Kevin James Thornton: Be Yourself (2023) Movie Script
2
ANNOUNCER:
Ladies and gentlemen,
please welcome
Kevin James Thornton.
[ALL CHEERING]
You guys. Wow!
[MAN WHOOPING]
Um, let's... begin.
[ALL LAUGHING]
Let's start like that.
Make it weird.
I got a text from a guy
that I dated 25 years ago,
[ELECTRONICALLY MODIFIED VOICE]
when it was the '90s.
[ALL CHEERING]
[IN NORMAL VOICE]
I'm going to do that a whole bunch.
I'm going to wear it out.
Yeah, I got a text
from this guy.
I haven't really heard from him
in, like, 25 years.
And the text said,
"I miss you."
And then right after that,
another text that said,
"Show me that ass."
[ALL LAUGHING]
He's imagining 1996 ass...
and what I currently possess
is 2023 ass.
2023 ass looks like
two hairy scallops.
White, uncooked...
has salmonella.
But then I thought,
you know what?
I'm going to do it.
[ALL LAUGHING AND CHEERING]
I'm going to
send him a photograph.
A photograph is way too big
of a word for what I'd sent.
I didn't go to Olan Mills.
For the young people
in the room, um,
Olan Mills was like
a family portrait place
[ELECTRONICALLY MODIFIED VOICE]
in the '90s.
[ALL CHEERING]
[IN NORMAL VOICE]
Side thought. Hear me out.
Olan Mills
Genital Portraiture.
[MAN WHOOPING]
Do you remember
you could get your picture taken
and then up in the corner
would be, like,
a superimposed, dreamy...
Do you guys see where
I'm going with this?
[ALL LAUGHING]
So you can have your picture,
and then up in the corner,
whatever it is
you'd like to feature.
Olan Mills
Genital Portraiture.
We'll probably cut that part
from the show.
That probably
won't make it.
So I sent him
a picture of my ass
and he responded with
maybe the most hurtful thing
he could have.
His response was...
"That's not you."
[ALL LAUGHING]
He thought I chose
to send a photo
of some other
50-year-old ass.
I'm not quite 50.
I'm 49. I turn 50
in a couple of months.
[ALL CHEERING]
Okay.
I'm actually pretty cool
with getting older.
Listen, I'm in the
worst shape of my life
and I feel fine.
It's okay.
Everybody calm down.
When I was young, I was a
homosexual gazelle of beauty.
Was.
And I'm totally fine now with
the ever evolving landscape
of my physical form.
I'm fine with
slowly transforming
into your
Intro to Anthropology professor.
He wrote his dissertation
on circumcision in the Amazon.
He dates students.
[ALL LAUGHING]
Professors can't
do that anymore, but they could
[ELECTRONICALLY MODIFIED VOICE]
in the '90s.
[ALL CHEERING]
[IN NORMAL VOICE]
I feel pretty cool at this stage in my life.
I feel like
I really know myself.
It's not always great.
Now, once a year, my doctor
puts her finger
in my butt hole.
And every time she does it,
I'm mildly embarrassed about
how easily she just
slides it in there.
[ALL LAUGHING]
No resistance.
Not even a quiver.
And every time
she does it,
I'm like, either she's
really good at this,
or I'm really good at this.
[ALL LAUGHING AND CHEERING]
My doctor does one thing
that I do not like.
Every time during
a prostate exam,
with her finger
on my prostate, she says,
"Smooth."
I hate it.
Like I now understand that
a healthy prostate feels smooth,
But at first I thought she was,
like, congratulating herself.
"Smooth."
I grew up in
a super fundamentalist Christian church.
- [ALL CHEERING]
- Okay.
Some of you might relate with
the super fundamentalist Christian church.
Yes. Okay, good.
That's what I wanted
here tonight.
Religious trauma.
[ALL CHEERING]
All around me.
In my super fundamentalist
Christian Church youth group,
they used to
dress us up like clowns.
Stay with me.
We put on like
a sinful clown play
in the park.
And each clown
represented a different sin.
So we had
Premarital Sex clown.
Ah. There's some Premarital Sex
clowns here tonight.
[ALL CHEERING]
Yeah!
We had Abortion clown.
[ALL CHEERING]
Don't get mad at me.
I'm just telling you
what happens.
And we took the youth group
on a mission trip
to New York City.
We took our
sinful clown play
on the road.
They took us to
a neighborhood in New York,
called Spanish Harlem
[ELECTRONICALLY MODIFIED VOICE]
in the '90s.
[ALL CHEERING]
[IN NORMAL VOICE] So imagine
20 white suburban teenagers,
walking down the sidewalk
of Spanish Harlem,
dressed like Abortion clown.
[ALL LAUGHING]
They were all staring at us
and laughing in Spanish.
We did a lot of weird
productions like that.
Every year for Halloween,
we put on this haunted house
that simulated
you going to hell.
Stay with me.
Um, it started
with your funeral.
A lovely way to spend
a Friday evening.
And we had our haunted house
set up where you had to crawl
under your coffin
to get into hell.
I don't know how biblically
accurate this is.
That's how we did it.
And then it was just
room after room of youth group
kids screaming at you.
But it was similar in theme
to the sinful clown play.
We had a room
about premarital sex,
we had a room about abortion,
there was even
a room about lust you just can't win.
It featured a man masturbating
in the flames of hell.
It's the kind of
wholesome entertainment we're missing today.
But growing up
in that environment,
it did weird things
to my forming mind,
especially around sexuality
and my body.
The most popular guy
in my school was named Stan.
And Stan came to school
and said he popped
a girl's cherry.
I look over, there's like a
Victorian mother with a scarf...
[GASPING IN FEMININE VOICE]
[ALL LAUGHING]
It's shocking, I know.
He said he popped
a girl's cherry.
I'd never heard that before.
I didn't know
what that meant.
It's unfortunate timing.
Because right around then
I discovered
the dirty magazines
in the woods.
If you're young, you don't know
what I'm talking about.
[ELECTRONICALLY MODIFIED VOICE]Dirty magazines in the woods
Dirty magazines in the woods
Next door, neighbor Brad said
He stole 'em from his dad
Now there's
Dirty magazines in the woods
[ALL CHEERING AND CLAPPING]
[IN NORMAL VOICE]
The dirty magazines in the woods.
You kids don't know
how easy you have it today.
All I had were
the dirty magazines in the woods.
They were under a log.
They were damp
from the environments.
[ALL LAUGHING]
But it was
unfortunate timing,
because, um,
the very first picture I saw...
I now understand
what I was looking at,
but I didn't then.
It was a photograph
of a naked woman,
and she had actual cherries
and, like, cherry sauce,
spread around her area.
But I saw it and I thought,
"She popped her cherry.
Is that what it looks like?
Does she need
to go to the hospital?"
Stan and Tara
started to go together.
They showed up
at school one day
and said they
were going to do it.
That's the progression.
You go together
and then you do it.
And I went straight up
to Tara and I said,
"Tara, you're making
a terrible mistake."
And she said, "Why?"
And I said, "Tara,
you're going to get herpes."
And Tara said,
"Stan has herpes?"
And I said, "Oh, Tara,
you're so naive.
"Don't you know that
if you have premarital sex,
"herpes will just form?"
And Tara called it off
right then.
And that is the origin story
of my seventh grade
arch nemesis, Stan.
[ALL LAUGHING AND CLAPPING]
In those days, there was
a channel on the television
that was like
scrambled porn.
I'm going to have to explain
a lot to the young people.
So imagine a giant, like,
wooden cabinet television
with a dial on it
that you had to turn
and there was
one channel you could
sort of see that
it was dirty movies,
but they were weirdly, like...
The image was scrambled.
But it kind of seemed like
if you turned the dial back
a channel and then forward...
[SCATTERED CHEERING]
Yes.
All right.
It sort of seemed like
the image would unlock for, like, a split second.
So you'd be like,
"Was that...
"Was that a nipple? Wha--
"Scrambled nipple?"
Now you're playing
this weird
Las Vegas porn game
called Scrambled Nipple.
[MAN WHOOPING]
So one night, I waited
for everyone to go to bed.
I snuck out
into the living room,
and I tilted
the Ottoman forward
right in front
of the television, so I could lean against it.
One hand on the dial.
You know where
the other hand is?
[ALL LAUGHING]
Playing Scrambled Nipple.
And then my mom comes out
and she says,
"Kevin, go to bed."
And I panicked,
and I decided to pretend
that I was sleepwalking.
And I said, "Where am I?"
[ALL LAUGHING]
And it worked.
I just went to my room
and I wasn't in trouble.
So we entered this era
where I'd wait for everyone
to go to bed,
I'd sneak out
into the living room,
in front of the television,
my mom would come out
and say, "Kevin, go to bed."
And I'd say...
"Where am I?"
Looking back, I have to ask
the mothers in the room, like,
moms know, right? Like...
Teenagers think
they're being so tricky,
but moms have to know.
If you're in a house
with a teenage boy,
look around and anywhere
a penis could go...
it did.
[ALL LAUGHING]
Moms, did you know that?
Ben came to school
with a VHS tape,
handed it to me.
I said, "What's this?"
And he said,
"Go home and watch it."
And I did.
It was porn.
Unscrambled.
Apparently, Ben had two VCRs.
A VCR is a machine...
that plays VHS tapes.
If you had two of them,
you could make copies of the tapes.
We also had two VCRs,
and so I made a copy
of the copy.
And I brought it to school
and I went right up to Stan.
And Stan said, "What's this?"
And I said,
"Go home and watch it."
And for a brief moment,
I was back in Stan's favor.
And he invited me
to the popular guy sleepover.
It was very exclusive.
I was lucky to be there.
We get to the sleepover
and Stan tells us
the plans for the evening.
We're going to sneak out
of the house
and run through
the yards of popular girls
and bang on their windows.
I'm filled with anxiety.
I regret coming
to the popular guy sleepover.
On the way out of the garage,
Stan grabs a singular warm
Bud Light and cracks it open,
takes a swig
and starts to pass it around.
Josh looked at me and said,
"Kevin, are you going
to drink the beer?"
And I said, "No, Josh, I don't
give in to peer pressure."
[ALL LAUGHING]
But all the other guys
took a sip,
and now everyone's
super drunk.
Stan is trashed.
We get to Tara's house
and we bang on her window.
Tara comes to
the window and says,
"Oh, my God, Stan,
are you drunk?"
And then Tara looks at me
with this look in her eye like,
"Thank you, Kevin.
"For saving me
from a life with Stan.
"He's an alcoholic."
We get back to Stan's house,
and the lights are on.
Stan's dad is awake.
We walk in the front door,
his dad's standing there,
we're terrified,
moving in slow motion.
We all sit down.
And Stan's dad says,
"I am so disappointed
in all of you."
Leaves the room.
I took a moment
and then I said,
"Hey, guys,
can I ask you something?
Have you accepted
the Lord Jesus Christ...
[ALL LAUGHING AND CLAPPING]
as your personal savior?"
And that is the sequel
to the origin story
of my seventh grade
arch nemesis, Stan.
[ALL CHEERING]
[ELECTRONICALLY MODIFIED VOICE]
In my super fundamentalist church,
we had Wednesday night
Bible study.
[ALL CHEERING]
[IN NORMAL VOICE]
The Wednesday night Bible study.
I looked forward to it
every week.
It was like a little party
in someone's house.
I loved it.
And a lot's going to happen
at the Wednesday night Bible study.
First, there's going to be
a crock pot of nacho cheese.
And the best is when
it was at Megan's house,
because Megan's mom
put a can of Rotelle into the nacho cheese.
Yeah. And then she just
called the whole thing Rotelle.
And in my memory,
Megan's mom,
just in my mind,
is like this weird floating head
in the house.
In my memory.
Like you turned the corner
and she'd be like, "I made Rotelle."
In my mind.
I don't know why.
You'd open the toilet,
it would be like, "Rotelle."
Why?
All right, so we
have nacho cheese.
You're going to feel
really guilty about something.
Consider the possibility
of hell.
[SCATTERED LAUGHS]
Why the fuck
was that funny?
[ALL LAUGHING]
And then at the end,
there's going to be, like,
a prayer circle scenario.
And I always made sure
I sat next to Jason,
because I get
to hold Jason's hand.
[ALL CHEERING]
It's a lot to go through
on a Wednesday night.
Got nacho cheese,
existential crisis,
prayer circle with a boner.
[ALL LAUGHING]
Every week at school,
we'd decide who needed
to get saved next
and we'd invite them
to the Wednesday night Bible study,
but we would just
tell them it's a party.
So Stephanie would
show up unsuspectingly.
So I thought, have you ever
walked into a Trader Joe's
and felt like you're in a play
about being at Trader Joe's?
It's weird in there.
It feels like everyone
had a conversation about you before you walked in.
That's sort of what it was like
for Stephanie
at the Wednesday night
Bible study.
Also, little known fact,
every time they ring that bell
at Trader Joe's,
that's someone who gave
their heart to Trader Joe.
[MAN WHOOPING]
It is.
In my teenage years,
I felt there was something
about me that was different.
But I could not even
let the word "gay" pass through my head.
In that world,
it was not a possibility.
So I had a lot
of conflict about it,
a lot of big emotions.
We also sometimes felt
if you had big emotions
about something,
maybe it was God
giving you a message
for the group.
So one night at
Wednesday night Bible study,
I was really feeling it.
And I said, "Hey, guys,
"I think I have
a word from the Lord.
"Someone in
this room tonight...
"is struggling
with homosexuality."
[ALL LAUGHING]
They were terrified
and I loved it.
[ALL LAUGHING]
It felt very good
to say those words out loud.
I'm just curious
here tonight.
Is anyone struggling
with homosexuality?
- [ALL CHEERING]
- I thought so.
Let me just
get a better feel,
who are the straight people
here this evening?
- The straight people.
- [CHEERING]
Okay, right. Yes.
I just asked
who are the straight people
and the straight people
raised their hands.
[ALL LAUGHING]
[SOFTLY] Straight people.
"What's happening?
It's a safe space.
"I thought a safe space.
I'm straight."
[LAUGHS]
Who are the people
of any queer variety in the room this evening?
[LOUD CHEERING]
Oh, yeah.
See, we're better.
I don't really believe that.
One time in church,
the pastor was talking about
how God would give some people
supernatural gifts.
And one of those
supernatural gifts
was the ability
to speak in tongues.
We didn't really
do that at my church,
but I was sitting there
and I was like, "Can I do that?
"I think maybe I can."
So, of course,
we're going to try it out.
I waited for a pause
in the sermon
and I said, clear as a bell...
"Chamalla hamalla."
[ALL LAUGHING AND CHEERING]
Just that.
"Chamalla hamalla."
And then I kind of choked.
The room
filled with tension
and then behind me,
I hear someone say,
"Yes, Lord."
[ALL LAUGHING]
Phew!
I look back and it's Janet.
Janet was legendary
in our church.
Legend has it
that Janet woke up
at 4:00 a.m. every morning
and prayed for three hours.
No one ever
saw her do this,
she just told us.
And then with a tear
in her eye, Janet said,
"Chamalla hamalla shonda
obi shasta shandalla."
And I thought, "That's not
what I said, Janet.
"I said, 'Chamalla hamalla.'
"Don't, like,
put your own flavor on it."
The pastor told us that it was
the language that angels spoke.
And I imagined a scene in Heaven
where the angels were like,
"What's up, Jesus?
Chamalla hamalla."
If you're getting frustrated
with someone in Heaven,
a common phrase is,
"You're really starting
to chamalla my hamallas."
God sneezes.
[IMITATES SNEEZING]
ALL: Chamalla hamalla.
Some of you have the gift.
That's wild.
We loved to talk
about the rapture.
And we were divided
into two distinct groups,
some of us believed
that when the rapture happened,
the Christians
would just disappear.
And some of us believed
when the rapture happened,
the Christians would
float into the sky.
So I'm curious what group
you guys are in tonight.
Who here thinks that
when the rapture happens,
the Christians will vanish?
- [CHEERING]
- All right. All right.
Who here thinks
when the rapture happens,
the Christians will
float into the sky?
[LOUDER CHEERING]
It is like
the cooler version.
But the thing we
never talked about was,
like, the speed of the float.
Like, what if we
didn't realize it was...
it was a really
slow float rapture?
Like if the rapture
happened tonight...
[CHUCKLES]
I mean, you guys aren't going anywhere.
But...
But if it did and it was
a slow float rapture,
I'd be like,
"Are people standing up?
Oh, shit. It's the rapture."
And how do you
get out of this building?
Do you have to, like,
swim to the exits?
You're like putting
your legs into it.
It's a slow rapture.
Some of you are reaching
for your beer to finish it.
Might be your last beer.
And then you...
you finally get outside
and continue the slow float.
You're like 15 feet in the air,
and you're like,
"Where the fuck are we going?"
Then you start
to lower back down because you said "fuck."
[ALL LAUGHING]
And then you hear
God's voice go,
"Just kidding.
I say 'fuck' all the time.
"I invented fuck."
You finally get to Heaven
and God's like,
"Welcome to fucking Heaven!"
[ALL CHEERING]
He's wearing sunglasses,
he's got jogging shorts on,
he's a little annoying.
You weren't expecting that,
were you?
God's annoying.
After a couple days,
you're like,
"I'm sorry.
Is God annoying?"
And everyone was like,
"Oh, my God. Yes, so annoying.
"Oh, shit! Here he comes."
Our God is an awesome God
He's cool
He's really super cool
"How long do we
have to do this?
"Forever?"
[WHIMPERING]
All right.
It's going pretty well so far.
I feel pretty good.
- [ALL CHEERING]
- Thank you.
Thanks.
This is the part of the show
where I'm going
to take a sip of water.
Mm.
You know... dehydration
is not talked about
often enough.
I think just spontaneously,
I'm going to spend the rest
of my time here tonight
talking to you
about dehydration.
Do I have
dehydration material? No.
Is there anything inherently
funny about dehydration?
Not really.
But I have a feeling some
of you here tonight might be...
dehydrated.
[ELECTRONICALLY MODIFIED VOICE]Dehydration isn't fun
In the morning
Dehydration isn't fun
At night
If drinking water
Isn't good for my body
Then Lord have mercy
I don't wanna be right
- [ALL CLAPPING RHYTHMICALLY]-Dehydration isn't fun
In the morning
Dehydration isn't fun
At night
If drinking water
Isn't good for my body
Then Lord have mercy
I don't wanna be right
[ALL CHEERING]
[IN NORMAL VOICE]
That'll be on Spotify later this week.
We have a lot of shame
about our bodies
and sexuality.
It's weird.
It's almost like innate,
in some way.
It's kind of one of the first
stories in the Bible.
Like there's a snake
with an apple
and Eve bites the apple,
and what's the first thing
that happens?
She realizes she's naked
and she feels ashamed.
It's weird.
First, I wish that the Bible
didn't start with
a snake and an apple.
It's like so Bible-y.
Like I feel like Satan
would be trickier
than to appear as a snake.
You know?
Like, I feel like
he would appear as...
like an adorable hamster.
And he wants Eve
to eat a small serving
of mashed potatoes.
Yeah.
They're the mashed potatoes
of knowledge.
It's a cooler visual, I think.
Like, Eve takes a bite of the
mashed potatoes of knowledge
and was like, "Mm.
Oh, shit, am I naked?"
She's got mashed potatoes
in her mouth.
Adam takes a bite
and he's like, "Mm.
"Is there sour cream in this?
"Oh, shit. Is that what
my bush looks like?"
And it says they felt shame.
Which is also strange
because they're the only two people that exist.
They're afraid God is going
to see them and...
What, are they afraid
that God is going to walk into the garden and be like,
"Hey, guys, I was thinking--
Oh, Jesus Christ!"
[ALL LAUGHING]
"Why is it so veiny?
"Did I make that?"
So it took Adam and Eve
a long time to get back their
body positivity after that.
A little bit of Bible trivia
you might not know.
Adam and Eve were
the original founders
of Olan Mills
Genital Portraiture.
[ALL CHEERING]
It was an
empowering thing for them.
So when I got to college,
I knew that I was gay.
But I still had a lot of stuff
not worked out about it,
and I was really scared
of a lot of things. Um...
And I heard that there was this
video rental store near campus
that had a room
of dirty movies.
We're back to talking
about porn again.
The entire show
is about Jesus and porn,
and how I navigated
through those things
[ELECTRONICALLY MODIFIED VOICE]
in the '90s.
[ALL CHEERING]
They had a dirty movie room,
and in that room
they had gay dirty movies,
and I had never
seen that before.
And I was scared.
And then I learned
that the couple who ran the video rental store,
they were visually impaired.
Every tape had a little
bit of Braille on it.
So I went in
and I made my selection,
I brought it to the counter,
and she started
to run her fingers
over the dirty Braille.
And then she paused
halfway through
and I panicked and I said,
"It's for a research paper."
And her finger was just
resting on a single dot...
It was probably
the word "cum hole".
[ALL LAUGHING]
And I was like, "Please take
your finger off the...
"off the cum hole.
"I thought this would be
less embarrassing, but it's way worse."
When I was in college
is when, like,
the Internet was
becoming a thing,
and nobody had their own
computer in those days.
If you wanted
to get on the Internet,
you had to go
to the computer lab.
And so, I went to the
computer lab one night.
No one was really
in there but me,
and I was at a computer
all the way in the corner,
and I thought,
"I've heard there's porn
on the Internet."
So I looked up something
and a picture started to load
super slow, like, line by line.
Took forever.
And it must have
sort of hypnotized me,
because I didn't
realize that now,
like two computers down,
was a guy from
the campus church.
And he could fully
see my screen,
and he looked at me
and then back at my screen.
And like,
I want to say that
had this been just like
a nude photograph,
he probably could've pretended
that this wasn't happening.
But this photo...
was, like, so spectacular
in its vulgarity...
Like, I don't want to get
too graphic in LA on Wednesday,
but I just want to say
it was a photo of
a man's thing...
completing itself...
into another man's...
oral cavity.
I don't want to get too graphic.
My point is,
he was frozen in shock,
because this picture
was like super sharp focus.
Like, the stream
had elegance.
It was like
a sculpture of cum.
I don't want to get
too graphic.
My point is,
he was frozen in shock,
because he was looking
at a picture of a man
just getting blasted
in the face...
with jizz.
Not to get too explicit
on a Wednesday,
but if you remember
The Rolling Stones t-shirt
with the tongue hanging out?
It was sort of like that,
but instead of
The Rolling Stones,
it was a man getting his mouth
destroyed by ejaculate.
All right, that went better
than I thought it would.
That's staying.
That's staying in the show.
[ALL CHEERING AND CLAPPING]
So the Internet.
We've come so far.
So far, I don't even really
look at Facebook anymore.
That's a weird website now.
Facebook is like a place
where my mom post memes
that are, like,
"Happiness is in my garden."
Or she'll post a picture
of a monkey hugging a duck and put "Beautiful."
Or a cut and paste
paragraph that's like,
"Facebook does not
have my permission...
to use my information."
I'm starting
to sweat a little bit.
Or is that blood?
[SIGHS IN RELIEF]
Would you guys tell me
if I was bleeding from my face?
Great.
That's one less thing I can worry about.
Thank you.
[ELECTRONICALLY MODIFIED VOICE]
Thank you
for caring about me.
And whether or not
I'm bleeding on stage.
A man of my age
could bleed out very quickly.
[ALL LAUGHING]
Weird scientific anomaly.
I don't have
a lot of blood.
That was a joke. I have
the regular amount of blood.
I think.
How does anyone really know?
It's not like people
have a dipstick
to check
your blood levels.
And every couple of months
your dad would call
and be like, "Have you
checked your blood levels?"
And you're like, "Yes, Dad."
Even though you haven't.
You have no idea how.
[ALL CHEERING]
[IN NORMAL VOICE]
That old thing.
I am a really big fan
of Generation Z.
I like Gen Z a lot.
Yeah, okay.
A whole bunch of people
right here didn't do anything.
They didn't respond.
Do you not feel the same?
Who are... Okay.
Who are the Generation X
in the room tonight?
[CHEERING]
So many people in this row just
sort of like waved, annoyed.
Very Generation X.
Annoyed that I even
drew attention to them.
Who are the Millennials?
[CHEERING]
All right, yes.
That was special.
She wants to do
the wave, Millennials.
That would be very Millennial.
Are there any
Boomers here tonight?
[ALL LAUGHING]
I felt like a little bit of fear
come from this side of the room.
Like they paid
that guy to distract...
Are there any
Gen Z here tonight?
[SCATTERED CHEERING]
She's like, "Hi."
It's, like,
so emotionally intelligent.
No, I really do.
I like Gen Z a lot.
I do think we can all agree
they have super dumb haircuts.
[ALL LAUGHING]
Who am I to talk?
My hair looks like Frasier
fucked a televangelist.
[ALL LAUGHING]
But other than that,
I really am a big fan of Gen Z.
I think you're going
to save the world.
Gen Z is totally redefining
human sexuality and I love it.
I think it's great. Yeah.
Maybe some terms
you have heard,
like polyamorous, uh,
demi sexual, Demi Lovato...
But maybe there's
some you haven't heard,
like autosexual.
Autosexual is a person
who is sexually attracted
to themselves.
And I know what
you guys are thinking.
Obviously, I am autosexual.
Guys, stop.
I love this one.
This is real cupiosexual.
I bet you haven't
heard this one.
Cupiosexual is
an asexual person
who does not want sex,
who also wants sex.
I know it's a paradox.
We need Neil deGrasse Tyson
to come out and explain
how both of these
are simultaneously possible.
Cupiosexual.
Does not want sex
and wants sex.
That's my favorite,
because I think it illustrates
how wonderfully humans
are beautifully complex
and fucking irritating
at the same time.
[ALL LAUGHING]
Cupiosexual.
But I've learned through
all these new definitions
that I am actually not gay.
It's true.
Now that I have
all these other terms,
gay is too simple.
Gay is like...
rollerblading with
glow sticks.
It's not really me.
But I was resistant at first,
especially when I started
reading about the experiences
of people who are asexual.
I started to see myself
a little bit,
and I didn't want to,
because that's not cool.
I don't...
It's not sexy.
I don't want to be asexual.
Like, I feel like
an asexual person is like
a ventriloquist
that works at Staples.
That's not cool.
But I'm learning,
unlike the olden days,
it's not this or that,
pick a side, one or the other.
Everything is a spectrum.
So I now understand
that I am not asexual,
but also, I'm not quite
having the experience
that other people
seem to be having.
Like, some of you guys
are horn dogs.
[MAN WHOOPING]
I'm sorry. I meant to say
some of you guys
are corn dogs.
Who are the corn dogs
in the room?
Do we have any corn dogs?
I knew it!
[ELECTRONICALLY MODIFIED VOICE]Embrace your inner corn dog
Let the spirit
Of the corn dog
Into your heart
- [ALL CLAPPING RHYTHMICALLY]
- Embrace your inner corn dog
Everyone.
Embrace your inner corn dog
That's ridiculous.
[IN NORMAL VOICE]
I can't believe you guys went for that.
Like, wholeheartedly.
It's because there's a lot
of corn dogs here tonight.
No, I understand that
on this spectrum of sexualness,
I'm right in the middle.
And that's called graysexual
and I don't like that either.
Gray... sexual.
That's not cute.
That's not sexy.
Gray.
Like my penis is gray...
and shiny.
Belongs on a dolphin.
[IMITATING DOLPHIN SOUNDS]
That might be the worst dolphin
impression I've ever done.
I don't know
what that sound was.
I feel about sex,
sort of how I feel about
Hallmark holiday movies.
Like I don't want to watch that,
but if we
start watching it...
I'll slowly start to see myself
in the big city girl
who returns to her small town
and learns a magic life lesson.
And then cums.
I stopped the metaphor
right before that last part.
I should have told you.
I was going to do that.
And hey, listen,
all of this is not just
for LGBTQIA+ people.
It's for everyone.
Take this one. Demisexual.
Demisexual just means
that you need
an emotional connection
to feel aroused.
We used to call that
a party pooper.
[ALL LAUGHING]
Now it's demisexual, so own it.
Or how about this one?
A heterosexual man...
Heterosexual,
but who is also bi, or even homoromantic.
Meaning he's heterosexual,
but in his heart
there's a place for the same sex.
Ladies, some of you
dated this guy in your 20s.
His name was Nigel.
He rolled his own cigarettes.
Listened to Ani DiFranco.
[ALL LAUGHING]
There he is!
I knew one of them was here.
So why talk about this stuff?
Why do we have to make these
personal things out in the open?
I think that
knowing yourself better
will make the world better.
That's how I feel about it.
- Like, can you imagine? Yeah.
- [ALL CHEERING]
Can you imagine if straight men,
specifically, just were allowed
to know themselves better,
we wouldn't have to deal with
so many unnecessary podcasts.
[ALL LAUGHING]
So no, I'm not gay.
I'm demisexual, graysexual,
polyamorous, homoromantic.
[ALL CHEERING AND CLAPPING]
Now, listen.
It's not always great.
When I was just gay
and a relationship didn't work,
I could be like, "You know what?
Men are weird. It's not me."
Now that I'm demi, graysexual,
polyamorous, homoromantic,
and a relationship
doesn't work,
I'm like,
"Nope, it's just me.
I'm impossible."
But I know myself better,
and I feel like that
makes my life better.
I was dating this guy
and I decided,
knowing this about myself,
I'm going to put in
some effort for him.
And I sort of created this
like sex character for him,
and I think I took it
a little bit too far.
I started to
pull things out of him
that weren't there before.
And one time,
he spit in my mouth.
And in my sex character,
I said, "Fuck, yeah!"
[ALL LAUGHING]
And then he immediately
did it again.
And I thought,
"Oh, words matter."
[ALL LAUGHING]
There are more
bodily fluids available,
and I don't like
where this is headed.
So you guys,
I put a lot of thought
if I wanted to talk about
this stuff in my show.
Because it's personal.
And I thought,
you know what?
If I put out into the world
that I don't really think
about sex that much,
then a lot of people
are not going to want to have sex with me.
And that's when I realized
I'm also cupiosexual.
[ALL LAUGHING AND CHEERING]
I get it.
I don't want it,
but I want it.
I think some of you
might be thinking that
cupiosexual is
just being married.
You're like,
you want it...
but you don't want
that shit.
I don't want to get up
and brush my teeth...
for this.
That's how I feel, though.
Like, I don't want it,
but I do want it.
I want you to want it.
I'm like FOMO...
I'm FOMOsexual.
I just want to know
what you guys are doing.
I've always sort of felt like
a weird alien observer.
I fully expect at some point,
I'm going to find like a zipper
on the back of my head
and be like, "Ugh! Finally!"
Zip. [GROWLS AND GURGLES]
[CLEARS THROAT]
If you're thinking,
you know what?
Keep some things private.
This is embarrassing.
This is all very cringey.
Guess what?
You are cringey.
If you are... [CHUCKLES]
Yeah.
If you are a human,
you are cringey.
To be human is to cringe.
We're an organism that evolved
to become conscious,
only to look back
at ourselves and go...
"Ew."
[ALL LAUGHING]
So be yourself.
It's all you'll ever have
that's worth having.
[ELECTRONICALLY MODIFIED VOICE]
Me, me, me, me, me.
I used to work
At the Olive Garden...
[ALL CHEERING]
And the main takeaway
Is people can eat
A lot of fucking breadsticks
You're on basket number five
How are you still alive?
Death by breadsticks
Everyone!
Death by breadsticks
[ALL CHEERING]
You're going to go
To breadstick hell
Eat breadsticks there
as well
Death by breadsticks
There used to be
A manager named Pam
And Pam used to make
My life a living hell
She'd be like
" Did you fill
Your salt and peppers?"
I'm like, "No, Pam
It's Olive Garden"
[ALL LAUGHING]
People are here for cheese."
Death by breadsticks
One time after a shift
Pam was like
"I need everyone to roll
An extra 100 silverware."
And all the servers
Got together
And just showed Pam the
Same fucking tray of silverware
[ALL LAUGHING]
Soft and staccato.
Death by breadsticks
Now, just the girls.
Death by breadsticks
Now just the guys.
ALL MEN:Death by breadsticks...
[ALL LAUGHING]
You guys, I'm really sorry.
I didn't mean to end the show
in such a weird note.
Let's bring it back together
with something
we can all agree on.
Breadsticks are delicious
[ALL CHEERING]
You can dip them
in alfredo sauce
And then Pam is like
"Did you charge that table
For alfredo sauce?
Death by breadsticks
Many years later
I saw Pam
At the grocery store
And Pam rolled up like
"Hey, what's going on, Kevin?"
I was like
"Pam, we're not cool."
Death by breadsticks
Beautiful harmonies.
Death by breadsticks
- [ALL CHEERING AND CLAPPING]
- [IN NORMAL VOICE] Thank you so much.
[SWING MUSIC PLAYING]
ANNOUNCER:
Ladies and gentlemen,
please welcome
Kevin James Thornton.
[ALL CHEERING]
You guys. Wow!
[MAN WHOOPING]
Um, let's... begin.
[ALL LAUGHING]
Let's start like that.
Make it weird.
I got a text from a guy
that I dated 25 years ago,
[ELECTRONICALLY MODIFIED VOICE]
when it was the '90s.
[ALL CHEERING]
[IN NORMAL VOICE]
I'm going to do that a whole bunch.
I'm going to wear it out.
Yeah, I got a text
from this guy.
I haven't really heard from him
in, like, 25 years.
And the text said,
"I miss you."
And then right after that,
another text that said,
"Show me that ass."
[ALL LAUGHING]
He's imagining 1996 ass...
and what I currently possess
is 2023 ass.
2023 ass looks like
two hairy scallops.
White, uncooked...
has salmonella.
But then I thought,
you know what?
I'm going to do it.
[ALL LAUGHING AND CHEERING]
I'm going to
send him a photograph.
A photograph is way too big
of a word for what I'd sent.
I didn't go to Olan Mills.
For the young people
in the room, um,
Olan Mills was like
a family portrait place
[ELECTRONICALLY MODIFIED VOICE]
in the '90s.
[ALL CHEERING]
[IN NORMAL VOICE]
Side thought. Hear me out.
Olan Mills
Genital Portraiture.
[MAN WHOOPING]
Do you remember
you could get your picture taken
and then up in the corner
would be, like,
a superimposed, dreamy...
Do you guys see where
I'm going with this?
[ALL LAUGHING]
So you can have your picture,
and then up in the corner,
whatever it is
you'd like to feature.
Olan Mills
Genital Portraiture.
We'll probably cut that part
from the show.
That probably
won't make it.
So I sent him
a picture of my ass
and he responded with
maybe the most hurtful thing
he could have.
His response was...
"That's not you."
[ALL LAUGHING]
He thought I chose
to send a photo
of some other
50-year-old ass.
I'm not quite 50.
I'm 49. I turn 50
in a couple of months.
[ALL CHEERING]
Okay.
I'm actually pretty cool
with getting older.
Listen, I'm in the
worst shape of my life
and I feel fine.
It's okay.
Everybody calm down.
When I was young, I was a
homosexual gazelle of beauty.
Was.
And I'm totally fine now with
the ever evolving landscape
of my physical form.
I'm fine with
slowly transforming
into your
Intro to Anthropology professor.
He wrote his dissertation
on circumcision in the Amazon.
He dates students.
[ALL LAUGHING]
Professors can't
do that anymore, but they could
[ELECTRONICALLY MODIFIED VOICE]
in the '90s.
[ALL CHEERING]
[IN NORMAL VOICE]
I feel pretty cool at this stage in my life.
I feel like
I really know myself.
It's not always great.
Now, once a year, my doctor
puts her finger
in my butt hole.
And every time she does it,
I'm mildly embarrassed about
how easily she just
slides it in there.
[ALL LAUGHING]
No resistance.
Not even a quiver.
And every time
she does it,
I'm like, either she's
really good at this,
or I'm really good at this.
[ALL LAUGHING AND CHEERING]
My doctor does one thing
that I do not like.
Every time during
a prostate exam,
with her finger
on my prostate, she says,
"Smooth."
I hate it.
Like I now understand that
a healthy prostate feels smooth,
But at first I thought she was,
like, congratulating herself.
"Smooth."
I grew up in
a super fundamentalist Christian church.
- [ALL CHEERING]
- Okay.
Some of you might relate with
the super fundamentalist Christian church.
Yes. Okay, good.
That's what I wanted
here tonight.
Religious trauma.
[ALL CHEERING]
All around me.
In my super fundamentalist
Christian Church youth group,
they used to
dress us up like clowns.
Stay with me.
We put on like
a sinful clown play
in the park.
And each clown
represented a different sin.
So we had
Premarital Sex clown.
Ah. There's some Premarital Sex
clowns here tonight.
[ALL CHEERING]
Yeah!
We had Abortion clown.
[ALL CHEERING]
Don't get mad at me.
I'm just telling you
what happens.
And we took the youth group
on a mission trip
to New York City.
We took our
sinful clown play
on the road.
They took us to
a neighborhood in New York,
called Spanish Harlem
[ELECTRONICALLY MODIFIED VOICE]
in the '90s.
[ALL CHEERING]
[IN NORMAL VOICE] So imagine
20 white suburban teenagers,
walking down the sidewalk
of Spanish Harlem,
dressed like Abortion clown.
[ALL LAUGHING]
They were all staring at us
and laughing in Spanish.
We did a lot of weird
productions like that.
Every year for Halloween,
we put on this haunted house
that simulated
you going to hell.
Stay with me.
Um, it started
with your funeral.
A lovely way to spend
a Friday evening.
And we had our haunted house
set up where you had to crawl
under your coffin
to get into hell.
I don't know how biblically
accurate this is.
That's how we did it.
And then it was just
room after room of youth group
kids screaming at you.
But it was similar in theme
to the sinful clown play.
We had a room
about premarital sex,
we had a room about abortion,
there was even
a room about lust you just can't win.
It featured a man masturbating
in the flames of hell.
It's the kind of
wholesome entertainment we're missing today.
But growing up
in that environment,
it did weird things
to my forming mind,
especially around sexuality
and my body.
The most popular guy
in my school was named Stan.
And Stan came to school
and said he popped
a girl's cherry.
I look over, there's like a
Victorian mother with a scarf...
[GASPING IN FEMININE VOICE]
[ALL LAUGHING]
It's shocking, I know.
He said he popped
a girl's cherry.
I'd never heard that before.
I didn't know
what that meant.
It's unfortunate timing.
Because right around then
I discovered
the dirty magazines
in the woods.
If you're young, you don't know
what I'm talking about.
[ELECTRONICALLY MODIFIED VOICE]Dirty magazines in the woods
Dirty magazines in the woods
Next door, neighbor Brad said
He stole 'em from his dad
Now there's
Dirty magazines in the woods
[ALL CHEERING AND CLAPPING]
[IN NORMAL VOICE]
The dirty magazines in the woods.
You kids don't know
how easy you have it today.
All I had were
the dirty magazines in the woods.
They were under a log.
They were damp
from the environments.
[ALL LAUGHING]
But it was
unfortunate timing,
because, um,
the very first picture I saw...
I now understand
what I was looking at,
but I didn't then.
It was a photograph
of a naked woman,
and she had actual cherries
and, like, cherry sauce,
spread around her area.
But I saw it and I thought,
"She popped her cherry.
Is that what it looks like?
Does she need
to go to the hospital?"
Stan and Tara
started to go together.
They showed up
at school one day
and said they
were going to do it.
That's the progression.
You go together
and then you do it.
And I went straight up
to Tara and I said,
"Tara, you're making
a terrible mistake."
And she said, "Why?"
And I said, "Tara,
you're going to get herpes."
And Tara said,
"Stan has herpes?"
And I said, "Oh, Tara,
you're so naive.
"Don't you know that
if you have premarital sex,
"herpes will just form?"
And Tara called it off
right then.
And that is the origin story
of my seventh grade
arch nemesis, Stan.
[ALL LAUGHING AND CLAPPING]
In those days, there was
a channel on the television
that was like
scrambled porn.
I'm going to have to explain
a lot to the young people.
So imagine a giant, like,
wooden cabinet television
with a dial on it
that you had to turn
and there was
one channel you could
sort of see that
it was dirty movies,
but they were weirdly, like...
The image was scrambled.
But it kind of seemed like
if you turned the dial back
a channel and then forward...
[SCATTERED CHEERING]
Yes.
All right.
It sort of seemed like
the image would unlock for, like, a split second.
So you'd be like,
"Was that...
"Was that a nipple? Wha--
"Scrambled nipple?"
Now you're playing
this weird
Las Vegas porn game
called Scrambled Nipple.
[MAN WHOOPING]
So one night, I waited
for everyone to go to bed.
I snuck out
into the living room,
and I tilted
the Ottoman forward
right in front
of the television, so I could lean against it.
One hand on the dial.
You know where
the other hand is?
[ALL LAUGHING]
Playing Scrambled Nipple.
And then my mom comes out
and she says,
"Kevin, go to bed."
And I panicked,
and I decided to pretend
that I was sleepwalking.
And I said, "Where am I?"
[ALL LAUGHING]
And it worked.
I just went to my room
and I wasn't in trouble.
So we entered this era
where I'd wait for everyone
to go to bed,
I'd sneak out
into the living room,
in front of the television,
my mom would come out
and say, "Kevin, go to bed."
And I'd say...
"Where am I?"
Looking back, I have to ask
the mothers in the room, like,
moms know, right? Like...
Teenagers think
they're being so tricky,
but moms have to know.
If you're in a house
with a teenage boy,
look around and anywhere
a penis could go...
it did.
[ALL LAUGHING]
Moms, did you know that?
Ben came to school
with a VHS tape,
handed it to me.
I said, "What's this?"
And he said,
"Go home and watch it."
And I did.
It was porn.
Unscrambled.
Apparently, Ben had two VCRs.
A VCR is a machine...
that plays VHS tapes.
If you had two of them,
you could make copies of the tapes.
We also had two VCRs,
and so I made a copy
of the copy.
And I brought it to school
and I went right up to Stan.
And Stan said, "What's this?"
And I said,
"Go home and watch it."
And for a brief moment,
I was back in Stan's favor.
And he invited me
to the popular guy sleepover.
It was very exclusive.
I was lucky to be there.
We get to the sleepover
and Stan tells us
the plans for the evening.
We're going to sneak out
of the house
and run through
the yards of popular girls
and bang on their windows.
I'm filled with anxiety.
I regret coming
to the popular guy sleepover.
On the way out of the garage,
Stan grabs a singular warm
Bud Light and cracks it open,
takes a swig
and starts to pass it around.
Josh looked at me and said,
"Kevin, are you going
to drink the beer?"
And I said, "No, Josh, I don't
give in to peer pressure."
[ALL LAUGHING]
But all the other guys
took a sip,
and now everyone's
super drunk.
Stan is trashed.
We get to Tara's house
and we bang on her window.
Tara comes to
the window and says,
"Oh, my God, Stan,
are you drunk?"
And then Tara looks at me
with this look in her eye like,
"Thank you, Kevin.
"For saving me
from a life with Stan.
"He's an alcoholic."
We get back to Stan's house,
and the lights are on.
Stan's dad is awake.
We walk in the front door,
his dad's standing there,
we're terrified,
moving in slow motion.
We all sit down.
And Stan's dad says,
"I am so disappointed
in all of you."
Leaves the room.
I took a moment
and then I said,
"Hey, guys,
can I ask you something?
Have you accepted
the Lord Jesus Christ...
[ALL LAUGHING AND CLAPPING]
as your personal savior?"
And that is the sequel
to the origin story
of my seventh grade
arch nemesis, Stan.
[ALL CHEERING]
[ELECTRONICALLY MODIFIED VOICE]
In my super fundamentalist church,
we had Wednesday night
Bible study.
[ALL CHEERING]
[IN NORMAL VOICE]
The Wednesday night Bible study.
I looked forward to it
every week.
It was like a little party
in someone's house.
I loved it.
And a lot's going to happen
at the Wednesday night Bible study.
First, there's going to be
a crock pot of nacho cheese.
And the best is when
it was at Megan's house,
because Megan's mom
put a can of Rotelle into the nacho cheese.
Yeah. And then she just
called the whole thing Rotelle.
And in my memory,
Megan's mom,
just in my mind,
is like this weird floating head
in the house.
In my memory.
Like you turned the corner
and she'd be like, "I made Rotelle."
In my mind.
I don't know why.
You'd open the toilet,
it would be like, "Rotelle."
Why?
All right, so we
have nacho cheese.
You're going to feel
really guilty about something.
Consider the possibility
of hell.
[SCATTERED LAUGHS]
Why the fuck
was that funny?
[ALL LAUGHING]
And then at the end,
there's going to be, like,
a prayer circle scenario.
And I always made sure
I sat next to Jason,
because I get
to hold Jason's hand.
[ALL CHEERING]
It's a lot to go through
on a Wednesday night.
Got nacho cheese,
existential crisis,
prayer circle with a boner.
[ALL LAUGHING]
Every week at school,
we'd decide who needed
to get saved next
and we'd invite them
to the Wednesday night Bible study,
but we would just
tell them it's a party.
So Stephanie would
show up unsuspectingly.
So I thought, have you ever
walked into a Trader Joe's
and felt like you're in a play
about being at Trader Joe's?
It's weird in there.
It feels like everyone
had a conversation about you before you walked in.
That's sort of what it was like
for Stephanie
at the Wednesday night
Bible study.
Also, little known fact,
every time they ring that bell
at Trader Joe's,
that's someone who gave
their heart to Trader Joe.
[MAN WHOOPING]
It is.
In my teenage years,
I felt there was something
about me that was different.
But I could not even
let the word "gay" pass through my head.
In that world,
it was not a possibility.
So I had a lot
of conflict about it,
a lot of big emotions.
We also sometimes felt
if you had big emotions
about something,
maybe it was God
giving you a message
for the group.
So one night at
Wednesday night Bible study,
I was really feeling it.
And I said, "Hey, guys,
"I think I have
a word from the Lord.
"Someone in
this room tonight...
"is struggling
with homosexuality."
[ALL LAUGHING]
They were terrified
and I loved it.
[ALL LAUGHING]
It felt very good
to say those words out loud.
I'm just curious
here tonight.
Is anyone struggling
with homosexuality?
- [ALL CHEERING]
- I thought so.
Let me just
get a better feel,
who are the straight people
here this evening?
- The straight people.
- [CHEERING]
Okay, right. Yes.
I just asked
who are the straight people
and the straight people
raised their hands.
[ALL LAUGHING]
[SOFTLY] Straight people.
"What's happening?
It's a safe space.
"I thought a safe space.
I'm straight."
[LAUGHS]
Who are the people
of any queer variety in the room this evening?
[LOUD CHEERING]
Oh, yeah.
See, we're better.
I don't really believe that.
One time in church,
the pastor was talking about
how God would give some people
supernatural gifts.
And one of those
supernatural gifts
was the ability
to speak in tongues.
We didn't really
do that at my church,
but I was sitting there
and I was like, "Can I do that?
"I think maybe I can."
So, of course,
we're going to try it out.
I waited for a pause
in the sermon
and I said, clear as a bell...
"Chamalla hamalla."
[ALL LAUGHING AND CHEERING]
Just that.
"Chamalla hamalla."
And then I kind of choked.
The room
filled with tension
and then behind me,
I hear someone say,
"Yes, Lord."
[ALL LAUGHING]
Phew!
I look back and it's Janet.
Janet was legendary
in our church.
Legend has it
that Janet woke up
at 4:00 a.m. every morning
and prayed for three hours.
No one ever
saw her do this,
she just told us.
And then with a tear
in her eye, Janet said,
"Chamalla hamalla shonda
obi shasta shandalla."
And I thought, "That's not
what I said, Janet.
"I said, 'Chamalla hamalla.'
"Don't, like,
put your own flavor on it."
The pastor told us that it was
the language that angels spoke.
And I imagined a scene in Heaven
where the angels were like,
"What's up, Jesus?
Chamalla hamalla."
If you're getting frustrated
with someone in Heaven,
a common phrase is,
"You're really starting
to chamalla my hamallas."
God sneezes.
[IMITATES SNEEZING]
ALL: Chamalla hamalla.
Some of you have the gift.
That's wild.
We loved to talk
about the rapture.
And we were divided
into two distinct groups,
some of us believed
that when the rapture happened,
the Christians
would just disappear.
And some of us believed
when the rapture happened,
the Christians would
float into the sky.
So I'm curious what group
you guys are in tonight.
Who here thinks that
when the rapture happens,
the Christians will vanish?
- [CHEERING]
- All right. All right.
Who here thinks
when the rapture happens,
the Christians will
float into the sky?
[LOUDER CHEERING]
It is like
the cooler version.
But the thing we
never talked about was,
like, the speed of the float.
Like, what if we
didn't realize it was...
it was a really
slow float rapture?
Like if the rapture
happened tonight...
[CHUCKLES]
I mean, you guys aren't going anywhere.
But...
But if it did and it was
a slow float rapture,
I'd be like,
"Are people standing up?
Oh, shit. It's the rapture."
And how do you
get out of this building?
Do you have to, like,
swim to the exits?
You're like putting
your legs into it.
It's a slow rapture.
Some of you are reaching
for your beer to finish it.
Might be your last beer.
And then you...
you finally get outside
and continue the slow float.
You're like 15 feet in the air,
and you're like,
"Where the fuck are we going?"
Then you start
to lower back down because you said "fuck."
[ALL LAUGHING]
And then you hear
God's voice go,
"Just kidding.
I say 'fuck' all the time.
"I invented fuck."
You finally get to Heaven
and God's like,
"Welcome to fucking Heaven!"
[ALL CHEERING]
He's wearing sunglasses,
he's got jogging shorts on,
he's a little annoying.
You weren't expecting that,
were you?
God's annoying.
After a couple days,
you're like,
"I'm sorry.
Is God annoying?"
And everyone was like,
"Oh, my God. Yes, so annoying.
"Oh, shit! Here he comes."
Our God is an awesome God
He's cool
He's really super cool
"How long do we
have to do this?
"Forever?"
[WHIMPERING]
All right.
It's going pretty well so far.
I feel pretty good.
- [ALL CHEERING]
- Thank you.
Thanks.
This is the part of the show
where I'm going
to take a sip of water.
Mm.
You know... dehydration
is not talked about
often enough.
I think just spontaneously,
I'm going to spend the rest
of my time here tonight
talking to you
about dehydration.
Do I have
dehydration material? No.
Is there anything inherently
funny about dehydration?
Not really.
But I have a feeling some
of you here tonight might be...
dehydrated.
[ELECTRONICALLY MODIFIED VOICE]Dehydration isn't fun
In the morning
Dehydration isn't fun
At night
If drinking water
Isn't good for my body
Then Lord have mercy
I don't wanna be right
- [ALL CLAPPING RHYTHMICALLY]-Dehydration isn't fun
In the morning
Dehydration isn't fun
At night
If drinking water
Isn't good for my body
Then Lord have mercy
I don't wanna be right
[ALL CHEERING]
[IN NORMAL VOICE]
That'll be on Spotify later this week.
We have a lot of shame
about our bodies
and sexuality.
It's weird.
It's almost like innate,
in some way.
It's kind of one of the first
stories in the Bible.
Like there's a snake
with an apple
and Eve bites the apple,
and what's the first thing
that happens?
She realizes she's naked
and she feels ashamed.
It's weird.
First, I wish that the Bible
didn't start with
a snake and an apple.
It's like so Bible-y.
Like I feel like Satan
would be trickier
than to appear as a snake.
You know?
Like, I feel like
he would appear as...
like an adorable hamster.
And he wants Eve
to eat a small serving
of mashed potatoes.
Yeah.
They're the mashed potatoes
of knowledge.
It's a cooler visual, I think.
Like, Eve takes a bite of the
mashed potatoes of knowledge
and was like, "Mm.
Oh, shit, am I naked?"
She's got mashed potatoes
in her mouth.
Adam takes a bite
and he's like, "Mm.
"Is there sour cream in this?
"Oh, shit. Is that what
my bush looks like?"
And it says they felt shame.
Which is also strange
because they're the only two people that exist.
They're afraid God is going
to see them and...
What, are they afraid
that God is going to walk into the garden and be like,
"Hey, guys, I was thinking--
Oh, Jesus Christ!"
[ALL LAUGHING]
"Why is it so veiny?
"Did I make that?"
So it took Adam and Eve
a long time to get back their
body positivity after that.
A little bit of Bible trivia
you might not know.
Adam and Eve were
the original founders
of Olan Mills
Genital Portraiture.
[ALL CHEERING]
It was an
empowering thing for them.
So when I got to college,
I knew that I was gay.
But I still had a lot of stuff
not worked out about it,
and I was really scared
of a lot of things. Um...
And I heard that there was this
video rental store near campus
that had a room
of dirty movies.
We're back to talking
about porn again.
The entire show
is about Jesus and porn,
and how I navigated
through those things
[ELECTRONICALLY MODIFIED VOICE]
in the '90s.
[ALL CHEERING]
They had a dirty movie room,
and in that room
they had gay dirty movies,
and I had never
seen that before.
And I was scared.
And then I learned
that the couple who ran the video rental store,
they were visually impaired.
Every tape had a little
bit of Braille on it.
So I went in
and I made my selection,
I brought it to the counter,
and she started
to run her fingers
over the dirty Braille.
And then she paused
halfway through
and I panicked and I said,
"It's for a research paper."
And her finger was just
resting on a single dot...
It was probably
the word "cum hole".
[ALL LAUGHING]
And I was like, "Please take
your finger off the...
"off the cum hole.
"I thought this would be
less embarrassing, but it's way worse."
When I was in college
is when, like,
the Internet was
becoming a thing,
and nobody had their own
computer in those days.
If you wanted
to get on the Internet,
you had to go
to the computer lab.
And so, I went to the
computer lab one night.
No one was really
in there but me,
and I was at a computer
all the way in the corner,
and I thought,
"I've heard there's porn
on the Internet."
So I looked up something
and a picture started to load
super slow, like, line by line.
Took forever.
And it must have
sort of hypnotized me,
because I didn't
realize that now,
like two computers down,
was a guy from
the campus church.
And he could fully
see my screen,
and he looked at me
and then back at my screen.
And like,
I want to say that
had this been just like
a nude photograph,
he probably could've pretended
that this wasn't happening.
But this photo...
was, like, so spectacular
in its vulgarity...
Like, I don't want to get
too graphic in LA on Wednesday,
but I just want to say
it was a photo of
a man's thing...
completing itself...
into another man's...
oral cavity.
I don't want to get too graphic.
My point is,
he was frozen in shock,
because this picture
was like super sharp focus.
Like, the stream
had elegance.
It was like
a sculpture of cum.
I don't want to get
too graphic.
My point is,
he was frozen in shock,
because he was looking
at a picture of a man
just getting blasted
in the face...
with jizz.
Not to get too explicit
on a Wednesday,
but if you remember
The Rolling Stones t-shirt
with the tongue hanging out?
It was sort of like that,
but instead of
The Rolling Stones,
it was a man getting his mouth
destroyed by ejaculate.
All right, that went better
than I thought it would.
That's staying.
That's staying in the show.
[ALL CHEERING AND CLAPPING]
So the Internet.
We've come so far.
So far, I don't even really
look at Facebook anymore.
That's a weird website now.
Facebook is like a place
where my mom post memes
that are, like,
"Happiness is in my garden."
Or she'll post a picture
of a monkey hugging a duck and put "Beautiful."
Or a cut and paste
paragraph that's like,
"Facebook does not
have my permission...
to use my information."
I'm starting
to sweat a little bit.
Or is that blood?
[SIGHS IN RELIEF]
Would you guys tell me
if I was bleeding from my face?
Great.
That's one less thing I can worry about.
Thank you.
[ELECTRONICALLY MODIFIED VOICE]
Thank you
for caring about me.
And whether or not
I'm bleeding on stage.
A man of my age
could bleed out very quickly.
[ALL LAUGHING]
Weird scientific anomaly.
I don't have
a lot of blood.
That was a joke. I have
the regular amount of blood.
I think.
How does anyone really know?
It's not like people
have a dipstick
to check
your blood levels.
And every couple of months
your dad would call
and be like, "Have you
checked your blood levels?"
And you're like, "Yes, Dad."
Even though you haven't.
You have no idea how.
[ALL CHEERING]
[IN NORMAL VOICE]
That old thing.
I am a really big fan
of Generation Z.
I like Gen Z a lot.
Yeah, okay.
A whole bunch of people
right here didn't do anything.
They didn't respond.
Do you not feel the same?
Who are... Okay.
Who are the Generation X
in the room tonight?
[CHEERING]
So many people in this row just
sort of like waved, annoyed.
Very Generation X.
Annoyed that I even
drew attention to them.
Who are the Millennials?
[CHEERING]
All right, yes.
That was special.
She wants to do
the wave, Millennials.
That would be very Millennial.
Are there any
Boomers here tonight?
[ALL LAUGHING]
I felt like a little bit of fear
come from this side of the room.
Like they paid
that guy to distract...
Are there any
Gen Z here tonight?
[SCATTERED CHEERING]
She's like, "Hi."
It's, like,
so emotionally intelligent.
No, I really do.
I like Gen Z a lot.
I do think we can all agree
they have super dumb haircuts.
[ALL LAUGHING]
Who am I to talk?
My hair looks like Frasier
fucked a televangelist.
[ALL LAUGHING]
But other than that,
I really am a big fan of Gen Z.
I think you're going
to save the world.
Gen Z is totally redefining
human sexuality and I love it.
I think it's great. Yeah.
Maybe some terms
you have heard,
like polyamorous, uh,
demi sexual, Demi Lovato...
But maybe there's
some you haven't heard,
like autosexual.
Autosexual is a person
who is sexually attracted
to themselves.
And I know what
you guys are thinking.
Obviously, I am autosexual.
Guys, stop.
I love this one.
This is real cupiosexual.
I bet you haven't
heard this one.
Cupiosexual is
an asexual person
who does not want sex,
who also wants sex.
I know it's a paradox.
We need Neil deGrasse Tyson
to come out and explain
how both of these
are simultaneously possible.
Cupiosexual.
Does not want sex
and wants sex.
That's my favorite,
because I think it illustrates
how wonderfully humans
are beautifully complex
and fucking irritating
at the same time.
[ALL LAUGHING]
Cupiosexual.
But I've learned through
all these new definitions
that I am actually not gay.
It's true.
Now that I have
all these other terms,
gay is too simple.
Gay is like...
rollerblading with
glow sticks.
It's not really me.
But I was resistant at first,
especially when I started
reading about the experiences
of people who are asexual.
I started to see myself
a little bit,
and I didn't want to,
because that's not cool.
I don't...
It's not sexy.
I don't want to be asexual.
Like, I feel like
an asexual person is like
a ventriloquist
that works at Staples.
That's not cool.
But I'm learning,
unlike the olden days,
it's not this or that,
pick a side, one or the other.
Everything is a spectrum.
So I now understand
that I am not asexual,
but also, I'm not quite
having the experience
that other people
seem to be having.
Like, some of you guys
are horn dogs.
[MAN WHOOPING]
I'm sorry. I meant to say
some of you guys
are corn dogs.
Who are the corn dogs
in the room?
Do we have any corn dogs?
I knew it!
[ELECTRONICALLY MODIFIED VOICE]Embrace your inner corn dog
Let the spirit
Of the corn dog
Into your heart
- [ALL CLAPPING RHYTHMICALLY]
- Embrace your inner corn dog
Everyone.
Embrace your inner corn dog
That's ridiculous.
[IN NORMAL VOICE]
I can't believe you guys went for that.
Like, wholeheartedly.
It's because there's a lot
of corn dogs here tonight.
No, I understand that
on this spectrum of sexualness,
I'm right in the middle.
And that's called graysexual
and I don't like that either.
Gray... sexual.
That's not cute.
That's not sexy.
Gray.
Like my penis is gray...
and shiny.
Belongs on a dolphin.
[IMITATING DOLPHIN SOUNDS]
That might be the worst dolphin
impression I've ever done.
I don't know
what that sound was.
I feel about sex,
sort of how I feel about
Hallmark holiday movies.
Like I don't want to watch that,
but if we
start watching it...
I'll slowly start to see myself
in the big city girl
who returns to her small town
and learns a magic life lesson.
And then cums.
I stopped the metaphor
right before that last part.
I should have told you.
I was going to do that.
And hey, listen,
all of this is not just
for LGBTQIA+ people.
It's for everyone.
Take this one. Demisexual.
Demisexual just means
that you need
an emotional connection
to feel aroused.
We used to call that
a party pooper.
[ALL LAUGHING]
Now it's demisexual, so own it.
Or how about this one?
A heterosexual man...
Heterosexual,
but who is also bi, or even homoromantic.
Meaning he's heterosexual,
but in his heart
there's a place for the same sex.
Ladies, some of you
dated this guy in your 20s.
His name was Nigel.
He rolled his own cigarettes.
Listened to Ani DiFranco.
[ALL LAUGHING]
There he is!
I knew one of them was here.
So why talk about this stuff?
Why do we have to make these
personal things out in the open?
I think that
knowing yourself better
will make the world better.
That's how I feel about it.
- Like, can you imagine? Yeah.
- [ALL CHEERING]
Can you imagine if straight men,
specifically, just were allowed
to know themselves better,
we wouldn't have to deal with
so many unnecessary podcasts.
[ALL LAUGHING]
So no, I'm not gay.
I'm demisexual, graysexual,
polyamorous, homoromantic.
[ALL CHEERING AND CLAPPING]
Now, listen.
It's not always great.
When I was just gay
and a relationship didn't work,
I could be like, "You know what?
Men are weird. It's not me."
Now that I'm demi, graysexual,
polyamorous, homoromantic,
and a relationship
doesn't work,
I'm like,
"Nope, it's just me.
I'm impossible."
But I know myself better,
and I feel like that
makes my life better.
I was dating this guy
and I decided,
knowing this about myself,
I'm going to put in
some effort for him.
And I sort of created this
like sex character for him,
and I think I took it
a little bit too far.
I started to
pull things out of him
that weren't there before.
And one time,
he spit in my mouth.
And in my sex character,
I said, "Fuck, yeah!"
[ALL LAUGHING]
And then he immediately
did it again.
And I thought,
"Oh, words matter."
[ALL LAUGHING]
There are more
bodily fluids available,
and I don't like
where this is headed.
So you guys,
I put a lot of thought
if I wanted to talk about
this stuff in my show.
Because it's personal.
And I thought,
you know what?
If I put out into the world
that I don't really think
about sex that much,
then a lot of people
are not going to want to have sex with me.
And that's when I realized
I'm also cupiosexual.
[ALL LAUGHING AND CHEERING]
I get it.
I don't want it,
but I want it.
I think some of you
might be thinking that
cupiosexual is
just being married.
You're like,
you want it...
but you don't want
that shit.
I don't want to get up
and brush my teeth...
for this.
That's how I feel, though.
Like, I don't want it,
but I do want it.
I want you to want it.
I'm like FOMO...
I'm FOMOsexual.
I just want to know
what you guys are doing.
I've always sort of felt like
a weird alien observer.
I fully expect at some point,
I'm going to find like a zipper
on the back of my head
and be like, "Ugh! Finally!"
Zip. [GROWLS AND GURGLES]
[CLEARS THROAT]
If you're thinking,
you know what?
Keep some things private.
This is embarrassing.
This is all very cringey.
Guess what?
You are cringey.
If you are... [CHUCKLES]
Yeah.
If you are a human,
you are cringey.
To be human is to cringe.
We're an organism that evolved
to become conscious,
only to look back
at ourselves and go...
"Ew."
[ALL LAUGHING]
So be yourself.
It's all you'll ever have
that's worth having.
[ELECTRONICALLY MODIFIED VOICE]
Me, me, me, me, me.
I used to work
At the Olive Garden...
[ALL CHEERING]
And the main takeaway
Is people can eat
A lot of fucking breadsticks
You're on basket number five
How are you still alive?
Death by breadsticks
Everyone!
Death by breadsticks
[ALL CHEERING]
You're going to go
To breadstick hell
Eat breadsticks there
as well
Death by breadsticks
There used to be
A manager named Pam
And Pam used to make
My life a living hell
She'd be like
" Did you fill
Your salt and peppers?"
I'm like, "No, Pam
It's Olive Garden"
[ALL LAUGHING]
People are here for cheese."
Death by breadsticks
One time after a shift
Pam was like
"I need everyone to roll
An extra 100 silverware."
And all the servers
Got together
And just showed Pam the
Same fucking tray of silverware
[ALL LAUGHING]
Soft and staccato.
Death by breadsticks
Now, just the girls.
Death by breadsticks
Now just the guys.
ALL MEN:Death by breadsticks...
[ALL LAUGHING]
You guys, I'm really sorry.
I didn't mean to end the show
in such a weird note.
Let's bring it back together
with something
we can all agree on.
Breadsticks are delicious
[ALL CHEERING]
You can dip them
in alfredo sauce
And then Pam is like
"Did you charge that table
For alfredo sauce?
Death by breadsticks
Many years later
I saw Pam
At the grocery store
And Pam rolled up like
"Hey, what's going on, Kevin?"
I was like
"Pam, we're not cool."
Death by breadsticks
Beautiful harmonies.
Death by breadsticks
- [ALL CHEERING AND CLAPPING]
- [IN NORMAL VOICE] Thank you so much.
[SWING MUSIC PLAYING]