- [Announcer] Everybody,
welcome Kurt Braunholer. - Thank you, guys. Oh man. So, I'm a dad now. No, don't even, don't, don't. I mean, just the
environmental impact of having those children is... It's horrible. I'm a dad. So, ma life finally
caught up with ma looks. Just been looking like
a dad for 40 years without kids. Honestly, it was getting creepy. You know? People were like, "That
dad seems too drunk." Now it's like, "Hey,
that dad is too drunk." My daughter calls me Papa. - [Audience] Aw. - Yeah. Because we, as a
society, ruined daddy. Nobody's ever said,
"Choke me, Papa." Maybe Barbra Streisand. So, now my daughter
has to refer to me like we live in a French
fishing village in the '20s. Like, "Will we eat today, Papa?" "I don't rightly
know, Daughter." But it's been a
little tough at home because I live with
an anti-vaxxer. Yeah, my four-year-old. And I thought it was just
'cause she didn't like needles, you know? But then I saw her
drawing this picture, and I was like, "What
is this, honey?" She's like, "Oh this? This is just Bill Gates trying to inject his
microchip into me, Daddy." And I was like, "All
right, that's it. We're taking a bath." And she's like, "666 is
the number of the beast. The vaccine was created by
a supercomputer in Belgium." I'm like, "All right,
no more YouTube." But she's like, "Go
get poked, you cop." "No more 'Joe Rogan
Experience' for you. It was a mistake
to subscribe you." I have two children,
and two is, oh man. It's more than one, and
it's so much more than one, and I just don't know if I like
who I am with two children. Do you know what I mean? Recently at the dinner table, I screamed at my entire family, "I don't care if
everyone's crying. I'm eating." I don't want to be that man. I legitimately whispered
under my breath to a one-year-old, "Oh, you're such
a fuckin' baby." No, no. And, man, when I had one
kid, I was so cocky about it. If someone was like, "Hey, man, we're thinking
about having a kid. Should we?" I'd be like, "Hey, is it hard? Yeah. But what that's worth
doing isn't hard?" And then if someone's like, "Hey man, should we
have a second kid?" I'm like, "Don't talk to me. I have 15 minutes to
drink this vodka soda before going to bed, because every minute that he
sleeps that I don't sleep, he gets stronger than me." I want to be a good dad. You know? I want to be. I be mean, most dads
want to be good dads, except for those pieces
of shit, you know? I want to be a good dad, so I got a vasectomy right away. I was like, no more me. The vasectomy was weird. I was hard the whole time, and the doctor was like,
"What's going on, man?" And I was like, "Oh,
I'm so sorry, Doc, if I'm excited to
relieve my wife of the responsibility
of birth control for the rest of her life. So, just grab onto this shaft and neuter the patriarchy, bro." And he's like, "You don't
know how this works, do you?" I was like, "I do not." No, but I do. I want to be a good dad. I don't necessarily have a
great blueprint for a good dad. My dad's, he's like
a guy, you know? Here, I'll tell you a story. Recently, my brother
called me, and he's like, "Hey, I'm with Dad. Dad wants to know, are you
on a CarMax commercial?" And I was like, "No, I'm
not in a CarMax commercial." And then I hear him go, "No, he's not in a
CarMax commercial," then in the background, I hear my dad go, "Yes he is." So, in case you haven't
seen this CarMax commercial, very funny comedian, the similarities
between us are that we have glasses and are white, and that is it. And so what's nice is that
my dad insisted my brother give me a call
just to let me know he has no idea what
I look or sound like, which would be
weird for most dads, but my dad has eight children
from many different women 'cause my dad loves to fuck,
hates wearing a condom. Which is a weird
irresponsibility that results in so much
more responsibility. So, my eldest sister
is 60 years old and my youngest
two sisters are 19. Twins right at the end. Go fuck yourself, Dad. ♪ Twins at 62 ♪ Bamp-bamp ♪ Twins at 62 I think that's a Rod
Stewart song, actually. So, that means that
my dad has been a dad every day for 60 years, and he's never gotten
any better at it? That's amazing. If you did anything
every day for 60 years, you would accidentally become
a genius at doing that thing, and my dad has never become
better at being a dad? That's amazing. My dad is like a guy
who played mini golf every day for 60 years, and then one day,
someone was like, "Oh, look, it's a golf ball." And my dad was like,
"That's a bowling ball." Person's like, "No, that's
not a bowling ball," and my dad's like, "Yes it is." That is the equivalent of not recognizing your own
son on a goddamn commercial. Memorize our faces, Father. It is the literal
least you could do. So, eldest sister, 60, youngest two sisters are 19, which means I have
multiple nieces and nephews that are way older than
my youngest two sisters. So, last time we
all got together, it was about 17 years ago, 'cause we don't do it too often 'cause it's too
weird for everybody. It's just like a bunch of
employees from regional offices getting together for a barbecue. My eldest nephew, at
the time he was 18, hanging out with my
youngest two sisters, at the time were two. One of them shit their pants. He wanted to tell my dad, so he said, "Grandpa, I believe
Emily has pooped her pants." Luckily, I was there to
correct him, and I said, "Mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm. You believe Aunt Emily
has pooped her pants," and my dad was like,
"That's not funny. Don't do that." And I was like, "I wish you knew how very funny that is, Papa. Perhaps it would give
you a perspective on your whimsical life so far." So, my parents got
divorced when I was two. I grew up in Jersey. What up, Jersey? I'm required by law to say that. And my dad lived in Michigan, so- I don't like your state. So... It's fine. It's a fine state. I have personal resentment
towards the state itself, okay? But my dad decided that
when I was five years old, he just decreed
like a drunk king, "The boy is old enough to fly
on the aeroplane by himself." And so I started flying
by myself at age five, and in case you've
never done that, here's how it goes. Your mom drops you off at the
airport and then drives away. And then a flight attendant
who is psyched to, in addition to
doing her weird job that's midway between
being a cocktail waitress and a first responder now also has to babysit a five-year-old. And the very first thing they
do is they give you a sticker. Says, "Unaccompanied minor," just to make sure everybody at the airport knows you're
there for the taking. Just a little silver
platter for pedophiles. Like, "This one's alone, boys. This is Kurt. He's five. He loves He-Man and sharks
and keeping secrets." And I was like, "There's
no way they still do that. That was just something
they did in the '80s." No, they still do. I was recently in
Montreal Airport. I saw a little girl. She must have been 10 years old. She had the unaccompanied
minor sticker on, but then she was also
wearing a T-shirt, and I am assuming that her
parents do not speak English, because the T-shirt just said,
"White wine all the time," which combined with the
unaccompanied minor sticker, not a good look for the parents. And for some reason, every flight I ever took had a three-hour layover in
Dayton, Ohio, and I hated it. I hated it so much as a
kid until I turned 12, and I learned the
secrets of Dayton, Ohio. In order to understand the
secret of Dayton, Ohio, you need to know
three true things about myself, Kurt Braunholer. Fact Number One: I started smoking
cigarettes at age 10. What up, Jersey? 10, Fact Number Two: I discovered
pornography at age 12 when I found all of
my uncle's "Playboys" and cut just the breasts
out of every photograph and taped them to my wall, hidden underneath
a poster that was a photograph of
myself at age five that said, "Wanted
dead or alive." And I would charge children
in the neighborhood a quarter to stare at this sea of
disembodied breasts... realizing early on that
breasts without women are very upsetting. It's just a pile of
sunny-side-up eggs. And Fact Number Three: I
hate the saxophone, okay? That has nothing to
do with this story. Just a little
something about me. So, when I turned 12, I learned the secret of
Dayton, Ohio, which was this. I would get off the
plane in Dayton, shake my flight attendant guard, and then I would head
off into the airport, 'cause you could do this
'cause it was the '80s. I would buy cigarettes
and pornography and sit in the Dayton
airport for three hours, smoking Marlboro Reds and
flipping through a "Hustler" like some sort of
12-year-old divorced dad, which is very ironic, 'cause that's who put me in this position
in the first place. ♪ The cat's in the cradle
and the silver spoon ♪ ♪ Little boy blue and
the man in the moon ♪ But I want to be a good dad. I don't want my daughter to have her own
Dayton, Ohio, you know? And I think part
of being a good dad is also being a good man, but I fail every
once in a while. I'll tell you the story. There's a gas station
near my house. Has a little handwritten
sign on one of the pumps. It says, "Please
replace Nozzle Two pump before driving away with it. Thanks." And years ago, I took
a photograph of this and I posted it to Instagram, and me and a bunch of
strangers made fun of all these human trash piles
were just driving away with the pump still
in their goddamn car. And so when I drove away with the pump in my
car about a year ago, I was bashful. Have you ever made fun
of yourself from the past with a bunch of strangers? 'Cause I have. And the thing is, I
didn't even know I did it. I had no idea. I hopped in the car, blasted my meditation
app, and just took off, ripped it right out of the pump. Had no idea. And then immediately pulled
an illegal four-lane U-turn, and all of the oncoming
traffic was like . And I was like, "Oh, fuck you,
you fuckin' church Nancys. It's a U-turn." So, I gave 'em all
the middle finger, meanwhile spewing gasoline
across the street, and then I made a right,
and I got on a big highway, started going very
fast, and mind you, I just have a tail
dragging behind me, like... And then this big white pickup
truck pulls up next to me and he's honking at me. And I was like, "What? It's a U-turn." And he's like, "Roll
your window down." And I was like, "What?" And he's like, "You drove away
with the pump in your car." And I was like, "Oh, you drove
away with the pump in your, oh no." So, I did. So, I did. And then I was very,
very, very embarrassed, and I'm on the highway. I didn't know what to do, so then I just pulled over
to the side of the road, and then he pulled over, too. And then I got out of my car, and then he got out
of his car, too. I was deeply embarrassed. You know, it's essentially
I shit my pants, and then he followed me
into the bathroom like, "Hey, man, did you
shit your pants? Hey, how much shit
is in your pants? Hey, why do you think you
shit your pants earlier?" And I was just like,
"What do you want?" And he's like, "Do
you need help?" And I realize I had a
choice to make here. I could act the way men
have acted for centuries. I could act like
a wounded animal and lash out at this
man to protect myself. Or I could be a better man. I could admit my
vulnerabilities and say, "Yes, I screwed up,
and I do need help," and so that man said,
"Hey, can I help you?" And I said to him, "No!" And then he got mad and
got his car and drove away. And then I was left
alone with my shame. And I walked over to
the back of my car. I pulled out the gas
pump, and I was like, "Oh, there's definitely
still a lot of gas in here. I can't put it in my car. Fumes and stuff. I'm picking up my daughter. What would be very useful
right now is a pickup truck, but I just told that
guy to go fuck himself." So then I just left my car
on the side of the road and then walked
with it in my arms all the way back along the
highway, down the exit ramp, back to the gas station, where both managers were
waiting for me outside. And I just kind of
laid it at their feet like a big dead snake, and I was like, "Well,
what do we do now?" Turns out it cost $350, which is honestly a lot
less than I expected. I mean, you don't
get to keep it, but also, they're designed
to just pop right off. So, the thing is just do it. It doesn't matter. Just do it. Also, if you turn it
into a comedy bit, it kind of pays for itself. And when you have a kid, you just stay inside
for a very long time, and I think we're all very
familiar with how that feels. And recently, it was like
the first time I had been out since my son had been born, the first time I was in society. I was in an airport, and I knew it was
going to be weird reintegrating into society, but I didn't know in
what ways it would be. And this kind of surprised me. I was in a public bathroom,
huge airport bathroom, and the urinals were
where the stool was, and I was across the
room around here, and it was at this
point that I realized, "Oh no, I've taken my
penis out too soon." I was like, "Oh no," and all the men around
me were like, "Too soon," and I was like, "I know," and they're like, "Put it back," and I'm like, "There's no time." I did home behavior outside. At home, you see the toilet, you're like, "I'm ready
to go to the bathroom." So, I just stay home mostly. I just stay home. My daughter, after she was born, there was just
nothing in her room. It just kind of seemed like we had a house guest
for a little while, and so I was always
trying to look for things that I could make her room
look like a little girl's room. And, guys, comedy has treated
me pretty well, you know? I mean, I'm not a rich man by any stretch of
the imagination, but I can definitely
go to a small town and afford any number of vintage dog photographs
they have, you know? And so I was in
Burlington, Vermont, drunk, 'cause what else are you
going to do in Burlington? Just watch white
people be happy? Guys, if you've never been
to Burlington, fun town. Founded in 1990
when a Phish concert collided with a
zip-line convention... It's just a little town of
like-minded Teva sandals in the middle of a forest with a massive
methamphetamine problem. Definitely go in the fall when they harvest the
blueberry marshmallow vape. It's delicious. So, I was there,
two in the morning, drunk in a snowstorm, and I saw a piece
of art in a window that stopped me
dead in my tracks. It was a photograph of a
dog in an old-timey saloon playing the piano with a little handkerchief
around his neck like he was some little bandito that just happened to ride into what I'm assuming is an
all-dog Wild West town, probably on the back of a
larger version of himself, then saw the bar,
hopped off the dog, kicked open the
doors, hopped in, had a shot of fire
water, saw the piano, hopped up to tickle
the old ivories, and the only
newspaper dog in town was there at the perfect
moment to snap a perfect photo. It's a goddamn piece of art. And I was like, "My
daughter needs this." Went to bed, woke up the next
morning, found the store. What the store is, turns out, it's a place where
you can get dressed up in old-timey Wild West gear. You can get your picture
taken in an old-timey saloon, which makes no sense
for Burlington, Vermont. That's not in the
Wild West, guys. It would make more
sense if you could just dressed up
as Bernie Sanders and eat some Ben &
Jerry's, but whatever. That guy had a dream. He made a weird
store, all right? So, I go in, and I say, "I love this photograph,
this dog playing the piano," and the guy there is
like, "I took that photo," and I'm like,
"You're an artist," and he's like, "Do you want
to know something about that?" And I'm like, "I do." He said that dog wasn't
actually playing the piano. It's worth so much
more to me now that he thought I was just
walking by and saw the photo, and was like, "He has
photographic proof of dogs playing the piano? I gotta show this to
the scientists, man." So, I was like, "That's amazing. I would love to buy
it for my daughter." He gets very serious. He's like, "Oh, this
photo's not for sale. This was a client. I took this photograph
of a client's dog. Also, it's an heirloom
frame from my wife's family. I could never part with it." Then in my head, I was like, "Oh no, if I don't get
this for my daughter, I'm a bad dad, aren't I?" And then I was like, "Maybe I should offer him
more than I think it's worth." But the thing is, I don't
know what things are worth, and I was like, "Should
I offer him $100? Is this worth a
third of a gas pump? I don't know." And so then I panicked,
and I was just like, "I'll give you a hundred bucks," and he just went,
"Are you kidding me?" And I realized I
had far overvalued the piano-playing-dog photo
market in Burlington, Vermont, and he immediately sold it to
me, heirloom frame and all, and I realized
that at that time, I had become the bad guy
in every '80s movie ever, just walking into a small town
with my douche bag LA money, like, "Oh, is it not
for sale, old man? Well, now it is." And I'm telling this story
to you because I want, if you're ever in
Burlington, Vermont, I want you to find that store. I want you to go in there. I want you to offer that
man a hundred dollars for any dog-playing-piano
photographs he might have, 'cause what I want to do
is I want to artificially inflate the market for
dog-playing-piano photography in the small economy that
is Burlington, Vermont till it's no longer known for hippies and hacky sacks, but mostly anthropomorphic
dog photography, 'cause we can do that because
that's how capitalism works. And I've been thinking. I've been thinking a lot
about capitalism recently. I think we all have, now that these
jack-offs have been going to space on their
lunch break or whatever, and I was like, "What is the
definition of capitalism?" We always talk about it,
so I looked it up online. The definition is
if every individual acts in their own
rational self-interest, that will bring
about the most good for the most amount of people. And I was like, "Oh, the
flaw is in the definition." Human beings aren't rational. Fucking Smash Mouth is
still popular, guys. We don't make rational choices. We make emotional choices. That's why billionaires exist. Billionaires are not rational. They make no rational sense. They have more money they could ever spend in their entire life, and also, now in America, three people have more money than the bottom
half of Americans. That's three people
have more money than 162 million individuals. That seems insane to me. But also, I don't know, maybe capitalism
is the best system. I don't know. I'm not a systems guy, you know? But I do know that
in this country, we have a show called "Hoarders" where if an old lady
has 25,000 magazines, we're like, "Kick
her door down." We're like, "You can't
have these magazines." She's like, "No, let
have my magazines." They're like, "No, you
can't have these magazines. We're going to burn
your house down." Anyway, I'm pitching
"Hoarders II" where we just
murder billionaires. It is weird to be raising
children in America right now 'cause America's, you know,
we're not nailing it right now. There was a thing
I read recently that there was a woman
in Decatur, Georgia, she heard some buzzing. You're going to
love this one, then. She had 120,000 bees
living in her ceiling. This is true. You can Google it later. Just put in 120,000 and
it'll auto correct bees. And I don't know about
you guys, Denver, but I feel like if
I see five bees... I'm like, "There's
a lot of bees here. We should do something
about our bee problem." But you know, fuck me. Maybe I'm some
liberal coastal elite motherfucker who
notices bees, you know? Well, let's say 10,000 bees. Wow. 10,000 bees coming and
going from your house, doing what they do,
eating leaves and shit. I don't know much about
bees' lives or what they eat. That definitely seems like
enough bees to be like, "Bees." No? What about 20,000 bees? That's two times 10,000 bees, which already seemed
like a lot to me. No? 30,000 bees. I talked to a bee person. 30,000 bees is nine
pounds of bees. That's a healthy
baby boy of bees. Definitely seems like
enough bees to be like, "We have bees here." No? 40,000 bees. 40,000 bees. That is a golden doodle of bees. Woof, woof. There are bees here. No, we're not noticing them yet? 50,000 bees, 50,000 bees. That's Dodger Stadium of bees. Each bee has its own seat. Adorable, but a lot of bees. Empirically a lot of bees. What, 60,000? What are you talking about? 60,000 bees and we
haven't noticed them? That's a Nissan Juke
filled with bees. They're packed in tight. They're holding each other
tip to tail, tip to tail. They could drive the thing
if they could figure it out, but they can't
'cause they're bees. Nary a peep from this
woman at 60,000 bees. It takes two Nissan
Jukes filled with bees before this woman is like,
"There appear to be bees here." And that's America, guys. Let's reset. So, if I didn't have
a great blueprint for being a dad from my dad, my mom was the opposite. My mom was an amazing
mom, single parent. First of all, give it up
for single parents, man. I don't know how you do it. There's two of us, and my wife and I in a constant murder-suicide pact
with each other, just taking care
of the children. My mom was a pediatric nurse, and so if she
didn't have anybody to watch me on the weekend. She would just bring
me to work with her. It was a pediatric floor. There was a lot of kids there
that I would make friends with and then they would eventually
die over and over and over and over and over again. That was my life, and all the other
nurses were psyched that Barbara's kid is here, so they'd always
give me jobs to do. My main job was delivering
blood to the lab, which breaks my mind now. Now in order to touch
blood in a hospital, you have to be in a
space suit, you know? I was just six years old, and they just handed
me a hot bag of blood, and I was like, "I'm
on an adventure." I get to take the elevator. That was very exciting. And then I would just
walk around the basement, looking for the lab,
and get lost eventually, and then just knock on a door
and hand someone the blood, and they'd be like,
"What is this? Who are you?" I'm like, "Sorry, can't talk
to strangers," and run away. Lot of misdiagnoses
at that hospital. And my mom was all about, she was all about
unconditional love. That was her whole thing
was unconditional love, and she would always
read me this book called "The Giving Tree." Yeah, it's a beautiful book. I read it to my daughter now. If you have never read it, it's about a tree that gives
everything for this little boy. Reading it as a parent, it
reads a little different. Definitely reads like
a piece of shit boy who murders a tree
and then sits on it with his bony balls and
ass after it's dead. But it is. It's a beautiful book. It is. I tear up when I read it. And I wanted to talk
about this in my special, and I wanted to
show it to you guys, however, HarperCollins
has refused me permission to use the images of
"The Giving Tree," but that's okay, guys, because I've got "The
Sharing Bush" here, and when you read
"The Giving Tree," you're just like you're touched. You're like, "What gorgeous soul wrote such a beautiful book?" And then you flip it around. There he is, ol' Shel Silverstein himself. Again, HarperCollins
refused me the rights to Shel Silverstein's image, so this is noted serial killer
and cannibal Ottis Toole. However, Shel
Silverstein's author photo and this photo have
a really similar vibe with the only difference
being Shel's photo is a bit more sexual, and it is this size. It's the full back cover. And you know when
this was written, Shel was to the publisher, "Hey, I want to have
an author's photo," and they're like, "Shel,
it's a children's book," and he is like, "I insist." They're like, "Okay, well, we
can put an inch-by-inch photo on the inside flap," and he is like, "No, no, no,
no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Full back cover." I need you guys to
Google this actual photo because it is the
cover of a book that should be called "Shel
Silverstein: Fuck Pirate." And at this point in the joke, I am pretty sure HarperCollins
would've preferred to give me the
rights than to have noted serial killer and
cannibal Ottis Toole. Be cool with your
intellectual property, guys. Mm, I really have never drank an entire pint glass
of water at a show. This place is a fucking desert. So, about five years ago, I moved back to New Jersey
to take care of my mom because she got sick, and obviously when a
parent gets cancer, that's always sad unless
it's a hilarious cancer, and I checked and
there are none, and that's tough 'cause
there's butt and ball cancer. One of them should be
hilarious, and they're not. So, I moved back to Jersey, and it's weird when your
personal life is falling apart, normal life just
keeps on moving, and I was back taking
care of my mom, and I got an audition in
New York for a sitcom, and I was like, "Oh, I guess
I got to go do this audition." So, I go up to the city
and I prep the scene, and the scene had kind of
an emotional moment to it. I was like, "Oh, this will
be interesting to play." And I get in the room
with the casting person, and I'm doing the scene,
and as I'm doing it, I'm like, "I'm feeling it." I'm like, "Oh, I think I'm
doing a pretty good job." And then all of a sudden I feel at the emotional
moment in the scene like a tear roll down my face, and I'm like, "Am I fucking
crying in an audition? I'm nailing this." I was like, "Am I Al Pacino
and I didn't know it?" And I finished the scene,
and I wiped the tears away, and I look at the
casting person, and the casting
person just goes, "Aw, so sad." I swear to God, it was like I auditioned
for the cartoon version of a 12-year-old
bully, you know? And I told my friend that
story, and he's like, "Oh, man, I gotta take you out. You gotta get your
mind off this." And so he brought me out. He was playing with one
of my favorite bands, Dinosaur Jr., and I love
Dinosaur Jr. so much, and so we got to go backstage to the green room
at this rock show, and the green room
of a rock show is a very small,
intimate party, you know? And I'm very uncomfortable
at small intimate parties. I prefer the anonymity
of a large party, which is a paraphrase
from "The Great Gatsby," so you know this is going to
be a little bit pretentious, but also I was
very nervous 'cause I wasn't supposed to be there. I'm not on the show. I'm just there. And it's just filled
with '90s rock legends. I was just like, "Well I have to explain
to people why I'm here." I didn't. I didn't at all. And Henry Rollins was there, and I marched up
to Henry Rollins, and I was like, "Hi,
Henry, I'm Kurt. I'm a comedian." He was like, "You're
very intense," and I was just like, , and ran into Tony Hawk, and Tony, and I was just
like, "Bah, comedian," and like ran away. And then Mike Watt
was in this room, and Mike Watt was in
this band the Minutemen, and I love the Minutemen,
and I was just so nervous. Yeah. I was just so nervous to be
in the same room with him that I was like, "I can't, I
can't, I gotta get outta here," and I went down
to watch the show. But when you're backstage at
a rock show, it's open bar, and I am very good slash
very bad at open bars, depending on your
opinion of things. So, I'll tell you
a story to explain. When I was eight years old, we were out of the house
for about nine hours, and my cat knocked a five-pound bag of powdered sugar
onto the ground, and then my 10-pound
poodle Dougie Bowser, K9, proceeded to eat all five
pounds of powdered sugar. And I can only imagine his day where manna falls
from the heavens. He gets into it. It goes down easy. It's powdered sugar. But after a pound and a half, I'm sure he was like, "Hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo, hoo. I'm not feeling too good." But something in his
little doggy mind was like, "But when is this
gonna happen again? Let's get back in there. Let's finish all five
pounds of powdered sugar." He did. He was sick for three days. He shit and puked all the time. That is exactly how
I am at an open bar. So, I'm putting a few back. I'm watching the show, and
for 10 minutes, it's perfect. I'm watching Dinosaur Jr. and I'm fully present
and everything that's going on with my
life falls away. I'm not thinking about the
fact that my mom is sick. I'm just here. And then a phone goes up in
front of my face, and I'm, look, I'm an old man. I hate phones at shows. I don't mind a quick pic,
but this guy was like, "I'm just going to shoot
15 minutes of this," and it was just
right in front of me, and this is at a
Dinosaur Jr. show where everyone is over 40
with their arms crossed. Like, this is the way Fugazi
taught us to watch rock music. And so it's very
apparent that this guy is just the only
one with a phone, and I'm like, "I should
say something to this guy," and then I'm like, "My mom would
say something to this guy," and I'm like, "Oh, great. Now I have to go
down that hole." Then I'm about to say something
to him, and he puts it down, and I'm like, "Whew,
crisis averted. Thank goodness," and I go back to
enjoying the show, and then Mike Watt comes out
on stage with Dinosaur Jr., and I'm like, "I
don't know if this has ever happened before. This is historical moment." And then that fuckin'
phone goes up again. And I was like,
"Not on my watch." And I reached out and
I shoved the hand down, and then everything
went into slow motion. And I was like, "Oh, that hand
feels tinier than it should." And then a woman turned. It was a brand-new person
who had never done it before. That other guy had left, and she looked at me
with rage in her eyes and she pointed at the
stage where Mike Watt was, and she said, "That's
my husband up there." And I just went like
the camera of my life just immediately reversed on me. I was no longer some
phone justice warrior protecting my mom's honor. I was a big drunk bully, shoving
a proud wife's hand down, and I was just like, "No!" I just deflated
completely inside myself until I was just the
tip of my own penis, and that fell to the ground, and then rolled out the door
like a little green pea, which I do believe is a book by the fuck pirate
Shel Silverstein. And I just left, and I
went into the bathroom, and I locked myself in a stall, and I started to have
a full-on panic attack. I felt so bad about this. I start hyperventilating, and I was like, "I
have to fix this. I have to fix this." And now looking back on it,
I know what was happening. My mom was dying and I
had all of these emotions that I had never dealt
with before coming up, but now I was placing
them on this poor woman whose hand I shoved
down momentarily, and I couldn't do
anything about the fact that my mom was dying, but I could fix this in my mind. And so I was like, "I
know what I'm going to do. I'm going to make this right. I'm going to make this right." So, I run in and I place
myself in this dark hallway that I know she
has to walk through in order to get
to the green room. Guys, hot tip. Don't wait for women you
don't know in a dark hallway. Not a good look. She comes in, and I
immediately start apologizing. I'm like, "I'm so
sorry, I'm so sorry. You don't understand. There was a guy before you," and she is so cool about it. She is like, "Hey, no, I get it. I hate phones at shows, too," and because she's
being cool about it, I just start bawl crying. And I was like, but I'm
still apologizing, like, "Now I'm apologizing to you," and she's like,
"What is going on?" And then her husband
comes off stage, and her husband
is not Mike Watt. He's just some
fuckin' saxophonist, and you guys know how I feel
about the fucking saxophone. The saxophone is the limp
dick of the woodwinds. It even looks like you
cut a limp dick off and dipped it in brass. That's what it looks like. That's what it sounds like, if you tried to blow
through a limp dick that's been cut
off a body like . And saxophones don't
belong in rock and roll unless it's Bruce Springsteen
or Rocket from the Crypt, and fuck saxophones. So, now I'm still
crying and apologizing, but also saxophone? And I pause for a moment
and I see in their eyes that they are terrified of me, and I realize that all at
once, and then out loud, I just go, "Abort," and I
turn around and I run away. I run out of the venue, and I run into Chinatown
and New York City. I run into a park,
and I sit on a bench, and I just start crying. I've never in my entire life
cried this hard for this long. And I don't know if this
has ever happened to you, but it's one of those cries where you're you
crying for so long that you use up
all of the emotion, but then you're still locked into the physical act of crying, and your mind starts to wander, where you're just like . "I wonder if it'll be
nice out tomorrow," and then I got an
idea for a joke, and I was like,
"That's a good bit." I took a note of it in my phone, and I poured myself into
a cab, and I went home. I woke up the next morning,
and I was with my mom, and my mom was like, "Hey,
how'd it go last night?" And I didn't want
to tell her, like, "Oh, well I shoved a
proud wife's hand down and embarrassed myself in
front of all of my rock idols." Instead, I was like,
"What do I say? Well, I wrote a
joke last night," and she was like,
"Tell it to me," and then I was like, "Okay," and then I was like,
"Oh, unconscious, please let this be good," 'cause I didn't
really remember it. Took out my phone, and this was the joke I
read to my dying mother. "When you're crying, your glasses are tiny aquariums that are terrible at their job." And you have never seen a woman fake-laugh harder than my mom
fake-laughed at that joke. And I realized what I wanted
to happen in that moment. What I wanted to happen
is I wanted comedy, this thing that I've
dedicated my entire life to. I wanted to gather
up all that sadness and transform it into
this nugget of pure joy. And instead, I got this
nugget of mild chuckles, which is so much
worse, you know? There's no way my mom
liked that joke actually. You can't. It's a bad joke. It's overly cutey, kind
of doesn't make sense. It's all of my flaws as a
standup, really, you know? I essentially wrote the
saxophone of a joke, but she laughed. You know, she laughed, because
it's not about the joke. It's about who's
telling it to you, and now that I have
two kids, I get that. We found out that
my wife was pregnant the day after my mom's funeral, and so I've been
trying to be a parent without the parent
that raised me. I always try asking my dad, but he's kind of hazy on which of his 18 grandchildren
I'm talking about, but I'm trying, you know? And recently my
daughter came to me, and she said, "Hey, Papa, do
you want to hear my joke?" And I said, "Yeah, I want
to hear your joke, baby." And she said, "Why is
six afraid of seven?" And I said, "Why?" She said, "'Cause seven, eight,
nine are going to eat 'em." And at first, I was going
to correct her, you know? That's not how the joke goes. Also, it's kind of weird to
be stealing material so early. but I realized it's a
better joke that way, that her joke is
perfectly stupid. And as a comedian, that's what
I try and do all the time. I try and make things
perfectly stupid. And my daughter just knocked it out of the park
on her first try, and so I laughed. I laughed so hard because I
loved my daughter's dumb joke the same way my mom
loved my dumb joke, 'cause it's not about the joke. It's about who's
telling it to you. And I want my daughter to live
in a world full of silliness and absurdity for as
long as she possibly can, and that is one thing
that comedy can do. It can make things
perfectly stupid. Aw, so sad. Thank you very much,
ladies and gentlemen. Good night. ♪ When I was kid ♪ My whole reality split ♪ I living a lie ♪ I was a killing machine ♪ I was a warlord when
I closed my eyes ♪ ♪ I had to talk to the teacher ♪ She talked to my mom ♪ We had a real loud talk ♪ I had to talk to the teacher ♪ She talked to my mom ♪ They made the visions stop ♪ When I was a kid ♪ I was a total dick
to inanimate objects ♪ ♪ The world beat
the hell from me ♪ ♪ I took it out on a tree ♪ Great Illustrated Classics ♪ I took it out on a fig tree ♪ Out on the lawn ♪ I took it out
on the backyard ♪ ♪ Backyard ♪ And behind Rite Aid ♪ I took it out on the crates ♪ And on the shopping carts Some buddies of mine who just happened to
be data scientists, their name are Mark
Kanner and Manuel Mai, they decided that they
would write me an algorithm that would write jokes for me. Essentially, we
give it a prompt, and then in a millisecond,
it generates 500 jokes, and of those 500 jokes,
one, it barely makes sense, but it still kind of works. And it's pretty exciting. And so ladies and gentlemen, would you like to meet the first artificially
intelligent comedian? Joke-A-Tron. ♪ Here he comes ♪ Mr. Joke-A-Tron So, the way we train Joke-A-Tron was that we fed him hundreds
of hours of standup, including my standup, and the way the algorithm works is you give him a prompt, and it will generate the jokes. So, the first one we gave it, simple, classic,
observational comedy. Said, "Have you ever
noticed, dot, dot, dot?" And so Joke-A-Tron, give me
a, "Have you ever noticed?" Have you ever noticed Jesus
Christ comes up to here? I don't know. That seems like a
new area for comedy. I've never heard Jesus
was a shorty before jokes. Again, this was written
by an algorithm, okay? And then the next one, we
just gave it the word farts, 'cause we're like,
always funny, right? Farts, country strong. That could be a tagline
for an entire hour. The farts one were so good, let's give us another
farts one, Joke-A-Tron. Farts don't feel its own crimes. That's true. That's true. Oh, hell, let's get
another farts one. Farts, a bathroom
applause on a little milk. He's a poet. He's a poet. Good job. You weird duct tape thing. Do you have any dad material,
Joke-A-Tron, you know? 'Cause we gotta fit
it in this special. Joke-A-Tron, give me
some dad material. Having kids is
like, "Jim, madam, sit down, shut up." That's actually very true. This is actually the truest
thing I've ever seen. Give me another
one, Joke-A-Tron. "Having kids is like David
Beckham watching Darth Vader. According to the
Democratic Amendment, I've done Sandy Hook massacre." What's going on, Joke-A-Tron? You throwing me
under the bus here. He's getting political. All right, give me one
more dad joke, Joke-A-Tron. "Having kids is like
watching the BBC at Sean Penn's nuts." A classic. Ladies and gentlemen, give
it up for Joke-A-Tron, the first AI comedian. Get outta here, Joke-A-Tron. That's the way it leaves
a room, just backwards. So disturbing. It's creepy. Really creeps me out. - [Speaker] Thank you very much.
