- Ladies and gentlemen,
Kumail Nanjiani!
- ♪ Michael Jackson ♪
♪ A million dollars ♪
♪ You feel me ♪
♪ Holler ♪
♪ Michael Jackson ♪
♪ One million dollars ♪
♪ You feel me ♪
- Thank you.
[cheers and applause]
How's it going, Austin?
[cheers and applause]
I used to live
in New York in Brooklyn.
[scattered cheering]
Oh, really?
That was not my reaction.
I was fucking terrified.
Scariest place
I've ever been in,
and I grew up
in fucking Pakistan.
[scattered cheers]
Really, "whoos" for Pakistan?
All right.
That's new.
Pakistan's in the house.
Usually we try and keep
a low prof.
Prof.
I'm a huge asshole.
But what the thing
about Brooklyn was--
'cause it wasn't
just violent scary.
It was, like, weird sc--
Like, unpredictable scary.
Like, the week I moved there,
I swear,
I left my house,
there was a guy on my street
in front of--
just a guy on my street
catching pigeons
with his bare hands
and stuffing them
into his pockets.
Like some sort
of horrible reverse magician.
And I was the only one
staring at him.
Rest of Brooklyn
is just walking by,
like, "Mm, there's
old Pigeon Pockets,
doing what he do."
"That's his jam."
You guys know that thing
where they try and sneak in,
like, creepy stuff,
dark stuff into kids' movies?
You know
what I'm talking about?
Like, they try and, like,
sneak in grown-up stuff.
Like in Lion King,
they say in the sandstorm,
you can read the word "sex."
- Yeah.
- Yeah?
Or, like, in Wizard of Oz,
they say in the corner,
you can see somebody hanging.
- Yeah.
- I wish sometimes it would
happen the other way around.
You know, like,
it would be like,
"Did you guys see
that movie Hostel?
"You know that scene where they
cut the guy's Achilles tendon,
"and he's bleeding everywhere,
and he can't walk?
"In the corner,
you can see
a kid tasting cotton candy
for the first time."
"It is so beautiful,
you guys.
Watch it every day."
You guys are nice.
I'll tell you a personal story.
I'll tell you
about the first time
I remember crying, okay?
[scattered laughter]
Why are you laughing
already?
You just pictured
a little Pakistani boy crying,
and that was
humorous to you.
We're not at the--
All right.
I was--the first time
I remember crying,
I was five years old.
It's not
the first time I cried.
That would have been fucking
terrifying for my parents,
if I hadn't cried
till I was five.
People would ask my parents,
they go, "How's Kumail?"
"Oh, he's great.
He's four.
"He hasn't cried yet.
"Pretty sure
he can't feel sadness.
"That's
some serial killer shit, right?
"He just sits there like,
'Where is the cat?
Bring me the cat.'"
First memory of crying,
I was watching
 Ugly Duckling.
Oh, yeah,
all these pretty ducklings
are so mean
to this one ugly duck,
and I felt like an ugly duckling
as a kid, you know?
I remember just,
like, bawling,
like, just crying
tears down my face,
just, like, hiccupping
from crying.
Went to my mom for comfort.
And to make me feel better,
my mom
didn't say, you know,
"Beauty on the outside
does not matter, Kumail.
It's beauty on the inside
that makes a person."
She didn't say that.
To make me feel better,
my mom was like,
"Ducks can't talk."
"Also, these ducks
don't even exist.
"Look at that.
"Someone clearly
just drew that, Kumail.
Stop crying.
They're not real."
Awful way to handle that.
But my parents,
they let me watch, like,
the weirdest stuff.
Like, when I was eight,
I swear I was eight,
I went to the video store
with my dad,
and he let me rent
 The Elephant Man.
I thought it was
a superhero movie.
You know, like Batman,
 Iron Man, Elephant Man.
He has the strength
of 20 men.
No, he doesn't.
He has the sadness
of 20 men.
Do you guys know
that movie?
The guy
with the fucking face.
They're trying to get
the girl to kiss him
just to fuck with him,
and he's like,
"I'm not an animal."
Devastating.
I was eight.
That movie took something
from me.
Like, I'm sure I lost
the ability to smell rain
during that movie.
I turned to my mom,
and I was like,
"Thank God movies
are fake, huh?"
And she's like, "Actually,
no, this one is real."
"That is an actual disease
anybody could get
"at any time.
Good night."
I had other, like,
scary stuff happen to me.
Like, this happened--I was ten.
My brother was six.
You know how your parents make
you do shit you don't wanna do?
My dad's friend's kid
was having a birthday,
and we did not
want to go.
This kid was annoying.
He was a bully.
We didn't want to go,
and my dad's like,
"Bad news,
you have to go."
And we were like,
"F--"
That's as far as we got.
So we have to go.
So we get there
to this birthday,
and the birthday
is in Pakistan,
and, I mean,
we're all in Pakistan.
I don't know
why I said it like that.
That would have been horrible
if we weren't and he was like,
"Bad news number two,
the birthday's in Pakistan.
"Here's your ticket there.
Make your own way back.
See you again never.
Never see you again."
So we get
to this birthday,
and for some reason
on the stereo,
they were playing
a knock-off Pakistani version
of the birthday song.
And the song goes exactly
like this, I swear.
The song goes...
♪ Happy birthday ♪
♪ Thank you very much ♪
♪ Happy birthday ♪
♪ Thank you very much ♪
♪ Happy birthday ♪
Those are the only lyrics.
Over and over.
That's it.
And you think
it's a horrible duet, you know,
with two people.
One guy being like,
"Happy birthday."
"Oh, thank you very much."
But it's one voice.
So it's one crazy guy
alone in a room,
wishing himself
a happy birthday
into a mirror
and then thanking himself
as if he's surprised
every time.
"Happy birthday.
Thank you very much.
"I'm glad
someone remembered.
Let's go kill everybody."
Now back--
Okay.
Most birthdays
in Pakistan,
a monkey shows up.
All right.
The fact
that you just accepted that
is racist.
[cheers and applause]
But it also does happen.
But the fact
that it makes sense to you,
the fact that you guys
were like,
"Oh, yeah, in Pakistan, they
have monkeys at their birthdays.
That's how they do things."
Racist.
You guys are
accurate racists.
But this is true,
most birthdays in Pakistan,
the entertainment
is that a monkey shows up
with, like, his trainer guy.
Yeah, he doesn't just, like,
show up on his--
He doesn't just drive over.
We have laws.
Monkey shows up
with his trainer guy,
and they put on
a little show.
And it is a fucking great show,
you guys.
It is such a good show.
The monkey has, like,
a little monkey bike
that he monkey rides.
Just, like,
a little monkey--
his butt wiggles
'cause he's like,
"I have to keep the tail
out of the spokes."
It has learned
through experience.
Just like a little monkey
on a bike.
He has, like, a little hat
that he wears.
The monkey has a hat
that he wears,
and he walks around
like a proper gentleman.
Like, he walks around like,
like that.
Kicks his legs out,
just a hat--
Yeah, and if he sees a woman,
he's like,
"Oh, hello, lady."
He recognizes women!
Just like, "Oh, hello."
Which I'm sure
he was taught to do
through a lot of violence.
You can't just convince
a monkey to walk like that.
You have to hit it
if it walks any other way,
and then it knows,
"This is
how I must walk
so that the pain
doesn't come."
Great show.
Worth all the monkey torture.
And I've seen the show
many times,
you know,
many diff--
Yeah, it's not just
one awesome monkey.
This is
what we're good at, you know?
Many shows,
many different monkeys,
but for some reason,
the monkey's name
was always Alumaster,
which translates
to "master of potatoes."
Which is not, like,
a Pakistani saying.
We're not going around
calling each other that like,
"Dude, you are
such a master of potatoes.
"This guy's a player.
Hide the women.
I'm kidding.
Drinks on you."
We don't have drinks.
But we're
at this birthday,
and no monkey
shows up,
and we're all complaining,
"What kind of birthday
is this?
There's not even
a monkey?"
We've all thought that,
right?
[laughter]
"What kind of birthday is this?
Not even a monkey?"
"Happy birthday.
"Thank you very much.
Happy birthday.
Thank you very much."
Playing over and over,
burrowing into our skulls.
"Happy birthday.
Thank you very much.
Happy birthday."
And then suddenly
the music stops,
and this guy shows up.
And in one hand,
he's got a sack,
and he pulls out a cobra.
In the other hand,
he's got a cage,
and he pulls out
a mongoose,
which is like
a giant ferret.
And he says,
"These two are going to fight
for you."
And we're like,
"Fuck yes, they are!"
"Yes, they are!
This is the best birthday
of all time!"
We all get in a circle.
Who's gonna win,
the snake, the mongoose?
Who cares?
We win, high five.
We get in a circle.
By the way,
there is no fence
between us
and the combatants.
So whatever wins
is coming for us next.
We don't even consider that.
To us, it's like
 Street Fighter, you know?
He's gonna "Hadoken"
the one guy,
we got three rounds,
we eat cake.
What a day.
We get in a circle.
We're all cheering
at the top of our lungs.
One hand birthday cake,
one hand in the air,
cheering,
top of our lungs.
Imagine little Pakistani kids
losing their minds.
The fight starts.
Like, 40 seconds in,
it becomes very clear
that this cobra's
gonna lose.
The fight
lasts 15 minutes,
as parts of the snake
are ripped off
by the mongoose's teeth.
Yeah!
In the beginning,
we're all cheering.
The last ten minutes,
everybody just watches
completely silently
as the snake
is ripped to shreds.
There's a two-year-old kid
watching,
and he's not even crying.
I bet he didn't cry
for a year after that.
There's blood everywhere.
Nobody's making
eye contact.
I'm like, "Alumaster
would never allow this
to happen."
Even the grown-ups
are walking around like,
"We've made
a huge mistake."
After 15--
After 15 of the longest minutes
of my life,
just like the rubber band
from the hat
is, like, cutting
into our throats,
we're just, like, watch--
15 of the longest minutes
of my life.
The mongoose
rips the snake's
whole head off.
Yeah, which I'm like,
if you had that move,
that should have been
move number one.
Why are you taking
so long?
Our souls are shrinking.
Rips the snake's
whole head off,
and that's when the snake
stops fighting back.
And it lays there
completely still,
headless,
covered in blood.
And I remember
for the first time in my life,
I remember thinking,
this guy
just had his birthday.
He's getting older.
The snake just died.
Someday I'm gonna die.
Worst fucking birthday.
♪ Happy birthday ♪
♪ Thank you very much ♪
[laughter]
[cheers and applause]
I live in California,
and I moved
to a new house,
and the woman--
the woman who used to live
in the house I moved into
had two indoor cats,
like, two pet cats
that just stayed inside.
And when she moved,
she just left
the cats outside
and just moved away.
[audience groans]
Yeah, and one of the cats
went feral right away,
like, a little too quickly,
you know?
Like it could not wait.
It was like,
"This is where I belong!"
And just fucking ran off.
Like a kid
on a school trip
who just takes
all his clothes off,
runs into the forest,
"Fuck everything!
Tomorrow's not coming!"
Gone.
We see her far away
on rooftops
silhouetted
against the night sky,
murder in her mouth.
Lost cause.
The other cat is this really
sweet and friendly male cat,
and he's just trying
to get back into the house.
[audience aws]
Yeah, and he's
really confused.
He looks at us like, "No, no,
no, you don't understand.
"I live here.
Who are you fucking people?"
But after a couple weeks,
he starts trying, like,
different tactics, you know?
Like, sometimes he'll hide
behind a car,
and we open the door,
he'll, like, try to, like,
run right by us.
Some days he'll act, like,
real nonchalant like,
"Thanks for getting
the door for me."
One time he showed up in,
like, a pizza guy outfit.
We're like, "Why would
we let the pizza guy
into the house?"
Tiny brains.
He was like, "Meowmino's."
He said, "Meowmino's."
No pants.
Just a shirt.
Tiny pizza.
To us, just a cheese cookie,
you know?
"30 meownutes or less,"
that's what he said.
So we had him put down.
[audience groans]
I like the people
that groaned.
What point did you believe
that story till?
Meowmino's made sense,
Austin?
I'll tell you another, uh,
more about myself.
I was raised Muslim.
[quiet cheer]
Oh, really?
That has never
happened before.
I was raised Muslim.
"Whoo!
"All right,
we're not all doing that?
"Just me?
"Whoo-oh!
"My shoe hurt.
Whoo."
Who did "whoo"?
Who was it?
Oh.
Are you from Pakistan?
We would have fucking
noticed you.
Oh, your friend is.
Hi.
You're from Pakistan?
- Yeah, I'm from Karachi.
- What's your name?
- Hoor.
- Hoor?
Story checks out.
That is a deep OG name.
That's not, "Apu!
I'm an asshole."
No.
Hoor, it means "angel."
And I'm sure
with that name here,
you get called
something else.
I was raised, like,
very religious Muslim.
We were told,
this is true,
we were--
when we were little kids,
we were told that staring
at a woman with a lustful gaze
was the same sin
as stabbing
the prophet's nephew
in the back
while he's praying.
Look at a girl,
stab the prophet's nephew
in the back
while he's praying.
Equal.
So I was terrified
of women, you know?
And then I saw,
I was around ten I remember.
Do you guys remember
that Cindy Crawford
Diet Pepsi commercial
where she's wearing
the tight, white tank top
and those hip-hugging jeans,
and she's in the convertible,
her hair in the breeze?
Then she gets out, and she walks
over to the vending machine,
and she puts in the quarter.
She picks her drink.
Then she pops her--
the tab.
And she puts the cylinder
to her lips.
I remember thinking,
I am stabbing the fuck
out of the prophet's nephew
right now.
At that age though,
I didn't know what sex was.
Like, I would not even
know what I would do if I was
in a room alone with Cindy.
Just, like, squeeze her mole,
you know, like--
That sounds
awesome today actually.
But then all that,
uh, innocence disappears
when my cousin
gives me
a videotape.
Yeah, and I'm like,
"Oh, that's what
I would do to her."
It's a porn.
I don't know if you guys--
And it was too early
for me to see porn.
Like, my body
wasn't ready.
I put it in.
I watched it for 30 seconds.
I pulled it out.
I had a fever
for three days.
I promised God
I would never watch it again.
And then
a couple weeks later,
I got curious.
I was like, well, I didn't
really give it a chance,
did I?
What is the motivation
of these characters?
And then I put it back in,
and then you couldn't
fucking stop me.
Which is
where I still am today.
All right, here's
a weird side note to that story.
We've known each other,
it gets weird
for a little bit,
so we're okay with that?
Getting weird for a second?
[cheers and applause]
All right.
So it's a regular porn,
you know,
beginning to end,
men, women.
You know what a porn is.
But the preview before--
There's a two-minute preview
for a different porn before it.
And I don't know
how else to say it,
but it's for a preview
for a porn
where the people
defecate on each other.
- Yeah!
[laughter]
- Uh, security,
can we, uh--
There is a monster
in the room.
Other than you,
everybody was very awkward,
and then you yelled,
and then everybody
was even more awkward.
I--'Cause, like,
I was ten, you know?
It was too early
for me to see porn.
But it was definitely
way too early for me
to realize that
people like her existed,
you know?
[applause]
My favorite part though
is that it's a regular porn,
but that's the preview.
Like, they're like,
"Do you like sex?
"Well, then you might
like shitting on people.
"Do you like
driving a car?
"Well, then maybe you want
to drown in a submarine
that's on fire."
But I saw it so early
that now I think
about it a lot.
Not in, like,
a sexual way.
But I think some synapse
in my brain formed,
and now it's just
a reference that comes up
in my life a lot.
Like, I'll see somebody
run a red light,
and I'll be like,
"He ran a red light,
but what do I know, sometimes
people shit on each other."
With red towels
in the background.
They had red towels.
'Cause they're
in the bathroom.
Even though they're not using
any of the facilities,
they're still
in the bath--
Like, we're still
a fucking civilization.
We're not horrific beasts.
But back
to the regular porn.
I'm sorry, I know
it's very disappointing.
Ah, regular porn,
I would watch it
whenever my parents
were out of the house.
You know,
it was go time.
Followed each time
by the inevitable,
guilt-ridden shower.
But you can't
shampoo away sin,
which is
what I thought it was.
But this happens
for three months.
Whenever my parents
were out of the house,
I would watch it,
feel awful.
And, okay, so this was
a VHS tape.
This was in Pakistan,
which is
a third-world country,
and sometimes
in Pakistan,
the electricity goes.
And when
the electricity goes,
you don't know
if it's gone for five minutes
or if it's gone
for five days.
One day I'm at home.
My mom's
out for an errand.
I'm almost done
but not quite.
The electricity goes.
And I am fucked
'cause I can't get
the tape out of the VCR.
And I'm like, well,
I'm gonna have to run away.
I'm gonna pack my bags
and walk the earth,
which sucks,
'cause I love my parents,
and I'm 12 years old.
What am I gonna do
for money,
just, like,
go town to town,
"Any work needs doing?
I can beat Mario
and draw a Ninja Turtle."
That's my whole skill set.
I remember
specifically thinking
I should bring
my dad's suit with me.
That way,
I can grow into it
and then go
on job interviews.
So my whole plan
is to ride out
the next ten years
of my life
on the streets of Karachi,
which CNN once dubbed
"the city of terror."
That is true.
BBC was much kinder.
They called us
"city of nightmares."
Which at least implies
that we have dreams, you know?
[cheers and applause]
And I'm like, all right,
that's ridiculous.
I can't do that.
So I get this idea,
brilliant idea.
I'm gonna get
my dad's tool kit.
I'm gonna open up the VCR
and just get the tape out,
right?
So I open it--
I lift the cover off,
and the tape is buried
under layers
and layer--I don't know
what I was expecting.
Like I'd just be able
to get the tape right out.
There would be, like,
a little, like,
snowman like,
"Here's the tape
you wanted."
Like, "Mm, thank you,
this has been wonderful.
Here's your hat."
The tape is--
There's no snowman.
The tape,
layers and layers of parts,
none bigger than that.
But I'm like,
"I have to get the tape."
So I just start unscrewing.
I start
unscrewing tiny parts,
just tossing them
over my shoulder.
'Cause I'm like,
I'll be able to put this
back together.
It's not like
engineers
made this thing,
which is, turns out,
exactly who was making this.
So I get all the parts out.
I get to the tape.
Just the panicked confidence
of a ten-year-old, you know?
I get to the tape,
I rip it out,
and I look behind me,
and the entire floor
is covered
in, like, tiny gadgets
and gizmos and, dude,
all the same color.
I have no idea
how they go back in,
but I'm like, "I have
to get everything back in."
So I start putting
stuff back in.
I'm doing the best
I can do.
I'm like--It's like--
It's hard.
It's like
a satanic jigsaw puzzle
in 3-D,
you know?
I'm sweating
into the VCR,
which is, like,
only the second worst thing
that's happened to it
that day.
Wait, are you guys thinking
I'm fucking the VCR?
That's not happening.
I feel like that was the vibe
I got from you.
I'm not an idiot.
I'm not just, like,
watching the screen and,
"This is
how I do it, right?
Just fuck the VCR
while I watch the screen?"
No.
Come on.
I'm not an idiot.
I finally got
all the parts back in.
I put the cover back on.
I screw it back on.
Success, I did it.
And then I look behind me,
and there are two little parts
just sitting there.
I have no idea
where they go.
So I go and I hide them
in my room.
'Cause in my head,
I think if my dad
sees them,
he's gonna know
exactly what happened.
He's gonna be like,
"Isn't that the transmogrifier
for the VCR?
"And that's
the flux capacitor.
You've been watching porn."
And the electricity
comes back,
I swear,
before my mom gets home.
And the VCR works,
but it's never
quite the same.
It's got this look in its eyes
like it's been through a war,
you know, like, "You haven't
seen the things I've seen."
The fast-forward
doesn't always work.
It makes this weird
clicking sound all the time.
You have to turn the TV up,
so you don't hear the clicking.
A couple weeks later,
my mom's like,
"I'm gonna go
to get it fixed."
And I'm like,
"No, no, no, no, no, no.
"I'll take it
to get it fixed.
Mom, don't, just stay home.
I'll take it to get it fixed."
So I go,
and I go
to the video store,
and I give it
to the guy.
I put it on the counter,
and he plugs it in,
and it starts making
that clicking sound.
And it's a sound
he's heard before.
And he looks at me,
and he leans in, and he says,
"Next time you get a tape stuck
in there, bring it to me.
I won't tell your parents."
[laughter and applause]
[chuckles]
I thought
of all the clicking sounds
in all the houses
where Pakistani boys
had ripped tapes
out of VCRs.
He knew exactly
what had happened.
There was no lying
to this man.
The other weird postscript
to that story is
when I got to be,
like, 14, I got so--
You know how you could,
like, hook up two VCRs
and copy stuff over?
I started copying
my favorite porn scenes
onto the middle
of other kids' movies
I owned.
Yeah, I was making
boner jams at 14.
Like an utter scumbag.
Ugh.
And then I would lend
these videos to my friends.
I was their porn supplier.
Yeah, like a scumbag.
'Cause it was awesome
for them.
It was the middle
of other movies.
They didn't even have to, like,
sneak them into the house.
They were just like,
"It's just Jurassic Park, Mom."
And then they just go
and, you know,
act two was awesome.
Ugh.
But here's the weird--
Okay, here's...
the best thing I did.
This is the culmination
of that story.
Okay, so you guys
remember the movie Mask?
[scattered cheers]
I don't mean Jim Carrey
with the green face.
[scattered groans]
I mean, like, Cher
with the kid
with the big face,
you know?
I gave my friend
the movie Mask
with porn in the middle.
Let me rephrase that.
I gave him the movie Mask
and told him
there was porn in the middle.
But there was no porn!
It was a prank!
So he became
the first guy in history
to watch the entirety of Mask
with an erection.
No porn.
Just a disfigured kid
touching lives
and slowly dying,
at probably the same rate
that his boner was deflating.
He called me afterwards,
and he was like,
"I'm not even angry.
That was great."
Another weird postscript
to that story
is that I left Pakistan,
and then after I left,
my mom sold all of my VHSes.
So there's some little kid
watching Dick Tracy like,
"This movie makes me want
to pee really bad."
It's just biology, Austin.
You guys
into video games at all?
[cheers and applause]
Yeah, oh, my God.
I play Call of--
You know, my issue
with Call of Duty,
those games, is that they're
based on, like, real wars.
Like, World War II and shit,
which feels weird to me,
'cause, like,
real people died,
and now I have
to kill them all over again.
So I have a moral problem.
I'm like,
"Boycott those games!"
But the new one came out,
and it looked so good.
I was like, "All right,
I wanna try it."
Then I found out
that one of the levels
in the new Call of Duty
is called "Karachi."
Yep, the city
I grew up in.
They're basically like,
"Your hometown
"is now a battlefield.
How many points
can you get, Kumail?"
But even with that,
I was able to convince myself,
you know, like,
I was like,
"I would have an advantage
over everybody."
I would know
all the places.
I would be like, "Hey, we could
hide in there, guys.
"I used to rent movies
at this place.
"Mr. Siddiqui
will give us shelter.
He once fixed my VCR
for free."
[cheers and applause]
"He didn't judge."
So I was gonna
go get it again.
Then I found out--
Okay, so the language they
speak in Pakistan is Urdu.
That's the name
of the language you speak, Urdu.
But all the street signs
in Karachi in Call of Duty
are in Arabic.
Yeah, it's
a completely different language.
And I know it does not
seem like a big deal,
but this game
took three years to make.
If you look at it,
the graphics are perfect.
You can see individual hair
on people's heads.
When they run,
they sweat.
When they run,
their shoelaces bounce.
All they had to do was Google
"Pakistan, language."
They were literally like,
"What language do they
speak in Pakistan?"
"I don't care.
I can't get
his sideburns even."
But it was on sale,
and I bought it.
It's so good!
Totally worth
selling out my people for.
I'll tell you
a pet peeve of mine.
So I just bought
a new color printer, right?
New color printer.
And it has--
You don't--
People are "whoo"ing
for that.
You guys are too nice.
But I buy
this color printer.
So it has, you know, it has
the one black ink cartridge,
and then it has the three
colored ink cartridges, right?
And it ran out of just one
of the three colors,
and it stopped
printing
even the black.
Even though I have
enough black ink,
it wouldn't print
just black.
That's fucking bullshit,
right?
- Yes!
[cheers and applause]
- Ugh.
I was so angry.
I dealt with it the most
direct way I could think of.
I tweeted about it,
which is just one step above
if I'd just gone
to my balcony and been like,
"My printer won't print!"
All right, should be working
pretty soon now.
The problem is handled.
But I was so angry,
I was yelling at--
I'm yelling
at the printer,
which is not
a living thing.
I'm literally like,
"You have enough black ink!"
It was just out of cyan.
Which begs the question:
How the fuck did I even
run out of cyan?
I'm not going to, like,
cyanlovers.com
and just printing
the background.
Plus, how the fuck
does cyan
get to be one
of the three printer colors?
Who had ever heard
of cyan before?
Now it's one
of the three printer--
That's a pretty big get for
the cyan PR people, you know?
Cyan's agents must
have called him like,
"Are you sitting down, Cyan?
"We have amazing news.
"You're going to be one
of the three printer colors.
You're gonna be working
with magenta and yellow."
"Yellow!
"Yellow's
been around forever!
"Yellow's a fucking legend!
"I loved yellow's work
on bananas
"and egg yolks
and cowardice."
This is the last story
I'll tell
I don't know why
I like horror movies and stuff
'cause in real life,
I'm a coward, like, I'm not good
in real life
scary situations.
I'll give you an example.
A few years ago,
I lived in Chicago.
And, uh--
- Whoo!
- Yeah, it is pretty fancy.
I like the guy that "whoo"ed
was like, "Whoo."
Like, you had that, like,
"What am I doing?"
Sir, you did it.
There's no strings
going up to the ceiling.
You were like, "Whoo!
Come on!
"What the fuck?
Making me look
like an asshole."
I look up,
there's Julie Andrews.
That is a Sound of Music
reference.
[cheers and applause]
I lived in Chicago,
and I had three roommates,
me, a guy,
two girls.
This is about scary shit.
And we had rented
the whole house.
So we have the whole--
We have the basement,
the regular floor,
the ground floor,
and then the attic.
And the attic is empty.
It's unfinished.
Nobody's up there.
Nobody ever goes up there.
It's empty, you know?
One of my roommates, Katie,
does not have a job.
Whenever we come home from work,
Katie's like,
"Uh, whenever you guys
leave the house,
I can hear someone walking
around our attic."
Yeah.
And we go,
"Shut the fuck up.
"Get a job.
Lies don't pay the rent."
For weeks, she says this.
We dismiss her.
One day I'm at home,
and Katie comes into my room,
and she's like,
"Hey, come here right now.
Come into my room."
I go into Katie's room,
and I hear
someone walking
around my attic.
Like, deliberate, human,
scary, hobo footsteps.
And I immediately
start freaking out.
Like, immediately
at a hundred, you know?
Just freaking out.
And we start doing that yelling,
whispering thing, you know?
Like, "What are we gonna do?
What are we gonna do?"
And then I'm like,
"If there is somebody up there,
"he's gonna know we're in
the house, but we're whispering.
"He's gonna know
we're onto him.
He's gonna come down
and kill us all."
So we decide to have, like,
parallel conversations,
like, a fake
decoy conversation
just to throw him off,
you know?
Like we're like,
"What are we gonna do?"
"We should bake a cake!"
"I am freaking out
right now."
"I like chocolate!"
So if there is somebody there,
all he hears
is silence broken
by, "Chocolate cake!"
Just, like, panicked cries
of, "Chocolate cake!"
What could be
more suspicious?
He's gonna murder
all of us.
So I'm freaking out.
I don't know what to do.
I'm a beta male.
We're all betas.
This is a house of betas,
you know?
So we have one friend.
He's an alpha male.
His name's Joey.
He lives in Alaska.
He hunts bear, and then
he makes jerky out of it.
Alpha as fuck.
So we call Joey,
and Joey goes,
"Go up there and check."
Yeah, which hadn't even
occurred to us.
Our entire strategy
was to talk about fake cake
until the lease
ran out...
and then just move,
you know?
Never speak of this again.
Somebody has to go up there
and check,
and we nominate me 'cause
fuck everything at this point.
So I have to go up and check,
and I am so scared.
And the only way
up the attic--
So the roof is, like,
12 feet high.
The only way
up to the attic,
there's a little, like, door.
We need a stepladder
to get up there.
House of betas,
we don't have a stepladder.
So I go into my room,
and I push a chest of drawers
from my room under there,
like I'm gonna climb over it
and get up there.
And then my roommates
give me a flashlight.
And I'm like,
"What am I going
"to do with this
if there is somebody there?"
So then they also
hand me a butcher knife.
'Cause if somebody's there,
I'm just going to murder them.
It's gonna be like,
"Chocolate cake!"
Stab, stab, stab, slit.
"Guys, there was somebody there,
but I've killed him.
"I'm gonna go take a shower
"and pack my bags.
Give me 30 minutes
before you call the police."
And then I spend
the rest of my life
riding the rails
and using pay phones.
Whenever I try and sleep,
I see the light
leave a hobo's face, you know?
You don't forget that.
Somebody goes living to dead
by your hand.
And then I'm like, if there
is somebody up there,
he's up there,
he's just hanging out,
regular floor for him,
and then a thing opens,
and just my head
pops up.
Very vulnerable position
for me.
He's just going
to Whac-A-Mole me on the head
with a baseball bat,
and I'm gonna die.
This is how I die.
So my roommates are like,
"We have to find you a helmet."
House of betas,
we don't have a helmet.
So I go into the kitchen,
and I get a cooking pot,
and I put that
on my head.
None of this is lies.
I put a fucking cooking pot
on my head,
but it comes down to here,
so I can't see anything.
So then I got
a colander instead,
and I put that
on my head.
Which, if somebody
baseball bats me on the head
with a colander,
I'm still going to die.
My roommates just have
to buy a new colander
or feel really horrible anytime
they make pasta, you know?
"Isn't this the colander
that Kumail died in?"
That's a very strange sentence
to say out loud.
"Isn't this the colander
that Kumail died in?"
I swear,
right before I get up there,
Katie's friends
from out of town show up,
and I'm there,
climbing
over a chest of drawers,
flashlight in one hand,
butcher knife in the other,
colander on my head.
I look like somebody
whose parents couldn't afford
a Halloween costume.
You're a spaghetti head.
He also has a butcher knife.
So I get up there,
and I am so scared, you guys.
It's like,
I can't see anything.
It's super dark.
You know,
the flashlight is weak.
I'm looking at the world
through holes big enough
to let water through
but not spaghetti.
Like...
Very small.
I get up there, shaking.
I don't see anything.
I don't see anyone.
But there's one area
around the corner,
like, behind a corner
like that
that I can't see
from where I'm standing.
And I'm like, "Fuck."
So I work up my courage.
I grip the knife tighter.
I put the colander
deeper into my head.
I walk over,
and I see...
nothing.
Never found anything.
But right after that,
the noises stopped.
What the fuck?
And I know
it's super disappointing
that there
was nothing there.
But if there was
somebody there,
that would have been
the first thing
I would've mentioned
when I came out.
I would have been like,
"Fuck Ugly Duckling.
Three years ago,
I murdered a hobo."
Thank you so much, guys.
That's my time.
You guys have been so wonderful.
Thank you.
Thank you
[cheers and applause]
- ♪ You feel me ♪
- Thank you.
- ♪ Michael Jackson ♪
♪ One million dollars ♪
♪ you feel me ♪
♪
