Ladies and gentlemen,
Greg Warren! (cheering and applause) Hey, thank you. That's great. So, this thing all started
a while ago. I was in Iowa.
And I was doing a show. And there was a bunch of farmers
in the crowd and... I don't know
anything about farming. So, I asked this guy, I go,
"What do you farm?" He goes, "Beans."
And I said, "Like, green beans?" And they all started
laughing at me like I was the dumbest
person they'd ever met. "He thinks we grow
green beans in Iowa! "Oh, that's a good one there,
green bean! "Green beans in Iowa,
don't that beat all! This fella is a comedian,
I'll tell you!" It was soybeans, all right,
it was soybeans, I... I didn't know, I didn't know.
By the way, green beans. That's not that
ridiculous of an answer. That's a real food.
I've eaten them before. I didn't say jelly beans, okay.
I said... I said a legitimate vegetable. I don't know what the plants
look like. I mean, I know corn.
Like, I, I know corn. Like, I-- I could pick
corn out of a lineup, but... Past that, I'm not gonna lie
to you guys, I get confused. I'm like,
"Is that a potato tree?" I can't tell.
I'm not sure. You should be nice to people
when they don't know something. That's how I was brought up. You know, I live
in the suburbs of St. Louis. I hope one of those farm guys
comes to the suburbs sometime. Maybe I won't be so nice to him.
I'll take him to do like some, you know, suburb
stuff or whatever, I... I'll take him
to the Texas Roadhouse. He won't know what to do there. "Where's the bowl
for the peanut shells?" "You throw 'em
on the floor, dummy! Ha! Ha! Ha!" "You don't know what
to do in the suburbs,
you stupid bean picker!" I'll take him to Starbucks.
"I'll take a large coffee." "It's called Venti here.
Venti, dirt digger! "Don't be ordering beans either. "They got beans here,
but they're coffee beans. Arabica, Robusta.
No soy!" Then the barista will be like,
"Well, technically, we have soybeans in soy lattes." And I'll be like,
"You shut your mouth, hippie. "All right, you don't take sides
against your own kind. We're on the same team." So, I told that story later and this lady came
up to me after the show. She goes, "Hey, I'm a farmer." She goes, "Don't feel
bad about the beans." She goes, "I met this
guy the other day. He didn't know the difference
between field corn and sweet corn." (nervous laugh) "What a dummy! "You know how earlier
when I said I know corn? I... I don't." They're like,
"There's two different kinds." I'm like,
"Yeah, on the cob and... not on the cob."
They're like, "No, it's
field and sweet." I'm like, "Oh, sweet.
You're talking about kettle
corn, I've had it, yeah." So, if you don't
know the difference between field corn
and sweet corn, field corn, that's what they grind up
and they feed to the animals and sweet corn,
that's what we eat. And once they explain it,
it's very easy to remember because field corn
is grown in a field. Whereas sweet corn
is grown in a field. So, you can see these farmers
make it real easy to understand their stock. When I was in Iowa,
I went to the restaurant, and on the front page
of the menu it said, uh, "We make our own ketchups." They were bragging about
their homemade ketchup. Honestly, I'm not sure
that I knew ketchup was made. I think... I think I thought
that was an element. I thought that was K
on the periodic table. It turns out that's potassium,
which makes no sense at all. There's not even
a K in that word. What, now you're gonna tell me
R-N is not for Ranch Dressing? Why don't you take
a science class? I tried one of their homemade
ketchups, it was not good. Now, granted, I think
it was field ketchup, but... So... I, yeah, I don't know
a lot about farming, I guess you can see, I mean... The closest thing that I do
to farming on a regular basis is sometimes when
I'm at the grocery store, I'll buy stuff out
of the bulk bins. I'm not saying
it's as hard as farming, I'm just saying there's
a lot of similarities. You gotta shovel
out the walnuts, you know... You gotta put the walnuts
in a bag. You gotta weigh the bag. Farmers are always
weighing stuff, you gotta... You gotta write the PLU code
number on the bag. A lot of times there's
not even a pen to write that
PLU code number on the bag. So you take it up
to the register. The lady's like, "You're
supposed to write the code
number on the bag!" I'm like,
"Lady, there's not a pen to write that code number." Honestly, now that I think
about it, it's probably harder than farming,
you know, like... You don't have all those steps
in farming. You don't have to deal
with that lady and... Why do I have to write the code
number on the bag anyway? They're walnuts!
If you work at a grocery store, you should be able
to identify a walnut. That should be part of the
hiring process. "What's that right there?"
Oh, that's a pecan." "No, you can't work here, man,
you're fired." But they were like,
"No, we gotta know whether they're organic walnuts
or regular walnuts." I'm like, "Well, organic walnuts
are 78 bucks a pound, and I'm not
a Saudi Arabian prince, so I'm pretty sure... they're not organic walnuts." There's, like, six guys in the
world who can afford organic walnuts and none of them just
used a frequent shopper card. Thank you, thank you. Yeah, so... Like, the first farmer
that I really ever knew
was through wrestling. I was a wrestler
when I was in college and... Yeah... My senior year, my coach
called me in for a meeting. He goes, "Warren."
He goes, "You need more competition
in the practice room." He goes, "This is what
we're doing this year. "We're bringing in
this guy named Steve.
He's a local farmer. He used to wrestle
back in the day.
He was real good." I'm like, "All right,
I'll wrestle Farmer Steve." Steve shows up the first day. He's old, he's like 45,
all right? When you see a guy
that's 45 and you're 20, you're like, "I'm not gonna
wrestle that guy! I'll play checkers with him
or something like that." So, for the first, like,
hour of practice, Steve just sits down
on the wall like an old guy. Finally Coach goes,
"Warren, wrestle Steve." I go, "Steve,
you want to warm up?" Steve goes like this, he goes... That's not a wrestling stance. I look at my buddy,
I go, "I don't want
to hurt this old dude." And then they blew the whistle.
Steve jumped about a foot and a half in the air. He grabbed me by my chin
and my head. He threw me on the mat
and proceeded to beat me, like beat me.
Like, when I say beat me, I don't mean he scored
more points than me. He physically beat me. It was like he beat me over
the head with me, all right? Come to find out Steve is on
the Olympic team in 1980. Nobody told me that. You guys remember
what happened in 1980? We boycotted.
We didn't go. And apparently Steve was still
angry about it. I was on the bottom, like,
"Steve, I'm not Jimmy Carter, I had nothing to do..." If you guys don't remember what
happened in 1980, that summer, the Olympics were in Moscow,
and in the spring, the Russians invaded
Afghanistan. And our president said,
"Hey, if you guys don't get out of Afghanistan, we're not
going to the Olympics." Now what he could of done,
was just sent Steve to Afghanistan. He would've handled
that situation in about
a half an hour. "No more Steve! Very bad man! "No more Steve!
We quit, we quit. "You have Afghanistan.
You have Russia if you want! "Just for God sake,
please, no more Steve. Very, very bad man, Steve." So, yeah, man, that's, uh... That's my limitation
of farm knowledge. Steve, you know? And it wasn't pleasant. But I've been trying to learn,
I've been trying to learn. Ever since those bean pickers
made fun of me, I've been learning.
I've already learned some stuff. I learned this, um, corn. That is the number one cash crop
in the United States. I didn't know that,
mostly 'cause I don't know
what a cash crop is. I think it means, like, corn,
that's a very popular vegetable, so the corn farmers,
they only accept cash, whereas... Your lesser vegetables,
like a Brussels sprout,
they'll take Diners Club. You could use a TJ Maxx card for some asparagus,
I'm pretty sure. I also learned this.
If you're hanging out with a bunch of farmers and one
of them has their fly down, just say, "Hey, man,
your fly's down." Don't say, "Somebody forgot
to shut the barn door!" They flip out.
"Randy, I told you to shut that! That's our livelihood!" I, uh, and I've been
visiting places. I actually went to a farm
festival here in Illinois, a little bit south of here,
in Millstadt, Illinois. And it was, like, it was cool.
They had all this farm stuff. There was like a thousand people
there, I took my niece. It was cool.
We did farm stuff. Like, uh, we went
in a corn maze, um... It was tough.
You know, it was hard. It was way harder
than the cabbage maze. I mean, that was... I can see it all from here! We, uh, and you know, we sat on a hay bale
and watched a country band. And that's the only
chairs they have at a farm festival
is a hay bale. I felt guilty 'cause,
you know, the horse is probably looking at you like,
"Yeah, man, um... "I was gonna eat that. "You know, you sit
on me all day long, "now you wanna
sit on my food. "Anything else
you wanna sit on? "Oh, hey, those are
pony rides over there. You want to sit on my kids.
Thanks a lot, you jerk." But we're sitting on this, uh,
we're sitting on this hay bale, and this guy comes up, he goes, "They're getting ready
to shoot the pumpkin!" I don't know what that means,
but I'm in, it sounds... They wheel out
this giant cannon. It was like a war cannon. And they just put a pumpkin
in it and they shot it. Far, and high, and fast, and beautiful, like... I went to the Grand Canyon
a couple months ago, and if you haven't been,
go 'cause it's breathtaking. But after about six minutes
there I was like, "I wish they had
a pumpkin cannon." I mean, this is... It's nice and all, but after
a while it's just rocks. I mean, shoot some vegetables,
give me some action! I'm not a dad, if I was a dad,
I would be honest. I would be honest.
I'd be like, "You know,
my child was born today. "Today was the greatest
day of my life except for when I saw
that pumpkin cannon in Millstadt, Illinois.
That was way better. That was, that was way better,
I mean..." I mean, I would be honest.
Dads, whenever dads start talking about the greatest
day of their life, they always backtrack,
you know? "The Cardinals won the
World Series, this is the
greatest day of my life! "You know, except for
my wedding day, and uh, "the birth
of my three children. That was better, definitely.
My wife's not here, is she?" At least once
I'd like to hear some guy, "The Cardinals
won the World Series! "This is ten times better than
when my stupid kid was born. "I mean, I love my kid, but the
day he was born, I just met him. I've been a Cardinals fan
for 54 years, man!" My dad's a big St. Louis
Cardinals baseball fan. He loves 'em.
Yeah, I mean... He really likes the baseball. But, more importantly, the
Cardinals have this promotion where if they score six
or more runs in a game, he gets his coffee the next day
at the gas station for 39 cents. And, normally, I think
it's about 59 cents. So you can see it's very
important to him. It's a big part
of his life and... We're watching the game one
time, and it's late in the game. The Cardinals, they're winning
like five to nothing. And I think like, bottom of the
eighth or something. And basically,
they had the game won. But he's locked in 'cause he
hadn't gotten his coffee yet. And our best hitter came up,
and he grounded it into a double play
to end the inning. And my dad looked
at me, he goes, "Seems kind of fishy, huh?" "Yeah, they're point
shaving, Dad, they're
point shaving, yeah. "Yeah, the Cardinals are in
collusion with Mobil On The Run so you don't save 20 cents
on your coffee tomorrow. Like, I would call the FBI, Dad. This has gotta go to the top.
This is important. This is the next Chicago
White Sox scandal, I think. Yeah, my uh, my dad, uh... he was the high school
wrestling coach. He was my wrestling coach
in high school. It was pretty cool 'cause, um, I was like one of the only
white guys on the team. And so, when I-- you know,
your first day of high school when you're a freshman, you're
really nervous and scared. I wasn't, 'cause I knew
all the guys on the wrestling
team from my dad. I knew Byron Blassingame. He was the toughest guy
in the whole school. And he was cool to me,
he was really nice to me. Every time he'd see me
in the hallway he'd go, "Lil' Warren. Where your daddy at?" "Where your daddy
at, lil' Warren?" Like, that was Byron's
way of saying "hi," like... He didn't really want to know
where my dad was, but, I was like a dorky white kid
so I'm, like... "I think he's
at the bank, Byron!" "Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! Lil' Warren say his daddy
at the bank." Like, I got it after a while.
Like I, you know, I got it. "Where your daddy
at, lil' Warren?"
"Hi, Byron!" Thank God later, like,
he really didn't need to know where my dad was,
like, in an emergency. "Lil Warren, the gym on fire!
Where your daddy at?" "Uh-huh, where your
daddy at, Byron?" I said, you know,
I said I'm not a farmer. I don't know anything about it.
I don't know anything about like, any kind
of blue collar job. I mean, I respect people
that work with their hands. I just, I don't know
anything about it. I met this guy recently. He goes, "Yeah,
I'm an iron worker." I had nothing. I go, "That's a sturdy metal. "Done some work with aluminum. "Foil, mostly. "Wrapping snacks
and stuff like that. You guys got foil
over there in iron? No?" I mean, I, yeah, my dad
was a wrestling coach. That's a blue collar job. My grandpa was a butcher,
very blue collar. I don't know past that.
I'm not a big ancestry guy. I mean, I got ancestors,
I just don't... I mean, I know my parents,
I just don't go that far back. Everybody else is into it. All these Ancestry.com
commercials. Just some woman, "I thought my
whole life I was Norwegian. It turns out, I'm Chinese!" Well, you should have known. Frankly, I saw it right away.
I could have told you. You are not Norwegian. "I used to wear lederhosen,
now I gotta wear a kilt." "You don't gotta
wear anything, sir. Pants, actually,
that's an option, that's... That's what they wear in Germany
and Ireland today. You just wanna play dress up. Let's not blame
your ancestors on it." I mean, the blue collar guys,
they're more like, you know, like,
a lot of testosterone. I don't know how much
testosterone I have left. I'm starting to get worried. I listen to a lot
of sports radio. And that's the only people that
advertise on sports radio, the low testosterone clinics,
you know. "Do you have low T?" "I don't know." "Do you feel as good as you did
when you were 24?" "I don't feel as good
as I did yesterday, to be
real honest with you." I thought that's
the way the world worked. You get a little worse every day
and then you die. I didn't know. It's a pretty serious medical
procedure, by the way, to inject your body
with hormones. If I'm gonna do that,
I'm gonna go to a place with a serious sounding name. Preferably, with the word doctor
at the front of it. These places have, like,
silly word play names. Like, "Come on down
to Mansanity!" No, no, no, no,
I'm not going there. I'm not getting a transplant
at Liverama Fun World either. If I ever hear, "Hey, do you
have high blood sugar? You can't dia-beat these
prices!" That's also... "We have seven locations! We are glu-glu-glu-
glucose to you! I'm not a farm guy.
I'm a suburb guy. That's, uh, I'm a suburb guy. You know, I think
a lot of people say the suburbs
is like a soft life. Like it's easy, it's not. It's tough, there's a lot
of tough stuff, um... I had a problem at the
Red Lobster the other day. It was serious.
I mean, here's what happened. My waitress thought
that I was poor. I'm not, okay, I'm not. I'm not rich.
I'm not gonna stand up here and brag to you guys about
how much money I make, but let's just say I can walk
into a Red Lobster and get... whatever,
okay, like... I'm making that kind of cash.
Like, I'm pulling that down. I'm not saying every day, but
I'm saying two, three times a month, I can walk
in there and I'm not looking
at the prices, okay. And not just during Lobsterfest.
I'm saying on a regular Tuesday. I'm doing fine.
And I was wearing like my third best shirt.
This is sixth. I didn't look poor.
Here's what happened. I go, "I'll take the trout,
and I want some asparagus." She goes, "Oh, sir, asparagus
is a premium side." I was like, "What does
that mean, it's real good?" She goes, "No, it's extra."
I was like, "How much?" She goes, "$1.29"
I was like, "I can swing it,
I mean... I mean, I'm gonna have to call
my guy, you know... We're gonna have to move
some stuff around. Probably put off retirement
for a couple years, but
I want the asparagus. As a matter of fact,
I want three asparaguses or three, three asparagi,
is what I'm trying to say is
I can spare-a-guy, okay? I got plenty of guys. I'm wanna keep the girls
but, you know." I don't like it when they
tell you how many sides you can have
at the restaurant. I went to this place and I go,
"I'll take the salmon, I want a baked potato,
and I want--" "Sir, you only get one side." "I get however many
sides I say I get. I'm a grown man.
All right, I decide the sides. I'm the side decider. I'll make it rain
sides up in here. I want all the sides. I want 'em all twice. Okay, I want
a baked potato twice. And I'm not talking about
a twice baked potato. I want two baked potatoes
side by side. I want a roast beef sandwich."
"Sir, that's not a side." "Well, then you put
it on the side. I call the shots!" Yeah, yeah. "I want rice pilaf!" And between
me and you guys, I-- I have no idea
what rice pilaf is. I went to five different
restaurants and I ordered rice pilaf and it was completely
different at every restaurant. These pilaf farmers need to
standardize their product. I'll tell you that
right now, like... I Googled it.
Very loose definition. From what I can tell,
rice pilaf is rice with anything else
you want to put in it. Anything.
You know how sometimes you drop your
phone in the toilet and you gotta put it in rice
to dry it out? Technically, that's rice pilaf,
okay, that... That's a pilafian dish. So, yeah, man, the suburbs. There's stuff that
happens there, I, I... And, uh, I had a problem at this
place called First Watch. It's a breakfast joint.
You know, a tough place. And, uh... I go in there, and they're like,
"It's a 20 minute wait." I'm like, "Okay,
I can handle it. I'll do my time."
You know, so... I'm sitting in the chair,
I'm reading the paper, and I guess this woman came in
after me and she had a baby. And, you know, I didn't see her. If I would've seen her I would
have offered her my chair. But I didn't see her. So what she did,
she just stood right next to me. She starts talking to her baby. But she's talking to me,
all right, like, "No, no, no, there's nowhere
for us to sit down. There's nowhere
for us to sit down.
There's nowhere for us--" I'm like, "Oh, I'm sorry,
ma'am, I didn't see you. Here, you can have my chair."
You know? And then, you know,
I stood right next to her. I didn't have a baby, all right. So I just started talking
to my newspaper. I was like, "Nah, nah,
newspaper, we gotta give
her the chair. "No, the tactic she's using,
that's called passive "aggressive, newspaper.
She's a gutless woman. "And she is using her infant
child in this charade. She's miserable, I..." I'm not afraid
of an altercation. The suburbs are crumbling,
they are. I saw this the other day.
I saw a Domino's Pizza being delivered to a McDonald's. That's not supposed
to happen, okay, like... I get it, it was probably the
kids that work at McDonald's that got tired
of eating hamburgers, like,
"Let's order a pizza." They should have told the guy
to go around back. He was in line at McDonald's
holding a pizza. It didn't look good.
I mean, I get it, I get it. Have you guys been
to McDonald's lately? Everybody that works
there is a kid, everybody. "I want to talk
to your supervisor." "We'll go get Mr. Smith."
Mr. Smith's 15, all right. "We would go get
our district manager "but his mom said
he had too much homework. He can't come to work
until next Thursday." Customer service is gone.
It doesn't exist, right? I mean, I just have a rule now.
If I give you money, you just say thank you,
that's it. You just say thank you, okay?
And they don't do it. They don't say
thank you half the time. I was in this place and I gave
him, like, 300 bucks. I paid 300 bucks for something
and the girl goes, "Hey, how did
you hear about us?" "It's none of your business
how I heard about you. Why don't you just be happy
that I did hear about you?" Next time that happens
I'm just gonna make something up to throw them off their
little marketing research. "How'd you hear about us?"
"Well, I belong to "a lot of hate groups
and, uh..." They told me
I was supposed to shop here. They said for every dollar
I spend here, 68 cents goes back to the hate group.
All the hate groups. Even my favorite hate group,
The I Hate The People That Ask "How'd You Hear
About Us" Hate Group. "How'd you hear about us?"
"Japanese newspaper. Full page ad in there." "Sir, we don't
advertise in Japan." "Well, I saw what I saw.
You should be grateful. But that's not really your
strong suit, is it?" I had another, this is probably
like the, you know, the, uh, toughest issue, um... I'll give you some
background, okay? So, my favorite snack
is mixed nuts. I like mixed nuts and, like, When I eat mixed nuts,
I don't have nine mixed nuts. I eat as many
mixed nuts as I can until I'm very uncomfortable, and then I have eleven
more handfuls of mixed nuts,
like, that's... So, I go to this,
you know, I go... I was in the hotel,
and I go to the gift shop. I'm hungry, real hungry.
And I see these, uh, I don't even
see the whole package. I just read the "Mi" and the
"uts," all right? I'm like, "I want it."
It looks like a good package. Experienced nut mixers or
whatever, so I get it. I don't even look at it.
I pay for it, don't look at it. I go up to the room,
I don't even look at it. I start eating it.
I'm watching TV, and I'm just shoving
handfuls in my mouth. And there's nuts in there, fine. But there's
pistachios in there, fine. But they have shells on them.
The pistachios have shells on them and the rest
of the mixed nuts do not have shells on them.
That's wrong, isn't it? That's, that's dangerous!
Like, "Hey, thanks! Could you also put some toy Army
men legs in those mixed nuts?" That's a crime!
And the thing is, like, it really bothers me
'cause they're lazy.
They are so lazy. Everybody knows pistachios,
that's the easiest nut to take the shell off of.
I mean, they hatch. Like, they hatch.
Like, they hatch. Nature does 83 percent
of the work for you. You just flick it
and they're open. I could understand
if it's a walnut. You ever try to take
a walnut shell off? It's hard. Like, when you eat 'em at
Christmas time. By the time you get
one off, it's Valentine's Day,
like, that... Yeah, I um... You can tell I'm kind
of a complainer, you know? I'm also lazy. I'm too lazy to be a farmer. I know that, like... I mean, you say what you want
about the farmers, they work. Like, they, they work, just... Just look at what they make
their kids do. You ever heard a farm kid
talk about his chores? When I was a kid,
if I said I did my chores, that meant I rolled, rolled, the garbage cans
down the driveway on Tuesday and my brother
did it on Thursday. And if I didn't do my chores
I got grounded. If a farm kid
doesn't do his chores, the bank forecloses
on the family's farm. The stakes
are high over there, man. So, yeah, man,
I'm uh, I'm lazy. Here's how lazy I am.
I was at the airport the other day and my shoe was
untied and I was like, "I'm not feeling it." And I passed the shoe shine guy
and he goes, "Shine 'em up?" I was like,
"How much to tie 'em?" It was three dollars per pair.
I mean, only one was untied, but I was like, "Hey, as long
as I'm paying you the three, like, untie that one
and retie it. This is a,
we had a deal and... This is how lazy I am.
I was on Facebook and my friend Dort posted, "I ran a half marathon." And I posted, "Congrats." She ran 13 miles
and I was too lazy to write "ulations." We're all lazy though, it's
just, I mean, we're all lazy. Walk around your house,
"Alexa, turn on the lights!" "Alexa, turn off the lights!" "Alexa, turn on the stove." You know it took me three weeks
to realize in order for that to work,
you have to have Alexa, like... But the laziness
is not all my fault. Like, uh, I got some,
some problems. I got some physical limitations.
I got plantar fasciitis. That's not funny, like,
that's not funny, that's... It's a serious disease, okay?
It's, it's not funny. It hurts.
Okay, my foot hurts. And I've been dealing
with it for awhile. So I go to the doctor and they
tell me, "You want to just roll your foot over a rolling pin." That's their advice, roll your
foot over a rolling pin. So I tried it for a while,
went back, I was like, "It doesn't work."
They're like, "Yeah, definitely
more rolling pin." So, I did it.
By the way, you don't want to eat homemade
cookies at my house. So, I'm just rolling my foot
over a rolling pin all the time. And I finally,
like after nine months, I went back, like,
"It's not working ." They go, "Ah, triple
up the rolling." I'm like, "I want an MRI."
And they're like, "Ehh." You have to be really, really
angry to get those things with the way the insurance
works, so I go, "I want an MRI now or I'm
burning this office down!" "Okay, sir, that's what
we were looking for. You can have the MRI.
No problem, no problem." And by the way, like, the MRI,
I don't know if you've had one, but whoever invented
that machine, that is a sick person. Here's how I think
the meeting went. They were like, "All right,
we got this new machine. Now, the people that
are gonna be using it, they're gonna be injured
so they'll be nervous. They're also gonna be
claustrophobic because we are shoving them in a tube. So, the way we should put them
at ease is to make this thing sound like they're being riddled
with machine gun fire. You're in there, it's quiet, then you hear, (mimicking machine gun fire) "How you doing in there?"
"I think I'm hit!" Then they have the gall to say,
"Don't move." "While they're shooting at me? You want me to go ahead and
stand still for you?" It's a real calming noise,
isn't it? (mimicking machine gun) Their second choice was (bomb descending...) (exploding) I had the MRI.
And then also, uh... Also, I had to get some
blood taken, which... I don't like needles.
Like, I hate 'em. To make matters worse, the blood sticker guy... you know, that guy, he, uh, he started using poor grammar. He goes, "This ain't
gonna hurt." I was like, "Oh, no.
No-no-no, no-no-no. We're not doing that, all right? We're not, we're not,
no, no, we're not... You can't use poor grammar and
do medical stuff to somebody. Because if he says,
"This ain't gonna hurt." I'm thinking, well, he may
ain't not know the difference between a vein
and an artery, all right? He may ain't have remembered
to wash the diseased blood out of that syringe before
he stuck it inside of me. We're not doing this, okay.
We're not doing this. And it's not his fault.
The guy was probably good in school in science
and bad in English. But I don't care, man.
It's a confidence thing. Like, if you want
your kid to be a doctor, you make sure they do well
in science and English . And if for some reason your kid
cannot do well in English, teach them a foreign accent,
all right? Like, 'cause we all know... If the doctor's, like,
"Me not know the, uh, how you say, how you say,
how you say?" "Oh, that guy's a genius!
You do whatever you gotta
do, Doc! "I went to college
with you foreign guys. "You were always in the library
when I was drunk. "You do what you gotta do, man. "I trust you. Your poor grammar
equals high MCAT score." Here's the thing,
like, it's just medicine. Like, I'm not a snob.
If you wanna fix my car, I don't care if you
use poor grammar. Matter of fact,
I'd prefer you did. If the mechanic's, like,
"That there transmission ain't never ever gonna work again."
I'm like, well, I guess I need
a new transmission. Obviously, this guy knows
what he's talking about. He's butchering
the English language. He's probably at the top
of his field. "I better not no wait
no more longer for this no more."
No, huh? I walked by a construction
site the other day, I heard 37 swear words
in under a minute. I was like, that is gonna
be a sturdy building. You ever walk by a construction
site and hear somebody say "darn it" or "shoot,"
that thing's coming down! What I'm trying to say is
education is important. But we all have different
levels of education. You know, that's fine,
it makes us more interesting. But you got to know
who you're talking to. I met this lady recently,
we were at the grocery store. She was really nice.
We start talking in line. She goes,
"Yeah, my doctor says I need to start reading labels."
She had kids. She goes, "If I can't pronounce
one of the ingredients on that label, he said I should
not feed that item to my child." I was like, "That's pretty
good advice depending on your
level of education." If the mom's like,
"Ma-ma-ma-ma!" I guess that kid's not getting
milk, all right. Doesn't seem fair. "I can't feed my child ma-leek!" Education's important, you know.
I'm educated. I, uh, I graduated college.
I got a degree in journalism. And, uh, very quickly got
a job as a busboy at Denny's. I did, I did, yeah. I was a, yeah, I was a waiter
before I went to college and I came out a busboy. If I would've gone
to grad school, I am pretty sure I could have
made dish washer. I think I could have done it. I'm college educated, but a lot
of times you wouldn't know it. I have done some
really dumb stuff. Like, lately, this summer.
I started the summer off dumb. I can't top it.
Here's what happened. I was at my brother's house.
And there was like a, there was like a barbecue there.
He had all his friends there. And everybody was inside.
And I walked outside and there was some bug spray
on the picnic table, and
I started spraying myself. And my sister-in-law walked out,
she goes, "What are you doing?" I'm like, "I'm putting
bug spray on, Kelly." She goes, "No!"
I'm like, "I'll pay for my part of the bug spray
if it's a problem, Kelly." She goes,
"That's not bug spray." I'm like, "What is it?"
She goes, "That's the fogger." And I'm like,
"What's the fogger?" If you, if you guys don't know
what the fogger is, it's this thing where like one
person puts on a hazmat suit, they evacuate the area,
they spray the back lawn with the fogger, and then bugs
die for a 55-mile radius. I-- I put it on my face,
all right, like... A lot got in my mouth.
So, I have six months to live. The good news is, those six
months will be insect-free. No bugs will come
anywhere near me. Orkin hired me. I just go to
people's houses now, and I sit down,
and all the bugs die, I... I killed a cat.
I didn't mean to. It... it jumped in my lap.
I didn't-- I don't know how I'm gonna
top that this summer. Maybe eat
a citronella candle. Here's the thing.
I should've known, 'cause I remember, like,
right before I sprayed myself, I remember looking at
the bug spray and I was like, that doesn't look like
a normal bug spray... can. It looked--
the spout looks too wide. It looks-- it looks like
an air horn. And at that point,
I should've read the label. I was like, no, it's probably
like a half air horn, half bug spray product. Something you would use
at an outdoor sporting event. You know, like,
you know, like... (imitating aerosol spray
and air horn blowing) (imitates air horn blowing) That's the dumbest thing
I've done. Now, the dumbest thing
I said... I was at my friend's house
and I was in the bathroom, and there was this painting
in the bathroom, and in the bottom
left-hand corner it had these pencil markings. It said, "23/100." That means that's the 23rd print
that they made of that painting in a series of 100. The people at the party
had to tell me that 'cause I walked outside
and I said, "Hey, I like that painting
in your bathroom. "I don't know why the teacher
gave that guy 23 out of 100. "I would've given him
like a 98. "I mean, yeah, sure,
the sun is off center, but you don't take off 77 points
for something like that." I've done some dumb stuff. I bought a $55 umbrella. Hear me out. It was raining and... you know, I went into
this store, and I was like, I want that one.
It was 11 bucks. And the sales guy...
was good. Like, he was really good. Like, he started showing me
all these features on the $55 umbrella. I was like, wow, there have been
a lot of advances in umbrella technology. And I got it home
and I was like, there have been no advances
in umbrella technology. Those weren't features.
Like, they all open. Um... that's bad. 'Cause if I ever do
wind up destitute, I know my friends.
That'll be the example. Like, "Hey, what happened
to Warren? I heard he was homeless."
"Well, the guy was buying $55 umbrellas.
I saw it coming." I'm not good with money.
I'm just not. I'm not good with money.
I mean, I made a bunch. I just-- I used it. I-I used it all, and I guess
you're not supposed to. And... and I think
I have a face that looks like
I'm more responsible than I am, 'cause when I tell people that,
they're like, "Well, you saved some."
I'm like, I didn't. They're like, "Well, you still
have your retirement from when you worked
at Proctor & Gamble." I'm like, I cashed that out.
They're like, "If you cashed that out, there
are some serious penalties." I'm like, you're telling me.
Like extremely serious. Really, I mean,
unnecessarily serious. Draconian, really, um... And then they start
yelling at me about compounding interest,
which-- I don't know. If I would've known about it, I probably would've
compounded some, but I didn't know about it. "Hey, Greg, you don't understand
compounding interest. "You gotta start saving
when you're young, "'cause you get interest,
then you get interest "on the interest, then you get
interest on that interest that you got interest on."
It's like, "Greg! You gotta understand
the math!" I'm like, well, Marty, you gotta
understand the physics. I can't go back and do that,
all right? I'm... I'm 50!
I'm 50! You know what's
compounding right now? The consequences
from my poor decisions in life! They're piling up. Yeah. There's no time travel. If there was time travel... I wouldn't make
the best use of it. This is how I would use
time travel. I shouldn't have eaten that. Then I, like,
go back like 13 minutes to before I ate it. And then I would
eat it again. Then I would go back like
13 minutes to before I ate it... and then I would--
I would live in a loop. I would live
in a 13-minute loop. I would experience
13 minutes of time. My friends would be like, "Greg, we went
to the Middle Ages." I'd be like,
I went to Pizza Hut again. And here's the thing.
Like, I-- When I drive around at night, I listen to these
financial radio shows. That's-- I don't--
I don't have any financials. I don't know why I do.
And they're all the same. It's some guy
talking to somebody young. "Hey, you're,
uh, you're 26. "You know, you just gotta get
in the habit of saving. "You're fine now,
just get in the habit of saving. "You get in the habit
of saving. What you don't wanna do
is wait until you're 50." And then the guy goes on
to pretty much describe-- I mean, short of saying my name,
he is talking about me. I'm like, I know you're
talking about me, man! Just say my name!
Go ahead! Everybody knows
you're talking about me! I'm the bad example. You remember when we were
in high school and they wanted
to scare us about DUIs? So they put that smashed-up car
in the parking lot. They're like,
"You wanna wind up like that?!" I'm the car.
I'm the car. And that's how I'm gonna make
a lot of money when I get older. I'm gonna start
renting myself out... as the bad example
to financial advisors. Yeah, yeah, they're gonna be
in like a meeting where they're gonna be like, "Hey,
you guys are a young couple. "You just got married.
Now, you're doing fine. "You just-- you gotta start
saving or... "Greg, come on in here
for a second. Show 'em the umbrella." I don't know what I did
with the money. I mean, I-I-I lost
a lot of phone chargers. I did. I did accidentally buy some of those organic walnuts
one time. That set me back
about 585,000. That was-- Honestly, you know,
a big part of it is, it's the blue-collar stuff. I can't fix anything, so I gotta
hire guys to fix stuff. So, when they come over
to my house, like, I-I don't think
they're being fair. Like... hey, man,
how much is it to put the screen door
back on the tracks there? "That's 4,000, Greg." Okay, thank--
that sounds fair. The last guy charged me 5,000,
so I appreciate you not taking advantage of me. All those guys,
they're all dirtbags, the guys that work
on your house. Like, they're liars.
They are. Contractors, repairmen, uh, plumbers, tile guys,
everything. I've noticed this about
those guys, every one of 'em, they're always
very, very disappointed in the work
of the previous guy. They cannot believe how horrible
of a job that guy did. It just baffles 'em.
"I tell you what, Mr. Warren. "I've been in this business
for 96 years, "and I never seen anything
like that before. "I don't know-- I don't know
who this joker you hired-- "You probably got him
in the circus. "I mean, that guy-- wow! He laid in a 55-47.
Should've been a 3-C!" I'm like, I have no idea
what you're talking about. Just tell me what--
did he use poor craftsmanship? "There's no craftsman
on this ship, Mr. Warren. "I can assure you that.
I mean, honestly, "this makes me mad, Mr. Warren.
Listen, I'd like to punch "this guy in the face.
I mean, did you have "a personal beef with him?
I've been in the business "for 196 years
and it just makes me sick to think that a guy like--"
Just stop it! Just tell me what's wrong.
W-W-W-What is it? Like, did he use
the wrong materials? "I don't know what materials
he did use, Mr. Warren. "That right there,
now that looks like, um, "that's birthday cake frosting
right there. "All right, maybe,
maybe this fella thought "he was baking a birthday cake,
you know? "Don't worry, Mr. Warren.
We're gonna get you fixed up. "Now we are probably gonna have
to tear down your whole house, "and, uh, tear down
the neighbor's house too, but, uh, you know..." It's just my bathroom!
"Nah, nah. "This guy really
put it to you. "It's probably gonna cost you
about 1.7 million, "1.9 million. "Now, if you wouldn't
have hired him, "it'd have been $7,
but I can't do anything about it, Mr. Warren." Just dirtbags, right?
Yeah. So I think we can agree,
um, I'm not a laborer. Or a farmer. I'll tell you what I do
do for a living. Travel. It's tougher. It's harder than all
the other stuff. It is harder than ironworking
or ironing or whatever. I mean, there's a lot of stuff
you guys don't know about. You ever had
an out-of-town haircut? Terrifying. 'Cause sometimes, you know-- You guys probably just go
to the same person. Sometimes I'm gone
for eight weeks. I just gotta walk
into this place that I have never been before
and say, hey, can somebody cut my hair? When you do that,
they're not-- you're not getting
their best people. They're-- they got appointments
lined up for the day. They're like, "Uh, I guess Tammy
can take care of you." Tammy's like, "I get to do it!
I get to do it!" Tammy has never cut
a head of hair in her life. I'm just sittin' there
in the chair, terrified. Tammy's trying
to make small talk with me. "So, where are you from?"
No offense, Tammy. But I need you focused,
all right? "What are your hobbies?"
From the looks of this haircut, they're gonna be indoor hobbies
for the next six weeks. The travel is like--
the travel's tough, man. It's tough.
It's, uh, it's really tough. It's, uh-- I mean,
I travel on the weekends. And I stay in hotels.
That's fortunate. I'm lucky. You know,
a lot of times they're nice. But that's when the groups
are in the hotels. The-- you know the groups,
like the soccer kids. I-I hate 'em.
I hate 'em. They just take over
the hotel. It's like they think
they own the place. They put signs up
on all the doors. "Good luck, Connor."
"Good luck, Charlie." "Good luck, Lincoln." I came home one night late--
and this really happened-- from a show, and they
accidentally put a sign up on my door that said,
"Good luck, Coach." For about 6 seconds,
I was like, did I agree to coach
a soccer team? What I did do is I posted
a cut list on my door. It said, "The following
team members, "turn in your uniforms... "and leave the hotel
immediately. Connor, Charlie, Lincoln." I knew all their names 'cause
they were on the door, right? You're all bad at soccer.
Go home. Find a new activity.
Preferably one that does not involve travel. Man, I was in a hotel
on a weekend and there was
a farm group there. Yeah, the junior farmers. You guys know about
these guys? The FFA?
(man)
Whoo! Yeah, you know the FFA? Yeah, the Future Farmers
of America. The-- yeah,
the Future Farm-- I was in Indianapolis. There were 50,000
future farmers there. There's not that many futures
in farming, okay? They're lying to these kids.
Some of 'em are gonna be future Walgreen workers
of America. Like... and they all wear
the same blue corduroy coat. They got their name
on the front and their-- you know,
their town on the back. And it's just--
those are the same coats they wore when I was in
high school. Come on, FFA.
Arby's gets new uniforms every two years. I think the guy
that founded FFA grossly overestimated
how popular it was gonna be and made a volume deal
on those coats. "Eh, you knock a nickel off
each coat, I'll take 7 million." "Can we get new coats?"
"I'm still sittin' on 6.98 million.
It's, uh..." But I wanna say this
about the FFA kids. Like, they're the nicest kids
you will ever meet. For teenagers, they are-- yes. They are-- yeah. They are the nicest kids. But, um...
there's too many of 'em, okay? There's too many of 'em.
They clogged up the hotel. The whole hotel
was just corduroy. Just... Just why do you
have to stay in a hotel? You're a farmer!
Sleep outside! I had to wait for an elevator
for 30 minutes practically. I'm like, it's not
a grain elevator! What are you loading,
wheat up there? I came downstairs to get
my Starbucks the next morning. There was like 50 farm kids
in front of me, just taking their time.
I'm like, they don't make corn lattes
there, bean-picker junior! Pick something! Wrong choice of words
with you guys. "Select something."
Uh... You know, people ask me
what the travel is like. You know, "You travel, do you,
uh, do you go on vacation? 'Cause you travel all the time."
Like I do. I like my vacation spots
a little trashy, though. I like 'em trashy, I do. Like you ever heard
a rich person bragging
about their spot? "Oh, it's a beautiful island.
It's completely untouched." I'm like, well... touch it. That's why I go
to Myrtle Beach. Let me tell you something,
they touched that place. They touched it hard.
They touched it, and they just
kept on touching it. And they touched it--
Like there's more go-kart tracks there than there is sand,
and I like it. I like it, but I don't think
they understand their clientele 'cause I was there and like
this one lady at the hotel was like, "We have 24 water
amenities on our property." I was like,
what is a water amenity? You talkin' about like
a drinking fountain? There's no like pools
and slides and the lazy river. I was like, well, you should use
those terms with these people. Like, I'm... I'm not trying
to stereotype, but that guy right there,
he's got nine kids under the age of 12
and they're all wearing different liquor brand T-shirts. Like he's not gonna
get "amenity." "I don't wanna go to a-menity. "That don't sound
like fun at all. "I'm supposed to be on vacation. "You don't make me go
to a-menity. "I don't wanna go to a-menity.
I went to church on Sunday. "I said four 'Hail Marys'
and five a-menities. And I ain't gonna
say it again." No, sir, it's another word
for waterslide. "Then why didn't you
call it a waterslide? "This is a trick.
It's gonna be like that time they told me I won free tickets
to Molly Hatchet, "and I showed up
and I had warrants. "I ain't gonna fall for it.
I ain't gonna fall for it. "You can fool me once,
well, twice. "They got me with
the Statler Brothers too, but I shoulda known better
on that one, I think." I actually, I went on one... one trip that wasn't trashy,
one vacation spot. It was Bermuda. Yeah, you should go.
It's beautiful. It's also the shipwreck
capital of the world. I guess like 500 years ago,
there was some pretty bad ship drivers down there, and they all just, they were
hittin' stuff, you know? And, and they all sank,
and they're still down there. You can just swim around
and look at 'em, and I did,
but I felt guilty. You know, like I'm on vacation, look at the worst mistake
somebody made in their life. I mean, I made a lot of mistakes
in my life, you know, I... I totaled my dad's car
when I was in high school. And I got grounded, but... they didn't turn it
into a tourist destination. If they did, I know who
the tour guide would be-- my dad. The whole tour would
be just him telling everybody
about his insurance rates. "They more than doubled,
the rates more than doubled! You had to multiply it
times two." Then you go, Jerry, I think
they know what doubled... Colleen, I told you,
this is my tour. You wanna run a tour,
you run your own tour. Where was it? Yeah, yeah,
rates more than doubled. Then two weeks later,
his idiot brother wrecks another one of my cars. Garry Lake calls me, he's been
my insurance agent for 40 years. He said, "Jerry,
we gotta drop you. You understand me?
Drop you!" I had the same guy for 40... Jerry, I think they know
what it means to be dropped. Colleen, I told you
this is my tour! Not like you never made
any mistakes in your life. I made two mistakes in my life, and neither one of those
idiots can drive! I don't wanna keep coming
back to this, but... there's gotta be at least one
green bean plant in Iowa, right? Like these guys,
they act like they never have heard of that vegetable. It's a very popular ve--
I-- I looked it up. You know what the number-one
green bean-producing state is? Wisconsin.
That touches Iowa. They've heard of it.
They're neighbors. I live in Missouri.
We touch Illinois. I've heard
of Abraham Lincoln, okay? We also touch Kansas.
I've heard of the band Kansas. Here's the thing, man,
I-I-- through all this, I have learned some respect
for farmers. I couldn't do it. I mean, I have
a plastic plant at my house. I've learned a lot, though.
I really have. I said I travel.
Lately, I-I travel and then I try to go
see a farm. I've been to like
five or six farms, and I have learned some stuff. I've learned some
pretty cool stuff. I learned about, uh,
it's not just field and sweet, there's seed corn. Now, the seed corn farmers,
they just, they do this thing
called detasseling, okay? What they do is, every year,
right around August, they go up and down
all the cornrows, and they have to snip off
the male part of the corn, the tassel, and they have
to get 99.7% of these tassels or it doesn't work. And to perform this
very precise operation, they hire teenagers
and ex-convicts, two groups not known for making
any mistakes in their lives. I swear to you, they do it.
They send their kids out under the corn fields
on a school bus with convicted felons. What could go wrong?
"How was it, son?" "It was great, Dad.
One-Eyed Pete showed us "how to make a shiv
out of a corncob. "He shanked the bus driver.
I think he's going back to the joint to do
another nickel-dime stretch." And I learned--
I came over here to Illinois, and a guy taught me
about cover crops. Now, cover crops,
that's a thing, sometimes they-- they just plant stuff
and they don't use it. They just use it to make
the ground healthier. They just till it
underneath the ground. That's awesome. I mean, if I was a farmer, built-in excuse, right,
for a bad crop. "Greg, your cantaloupes
look terrible." "Those are 'coverloupes.'" "All your crops look terrible." "They're all cover crops
this year." "You didn't say anything
about that during the spring." "That's 'cause they're
undercover crops." So I appreciate the farmers. But I mean, farmers,
we do stuff for you guys, too. I mean, we eat a lot
of your stuff, but... aside from that,
we do stuff. Daylight savings time... ...you're welcome, okay?
'Cause... that's a hardship for us. 'Cause in the Midwest, you know,
it gets dark in December at about 3:45,
and we're all sad. We're all depressed. You know, we're all
borderline suicidal. We all have seasonal
effectiveness disorder which should be called
farmer's disease and... we do that so the farmers
can have a couple extra hours to plant stuff in the summer,
and that's fine, that's fine. But... they better be
using it, all right? Like I'm... I'm driving by
some of these farms this summer, and if it's light out
and they're not out there, I'm knockin'
on some doors, okay? Hey, hey, hey, we weren't
all sad for six months so you can sit inside
and watch "Hee Haw," all right? You get out there
and you farm something. Half the country's on Zoloft
because of you guys. And... I went back. I went back to Iowa. I went to a soybean farm. Face-to-face
with the bean pickers. And I met a soybean farmer, and he told me
about crop rotation. So I guess you can't plant
the same crop on the same piece of land
two seasons in a row. And... they take it seriously. He's like, oh, you don't
go bean-on-bean. You don't do it.
You do not go bean-on-bean. You can't go bean-on-bean.
That's just-- it's not right. It's not farming.
You don't go bean-on-bean. You don't-- you don't do that.
It's not-- it's not farming. I'm like, does anybody?
Pssh... Elmer down the road,
bean on bean on bean on bean. It's a disgrace.
It's not farming, okay? It's an embarrassment
to the community, I'll tell you that. Guy probably didn't
rotate his tires or his undershirts either. And then they told me
about soybeans. Like I didn't know
all this stuff. They just-- they-- I just
thought you eat 'em or whatever. They make a lot of stuff.
Ink, a lot of ink comes from soybeans,
did you know that? A lot of the ink you use
comes from soybeans. And it makes a lot of sense. You ever been writing
with a pen and it runs out of ink
way before the other pens? That's bean-on-bean ink
right there. Like that's... (cheering and applause) Thank you very much.
Thank you very much. (cheering and applause) Thank you. I farm with corn and soybeans
and a little hay. We had a couple
of milk cows, chickens. Soybeans, corn,
and five chickens. Hogs. Beans and corn. Beef cows. Try to get out early and get a little corn planted,
some soybeans. Do a little wheat. We farm corn and soybeans. Corn and beans. Corn and soybeans. We raise corn and beans... and a big garden. I-I don't think Greg Warren
knows anything about farming. I hope he's funny.
I left the farm for him. I just hope he's funny. I hope he's as funny
as Larry the Cable Man. He definitely doesn't know what he's talking about.
