[siren wailing]
- I don't know what you were thinking.
- Like, I'm not nervous, really.
All I'm thinking is--I think it looks good out there.
I think I've got-- it was a good choice
to do it in that small venue.
I didn't want a theater,
because that doesn't seem to be where you do comedy,
running back and forth,
trying to be larger than you really are.
But now I'm starting to think maybe it's just all done
out of complete fear.
Like, why not just have 12 people
and shoot it very tightly
and then err on the side of performance art
if things don't work out the way I want it to?
- You're at a nice place now
where you can have more than 12 people.
- There's, like, 70. Maybe 100.
150. I don't know.
My stomach hurts. Badly.
And I've been nauseous all day.
I think I should be happy about all this, though, right?
- This is exciting. This is the best.
Oh, my God.
This is--for you, this is such a big year.
Think of what you would have done to have this year
ten years ago.
- Oh, I would have ruined it at the beginning of it.
- But if somebody would have laid out--
it's like, "Here's the year you could have.
What would you do for that year?"
- I often think about that.
If I would have gotten the opportunities I have now
when I was 20, there's no way.
I was not--like, that's one of the great ways to alleviate
any sort of bitterness you have in your life,
is to really be honest with yourself and think,
"Could I have handled this then?"
There'd be no way.
There'd be no way I could have handled it.
I would have ruined it.
People would have been disappointed.
That could still happen.
Tonight it could still happen.
- But isn't that the best part of it, in a way,
knowing that it's yours to--
you could press the button any time you want--
- And just fuck it up?
- Blow it all up again.
You'd be all the way back at the beginning.
- Yeah.
The stakes are higher if you blow it further along.
- No, this would be the worst you could do right now.
- This is the best pep talk I've ever had.
- Because it's finally lined up, everything.
- Everything's about to happen. - Exactly.
- But that's another benefit of the small audience.
Like, so the disaster, it's limited.
Only a certain number of people could tweet
that it's going bad during the show.
"Maron not quite getting over."
- #MaronFail.
- [laughs]
That's a good way to start.
You ready to go? We ready to go?
Want to go do it? You want to bring me onstage?
- Yeah, sure.
- Can you believe we just did that?
Like, this is how we prepared for me to go onstage?
That this is it?
- You squeezed in a small podcast.
- I squeezed in a small...
- All right. - Oh, my goodness.
I feel the presence of alcohol.
[indistinct chatter]
[cheers and applause]
- All right.
Everybody, let's welcome to the stage
our friend Marc Maron!
[cheers and applause]
- Thank you.
Thank you so much.
Thank you for coming.
I don't know if you know this,
but you're in the basement showroom
of the historic Village Gate,
which was a big venue upstairs and down here
that I used to do comedy in when I was a child.
Why am I bringing this up?
Because some part of me wants to glean some meaning out of that,
that I was upstairs-- they used to have a show.
I know what I could do.
There was a Bill Hicks story.
I didn't prepare. Did you want me to prepare?
Upstairs, back in the late '80s, they had a show--
the Village Gate, they used to all the old jazz shows,
and it was, like, a historic place.
But by the late '80s, early '90s,
it was kind of decrepit but cool.
And they had a showroom up there,
seated about 400 people.
And on weekends they'd do a comedy show there,
and the structure of the show was, they had a host,
and then they had two comics doing 15 minutes apiece,
and an improv group.
Now, this is a story about Bill Hicks.
So there was a briefly a time
where Bill Hicks lived in New York City.
He wasn't received well,
'cause New Yorkers don't understand anger.
Like, they understand it,
but they don't understand why it's onstage.
It was so amazing to watch Bill perform in New York,
'cause literally the audience would be like,
"What's he so mad about?"
You know, "He seems angry about something.
Isn't life hard enough?"
But, like, I remember the night
because the comics were me and Hicks,
and it didn't matter, it was interchangeable,
but he had already done a few Lettermans,
and he was Hicks, so even if he did badly,
there was going to need to be some reconstruction,
audience-wise, you know?
So I remember, I walked up to him.
I went, "Hey, Bill, you know,
"you got the Lettermans and stuff.
"I'm just starting out.
You know, could I go first?"
'Cause he was supposed to go first.
And he was like, "No, man.
I got to meet a guy to play chess."
I'm like, "I don't even know what that means,
but it seems important."
So I'm like, "All right, well,
I guess I'll just follow you, then."
And then I remember going to the bathroom,
this was upstairs,
so I go to the bathroom,
and Hicks was--he went onstage, I go to the bathroom.
I don't know what happened while I was in the bathroom,
but when I got out of the bathroom,
there was 400 people in this room,
and nobody's laughing, no one's saying anything.
There is a silence in the room of 400
that has a suction to it.
It's like, "Oh, my God.
"There's actually sound being sucked out of the room
by an audience that is in shock,"
because Bill Hicks is at the lip of the stage,
screaming at a woman,
like, right where you are.
And he's going, "I'm a fucking poet!
I'm a fucking poet!"
And he stands up, and there's nothing but silence.
And I'm standing there like, "What is happening?"
And then in the sweetest voice, this woman goes,
"Tell us a poem, then."
So what's happening?
What do you want to talk about?
You want to do the act or-- I don't know.
Let's not.
Let's just work through some stuff.
I had a weird thing happen.
Like, there is something to be said about doing a lot of drugs
at some point in your life.
I personally don't have a lot of respect
for people that don't have the courage
to lose complete control of their life for a few years.
You know, right down the fucking hole.
You know, like, "What happened?"
"I don't know.
"I know it's time I'm not getting back.
"I'd like to think I did some good writing,
"but there's no real evidence of it.
"Just random pieces of paper
"and something I have finished,
but I was in it, you know?"
But, no, there is something to be learned
from drug experiences,
especially if you go out there, right, bro?
Yeah. So...
What the point is, I went and ate
this Chinese food the other night,
and it seems disconnected,
but I went to this Chinese restaurant in San Francisco,
and there was, like--
I'm not a big Chinese food guy,
but this was like this, you know,
kind of nouveau cool Chinese place,
and I ate pastrami kung pao.
That's crazy, right?
Just chunks of fatty meat with, you know, salt
and more salted things.
And then there was the--
I think it was just called lamb fat curry,
which was just lamb fat and curry
and some other vegetables.
And then there was these tiki pork bellies.
I'm not sure when it became okay to eat that shit,
'cause, I mean, it's not even bacon.
Didn't they used throw that part away, pork belly?
But now it's like, "This is great."
So there were these two pieces of pork belly that were just--
I don't even know if they were deep-fried or what.
There were chopsticks, and they were squares,
and there was no way to eat them,
other then to pick them up and just bite them,
and they were just sort of warm gelled fat
with crispy outsides.
The point I'm making is, I ate all this shit,
and I got in the car with my friend Jack,
and I'm sitting there,
and my hand went numb.
Like, literally 20 minutes after I ate that,
I'm like, "My hand's tingling. I can't feel it."
But because of my drug experience,
I'm like, "I'm just gonna ride it out."
You know what I mean? It's probably gonna go away.
If it doesn't, like, maybe my whole right side
will go numb, you know?
[slurring] And have to talk like this.
But right now we'll see what happens.
I wouldn't have had that wisdom
without years of laying in bed on coke,
going, "Please not now. Not now.
Just ride this out."
I am still alive. That's amazing.
It's all amazing.
I'm happy to say that I'm having a reasonable midlife crisis.
You know, I bought a-- I buy records,
and I bought a tube amp.
I'm not gonna drive it into a wall.
You know, I'm not gonna get in trouble for fucking it.
But it was weird.
Like, what sort of inspired it is, I had these records,
and there weren't even that many records.
There was about 300 records that I had,
and I had 'em since high school.
I don't know, I mean, I'm 49,
so, like, when you go through the records that you--
you stop buying them at some point,
right around when CDs came out.
I don't even know when that was.
In the late '80s maybe?
But you can go through your whole life
with these records that you have.
Like, I could see, like,
okay, I was trying to, you know, relate
to the townies I grew up with.
Here's some Skynyrd, some Bad Company.
Had to do that.
And then at some point, you know, like,
"Oh, that's where I met the guy in college."
All right, so...
then all of a sudden you're like,
"There's a lot of Bowie and some Eno and some Fripp.
"And then there's, like-- oh, there's college.
There's OMD and"--
I was a little confused, and...
I go through a little gray area there with who you were,
and then you sort of move into jazz and other stuff.
But I got this tube amp.
The story of the tube amp is essentially--
you know, a tube amp is what you play records through
if you want it to be pure,
you know, pure tube sound.
Just like, from the record to the speaker,
no fucking with it.
So I interviewed Jack White.
I'm not dropping names. It happened.
So I interview Jack White,
and I go down to his place, right?
And in his studio office, he's got a wall
of McIntosh tube amps, all right?
These are the best-- American-made, beautiful, right?
And I've always been fascinated with them,
and I'm like, "He's got, like, 15 of them,"
so in my mind I'm like,
"If he's got 15, I could afford one, right?"
So I get back to L.A.,
and I immediately go price McIntosh amps.
I go into one place, and I'm like, "That's the one I want.
I said, "Jack White has those, man.
How much is that one?"
The guy goes, "$14,000."
And, look, I could have put it on my credit card,
but the truth of the matter is,
if you don't have $14,000 to comfortably throw away
on a fucking tube amp,
there's no way you're gonna enjoy music through that thing.
If I would have bought that thing,
every record I put on,
I'd be sitting there going,
"Uh, this doesn't sound like $14,000.
"Maybe I move this knob.
No, it still doesn't sound like $14,000."
And then eventually you'd go over to some other guy's house,
and he just had a cheap setup
and you'd listen to the same record
and it'd sound perfect,
and you just sit there going, "I'm a fucking idiot."
So I found a more reasonably priced tube amp,
and then I decided, now that I'm back into records--
this has been hanging over me since high school.
I'm like, "I've got to understand Beefheart."
Now, like, okay,
some of you are gonna get this shit.
Other--I don't know-- you know.
Captain Beefheart has been hanging over me,
like this weird, you know, cryptic--
you know, I can't even-- I'm not even--
I will never be smart enough or large enough of mind
to assess and understand Captain Beefheart.
Like, it's just been hanging there,
but as soon as I start getting into records,
I was like, "I got to fucking understand Beefheart."
And the day came where I bought my stuff and--
okay, it was a Sunday morning.
My girlfriend was hungover.
I remember this well,
because, like, there's a couple things I could do
when my girlfriend's hungover--
generally would be to reprimand her
and wake up and go, "You don't feel good, right?
"Well, maybe you shouldn't have drank
"and made a fool out of yourself and me.
"Wouldn't that have been a good thing
if you didn't fucking do that?"
And, you know, just keep pushing until she cried.
Because I don't really know if someone loves me
if I can't make them cry.
So...
Isn't that the test for all of us, really?
If you're with somebody and you don't know
if you can make them cry,
I'd really go deeper.
Wouldn't trust that bond.
But I made a different choice that morning.
I went with, "Hey, baby. You feel shitty?
Look, you want me to go get you a breakfast burrito?"
So that was how I treated it,
but I knew that the record store
was right next to the breakfast burrito place.
All right?
So I go to Atwater Village,
and I go to the burrito place,
and I go up--there's a Latino guy there, which I expected.
I'm not racist, but I was like,
"Oh, yeah, of course you're here."
So I ordered the burrito from him,
and then I go three doors down to the record store,
and I must have--I was almost in, like, a panic.
You know, I just walk into this record store,
and it was only open for, like, ten minutes.
I just barge in. I'm like, "Beefheart!
Where's the Beefheart?"
And the the guy in there,
it was almost as if he was expecting me.
He's like, "Yep." And, like...
And he walks me over to this bin,
and I'm like, "Which one? Which one?"
"Safe as Milk."
"All right, this is the one? All right, good."
And as I'm walking out,
I see there's a sealed Kraftwerk album,
and I'm like, "Well, I'm still kind of gay."
So, like, I get that.
So I got Kraftwerk, and I got Beefheart,
and I purchase it, and I go back to the burrito place.
I timed it right to pick up her burrito.
You know, and then I'm waiting on the line.
I got my records,
and there's some big old weird-looking dude behind me,
and I approached the Latino kid,
and he says, "What'd you get?"
I'm like, "You wouldn't understand."
That's what I'm doing in my mind.
So I go, "I got Captain Beefheart."
He's like, "Oh, really? Which one?"
I'm like, "Safe as Milk."
He's like, "That's a good start."
I'm like, "Who the fuck are you?"
You know?
And then it just became this pocket of weirdness,
because I was like, "All right, so he's on to it."
You know?
And then, like, I'm walking--
I turn around and go walk out
and the guy behind me is this large--kind of looks like--
you know, he looks like the dude--
he lived through the '60s and, you know, survived it.
He had heard the exchange with the Latino guy,
and then as I'm walking out,
I hear him right here to the side of my head go,
"Trying to catch up, huh?"
But it was like--to me,
it didn't even come off as an insult.
Like, I walked right by him, and I'm like,
"That is all I'm doing."
I mean, I think in every aspect of my life,
that is all I'm doing.
So then I felt like, "That was the Buddha.
That guy was the Buddha,"
and I so wanted to go back
and have him not be there
and then ask the Latino guy,
"Where's that guy that was behind me?"
And have the Latino guy go, "There was no one behind you."
Yeah, so that's--yeah, so I'm doing the vinyl thing.
Vinyl midlife crisis.
I didn't anticipate doing that story at all.
"Why are you sitting weird?" I don't know.
Honestly, though, like, I didn't prepare that well,
'cause that's just the way I do it.
I don't--like, I don't believe in preparing.
I personally don't really like preparers.
They're annoying people, generally.
Like, you know, it's like, "I really prepared for this."
Well, you're a coward. You know?
Where's your sense of adventure?
How important is it that you--
like, you know, why set yourself up for that?
You know what I mean?
Everyone with this careerist culture, you know?
This sort of, like, trajectory thing.
You know, it's gonna kill you.
You're gonna end up lonely at the end
and not doing what you want to do.
Don't prepare, man.
Just load up.
[laughter]
I think that's the key.
I think I'm rationalizing, though.
Clearly I'm rationalizing, because that's my system.
I mean, this is my system. It's right there on the floor.
Why did I bring notebooks out here?
What, am I gonna look at notebooks?
Is that why I brought them out here?
It's ridiculous. I'm more professional.
I've been doing this half my fucking life.
I'm gonna bring notebooks out?
It's to prove a point. It's to prove a point.
I'll show you in a minute.
I just--I...
I don't prepare because-- look, it's my system.
How's that?
In my mind, if I don't prepare and I pull this off,
I'm a fucking genius.
I'm a genius. Right?
And if I don't pull it off,
I didn't prepare.
If I would have set my mind to it,
I would have nailed that shit,
but, no, I didn't prepare,
because I like to roll the dice, man.
Feel alive! What's gonna happen?
I don't know. I might fail.
All right. Fuck them.
That would be you.
I'm not gonna blame myself for that.
So--yeah, the reason I brought this out here,
'cause I know a lot of you are creative people,
and I just wanted to share my system of success.
I choose to write on hotel stationary.
This is how I write. This is the process.
Can you read that? I can't read that.
That's also part of my process,
is be sure to impulsively write quickly
with a borrowed writing instrument
in a cursive that is unreadable,
because this is just phase one of the process.
The second phase is decoding, understanding the text.
Sure, write smaller and underline occasionally.
That's good too.
Or perhaps you can get to a point where, hey,
let's get to the final part
where you type it up, right?
Right there, that's an almost finished joke,
and over here, written is a punch line.
I can't read it. See?
Make it challenging at all levels.
This is a system that's kept me out of the big time
for 25 years, right here.
The reason I'm illustrating it to you is that...
my system sort of looks like this.
When I write, I don't write jokes,
I write thoughts,
and I think the action of actually doing the writing
is what's important to me.
It's not whether or not I remember it or anything.
So my writing process is,
I could be in a coffee shop,
I could be standing on a bank line
with their deposit slips,
maybe waiting at a cash register.
So my process looks something like this.
"Oh, shit. Fuck.
"You got a pen? Do you have a pen?
"Just hand me that.
"Can I--hand me that piece of paper.
"Thank--pen? Okay.
"Uh, okay, I got it. Thanks, man.
Saved a life today."
You know, "All right."
So then I have the paper.
So that's really done.
That's the entire creative experience for me.
It's done, because a lot of them don't ever go anywhere.
So that piece of paper goes onto a stack of pieces of paper
that look a lot like it-- napkins and stuff.
Now, the problem is, if I get too far away from those things,
I don't know what I was thinking,
so if I ever get to them--
like, I found a napkin not long ago,
had three words on it, "auto erotic asphyxiation."
That was what was on the napkin.
So that's sort of a problem, right?
'Cause now I got to sit there with that thing and go,
"What was going on that day?"
Like, I would have remembered if I did that.
I mean, that-- 'cause that's a big day.
That's kind of a game-changer.
I mean, you don't do that and go,
"Oh, fuck, yeah, I remember. I did that."
No, if you do that once, you do that.
You've done that.
And, then, like, I'm looking at it, and I remember,
"Oh, I was in a hotel room."
I decided at some point that autoerotic asphyxiation
is strictly a hotel room activity.
That--like, no one is doing that at home.
You know, I picture men leaving on business trips, saying,
"Honey, where's that belt I always bring?
"You know, the one with the weird markings?
I know I'm not that skinny. I don't know how that happened."
All right.
But then I decided that autoerotic asphyxiation
was discovered or invented in a hotel room.
This was my logic.
I spent a lot of time in hotels.
I travel alone for my job.
I'm under the impression
that if you go out on the road,
whether it's for business or pleasure,
and you stay at a hotel alone for at least a night,
at some point during your stay,
you will find yourself in that hotel room alone,
thinking this:
"I want to fucking kill myself."
It's gonna happen. It's a hotel room.
But if you're me, like, three minutes later you'll say,
"No, I'll just jerk off."
So how long before one day you're like,
"Hey, maybe we can bring these two things together.
"Maybe we can take this masturbation thing
"to the next level.
"I want this to be life-threatening.
"I want to push the envelope.
I'm not really a sports guy, but extreme wanking I could handle."
Now, look, I know a lot of you clammed up on that,
but this is just the way my brain works.
I have not done it, so don't judge me in that way.
I'm not saying it's outside of the realm of possibility.
I may do it,
and I know exactly how it would go down.
I know exactly how it would happen.
It would be-- probably be after a show.
Maybe this one.
I would get back to my hotel room,
and I'd be all jacked up from the show,
and I'd be like, "Fuck. What am I gonna do now?
"Fuck, I'm gonna do it. Fuck it.
"I'm gonna do it.
"All right, I know I need a belt.
"Okay?
"I had a good set. I earned this.
"I think, what, you got to hang from a door.
"That's how those guys end up in the paper.
"Wait--should I pull my pants down now or wait?
"Oh, fuck. Google it. Google.
"Autoerotic asphyxiation:
"how.
"Holy shit--I would have died if I did it that way.
"I would have fucking died.
"Oh, fuck. I lived.
I'm just gonna do it regular. That was crazy."
I spend a lot of time in hotels.
I do. It's just part of the job.
It's just part of my life.
And I don't mind it.
I got nothing to complain about.
I mean, I got to wake up early sometimes
to enter a morning zoo format.
I have to get up to do morning zoo radio.
[grumbles]
As many of you know, in every great city
or lesser city in this country
there's a morning zoo situation happening,
and comics sometimes have to enter that situation
and play along to sell tickets.
Now, as many of you know, a morning zoo format,
traditionally there is a main guy, a laughing guy,
and a baffled and shocked woman.
That's the classic setup,
give or take the woman or the laughing guy.
If I were to do an impression of that, there was just sounds,
it would be, "Bah. Bah-bah-bah. Bah-bah-bah."
[laughing hysterically]
"Oh, fellas."
So I have to deal with that.
Now, in this particular story, I'm in Cleveland at a hotel.
I get up at 5:30,
which quite honestly, is bullshit for anybody.
5:30 is bullshit.
I mean, is it night? Is it fucking day?
What the fuck is 5:30?
I don't care who you are,
whether you have to wake up for it
or you've been up all night for 5:30,
it's bullshit.
Of course if you've been up all night for 5:30,
you have other problems.
Usually if you see the sun come up at 5:30,
you're saying something like,
"Fuck, should we call the guy?"
You know?
"No, dude, we ran out at the right time."
"Fuck you, I need a bump for work."
"No, fuck you. You got a drug problem."
"You're gonna tell me I have a fucking drug problem
in my apartment, asshole?"
"Yeah, you do. We don't need more blow."
"Fuck you!
"I just listened to you talk about your guitar
"for four hours,
"and you're gonna tell me
"that I can't have another fucking bump?
Get the fuck out of my apartment."
Sorry. Flashback.
So I wake up at 5:30 to do morning radio,
and I realize I had forgotten my toothbrush,
so then there's this dialogue that happens in my head.
Like, one part of me is like, "You fucking idiot.
"You're a professional traveler.
How could you forget your toothbrush, stupid?"
And then the other part of me is like,
"Hey, take it easy on us. You know, it happens."
And then the other guy is like, "Fuck you.
Take it easy? It's your fault, asshole."
And then a voice I don't know goes, "Oh, fellas."
And then I realize, "Holy shit,
"I can just call the front desk of the hotel
"and you can ask them for a toothbrush,"
and they will give you, like, half a toothbrush.
Like, not even a real toothbrush.
Like, this--you get it, and you're like,
"Why do they even bother making these?"
So I call the front desk, and no one answers the phone.
That's a lonely feeling.
Right? Why isn't someone answering?
There's always supposed to be
someone at the front desk at the hotel.
Why aren't they answering?
That's weird.
What was weirder was my first thought
when no one answered, my first real thought was,
"Oh, fuck. Zombies."
And it wasn't even a fake thought.
It was a real fear in that moment.
I don't know what that says about us as a culture,
that my first real fear was, "Oh, fuck. Zombies."
But I know it was genuine,
because there were thoughts that followed.
The thought that followed that was,
"How many more are left like me?
Should I be stockpiling food? Do I need a weapon?"
These were practical questions.
And then I remember, like, getting exasperated
and taking a deep breath and thinking,
"I'm not prepared to lead."
Like, I really hope there's an alpha male out there
with a rudimentary sense of tribalism
that can lead me
and a frightened multiethnic crew of people
through this postapocalyptic zombie landscape,
or I'm fucking food.
I mean, I'm food in 20 minutes
if that guy's not fucking out there, you know?
And then the woman picks up.
"Sorry to keep you waiting. Can I help you?"
And I go, "What is going on down there?"
And she said, "Excuse me?"
I'm like, "Why didn't you answer?
We're in trouble!"
And she said, "What's the matter, sir?
Can I help you?"
I'm like, "I need a fucking toothbrush."
And she said, "There's no reason for that language.
I'll send one up."
I'm like, "No zombies!"
And then, like, I realize I just said that out loud to a person
and that maybe I should clear something up.
So I caught myself,
and I thought this would take care of it.
I'm like, "Hey, I'm sorry. I got to do radio."
Like that should make it understandable
to someone who has no idea who I am or my life.
So I'm sure she hung up and said,
"There's someone on meth upstairs.
"But that doesn't really add up
because he asked for a toothbrush."
Yeah, so--yeah, so that's it. That's the life.
Yeah.
You guys are good. You're a good audience.
I attract a lot of sweet-looking people.
I don't know how that...
But you know...
When I was upstairs opening for Hicks,
you guys wouldn't have liked me at all.
It's a different style of comedy.
I don't know. I sort of evolved.
Or devolved. I'm not sure what.
Let's see, what would Marc have been like?
The guy that was upstairs.
Here, I'll try to capture the essence.
[grunts]
[groans]
Uh-huh.
Then somehow that just became...
[sighs]
Hey.
No, but I judged you.
But I judge in general. I think we all do.
Like, I sat over there, and I looked at the audience.
I'm like, "Oh, they look good." You know, I judge.
I judge everything. I judge all the time.
I'm a great judger.
I have shitty judgment, but I'm a great judger.
I'll judge the fuck out of almost everything.
I fucking love it. I'll own it.
I hate when people say, "Hey, don't judge."
I'm like, "Fuck you. Don't take away my hobbies."
I mean, if there is a god, why should he have all the fun?
I love to fucking judge.
What does that even mean, "Don't judge"?
What does the resting human brain do
other than go, "What the fuck is that guy?"
I mean, what are you gonna do?
I mean, there's really-- there's eating.
There's, "Oh, I'm working now."
And, like, "That guy's an idiot."
That's all there is.
And then fucking, but you're usually judging
at least for a few minutes during that,
till you lose yourself
and then you think you're a hero of some kind.
But...
I don't even know what that meant,
but I think it makes sense.
But the point is, I learned a lesson about judgment.
There's a story that I want to tell,
because I think it's an important story to tell.
I'm at a hotel in Montreal.
All that's happening in this story is,
I'm walking towards an elevator. That's it.
I am walking towards an elevator.
There's a guy in front of me about 20 feet
walking towards the elevator.
He's wearing shorts. That's all that's happening.
Now, I don't know what's going on with me that day.
I'm sure there's something on my mind,
but I do know that when I looked up and noticed that guy,
my brain went, "Fuck those shorts."
But that angry.
I mean, immediately.
Like, "Who the fuck?
What kind of fucking idiot--"
Like, I was that hostile.
Now, we've all had that happen.
You see somebody you don't know dressed a certain way,
and you're just walking down the street and you're like,
"Oh, fuck you.
"Now your weird attempt at self is cluttering my fucking brain?
"Like, what are you trying to present me here?
"What era are you going for? Where are we?
"I mean, is that a real beard? Is that a coffee shop beard?
"Is that a 'the Jews run the government,
"I shit in an outhouse' beard?
"What are you trying to do?
"Do you need those glasses,
or are you just a glasses delivery system?"
Anyways, you get what I'm saying.
And I've made bad choices in that area.
I've been on the other side of that.
There is footage of me on Conan O'Brien, 1992,
sitting confidently beside him,
wearing black leather pants
and a black velvet Nehru jacket.
That exists in the world.
I left my house thinking that was a good idea,
that I could transcend that outfit in a non-ironic way
and be funny.
What the fuck was I thinking?
I mean, did I leave my house thinking, like, "I'm Bono.
You know, I can do this."
All right, back to the elevator.
So by the time I get to the elevator,
I'm seething with anger at that guy's pants choice.
Literally, like, "You're a fucking idiot.
"People wouldn't even wear those shorts on vacation.
You're so fucking-- How the fuck--"
Like, I was so furious. I was seething, right?
And I hadn't even seen him from the front yet.
We get on the elevator, he turns around,
and he's got a scar that starts on the center of his forehead
and goes all the way around his skull.
My only thought in that moment was,
"Oh, you can wear 'em."
But I don't even-- what does that even mean?
Like, what went through my mind?
Like, let's do, like, a montage.
All right, first shot, he turns around.
My thought, "What happened to your head, man?"
Right?
Second thought was probably,
"That must have been touch-and-go
for at least an afternoon."
You know, concerned family wandering the hospital hallways,
the whole bit.
Then the third thought must have been, like,
"Well, you've earned the right to pretty much wear
whatever you want, pal."
And I guess the final thought was,
"Oh, I'm gonna give you a pass today,
"'cause I'm the king of this elevator,
"and you're my guest.
What floor would you like?"
Yeah, I don't believe in God, and I don't...
It's not because-- I'm not an atheist.
I don't call myself an atheist.
I just don't give a shit, really.
Is that okay?
I mean, I think it's a pretty enviable position to be in,
because it pisses people off more than atheists.
'Cause, like, if someone goes, "Do you believe in God?"
and you're like, "I don't give a fuck,"
they're like, "Well, what does that even mean?
Pick a side! What the fuck?"
Atheists are annoying. They're annoying.
And I think they just like to--
they're control freaks who like to argue.
They like to win.
You know, they're buzzkill poetry assassins.
I don't understand, you know, what it is
they're after, exactly.
And now they think they're the minority voice.
You know, they're like, "Come on, we're the minority voice.
"We have to have our point of view too,
and why isn't our voice out there?"
Because it's shrill and annoying,
and no one really wants to hear it, but...
That's really the only reason.
We understand your point.
It's just when you talk about it, we just hate you.
And I certainly wouldn't want to have lunch with an atheist,
'cause I know where that goes within ten minutes.
I'd be just screaming, like, "All right!
"You're right! Shut up! You win!
What do you need?"
And you're not even talking about God.
You're just talking about lunch or anything.
They're just annoying.
Now, my bigger question about atheists is that,
has there ever been a moment
where they've actually talked a believer out of their god?
And what does that moment look like?
If that is their agenda, what does that moment look like,
given the atheists that perhaps you know?
Seriously.
All right, I've created an analogy.
I picture it going like this.
There's some dude just walking down the street,
and things have been hard for him,
and he's probably thinking like,
"You know, things aren't going well,
"but, you know, I got God in my heart,
"and that makes me feel better.
"You know, he gives me hope that things are gonna be okay.
God's looking out for me."
And then out of the bushes jumps an atheist.
[screams]
"There's no god! You're living a lie!
"There's no proof! You believe in a cartoon!
It's a delusion, stupid!"
And then the guys just goes,
"Oh, I never thought about it like that.
"Oh, no. I think you're right.
"I think you're right. There's no God.
Everything's just bad. It's just bad."
What does an atheist do at that moment?
"Boom! Who wins?
"Yeah!
"Oh, I won!
I'm gonna go tell my shitty friends."
My point is, there are no atheist soup kitchens.
[scattered applause]
So just shut up.
And if there were--
if there were an atheist soup kitchen,
no homeless people would go there.
They'd be like, "No, they're depressing and annoying.
"The food's better, but it ain't worth it, man.
"Let's just go over to where the sisters are
and fucking have a warm meal."
Vegans too. Like, look, I get it.
I understand you have an ideological eating disorder.
But I don't want to have lunch with you either,
'cause I know how that goes.
15 minutes in that lunch, I'm gonna be like,
"All right, I'm not gonna eat it.
"Are you happy?
"We didn't save a pig. We wasted one.
"I know they're smart. I get it.
"Okay, look. You know what?
"Why don't you go to where the smart pigs are
"and lead a smart pig revolution?
"If you showed up and just converged on a town
"with a bunch of smart pigs,
"if you could find talking pigs,
"all the more awesome, all right?
"If you did that, I would never eat meat again,
and I think it would be hilarious."
An atheist vegan, that would be horrendous.
Right?
I would rather spend an hour
with a reasonable Christian on a mission
than spend, like, any time at all
with an atheist vegan.
'Cause I know what I'm getting into
with a reasonable Christian on a mission, right?
I know that one.
All right, let's picture it.
I'll do my side of that conversation.
I'm approached by a reasonable Christian on a mission
on the street.
Let's go there now.
"Oh, hi.
"Wow, yes, I am lost.
"It is sad.
"Okay, wait. Stop right there. I got a question.
"What if I let him into my heart and then I want him out?
"Is there any way to get Jesus out of your heart
"once he's in there?
"Like, do people ever experience chest pains?
They're like, 'Jesus wants out. He wants out.'"
Look, I got nothing against Jesus.
Like, if you want to hang your hopes on a flying Jew,
that's fine.
I'm not here to take God away from anybody.
I'm not here to mock the myths that define you.
The bottom line is, the only reason I'm like this is,
I wasn't brought up with God, so I don't have one.
The only way you get God is if you're brought up by parents
that pounded it into your head, 'cause they're frightened
and think it's the right way to do things,
'cause they don't know how to control you and they're nervous
and they think that will help somehow.
So either you get it when you're a kid
or your life goes so far off the rails
that you're left with no choice but to reach out to something
bigger than you to fucking keep your sanity.
Those are the only two ways you can get God.
Either you're brought up with it,
or you either metaphorically or literally
find yourself in a puddle of your own pee,
you know, perhaps bleeding from someplace,
it's not even clear at that moment,
and you're just sitting there saying something like,
"Where's my shoe? Where's my shoe?
I'm in trouble."
And then, like Jiminy Cricket, Jesus shows up.
[whistles]
And you go, "Jesus, you're here."
And Jesus goes, "Yes, my son, and I have your shoe."
So there's that moment, the born-again moment.
And most people go with Jesus at that moment,
when they're broken like that.
But I found that that's also a crossroads.
If you're not gonna go for Jesus,
you're not gonna go for Jesus,
but I find that there's this weird line
where, like, your life goes off the rails,
and either you're gonna go with Jesus
or, from my experience,
you're gonna go become a massage therapist.
These seem to be the two avenues for broken, lost people.
They're gonna go with Jesus, or they're gonna be like,
"I just want to touch people in a healing way."
And yoga instructor. Whatever you're gonna do.
Spiritual. There's another problem.
Okay, so you're spiritual. Do you have a god?
"No. I have a mat."
Look, I don't want to talk about religion forever.
You know, I was born a Jew, and I remain a Jew, culturally.
But I'm not a Jewy Jew.
You know, I don't--you know.
And quite frankly I have a problem with the Hasidim.
I resent them.
They make me uncomfortable,
and I think they're freakish, and they bother me.
And I don't know why I can feel comfortable saying that.
You know, why do I think it's okay
for me to say shitty things about the Hasidim?
'Cause what are they gonna do?
They gonna, you know, write me an email?
Are they going to engage me online?
[with Jewish accent] "I really don't understand
"why you would say that about your own kind.
Are you not a Jew?"
I'm like, "Yeah, but you guys are freaks and you dress funny."
"But that's just the way we believe."
"Like, how are you even writing in this accent?"
Um...
I think they just annoy me,
because, like, it's got to be something I'm jealous of.
There's got to be something that bothers me about them,
you know, as a Jew.
I think it's because, literally, like, some part of my brain
thinks, "Well, they've got ritual, they've got discipline,
"they've got community, they've got beliefs.
They've got all that stuff."
They never wake up in the morning and say,
"What am I gonna wear today?"
You know?
"How about the leather pants and the black Nehru jacket?
What would the Rebbe think about that?"
[chuckles]
But I do think they're freaks.
I will drive through Hasidic areas
as if they're wildlife parks,
with, like, the same energy.
Like, "Ooh, they're out. They're out.
"It must be feeding time or the Sabbath.
"Oh, speed up. They're coming towards the car.
Oh, my God--they're doing the Fiddler dance."
[imitates If I Were a Rich Man]
That's wrong, as a Jew, to do that,
to talk about other Jews like that.
I don't know.
I grew up in the middle class,
you know, just conservative American Jew guy.
You know, you're not that invested in it.
You get your Bar Mitzvah, do the thing.
Go to the stupid temple,
where they have the dumb gift shop,
the shitty watercolors
of Hasidim at the Wall.
You make fun of 'em when you're a kid.
Like, "Those are bad."
And the lady's like,
"Those were done by a member of our congregation."
"Yeah, but they still suck."
"Yeah, well, he's a survivor."
"Oh, why doesn't he paint that?
"You don't think watercolor can handle the camps?
Why condescend an already under-appreciated medium?"
But the weird thing about being just an American Jew
is that there's this-- underneath all of it,
even if you're not religious, which I never was--
I was just culturally Jewish--
there's this drumbeat beneath all America Judaism.
Like, "You will go to Israel,
"and you will love Israel.
"Israel was built for us.
"You will go there and love it
"and send it money and let it do whatever it wants to,
"whoever it wants to,
even if it's wrong."
And eventually you'll go to Israel.
You won't necessarily know why you're there,
but you'll go there.
Like, I went there with my first wife, the Jew.
That was a mistake.
I--what?
I married a Jew. It was a mistake.
I just found that if you're a Jew and you marry a Jew,
that means everything you hated about going home
is now in your house.
Some people find that comforting.
I found it disconcerting and a little uncomfortable for me.
It's amazing.
Like, when you marry a Jew, if you're a Jew,
that's the day you become an old Jewish person.
You don't realize it, but it's encultured into you.
That's when the switch goes on.
I married her, I was in my 30s.
Within two weeks of marrying her,
I was just a 30-year-old angry Jewish guy
with his own mind and point of view.
Within three weeks of marrying a Jew,
I talked like this, "What?
"What do you mean, 'Where are we gonna eat'?
We'll eat where you want to eat."
How'd that happen? Who am I?
All right.
Let's get back to Israel real quick,
and then we'll move on to other things.
So some point during that marriage we went to Israel,
'cause we were Jews and we were programmed to go to Israel.
Now, when you go to Israel,
you're supposed to get there and be like, "I'm home.
Finally I understand where my heart is."
That's how you're supposed to feel
when you get off the plane is Israel.
That was not my experience.
I literally-- the plane door opened,
I got on the stairs, and I was like,
"We have to get the fuck out of here.
"We really-- that guy's got a gun.
"There's chaos.
"I don't even know why we're here.
"There seems to be problems that have nothing to do with us.
Why is this a vacation?"
And then other Jews will comfort you and go,
"No, no, it's right. It's good."
And then you're like, "Okay, let's go on the rides."
And then...
So then you spend some time walking by ruins,
just piles of rocks that used to be other things,
with pictures of what they used to be,
and you go, "Oh, look at that.
Yep, it was Jewish."
And then...
and then you go by some other rocks,
and you're like, "What is this?
Oh, it wasn't Jewish. Mm."
And then eventually you'll end up at the Wailing Wall.
That's the big payoff, man.
That's, like, home turf for the Hasidim.
That's the big thing there.
That's where they all go to cluster.
What you don't realize, though,
is that's where Hasidic Jews come from, the real ones.
Like, I don't know if you know this,
but if you go to the Wailing Wall
early enough in the morning,
it's just hats on the ground.
And if you look at, like, a time-lapse photograph
of the day,
you literally like...
That's a little secret
that a lot of you non-Jews didn't know about.
They come right out of the ground in Israel.
Yeah.
So, all right--so let's move on.
Let's move on to some other things to talk about.
I...
I'm trying to mix it up.
[laughs]
There's things in my mind, man.
Oh, I'm fucking sweating.
My stomach was hurting before.
I don't know how that happened.
I've been traveling a lot,
and I didn't feel nervous about coming out here,
because, like, I trust you people.
I think we're okay.
But, like, maybe my stomach was--I don't know.
Like, I've always been an anxious, nervous, person,
and I would have psychosomatic events.
Is that the word?
Did I ever tell you that story
about how I cured being a hypochondriac?
Do you know that story?
That's a good story.
My father was a doctor,
which means I was a hypochondriac.
How else are you gonna get their attention?
Now...
Am I gonna tell-- okay, let's do it.
When you grow up with a dad who's a doctor,
you have access to other doctors,
and--well, here's the story.
I was at college, I was a sophomore in college,
and somewhere about a month or so before Christmas break,
I decided that I had M.S.
So I started calling my father.
Like, "Dad, I have M.S."
And he's like, "You don't have M.S."
I'm like, "How do you know? How do you know?
"You haven't examined me.
I don't know how you would know that."
He goes, "I know you don't have M.S."
He goes, "What are your symptoms?"
I'm like, "I don't know. My hands are tingly."
"Son, you don't have M.S. Are you drinking coffee?"
I'm like, "I drink coffee."
"It's probably coffee." "No, I have M.S."
And then--okay. So he hangs up.
And then, like, a couple weeks later, I'm like--I call him up.
"I have M.S. I still have M.S."
He's like, "You don't have M.S."
And then that ends that conversation.
And then, like, a week before--
maybe a week before, I call him up and I'm like,
"Dad, I have prostate cancer. I have prostate cancer."
He goes, "How do you know?"
"I don't know.
"It hurts down by my balls and stuff,
"and I think I have prostate cancer.
It kind of hurts on my butt cheeks and stuff."
And he's like, "You don't have prostate cancer."
I'm like, "I do."
And then I called him every day for a week.
Just--"I have prostate cancer. I have prostate cancer."
He's like, "You're too young for prostate cancer."
"I know I have it."
So I get off the plane when I got home.
It's, like, 6:00 or 7:00 at night,
and my father says, "We're going to Bob Rosen's house
to get you examined."
This a urologist friend of his.
So he's taking me to a man's house
to be examined for prostate cancer.
So he picks me up at the airport.
He's like, "No, we're going now."
I'm like, "I don't think that's--
why can't I just go to his office?"
"No, you have prostate cancer.
We're gonna go now."
So we drive to this guy's house, who--
he doesn't know we're coming.
So...
We walk up to the door,
my father knocks on the door,
and Bob literally is like--
he shows up, he's got a napkin, he's wiping his mouth.
I see his family's at the dinner table.
My father goes, "My son thinks he has prostate cancer.
Can you take a look?"
And Bob's like, "I don't know what you mean."
He's--"Well, come on in."
And then he goes back to the table,
he puts a napkin down,
and then he walks me and my father into his bedroom,
and we're all standing there, and I'm like,
"This in any other situation would be illegal.
"Whatever's happening, whatever's about to happen,
this is bad."
And thank God Bob says,
"You know what, he should probably come to the office.
I don't think this is the place to do this."
And my father's like, "Are you sure?
Is that all right with you, kid?"
I'm like, "Yeah, it's probably better."
All right, so, Bob didn't finger-bang me in his bedroom.
With my father watching, nonetheless.
So this is how I cured my hypochondriac-ness.
Hypochondria.
All right, so I go to Bob's office.
Does the horrible examination. It's very difficult.
You know, when you're a man, this is--
I know women have their thing, but I'm not a woman.
I know that as a dude, I got to go in and get finger-banged
by a guy, you know, once a year,
in a clinical way,
but it's always awkward.
It's never a pleasant situation.
The most awkward part about is, like,
you get to a certain age
where it's about to happen,
and it goes in and you're like,
"Oh, I kind of get this.
Wait, I'm not changing my life."
So...
But...
It does seem to do something.
But, okay, so he gives me the examination,
and then he, you know, he dives in.
It's really hard. I don't want to go into it.
But he does the examination.
It turns out I had something.
I had something. Huh? Yay.
I had some sort of prostatitis, which my dad gets too.
It's some sort of--you know, sensitive to it or what.
So I had something. Great. I was right.
Now, what happens next is, a week later,
it's supposed to be gone, but I still feel it, right?
So I go into Bob's office, and I go,
"I think I still have it."
He goes, "No, you've been on antibiotics for 12 days.
It's gone."
I'm like, "No, I'm pretty sure that I have it still."
He's like, "No, you don't have it."
I'm like, "I don't know."
He goes, "You want me to examine you again?"
"If you have to."
So he does it again. I do it again.
I get finger-banged by Bob Rosen again.
Twice.
Okay.
So now, like, another week goes by,
I'm about to go back to school,
and I decide I have herpes on my cock.
Now, the irony of this is, I had not had sex.
I had somehow gotten it from something.
It was a unique case.
[laughs]
So I, you know--sadly, I probably just, like--
I probably just jerked off too hard.
That was the sad part about it.
Like, all right, anyways...
Look, I didn't want to do this story.
All right, so...
So now I got to go back to Bob Rosen.
So this is--like, I've been at this house.
I've been finger-banged by him twice.
And now a week later I'm going back with herpes
that isn't even there.
So I go into Bob's office and I go--
he's like, "What's up?"
and I'm like, "I'm pretty sure I got herpes."
"Have you had sex recently?"
"No, I've never had it."
"Then how do you think you--"
"I just think I have herpes."
And so he goes, "All right, take your pants down."
So I take my pants down, and he sits down,
and rolls up one of those chairs, you know.
And he's got my cock in his hands.
He's holding my cock.
And he looks at it, and he goes,
"You know, there's nothing here, Marc.
Do you like coming here?"
And that ended my hypochondriacal period.
That was the end of that.
Sealed. Nipped that in the bud.
I should tell you the Viagra story now.
Has to do with another doctor.
I have doctor things.
Some of you know that I've been divorced a couple times,
and the divorce from the second wife
was particularly horrible.
And I remember, like, I was in the middle of that,
and I had to get my checkup.
You know, you got to get your yearly checkup.
So I had a doctor here in town,
Dr. Jay [bleep].
Maybe I should change his name.
I think it'll be all right.
I don't say anything bad about him.
But he was, like, this 75-year-old guy.
Classic, you know, old Jewish doctor.
He's the kind of guy-- like a little Jewish Buddha.
He looked like a well-worn piece of Semitic furniture.
You know, he's the kind of guy you walk into his office,
you're like, "How you doing, Dr. [bleep]?"
He'd say, "I'm 75. How do I look?"
You know, he was that guy.
You know, and then by that point,
like, you know, he'd been doing some painting,
so he'd have to walk around his office,
"I'm painting now."
And he'd have to walk around and...
"It's great.
A watercolor of Jews at the Wall."
So...
I'm broken up, you know.
I'm, like, in the middle of this divorce.
I'm heartbroken, you know?
So, you know, we do the exam, you know,
and he's very stealth about it.
There's no big drama about the--whatever.
You know, he says, "You know, what's going on
with you in your life, you know?"
And I tell him about the divorce and everything,
and he's like, "Well, that's"--
I literally spent 20 minutes telling him about my heartbreak.
And he looks at me, and he's also the kind of Jew
that just, like, makes everything like an adage.
You know, like, I go-- I just lay it all out for him,
and he looks at me and goes, "People make a mess."
You know, and then I'm like, "Okay."
And then he goes, "At least you have your health."
So I'm like, "All right, well, that's good.
Everything checks out."
And I'm walking out, and I'm like,
"Well, thanks for listening, and thanks for the examination.
People make a mess."
I'm actually repeating it to myself.
"At least I have my health."
And then as I'm walking out, he goes,
"Marc, come back in here."
And I'm like, "What? What's the matter?
Is there a problem?"
He goes, "Sit down."
And I sit down.
This little, old Jewish guy,
he looks at me and goes,
"Have you tried Viagra?"
And, like, when you're a dude,
you know, there's part of you that thinks, like,
"I don't need that. I'm fine.
"My angry Jew cock is in working order
and seeking revenge on a weekly basis."
So I literally--I look at him.
I go, "I don't need Viagra."
And his little Jewish man, his face lights up.
He goes, "It's not about need.
"This is a great drug.
No side effects. It's terrific."
So now I got to picture him, you know, like, just this--
[laughs]
This, like, weird little, you know, sack of sand
with a protruding nub.
You know, like...
And he goes, "Let me give you a few."
So I'm like, "You know, I'm a drug guy at heart."
And I'm like, "All right, didn't take my--yeah.
I'll take some of these."
So I had, like, three of these fucking blue pills, you know,
in a little sample pack, three or four of them,
and I had never taken them before.
I knew what they were supposed to do.
I didn't, you know, ever take 'em.
I did a little research on them, you know?
Do you know how much money those drugs make?
I mean, they make millions of dollars.
So in my mind, I was like,
"Well, that means that, you know,
"everyone's doing 'em.
"It's not just those people you see, you know,
"dancing in their living room on the commercial
"or holding hands in bathtubs
"or getting onto motorcycles
"with too much gear at their age.
"Everyone must be doing this.
Everyone has at least tried it."
You know, so I'm just trying to justify it
in my mind, you know?
And then I started thinking, like,
"Why don't they market it to people like me?
"I mean, I'm in trouble.
I'm heartbroken. I fucking--I'm a mess."
And I pictured the ad campaign, you know.
"Viagra--for when you want to fuck anything."
'Cause, you know, you could be crying, just sort of like,
"I don't know. I miss my wife.
"This feels weird.
Okay, I'm ready. Sit on it."
"Viagra--
for when you want to fuck anything."
I tried 'em. I tried 'em a few times.
They're dangerous, man.
Have you ever done it? Have you ever?
You got to do it at least once,
'cause you don't realize...
you know, whatever you're working with without them,
it's fine,
but on them, you're like, "Oh, my God."
It's almost like, when you're fucking on Viagra,
there's, like, a moment, like, where you look down
at your cock and you think,
"It doesn't even need me."
Like...
"Like, I wish I could just leave my body and sit over there
"and jerk off to me doing this.
That's how good I'm doing."
Yeah, so...
so don't get too caught up with that stuff,
'cause it's a lie.
[chuckles]
But it's a fun lie.
"So, wait, where do you go from there, exactly, Marc?
Why are you talking to yourself out loud?"
Look, you guys, I'm not an alpha guy.
I just want to put that out there.
Like, I think I act like an alpha guy,
but I don't think I am an alpha male,
and I know that because when I lock eyes
with a real alpha male, they know.
I can read their face.
There's that moment, they're like,
"Say hi to that little girl in there."
I'm like, "Oh, fuck. They saw you.
"They saw you.
"Walk away.
"He's gonna want to talk about sports.
"Walk away.
Gonna bring up extreme wanking."
But, yeah, I'm not that guy.
I'm not a sports guy.
I mean, I just wasn't brought up believing in it,
and...
But there's still part of me, it's weird.
I'm 49.
There's still part of me
that if I see, like, four high school guys
wearing varsity jackets,
there's still part of my brain that thinks,
"Oh, fuck, be cool. Just be cool."
I'm not even on their radar.
I mean, like, unless it's for one of them to say,
"Why is that old guy acting weird?"
You know, and in my brain, I'm like, "Leave me alone.
I'm just going to my locker. I'm just going to my locker."
But, okay, let's get to sports.
I'm not a sports guy for a very specific reason.
I also think I'm a comedian for a very specific reason,
and it has to do with my parents,
'cause they can go fuck themselves.
Look, if your parents ever sent you
to more than one summer camp in the summer,
it wasn't about you having a good time.
They wanted you out of the house.
They didn't want to deal with you anymore.
And they'll try to push it off on you, like,
"You need to learn new things."
And like, "When is a Jewish kid gonna need to ride a horse?
"Seriously, when am I gonna need to ride a horse?
"What situation will I ever be in
"where I'm like, 'Thank God I went to that camp
"'where they all made fun of me
'cause I can ride this horse right out of here'?"
My mother also found me a guitar teacher
that was a guy who was married.
They were these two Christian hippies,
little chubby Christian hippies, and they would come,
they would pick me up at school,
they would take me to swim practice,
they would take me out to dinner,
and then they'd take me home to their house
and teach me guitar.
And my mother would say, "How was your guitar lesson?"
And I would say, "With my other parents?
It was fine."
My mother is a professional anorexic,
and I say that--
I say that because it's her job.
It's not a sickness. She manages it.
If you were to ask my mother, "What do you do for a hobby?"
She would say, "I maintain a weight of 116 pounds."
And you would say, "That's your life?"
"Yes, that's--all my life goes into that."
So that's my mom.
Thought it'd be funnier.
But I...
'Cause this next part really needs a buffer.
I really...
I think for the first nine years of my life,
I was a fat kid,
and I really believe my mother just saw me
as some sort of weird extension of her fat,
and I think that she thought if she could just stop eating,
then maybe the kid would disappear.
[groans]
I can't frame that any funnier.
But--just saying it that time made me hurt a little bit.
Let's get to the funny part.
At some point my mother decided
"Maybe we should put Fat Marc"--
she never referred to me that way out loud,
but I could see it.
"I think Fat Marc should be on peewee little league."
I showed no interest in sports.
I didn't care about sports.
I was not guided that way.
I never played catch with my dad,
because playing catch with my dad would have been like
throwing the ball...
away.
All right.
So she puts Fat Marc on peewee little league.
All right, now, when you're fat and you're
on peewee little league, you're in the outfield,
'cause no one's going to hit that far,
and if it does get out that far,
it's gonna hit the ground and it's just gonna be bouncing.
It's not a big deal.
So Fat Marc is out in center field.
Got a fat left-fielder.
Got the fat right-fielder.
We're just out there being fat.
We're the fat outfield.
All right, maybe a little chatter,
hitting the glove a little bit.
"Hey, batter, batter.
"What does this even mean?
Why are we saying this like this?"
You know, maybe a little chitchat with the other guy.
"Hey, are you gonna get a Snickers or a snow cone after?
"I'm probably gonna get both.
"I'm gonna get a rainbow snow cone
and try to eat it before it turns purple."
All right.
And, look, I got to be honest with you.
I was not prone--you know, I'm fairly athletic.
I could probably pull it off,
but I was afraid of the ball, man.
But, like, at that time, like, you know, batting--
this is how I would bat.
Catching.
But this was me in the picture.
[applause]
All right, so here's what happens,
and this was a life-changing event.
We're gonna try and work through this.
I've made a promise to myself to work through this.
I'm out there in center field, just being fat.
We're having our time out there, all right?
We're just kicking the dirt around.
And then I heard that sound. It's an unmistakable sound.
Everyone knows that sound. It was the crack of a bat.
And my first reaction was to look at the other guy.
And then I look over at that guy,
and he's pointing at the air,
and there's a ball just suspended in the air,
coming towards Fat Marc.
The coach is saying, "Get under it! Get under it!"
And I'm backing up, and I know this is--
like... [groans softly]
You know, it's right there.
And then in my memory,
there was a sprinkler, all right,
that--my heel caught on a sprinkler.
I'm pretty sure it was there, all right?
I can't be sure.
It might just be something I put in there to--
you know, to buffer the shame
of what's going to happen next,
which is me falling backwards onto the ground
and the ball bouncing off of my face.
So I was under it.
I got that part of the equation correct.
Now, in my mind, at that point, the coach is yelling,
"Get up, you fat fuck!
"Field it, fatty!
Come on!"
Now, that's obviously revisionism.
I don't think a coach would talk that way to a fat kid, right?
I probably made that up to make the shame worse.
So now it's not really a ball game
as much as it is a fat kid crying,
which on some level, in my mind, is like,
"Well, it was all about me for that time."
It would have been a better moment to be like,
"I caught it. I caught it."
But, like... [wailing]
That's all right?
Like, on some level, if you're that self-absorbed
and you want to be the center of attention,
it succeeded in that way.
But see, I really think, though--
this is my point.
I think if I would have caught that ball,
I would have been a different person.
I don't think I would be up here talking to you.
I think I would have been a well-adjusted person.
I would have felt that feeling of esteem
and maybe gone on to play more sports.
Perhaps I would have, you know, now been at a pretty good job
with a family and had, you know, guy friends
that I would say things like, "Good talk, bro."
You know?
Like, it could have been a whole different life for me
if I just caught that ball.
And some part of me needs closure,
so if you don't mind, I want to go through a psychodrama here
where I'm going to walk Fat Marc off the field.
I'm gonna walk Fat Marc off
and just try to give him a heads up,
which is a term he didn't understand at this point.
Just try to, you know, give him a heads up
for what's gonna happen.
So let's go there now.
I'm gonna try to coach little, fat Marc.
Here we go.
Wow, that was ridiculous, what just happened.
You were so close. You almost had that.
You all right? It's okay, though.
It's okay.
Look, there's a couple things I need to tell you
about what's gonna happen for you.
First of all, there's no going back to the dugout.
This shit is done.
You're not gonna--there's no more putting yourself
in the position to be physically hurt.
From here on out, it's all gonna be thinky pain.
What else can I tell you?
Teamwork--that's done. No more of that.
No reason to believe in that shit.
And quite honestly, from here on out, no sports heroes,
not that you had 'em to begin with,
but here on out, just loners, fragmented people,
drug addicts, people who live on the margins.
Comedians, rock stars-- those are your people.
Get used to it.
And also I guess I can tell you quite honestly,
it doesn't get much better after this.
On many different levels in your life,
metaphorically, this situation will play out
over and over again.
You're gonna very close to catching it,
and then you will just end up crying.
What else can I tell you about the immediate situation?
Okay, you're gonna get off the field,
your mom's gonna take you to Dairy Queen,
she's gonna let you eat a banana split,
you're gonna enjoy that,
and an hour later, she's gonna make you feel guilty
about eating it.
So that's gonna happen.
So quite honestly, she's out too after this.
You know, they're both out.
Mom and Dad are done.
What else is gonna happen?
Oh, at about 14 you start smoking cigarettes,
which are really cool,
but at 39 when you can't breathe, not so cool.
Cocaine is gonna come into play, about 15 years old.
You'll commit to that for about nine years of your adult life,
which will also be very exciting, but a mistake.
I don't know, how can I sum this up?
Okay, it's gonna take a lifetime to walk this off.
And you can quit crying now on the outside.
And I think the big payoff is that, eventually,
you know, because of this moment
that you had on this field,
and, holy shit, and let me just look around for a minute.
No sprinkler.
Because of this moment here,
you're gonna find yourself at age 49
on a stage in a basement in New York City
in front of a room full of strangers,
taping a special with no end to this story, really.
There's no end.
So if you'd only caught that ball,
we'd have a little closure on this bit.
Thank you.
[applause]
All right, I'm glad we did this in a little space.
This is the way to do it.
Like, part of me--like, I think this is the way comedy is best.
See, like, right here.
You know, like that.
I want to have that.
I don't want to do it in a theater.
'Cause, like, all the specials that you see at theaters,
it's like there's 900 people,
and, like, this not--you know, comedy is not done like this:
"How's everybody doing? What's going on?
"What do you say? Funny time!
Ow!"
All right, let's talk about love,
and let's move through this stuff.
All right, here we go.
So I'm in a relationship now.
Been married twice, divorced twice.
That's fine. I'm over that shit.
Got no problem with it.
The first one I feel bad about.
The second one, she can go fuck herself,
but I don't feel that actively.
It's not an active aggravation that I have.
I'm in a relationship right now
with a girl who is significantly younger than me.
I'm not bragging.
It's just the way it goes.
All right? See, I'm 49, she's 29.
That's it. It's out there.
Don't judge me. Don't judge me.
Do not judge old guys with young girls.
Do not judge them, like you fucking know what's going on.
You don't know what's going on.
I hate when people see an older dude with a younger woman,
like, "I know what that's about."
No, you don't. You don't know what it's about.
What it's probably about is,
that dumb old fuck is probably in love with her
and he's doomed.
If you ever see an old guy with a younger woman,
just picture him as a doomed clown.
Just look at him, like, wearing the clown's hat
with a clown's nose,
maybe the big clown shoes,
and picture him maybe a few paces behind her,
trying to keep up,
saying things like, "What's this band called?
"How long's the show gonna go on for?
Is this a seated event?"
And then just see him slow down
and she just walks away.
He goes, "Bye.
Thanks for helping out."
[imitates horn honking]
[hums whimsical carnival music]
I know what this is about.
I don't go after younger women.
It's just what I'm attracting right now.
I don't attract age-appropriate women,
thank God.
I don't have anything--
and that's not a dig on age-appropriate women.
My mother still hangs on to the hope.
She's like, "Marc, you're gonna meet an age-appropriate woman
and be very happy."
I'm like, "How is that possible?
"How am I gonna meet someone my age or within that age range
"that is not as fucked up as I am?
"I mean, I'm a big bag of problems.
"Whoever I meet's gonna be a reflection of that.
"How is that fun? What are we gonna do?
"Sit on a couch every night
"and talk about how we fucked everything up,
"how we both failed?
"Are we gonna have arguments
"why I can't get along with her teenage son?
"I mean, how does it play out in your mind?
"Am I gonna be sitting there going,
"'Because he can catch! That's why!
"'Because he can catch.
"'And he can't wear that fucking varsity jacket in my house.
Oh, he's here. Just be cool. Be cool.'"
My second wife was younger than me.
I've been through this before. I know what it's about.
I've been through this several times,
the younger woman thing.
I actually thought about having business cards printed up
that just said, "Marc Maron: A phase you're going through."
"Resolving daddy issues since 1989."
That's what it's about. That's what it's always about.
That's what most of it is about.
Come on. I know how this ends.
I'll finally get comfortable. My heart will be wide-open.
We'll just be sitting on a couch,
watching Chopped or House Hunters,
and out of nowhere she'll just say, like,
"Yeah, it's weird.
I'm getting along so much better with my dad now,"
and I'll be like, "Oh, fuck. I guess I'm done.
"My work is finished.
"Now it's time for you to move on
"to an age-appropriate relationship
and have some babies."
[woman groans in audience]
Is that sad?
I don't think it's gonna go that way with this one.
I don't think...
Yeah, I think that was a hypothetical one.
This one's not going anywhere that quickly.
I don't think I could get rid of this one if I had to.
[laughs] She's fucking terrifying.
I'm actively scared of her,
and somehow in my mind I've decided,
"Well, that's healthy to be frightened, terrified,
of the person you love."
Like, I think that if you were with somebody
and you're not terrified of them,
how is that gonna last?
You know what I mean?
How are you gonna behave properly
if you are not terrified of them?
What do you think, just intimacy and trust
is gonna hold that together?
But it's hard being older,
because, like, you know that.
You're constantly reminded by the fact
that we're with a younger person.
'Cause sometimes she'll just hover over here by my head.
Like, I'll just feel her looking at the side of my head,
and she'll say something like,
"Oh, we got to do your ears."
How do I hear that as anything other than,
"You're old. Look at your hairy ears."
One time we were at a hotel,
and I picked up something that I thought was a phone.
It wasn't a phone, it was a remote control,
but that didn't stop me from holding it up going,
"Is this a phone?"
And then she looked at me goes,
"That's the oldest thing you ever did."
Then I saw the regular looking phone right over there.
I'll tell you, there's some couples shit
that's just so-- I think it's so--
like, I always think I'm, like, the only one,
but it's just not.
Like, sometimes-- like, okay, look.
The driving thing when you're in a couple,
it's not good.
One time--okay, look.
She drives for her job. She works with emotionally--
severely emotionally disturbed or autistic children.
That's what she does for a living,
so she's perfect for me,
because that's really who I am in there.
She's actually said this to me, you know, earnestly,
"Use your words. Use your words."
So she's in the passenger's seat.
We're driving somewhere,
so she's got to be, like, control freaky about it.
We're on the highway, she's like,
"Oh, you want to get in the other lane,
because this lane turns--"
I'm like, "I know. I know how to drive.
You know, I've been driving a long time."
You know, and she's like, "Okay, okay."
And we keep driving, she's like,
"Oh, you want to-- you got to get--"
I'm like, "I know where-- I know.
I've been down this road,"
but in my mind it's starting to be like,
"Shut the fuck up.
You know, I'm not a fucking idiot."
You know, that's what's going on in my head.
She's like, "You got to get off."
In my head I'm like, "God--what the fuck?"
All I want to do is create tears, and--
but I don't. I don't.
This is the amazing thing about being a dude
or being this dude,
is, like, every time that I don't honor the part of me
that wants to say, "Shut the fuck up,"
I think I deserve a medal.
Like, literally, by the third time she talked, I'm like,
"I'm doing a good job.
"I think she should appreciate
just how much I'm not making her cry right now."
So I keep it all to myself,
and we finally get to where we're going, this art gallery.
And now, look, I have a style of stopping.
I generally--I'll roll through a stop sign
and look both ways and stop somewhere in the middle.
You know?
It's gotten me two points away from losing my license,
but I still commit to the style.
So we made it through this whole drive
without me fucking losing my mind,
and I pull up to this crosswalk.
I drift into the crosswalk.
We're right across the street from where we're going.
And she goes, "You're in the crosswalk!
You're gonna kill somebody!"
And I just said, "Shut the fuck up!
"We're not gonna be this couple!
"We're not gonna do this thing!
"I'm not gonna live like this.
I mean, what are we, 50?"
And, like, I'm a year away from 50,
so, like, I thought fast, and I'm like,
"What are we, 65?" I said.
By that point, like, I had lost.
You know, I just looked like an idiot,
and then all I could do was, like, dude brood.
You know, just the sulking thing.
What do we think we're accomplishing with that?
I mean, I don't know if you do it,
but, like, literally, they're like, "It's okay."
I'm like, "No, don't touch me."
You know, like, "Eh."
She wants to have a baby.
You think I should?
[audience exclaims in agreement]
[audience exclaims in disagreement]
[laughter]
I know--I somehow managed to be married twice
and not have babies,
but this one wants to have a baby.
I know that 'cause she says things like,
"When are you gonna put a baby in me?"
"I don't know, when you frame it differently maybe would be..."
And also I don't want to do that to a kid.
I mean, I think I'm too old,
and people are like-- especially dudes are like,
"What do you mean? You're a dude.
"You can have babies as long as you have come in your balls
that you can get out into the other thing."
I'm sorry. Didn't mean to get clinical.
I apologize.
And I'm like, "No, not that.
I just don't want to do that to a kid."
And they're like, "What are you talking about?"
It's like, "Look, I remember
the first time I met a kid with an old dad."
Don't you? It was awkward.
Like, first grade or something.
You're both waiting for your parents to pick you up.
Like, his dad comes, and you're like,
"Who's that?"
The kid's like, "That's my dad."
And, like, you can't even wrap your brain around it.
You're like, "What?
How old is he?"
"I don't even know."
"Does he do anything?"
"Yeah, sometimes.
I got to go. I got to help him."
I just don't want to do that to a kid for some reason.
And, like, I've done a lot of jokes onstage
that are a lot more--
like, I've done some wrong-minded shit
in my life onstage,
but that is the only joke that I've told
and a woman has come up to me after a show crying, crying.
"I had an old dad!
And he was really nice!"
So of course I'm thinking something must have happened.
I mean, you got to think this through.
You shouldn't be that upset about that joke, you know?
"Where'd you say you were dancing tonight?"
Um...
You know, maybe I'll have a baby.
I mean, I got to do it-- I got to do it soon.
It'd be good, right? They hang out, you know.
I think I'd be a pretty good dad.
I'm just very nervous and very panicky,
a very worried guy.
Like, even thinking about the baby, like--
"Yeah, I could have a baby."
It goes right from there to "It's dead!"
Like, there's nothing in between those two things.
"I think it would be wonderful to have a child."
"It's not breathing! What do I do?"
But I know she's probably the right girl,
because we vacation together and we survive that.
That's always dicey.
Are you guys married? Yeah?
Do you remember the first vacation?
Horrifying, wasn't it?
Did you do all right? You did all right?
See, my whole thing was, like, look--
we have this system at home where, like, okay,
we're playing pieces on this board that we understand.
You have a sort of weird, kind of petty interactions
that you get very predictable,
and you're like, "Okay, I'm gonna say this.
"She's gonna do that.
I hope she doesn't, like, threaten to leave now."
You know, that kind of stuff.
So we didn't know where to go,
and a lot of people were suggesting Cuba,
which I didn't understand.
What the fuck is wrong with hipsters?
Like, "Yeah, you got to go to Cuba."
I'm like, "Why do I need to go to Cuba?"
"Because they're gonna let capitalism in,
and it's gonna change."
"So you're saying I should go appreciate the charm
"of a failed communist dictatorship?
"You want me to go experience that
"before the people actually have a sense
of self and pride or whatever?"
Well, maybe that's not what capitalism will bring,
but you get what I'm saying.
"They make the cigars right there."
Look, I can be miserable and smoke a cigar anywhere.
I don't have to go to the source of the cigars to do that.
Some people are like, "You should go to Kauai.
There's nothing there."
Right? That's what people say.
"It's great. It's in Hawaii.
There's nothing there."
That's the selling point. "Really? Nothing there?"
"Yeah, it's great. There's nothing there."
And then you go, and within three days, you're like,
"There's fucking nothing here!"
So I don't know if you know anything about Kauai,
but there are thousands of roosters.
There are thousands of roosters,
real, full-on fucking roosters.
Not little roosters.
The kind you see twice in a lifetime,
because the bottom line is,
there was nothing in Kauai, right?
Portuguese ships would come and leave animals.
There was nothing to eat 'em,
so now you've got an explosion of roosters.
The first time you see that many roosters, you're like,
"This is the sign of something bad."
But then you're like,
"No, there's just a lot of roosters here."
Thousands of 'em.
And by day three, you're like, "All right."
You're used to it, but then you realize, "Fuck.
None of them know what time it is."
You know, it's like all day long.
[imitates rooster crowing]
You're like, "It's fucking 3:30.
"What is this bullshit?
Is this what freedom does?"
They're just out there like, "I don't work for the man!
"[imitates crowing]
"I just woke up. Fuck you.
You're on my schedule, tourist."
And it's weird.
I had a very poetic moment with a chicken--
or a rooster, not a chicken--
in Kauai.
I had a very powerful moment with a rooster,
and I'll share it with you.
It's weird.
When I said that line in North Carolina,
that line, "I had a powerful moment with a rooster,"
there was a dude in the audience that went,
"Yep."
And, like, in my mind, it's like,
"His story's got to be better than mine."
'Cause I just pictured a dude, like,
"Yeah, it was, like, in seventh grade.
"I was horny, you know,
"and I thought I could wrangle it,
"and it was, like, weird,
and that's why I have one ball."
But I had a poetic moment with a rooster,
and I'll explain it to you.
I was just on the balcony in Hawaii.
I was looking at the roosters.
Just me looking at roosters.
And one of them had a fucked-up leg,
but he didn't know he had a fucked-up leg.
He's a stupid rooster.
Now, you know, these roosters are big.
I have to assume that's where the word "cocky" came from.
Roosters are pretty dramatic, you know,
intense-looking things.
And this guy has a fucked-up leg,
but he doesn't know it,
so he thinks he's still getting over, you know?
So he's sort of like, "Oh, yeah, look at me.
"Fuck yeah!
Who wants a piece of this?"
You know?
And I'm just assuming all the chickens are like,
"No, that guy's got a funny frequency.
"I'm not gonna fuck that guy.
"It's probably congenital,
and I don't want my kids to walk like that."
But he doesn't know that.
They're thinking, like, "I don't know if I can fucking invest
my eggs in that fucking freak."
"Come on, baby! Who wants a piece of this?"
So I'm projecting all this onto the situation.
In my mind I'm like, "You know, we're a lot alike,
you and me, crippled rooster."
I've been to Kauai twice, with both of my ex-wives.
All right?
So I had a lot more baggage than we actually brought.
So I don't know if you've been to Kauai,
but people go on helicopters.
Did you go on the helicopter?
You didn't go? Why didn't you go?
'Cause it's ridiculous.
There's no reason to go on a helicopter
if you're not in combat.
There's no reason.
It's not a recreational vehicle.
It's a dicey machine.
But I've been on two.
I went on a big one with my first wife,
and I went on a smaller one with the German,
the second wife.
Now, I'm not even gonna explain that.
The second one--
the second wife paid extra money to go on a Huey--
that's the one with no doors.
I remember it very well.
If I were an alpha male and went out with this girlfriend,
I would have been, "Fuck you.
I'm going on the helicopter, even if you don't want to."
And she didn't want to. She wanted to go on a boat.
Fine.
But that second helicopter, I remember that,
'cause we were in there, strapped in,
me, ex-wife, pilot, podiatrist, and his wife.
My entire time I'm like,
"I don't want to die with a podiatrist.
You know, It's not even a real doctor."
So...
But I remember it, because the pilot--
we got on, the pilot said, "I flew in 'Nam,"
and I'm like, "Not a selling point,"
you know what I mean?
And I appreciate you had to do what you had to do,
but are we gonna be dodging things only you can see?
Is this a tactical mission away from your past?
I mean, how is this gonna go?
But I remember it because, like, we were flying
on the Na Pali coastline,
which is the most beautiful thing
you'll ever see in your life,
especially from that angle,
and I was terrified.
My leg was hanging out the door,
and I remember 'cause my wife was holding me
with a concerned look on her face.
I remember that because it was the only time I really saw it.
That was the only thing.
And I remember, like, seeing the most beautiful thing
you ever saw in your life
and being terrified more than you've ever been in your life
simultaneously
was an amazing experience,
'cause I remember the pilot goes, "Pretty cool, huh?"
And I think I went, "Yes!
"It's very nice!
Please land the machine!"
Because when I'm terrified, I turn into Gene Wilder.
So my girlfriend wants to go on a boat.
Okay, boat's fine.
I can handle a boat, right?
Boat's okay.
So we're gonna go on a catamaran.
You know what a catamaran is?
I didn't know what it was.
It's the two things.
Um...
Now, I didn't really know the kind of old Jew I was becoming,
but this is the kind of old Jew I'm becoming.
We're supposed to get on a boat 6:30 in the morning, okay.
At 12:30 at night I sat up in bed and said,
"I need the pills!
"I need the pills for the seasickness
"or I'll get sick on the boat.
We got to get the pills."
And she goes, "Can we get them in the morning?"
I'm like, "No! I don't know! I need 'em."
So I put my shorts on, she puts her sweats on.
We drive around the island of Kauai
to 24-hour supermarkets,
me walking in, going, "Do you have the pills
for the seasickness?"
Some guy behind me going, "Fuck those shorts."
"I know you."
So we get the pills.
We wake up. We get on the boat.
All right? It's fun.
There's about 15 people. It's a catamaran.
You go, you-- we go around the island.
We saw porpoises.
We saw sea turtles.
I am capable of childlike awe.
"Look at the turtle!"
Okay, but then what happens is, the water gets rough.
It gets rough. It seems dangerous to me.
I knew I wasn't gonna die,
but, you know, I was in a helicopter,
but it was still rough,
and it was bouncing, and everybody takes seats,
and there's no seats left for me.
So now I'm the guy holding on to a pole.
So now I'm this guy.
I got a vest on,
and I'm, like, sitting there, going, it's like...
Like, and my girlfriend's sitting in a seat.
She got a seat, so I keep checking in with her.
"Hey, baby, you okay?"
She's like, "I'm fine." I'm like, "All right.
I'm not so good." Yeah.
And, like, three minutes later, I'm like,
"You okay, baby?"
She's like, "Yeah, I'm fine."
I'm like, "All right, I'm just over here."
And then I'm like, "Are you okay?"
She's like, "Shut the fuck up!"
I'm like, "Okay."
And then I realize I'm that kind of guy.
Like, if you're ever checking in with the person you're with
over and over again, no matter what the situation is,
all you should be saying is, "Help me. Please help me."
I do it at home. I could be in the kitchen.
I'll be like, "Where are you, baby?"
She's like, "I'm in the bedroom."
I'm like, "All right, I was just feeling abandoned.
Do you love me still?"
All right.
So now I'm all alone on this pole.
It's, like, connected to a platform where the captain is,
and I'm just, like, holding on,
and I noticed there's two dude-dudes behind me,
two alpha dudes.
They weren't even wearing vests.
They were just leaning against the back part,
where the door goes under, right?
Just leaning there.
And then part of me is like, "Oh, maybe those guys
will take care of me."
You know?
[laughs]
"Will you guys be my friends?"
You know?
And I realize that they probably wouldn't,
but I just thought I'd lean in and, like, listen
to what they're talking about,
to maybe wedge myself into the conversation.
And this is what transpired.
I'm paraphrasing, but I swear to you,
this is what happened.
I leaned in, and I'm listening to them,
and I hear the old one go, "So you got a boat?"
The young guy's like, "Oh, yeah, we got a speed boat,
"couple Jet-Skis.
We love it. We take it out all the time."
And, like, right away my brain's like,
"How do you even own a boat?
"What do you do with it when you're not using it?
"Does it just sit out there?
"Do you take it out of the water?
"Do you hire somebody to take care
of a boat you're not using?"
By the time they had changed topics, I had sold my boat.
All right.
Then the next topic-- swear to God, the next topic,
the guy goes, "So you got bikes?"
And the young guy's like, "Oh, yeah, we got dirt bikes.
"Put 'em on the trailer, take 'em out,
ride 'em on the hills, take 'em to jumps."
And the old guy's like, "Yeah, I got speed bikes.
I like going fast."
And in my mind, my dad was taking me to a hospital--
this really happened--
where he walked me up to the fourth floor,
stood me in front of a dude in traction
with pins sticking out of his legs and said,
"Motorcycles."
Yeah, so that was that memory.
So then the next topic was-- the old guy goes, "You hunt?"
And the young guy's like, "Fuck, yeah.
We go out for deer. We go out for elk sometimes,"
and the old guy's like, "We went out with--
we nailed some bears up north once."
I swear I was waiting for one of these guys to go,
"I killed a guy with my dick once.
"You know, by accident, you know.
"I was just, you know, gutting a moose.
"It popped out. Took my buddy out, you know?
"Shit happens. He was wearing a vest.
That didn't help out at all."
Lastly...
I'm gonna talk about pornography for a moment.
Don't applaud it.
I'm not here to celebrate porn.
I'm here to-- yeah, I use it occasionally,
but that's the way I want to frame it.
I can't believe how much porn there is.
Do you ever really sit and think
just about how much fucking porn there is?
Like, when did that happen?
How did life become so glorious
that there's that much porn in the world?
Could you imagine?
If I were a 15-year-old boy
in the culture that we live in now,
my head would fucking explode.
I would never leave my bedroom.
Could you imagine?
You would just be coming like a monkey.
I'm 49.
Do you know how hard it was to find porn
when I was, like, 14, 15?
I mean, you had to know a kid who had a weird brother
or a dad with stash,
and then you'd have to keep lookout in front of a bedroom
while he riffled through a mattress.
You know?
Or you had to find one page of a magazine
under a bridge somewhere with your friends.
You'd all stand there looking at it, like,
"Oh, man. That's how it works.
I got a funny feeling in my pants."
And then you, like, go back there every day for a month
to see if the rest of the magazine showed up.
You know, as if there were porn trolls
out distributing it at night.
"Put more filth out for the children.
"They must learn somewhere.
"Come. More bridges.
Sunrise is soon."
It was hard to find, man,
and I think some computers come with porn on them now.
Like, you just pop open a new computer,
they're are people fucking on it.
I'm just--this is like a warning.
I don't celebrate porn.
You know, I use it.
I just think you got to be careful.
You don't want to be too excited about porn.
It's a drug, and it's dangerous,
and I'll establish that in the next few minutes.
I mean, look.
Like, if you ever are excited to the point
where you're about to watch porn,
and you go, "Yes,"
you're already in trouble.
You're in trouble.
You shouldn't be that excited about it.
I think the moment that you decide to watch porn,
you should probably be working on something else.
You're alone in your office or your home office,
and you're just, like, plugging away at something
and you have that moment, you're like, "Oh, fuck this.
"This is bullshit.
"I'm not gonna finish this.
"This isn't my fucking life.
Why am I--oh, fuck it."
Ding. "Ahh."
That's when you should watch porn,
when you're falling down the pit of self,
and the only thing you can do to stop your fall
is to grab hold of your cock.
Now--and I'm sorry if this is specific.
A woman came up to me, and she's like,
"You know, women watch porn too."
And I'm like, "Yeah, but I'm not in a position
"to really mock that when I--
I can't sit up there and like..."
Do you remember the first time you saw a woman masturbating,
like, in person?
You were like, "Oh, my God.
That thing can really take a beating."
You know, as a dude, you were sort of like,
"Oh, I want to take care of that fragile flower,"
and they're like, "No! No!
"We're driving somewhere. Get on it!
Ahh!"
Holy fuck.
Um, so what am I saying?
Oh.
Just don't watch too much,
'cause you'll get porn brain,
and it's like-- it's a condition
that I think I've, you know-- I've diagnosed.
Like, I think that, like, you should just keep it in check.
Like, never download porn.
Always go to free sites for the humility
of picking a clip.
It's very important to be very aware of who you are
and what you're doing when you're picking your clip.
You know, make sure your lower self is obviously engaged,
but don't let your higher self get too far away.
Let it hover.
And just look down on yourself as you're sitting there alone,
going, "Uh.
"Oh, fuck. That's pretty good.
"Oh, how many people are in there?
"That's not a real strip club.
"Where the fuck is that wallpaper from?
"That's some weird Baltic porn or something.
"Oh, shit. That's the one.
"Oh, bookmark it. Save her for when you finish.
There might be a better one."
And don't be afraid to let your higher self
rise up out of you and look down upon you in judgment and say,
"Look at you, little man!
"Locked in a cage of self,
"hitting a button for pleasure like a rat,
"you sad little man.
Tragic."
But don't be afraid to look up at him and go,
"Shut the fuck up! I'm doing this now.
"I'll hook up with you again later.
Don't be a buzzkill, fuckface."
Now...
the bigger point I'm trying to make is,
I don't think that our brains are equipped
to take in as much fucking
as we're allowed to take in on porn, all right?
We're just people.
Like, if you sit and watch porn,
like, if you're compulsive about it,
like, in a half hour
you can watch at least 15 different sexual situations.
How is our brain meant to handle that?
I mean, we're just animals.
I mean, even if you're a fucking monkey
and you're up in a tree
and there's a couple of sets of monkeys fucking,
I mean, you're, like, "All right, that's two.
That's plenty."
You know, like, but if there were 20,
you'd be like, "What the fuck is happening to the monkeys?"
So...
So I'm just saying, it fucks with your head,
and I think that we're doing damage.
Let me try to illustrate it another way.
Let's create an analogy.
All right, you're at the end-- you're at the end of a hallway.
It looks like a hotel hallway.
There's 15 doors, and they're all open.
And in each one of the rooms,
there are people fucking somehow, all right,
and you start jerking off at the end of the hallway,
and then you just stand in front of every door going,
"Holy shit. What the fuck is that?
"How many people are in there?
That's not a real strip club."
And then you just come on the floor at the end of the hallway.
If that day happened in your life,
you would never forget it as long as you live.
But, no, now you can just do that in a half hour
right at your fucking desk,
and you think it's not fucking with your head?
Don't get porn brain.
Here's how you know if you have porn brain.
If you ever detach from the porn long enough
to have a real sexual experience,
if you ever walk into a room with a person that you're with
that you're about to have sex with,
and for a split second when you walk into that situation
you think, "Where's the other guy?"
You'll have porn brain. You know?
If you go for that split second, you're like,
"Oh, fuck, it's me. This is an interactive thing.
There is no other guy. I'm the guy."
That's when you know when you've watched too much.
Thank you very much, folks.
You've been great.
Thank you.
I appreciate you coming out.
Thank you.
[cheers and applause]
[indistinct chatter]
Oh, my God.
That was pretty good.
- Hey, Marc. - Yeah?
- That was incredible, man. - Thank you.
We good? We good?
- Did it. - We did it.
That one felt good, man.
- Oh, my God.
- So--okay, so you think we did all right?
- Oh, yeah. It was awesome.
It was a triumph.
- Thank--yes!
- It's a triumph.
- We triumphed.
- You triumphed. - You triumphed.
- Own it.
- We sat around, talking shit.
- No, you definitely could have done it without us.
- Okay.
But here's how--this is what I learned from my mother.
You always punctuate a declarative with a question.
"I triumphed. Right?"
- [laughs]
- Um, so how are the kids?
- They're doing great.
- You know, I got to do it.
I've got a window till July.
She wants me to start pumping the stuff into her in July.
- The soylent green? - Yeah.
I hope better than that.
I noticed that guys who don't have kids,
after a certain age,
there's something wrong with them, I think, a little bit.
Like, I'm already self-centered,
so I think it can only get worse.
If I don't have kids, what have I contributed?
What am I gonna--like, "Here's my DVD from that special I did.
That's what I've offered the world."
Why not have some other fucked-up thing in the world?
- Another mouth for the world to feed.
- Yeah, that's the other side of it too.
- That's the other side.
- Yeah. I just wonder--
- Well, you could say, "My kid's gonna be the one
that cures cancer."
- Do people still say that kind of stuff?
- Or, you know, "My kid's gonna be the one
that causes a lot of cancer."
You just don't know.
President of some chemical corporation or something.
- Could go either way.
Or just some, you know, random drug addict.
- Right. - [laughing]
All right, good. - Excellent. Let's cut.