Drew Michael: Red Blue Green (2021) Movie Script
(EMOTIONAL MUSIC PLAYING)
(MUSIC ENDS)
DREW MICHAEL:
It's nice to see you people.
I have a hard time
with people, so here we go.
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
Well, it's always been hard
for me to connect with people
throughout my whole life,
and I think there's, you know,
a lot of reasons for that.
Um, I have a hearing loss
that I've had since I was a kid.
When I was three years old...
I failed a hearing test.
I took a hearing test
and the doctor said,
"You failed the hearing test."
Well, I didn't know
what he said, but...
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
...he said something,
and my parents got upset,
so I assumed
I didn't nail it, and...
So he told my parents, he said,
"This kid needs hearing aids."
And so instead of doing that,
they didn't. So we just...
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
...coasted until I was 21.
I didn't wear them
till I was 21.
I wore them for like a week
when I was in fifth grade,
but then this girl I had
a crush on asked about them.
She's like,
"What's in your ear?"
I was like, "Well, that's
the end of that forever."
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
"So I'll figure...
I'll figure it out."
It instilled this kinda sense
of shame in me.
You know, I took it
as something was wrong with me.
I put it on myself.
I go, "I must be fucked up."
And then I'm like,
"No, my doctor fucked up."
And then my friends were like,
"No, dude, your parents,
your parents fucked up."
And it's like, "Oh, cool,
well, add it to their tab."
- Like, I don't know...
- (AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
They got a long tab running,
you know.
Also, they got divorced
when I was 12,
which is, like,
the most "fuck you" age
- you could possibly...
- (AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
Like, you guys weren't, like,
killing it when I was five.
You couldn't have done it then?
You had to wait until I was 12?
They did do the thing
where they...
This is a common thing
I think parents do
when they get divorced,
they tell their kids...
They told me,
"It's not your fault.
Don't worry,
it's not your fault."
It's like, "Yeah, first of all,
I wasn't thinking that.
Uh...
I don't know why you thought
I thought it was on me.
Have you seen you guys?
Mom is cripplingly insecure,
and Dad's addicted
to prostitutes.
On what fucking world
is this on me?"
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
I didn't have a good
blueprint...
for what a relationship
should look like,
so, you know,
I've struggled accordingly.
I've had issues
in relationships.
There's other reasons
for that, too.
Like it can't be a good thing...
(CHUCKLES)
It can't be a good thing
that the first...
2,000...
sexual experiences of my life...
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
...were with a Dell computer.
Like that can't be...
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
It can't be helping.
It can't be pushing me
in the right direction
on this pursuit of love
and happiness that I'm on.
Two thousand.
That's the number, by the way.
I didn't, like, write down
a funny number for you.
- I counted.
- (AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
It's literally 2,000,
age 12 to 19
was exclusively
that every single day.
I bought a computer
for my family
with my bar mitzvah money,
and then I fucked it
for seven years straight.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING, APPLAUDING)
That's how I began.
That is the origin story
to my sexual identity,
just downloading sexist shit
into my head.
Then waltzing out
into the world like,
"Oh, yeah,
I totally respect people."
How? How is that even possible?
It's so corrosive.
That shit will rot your brain.
And it's certainly,
for a young boy,
like, it's insane.
Even now, it's like...
We like to pretend
like it's fine,
but that's only because
we don't have to acknowledge
what it is that we're doing.
It's like this virtual,
wordless escapade.
You never have to be accountable
for what it is you're doing.
I think before...
you're allowed
to click on a video...
you should have to say
the title out loud.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
How badly do you want this?
I feel like
most people are like,
"I'm just gonna call my mom
and reconnect...
- the person I need to be."
- (AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
And it's bled in.
Yeah, my relationship dynamics
have always been
somewhat turbulent.
A lot of back and forth,
break up, get back together
kind of things.
A lot of things
that start really quickly.
It's like immediate intensity,
you know? Because usually
I feel like shit about myself
and they feel like shit
about themselves,
and we come together
and we're like,
"Well, we have each other.
And we can do all this stuff!
We can do
all this stuff together
now that we're both here.
We can rub each other's heads.
We can take naps together.
We can, like, slow dance
in the kitchen
while we're waiting
for our cookies
to finish baking." How specific
do you want me to get?
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
But then
when I have all that stuff,
I'm able to see, I'm like,
"Oh, this is a very
codependent relationship,
this isn't healthy.
This isn't the kind of thing
I wanna be in long term.
You're not the person
that's right for me."
So I'll be like,
"Maybe we should break up."
But then they leave,
they take all the stuff!
I'm like,
"I wanna break up with you,
but you should love me still.
Like, you should still
give me all the things,
just don't ask me for anything."
- (AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
- Like, "I need you.
Like, this is all built off
of the back of you.
Like, your love for me
gave me the confidence
to even feel like
I could break up with you."
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
"I never would've broken up
with you if I was by myself."
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
But it's a self-esteem thing.
I don't feel...
I don't feel, like, good enough
for the person that I...
that would be right for me,
you know?
So, what if...
I play this in my head.
What it feels like I need to do
is I need to find a girlfriend,
uh, in order to be
confident enough
to be the type of person
that I would need to be
in order to attract the girl
that I actually want to be with.
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
On my own, I'm nothing,
but in a relationship,
I'm kind of a catch.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
(CHUCKLES)
I feel like
this is a common phenomenon,
that love at first sight,
that idea, it gets propagated.
We all know what you mean by it,
"love at first sight."
And it's something
that's a really enchanting idea,
you know? 'Cause you're like,
you know,
one minute you're alone,
the next minute
you've found the one.
It's like, "What a...
What a day." (CHUCKLES)
- (AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
- What a day that would be.
And so it's so enticing,
but I've seen...
I've gone
that route so many times,
I know what's
on the back end of it,
so it's hard for me
not to be cynical about it.
Now when I hear people like,
"We knew right away..."
Did you?
'Cause now anytime I hear
someone say
about their own relationship,
"We knew right away,"
all I hear is,
"We were
both abandoned as children."
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
You knew right away?
Your threshold
for loving a person
is you saw them once?
That seems like a low bar
to clear.
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
I feel like maybe
you can't handle
the anxiety of uncertainty,
so you went from zero
to 100 right away
to skip over
that prospect of rejection
and the risk
that they might not be
who you imagine them to be.
Am I close?
Am I fucking close?
- Like, I feel like that...
- (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
...is a more accurate
characterization
of what we're talking about.
If you're drawn to somebody
that quickly,
that strongly, that intensely,
that immediately,
that's not love.
You probably have
unresolved trauma.
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
And the other person probably
represents an embodiment
of the trigger of that trauma,
so you're drawn to them
in this misguided attempt
to retroactively fix
a fucked-up period in your past.
That's not love!
Don't call that love.
Don't rebrand that as love
and make the rest
of us feel bad.
Don't be out in the world like,
"It was love at first sight."
Say something honest like,
"It was 'I felt the way I did
when my dad left'
at first sight."
- (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
- I'll believe that.
I'll believe that, yeah.
"My husband's face
looks just like the back
of my father's head,
so I chased it..."
- (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
- "...to now."
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
You should not be chasing.
Don't chase.
Love should not be chased.
(GASPS)
You shouldn't have that, like,
"Are we gonna make it?"
(CHUCKLES) No!
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
If you're wondering, no.
You should not be chasing.
Like in movies, like,
to propagate this idea,
"chase them,"
and that rom-com fantasy
of chasing someone
to an airport.
Chase a therapist to an airport.
Like, don't...
Like, "Don't leave,
we have so much work to do!"
- Like, that's...
- (AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
(CHUCKLES)
No, 'cause movies have
to show you...
They can't show you
what love actually is.
We don't wanna see it.
Love isn't entertaining.
They have to show some dramatic,
conflicted version of love.
They don't...
We don't wanna see love,
actual love.
It's beautiful. I'm not
shitting on the sentiment.
It's an amazing thing
between the two people.
It's not fun to watch.
Think about a couple you know,
maybe you are that couple,
who are truly in love,
in love, like,
together, good, healthy.
We don't wanna watch that.
Like, if you wanna...
- If you...
- (AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
If you watched a movie
about a couple in love,
you would just be on your couch
watching a couple
on their couch,
watching a better movie.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING, APPLAUDING)
You're like, "Why...
What are they watching?
I'll just watch that.
Why don't we cut out...
cut out the middleman?
I don't need..."
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
- AUDIENCE MEMBER: Oh, my God.
- That's not what they show you.
'Cause we don't wanna see...
We don't wanna see healthy,
good love.
We wanna see, like,
a manifestation of, like,
our own internal dramas
played out...
for entertainment value.
The problem is
there are people out there,
like when I was a kid,
who are like empty canvases,
who internalized that.
And so it starts
to skew their view
of what love could be.
Like, people who don't have
a healthy blueprint
are gonna absorb that
and take that in.
You know, I was 12 years old
when the movie Titanic came out,
and that was, like,
iconic love story.
Like, here it is,
epic love,
cruelly interrupted by fate.
And I look at that movie now,
I'm like,
"Wait, what were we rooting
for here?
What did we want to happen?
For them to get to New York?
They weren't gonna
make it as a couple."
What did we think?
They're 20 years old,
they've known
each other two days.
I don't know everything
about relationships,
but like, hey, maybe don't marry
the artist you fucked
on a cruise.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING, APPLAUDING)
Maybe that's not the move.
Five minutes after you tried
to kill yourself.
Do you remember
that's how they met?
She was trying to kill herself
by jumping off the boat,
and he was like,
"Hey, I'm pretty hot.
What if you didn't do that?"
And so...
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
That's how they started.
They knew right away.
Like, that's the thing,
is like, what happens?
How is that gonna play out?
Even if they get
to New York, what?
- They have nothing in common.
- (AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
You know what I mean?
Like, all they have is
the excitement
that they made it.
That lasts, what?
Six months, a year...
two years, maybe?
What happens five, ten years
down the road?
Just sittin' there.
He's like, "So...
you want me to draw you?"
She's like, "Fuck you!"
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
"I was engaged to a billionaire.
I had to sell that necklace
to pay the heating bill.
You haven't sold a sketch
in years, Jack.
How's that art gallery going,
Jack?"
He's like, "Oh, come on.
Remember when we danced
- with the common folk?"
- (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
Terrible.
It would've been terrible.
People are like,
"Oh, it's so sad what happened.
If they
didn't hit the iceberg..."
Fuck that! The iceberg
is the hero of that movie.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
It might've killed Jack,
but it saved
the rest of Rose's life.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
I like movies, I do.
I do.
I don't like
movie culture, though,
like Hollywood...
like the culture surrounding it.
And every time I get roped
into watching an award show,
I'm always reminded,
like, who the fuck
makes these things.
It's like, "Oh, my God."
You ever watch an award show?
It's like this shouldn't be
on television.
This should be, like...
like, in an underground cave
at Bohemian Grove.
Like, why is this
in front of the public?
'Cause they try to act
like they're down-to-earth.
Every time an actor wins an
award, they always give some...
It's not some, like,
normal speech,
it's like a lofty,
sociopolitical response
to the moment.
It's like,
"We need to find a way.
There's a lot of problems
in the world.
We need to find a way
to come together
and not let it divide us."
Like Meryl Streep,
"We need to come together."
- (AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
- "Find unity and strength,
and break down the barriers
that keep us apart.
- And find strength and unity."
- (AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
"Come together as a globe,
as a nation, as a people."
I'm always like,
"Yeah, uh, you're wearing
a diamond dress from Givenchy."
Like, on what fucking planet
are you part of "the people"?
- (AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
- Like, what do you think?
Like, if there was
a true people's revolution,
like a people's uprising,
it's gonna be your blood
- splattered on the sidewalk.
- (AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
They're not gonna spare you
'cause they liked
Devil Wears Prada.
They're gonna rip
your fucking head off,
stick it on a stake,
and sell that diamond dress
to a cartel for machine guns.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
They're not gonna be like,
"Oh, get in the bunker.
We love the nuance
of your artistic choices.
It was so brave of you,
how you dared,
oh, how you dared to be
a middle-class character."
Like, "Oh, how you pretended
to be a thing
people are their entire lives.
How did you do it?
How did you prepare
for the role?"
And they're always like,
"Oh, I lived amongst plumbers
- for eight months."
- (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
"I lived how they lived.
I ate how they ate."
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
No, that's it, you can't.
You can't preach togetherness
and unity when you're that rich.
You just can't do it.
You're rich. You're super rich.
That's why you got rich,
is to get the fuck away
from everybody.
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
That's what money is.
Money is just an escape
from people.
That's why we want it.
Everything money does for you.
Doesn't even have
to be a lot of money.
You'd be like,
"Ooh, I can afford an Uber."
What's an Uber?
That is a bus for one person.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING, APPLAUDING)
It's like,
"Yeah, I like the bus.
I just wish
there were no people on it
and it only went
where I want it to go."
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
Yeah, you can do that.
You gotta pay for it.
You wanna join a gym,
there's different kinds of gyms,
right?
There's a whole spectrum
of gym options.
There's a ten-dollar-a-month gym
on one end.
Two-hundred-dollar-a-month gym
on the other end.
What's the difference?
Two-hundred-dollar-a-month gym,
it's nicer.
It's not 20 times nicer.
It's not like
the ten-dollar-a-month gym,
the walls are falling off,
and you pick up
the ten-pound weight
and it's 100 pounds.
You're like, "Oh, fuck this gym!
The dumbbells
are Gatorade bottles
filled with rocks,
this gym sucks."
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
No, there's still
equipment there.
The 200-dollar-a-month gym,
you pay 200 dollars a month
so you don't have to
look at people
who can only afford
ten dollars a month.
- (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
- That's what you're paying for.
You wanna be able
to do a pull-up
without being reminded
of the dark underbelly
- of capitalism.
- (AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
It's a 190-dollar surcharge
to not have to make eye contact
with the consolation prize
in this fucked-up game
we're all playing here.
That's what you're paying for.
That's the premium.
Everything money does
for you just pushes you
further and further away
from everybody else.
You wanna fly,
you buy a plane ticket.
First-class ticket,
way more expensive.
Why?
There's less people up there.
They won't tell you that.
They'll be like,
"No, you get more space."
It's like, yeah, motherfucker,
space is just the absence
of people.
- (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
- It's not a new entity.
Space is a euphemism
for not anybody.
"No, you get all this legroom."
Yeah, 'cause they're no people
in the way
of where my legs
are trying to go.
We could all have
legroom back here
if we weren't all back here.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
Now, could you imagine
if two people in economy class
were, like,
fighting over the armrest,
and some asshole
from first class came back
and was like, "Hey!
We need to all work together.
We need to find
unity and strength as a flight.
We're all flight 348,
after all."
Then they swoosh the curtain
and go back to their
apartment in the sky.
How quickly before the back rows
start bundling their
plastic silverware together
to storm the front?
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
Like, "No, no, we're not trying
to hijack the plane,
we're just trying to kill
rows one through five.
Take their hot towels
and orange juice
and spread it around."
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
That's the fantasy.
Everyone fantasizes
about what they would do
when they get rich.
You wanna get away
from everybody.
Nobody fantasizes
about togetherness.
Nobody's like, "Oh, dude,
if I got rich... (CHUCKLES)
I would get
so many roommates."
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
"Oh, it'd be sick, we'd have
like a dishes schedule."
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
No, the fantasy is,
"I'm gonna build a moat
around my house.
People aren't gonna be able
to ring my doorbell
without swimming across
a crocodile-laden river."
- (AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
- Fuck everybody.
And I got nothing
against rich people.
You just can't have it
both ways.
You can't bridge class
with a speech.
You can't have it all
and then have this, like,
faux empathy.
Like, "Aww... it's so sad,
people don't have any money."
It's like, "Well,
you seem to have it."
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
"Try giving it away.
You don't have to have it."
And these phony causes,
every Thanksgiving,
one of them
comes out with, like,
"It's so terrible what happened
to the Native Americans."
It's like, "Fucking, I don't
know, give 'em the land back."
(AUDIENCE APPLAUDING, CHEERING)
(CHUCKLES SARCASTICALLY)
"No."
- (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
- "We can't do that.
Where would we put the offices
of DoorDash?"
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
(CHUCKLES)
I swear to God, these fucking...
Like North America could be,
like, falling into the ocean.
We could all be
killing each other
over grain seeds
and fresh water.
These people would be like
on Mars,
- tweeting, "Stop the violence."
- (AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
"Love is stronger than hate."
And changing their
profile picture to a blue circle
to show they still care
about Earth.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
Going on Jimmy Fallon
to promote it,
like, "Yeah, we're changing
our profile pictures
to blue circles
to raise Earth awareness."
Jimmy's just like, "Oh, my God,
it's genius. Such a good idea."
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
"Oh, my God, how'd you think
of it? It's so important.
You're doing such
important work."
- (LAUGHS SARCASTICALLY)
- (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
"Oh, my God, it's..."
(LAUGHS SARCASTICALLY)
- (AUDIENCE APPLAUDING)
- (LAUGHS SARCASTICALLY)
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
Jimmy Fallon. I'm sorry,
is there a more Guy Smiley,
useless,
puppet fuck of a person...
(AUDIENCE APPLAUDING, CHEERING)
...than Jimmy Fallon?
Professional napkin.
Like how the fuck?
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
(GIGGLES SARCASTICALLY)
Dude, I used to think
Leno said nothing.
Fallon makes Leno look like
Malcolm X.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
Like, "Oh, yeah."
(BABBLES INCOMPREHENSIBLY)
I'll never get asked
to do the show, but...
- (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
- (CHUCKLES)
I... I would wanna do it
just one time,
just to be like, "Hey, Jimmy,
what do you not like?"
- (AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
- "What... Is there anything...
Do you have a hard stance
on fucking anything?"
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
He'd be like, "Oh, my God,
it's such a cool take."
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
(GIGGLES) "I don't know, I...
I just kinda float around.
I have no discretion,
yet I'm hugely influential.
Culture's a joke."
(LAUGHS MOCKINGLY)
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
"Every time I speak,
I mean less to myself.
I'm murdering my identity
up here."
(LAUGHS SARCASTICALLY)
"It's genius." (LAUGHS)
Shut up! Shut the fuck up!
Like you could literally...
You could put a gun in his mouth
and...
(MIMICS GUNSHOT)
...blow his head off
and he'd be like,
"Oh, my God, my brains are
on the wall! It's so cool!"
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
"How'd you do that?"
He's a horror movie villain.
You can't kill him.
His weapon is just
effusive nothingness.
He just keeps coming.
(SCREECHES) "Come back!
Don't you wanna play
truth or dare
with Ariana Grande?"
(LAUGHS SARCASTICALLY)
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING, APPLAUDING)
Nice.
(SIGHS)
Look, I just think
if entertainment
is gonna be this ubiquitous,
it can't be this devoid
of humanity. It just can't. It...
You know, 'cause I grew up,
entertainment was
important to me.
And so, you know,
I looked to it for something,
and to be that devoid
of substance, it feels...
insulting.
The problem with entertainment
is that it's all made...
by the same type of person.
It's made by entertainers.
Right? So it's like...
- Entertainers are psychotic.
- (AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
Like, just statistically.
So, look at this room right now.
Almost everybody
in the room is sitting nicely,
looking at this,
and only one person is like,
"Heh, heh, my thoughts."
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
"My thoughts."
And after this is over,
you'll go home
to your respectable lives.
And I'll try
to find another place
to do, "My thoughts."
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
"Soon I'll be full."
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
So you have
to consider the source, right?
I think about that
with all media.
Social media,
for example, like, you know...
You look at like Twitter
or something like that,
it's like...
Like Twitter...
Who's on Twitter? It's just...
It's only people who think
it's like a good idea
- to be on Twitter. Like...
- (AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
It's not everybody.
It pretends to be everybody,
like, "Ooh, everyone's mad."
You look at the trending topics,
"Ooh, what's everyone
talking about?"
It's not.
Most people aren't on it.
Eighty percent of the public
doesn't use it.
Ninety percent, I think,
doesn't use it regularly.
So, like, what's trending?
Like...
Most people aren't there,
so what's really trending
is shutting the fuck up.
Like, most people...
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
Most people are doing that,
but you can't register that.
You can't show somebody
not tweeting. Like you can't...
They should show how much
we don't tweet also.
They should show like a tweet,
and then
you scroll through blank space
for like seven hours.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
And then you come across
another tweet.
You'd be like, "This is a
barren wasteland for lunatics."
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
Everyone on Twitter
is somebody on Twitter.
There's an inherent insanity
in the medium.
Right? It's the same reason
I can't trust Yelp.
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
Every time I look at Yelp,
I read a Yelp review,
I'm like, "Yeah, but this person
wrote a Yelp review."
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
"Why am I listening to a person
who logged in
to write three paragraphs
on broccoli rabe?"
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
Everyone on Yelp
is someone on Yel...
Every Yelp review starts
with someone going,
"I'm gonna write a Yelp review."
Like, fuck whoever
that person is.
But that's everyone on Yelp.
Everyone on Yelp is someone
who uses Yelp.
Everyone on Twitter is someone
who uses Twitter.
I want a social media site
where the only way to use it
is to not.
Like, I don't wanna hear
the thoughts
that you want me to think
that you think.
I wanna hear what you think.
I wanna hear what you don't even
let yourself think you think.
You know those thoughts?
You ever have like
a fucking crazy thought
that bubbles up,
and you push it away,
you're like, "Didn't think it!
Didn't think it.
Still a good person.
Didn't... 'Cause I didn't
think it all the way.
I didn't finish the thought
that I clearly started,
so somehow that's not me."
- (AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
- I want those.
I want you
to cut open your heart
and dump it into my brain.
Intimacy is what
I'm looking for. Which is not...
I shouldn't go to social media
for intimacy, you can't get it.
You ever see someone try
to be intimate on social media?
- It's fucking terrible.
- (AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
It doesn't work. It never works,
'cause it doesn't have
the language for intimacy.
'Cause intimacy is amorphous.
It doesn't come
with a character limit,
or a soundtrack, or filter,
it's just...
(GRUNTS)
The language of social media,
is like, snark and division
and attacks and clapbacks
and, "Oh, that? Oh, clearly
you don't even know about this."
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
That rises.
That gets a lot of attention.
But we're all, like, fucked up,
right? It's like very confusing,
and there's a big market
right now for certainty.
Anyone who has an answer,
even if it's the wrong one,
is in demand.
That's why you get this
whole rash of people
who garner these followings,
'cause they're giving
people a narrative.
All these like, you know,
podcast hosts, demagogue type,
usually a white dude
who's like, "Hey, the media
and the government
are all lying to you,
but you know who's not?"
(LAUGHS MOCKINGLY)
"Me!"
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
"Me, the guy trying
to sell you CBD oil
and sex toys every 30 minutes.
I'm your beacon of truth.
Wear me, listen to me."
This is collective narcissism.
It's changed the way we think,
like the way we process
our own language,
like how we sound.
I remember in the '16 election,
they were talking about the Rock
maybe running for president,
and I said that to a friend,
I was like,
"Yo, I heard the Rock
might run for president."
My buddy was like,
"Is the Rock a Democrat?"
And I was like, "Dude,
listen to the sentence..."
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
"...that you just said.
Is the Rock a Democrat?
I don't know. He's a fake
wrestling character.
I don't know where he stands
on healthcare."
Is the Rock a Democrat?
I don't know.
Did the Yellow Power Ranger
support the war in Iraq?
What the fuck
are we talking about?
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING, APPLAUDING)
Where does Mickey Mouse stand
on abortion? I don't know.
Is he a "second trimester
or before" kind of mouse,
or more like a hardline... (IN HIGH-PITCHED
VOICE) "Life begins at conception, folks."
Like, I don't know
what Mickey thinks.
Does Mickey think,
or does he just do
whatever the artist
makes him do?
Is there a consciousness
in Mickey?
Do any of us think,
or are we just being guided
by an unseen hand?
Is thinking part
of the illusion?
Is Descartes a fraud?
This is why
I had to get off of Twitter.
I existentially spiral.
I lose who I am.
I did, I deleted my Twitter
a year ago.
I still have Instagram
because I'm stupid.
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
Instagram is... It's like hell.
It's just like hell.
You can download
hell to your phone for free.
- (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
- It's free. Hell is free.
Instagram is just like, "Hey...
uh, are you not feeling
jealous today?"
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
"Come hang out.
Look, there's a beer,
some food you'll never eat.
Go fuck yourself. We hate you.
We are trying to tear you down.
We don't give a fuck.
Here's places you'll never go.
Here's a person
that will never fuck you.
Go fuck yourself. We hate you."
"We are manipulating
your emotions,
and then monitoring them
so we can sell you shit.
You want a bracelet?
Yeah, we knew you would,
motherfucker." Literally.
Literally! Literally.
People are like,
"What do those bracelets mean?"
They mean I'm a fucking moron!
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
They mean I was depressed
and got a targeted ad
and thought these bracelets
would turn it all around.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
That's what they mean.
"You are nothing.
We have hollowed you out
and emptied you
and filled you with ourselves
and the desire for more.
You are powerless against it.
This is a takeover.
Didn't happen the way
it did in Terminator.
It's a lot more subtle,
with more cat videos
and 14-year-olds twerking.
Is that a crime?
Ha, ha. We'll never tell you."
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
I hate it.
It makes me feel like shit.
The only social media site
that I like...
is, uh, Venmo.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING, APPLAUDING)
That's right. I like Venmo.
Venmo's a money transfer app,
which everybody knows.
But what not everybody knows
is that on Venmo,
there's a feed,
where you can like...
tab over and you can see
all of your friends'
and your contacts'
financial transactions,
which should be illegal,
but it's there.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
It's right there. And I like it
because it's honest.
It's the only honest
social media site out there.
Every other social media site
is a projection
of a version of yourself that you wish
you were onto a canvas. Not Venmo.
Venmo is the honest antidote
to the horseshit of Instagram.
Instagram makes you feel bad
because you're aware
of your own fears
and insecurities
and preoccupations,
but you're not seeing
anybody else's.
So you're always
gonna lean that way.
So you see a picture on
Instagram of, like, a couple...
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
Maybe they're on,
like, a beach...
looking at a gorgeous sunset.
Maybe they're eating a pizza.
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
You look at this, you're like,
"What the fuck? What the fuck?
The fuck is wrong with me?
How come
I'm not doing that shit, huh?
Is there something
wrong with me?
Is there a hole here
that everybody can see?
Do I emanate darkness,
do I repel love?
Is there a limit
to my emotional aptitude?
Did my father's genetics
set that limit?
Do I need to go back
on antidepressants?
What the fuck
is going on inside of me
that's not leading me
to that type of bliss?
What do I have to do
to get there?"
But then you look at Venmo
and it's like,
"Oh, no, dude,
they split that pizza."
(AUDIENCE CHEERING)
(APPLAUSE)
- "I'm doing just fine."
- (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
"I don't need medication."
(CHUCKLES)
It's not a referendum
on splitting stuff
in a relationship.
I think
if you're gonna split stuff,
just don't split the items.
Go every other.
Does that make sense?
I'll see that on Venmo.
I go on Venmo, I'll see,
"Boyfriend sends girlfriend
money for tacos."
I'm just, like, how the fuck
do you go down on someone
after you just sent them
eight bucks?
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
(SCOFFS)
"You're just bitter, Drew,
that you have no one
to split stuff with."
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
Yeah, I'm single.
I'm 36... and single.
I'm single and 36,
which is fine.
Uh, but it is almost not.
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
Like, it's not bad yet,
but bad is next.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
Bad is the next stop
on this... train.
A lot of my friends are married.
And it's cool to see.
A lot of them are in, like,
really great relationships,
really healthy, good,
loving relationships.
And it's really amazing to see.
I go to their weddings,
I really enjoy it.
Seeing them come together,
it's a beautiful thing.
And I hear a lot
of the same things in the vows.
There's a common refrain
in the vows,
which is something about,
like, you know,
"I get to marry my best friend."
"I'm so lucky to have found
my best friend."
"I never thought I would spend
the rest of my life
with my best friend."
And I hear that, I'm like,
"That's such
a beautiful sentiment."
Like, the person
you marry should feel...
like your best friend.
I'm in the back,
I'm like, "Well, I'm 36,
so who the fuck
meets their best friend
in their late thirties?"
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
Who's out there like,
"This is my best friend!
We met when were 38!"
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
"Tell him, Doug!"
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
No, it doesn't happen.
They're all having kids, too,
starting families.
My friends starting families,
it's beautiful to see.
I don't have my own family.
I have, like, a family
from which I've come.
I don't have...
- (AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
- ...the next line on that.
Like on a family tree,
I'm just a node that ends.
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
It's just like, "Who's that?"
"That's your great Uncle Drew,
nobody loved him."
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
Just a leaf on a twig.
Just a Styrofoam ball
with no toothpicks,
if we're using
school project lingo.
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
"Oh, cool,
you got me a PlayStation
for my birthday.
I love you, Dad."
I just beat God of War
for the fourth time.
(AUDIENCE MEMBER CHEERING)
- It's a good game.
- (AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
It's not
"hugging my smiling child" good.
(AUDIENCE LAUGH)
But the gameplay mechanics
are pretty tight.
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
I think part of the reason
I don't... have a family,
well, at least
what I used to tell myself,
is that I do this.
It's something that I chose.
I chose a different path.
I remember I started doing
stand-up when I was 22.
I dropped out of school, and...
at the time,
my mother warned me.
She said, "You know,
it's not very stable.
You're gonna be living
hand-to-mouth, traveling a lot.
You're not gonna be able
to settle down."
And she was right to an extent.
But the problem was,
she was telling this
to a 22-year-old dude.
Like the least likely candidate
on Earth to settle down.
I don't know if you know
any 22-year-old dudes,
but they're
not technically people.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
Just unprocessed pain and skin.
Like, that's pretty much
the identity there.
So, 22, I'm hearing this,
I'm like, "Settle down?
What are you, a hundred?
I don't give a fuck.
I'm going on the road, Mom.
I'ma follow my dreams!
Nobody is gonna stop me!"
That was my attitude.
Now I'm 36.
Now I see the punchline.
Now it's like...
(LAUGHS SARCASTICALLY)
"Nobody is going
to hug me as I die."
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
(CHUCKLES SARCASTICALLY)
Is that funny? I don't know.
I structured it as a joke.
Does that make it funny?
I don't know. Does comedy have
the ability to transform
the emotional constitution
of reality,
or is it just adding a layer
to an unfortunate event?
I don't know how the physics
of comedy work.
I used to tell myself that
it was a sacrifice I was making.
I was leaving that on the side
to pursue this.
And I used to look...
It was very easy
to make that argument,
'cause I used to look around
and there were a lot of men
who accomplished things
that I considered to be great,
whose personal life was
kind of left by the wayside.
And so it seemed to me
as a necessary component.
I remember in high school
I learned about Isaac Newton.
And Isaac Newton
invented calculus.
He also died a virgin.
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
Which begs the question,
can you invent calculus
while fucking people?
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
I don't know.
It's never been done.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING, APPLAUDING)
A more modern example,
Steve Jobs.
Steve Jobs was
an incredible innovator...
uh, terrible father...
right, which we know,
it's documented,
but we also just knew.
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
We knew.
Every time we'd go
into our pocket,
if Steve Jobs were a good dad,
we'd pull out a Samsung
or a Motorola.
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
Every time you text someone
and it shows up blue,
that's Steve Jobs not going
to a piano recital
- or a softball game.
- (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
And I don't think
we have the right to judge him.
Like, we are all glad he did it.
Like, we encouraged that.
As a society,
we would all rather
one girl grow up
with a shitty dad
than have to all of us
use Windows.
Are you out of
your fucking mind?
You want us all
to click a Start button
and run clunky .exe files
just so one girl
can open her gifts
next to the guy
who paid for them?
Fuck that! She can get them
from a nanny
while the rest of us
enjoy our...
technological ecosystem
seamlessly integrated.
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
That's what we encourage.
We encourage it.
True happiness
has no societal value.
We want productivity.
Give us... Make something
or shut up! Like, we don't care.
So there's this incentive
to do it.
And it gets even more fucked up.
Someone like Michael Jackson,
who was this incredible popstar
and a horrendous babysitter,
you know,
where it's just like...
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
Yeah, it's an easy one,
but it's fun. It's fun, though.
It's so easy, but it's so fun.
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
No, but even that, like
there's such an instinct
to defend these guys.
Like my first instinct is
to be like...
see it from their side,
because I think we're such...
we're conditioned to like them
on that level.
So even with Michael,
I was like...
you know,
there was a part of me...
I watched that documentary
about him,
I was like,
"Oh, that's fucked up."
But there was a part of me
that was like,
"Yeah, but if not
an eight-year-old boy,
who was Michael Jackson
supposed to date?"
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
You know what I mean?
What is he looking at,
options-wise,
that makes any sense at all?
Somebody his age? He did that.
He was married
to Lisa Marie Presley,
a grown woman,
and that was weirder somehow.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
That was weirder.
They made out on television.
It was fucking weird.
There was like
an awards show presentation
and at the end,
they like did this kiss,
it was just awful.
Like, "Oh!"
The whole world
was just like, "Oh, my God."
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
"Jesus, will somebody
get this guy a kid?"
- Like, "This is horrible."
- (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
Because Michael Jackson
with a kid,
it upsets us morally,
but it looks right.
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
Michael can't date an adult.
You wouldn't set
your friend up with him.
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
Who's he supposed to...
What is he gonna do,
go on like a blind date
with a 35-year-old
software developer?
How's that gonna go? "Hey,
nice to meet you, Michael."
He's like, "You wanna play tag?
You're it." Like, come on.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
"Where are your..."
"Tag?
I thought we'd go to dinner."
"Dinner's for dumb-dumbs.
We can eat candy at my house
and stay up as late as we want.
Tee-hee!"
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
Michael can't date an adult.
I don't even know what kind
of adult would be into Michael.
Like you wanna...
you wanna fuck him?
Listen to him sure,
but, like, you wanna...
(IMITATES MICHAEL JACKSON)
You wanna fuck that guy?
- (AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
- You wanna fuck him?
"Here, doo-doo head."
You're gonna fuck him?
Dude, if you're an adult
and you wanna fuck
Michael Jackson...
you're a pedophile.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING, APPLAUDING)
But you look at all these guys,
you know,
Michael Jackson, Isaac Newton,
Steve Jobs,
they were adored by the world
but hated by the people
closest to them.
And I would imagine
that you'd tell yourself
that that's a sacrifice...
that you make, but...
as I get older,
I look at it differently.
I don't know if I look at it
as a sacrifice anymore.
Maybe... maybe not.
Maybe...
they just ran
from responsibility
into the arms of ambition.
You know,
maybe Apple and Pixar...
are just built off the back
of one man's inability
to be intimate
with the people closest to him.
Or with himself.
And so it recasts my own path,
where I'm like,
maybe this isn't a sacrifice.
I'm not comparing myself to...
Steve Jobs and...
Isaac Newton, you know.
It's a matter of scale.
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
But even in the comedy world,
even the people
that I looked up to...
When I started, all the people
that I looked up to,
they're all either, like,
prematurely dead,
utterly miserable, or, like,
sex criminals.
So... where is this headed?
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
Where is this path going?
Their greatness is predicated
on their accomplishments,
but we fail to recognize
how they failed
in their private moments.
And I think that's a masculine
definition of greatness.
Because, like, I don't look
at that as great anymore
because they couldn't confront
who they were as a person.
They couldn't confront
the emotional reality
of their experience.
That is greatness to me.
To do that,
that is a much greater thing.
How great can something be
if it's built on avoidance?
I think you have to...
confront.
And it's scary.
It's a scary fucking thing
to do. Like, I get it.
It's like totally scary
for a lot of reasons.
One, you can find out
that the story you've been
telling yourself about yourself
isn't true.
You can find out that
what you thought was like
the harsh, brutal reality
of yourself,
you're just resting
on an easier narrative
that could be subverted
by something else.
Like I used to tell
myself stories about myself
that have shifted over time.
I used to tell myself
this was a sacrifice.
I used to tell myself
that what I was doing up here
was important,
that it was fearless.
That I was fearless
for doing this.
I had the balls to say shit
that nobody else did.
Things like
that Michael Jackson joke,
I'd be like, "That's fearless.
That's a fearless fucking thing.
You can get mad at me.
That's fearless.
I'm willing to stand that down."
But as I get older, I'm like,
"That's not...
I think it's funny,
but it's not fearless."
Because my emotional experience
is nowhere in there.
I'm nowhere in that joke.
I wasn't molested,
and I'm not a pedophile.
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
That would be fearless.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
The most fearless pedophile joke
you could tell
is to be one
and admit it publicly.
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
No, worst-case scenario,
worst-case scenario,
the joke bombs
and you don't like it.
You look at me, arms folded,
shaking your head and say, "No."
Fortunately, that didn't happen
this evening,
but it has happened.
It could happen.
You can get mad.
You could think I suck.
You could not like me.
But, counterpoint...
who are you?
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
I can barely see any of you,
and I love none of you.
So what is this power...
that you hold over me?
You're not me.
We are always
our most terrifying audience.
I believe that.
That's why it's so funny
when people say
that, like, public speaking
is the number one fear
of people.
They say, you hear that,
"Public speaking
is the number one fear
of people."
It's like, "Well, I'm sorry,
was confronting yourself
on an emotional level
not on that questionnaire?"
The fuck you talking about,
public speaking?
I'm public speaking right now.
It's fine.
I'm public speaking as a way
to avoid confronting myself
on an emotional level.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING, APPLAUDING)
This is all.
Like, up here it's, like,
"Dopamine!"
And if I were at home,
it'd be like... (SCREECHES)
(SCREECHES)
I have used this
to avoid so many...
I can't tell you how many
relationships I've been in
where I've been like, "Oh, sorry,
I can't hang out with you tonight.
I have to go do a show."
Or more specifically,
"Sorry, I can't be there
on your birthday.
I need to go do this bit
about how all my relationships
fall apart."
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
It's like just,
"Do I need any of this?"
And I think as men,
we have this tendency
to wanna process everything
in our lives through,
you know, intellect, or logic,
or our thoughts, or our reason,
things that we do,
things that are tactile,
and it's like...
you're ignoring the entire
emotional subset
of your experience.
And this idea that logic
and emotions are separate,
they're not.
Like your thoughts are
not separate from how you feel.
Your thoughts...
Thoughts are just emotions
in drag.
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
It's the same ecosystem.
It's hard to dive in...
like that.
Therapy's a good way to do it.
I think people...
a lot of people need...
They're men... all men.
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
Yeah,
I'm comfortable saying that.
All men need to go
to therapy for...
20 years. Like...
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING, APPLAUDING)
Roughly.
(CHUCKLES)
Sometimes guys get mad.
They're like, "Fuck you, I don't
need shit, you pandering pussy."
It's like, "Hey. You do."
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
"What was that?"
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
Women need therapy too.
But usually when a woman
goes to therapy,
it's because
a man in her life didn't.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING, APPLAUDING)
I started going
four times a week.
It's a program, it's called
psychoanalysis, and it's, uh...
The reason you go so often
is so that you don't have time
to close up.
Like, if you go once a week, you
have all week to just close back up,
so you stay open
throughout the week
so you can access
parts of yourself
that are much harder
to access normally.
And so it's very emotional.
It's very exhausting.
It's very trying. I cry a lot.
I sob... The other day, I sobbed
for, like, 20 minutes straight.
And this is how fucked up I am.
As soon as I collected myself,
my first thought was,
"That shouldn't count
toward my time."
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
But that's me trying to get out
of that moment.
Like that moment was
hard to swallow, and so...
joke, out, now we're out of it.
But I don't think
that's how progress gets made.
I think
if you wanna make progress,
you can't take that left turn
at a punchline.
You have to go...
You have to sit there
and process it there.
You have to go down.
You have to take that
Miss Frizzle Magic School Bus
all the way.
"We're going
to your emotional core!"
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
"Look out your left window.
Is that Mom going on a date
instead of hanging out with you?
Yes, it is."
- (AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
- "Process it! Feel it!"
You have to stay there,
and leave it there.
You can't buy yourself
out of the moment.
Otherwise, the progress
won't get made.
It's very hard to do.
And I'm up here and I, like,
I want to bring you in.
Like, that's where
this is going.
Like I want...
That's the next step,
is I want to bring you all
to that place.
But it's hard
because, like, I don't know
if there's a show down there.
But I wanna bring you in,
but I feel conflicted.
I feel like I can't...
I have to like...
I feel like
that's how this works,
is I go in, I mine my own life
for sadness,
and then I contort it
into a balloon animal for you
so you don't feel ripped off.
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
I tried...
to do that. I wrote...
I wrote a joke...
that tries to do that.
- Why did the chicken...
- (AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
...cross the road?
AUDIENCE: Why?
Because...
he grew up...
with an untreated
hearing loss...
which deprived him
of a major sensory connection
to the people around him,
and it isolated him
to the point of chronic torture.
And his parents
were too caught up in their
own drama and insecurities
to attend to it,
so he processed it
as though there was something
inherently wrong with him.
And his feelings are a threat
to his relationships,
so he just suffered in silence,
feeling like he was
100 feet underwater,
wondering why nobody
was coming to save him.
And then, he finally started
wearing hearing aids,
which created
this insane sensation
of being able
to participate in a world
that he didn't understand.
But because his self-worth
was predicated
on how special he felt,
he realized
that the trodden path
didn't appeal to him.
So he would get high
and watch stand-up comedy
as a way to numb the agony
of how lost he felt.
And in doing so,
he found a lot of connection
with their points of view,
and he thought, "Wow,
if I could do that, people
could connect to me like that."
So he decided
to drop out of school
and pursue stand-up comedy,
and doing comedy made him
feel better for a moment,
but it never forced him
to address any of the reasons
he actually felt like shit.
He so badly wanted
to feel special and powerful
to make up for
how worthless he felt,
so he would say all sorts
of fucked-up things,
onstage and off,
as a way to separate himself.
And a lot of it he stands by,
but there are
a lot of things he said
that were flagrant
and unnecessary
and hurtful and racist
and sexist and homophobic,
all of which he justified
under the guise of
pushing the envelope,
which he thought was an act
of justified rebellion
against some
arbitrary authority.
But too late, he learned
that a lot of those boundaries
are derived from real people's
feelings and experiences
and he was essentially
exploiting their actual pain
and using it as a traffic cone
to satisfy this story
he was telling himself
where he was a genius.
And just because people laugh
at something
doesn't inherently make it good.
They could be just as
emotionally immature
or ignorant as
the perspective in the joke,
or they could be responding
to joke structure and timing
more than content.
And then, one day...
(MELANCHOLY MUSIC PLAYING)
...all the world's stages
boarded up, so he sat alone
in a room for a year,
and he did nothing
but talk to the walls
and a therapist.
And with no emotion
to escape into,
he slowly started breaking down
the paradigm he'd constructed
and moved into the feelings
he was running from.
And he discovered how badly
he had been hurting
his entire life, and what it
actually is to hurt so badly.
And he realized
that there was not a single
period of his life
in which he was truly happy.
And through that,
he started to realize
how much pain
he had caused other people.
He instantly regretted
all the ways in which
he's needlessly made people
feel like shit
in order to protect
his own conception
of himself as strong.
Then he wanted to disappear
from the world entirely
because he felt like
such an incredibly bad person
for having done these things.
So his instinct was
to beat himself up about it
and tell himself
what a horrible person he is,
but he's been shaming himself
his entire life,
and all these things he did
were just ways
to push people away
and deprive himself
of any meaningful connection,
because of how badly
he felt about himself,
because it was too scary
and painful to be open enough
to connect to anyone else.
So, while he hurt people,
he was hurting no one
more than himself,
and he doesn't want
to do that anymore.
He has worked so hard
to clear out space
within himself and feel safer
in his own body
and treat himself like
a friend he loves
as opposed to an enemy he hates,
which means he no longer
tolerates dynamics based on
his own self-destruction,
which has changed
numerous relationships
in his life,
including the one with
the art form that he loves.
The fear has always been
that if he makes peace
with the subterranean feelings
that drive all of this,
he'd lose this piece of himself
which has helped him
survive and get to this point,
a fear that he won't be
funny anymore,
he won't be special,
he'll just be,
which has been
an intolerable notion
because he doesn't feel
like enough on his own.
He's only known
how to exist by chasing,
or thinking, or running,
or fighting,
or straining, or suffering,
or striving, or analyzing,
anxious energy
which ultimately manifests
the very same emptiness
it's borne out of.
And it keeps him locked
into one side of himself,
but he's making every effort
to find a way
to not give in
to those anxieties
and sit with
the quiet inside of himself
because he wants so badly
to get to the other side.
(AUDIENCE APPLAUDING)
Thank you very much.
(APPLAUSE CONTINUES)
Thank you.
(AUDIENCE CHEERING)
(MELANCHOLY MUSIC CONTINUES)
("CARNIVAL"
BY COREY LAITMAN PLAYING)
Well, I know It's all you can do
To put one foot
In front of the other
When the cold has got Your bones
And there's a virus
Hiding out in your brain
So if you've got to carve out
Your sterile spaces
And hide out inside
Those high up places
In the name of staying safe
And keeping sane
In this wind and this rain
Oh
Funny thing, I've been
Watching you charm the crowd
They're laying down Their arms
Oh They're clapping out loud
Oh, but funny thing
You've grown so small
It's hard to see you
There at all
Well, I know It's all you can do
To put one foot
In front of the other
When the cold has got Your bones
And there's a virus
Hiding out in your brain
Oh
So if you've got to carve out
Your sterile spaces
And hide out inside
Those high up places
In the name of staying safe
And keeping sane
In this wind and this rain
Oh
(MUSIC CONCLUDES)
(MUSIC ENDS)
DREW MICHAEL:
It's nice to see you people.
I have a hard time
with people, so here we go.
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
Well, it's always been hard
for me to connect with people
throughout my whole life,
and I think there's, you know,
a lot of reasons for that.
Um, I have a hearing loss
that I've had since I was a kid.
When I was three years old...
I failed a hearing test.
I took a hearing test
and the doctor said,
"You failed the hearing test."
Well, I didn't know
what he said, but...
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
...he said something,
and my parents got upset,
so I assumed
I didn't nail it, and...
So he told my parents, he said,
"This kid needs hearing aids."
And so instead of doing that,
they didn't. So we just...
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
...coasted until I was 21.
I didn't wear them
till I was 21.
I wore them for like a week
when I was in fifth grade,
but then this girl I had
a crush on asked about them.
She's like,
"What's in your ear?"
I was like, "Well, that's
the end of that forever."
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
"So I'll figure...
I'll figure it out."
It instilled this kinda sense
of shame in me.
You know, I took it
as something was wrong with me.
I put it on myself.
I go, "I must be fucked up."
And then I'm like,
"No, my doctor fucked up."
And then my friends were like,
"No, dude, your parents,
your parents fucked up."
And it's like, "Oh, cool,
well, add it to their tab."
- Like, I don't know...
- (AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
They got a long tab running,
you know.
Also, they got divorced
when I was 12,
which is, like,
the most "fuck you" age
- you could possibly...
- (AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
Like, you guys weren't, like,
killing it when I was five.
You couldn't have done it then?
You had to wait until I was 12?
They did do the thing
where they...
This is a common thing
I think parents do
when they get divorced,
they tell their kids...
They told me,
"It's not your fault.
Don't worry,
it's not your fault."
It's like, "Yeah, first of all,
I wasn't thinking that.
Uh...
I don't know why you thought
I thought it was on me.
Have you seen you guys?
Mom is cripplingly insecure,
and Dad's addicted
to prostitutes.
On what fucking world
is this on me?"
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
I didn't have a good
blueprint...
for what a relationship
should look like,
so, you know,
I've struggled accordingly.
I've had issues
in relationships.
There's other reasons
for that, too.
Like it can't be a good thing...
(CHUCKLES)
It can't be a good thing
that the first...
2,000...
sexual experiences of my life...
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
...were with a Dell computer.
Like that can't be...
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
It can't be helping.
It can't be pushing me
in the right direction
on this pursuit of love
and happiness that I'm on.
Two thousand.
That's the number, by the way.
I didn't, like, write down
a funny number for you.
- I counted.
- (AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
It's literally 2,000,
age 12 to 19
was exclusively
that every single day.
I bought a computer
for my family
with my bar mitzvah money,
and then I fucked it
for seven years straight.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING, APPLAUDING)
That's how I began.
That is the origin story
to my sexual identity,
just downloading sexist shit
into my head.
Then waltzing out
into the world like,
"Oh, yeah,
I totally respect people."
How? How is that even possible?
It's so corrosive.
That shit will rot your brain.
And it's certainly,
for a young boy,
like, it's insane.
Even now, it's like...
We like to pretend
like it's fine,
but that's only because
we don't have to acknowledge
what it is that we're doing.
It's like this virtual,
wordless escapade.
You never have to be accountable
for what it is you're doing.
I think before...
you're allowed
to click on a video...
you should have to say
the title out loud.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
How badly do you want this?
I feel like
most people are like,
"I'm just gonna call my mom
and reconnect...
- the person I need to be."
- (AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
And it's bled in.
Yeah, my relationship dynamics
have always been
somewhat turbulent.
A lot of back and forth,
break up, get back together
kind of things.
A lot of things
that start really quickly.
It's like immediate intensity,
you know? Because usually
I feel like shit about myself
and they feel like shit
about themselves,
and we come together
and we're like,
"Well, we have each other.
And we can do all this stuff!
We can do
all this stuff together
now that we're both here.
We can rub each other's heads.
We can take naps together.
We can, like, slow dance
in the kitchen
while we're waiting
for our cookies
to finish baking." How specific
do you want me to get?
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
But then
when I have all that stuff,
I'm able to see, I'm like,
"Oh, this is a very
codependent relationship,
this isn't healthy.
This isn't the kind of thing
I wanna be in long term.
You're not the person
that's right for me."
So I'll be like,
"Maybe we should break up."
But then they leave,
they take all the stuff!
I'm like,
"I wanna break up with you,
but you should love me still.
Like, you should still
give me all the things,
just don't ask me for anything."
- (AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
- Like, "I need you.
Like, this is all built off
of the back of you.
Like, your love for me
gave me the confidence
to even feel like
I could break up with you."
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
"I never would've broken up
with you if I was by myself."
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
But it's a self-esteem thing.
I don't feel...
I don't feel, like, good enough
for the person that I...
that would be right for me,
you know?
So, what if...
I play this in my head.
What it feels like I need to do
is I need to find a girlfriend,
uh, in order to be
confident enough
to be the type of person
that I would need to be
in order to attract the girl
that I actually want to be with.
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
On my own, I'm nothing,
but in a relationship,
I'm kind of a catch.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
(CHUCKLES)
I feel like
this is a common phenomenon,
that love at first sight,
that idea, it gets propagated.
We all know what you mean by it,
"love at first sight."
And it's something
that's a really enchanting idea,
you know? 'Cause you're like,
you know,
one minute you're alone,
the next minute
you've found the one.
It's like, "What a...
What a day." (CHUCKLES)
- (AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
- What a day that would be.
And so it's so enticing,
but I've seen...
I've gone
that route so many times,
I know what's
on the back end of it,
so it's hard for me
not to be cynical about it.
Now when I hear people like,
"We knew right away..."
Did you?
'Cause now anytime I hear
someone say
about their own relationship,
"We knew right away,"
all I hear is,
"We were
both abandoned as children."
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
You knew right away?
Your threshold
for loving a person
is you saw them once?
That seems like a low bar
to clear.
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
I feel like maybe
you can't handle
the anxiety of uncertainty,
so you went from zero
to 100 right away
to skip over
that prospect of rejection
and the risk
that they might not be
who you imagine them to be.
Am I close?
Am I fucking close?
- Like, I feel like that...
- (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
...is a more accurate
characterization
of what we're talking about.
If you're drawn to somebody
that quickly,
that strongly, that intensely,
that immediately,
that's not love.
You probably have
unresolved trauma.
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
And the other person probably
represents an embodiment
of the trigger of that trauma,
so you're drawn to them
in this misguided attempt
to retroactively fix
a fucked-up period in your past.
That's not love!
Don't call that love.
Don't rebrand that as love
and make the rest
of us feel bad.
Don't be out in the world like,
"It was love at first sight."
Say something honest like,
"It was 'I felt the way I did
when my dad left'
at first sight."
- (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
- I'll believe that.
I'll believe that, yeah.
"My husband's face
looks just like the back
of my father's head,
so I chased it..."
- (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
- "...to now."
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
You should not be chasing.
Don't chase.
Love should not be chased.
(GASPS)
You shouldn't have that, like,
"Are we gonna make it?"
(CHUCKLES) No!
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
If you're wondering, no.
You should not be chasing.
Like in movies, like,
to propagate this idea,
"chase them,"
and that rom-com fantasy
of chasing someone
to an airport.
Chase a therapist to an airport.
Like, don't...
Like, "Don't leave,
we have so much work to do!"
- Like, that's...
- (AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
(CHUCKLES)
No, 'cause movies have
to show you...
They can't show you
what love actually is.
We don't wanna see it.
Love isn't entertaining.
They have to show some dramatic,
conflicted version of love.
They don't...
We don't wanna see love,
actual love.
It's beautiful. I'm not
shitting on the sentiment.
It's an amazing thing
between the two people.
It's not fun to watch.
Think about a couple you know,
maybe you are that couple,
who are truly in love,
in love, like,
together, good, healthy.
We don't wanna watch that.
Like, if you wanna...
- If you...
- (AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
If you watched a movie
about a couple in love,
you would just be on your couch
watching a couple
on their couch,
watching a better movie.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING, APPLAUDING)
You're like, "Why...
What are they watching?
I'll just watch that.
Why don't we cut out...
cut out the middleman?
I don't need..."
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
- AUDIENCE MEMBER: Oh, my God.
- That's not what they show you.
'Cause we don't wanna see...
We don't wanna see healthy,
good love.
We wanna see, like,
a manifestation of, like,
our own internal dramas
played out...
for entertainment value.
The problem is
there are people out there,
like when I was a kid,
who are like empty canvases,
who internalized that.
And so it starts
to skew their view
of what love could be.
Like, people who don't have
a healthy blueprint
are gonna absorb that
and take that in.
You know, I was 12 years old
when the movie Titanic came out,
and that was, like,
iconic love story.
Like, here it is,
epic love,
cruelly interrupted by fate.
And I look at that movie now,
I'm like,
"Wait, what were we rooting
for here?
What did we want to happen?
For them to get to New York?
They weren't gonna
make it as a couple."
What did we think?
They're 20 years old,
they've known
each other two days.
I don't know everything
about relationships,
but like, hey, maybe don't marry
the artist you fucked
on a cruise.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING, APPLAUDING)
Maybe that's not the move.
Five minutes after you tried
to kill yourself.
Do you remember
that's how they met?
She was trying to kill herself
by jumping off the boat,
and he was like,
"Hey, I'm pretty hot.
What if you didn't do that?"
And so...
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
That's how they started.
They knew right away.
Like, that's the thing,
is like, what happens?
How is that gonna play out?
Even if they get
to New York, what?
- They have nothing in common.
- (AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
You know what I mean?
Like, all they have is
the excitement
that they made it.
That lasts, what?
Six months, a year...
two years, maybe?
What happens five, ten years
down the road?
Just sittin' there.
He's like, "So...
you want me to draw you?"
She's like, "Fuck you!"
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
"I was engaged to a billionaire.
I had to sell that necklace
to pay the heating bill.
You haven't sold a sketch
in years, Jack.
How's that art gallery going,
Jack?"
He's like, "Oh, come on.
Remember when we danced
- with the common folk?"
- (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
Terrible.
It would've been terrible.
People are like,
"Oh, it's so sad what happened.
If they
didn't hit the iceberg..."
Fuck that! The iceberg
is the hero of that movie.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
It might've killed Jack,
but it saved
the rest of Rose's life.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
I like movies, I do.
I do.
I don't like
movie culture, though,
like Hollywood...
like the culture surrounding it.
And every time I get roped
into watching an award show,
I'm always reminded,
like, who the fuck
makes these things.
It's like, "Oh, my God."
You ever watch an award show?
It's like this shouldn't be
on television.
This should be, like...
like, in an underground cave
at Bohemian Grove.
Like, why is this
in front of the public?
'Cause they try to act
like they're down-to-earth.
Every time an actor wins an
award, they always give some...
It's not some, like,
normal speech,
it's like a lofty,
sociopolitical response
to the moment.
It's like,
"We need to find a way.
There's a lot of problems
in the world.
We need to find a way
to come together
and not let it divide us."
Like Meryl Streep,
"We need to come together."
- (AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
- "Find unity and strength,
and break down the barriers
that keep us apart.
- And find strength and unity."
- (AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
"Come together as a globe,
as a nation, as a people."
I'm always like,
"Yeah, uh, you're wearing
a diamond dress from Givenchy."
Like, on what fucking planet
are you part of "the people"?
- (AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
- Like, what do you think?
Like, if there was
a true people's revolution,
like a people's uprising,
it's gonna be your blood
- splattered on the sidewalk.
- (AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
They're not gonna spare you
'cause they liked
Devil Wears Prada.
They're gonna rip
your fucking head off,
stick it on a stake,
and sell that diamond dress
to a cartel for machine guns.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
They're not gonna be like,
"Oh, get in the bunker.
We love the nuance
of your artistic choices.
It was so brave of you,
how you dared,
oh, how you dared to be
a middle-class character."
Like, "Oh, how you pretended
to be a thing
people are their entire lives.
How did you do it?
How did you prepare
for the role?"
And they're always like,
"Oh, I lived amongst plumbers
- for eight months."
- (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
"I lived how they lived.
I ate how they ate."
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
No, that's it, you can't.
You can't preach togetherness
and unity when you're that rich.
You just can't do it.
You're rich. You're super rich.
That's why you got rich,
is to get the fuck away
from everybody.
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
That's what money is.
Money is just an escape
from people.
That's why we want it.
Everything money does for you.
Doesn't even have
to be a lot of money.
You'd be like,
"Ooh, I can afford an Uber."
What's an Uber?
That is a bus for one person.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING, APPLAUDING)
It's like,
"Yeah, I like the bus.
I just wish
there were no people on it
and it only went
where I want it to go."
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
Yeah, you can do that.
You gotta pay for it.
You wanna join a gym,
there's different kinds of gyms,
right?
There's a whole spectrum
of gym options.
There's a ten-dollar-a-month gym
on one end.
Two-hundred-dollar-a-month gym
on the other end.
What's the difference?
Two-hundred-dollar-a-month gym,
it's nicer.
It's not 20 times nicer.
It's not like
the ten-dollar-a-month gym,
the walls are falling off,
and you pick up
the ten-pound weight
and it's 100 pounds.
You're like, "Oh, fuck this gym!
The dumbbells
are Gatorade bottles
filled with rocks,
this gym sucks."
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
No, there's still
equipment there.
The 200-dollar-a-month gym,
you pay 200 dollars a month
so you don't have to
look at people
who can only afford
ten dollars a month.
- (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
- That's what you're paying for.
You wanna be able
to do a pull-up
without being reminded
of the dark underbelly
- of capitalism.
- (AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
It's a 190-dollar surcharge
to not have to make eye contact
with the consolation prize
in this fucked-up game
we're all playing here.
That's what you're paying for.
That's the premium.
Everything money does
for you just pushes you
further and further away
from everybody else.
You wanna fly,
you buy a plane ticket.
First-class ticket,
way more expensive.
Why?
There's less people up there.
They won't tell you that.
They'll be like,
"No, you get more space."
It's like, yeah, motherfucker,
space is just the absence
of people.
- (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
- It's not a new entity.
Space is a euphemism
for not anybody.
"No, you get all this legroom."
Yeah, 'cause they're no people
in the way
of where my legs
are trying to go.
We could all have
legroom back here
if we weren't all back here.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
Now, could you imagine
if two people in economy class
were, like,
fighting over the armrest,
and some asshole
from first class came back
and was like, "Hey!
We need to all work together.
We need to find
unity and strength as a flight.
We're all flight 348,
after all."
Then they swoosh the curtain
and go back to their
apartment in the sky.
How quickly before the back rows
start bundling their
plastic silverware together
to storm the front?
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
Like, "No, no, we're not trying
to hijack the plane,
we're just trying to kill
rows one through five.
Take their hot towels
and orange juice
and spread it around."
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
That's the fantasy.
Everyone fantasizes
about what they would do
when they get rich.
You wanna get away
from everybody.
Nobody fantasizes
about togetherness.
Nobody's like, "Oh, dude,
if I got rich... (CHUCKLES)
I would get
so many roommates."
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
"Oh, it'd be sick, we'd have
like a dishes schedule."
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
No, the fantasy is,
"I'm gonna build a moat
around my house.
People aren't gonna be able
to ring my doorbell
without swimming across
a crocodile-laden river."
- (AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
- Fuck everybody.
And I got nothing
against rich people.
You just can't have it
both ways.
You can't bridge class
with a speech.
You can't have it all
and then have this, like,
faux empathy.
Like, "Aww... it's so sad,
people don't have any money."
It's like, "Well,
you seem to have it."
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
"Try giving it away.
You don't have to have it."
And these phony causes,
every Thanksgiving,
one of them
comes out with, like,
"It's so terrible what happened
to the Native Americans."
It's like, "Fucking, I don't
know, give 'em the land back."
(AUDIENCE APPLAUDING, CHEERING)
(CHUCKLES SARCASTICALLY)
"No."
- (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
- "We can't do that.
Where would we put the offices
of DoorDash?"
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
(CHUCKLES)
I swear to God, these fucking...
Like North America could be,
like, falling into the ocean.
We could all be
killing each other
over grain seeds
and fresh water.
These people would be like
on Mars,
- tweeting, "Stop the violence."
- (AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
"Love is stronger than hate."
And changing their
profile picture to a blue circle
to show they still care
about Earth.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
Going on Jimmy Fallon
to promote it,
like, "Yeah, we're changing
our profile pictures
to blue circles
to raise Earth awareness."
Jimmy's just like, "Oh, my God,
it's genius. Such a good idea."
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
"Oh, my God, how'd you think
of it? It's so important.
You're doing such
important work."
- (LAUGHS SARCASTICALLY)
- (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
"Oh, my God, it's..."
(LAUGHS SARCASTICALLY)
- (AUDIENCE APPLAUDING)
- (LAUGHS SARCASTICALLY)
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
Jimmy Fallon. I'm sorry,
is there a more Guy Smiley,
useless,
puppet fuck of a person...
(AUDIENCE APPLAUDING, CHEERING)
...than Jimmy Fallon?
Professional napkin.
Like how the fuck?
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
(GIGGLES SARCASTICALLY)
Dude, I used to think
Leno said nothing.
Fallon makes Leno look like
Malcolm X.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
Like, "Oh, yeah."
(BABBLES INCOMPREHENSIBLY)
I'll never get asked
to do the show, but...
- (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
- (CHUCKLES)
I... I would wanna do it
just one time,
just to be like, "Hey, Jimmy,
what do you not like?"
- (AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
- "What... Is there anything...
Do you have a hard stance
on fucking anything?"
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
He'd be like, "Oh, my God,
it's such a cool take."
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
(GIGGLES) "I don't know, I...
I just kinda float around.
I have no discretion,
yet I'm hugely influential.
Culture's a joke."
(LAUGHS MOCKINGLY)
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
"Every time I speak,
I mean less to myself.
I'm murdering my identity
up here."
(LAUGHS SARCASTICALLY)
"It's genius." (LAUGHS)
Shut up! Shut the fuck up!
Like you could literally...
You could put a gun in his mouth
and...
(MIMICS GUNSHOT)
...blow his head off
and he'd be like,
"Oh, my God, my brains are
on the wall! It's so cool!"
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
"How'd you do that?"
He's a horror movie villain.
You can't kill him.
His weapon is just
effusive nothingness.
He just keeps coming.
(SCREECHES) "Come back!
Don't you wanna play
truth or dare
with Ariana Grande?"
(LAUGHS SARCASTICALLY)
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING, APPLAUDING)
Nice.
(SIGHS)
Look, I just think
if entertainment
is gonna be this ubiquitous,
it can't be this devoid
of humanity. It just can't. It...
You know, 'cause I grew up,
entertainment was
important to me.
And so, you know,
I looked to it for something,
and to be that devoid
of substance, it feels...
insulting.
The problem with entertainment
is that it's all made...
by the same type of person.
It's made by entertainers.
Right? So it's like...
- Entertainers are psychotic.
- (AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
Like, just statistically.
So, look at this room right now.
Almost everybody
in the room is sitting nicely,
looking at this,
and only one person is like,
"Heh, heh, my thoughts."
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
"My thoughts."
And after this is over,
you'll go home
to your respectable lives.
And I'll try
to find another place
to do, "My thoughts."
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
"Soon I'll be full."
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
So you have
to consider the source, right?
I think about that
with all media.
Social media,
for example, like, you know...
You look at like Twitter
or something like that,
it's like...
Like Twitter...
Who's on Twitter? It's just...
It's only people who think
it's like a good idea
- to be on Twitter. Like...
- (AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
It's not everybody.
It pretends to be everybody,
like, "Ooh, everyone's mad."
You look at the trending topics,
"Ooh, what's everyone
talking about?"
It's not.
Most people aren't on it.
Eighty percent of the public
doesn't use it.
Ninety percent, I think,
doesn't use it regularly.
So, like, what's trending?
Like...
Most people aren't there,
so what's really trending
is shutting the fuck up.
Like, most people...
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
Most people are doing that,
but you can't register that.
You can't show somebody
not tweeting. Like you can't...
They should show how much
we don't tweet also.
They should show like a tweet,
and then
you scroll through blank space
for like seven hours.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
And then you come across
another tweet.
You'd be like, "This is a
barren wasteland for lunatics."
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
Everyone on Twitter
is somebody on Twitter.
There's an inherent insanity
in the medium.
Right? It's the same reason
I can't trust Yelp.
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
Every time I look at Yelp,
I read a Yelp review,
I'm like, "Yeah, but this person
wrote a Yelp review."
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
"Why am I listening to a person
who logged in
to write three paragraphs
on broccoli rabe?"
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
Everyone on Yelp
is someone on Yel...
Every Yelp review starts
with someone going,
"I'm gonna write a Yelp review."
Like, fuck whoever
that person is.
But that's everyone on Yelp.
Everyone on Yelp is someone
who uses Yelp.
Everyone on Twitter is someone
who uses Twitter.
I want a social media site
where the only way to use it
is to not.
Like, I don't wanna hear
the thoughts
that you want me to think
that you think.
I wanna hear what you think.
I wanna hear what you don't even
let yourself think you think.
You know those thoughts?
You ever have like
a fucking crazy thought
that bubbles up,
and you push it away,
you're like, "Didn't think it!
Didn't think it.
Still a good person.
Didn't... 'Cause I didn't
think it all the way.
I didn't finish the thought
that I clearly started,
so somehow that's not me."
- (AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
- I want those.
I want you
to cut open your heart
and dump it into my brain.
Intimacy is what
I'm looking for. Which is not...
I shouldn't go to social media
for intimacy, you can't get it.
You ever see someone try
to be intimate on social media?
- It's fucking terrible.
- (AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
It doesn't work. It never works,
'cause it doesn't have
the language for intimacy.
'Cause intimacy is amorphous.
It doesn't come
with a character limit,
or a soundtrack, or filter,
it's just...
(GRUNTS)
The language of social media,
is like, snark and division
and attacks and clapbacks
and, "Oh, that? Oh, clearly
you don't even know about this."
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
That rises.
That gets a lot of attention.
But we're all, like, fucked up,
right? It's like very confusing,
and there's a big market
right now for certainty.
Anyone who has an answer,
even if it's the wrong one,
is in demand.
That's why you get this
whole rash of people
who garner these followings,
'cause they're giving
people a narrative.
All these like, you know,
podcast hosts, demagogue type,
usually a white dude
who's like, "Hey, the media
and the government
are all lying to you,
but you know who's not?"
(LAUGHS MOCKINGLY)
"Me!"
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
"Me, the guy trying
to sell you CBD oil
and sex toys every 30 minutes.
I'm your beacon of truth.
Wear me, listen to me."
This is collective narcissism.
It's changed the way we think,
like the way we process
our own language,
like how we sound.
I remember in the '16 election,
they were talking about the Rock
maybe running for president,
and I said that to a friend,
I was like,
"Yo, I heard the Rock
might run for president."
My buddy was like,
"Is the Rock a Democrat?"
And I was like, "Dude,
listen to the sentence..."
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
"...that you just said.
Is the Rock a Democrat?
I don't know. He's a fake
wrestling character.
I don't know where he stands
on healthcare."
Is the Rock a Democrat?
I don't know.
Did the Yellow Power Ranger
support the war in Iraq?
What the fuck
are we talking about?
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING, APPLAUDING)
Where does Mickey Mouse stand
on abortion? I don't know.
Is he a "second trimester
or before" kind of mouse,
or more like a hardline... (IN HIGH-PITCHED
VOICE) "Life begins at conception, folks."
Like, I don't know
what Mickey thinks.
Does Mickey think,
or does he just do
whatever the artist
makes him do?
Is there a consciousness
in Mickey?
Do any of us think,
or are we just being guided
by an unseen hand?
Is thinking part
of the illusion?
Is Descartes a fraud?
This is why
I had to get off of Twitter.
I existentially spiral.
I lose who I am.
I did, I deleted my Twitter
a year ago.
I still have Instagram
because I'm stupid.
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
Instagram is... It's like hell.
It's just like hell.
You can download
hell to your phone for free.
- (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
- It's free. Hell is free.
Instagram is just like, "Hey...
uh, are you not feeling
jealous today?"
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
"Come hang out.
Look, there's a beer,
some food you'll never eat.
Go fuck yourself. We hate you.
We are trying to tear you down.
We don't give a fuck.
Here's places you'll never go.
Here's a person
that will never fuck you.
Go fuck yourself. We hate you."
"We are manipulating
your emotions,
and then monitoring them
so we can sell you shit.
You want a bracelet?
Yeah, we knew you would,
motherfucker." Literally.
Literally! Literally.
People are like,
"What do those bracelets mean?"
They mean I'm a fucking moron!
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
They mean I was depressed
and got a targeted ad
and thought these bracelets
would turn it all around.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
That's what they mean.
"You are nothing.
We have hollowed you out
and emptied you
and filled you with ourselves
and the desire for more.
You are powerless against it.
This is a takeover.
Didn't happen the way
it did in Terminator.
It's a lot more subtle,
with more cat videos
and 14-year-olds twerking.
Is that a crime?
Ha, ha. We'll never tell you."
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
I hate it.
It makes me feel like shit.
The only social media site
that I like...
is, uh, Venmo.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING, APPLAUDING)
That's right. I like Venmo.
Venmo's a money transfer app,
which everybody knows.
But what not everybody knows
is that on Venmo,
there's a feed,
where you can like...
tab over and you can see
all of your friends'
and your contacts'
financial transactions,
which should be illegal,
but it's there.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
It's right there. And I like it
because it's honest.
It's the only honest
social media site out there.
Every other social media site
is a projection
of a version of yourself that you wish
you were onto a canvas. Not Venmo.
Venmo is the honest antidote
to the horseshit of Instagram.
Instagram makes you feel bad
because you're aware
of your own fears
and insecurities
and preoccupations,
but you're not seeing
anybody else's.
So you're always
gonna lean that way.
So you see a picture on
Instagram of, like, a couple...
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
Maybe they're on,
like, a beach...
looking at a gorgeous sunset.
Maybe they're eating a pizza.
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
You look at this, you're like,
"What the fuck? What the fuck?
The fuck is wrong with me?
How come
I'm not doing that shit, huh?
Is there something
wrong with me?
Is there a hole here
that everybody can see?
Do I emanate darkness,
do I repel love?
Is there a limit
to my emotional aptitude?
Did my father's genetics
set that limit?
Do I need to go back
on antidepressants?
What the fuck
is going on inside of me
that's not leading me
to that type of bliss?
What do I have to do
to get there?"
But then you look at Venmo
and it's like,
"Oh, no, dude,
they split that pizza."
(AUDIENCE CHEERING)
(APPLAUSE)
- "I'm doing just fine."
- (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
"I don't need medication."
(CHUCKLES)
It's not a referendum
on splitting stuff
in a relationship.
I think
if you're gonna split stuff,
just don't split the items.
Go every other.
Does that make sense?
I'll see that on Venmo.
I go on Venmo, I'll see,
"Boyfriend sends girlfriend
money for tacos."
I'm just, like, how the fuck
do you go down on someone
after you just sent them
eight bucks?
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
(SCOFFS)
"You're just bitter, Drew,
that you have no one
to split stuff with."
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
Yeah, I'm single.
I'm 36... and single.
I'm single and 36,
which is fine.
Uh, but it is almost not.
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
Like, it's not bad yet,
but bad is next.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
Bad is the next stop
on this... train.
A lot of my friends are married.
And it's cool to see.
A lot of them are in, like,
really great relationships,
really healthy, good,
loving relationships.
And it's really amazing to see.
I go to their weddings,
I really enjoy it.
Seeing them come together,
it's a beautiful thing.
And I hear a lot
of the same things in the vows.
There's a common refrain
in the vows,
which is something about,
like, you know,
"I get to marry my best friend."
"I'm so lucky to have found
my best friend."
"I never thought I would spend
the rest of my life
with my best friend."
And I hear that, I'm like,
"That's such
a beautiful sentiment."
Like, the person
you marry should feel...
like your best friend.
I'm in the back,
I'm like, "Well, I'm 36,
so who the fuck
meets their best friend
in their late thirties?"
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
Who's out there like,
"This is my best friend!
We met when were 38!"
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
"Tell him, Doug!"
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
No, it doesn't happen.
They're all having kids, too,
starting families.
My friends starting families,
it's beautiful to see.
I don't have my own family.
I have, like, a family
from which I've come.
I don't have...
- (AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
- ...the next line on that.
Like on a family tree,
I'm just a node that ends.
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
It's just like, "Who's that?"
"That's your great Uncle Drew,
nobody loved him."
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
Just a leaf on a twig.
Just a Styrofoam ball
with no toothpicks,
if we're using
school project lingo.
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
"Oh, cool,
you got me a PlayStation
for my birthday.
I love you, Dad."
I just beat God of War
for the fourth time.
(AUDIENCE MEMBER CHEERING)
- It's a good game.
- (AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
It's not
"hugging my smiling child" good.
(AUDIENCE LAUGH)
But the gameplay mechanics
are pretty tight.
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
I think part of the reason
I don't... have a family,
well, at least
what I used to tell myself,
is that I do this.
It's something that I chose.
I chose a different path.
I remember I started doing
stand-up when I was 22.
I dropped out of school, and...
at the time,
my mother warned me.
She said, "You know,
it's not very stable.
You're gonna be living
hand-to-mouth, traveling a lot.
You're not gonna be able
to settle down."
And she was right to an extent.
But the problem was,
she was telling this
to a 22-year-old dude.
Like the least likely candidate
on Earth to settle down.
I don't know if you know
any 22-year-old dudes,
but they're
not technically people.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
Just unprocessed pain and skin.
Like, that's pretty much
the identity there.
So, 22, I'm hearing this,
I'm like, "Settle down?
What are you, a hundred?
I don't give a fuck.
I'm going on the road, Mom.
I'ma follow my dreams!
Nobody is gonna stop me!"
That was my attitude.
Now I'm 36.
Now I see the punchline.
Now it's like...
(LAUGHS SARCASTICALLY)
"Nobody is going
to hug me as I die."
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
(CHUCKLES SARCASTICALLY)
Is that funny? I don't know.
I structured it as a joke.
Does that make it funny?
I don't know. Does comedy have
the ability to transform
the emotional constitution
of reality,
or is it just adding a layer
to an unfortunate event?
I don't know how the physics
of comedy work.
I used to tell myself that
it was a sacrifice I was making.
I was leaving that on the side
to pursue this.
And I used to look...
It was very easy
to make that argument,
'cause I used to look around
and there were a lot of men
who accomplished things
that I considered to be great,
whose personal life was
kind of left by the wayside.
And so it seemed to me
as a necessary component.
I remember in high school
I learned about Isaac Newton.
And Isaac Newton
invented calculus.
He also died a virgin.
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
Which begs the question,
can you invent calculus
while fucking people?
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
I don't know.
It's never been done.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING, APPLAUDING)
A more modern example,
Steve Jobs.
Steve Jobs was
an incredible innovator...
uh, terrible father...
right, which we know,
it's documented,
but we also just knew.
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
We knew.
Every time we'd go
into our pocket,
if Steve Jobs were a good dad,
we'd pull out a Samsung
or a Motorola.
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
Every time you text someone
and it shows up blue,
that's Steve Jobs not going
to a piano recital
- or a softball game.
- (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
And I don't think
we have the right to judge him.
Like, we are all glad he did it.
Like, we encouraged that.
As a society,
we would all rather
one girl grow up
with a shitty dad
than have to all of us
use Windows.
Are you out of
your fucking mind?
You want us all
to click a Start button
and run clunky .exe files
just so one girl
can open her gifts
next to the guy
who paid for them?
Fuck that! She can get them
from a nanny
while the rest of us
enjoy our...
technological ecosystem
seamlessly integrated.
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
That's what we encourage.
We encourage it.
True happiness
has no societal value.
We want productivity.
Give us... Make something
or shut up! Like, we don't care.
So there's this incentive
to do it.
And it gets even more fucked up.
Someone like Michael Jackson,
who was this incredible popstar
and a horrendous babysitter,
you know,
where it's just like...
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
Yeah, it's an easy one,
but it's fun. It's fun, though.
It's so easy, but it's so fun.
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
No, but even that, like
there's such an instinct
to defend these guys.
Like my first instinct is
to be like...
see it from their side,
because I think we're such...
we're conditioned to like them
on that level.
So even with Michael,
I was like...
you know,
there was a part of me...
I watched that documentary
about him,
I was like,
"Oh, that's fucked up."
But there was a part of me
that was like,
"Yeah, but if not
an eight-year-old boy,
who was Michael Jackson
supposed to date?"
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
You know what I mean?
What is he looking at,
options-wise,
that makes any sense at all?
Somebody his age? He did that.
He was married
to Lisa Marie Presley,
a grown woman,
and that was weirder somehow.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
That was weirder.
They made out on television.
It was fucking weird.
There was like
an awards show presentation
and at the end,
they like did this kiss,
it was just awful.
Like, "Oh!"
The whole world
was just like, "Oh, my God."
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
"Jesus, will somebody
get this guy a kid?"
- Like, "This is horrible."
- (AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
Because Michael Jackson
with a kid,
it upsets us morally,
but it looks right.
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
Michael can't date an adult.
You wouldn't set
your friend up with him.
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
Who's he supposed to...
What is he gonna do,
go on like a blind date
with a 35-year-old
software developer?
How's that gonna go? "Hey,
nice to meet you, Michael."
He's like, "You wanna play tag?
You're it." Like, come on.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
"Where are your..."
"Tag?
I thought we'd go to dinner."
"Dinner's for dumb-dumbs.
We can eat candy at my house
and stay up as late as we want.
Tee-hee!"
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
Michael can't date an adult.
I don't even know what kind
of adult would be into Michael.
Like you wanna...
you wanna fuck him?
Listen to him sure,
but, like, you wanna...
(IMITATES MICHAEL JACKSON)
You wanna fuck that guy?
- (AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
- You wanna fuck him?
"Here, doo-doo head."
You're gonna fuck him?
Dude, if you're an adult
and you wanna fuck
Michael Jackson...
you're a pedophile.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING, APPLAUDING)
But you look at all these guys,
you know,
Michael Jackson, Isaac Newton,
Steve Jobs,
they were adored by the world
but hated by the people
closest to them.
And I would imagine
that you'd tell yourself
that that's a sacrifice...
that you make, but...
as I get older,
I look at it differently.
I don't know if I look at it
as a sacrifice anymore.
Maybe... maybe not.
Maybe...
they just ran
from responsibility
into the arms of ambition.
You know,
maybe Apple and Pixar...
are just built off the back
of one man's inability
to be intimate
with the people closest to him.
Or with himself.
And so it recasts my own path,
where I'm like,
maybe this isn't a sacrifice.
I'm not comparing myself to...
Steve Jobs and...
Isaac Newton, you know.
It's a matter of scale.
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
But even in the comedy world,
even the people
that I looked up to...
When I started, all the people
that I looked up to,
they're all either, like,
prematurely dead,
utterly miserable, or, like,
sex criminals.
So... where is this headed?
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
Where is this path going?
Their greatness is predicated
on their accomplishments,
but we fail to recognize
how they failed
in their private moments.
And I think that's a masculine
definition of greatness.
Because, like, I don't look
at that as great anymore
because they couldn't confront
who they were as a person.
They couldn't confront
the emotional reality
of their experience.
That is greatness to me.
To do that,
that is a much greater thing.
How great can something be
if it's built on avoidance?
I think you have to...
confront.
And it's scary.
It's a scary fucking thing
to do. Like, I get it.
It's like totally scary
for a lot of reasons.
One, you can find out
that the story you've been
telling yourself about yourself
isn't true.
You can find out that
what you thought was like
the harsh, brutal reality
of yourself,
you're just resting
on an easier narrative
that could be subverted
by something else.
Like I used to tell
myself stories about myself
that have shifted over time.
I used to tell myself
this was a sacrifice.
I used to tell myself
that what I was doing up here
was important,
that it was fearless.
That I was fearless
for doing this.
I had the balls to say shit
that nobody else did.
Things like
that Michael Jackson joke,
I'd be like, "That's fearless.
That's a fearless fucking thing.
You can get mad at me.
That's fearless.
I'm willing to stand that down."
But as I get older, I'm like,
"That's not...
I think it's funny,
but it's not fearless."
Because my emotional experience
is nowhere in there.
I'm nowhere in that joke.
I wasn't molested,
and I'm not a pedophile.
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
That would be fearless.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
The most fearless pedophile joke
you could tell
is to be one
and admit it publicly.
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
No, worst-case scenario,
worst-case scenario,
the joke bombs
and you don't like it.
You look at me, arms folded,
shaking your head and say, "No."
Fortunately, that didn't happen
this evening,
but it has happened.
It could happen.
You can get mad.
You could think I suck.
You could not like me.
But, counterpoint...
who are you?
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
I can barely see any of you,
and I love none of you.
So what is this power...
that you hold over me?
You're not me.
We are always
our most terrifying audience.
I believe that.
That's why it's so funny
when people say
that, like, public speaking
is the number one fear
of people.
They say, you hear that,
"Public speaking
is the number one fear
of people."
It's like, "Well, I'm sorry,
was confronting yourself
on an emotional level
not on that questionnaire?"
The fuck you talking about,
public speaking?
I'm public speaking right now.
It's fine.
I'm public speaking as a way
to avoid confronting myself
on an emotional level.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING, APPLAUDING)
This is all.
Like, up here it's, like,
"Dopamine!"
And if I were at home,
it'd be like... (SCREECHES)
(SCREECHES)
I have used this
to avoid so many...
I can't tell you how many
relationships I've been in
where I've been like, "Oh, sorry,
I can't hang out with you tonight.
I have to go do a show."
Or more specifically,
"Sorry, I can't be there
on your birthday.
I need to go do this bit
about how all my relationships
fall apart."
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
It's like just,
"Do I need any of this?"
And I think as men,
we have this tendency
to wanna process everything
in our lives through,
you know, intellect, or logic,
or our thoughts, or our reason,
things that we do,
things that are tactile,
and it's like...
you're ignoring the entire
emotional subset
of your experience.
And this idea that logic
and emotions are separate,
they're not.
Like your thoughts are
not separate from how you feel.
Your thoughts...
Thoughts are just emotions
in drag.
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
It's the same ecosystem.
It's hard to dive in...
like that.
Therapy's a good way to do it.
I think people...
a lot of people need...
They're men... all men.
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
Yeah,
I'm comfortable saying that.
All men need to go
to therapy for...
20 years. Like...
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING, APPLAUDING)
Roughly.
(CHUCKLES)
Sometimes guys get mad.
They're like, "Fuck you, I don't
need shit, you pandering pussy."
It's like, "Hey. You do."
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING)
"What was that?"
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
Women need therapy too.
But usually when a woman
goes to therapy,
it's because
a man in her life didn't.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING, APPLAUDING)
I started going
four times a week.
It's a program, it's called
psychoanalysis, and it's, uh...
The reason you go so often
is so that you don't have time
to close up.
Like, if you go once a week, you
have all week to just close back up,
so you stay open
throughout the week
so you can access
parts of yourself
that are much harder
to access normally.
And so it's very emotional.
It's very exhausting.
It's very trying. I cry a lot.
I sob... The other day, I sobbed
for, like, 20 minutes straight.
And this is how fucked up I am.
As soon as I collected myself,
my first thought was,
"That shouldn't count
toward my time."
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
But that's me trying to get out
of that moment.
Like that moment was
hard to swallow, and so...
joke, out, now we're out of it.
But I don't think
that's how progress gets made.
I think
if you wanna make progress,
you can't take that left turn
at a punchline.
You have to go...
You have to sit there
and process it there.
You have to go down.
You have to take that
Miss Frizzle Magic School Bus
all the way.
"We're going
to your emotional core!"
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
"Look out your left window.
Is that Mom going on a date
instead of hanging out with you?
Yes, it is."
- (AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
- "Process it! Feel it!"
You have to stay there,
and leave it there.
You can't buy yourself
out of the moment.
Otherwise, the progress
won't get made.
It's very hard to do.
And I'm up here and I, like,
I want to bring you in.
Like, that's where
this is going.
Like I want...
That's the next step,
is I want to bring you all
to that place.
But it's hard
because, like, I don't know
if there's a show down there.
But I wanna bring you in,
but I feel conflicted.
I feel like I can't...
I have to like...
I feel like
that's how this works,
is I go in, I mine my own life
for sadness,
and then I contort it
into a balloon animal for you
so you don't feel ripped off.
(AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
I tried...
to do that. I wrote...
I wrote a joke...
that tries to do that.
- Why did the chicken...
- (AUDIENCE CHUCKLING)
...cross the road?
AUDIENCE: Why?
Because...
he grew up...
with an untreated
hearing loss...
which deprived him
of a major sensory connection
to the people around him,
and it isolated him
to the point of chronic torture.
And his parents
were too caught up in their
own drama and insecurities
to attend to it,
so he processed it
as though there was something
inherently wrong with him.
And his feelings are a threat
to his relationships,
so he just suffered in silence,
feeling like he was
100 feet underwater,
wondering why nobody
was coming to save him.
And then, he finally started
wearing hearing aids,
which created
this insane sensation
of being able
to participate in a world
that he didn't understand.
But because his self-worth
was predicated
on how special he felt,
he realized
that the trodden path
didn't appeal to him.
So he would get high
and watch stand-up comedy
as a way to numb the agony
of how lost he felt.
And in doing so,
he found a lot of connection
with their points of view,
and he thought, "Wow,
if I could do that, people
could connect to me like that."
So he decided
to drop out of school
and pursue stand-up comedy,
and doing comedy made him
feel better for a moment,
but it never forced him
to address any of the reasons
he actually felt like shit.
He so badly wanted
to feel special and powerful
to make up for
how worthless he felt,
so he would say all sorts
of fucked-up things,
onstage and off,
as a way to separate himself.
And a lot of it he stands by,
but there are
a lot of things he said
that were flagrant
and unnecessary
and hurtful and racist
and sexist and homophobic,
all of which he justified
under the guise of
pushing the envelope,
which he thought was an act
of justified rebellion
against some
arbitrary authority.
But too late, he learned
that a lot of those boundaries
are derived from real people's
feelings and experiences
and he was essentially
exploiting their actual pain
and using it as a traffic cone
to satisfy this story
he was telling himself
where he was a genius.
And just because people laugh
at something
doesn't inherently make it good.
They could be just as
emotionally immature
or ignorant as
the perspective in the joke,
or they could be responding
to joke structure and timing
more than content.
And then, one day...
(MELANCHOLY MUSIC PLAYING)
...all the world's stages
boarded up, so he sat alone
in a room for a year,
and he did nothing
but talk to the walls
and a therapist.
And with no emotion
to escape into,
he slowly started breaking down
the paradigm he'd constructed
and moved into the feelings
he was running from.
And he discovered how badly
he had been hurting
his entire life, and what it
actually is to hurt so badly.
And he realized
that there was not a single
period of his life
in which he was truly happy.
And through that,
he started to realize
how much pain
he had caused other people.
He instantly regretted
all the ways in which
he's needlessly made people
feel like shit
in order to protect
his own conception
of himself as strong.
Then he wanted to disappear
from the world entirely
because he felt like
such an incredibly bad person
for having done these things.
So his instinct was
to beat himself up about it
and tell himself
what a horrible person he is,
but he's been shaming himself
his entire life,
and all these things he did
were just ways
to push people away
and deprive himself
of any meaningful connection,
because of how badly
he felt about himself,
because it was too scary
and painful to be open enough
to connect to anyone else.
So, while he hurt people,
he was hurting no one
more than himself,
and he doesn't want
to do that anymore.
He has worked so hard
to clear out space
within himself and feel safer
in his own body
and treat himself like
a friend he loves
as opposed to an enemy he hates,
which means he no longer
tolerates dynamics based on
his own self-destruction,
which has changed
numerous relationships
in his life,
including the one with
the art form that he loves.
The fear has always been
that if he makes peace
with the subterranean feelings
that drive all of this,
he'd lose this piece of himself
which has helped him
survive and get to this point,
a fear that he won't be
funny anymore,
he won't be special,
he'll just be,
which has been
an intolerable notion
because he doesn't feel
like enough on his own.
He's only known
how to exist by chasing,
or thinking, or running,
or fighting,
or straining, or suffering,
or striving, or analyzing,
anxious energy
which ultimately manifests
the very same emptiness
it's borne out of.
And it keeps him locked
into one side of himself,
but he's making every effort
to find a way
to not give in
to those anxieties
and sit with
the quiet inside of himself
because he wants so badly
to get to the other side.
(AUDIENCE APPLAUDING)
Thank you very much.
(APPLAUSE CONTINUES)
Thank you.
(AUDIENCE CHEERING)
(MELANCHOLY MUSIC CONTINUES)
("CARNIVAL"
BY COREY LAITMAN PLAYING)
Well, I know It's all you can do
To put one foot
In front of the other
When the cold has got Your bones
And there's a virus
Hiding out in your brain
So if you've got to carve out
Your sterile spaces
And hide out inside
Those high up places
In the name of staying safe
And keeping sane
In this wind and this rain
Oh
Funny thing, I've been
Watching you charm the crowd
They're laying down Their arms
Oh They're clapping out loud
Oh, but funny thing
You've grown so small
It's hard to see you
There at all
Well, I know It's all you can do
To put one foot
In front of the other
When the cold has got Your bones
And there's a virus
Hiding out in your brain
Oh
So if you've got to carve out
Your sterile spaces
And hide out inside
Those high up places
In the name of staying safe
And keeping sane
In this wind and this rain
Oh
(MUSIC CONCLUDES)