currently being sued for police brutality."

Bittenbinder told me things
that haunt me to this day.

He came one year for assembly.

He goes, "Okay, when you
get kidnapped..." Not if, when.

"Okay, so when you get kidnapped,
the place where the guy grabs ya,

in the biz we call that the primary location.

Okay. Your odds of coming back alive
from the primary location, about 60%.

But if you are taken to a secondary location,

"your odds of coming
back alive are slim to none."

I am 35 years old and I am still
terrified of secondary locations.

If I'm at a place, I never
want to go to another place.

I'll be at a wedding reception
and someone'll be like,

"You coming to the hotel bar after?

We're all gonna get drinks
and keep the party going."

I'm like, "Nah, sister. You're not
getting me to no secondary location.

You want it? Go get it!"

Street Smarts! Stay alert out there.

I thought I was going to be
murdered my entire childhood.

In high school people were like,
"What are your top three colleges?"

I was like, "Top three colleges? I
thought I would be dead in a trunk

with my hand hanging
out of the taillight by now."

I went to college. For the whole time.

Holy shit, right?

I just got a letter from my college,
which was fun 'cause mail, you know?

So I open up the letter and they said,
"Hey, John, it's college. You remember?"

I say, "Yes, of course."

And they said... How did they phrase
it? They said, "Give us some money!"

"As a gift!"

We want a gift!

"But only if it's money."

I found this peculiar.

You see, what had happened, New
York, was that when I was a student,

I had paid them tuition money.

Every semester, two
semesters a year, for four years.

I don't remember exactly what it was,
but rounding up, back in 1999 dollars,

it was about $15,000 a semester,

two semesters a year, for four years.

So it was about $30,000
a year for four years.

So it was about $120,000, okay?

So roughly speaking, I gave
my college about $120,000.

Okay, so you might say that
I already gave them $120,000

and now you have the audacity
to ask me for more money.

What kind of a cokehead relative...

What kind of a cokehead
relative is my college?

You spent it already?

I gave you more money than the Civil War cost

and you fucking spent it already?

Where's my money? I felt like
Jimmy Stewart in It's a Wonderful Life

when he's screaming at his uncle Billy.

"Where's the money? Where's
that money, you fat motherfucker?

Where's my money? Stay down
on the ground, you motherfucker!"

That's not the dialogue.

But do you remember that
scene from It's a Wonderful Life?

Great movie, Frank Capra, 1946.

A hundred and twenty thousand dollars!

I have friends I went to college with

and they're like, "You should
donate and be a good alumnus."

And they wear shirts that
say "school" and it's like, look...

if you're an adult still
giving money to your college,

college is a $120,000 hooker

and you are an idiot
who fell in love with her.

She's not going to do anything else for you.

It's done.

In their letter they were like,

"Hey, it's been a while
since you've given us money."

I was like, "Hey, it's been a while
since you've housed and taught me."

I thought our transaction was over.

I gave you $120,000

and you gave me a weird cinder block
room with a Reservoir Dogs poster on it

and the first real heartbreak
of my life, and probably HPV,

"and then we called it a day."

Probably.

Also, what did I get for my money?

What is college?

Stop going until we figure it out.

Because I went to college,
I have no idea what it was.

I went to college, I was 18
years old, I looked like I was 11.

I lived like a goddamn Ninja Turtle.

I didn't drink water the entire time.

I lived on cigarettes
and alcohol and Adderall.

College was like a four-year game show

called Do My Friends Hate Me
or Do I Just Need to Go to Sleep?

But instead of winning
money, you lose $120,000.

By the way, I agreed to give them
$120,000 when I was 17 years old.

With no attorney present.

That's illegal.

They tricked me. They tricked me like
Brendan Dassey on Making a Murderer.

They tricked me like poor Brendan.

They pulled me out of high school.
I was in sweatpants, all confused.

Two guys in clip-on ties are like,

"Come on, son, do the right thing.
Sign here and be an English major."

And I was like, "Okay."

Yes, you heard me, an English major.

I paid $120,000.

How dare you clap?

How dare you clap for
the worst financial decision

I ever made in my life?

I paid $120,000 for someone
to tell me to go read Jane Austen

and then I didn't.

That's the worst use of 120
grand I can possibly fathom.

Other than if you, like, bought
a duffel bag of fake cocaine.

No, I take it back.

That's a better use of the money,

'cause I know you'd be disappointed
when you open up the duffel bag

and you realize it's not real cocaine,

it's like powdered baby
aspirin or whatever they do.

But at least you have baby aspirin.

And maybe you have a baby
and one day your baby goes,

"Oh, my head," and you go,

"Hey, I've got something
for you! Come here, little guy."

And you dump it out on a mirror.
You make it nice for the baby.

You make it nice. You cut it up into
lines with your laundry card or whatever

and you make it nice, and your
baby takes his sippy-cup straw

and he holds it in his
little ravioli-sized baby fist

and he leans over--

and he snorts up the baby aspirin,

and he gets rid of his baby
headache, plus youget a duffel bag!

That is way better than walking
across a stage at graduation, hungover,

in a gown, to accept a certificate
for reading books that I didn't read.

Strolling across a stage, the sun in my eyes,

my family watching as I
sweat vodka and ecstasy,

to receive a four-year degree in
a language that I already spoke.

I don't mean to sound down on donating.

It's good to give to charities, you know.

My wife and I just gave a
bunch of stuff to Goodwill.

We were moving apartments, we
had a bunch of clothes and furniture,

so we made a whole day out of it.

We made these big piles of clothes,
we put the piles into these big boxes,

then we put the boxes
into the back of my car,

and then they stayed there for four months.

And then one day my wife said, "Hey,
you took that stuff to Goodwill, right?"

And I said, "Of course I
did! On an unrelated note,

I'm going to walk out
the front door right now."

So then I had to speed
to Goodwill really fast.

It was charitable, but it
was also fast and violent,

because I was throwing boxes at people.

The boxes were so heavy I
couldn't even say what was in them.

I was like, "This one's shirts. I got
a bunch of shirts! Take 'em away!"

The guy tried to give me a big receipt.

He's like, "Take this receipt
for the clothing for your taxes."

How do I write that on my taxes?

"Dear IRS, please deduct
from my federal income tax

one XXL Billabong T-shirt
from youth. It was too big.

My mom said it could be a sleep shirt.
Please deduct this from my 2017 income."

That sleep shirt bullshit.

"Well, if it's too big you can
just wear it as a sleep shirt."

No, I get that, Mom,

but why don't we just tell our
relatives that I'm a four-year-old boy

and I don't wear a man's XXL T-shirt?

"Because we don't say that
when someone gives us a gift

because that would not be polite."

Oh, I get it.

So rather than violate these
meaningless politeness rules,

I'll just go to bed in a smock
like goddamn Ebenezer Scrooge.

Why don't you give me a
candle for looking in the mirror

and a floppy hat

and I'll tremble off to bed in
my long Victorian nightgown?

Was there ever even a ghost, Mother,

or was the dead Victorian
girl you saw just me all along?

So that's why you can't give to charity.

I'm kidding.

I like to throw an "I'm kidding"
at the ends of jokes now,

in case the jokes are ever played in court.

You ever heard a joke played
in court? Never goes well.

They're like, "'And that's why
you shouldn't give... to charity.'"

"Is that something you
find funny, Mr. Mulaney?"

Um... at the time.

I found out recently that
jokes don't do well in court.

So, some friends of mine were
sued in college for property damage.

And they were guilty. And the
lawsuit dragged on for years and years

and eventually I got a call
when I was 28 years old.

It was my friend from college, he said,

"Hey, that lawsuit with my
neighbor is still dragging on

and my neighbor just subpoenaed
all my emails from college

that mention him or the lawsuit."

And I said, "That's crazy.
But why are you calling me?"

And he said, "Because
you should be concerned."

He said, "I have an email here
from junior year where I wrote",

'Hey, guys, I'm going
to miss practice tonight

because I have to meet with my
neighbor about that lawsuit thing.'

And you replied, 'Hey, do you
want me to kill that guy for you?

Because it sounds like he sucks
and I will totally kill that guy for you.

"Okay. See you at improv practice.'"

Of all the sentences in that email

I would be ashamed to have
read out loud in a court of law,

I think the top one is "See
you at improv practice."

Strange, the passage of time.

I'm not that old. I'm 35, that is not old.

But I am in a new phase
right before old called "gross."

I never knew about this, but I am now gross.

I am damp all the time.

I am damp now

and I will be damp later.

Like the back of a dolphin, my back.

I am slick.

The butt part of my
pants is a little damp a lot

and I don't think it's anything
serious... but isn't it, though?

And...

I'll be sitting at a restaurant
and I'll get up and I'll be like,

"What did I sit in?" And it was me.

I'm gross now.

I've been talking through burps.

I never used to do this.

When I was a kid and I wanted
to burp, I'd be like, "Silence!"

Blagh!

Now I'm trying to push 'em
down and muscle through 'em.

I'll be at dinner, just doing
the bread and the seltzer,

filling up like a hot air balloon,

and then I'm like...

"Did you say you were going to Italy?"

Because we have a travel--
She has a travel agent if--

I'm going to the kitchen,
does anyone need anything?

From the...

"Anyone need anything?"

Just take a pause, John!

I'm gross.

I have hair on my shoulders now.

I don't even have a joke for that.

That's how much I hate that shit.

I was sitting up in bed
a few weeks ago like...

You know, life.

And my wife was rubbing my
shoulders, which was very nice of her,

but then she started singing to herself.

"Monkey, monkey, monkey man."

"Monkey, monkey, monkey man."

Not at me.

Not to be mean.

This was a song from
deep in her subconscious.

I don't even think she was
aware she was singing it.

But it was certainly not
the first time she had sung it.

I don't know what my body is for

other than just taking my
head from room to room.

And it's not getting any better.

I'm 35, but I'm still like, "Hey, when
am I going to get big and strong?"

This is it.

It's just going to be this.

I'm like an iPhone, it's going to be
worse versions of this every year,

plus I get super hot in the middle
of the afternoon for no reason.

As I get older, it's tough to not get grumpy.

It's tempting.

I get grumpy about some things.

Like, I can't listen to any new songs

because every new song is
about how tonight is the night

and how we only have tonight.

That is such 19-year-old horseshit.

I want to write songs for people in their 30s

called "Tonight's No Good,
How About Wednesday?"

Oh, You're in Dallas on Wednesday? Okay.

Well, Let's Just Not See
Each Other for Eight Months

"And It Doesn't Matter at All."

I'm trying to stay nice though,
because when I was a kid,

I was raised that you should be
nice to everyone in every situation

because you never know their story.

But now, at the end of my life,

I don't know,

because a lot of people don't seem that nice

and they seem to be doing fine in the world.

Or maybe they have different
definitions of what it means to be nice.

That's something you figure out as
you get older and meet new people.

Not everyone thinks the same things are nice.

You learn that especially when you get jobs.

I had a very weird job in my
mid-20s for about four and a half years.

I was a writer right across the
street over at Saturday Night Live.

It was very exciting. Yeah.

It was great. I loved it.

If you haven't seen the
show, you gotta check it out.

They have a host and a musical
guest. Oh, my God, you're going to love it.

Real quick tangent.

Okay, my favorite host ever
introducing a musical guest was this.

The host was Sir Patrick Stewart,
the great Sir Patrick Stewart,

and this is how he
introduced the musical guest.

"Ladies and gentlemen, Salt-N-Pepa!"

Like he was surprised by Pepa.

Like minutes before they'd been,

"Sir Patrick, we can't find Pepa anywhere."

And he's like, "If we
must go on with Salt alone,

we will go on with Salt alone!"

And they were like, "Three, two,
one," and Pepa burst through the door

and he's like, "Ladies and
gentlemen, Salt and... what's this?"

"Pepa!"

Famous people are weird as shit.

They're all weird.

Your suspicions are correct.

And they would all come
in to Saturday Night Live

and they'd have to meet with
me because I was a little rat writer

and they'd have to talk about the sketches.

They'd sit on my office couch
that had like bed bugs and stuff.

It was great.

Like, they were famous, but it was my couch.

It'd be like if you went into
your childhood bedroom

and Joe DiMaggio was sitting there.

Yeah, he's Joe DiMaggio, he's a
legend, he had sex with Marilyn Monroe,

but only you know where the bathroom is.

Everyone always wants to
know if famous people are nice.

Like Mick Jagger.

He came in to host the show.

My friends were all like, "Is he nice?"

No!

Or maybe he is...

for his version of life.

Because he has a very different life.

He's Mick Jagger.

That's his name.

He's played to stadiums of 20,000
people cheering for him like he's a god

for 50 years.

That must change you as a person.

If you do that for 50 years,
you're never again going to be like,

"Um, does anyone have a
laptop charger I could borrow?"

None of that bullshit way we
all have to talk to get through life.

"Hi. Knock, knock. Sorry."

That's how I walk into rooms.

I am 35 years old, I am six feet tall.

I lower myself, I go, "Hi. Knock, knock."

I say "knock, knock" out loud.

Mick Jagger didn't talk like
that. Mick Jagger talked like this.

He'd go, "Yes! No! Yes!"

I pitched him a joke
and he went, "Not funny!"

I mean, people say that on the
internet, but never to your face

does a British billionaire in
leather pants go, "Not funny!"

I spent two hours alone
with Mick Jagger that week.

We were writing song lyrics, it was
for a fake song in a comedy sketch.

And he was sitting there, and
we came to one point and he goes,

"All right, 'Let's all go to the
picnic, let's all have a drink.'

Let's see, what rhymes with drink?"

And I said...

"Think?"

And Mick Jagger said,

"No!"

And then I said,

"Sink?"

And Mick Jagger said...

"Yeah!"

And I was like, "Motherfucker,
is this how you write songs?

Just one word at a time with verbal abuse?"

"All right, 'I can't get no...'"

-Happiness?
-"No!"

-Satisfaction?
-"Yeah!

All right! Next sentence!

"Space bar. Indent. Space bar."

Mick Jagger would go like this, "Diet Coke!"

And one would appear in his hand.

Now that's not nice, right?

The way I was raised, you're supposed to say,

"May I please have a Diet Coke,
please?" And then maybe you will get one.

And I bet all of you were taught
to say please and thank you.

But if all of us could go, "Diet Coke!"
and one would appear in our hand,

we'd do it all day long.

Even if you don't like Diet
Coke, you'd just summon 'em

so you could chuck 'em at oncoming cars.

Famous people are often rude

because they're used to
getting things really quickly.

I bet a lot of us are pretty polite.

But as soon as we get things
quickly, we start to get ruder and ruder.

Look at technology, it's faster
than ever and we're ruder than ever.

People walk around on the phone
now, "Hello? You still there? Lost him."

And that's it. No
follow-through with that guy.

Fifty years ago, if you were
on the telephone with your friend

and suddenly the line just went dead,
that meant your friend was murdered.

The phone used to be a big deal.

It was a long, polite process.

Back in the 1940s, the
phone was like a wood box...

with a thing on it. I don't know.

It had its own room. You'd
go, "That's the phone's room!"

And it was expensive. You'd
wait all week to make your call.

"It's almost Tuesday!"

And then you'd take the cup
on the string or whatever...

There weren't even numbers.
You'd just go, "Hello? Anyone?

Anyone in the world?"

Then you'd go, "Operator,
ring me Neptune 5-117."

And the operator was a real
person that you had to be nice to.

She'd be like, "One moment, please.

I'm putting wires into
a board filled with holes

to move the voices
around, 'cause it is the '40s."

And it took like 90 minutes.

Now people just drive around
screaming at their phones like...

-Call home!
-"Calling the mobile for Tom."

Not fucking Tom!

Not funny!

Everything was slower back in the old
days 'cause they didn't have enough to do,

so they had to slow
things down to fill the time.

I don't know if you read history,

but back then people would wake
up and go, "God, it's the old times."

"Shit, I gotta wear all those layers."

There's no Zyrtec or
nothing. Okay, we gotta...

"We gotta think of some weird
slow activities to fill the day."

And they did.

Have you ever seen old film from the
past of people just waving at a ship?

What if I called you now to do that?

Hey, what are you doing Monday at 10:00 a.m.?

All right, there's a Norwegian
Cruise Line leaving for Martinique.

Here's my plan, you and me get
very dressed up, including hats,

and then we wave handkerchiefs at
it until it disappears over the horizon.

No, I don't know anyone on the ship.

Everything is too fast now
and totally unreasonable.

The world is run by computers,
the world is run by robots

and we spend most of our day
telling them that we're not a robot

just to log on and look at our own stuff.

All day long.

May I see my stuff, please?

"I smell a robot."

Prove, prove, prove.

Prove to me you're not a robot.

Look at these curvy letters.

Much curvier than most
letters, wouldn't you say?

No robot could ever read these.

You look, mortal, if ye be.

You look and then you
type what you think you see.

Is it an "E" or is it a "3"?

That's up to ye.

The passwords of past
you've correctly guessed,

but now it's time for the robot test!

I've devised a question
no robot could ever answer.

"Which of these pictures
does not have a stop sign in it?"

Fucking what?

You spend most of your day
telling a robot that you're not a robot.

Think about that for two minutes

and tell me you don't
want to walk into the ocean.

I just like old-fashioned things.

I was in Connecticut recently,
doing white people stuff.

Yeah.

One day...

Well, it doesn't matter why, but
I was sitting in a gazebo, and...

there was a plaque on the gazebo

and it said, "This gazebo
was built by the town in 1863."

That is in the middle of the Civil War.

And the whole town built a gazebo.

What was that town meeting like?

"All right, everyone,
first order of business,

we have all the telegrams from
Gettysburg with the war dead.

Let's see here.

Okay, everyone's husband
and brother and... everyone died.

"Okay. Josiah, you had something?"

"Yes, I do."

How'd you like to be indoors
and out of doors all at once?

Ever walk into the park with
your betrothed and it starts to rain,

but you still want to hold hands?

Well, may I introduce you to, and
my condolences again to everyone,

"the gazebo!"

Building a gazebo during the Civil War,

that'd be like doing stand-up comedy now.

Yes.

Thank you for clapping at
my political gazebo material.

I'm very brave.

I've never really cared about politics.

Never talked about 'em much.

But then, last November,
the strangest thing happened.

Now, I don't know if you've
been following the news,

but I've been keeping my ears open

and it seems like everyone everywhere
is super-mad about everything

all the time.

I try to stay a little optimistic,

even though I will admit,
things are getting pretty sticky.

Here's how I try to look at it,

and this is just me,

this guy being the president,

it's like there's a horse
loose in a hospital.

It's like there's a horse
loose in a hospital.

I think eventually
everything's going to be okay,

but I have no idea what's
going to happen next.

And neither do any of you,
and neither do your parents,

because there's a horse
loose in the hospital.

It's never happened before,

no one knows what the
horse is going to do next,

least of all the horse.

He's never been in a hospital before,

he's as confused as you are.

There's no experts.

They try to find experts on the news.

They're like, "We're joined now by a
man that once saw a bird in the airport."

Get out of here with that shit!

We've all seen a bird in the airport.

This is a horse

loose in a hospital.

When a horse is loose in a
hospital, you got to stay updated.

So all day long you walk
around, "What'd the horse do?"

The updates, they're not always bad.

Sometimes they're just odd.

It'll be like, "The horse used the elevator?"

I didn't know he knew how to do that.

The creepiest days are when
you don't hear from the horse at all.

You're down in the operating
room like, "Hey, has anyone..."

"Has anyone heard--"

Those are those quiet
days when people are like,

"It looks like the horse
has finally calmed down."

And then ten seconds later the horse is like,

"I'm gonna run towards the baby incubators

and smash 'em with my hooves.

I've got nice hooves and
a long tail, I'm a horse!"

That's what I thought you'd
say, you dumb fucking horse.

And then...

Then...

Then you go to brunch
with people and they're like,

"There shouldn't be a horse in the hospital."

And it's like, "We're well past that."

Then other people are like,

"If there's gonna be a horse in the hospital,

I'm going to say the N-word on TV."

And those don't match up at all.

And then, for a second, it seemed
like maybe we could survive the horse,

and then, 5,000 miles away, a hippo was like,

"I have a nuclear bomb

and I'm going to blow up the hospital!"

And before we could say
anything, the horse was like,

"If you even fucking look at the hospital,
I will stomp you to death with my hooves.

I dare you to do it. I want you to do it.

I want you to do it so I can stomp you
with my hooves, I'm so fucking crazy."

"You think you're fucking crazy,
I'm a fucking hippopotamus.

I live in a fucking lake of
mud. I'm fucking crazy."

And all of us are like, "Okay."

Like poor Andy Cohen at
those goddamn reunions.

"Okay."

And then, for a second, we were like,

"Maybe the horse-catcher
will catch the horse."

And then the horse is like, "I
have fired the horse-catcher."

He can do that?

That shouldn't be allowed
no matter who the horse is.

I don't remember that in Hamilton.

Sometimes, if you make fun of
the horse, people will get upset.

These are the people that
opened the door for the horse.

I don't judge anyone.

But sometimes I ask people.

I go, "Hey, how come you
opened the door for the horse?"

And they go, "Well, the
hospital was inefficient!"

Or sometimes they go,

"If you're so mad at the horse,
how come you weren't mad

when the last guy did this
three and a half years ago?

You're beating up on the horse

when the last guy essentially
did the same thing five years ago."

First off, get out of here with your facts.

You're like the kid at the
sleepover who, after midnight, is like,

"It's tomorrow now!"

Get the fuck out of here
with your technicalities.

Just 'cause you're accurate
does not mean you're interesting.

That was fun when we
watched Beetlejuice tonight.

"Don't you mean last
night? It's after midnight."

Why don't you get your sleeping
bag and get out of my house!

Take your EpiPen, take your goddamn
EpiPen and get out of my house!

But when people say, "How come
you were never mad at the last guy?"

I say, "Because I wasn't paying attention."

I used to pay less attention

before it was a horse.

Also, I thought the last
guy was pretty smart,

and he seemed good at his
job, and I'm lazy by nature.

I'm lazy by nature too.

So I don't check up on people
when they seem okay at their job.

You may think that's an ignorant
answer but it's not, it's a great answer.

If you left your baby
with your mother tonight,

you're not going to race
home and check the nanny cam.

But if you leave your baby with Gary Busey...

And now there's Nazis again.

When I was a kid Nazis was
just an analogy you would use

to decimate your child during
an argument at the dinner table.

Now there's new Nazis.

I don't care for these new Nazis
and you may quote me on that.

These new Nazis, "Jews are
the worst, Jews ruin everything,

and Jews try to take over your life."

It's like, "You know what,
motherfucker? My wife is Jewish.

I know all that, how do you know all that?"

I'm allowed to make fun of my wife.

I asked her and she said yes.

I've been married for about
three and a half years now

and I was going out on tour...

Thank you very much.

And I love and respect my wife very much.

So I said to her, "We've been
married for three and a half years."

And she knew that.

I said, "Do you mind if I still
make fun of you on stage?"

And my wife said, "Yeah,
you can make fun of me.

But just don't say that I'm a
bitch and that you don't like me."

I was like, "The bar is so
much lower than I ever imagined.

That's it?"

Also, I wouldn't say that. What
kind of show would that even be?

Hello.

My wife is a bitch!

And I don't like her!

That's like a support
group for men in crisis,

with keynote speakers Jon
Voight and Alec Baldwin.

Also, I would never say
that, not even as a joke,

that my wife is a bitch and I
don't like her. That is not true.

My wife is a bitch and I like her so much.

She is a dynamite, five-foot,
Jewish bitch and she's the best.

She and I have totally different styles.

When my wife walks down the street,

she does not give a shit what
anyone thinks of her in any situation.

She's my hero. When I walk down the street,

I need everybody, all day
long, to like me so much.

It's exhausting.

My wife said that walking around with me

is like walking around with someone
who's running for mayor of nothing.

My wife and I went to Best Buy to get a TV.

We didn't end up getting the TV.

I was afraid that the Best Buy
guy was going to be mad at me,

so I bought an HDMI cable.

I go to the register with
Anna, my wife's name Anna,

she's standing next to me, I
hand the guy the HDMI cable.

He takes it, he scans it, he says, "Do
you have a Best Buy Rewards card?"

And I said, "No, I wish!"

And then my wife said, "Jesus Christ!"

And fully walked away from me.
Walked all the way to the laser printers

and just stood there, Blair Witch style.

And I'm still up at the register like...

And the guy goes, "Do you
want a Best Buy Rewards card?"

And I said, "No."

Even though I had just said
it was my greatest wish in life.

I was hoping he'd believe me,
that it was secretly my great wish

but that I'm in an abusive marriage
with little Miss Jesus Christ over here

so I can't ask for the
things I want in public

but at home, at night, we
argue about it and I'm like,

"You'll see! One day I'm going to leave you

and I'm going to get that
Best Buy Rewards card."

She's like, "Jesus Christ",

"you're never going to get
that Best Buy Rewards card!"

My wife is Jewish, as I
said, I was raised Catholic.

We have differences in
our religious upbringings

and we realized this recently.

Not with our kids, because
we don't have any kids.

People always ask us, "Are you
going to have kids?" and we say no.

And then they go, "Never?
You're never going to have kids?"

Look, I don't know "never."

Fourteen years ago, I smoked cocaine
the night before my college graduation.

Now I'm afraid to get a
flu shot. People change.

But we don't have any
kids now and it's great.

We have a dog though.

We have a four-year-old French
bulldog. Her name is Petunia.

The idea of people applauding

for that little monster.

Just... I mean, I would never
tell her that you applauded.

It would go right to her ego,

that little monster who just
rubs her vulva on the carpet

while staring at me in the eye.

I know her vulva itches
and she needs to rub it,

but the thumping of the back paws...

It's upsetting.

I'm just kidding. I love Petunia very much.

She's one of my most favorite
people I've ever met in my life.

Petunia likes to be very
social but she can't walk very far

because she has a flat face,
so she can't breathe by design.

But she wants to go out and meet
people but we can't walk her for that long.

Anyway, this is a long-winded way of saying

that we bought a stroller for our dog.

My wife and I walk around New York City

pushing Petunia the
French bulldog in a stroller,

and it's a big stroller and
it has a big black hood.

And people lean in to see the baby.

And instead they see a gargoyle
breathing like Chris Christie.

Her paws are sweating.

We're like, "He's sick."

But religion came up with Petunia recently.

My wife and I were talking about cute things

that Petunia could be involved in.

And I said, "What if we got
like a Biblical painting done

with Petunia in it?"

And my wife is like, "That would be so cute."

We should do like The Last Supper."

And I was like, "Oh, my
God, that would be so cute.

We should do all different French
Bulldogs as the different Apostles."

And my wife was like, "We should
have Petunia in the middle where Jesus is,

in front of the turkey."

And I was like, "Wait,
what did you just say?"

"Did you say the turkey?"

And my wife said, "Yeah, why?"

And I said...

I said, "Would you just
answer me one question?"

Do you think

that in da Vinci's The Last Supper

that Jesus

of Nazareth

"is sitting in front of a turkey?"

And my wife said, "Yes, I do," and
I said, "Thank you for your honesty.

Would you just-- Just one
more follow-up question.

"So then what do you
think they're celebrating?"

"What do you think..."

"those guys are celebrating?"

She said, "Okay, I don't get this
shit because I wasn't raised Catholic

and I'm fucking glad I wasn't
because it's a fucked-up organization."

I said, "No. We all know that."

"But what do you think"

"those guys are celebrating?"

And my wife looked at the floor.

And then she looked at
me and said, "Thanksgiving."

My family went to church
every Sunday when I was a kid.

My wife cannot believe this. She's
like, "You went every Sunday?"

-"Yes."
-"What if you were out of town?"

I was like, "They have them out of town."

I don't know if you grew up
going to church and now you don't,

but it can be a weird existence.

Because I like to make
fun of it all day long,

but then if someone like Bill Maher says,

"Who would believe in a man up in the sky?"

I'm like, "My mommy, so shut the fuck up!"

"Stop calling my mommy dumb."

If you grew up going to church
and you have adult friends that didn't,

they have a lot of questions.
"Wait, so they forced you to go?"

Yeah, I was five, I was
forced to go everywhere.

No kid is just going to church.

Riding by on his Huffy, like,
"Whoa! What's this place?"

A weird Byzantine temple with green carpeting

where everyone has bad breath
and I wear clothes that I hate

on one of the mornings of my two days off?

"Let's do this."

But people get very suspicious.

They're like, "What did they say in there?

What do they do? What did they tell you?"

I don't know, it was an hour.

That should be the slogan
for the Catholic church.

"It's an hour!"

It's a few stories, normally
about a guy with a crazy name

whose wife has a normal name.

"In that town lives Zepheriuses
and his wife Rachel."

How come she gets to be Rachel?

"On their way to Galilee,
Jesus met Enos and Barak

and their wives, Kylie and Lauren."

And you're like, "What?
That's the same joke twice."

Then there's the homily.

If you're not Catholic, the homily is
when the priest does a book report

that is also stand-up comedy.

It normally begins with a charming
anecdote that is fake and never happened.

"A woman was at a shopping
mall with her young son."

What was the woman's name?

Hey, Father, what was the
name of the shopping mall?

Your story doesn't have a lot of details.

You only had a week to work on it
and you've had the book for 2,000 years.

And then there's some songs
normally sung by an usher.

One of these ushers
that opens the door for you

and gives you the pamphlet
and they all look like Marco Rubio.

That guy will get up and
sing into the microphone.

He's not a singer...

'cause he's not good at it.

But he tries. He sings the Psalms.

Remember the Psalms?

They're not songs 'cause they
don't rhyme and they're not good.

They're perfectly named, they're
not quite songs, they're Psalms.

It's a word you're meant to mishear.

"I'm gonna sing a Psalm today."

What's that? You're gonna sing a song?

"Yeah. It's a Psalm."

And then these guys get up in
front of everyone and they're like...

♪ The bread of God is bread ♪

♪ He will bring us bread ♪

♪ No one but the one from Jericho ♪

♪ Can bring bread to bread ♪

And then the guy goes like this.

And that means we're
supposed to sing our lines,

except we don't know our lines for shit.

Where's that pamphlet? Where's
that pamphlet they gave us?

Move the jackets.

Ah-ha-ha!

♪ The bread of bread is bread ♪

♪ Bread is God is bread ♪

It's just dads singing so loud,

thinking that'll somehow
get their kids to sing.

♪ Bread is God is bread ♪

♪ Is God is bread ♪

♪ Is God is bread... ♪

"Sing, goddamn it!"

My dad once grabbed me by the
shirt and lifted me up during church

and said, "God can't hear you."

Goodnight, New York. Thank you very much.

---oOo---