Mae Martin: SAP (2023) Movie Script
1
Oh!
- Jesus! Mamma mia, Mae! Jeez!
- Hey. Sorry.
- Marshmallow?
- Uh... No, I'm good.
- Rubber band?
- Sure, I'll take one.
- All right.
- Thanks.
Oh!
Story time.
- Nice. Well, I'll settle in.
- Okay.
Um...
Mae, I just got mine replaced.
Hope you backed up the pictures
from your wedding.
- Um, can you introduce me?
- Okay.
- Can you do the "And now" one?
- The "And now"? Okay, got it.
Thank you.
And now, please put your hands together,
and welcome to the stage,
the one, the only,
Mae Martin!
Hi!
How we doing?
Hey.
Hi.
Nice to see you.
Oh my God. This is the best.
Thank you so much for being here.
What's... Uh... Okay.
I have so much to tell you, genuinely. Um...
What is everybody's name?
Should we just start...
On the count of three,
everybody say your name.
Ready? One, two, three.
Hello, uh, I'm Mae.
I'm so pumped to be in Canada right now.
Just, I really...
Um, I... I am Canadian.
I'm very Canadian.
But, please, I've been living
in England for the past 12 years.
I've been living in London.
So I do sound a bit like an asshole.
I do have a slight,
like, Madonna lilt.
And I'm trying so hard to fight it.
I'm really sorry. But it's...
My dad's British. Like very...
He's very, very British.
He's like... My dad's like
a mystical British gentleman.
He's very... He's a magical man.
He's very into, like,
the phases of the moon.
He's... He's a moon man.
He's into, like, um...
He knows all the birds
that ever visit his garden
and he has
a specific relationship with each bird.
And my childhood, like my whole childhood,
was pretty mystical.
Like, the best example I can think of...
Okay, when I was about eight years old,
my dad was driving
my brother and I to karate class.
And it was a very Canadian scene.
It's like 5:00 p.m.,
the sun's already going down.
It's snowing, we're on the highway.
We're going to the karate dojo.
Me and my brother in the backseat.
I'm eight, my brother's 12.
I was a green belt in karate,
my brother was a yellow belt.
So he was four years older,
two belts lower.
Um...
Which is not important,
but I thought I would flag it.
And, uh, we're driving along the highway
and suddenly my dad, like,
swerves to the side of the highway
in, like, a panicked move.
And tires are screeching,
people are honking. Really dangerous.
He pulls over,
and he's really shaken up, and he goes,
"I'm so sorry, children,
but we have to get out of the car."
We're like, "What?"
And so we get out of the car.
We're standing by the side
of the highway, in the snow.
My brother, 12 years old, so embarrassed,
he's like, in his karate uniform.
And people are driving by, they're like,
"Is he a yellow belt? 'Cause..."
"Hang on a second. He looks older..."
"We're gonna turn the car around.
Check this out."
And so we're like, "What is going on?"
And my dad goes,
"I've just seen
the new moon through glass."
So, he had seen the sliver of the new moon
through the windshield
and we had to pull over,
get out of the car,
and he made us bow
to the moon three times.
We had to do this whole ritual.
We had to say,
"Good evening, Lady Moon." It was...
It was mystical. He's a moon man.
He's deep into the moon.
And, um, I was just visiting recently,
uh, visiting home.
This is my childhood home
that I grew up in,
and they've had it
since long before I was born.
And I'm in the kitchen
with my mom and dad,
and my dad comes up to me
and goes, "Meet me in the study at dusk."
I'm like, "But I..."
I go to my mom,
I'm like, "What time is dusk?"
She's like, "I don't know."
And I go up to the study, which is like...
It's been many things over the years,
it's been like a spare room or whatever.
My dad's there with a glass of wine,
looking out the window.
He wanted to show me
there's a family of raccoons
that lives in a tree
in the neighbor's yard.
And, like, every night
at dusk, they emerge,
and he's got, yeah,
a relationship with them all. Um...
So, we're standing,
waiting for the raccoons,
and he just really dreamily goes, um...
"Do you know
you were conceived in this room?"
Which...
So I was like, "Oh..."
And I don't like to shut him down
when he's being vulnerable, so...
I was like, "Wait. You remember
the specific night that I was conceived?"
And he said this phrase,
which truly has haunted me
ever since. He said,
he goes, "Yes, of course I remember it."
"I remember it well."
This is what he said.
"The moonlight shone in
over your mother's bottom."
Over your...
I feel like
you're not fully getting, like...
I now know the position
I was conceived in.
I'm horrified.
Nobody wants to be conceived doggy style.
It's so bleak.
You don't want...
You want to be conceived face to face.
Eye contact.
At the moment of ejaculation,
just like we...
"We're making a choice
to make a life."
Not like, "Ah! Bite the pillow!"
It's horrible.
It's... It's bleak. It's like...
It's changed how I see myself.
Like, how I...
I'm like, "I'm a doggy-style baby."
Makes a lot of sense, actually.
Explains a lot.
It's, like, affected my posture.
I'm just a little more... I'm like...
Just a little hunched.
I feel like I can spot
other doggy-style babies
when I'm out in the world, 100%, there's...
I'll be getting on the subway,
and there's someone...
Smoking on the subway.
I'm like, "Oh, yeah."
Or I'll be in a bar,
and the bartender's like,
"Sorry, someone's just sent you a drink."
I look down the bar, and...
Another doggy-style baby.
There's some in here tonight.
I can see us. Several.
They...
Every time I go home to visit,
something like this happens.
Something that derails my...
my grasp on reality.
Like, um, okay,
my parents have this anecdote,
and it's a story
they've been telling my whole life.
Like, once a year,
they'll have a few drinks
and tell this story
at a dinner party or whatever.
Um... And it makes me feel crazy,
because I'm like, "It cannot be true."
So, why are you
doing this to me? What is this?
Um, and my brother and I get really upset.
I'll tell you the story
and then you can be the judge,
if you think it's true or not. Okay?
Okay.
So, my parents swear
that when they were
in their late twenties,
they were driving
through Northern Ontario,
down a winding road through a forest,
and they drove under a moose.
They swear.
They swear.
My mom says they were driving
down this winding road,
the moose was horizontal on the road,
and they drove under its belly.
It makes me feel insane.
I'm like, "What are you talking about?"
It's... And so it's...
She does a sound effect
of the sound of the belly fur of the moose
gently grazing the roof of the car.
Just like...
Can you imagine?
It makes me feel insane.
It makes me feel crazy.
And, uh, it makes
my brother irate, as well. Because...
So, the last time I was visiting,
me and my brother were like,
"We need to get to the bottom of this."
We need to find out
if this is even possible.
So we did research
and we found out
the height of a Toyota Tercel.
That's the car they were driving.
So, the height of the roof of the car.
We Googled the largest
ever recorded moose.
And the infuriating thing is
it could just have happened.
It could just have happened.
If they happened to stumble upon
the biggest-ever recorded moose,
I guess it's possible.
It makes me feel insane.
You think it's true?
Give a cheer if you think it's true.
Really?
Give a cheer if you think it's bullshit.
See?
I don't know.
I think it says a lot
about your worldview.
Like, if you believe in the moose,
you're young at heart. You...
You've retained a sliver of,
like, childlike enthusiasm
about life.
And if you don't believe
in the moose, you're...
Look, it's been a tough couple years.
It's been tough, hasn't it? Oh my God.
It really has. We got to do
whatever it takes to get by.
You know? Whatever makes you feel good.
Like... So my father
sent me a news article recently.
Uh, he sent me this news article,
and was like, "I thought you'd like this."
"I thought you'd relate to it."
Those are the words he used.
"I thought you'd really relate to this."
This was the story,
and I haven't stopped thinking about it.
I'm going to tell it to you.
So this, it happened in the Netherlands,
in a small town in the Netherlands,
where basically this family noticed
that they weren't getting any mail.
They were like, "We haven't received
any mail in a long time."
Weeks start going by.
They're like,
"Wait. We're not even getting our bills
or pamphlets in the mail.
This is really weird."
So they go to their neighbors.
"Are you guys getting your mail?"
They're like, "No.
This is so weird. Not for so long."
So they go to the post office
and speak to, like, the boss.
The mail boss, you know.
You know, the mail boss...
that you have to defeat
to pass Level 10.
He's like... And, um...
They're like,
"We're not getting any of our mail."
He's like, "I'll look into it."
He goes to speak to the mailman
who's responsible for that block.
And I can't remember the mailman's name,
so we'll call him like... Gary.
We'll call him Gary.
He's like, "Gary, these people are saying
that they're not getting their mail."
"What's going on?"
And Gary's like
weirdly defensive right away.
He's like, "I don't know what to tell you.
I deliver the mail."
"If they're not getting mail,
it means no one's writing to them."
They're like, "Okay."
So the mail boss is like, "Okay, Gary."
But privately, to his coworkers,
he's like, "What's up with Gary?"
Gary is being really weird.
So they decide
they're going to keep an eye on Gary
and investigate the sitch.
And so, the next day,
Gary comes to work and first red flag,
he picks up the mail
and gets in his personal vehicle.
Not the mail truck or whatever.
Gets in his... And he drives out of town.
So they're like, "Fuck."
And they followed him.
They follow him,
and he drives into the forest
in the Netherlands.
And they follow him at a distance.
They watch him park. They park.
They're keeping an eye on him.
They see him get out of the car.
He takes the bag of mail, he goes
into the woods, he's gone 45 minutes.
He comes back out with no bag.
Gets in his car, drives away.
So they go in after him.
Into the forest. And...
Imagine this. This is the sight
they're confronted with, okay?
Beautiful, dappled sunlight, you know.
Mist rising from the moss.
There's a lone moose.
A huge moose in the background.
Just towering over the trees, truly.
Um...
And they see, as far as the eye can see,
there are hundreds of piles
of freshly turned earth.
Little... In neat rows
stretching through the forest.
And they dust, they brush the dirt up.
Gary's been burying the mail.
He's been burying the mail for ages.
This has obviously been going on
a long time and it's now amped up.
They're like, "Fuck." And, uh...
They approach him the next day at work.
Gently.
They approach him gently.
They're like, "Hey, Gar. Um..."
"I..."
"We noticed you've been burying the mail."
"And we were just wondering,
why are you doing that?"
And in the news article, this was
the direct quote from the mailman,
in answer to the question,
"Why are you burying the mail?"
This is what he said. He said,
"I did it once, it felt good."
"And now it's just kind of what I do."
I love him.
He's my hero, I...
Guys, Gary went to jail.
He went to jail for eight months. Yeah.
You can't fuck with the mail,
that's a federal offense. Um...
He went to jail. And I wanted
to write him fan mail in jail,
but I don't want to stress him out.
'Cause he'd be like,
"I want to bury it. Argh!"
But, no, I really was, like...
I've never felt so seen by my father. Um...
That's...
It has been tough.
Like, I'm trying to get back into life
and sort of feel that enthusiasm again
of pre-pandemic life.
Especially, I'm struggling to feel
that enthusiasm in my romantic life.
I don't know
if anyone is in the same boat.
But post-pandemic dating, like, I'm...
'Cause I'm 35, like...
In my early 20s, so romantic.
Obsessed with finding "the one."
My parents are very in love
and that was my model. So I just...
Somebody would be, "Do you have the time?"
And I'd be, "I love you as well."
Is that...
"And I..."
"And I want to go with you."
"Where are we going?"
Um, and now
I'm just a bit like... I don't know.
Last summer, I dated someone.
A man, actually,
a lovely man, if you can believe.
Not if you... Wait, not if you...
Not "if you can believe
that men can be lovely."
Of course they can.
But if you can believe that I...
Um...
Yeah, so we dated for like six months,
me and this guy and, uh...
You know it was really nice,
but I'm 35, he's 36.
Like, at this point,
we both have big exes in our past.
You know what I mean? We're never
going to be that big ex for each other.
Like, we're never
gonna properly traumatize each other,
so it's kind of like...
What's the point? Um...
And...
So, we were in bed one night,
and we were just chatting,
we were having a nice light-hearted chat.
He wasn't trying to be heavy.
He just goes, "If we had kids one day,
what would we name our kids?"
I was, like, "I don't..."
I was like, "I don't know."
At this point, I've had
that conversation with so many people.
I was like...
"I don't know."
"Let me just wade through this graveyard
of dead hypothetical children
to try to get to
the new hypothetical kids."
I'm passing the ghosts of 'em.
I'm like, "Oh, look!"
"There's Olive and Basil, the twins."
They're there. They're like,
"You forgot about us."
I'm like, "Oh, fuck off."
There's little Clementine,
I sent her to a private school. You know?
She's got a clarinet through her head.
"Come and play with me."
I'm like, "No."
And I finally find
the new hypothetical children,
I'm like, "I have no creative energy left
to name these children."
Like, "Can we just call them both Ian?"
I don't know.
Did you guys know that...? This is true.
In 2018, there were no new Ian's born.
There were no...
It's a true story.
In 2018, not a single new Ian registered
on this planet Earth. That is true.
And if you're watching this,
and you hate the show,
at least take that with you. You know?
Wait, so do you guys know
what I mean when I say big ex?
Like, you have your exes.
Okay. Really?
You're like, "Yes, we know."
Like you have your normal exes
and then you have, like, your big exes.
Where you reach a certain page
in the novel of your life... No.
Uh, I do feel you reach a certain age
and you just have to accept
that for the rest of your life
there's certain names,
where every time you hear them,
all of your organs are gonna dissolve.
And just fall out of your vagina.
Or your bum hole, if you don't...
And you have to carry around a plastic bag
just in case you have to collect your...
It's disgusting.
Um...
So, I have a couple
of significant big exes,
but I have this one who...
I want to tell you this story.
So basically, this ex,
it was a really intense relationship,
it was like four years.
And it was a secret relationship
because it was her first
non-heterosexual relationship.
She was like, "We can't tell anyone."
And we lived together.
It was so stressful.
And she broke up with me,
which is not allowed. Um...
Which... I thought I had made that clear.
Um...
It was a long, drawn-out break-up.
Anyway, so at the point
where this story takes place,
I hadn't seen her in a year and a half
or had any contact.
I was in London and I was doing a show,
and I was feeling good that night.
You know what I mean?
Like, I had a fresh haircut.
I was freshly shorn. You know the feeling?
I was wearing a crisp black T-shirt and...
Crisper than this. I'm sorry about this.
This is... crumpled.
Crumplestiltskin over here.
Do you remember Rumpelstiltskin?
What happened to him?
He used to be everywhere.
We used to always talk about him.
When you're a kid,
Rumpelstiltskin this, Rumpelstiltskin...
Now you never hear about him.
I get it.
It's hard to stay relevant. You know?
He's, like, faded into obscurity.
Anyway, so I'm feeling good
on this particular night, feeling crisp.
Feeling shorn, and, uh...
And also my best friend Joe
was with me that night.
He was in the audience of my show.
I love having Joe in the audience,
he's a generous laugher.
He's a real angel,
like, my best, best friend.
And, um, I do the show, it goes well.
And I go to the green room afterwards.
Out the green room door to meet Joe.
And I'm... It was a good show.
I'm like, "Hey, man. Fun show."
But he's like green.
Just all the color has left his face,
and he just goes,
"She's here."
And I'm like, "Fuck."
I know exactly who he means right away,
so I'm like, "Okay."
And he goes, "Look, she's upstairs."
"She doesn't know you're in the building.
She came to the bar to have a drink
with some of our mutual friends."
He goes, "Let's just sneak out the back."
"Let's have a fun night.
We'll go to a different bar."
And I thought about it.
And then I thought, "No."
"I don't want to have a fun night."
So, I'm like, "No, we'll go upstairs."
We go up, I'm feeling confident.
I see, there she is
with our mutual friends and, um...
You guys would have been very proud of me.
I walk over very cool.
What does that mean?
I walk over...
Uh...
Um... No, I walk over
feeling confident. And...
I'm also... I have the element of surprise.
She doesn't know I'm in the building.
I think this is gonna work in my favor.
So I walk over, go, "Hey."
Our mutual friends, they all know
how bad the breakup was by this point,
so they see me coming.
I go, "Hey, how's it going?"
She's like, "Oh my God, hi."
She stands up. We hug.
It's really nice.
I go, "Great to see you."
"Hey, I heard you got that part,
that's so great."
She's like, "Yeah. Congrats on stuff."
And I'm like, "Yeah, great."
It's going well, and I suddenly think,
"You know what,
I need to be the one
to end this interaction." Right?
I need to retain control of the situation.
Like, I need to...
We talked for a while, and I go,
"Listen, so good to see you..."
She goes, "You want to sit down?"
I'm, "No, no, I'm gonna hang
with my friends at the bar,
but it's really nice to see you."
We hug again, she sits down.
I'm walking to the bar
and she's still kinda casting glances
over her shoulder as I walk to the bar.
And, as I'm walking to the bar,
I suddenly realize,
"What friends at the bar?"
There are no friends at the bar.
Joe has sat down at her table.
He's a snake.
He's dead to me.
I'm panicking 'cause
she's still kinda looking.
And I'm walking to the bar.
Thank God, at the last second,
I see three girls who were in my show.
They were in the front row of my show.
So I'm approaching the bar,
thank God, one of them goes,
"Hey, great show tonight."
So I think...
I think probably what
she wanted out of that interaction,
like, what she expected
from that interaction, was kind of like,
"Hey. Great show tonight."
"Oh, cheers, thanks for coming."
What she got was so intense.
I was like, "Hi, how are you?
What are all of your names and jobs?"
So tactile as well. Weirdly tactile.
Like my arm around all their shoulders,
like my head on their shoulder. I'm like...
Mm!
They're like, "Whoa, okay. Uh..."
We're chatting.
Then, thank God, we start chatting,
it's going well, we're getting along.
So I'm like, "Crisis averted."
They're like, "You want a drink?"
I'm like, "Yeah." We're having a drink
and I suddenly feel a tap on my shoulder,
and I look around and it's my big ex.
This time she has the element of surprise,
because I wasn't expecting it.
She goes, "Hey, sorry to interrupt,
I want to say bye, I'm leaving now."
I'm like, "Yeah, yeah." And we hug.
And she said something awful, like...
Like...
"I'm sure our paths will cross one day."
You know what I mean?
Something like that,
where all my organs dissolve.
Get the plastic bag out. Oh God.
Um...
And so we hug,
and she's leaving, she turns.
She's still kind of
saying goodbye to some people here,
and I turn back to my "friends,"
and suddenly, like,
I guess I just got overwhelmed.
And the floodgates just open
and I just start sobbing.
So... No, my face
like crumbles, my shoulders...
I'm literally just like...
They're like, "Oh my God, are you okay?"
And I just go,
"Laugh, laugh!"
"Laugh!"
It was psychotic behavior.
I'm literally like, "Fucking laugh. Ah!"
And they're all like...
"Ha-ha-ha-ha."
There's no real punchline
to that story, it's just...
a vignette, if you will.
To illustrate the level of emotion
I'm operating on. I mean...
I have a lot of feelings.
Do you guys have a lot of feelings?
It's exhausting, you know.
I'm full to the absolute brim
with feelings.
I always visualize, um...
like Campbell's tomato soup.
That it's... You know what I mean?
Campbell's cream of tomato soup.
And then I'm full to brim.
Right to the top of my skull,
just trying to keep it contained.
Just trying to keep it
from sloshing out of my orifices
as I make my way through life.
That's how I feel about my feelings.
All it takes is
one person goes, "How are you?"
And it's like... fling!
Like, it shoots out my ear.
They're like, "Oh God."
I'm like, "I'm sorry."
"That's not about you."
No, I'm all right.
I got a therapist recently.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, you have to, guys. You do. Like...
Well, if you're gonna complain
as much as I complain,
unfortunately, you do have to get one. Um...
Yeah.
I feel like my friends were
starting to be like,
"You should pay someone
to do what you expect of us."
I was like, "Oh, okay."
I found this therapist
and he's really smart and we Zoom.
And he said something interesting
where he said,
"Remember, you are not the feeling."
"Sure you feel consumed by the feeling,
but you are not the feeling."
He said, "Within you, and within everyone,
there's a very still,
neutral, eternal self."
"And you experience the feelings,
but you're not consumed by them."
He said, "Rather than identifying
so much with the feeling,
like, 'I'm anxious, I'm this.'" He said,
"Don't be consumed by the feeling."
"Just observe the feelings
as they come, with curiosity."
Have you heard that before?
Apparently that's the...
So I think you're
just supposed to be like, "Huh."
"I'm experiencing
rage."
"How curious."
"How curious."
I had a really, um, weird thing
where, during the pandemic...
I spent the whole pandemic in London.
I was just in my apartment,
in the rain, in London for... years.
And, uh, I noticed
an unexpected feeling bubbling up
where I was, "Why do I feel embarrassed?"
Like, I would wake up feeling embarrassed.
And I was spending a lot of time,
obviously, in my apartment.
in my living room,
and in my bedroom, specifically.
And I was like,
"Wait, okay, maybe it's this."
Okay, stay with me.
Don't you think it's kind of embarrassing
that we're adults
and we still have rooms?
Okay, stay, wait.
That we're like, "This is my room. Hm."
"This is my room."
"Don't go in my room."
It's embarrassing.
"I have to clean my room."
And, like, please. I, of course, accept
and understand that we need rooms.
You need four walls within which
to lay your weary head each night.
But I think what I find
so embarrassing about it
is, like, the way we decorate our rooms
to reflect our individuality.
And we're like, "I'm me." Right?
"I'm myself in my room."
It's so embarrassing.
"I have one Himalayan salt lamp."
"Yes I do, and I'm me."
"I have my picture on the wall and I..."
When you finish reading a book,
you never get rid of it.
You're like,
"I put it on the shelf in my..."
"That is my personality
on display for all to see."
"No one else is me."
And then I was thinking...
Okay, this is a little abstract,
but don't you think, in a way,
our brains and our minds
are like our rooms,
and we furnish our minds
with experiences that we collect
to then build what we think of
as our identity and selves?
And that's all we're doing.
We're little experience hunters,
collecting these
to put them on our brain shelves
and be like, "I'm me."
And I always visualize
every experience that we collect
is like a little novelty snow globe.
We're just going around, being like,
"One time I saw Antonio Banderas
at the airport. Yes, I did."
"I'm myself. And no one else is me."
And then
all human interaction is, really...
I really noticed this coming out
of the pandemic. All interaction is just
basically taking turns
showing each other our snow globes.
And being like, "I..."
And just pathetically taking turns.
And, like, someone will be
showing you their snow globe, you know,
and you're trying to be a good listener.
It's a story about a party
they went to five years ago.
And you're like, "Yes,
and you are you as well."
Like, "Yes, exactly, yes."
"How wonderful to be yourself as well."
But the whole time,
your eyes are darting to your own shelf.
A hundred percent, the whole time...
You're like, "Mmm, yes. Well, no. Yes."
Waiting for your moment
to be like, "And me as well. I have one..."
Thank you.
This is so exciting. You know what?
I was thinking...
Well, I watch a lot of stand-up specials.
Then my friend's special
came out recently,
and they put out the trailer.
I was like, "Fuck, it's so dynamic."
Like, she's so physical onstage and doing...
I was like, "I don't really move much."
Like I'm very...
Then I was like, "What if?"
'Cause I really want
my trailer to be dynamic.
So, I was like, "What if I just..."
I know in my head
the things I want to see in my trailer.
I just haven't written the jokes
that go with the movements.
So I was like,
"Maybe I just do the movements."
And then I put it in the trailer
and it's just, like...
Just like this.
That's in the trailer,
how good would that be?
You'd be like, "I gotta watch that."
I should just have, like,
a hundred trained dogs.
They all come out on the stage like this.
And they're all on their hind legs jumping
and then we just have it in the trailer
and never in the show.
Um...
Yeah, feelings. I got a lot of feelings.
So... rage, embarrassment.
These are some of the feelings. Um...
Another feeling that I...
It's very dominant in my life,
and I think a lot of people
relate to this, it's, like, nostalgia.
I'm very nostalgic.
You know?
And I know that's kind of a useless
emotion, like I'm...
I'm nostalgic for pre-pandemic times
and we didn't know how good we had it.
I'm very nostalgic, really,
for pre-puberty, if I'm being honest.
That's where it all went wrong.
Like...
Yeah, and my friends are like,
"Oh, yeah. You missed the '90s."
That's so original.
"Do you miss how all of our parents
used to have a lot of rubber bands?"
Do you remember how
everyone had rubber bands?
You'd find them
around drawer handles and shit.
There'd be a whole ball of them.
What were they for?
I have no rubber bands now.
"Do you miss how all parents
had one big conch shell in the bathroom?"
I'm like, "Yes. Yes, I do miss that."
Yeah.
And I miss the easier access
to abortion and less populism.
Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah.
I do feel, I think I'm someone who
I never really got over puberty.
Well, for a couple of reasons.
I think puberty hit me
like a ton of bricks, really.
First of all, I'm exactly
the demographic where, um,
for me, puberty coincided almost exactly
with the arrival of the Internet
and the popularization of the Internet.
I'm so lucky. I had, like, one to 13,
kind of... It wasn't around.
And I remember the one computer
in our classroom got the Internet.
And overnight, the world just exploded,
everything changed, it was like...
We all got our first e-mail addresses.
Thank you.
Those were the days
you could get the good email addresses.
But it was like overnight the world
went from being very manageable...
Everything I needed to know
was in just in one set
of Encyclopedia Britannica's
in my parents' basement.
It was so relaxing.
It was like a finite amount of facts.
That was it.
The nice, thin paper.
You know what I mean?
It was manageable. It wasn't...
Also, it was like objective truth.
Like, no one was putting out
the devil's advocate set of encyclopedias.
You know what I mean? Like, "Well..."
"Are you sure Lima
is the capital of Peru?"
Um...
And then overnight it was like...
I was obsessed with it.
I remember my friends at lunch being like,
"We're gonna go out
and play at recess. Wanna come?"
I'd be like, "No, there's so much work
to be done on the Internet."
"There's so much going on."
I was like, "I have to
copy and paste images
of Buffy the Vampire Slayer
into a Word document."
I then have to print that Word document.
The paper will be sodden with ink.
Just heavy with ink. Like...
I have to cut those pictures out,
and it's going to be like
cutting wet toilet paper.
I then have to stick those pictures
onto my homework diary.
Like, I'm busy. I...
I truly feel like
I've been busy ever since.
I'm exhausted.
And another reason that
I think puberty really hit me was, like...
Okay, so, yeah. Regular puberty stuff,
then the Internet arrives
and the stuff that brings with it.
And then for me, also, puberty
triggered kind of a wild gender dysphoria
and a gender thing.
- You know what I mean?
- Yeah!
Uh-huh?
Dead silence. Um...
No, but really, like, before puberty,
I felt like I was
this bounding, androgynous child,
very confident,
did a lot of Ace Ventura impersonations.
And then suddenly puberty hit
and my body's changing,
I felt very like...
And this was the '90s too.
This was the era of girl bands
and boy bands, right?
This was the very pop-fueled binary.
And I went to an all-girls school,
which I just, like...
The ubiquitous question,
the question you needed
to know an answer to at my school
was which Spice Girl are you?
And it was like,
there's only five possible answers.
You needed to know. You'd be in the hall,
and a group of girls would corner you,
"Which one are you?"
'Cause they're organizing
lip-syncs and stuff.
They need to know, no judgment.
They did need to know
where you fit into the constellation.
It was like, "Which one are you?"
And I was like,
"Justin Timberlake. I don't know."
"Nick Carter?"
Um...
I think, regardless,
if you experience gender stuff,
puberty anyway is a fucking nightmare.
Like, you feel like an alien,
and everything that was cool about you
just becomes worthless overnight.
Like, okay, I had this trick.
Okay, well, it's a noise
that I can make with my hand.
And I swear, it was really popular.
People loved when I did it,
it killed at parties.
I'm going to do it for you now. Uh...
Okay, maybe some of you remember this.
Um, okay, this is the noise.
Do you remember that?
Guys, I swear, it used to kill at parties.
People would request it,
they'd be like, "Do the noise."
I'd be like, "Okay."
I did it in a school assembly once.
That was... That was too far, but, um...
It was really cool, and then,
all of a sudden puberty hit,
suddenly I'm at a house party,
I'm in a cupboard
with a pimply 13-year-old boy
who's got a semi, and I'm like...
And he's like, "What the fuck?"
He's like, "I thought you were
gonna give me a hand job." I'm like, "No."
"I said...
that I could do something cool
with my hand."
He leaves me alone in the cupboard.
I'm there in the dark by myself, like...
Really mournful.
It's hard to live at that age.
It's really... I mean...
Don't you think
that the only way to flirt when you're 13,
the only acceptable way, is to go,
"How big are your hands?"
That's... Don't you think?
Do you remember that?
"How big are your hands?"
I still kinda think that's a great move
to make physical contact
with someone that you like.
Except I was at my all-girls school,
just sort of slightly getting it wrong.
"Yeah, my hands are pretty massive."
"Yeah, yours are tiny, of course."
Going around the playground, being like,
"Well, you know what they say."
"Big hands, massive labia."
But...
So all that was going on, you know?
And I think for everyone,
at puberty, you do kind of...
You develop critical thinking
and suddenly, sort of,
the hard facts of life are hitting you.
I think if you're, like,
different in any way,
like, if the dominant narrative
that's being told to you by everyone
doesn't match what you're experiencing,
know what I mean?
Like, with gender, people being like,
"There's two. And you're a woman
and this is what it's like."
And you're like, "Okay."
But you're experiencing
something completely different.
Then you kind of have two options.
You can either question the validity
of yourself and your experience
or you can question the validity
of everything else and the whole system.
Once you start pulling that thread,
you're fucked. It's like...
Monogamy, you're like...
Can I bring two people to prom?
Why not? I don't get why not.
And I really felt... And also, like...
For me, I, um, I started doing comedy
when I was 13 and I discovered...
I got really into drugs,
like psychedelic drugs.
So that just exacerbated
the general existential wave.
Like I felt like I was peeling
back the wallpaper on reality
and I was seeing this very flimsy
scaffolding holding everything up.
I was just like, "What is going on?"
You suddenly realize
your parents are flawed,
your teachers are,
like, lonely or something.
I remember being,
"Mm, I think Ms. Buchanan's lonely."
"I feel a huge amount of pressure
to laugh at her jokes. And I don't know."
Um...
And yeah, I remember
being really stressed by
why don't we, as a society,
talk more about the fact that
the movie Antz and the movie A Bug's Life
came out in the same year.
Surely, powerful forces are at play here
and we're just not going to address it?
Like what the...
Um... Yeah.
So, yeah, I was stressed and...
And also, I think with drugs,
it was a way to get out of my body.
I was feeling very uncomfortable
in my body and it was this trap door.
And so I got heavily into drugs,
and the bullet points are,
I went from psychedelics
into, like, the really bad ones.
I got kicked out of my house.
I dropped out of school.
Fast-forward, I ended up in rehab.
When I was 19,
I went to a rehab day program
for nine months. Uh...
A rehab day program for teens,
objectively, a bad idea.
Well, in a way, right?
Like, you get a group
of teenagers together,
all they have in common
is they love doing drugs.
Every day, at 3:00 p.m., the bell goes
and they're like,
"Off you go with your new friends."
"Run along. Bond in the alleyways."
"The only way you know how."
Um, but it was very eye-opening for me.
It was a big turning point
because I got into this program
and there were 12 other kids in there.
I was suddenly like, "Oh, fuck."
These kids have come
from actually difficult lives,
and difficult family situations.
Like who am I? You know?
I'm this privileged, middle-class kid.
What am I rebelling against, really?
But I needed to be there, and it was good.
I wanted to fit in with all these kids.
They'd been there a while,
they were all really bonded.
And they had nicknames for each other.
I've never had a nickname
and I wanted to be in on it.
I was very excited because
after like two months in the program,
I came in one morning
and one of the guys goes,
"Yo, Bath Water, what's up?"
I was like, "Bath Water?"
And they all start calling me Bath Water.
Then the teacher starts calling me...
It catches on.
The teachers are,
"Good morning, Bath Water."
I'm like, "What is happening?"
But I get into it. I don't want to admit
that I don't know why
they're calling me Bath Water.
I'm like, "Yup. Not much. All good."
Yeah. And then finally,
I get comfortable enough with them
and we all get close.
I'm like, "Guys, I've been meaning
to ask you for months."
"Why do you call me, Bath Water?"
And they said,
"Oh, it's because when you arrived,
we all had a conversation
and decided you look like the type of kid
who would drink their own bath water."
It's...
so specific.
So insulting.
And creative, yes.
Drink their own...
I mean, look,
I've drunk some bath water in my time.
Sure.
Haven't we all?
I mean, not like with...
With a straw. Just...
No, but, like, we all...
We've all drunk some, haven't we?
Okay, wait. Do you remember bath time?
Remember bath time?
Did you ever, um, in bath time,
take your wet flannel...
Do you call it a flannel or a facecloth?
Flannel? Yeah. Canada, yeah.
Did you ever take your wet flannel
and lie it on your face,
and breathe through it?
And then you suddenly feel like
you're waterboarding yourself?
You're like, "Oh no, God!"
Or did you ever suck
the water out of your flannel?
Right?
It feels so squeaky on your...
What a feeling.
Bath time.
You know what I mean?
Know what I miss most?
I'll move on from bath time,
but I will just quickly say
what I miss most about bath time is just
once a day, somebody going,
"Uh, it's bath time."
How good is that?
I feel like we don't appreciate it
when we're young,
but imagine you're on
a shitty Tinder date,
and the waiter comes over, they're like,
"I'm so sorry to interrupt.
Um, it is bath time for you."
You're like... You'd be out of there.
Youth is wasted on the young. You know?
Youth is wasted on the young.
Um...
Yeah, so that's... Yeah.
I think the reason
that I obsess over my teens,
and I'm constantly processing it,
is that I feel like
a completely different person now.
And I did have this kind
of chaotic adolescence,
and it was really dark, like it was crazy.
Now I feel truly
like a completely different person.
Like, I'm very risk averse now.
You... Yeah.
You should see me
on an escalator, it's insane.
I hold so tight to the railing.
I'm very like...
As the thing's approaching, "Oh my God."
I'm like, "One, two, three, go."
Waiting for my moment.
If I'm not ready and it's coming,
I'm walking backwards.
I'm going, "Okay..."
"One, two..."
Yeah. Yeah.
But I do still... I feel different.
I do, I guess, still get
that self-destructive feeling.
Like, that pressure building up.
I feel like we all
kind of sometimes have those impulses
and you have to find the healthy way
to deal with those feelings.
Um, I do a lot of escape rooms.
I'm always escaping a room.
Constantly. Um...
Like, I was on tour recently
and touring is intense.
Also, I tour by myself.
I don't usually have an opening act,
or a tour manager, or whatever.
I just travel by myself.
I have these long days
in these random cities in the UK.
And I was doing a show in Edinburgh.
I was Scotland,
in Edinburgh, by myself for the day,
and I was having the feeling
of pressure building up.
You know what I mean?
And, like, I had just seen
Trainspotting, so I was like,
"We're in the danger zone."
And, uh, I said, "What should I do?"
So I go online and I found
the Edinburgh dungeons were open.
That's kind of like the London dungeons,
where it's like this horror,
immersive horror experience,
where actors dress up
like Victorians and scare you.
And you walk through a maze of hell.
So I was like, "Great." Um...
And I got the VIP package as well,
which is just you pay 20 extra bucks
and all it meant was, when I arrived,
they take a picture of you
in front of a green screen.
And then they give you a key
and they project a graveyard
and give you the keychain of the...
That was when I was like, "Oh. This is
something you should do with friends."
Friends or loved ones.
I do now have a keychain that's just...
So,
I go down and it's me
and this group of strangers
and we're going to go together
as a group through this horror maze.
It's tourists and families,
there's like ten of us.
We're about to go through it,
and this guy comes out,
and he's dressed
like a kind of Victorian butcher.
He's covered in blood
and he's got a big butcher's knife,
big beard, Scottish guy,
and he goes, "I'm the butcher!"
I can't do the accent very well.
He's like, "Welcome to
the Edinburgh dungeons,
we're gonna fucking kill you."
And I'm like, "Yes!"
"Yes, I've been praying for death!" Um...
Then he goes, "But first,
I do have a few safety announcements. Um..."
"If you are pregnant or you do
have epilepsy, don't go in the dungeon."
Uh...
I'm like, "Okay." Then he said,
"At no point will any of the actors
in the dungeon touch you or grab you."
So I was like, "That's good." Right?
Nobody wants to be grabbed in the dunge.
So I was like,
"Sweet." Um...
So we start going through
and guys, it's so scary.
Like it's just... I'm quaking with fear.
I'm with these strangers going through.
They do this thing where they love
to turn off all the lights, pitch-black.
And then when they come back on, there's
a woman standing an inch from your face
and being like...
It's so scary,
but I'm loving it. I'm like, "Ah."
There's sort of a narrative arc
where, at the very beginning,
the butcher was like, "You're gonna meet
the legendary cannibal Sawney Bean."
Does anybody know Sawney Bean?
Legendary cannibal, apparently, and...
We're like, "We don't want to meet him.
We're frightened."
He's like, "Oh no.
He's going to love you guys."
We know it's building to something.
And we get to this part where
there's a sort of boat underground,
we're in the bowels of Edinburgh, right?
And there's a boat
on a track and we all get in it.
And we can hear
Sawney Bean in the darkness,
toward where we're headed,
going, "I'm Sawney Bean."
We're like, "No!"
The butcher goes, "Okay, guys,
you're on your own now. I'm leaving you."
We're like "No, wait.
We've learned to love you, we need you."
He's like "Fuck you, guys" and he leaves.
Now it's me and my group
and we're in the little boat.
The lights go off and it's pitch-black.
You can't see your hand
in front of your face, it's so dark,
and it's damp and it's cold.
We can hear, "I'm Sawney Bean."
And I'm freaking out.
Then I feel these hands on my back.
Going up my back,
and kind of coming around my neck.
And I'm freaking out
because I'm remembering
they're not allowed
to touch you in the dunge. Right?
I'm like, "What's happening?"
The lights come back, I spin round,
and there's just this middle-aged woman
who's part of our group.
And she just goes...
"Ooh!"
It was...
insane.
"Ooh-hoo-ooh."
And she was
with her two teenaged daughters
who are sitting
on either side of her. They're like,
"Mom, what the fuck are you doing?"
She's like, "Ooh."
I think about her all the time.
She's like the mailman.
She's a hero, you know.
A hero to us all.
But, yeah, I do things like that
to, you know, to feel alive and, um...
Yeah, I try to be
very vigilant about my brain
because I have a lot of shame
about my teens.
I behaved very badly. You know?
I was very self-destructive and I...
The weird thing is I was so angry,
I was really angry. And, uh...
The weird thing is since, like, 2016...
I remember when Trump got elected.
I was like, "So we can't deny anymore
that the world is slightly off its axis."
It's a little fucked, right?
We have so much information
available to us now,
it's hard to deny the system
doesn't work for everyone.
Like, billionaires don't pay taxes
and all the stuff we know.
So I'm like, "Okay,
in a way, my anger was valid."
I think a lot of teenagers feel
this righteous indignation and stuff.
But the method of my rebellion
was garbage.
Like, it was so self-destructive
and self-involved.
You know, it was impotent, ultimately.
I got this tattoo
when I was 16. It says, "Oatmeal."
Um...
It says, "Oatmeal," twice.
I remember being like,
"Fuck the man, you know."
Like, what?
So that's there for good. Uh...
I...
I remember feeling like...
I felt like the world was a house
that had been sold to me
at a very young age when I was
too young to be signing mortgages.
A house that was sold to me
by a really shady realtor.
Like, a kind of greasy, with a...
A doggy-style baby realtor.
"Sign here, kid."
And I'm like, "Okay."
"All your dreams will come true."
I sign it, suddenly I'm in this house.
You develop critical thinking.
You wake up in the house in your teens.
You're like, "Wait."
Hang on, the foundations
of the house are rotten,
the backyard's on fire
'cause the previous owners
kept heating it
with fossil fuels exclusively.
So my reaction was, I thought,
"All right, I'll just bulldoze
the house with myself in it."
And of course, now I realize
what I should have done
is put any amount of energy
into fixing the house, right?
That's what we need to do is...
That's hopefully what
we're trying to do. We have to, right?
Put some energy into making
the house a nicer place to live.
'Cause it won't do it... Yeah.
I do feel we have to consciously do it.
Or else it won't happen. You know? Um...
And that's why I am really... I love...
I feel like Gen Z is incredible.
I don't believe that they're
just on TikTok. I think they're wicked.
They're out there. They're doing stuff.
You know, protesting climate change
and dismantling rigid gender binaries.
What was I doing?
I was slithering around being like,
"Does anyone have any acid?"
Just like useless behavior.
And they're wicked.
I want to talk about...
I want to talk about, like,
the gender thing for a sec.
So...
Just because I've been in the UK,
and now I'm in the States,
and in both places there's
a real hysteria right now around gender
and gender identity.
And I think part of it comes
from this misconception
that it's a recent Gen Z fad.
Or a millennial fad, right?
To have this fluidity
around gender, it's like...
Of course... As long as
there's been human civilization,
we know, right,
there's been variances in gender.
There's been different cultures
that recognize third and fourth genders.
Not just recognize, revere.
Like I could have been revered.
I could have been revered.
It sucks.
And instead I'm like, "Which bathroom
am I allowed to use, please?"
Um...
And really it is a recent colonial fad
to have this very rigid gender binary.
It's really like we just went around
the world bulldozing over the nuances of
all these beautiful things. Um...
In the UK, where I've been living,
I remember in 2018,
India decriminalized homosexuality,
and it was great.
Like, big celebration, really exciting,
but it was really frustrating
'cause the coverage of it
on the news in the UK was so smug.
It was like, "It's about time, India."
And it's like, England went into India
and criminalized homosexuality
in 1896. Like, it's...
It's the ultimate gaslighting.
It's like lighting someone's house
on fire and being like,
"It's really awkward how long
it's taking out to put that out."
"It's so embarrassing."
Yeah. Thanks.
Um... Yeah.
And the annoying thing is
I don't really want to talk about gender
because it's kind of lose-lose, right?
Especially if it's something that
personally affects you and you care about
then it's hard to debate.
You get emotional, you've already lost.
'Cause you're like...
Like, it's hard,
but I feel like I should talk about it
because everyone else is. Like, comedians.
Big multimillionaire comedians,
in their stand-up specials are, like,
taking shots and punching down
at a time when
trans rights are so tenuous,
and slipping backwards, it's just not...
Yeah. And, uh...
No, no, no. But I feel...
You're like,
"Yeah, they're slipping backwards, yeah."
No, just kidding.
I'm suddenly like, "Oh, fuck."
The thing... And I watch
those specials so I can be informed
when I'm asked in every interview
to talk about those guys' specials.
But, like, the thing that
kept coming up was, "Gender's a fact."
That was the refrain of one,
"Gender's a fact."
Then they cut to the audience. "Aw, yeah."
They're loving it. And it's like, um...
I feel like I'm kind of preaching
to the choir a little here, but
just to quickly say... Of course,
biological sex is real. It's a thing.
Within that, there's tons of variation,
it's very much like...
Scientifically, it's not as binary
as we think. There's intersex people,
there's hormonal variation,
all kinds of stuff.
But, yeah, for sure, biological sex,
no one denies is real,
but gender is so much more ephemeral
and much more what to do with
what's in here and in here.
Very much like,
you know, a social construct.
And more fluid.
And the way I explain it to people
who are trying to understand
the difference between
biological sex and gender is
I picture the gender spectrum.
You know the movie Beauty and the Beast?
Okay.
So imagine if at one end of
the gender spectrum, you have Gaston.
You remember him?
He's like, "No one fights like..."
Hot. He's hot.
He's like extreme masculinity.
On the other end of the spectrum
you have Belle,
who has Stockholm Syndrome.
So dark, but, um...
But, guys, she's still
an excellent role model
because she can read.
She loves a book.
You got to hand it to her. Um...
And then in the middle of the spectrum,
you have the candlestick, right?
You have Lumire.
And I really relate to Lumire.
I connect with Lumire.
And obviously the more we empower Lumire,
the more fun
Gaston and Belle are gonna have.
Lumire's throwing parties.
They're like, "Be my guest!"
Yeah.
I have this fantasy.
I have this fantasy that like...
It's a really clear image in my head of...
You got Dave Chappelle,
Ricky Gervais, Louis C.K.
Throw Joe Rogan in there.
And they're eating a hog roast.
In this fantasy, it's a huge hog,
and they're ripping the flesh off it.
They're drinking goblets of mead.
That medieval drink.
They're throwing their money.
And then they turn the TV on
and they see me doing my
little Beauty and the Beast gender...
Just like... "And the candlestick."
And they're watching it, and are like,
"Oh my God, we... Guys."
"We were wrong."
"Oh."
And then they just...
That's my fantasy.
Then they just like...
You know what I want? I want them to...
I want them to cradle each other.
I want them to hold each other gently,
and just gently rock.
I want them
to re-parent themselves, basically.
Just give a little... That.
'Cause I do understand too. I get it.
It's hard to learn new language. You know?
Although, is it? Like...
Omicron, you know?
We picked that up pretty fast. Um...
But the...
The joke I always hear,
and this has been a joke...
This was hack in the '90s, this joke.
It's come back with a vengeance
on the stand-up circuit.
It's like, "Well, like,
I identify as a cactus."
Or, "I identify as a lamp post,"
or this inanimate object.
And it's like...
Um, yeah, I'm non-binary,
which is under
the banner of trans identity.
In that like the sex
I was assigned at birth
doesn't feel like it fit.
Um...
And, uh...
But it's like, I don't want to necessarily
identify as non-binary or trans,
I just am that, I just am.
And to say otherwise would be bizarre.
It would be like doing
a violence to myself.
That's what it would feel like.
It would be like
the hot tomato soup thing,
times a hundred, just full of tomato soup.
It's tricky because it's like...
You just have to take my word for it
that I know who I am.
It's so hard saying that to people.
It's like, I just...
You just have to take my word for it.
I am certain of it. And it's like...
I may not be certain
if a Toyota Tercel can fit under a moose.
Very unsure.
But I do know this.
Also, you don't have
to understand it even.
You know what I mean?
Like, I do not understand Wi-Fi.
How does it work? What is it?
But I know that it's real.
I know it exists among us.
I just accept that it's there, whatever.
I don't let it keep me up at night.
I'm not like...
Yeah. Um...
Yeah, so I had top surgery last December
and I'm on a low dose
of testosterone for this past year.
And it's been
the best year of my life. Genuinely.
And I'm 35 years old.
This has been the best year of my life.
Yeah.
Thanks. Um...
And it's like...
What's weird is, like, I'm not that happy.
I'm not skipping around.
It's truly just the absence of agony.
That's all it is.
And that's a low bar,
and who are we to deny anybody that?
The absence of agony, yeah.
That's going to be my...
That's going to be my album title.
Um...
Yeah, okay.
And also, I'm really just so grateful
to have the language now. Right?
Growing up I didn't have that language.
But I always felt this way
and I remember being...
You know when you're four or five and
your parents tell the story of your birth?
You know? And...
I feel like my parents...
It sounds like they were always
talking about my conception and my birth.
I swear we had
normal conversations as well.
But I remember my dad telling me,
"Your mother went into labor,
we went to the hospital."
He was saying,
"Maybe you'll have your own kids one day."
And I'm imagining having my own kids.
In my fantasy of having children,
I was never the one having the kids.
It was a really specific fantasy where
I was this 1950s businessman father,
just like pacing
the halls of the hospital.
Smoking. Just...
Really like a very 101 Dalmatians vibe.
Then some nurse
would be like, "It's a boy."
And I'd be like, "Cheers, gentlemen."
"I'll name it Buster."
"Send it down the mines."
Um, yeah. Okay, we're almost at the end.
I have one more thing to tell you.
I'm gonna get my mic stand.
If I... Yeah, imagine if I lost it?
So, I feel like... And by the way,
thank you so much. This has been really...
You've been amazing.
I feel like we've been through, like...
In terms of our worldview,
we've been through pessimism and optimism.
And I really want
to end on a positive note.
So I want to tell you
this Buddhist parable that I love.
Um, this is... Stay with me. So...
I love this story. Um...
And then I'm gonna go.
It takes place in the forest, actually.
We're back in the forest.
And, basically, in this parable,
this man is being chased,
pursued through the forest by
what I can only describe
as a beast from hell.
Like, a really terrifying creature
with a lion's jaws
and this monstrous body.
Its nature is pure hunger.
It wants to devour this man,
and it's been chasing him for days,
and he's been running.
And he's starting to get exhausted.
At some point, he's going
to succumb to the beast.
Just when he thinks he's gonna pass out
and the beast is gonna get him,
he sees this little stone well
in the middle of the forest,
little circular well.
He's like, "I'll hide
in the well from the beast."
He jumps in.
Sure enough, the beast doesn't follow him
It stops at the top and is like...
He's like, "Great." He's falling
down the well, and as he's falling,
he feels water splashing up onto his feet.
He's like, "That's weird."
And he looks down.
And below him, where he's headed,
the water is churning wildly,
and he realizes...
What's at the bottom of the well?
Another beast.
Yeah. It's a double beast situash.
Bad. Bad news.
Beast at the top, beast below.
Like that.
And, at the last second,
he sees this branch
growing out of the side of the well,
like a gnarly branch.
So he grabs onto it
and he uses his last remaining strength
to maneuver himself up onto this branch.
And his muscles are quivering.
But he's like, "I made it."
The beast is there, the beast below.
And the branch is creaking
under his weight,
like, this is not
a permanent solution. Right?
At some point,
the branch is going to give out.
And he's sweating...
he's sweating
in that crease here. You know?
If you're sweating in that crease,
you are in trouble.
And suddenly he looks to the end
of the branch and he sees
something glistening on the end.
He's like, "What is that?"
And so he balances
and he reaches out with one finger
to the end of the branch,
and he gets it on his finger.
It's golden, glistening tree sap.
It's tree sap.
And he puts it in his mouth and he's like,
"Is that? That's delicious."
Guys, it's positive. Wait.
That's... That's it. No.
Hello?
Okay.
Okay. Uh...
Trust me, I find it very positive.
You got to get on board. Please.
I've called the show SAP.
You truly must get on board.
Like, this was not cheap.
No, but I really do find it positive
because it's, like, look.
Life might be a double beast situash.
That might be just what life...
In a way, is it not? Know what I mean?
But luckily there's so much sap,
and we have to just to take the time,
it's worth it to enjoy the sap,
and cultivate it where we can.
And luckily there's
an abundance of sap, I think.
Like everywhere you look,
if you look hard.
You got dogs.
Every dog on this Earth.
Like a good pair of jeans.
That's sap. That can be sap.
The Beatles, for me, are sap. Um...
Your friends. The TV show Friends.
No, like having friends.
Um, sex is good.
Sex with your friends is pretty good. Um...
Scaring people, "Ooh." Yeah, if that's...
I like campfires, roasting marshmallows,
the song "Bennie and the Jets"
by Elton John.
Um...
Yeah, hugs and sparklers,
Christmas lights,
all those things are fully sap.
All those things can be sap.
And genuinely, this may be corny,
but truly, this is sap for me.
Doing this makes me so happy
and it's sap for me.
And I'm so grateful to you all for coming.
Thank you so much.
Thank you so much. Thank you very much.
Oh, fuck.
Oh my God. Oh my God.
Are... Wait. Are you crying?
Yeah, I mean, it was all just so sad.
It was supposed to be funny.
- No, it wasn't.
- Yeah, it was. The whole thing.
Really?
Guess you and I just have
different senses of humor.
Well, thank you
for listening anyway.
It's good to get that stuff off my chest.
No, it's...
It's me. I'm me.
You are you.
It's wonderful.
- Well, should we get started?
- Yeah.
- Are you excited?
- Yeah, I'm a little nervous. I'm excited.
Nervous is normal. This is a bit heavy.
The Buchanan's got
a lot of mail this season.
- Oh, really? Popular?
- You're gonna love this.
- Okay.
- All right. Shovels.
- Yeah.
- Yeah? Ooh.
- I'm so happy you came.
- Yeah, thanks for having me.
I can't believe
it was supposed to be funny.
- Yeah, well...
- That's crazy.
Parts were poignant, I guess. But...
- Yeah. All right, so here we go.
- Okay.
Let's get a little hole going here.
There you go. Get in there.
You're gonna love this, Mae.
- Over-the-shoulder?
- Oh, yeah.
- Yeah, ready.
- One, two, three. Yeah!
- Feels good, huh?
- Sick. Should we...?
- Yeah, grab some mail.
- What do you...
What do you usually? Is this one fine?
Oh!
- Jesus! Mamma mia, Mae! Jeez!
- Hey. Sorry.
- Marshmallow?
- Uh... No, I'm good.
- Rubber band?
- Sure, I'll take one.
- All right.
- Thanks.
Oh!
Story time.
- Nice. Well, I'll settle in.
- Okay.
Um...
Mae, I just got mine replaced.
Hope you backed up the pictures
from your wedding.
- Um, can you introduce me?
- Okay.
- Can you do the "And now" one?
- The "And now"? Okay, got it.
Thank you.
And now, please put your hands together,
and welcome to the stage,
the one, the only,
Mae Martin!
Hi!
How we doing?
Hey.
Hi.
Nice to see you.
Oh my God. This is the best.
Thank you so much for being here.
What's... Uh... Okay.
I have so much to tell you, genuinely. Um...
What is everybody's name?
Should we just start...
On the count of three,
everybody say your name.
Ready? One, two, three.
Hello, uh, I'm Mae.
I'm so pumped to be in Canada right now.
Just, I really...
Um, I... I am Canadian.
I'm very Canadian.
But, please, I've been living
in England for the past 12 years.
I've been living in London.
So I do sound a bit like an asshole.
I do have a slight,
like, Madonna lilt.
And I'm trying so hard to fight it.
I'm really sorry. But it's...
My dad's British. Like very...
He's very, very British.
He's like... My dad's like
a mystical British gentleman.
He's very... He's a magical man.
He's very into, like,
the phases of the moon.
He's... He's a moon man.
He's into, like, um...
He knows all the birds
that ever visit his garden
and he has
a specific relationship with each bird.
And my childhood, like my whole childhood,
was pretty mystical.
Like, the best example I can think of...
Okay, when I was about eight years old,
my dad was driving
my brother and I to karate class.
And it was a very Canadian scene.
It's like 5:00 p.m.,
the sun's already going down.
It's snowing, we're on the highway.
We're going to the karate dojo.
Me and my brother in the backseat.
I'm eight, my brother's 12.
I was a green belt in karate,
my brother was a yellow belt.
So he was four years older,
two belts lower.
Um...
Which is not important,
but I thought I would flag it.
And, uh, we're driving along the highway
and suddenly my dad, like,
swerves to the side of the highway
in, like, a panicked move.
And tires are screeching,
people are honking. Really dangerous.
He pulls over,
and he's really shaken up, and he goes,
"I'm so sorry, children,
but we have to get out of the car."
We're like, "What?"
And so we get out of the car.
We're standing by the side
of the highway, in the snow.
My brother, 12 years old, so embarrassed,
he's like, in his karate uniform.
And people are driving by, they're like,
"Is he a yellow belt? 'Cause..."
"Hang on a second. He looks older..."
"We're gonna turn the car around.
Check this out."
And so we're like, "What is going on?"
And my dad goes,
"I've just seen
the new moon through glass."
So, he had seen the sliver of the new moon
through the windshield
and we had to pull over,
get out of the car,
and he made us bow
to the moon three times.
We had to do this whole ritual.
We had to say,
"Good evening, Lady Moon." It was...
It was mystical. He's a moon man.
He's deep into the moon.
And, um, I was just visiting recently,
uh, visiting home.
This is my childhood home
that I grew up in,
and they've had it
since long before I was born.
And I'm in the kitchen
with my mom and dad,
and my dad comes up to me
and goes, "Meet me in the study at dusk."
I'm like, "But I..."
I go to my mom,
I'm like, "What time is dusk?"
She's like, "I don't know."
And I go up to the study, which is like...
It's been many things over the years,
it's been like a spare room or whatever.
My dad's there with a glass of wine,
looking out the window.
He wanted to show me
there's a family of raccoons
that lives in a tree
in the neighbor's yard.
And, like, every night
at dusk, they emerge,
and he's got, yeah,
a relationship with them all. Um...
So, we're standing,
waiting for the raccoons,
and he just really dreamily goes, um...
"Do you know
you were conceived in this room?"
Which...
So I was like, "Oh..."
And I don't like to shut him down
when he's being vulnerable, so...
I was like, "Wait. You remember
the specific night that I was conceived?"
And he said this phrase,
which truly has haunted me
ever since. He said,
he goes, "Yes, of course I remember it."
"I remember it well."
This is what he said.
"The moonlight shone in
over your mother's bottom."
Over your...
I feel like
you're not fully getting, like...
I now know the position
I was conceived in.
I'm horrified.
Nobody wants to be conceived doggy style.
It's so bleak.
You don't want...
You want to be conceived face to face.
Eye contact.
At the moment of ejaculation,
just like we...
"We're making a choice
to make a life."
Not like, "Ah! Bite the pillow!"
It's horrible.
It's... It's bleak. It's like...
It's changed how I see myself.
Like, how I...
I'm like, "I'm a doggy-style baby."
Makes a lot of sense, actually.
Explains a lot.
It's, like, affected my posture.
I'm just a little more... I'm like...
Just a little hunched.
I feel like I can spot
other doggy-style babies
when I'm out in the world, 100%, there's...
I'll be getting on the subway,
and there's someone...
Smoking on the subway.
I'm like, "Oh, yeah."
Or I'll be in a bar,
and the bartender's like,
"Sorry, someone's just sent you a drink."
I look down the bar, and...
Another doggy-style baby.
There's some in here tonight.
I can see us. Several.
They...
Every time I go home to visit,
something like this happens.
Something that derails my...
my grasp on reality.
Like, um, okay,
my parents have this anecdote,
and it's a story
they've been telling my whole life.
Like, once a year,
they'll have a few drinks
and tell this story
at a dinner party or whatever.
Um... And it makes me feel crazy,
because I'm like, "It cannot be true."
So, why are you
doing this to me? What is this?
Um, and my brother and I get really upset.
I'll tell you the story
and then you can be the judge,
if you think it's true or not. Okay?
Okay.
So, my parents swear
that when they were
in their late twenties,
they were driving
through Northern Ontario,
down a winding road through a forest,
and they drove under a moose.
They swear.
They swear.
My mom says they were driving
down this winding road,
the moose was horizontal on the road,
and they drove under its belly.
It makes me feel insane.
I'm like, "What are you talking about?"
It's... And so it's...
She does a sound effect
of the sound of the belly fur of the moose
gently grazing the roof of the car.
Just like...
Can you imagine?
It makes me feel insane.
It makes me feel crazy.
And, uh, it makes
my brother irate, as well. Because...
So, the last time I was visiting,
me and my brother were like,
"We need to get to the bottom of this."
We need to find out
if this is even possible.
So we did research
and we found out
the height of a Toyota Tercel.
That's the car they were driving.
So, the height of the roof of the car.
We Googled the largest
ever recorded moose.
And the infuriating thing is
it could just have happened.
It could just have happened.
If they happened to stumble upon
the biggest-ever recorded moose,
I guess it's possible.
It makes me feel insane.
You think it's true?
Give a cheer if you think it's true.
Really?
Give a cheer if you think it's bullshit.
See?
I don't know.
I think it says a lot
about your worldview.
Like, if you believe in the moose,
you're young at heart. You...
You've retained a sliver of,
like, childlike enthusiasm
about life.
And if you don't believe
in the moose, you're...
Look, it's been a tough couple years.
It's been tough, hasn't it? Oh my God.
It really has. We got to do
whatever it takes to get by.
You know? Whatever makes you feel good.
Like... So my father
sent me a news article recently.
Uh, he sent me this news article,
and was like, "I thought you'd like this."
"I thought you'd relate to it."
Those are the words he used.
"I thought you'd really relate to this."
This was the story,
and I haven't stopped thinking about it.
I'm going to tell it to you.
So this, it happened in the Netherlands,
in a small town in the Netherlands,
where basically this family noticed
that they weren't getting any mail.
They were like, "We haven't received
any mail in a long time."
Weeks start going by.
They're like,
"Wait. We're not even getting our bills
or pamphlets in the mail.
This is really weird."
So they go to their neighbors.
"Are you guys getting your mail?"
They're like, "No.
This is so weird. Not for so long."
So they go to the post office
and speak to, like, the boss.
The mail boss, you know.
You know, the mail boss...
that you have to defeat
to pass Level 10.
He's like... And, um...
They're like,
"We're not getting any of our mail."
He's like, "I'll look into it."
He goes to speak to the mailman
who's responsible for that block.
And I can't remember the mailman's name,
so we'll call him like... Gary.
We'll call him Gary.
He's like, "Gary, these people are saying
that they're not getting their mail."
"What's going on?"
And Gary's like
weirdly defensive right away.
He's like, "I don't know what to tell you.
I deliver the mail."
"If they're not getting mail,
it means no one's writing to them."
They're like, "Okay."
So the mail boss is like, "Okay, Gary."
But privately, to his coworkers,
he's like, "What's up with Gary?"
Gary is being really weird.
So they decide
they're going to keep an eye on Gary
and investigate the sitch.
And so, the next day,
Gary comes to work and first red flag,
he picks up the mail
and gets in his personal vehicle.
Not the mail truck or whatever.
Gets in his... And he drives out of town.
So they're like, "Fuck."
And they followed him.
They follow him,
and he drives into the forest
in the Netherlands.
And they follow him at a distance.
They watch him park. They park.
They're keeping an eye on him.
They see him get out of the car.
He takes the bag of mail, he goes
into the woods, he's gone 45 minutes.
He comes back out with no bag.
Gets in his car, drives away.
So they go in after him.
Into the forest. And...
Imagine this. This is the sight
they're confronted with, okay?
Beautiful, dappled sunlight, you know.
Mist rising from the moss.
There's a lone moose.
A huge moose in the background.
Just towering over the trees, truly.
Um...
And they see, as far as the eye can see,
there are hundreds of piles
of freshly turned earth.
Little... In neat rows
stretching through the forest.
And they dust, they brush the dirt up.
Gary's been burying the mail.
He's been burying the mail for ages.
This has obviously been going on
a long time and it's now amped up.
They're like, "Fuck." And, uh...
They approach him the next day at work.
Gently.
They approach him gently.
They're like, "Hey, Gar. Um..."
"I..."
"We noticed you've been burying the mail."
"And we were just wondering,
why are you doing that?"
And in the news article, this was
the direct quote from the mailman,
in answer to the question,
"Why are you burying the mail?"
This is what he said. He said,
"I did it once, it felt good."
"And now it's just kind of what I do."
I love him.
He's my hero, I...
Guys, Gary went to jail.
He went to jail for eight months. Yeah.
You can't fuck with the mail,
that's a federal offense. Um...
He went to jail. And I wanted
to write him fan mail in jail,
but I don't want to stress him out.
'Cause he'd be like,
"I want to bury it. Argh!"
But, no, I really was, like...
I've never felt so seen by my father. Um...
That's...
It has been tough.
Like, I'm trying to get back into life
and sort of feel that enthusiasm again
of pre-pandemic life.
Especially, I'm struggling to feel
that enthusiasm in my romantic life.
I don't know
if anyone is in the same boat.
But post-pandemic dating, like, I'm...
'Cause I'm 35, like...
In my early 20s, so romantic.
Obsessed with finding "the one."
My parents are very in love
and that was my model. So I just...
Somebody would be, "Do you have the time?"
And I'd be, "I love you as well."
Is that...
"And I..."
"And I want to go with you."
"Where are we going?"
Um, and now
I'm just a bit like... I don't know.
Last summer, I dated someone.
A man, actually,
a lovely man, if you can believe.
Not if you... Wait, not if you...
Not "if you can believe
that men can be lovely."
Of course they can.
But if you can believe that I...
Um...
Yeah, so we dated for like six months,
me and this guy and, uh...
You know it was really nice,
but I'm 35, he's 36.
Like, at this point,
we both have big exes in our past.
You know what I mean? We're never
going to be that big ex for each other.
Like, we're never
gonna properly traumatize each other,
so it's kind of like...
What's the point? Um...
And...
So, we were in bed one night,
and we were just chatting,
we were having a nice light-hearted chat.
He wasn't trying to be heavy.
He just goes, "If we had kids one day,
what would we name our kids?"
I was, like, "I don't..."
I was like, "I don't know."
At this point, I've had
that conversation with so many people.
I was like...
"I don't know."
"Let me just wade through this graveyard
of dead hypothetical children
to try to get to
the new hypothetical kids."
I'm passing the ghosts of 'em.
I'm like, "Oh, look!"
"There's Olive and Basil, the twins."
They're there. They're like,
"You forgot about us."
I'm like, "Oh, fuck off."
There's little Clementine,
I sent her to a private school. You know?
She's got a clarinet through her head.
"Come and play with me."
I'm like, "No."
And I finally find
the new hypothetical children,
I'm like, "I have no creative energy left
to name these children."
Like, "Can we just call them both Ian?"
I don't know.
Did you guys know that...? This is true.
In 2018, there were no new Ian's born.
There were no...
It's a true story.
In 2018, not a single new Ian registered
on this planet Earth. That is true.
And if you're watching this,
and you hate the show,
at least take that with you. You know?
Wait, so do you guys know
what I mean when I say big ex?
Like, you have your exes.
Okay. Really?
You're like, "Yes, we know."
Like you have your normal exes
and then you have, like, your big exes.
Where you reach a certain page
in the novel of your life... No.
Uh, I do feel you reach a certain age
and you just have to accept
that for the rest of your life
there's certain names,
where every time you hear them,
all of your organs are gonna dissolve.
And just fall out of your vagina.
Or your bum hole, if you don't...
And you have to carry around a plastic bag
just in case you have to collect your...
It's disgusting.
Um...
So, I have a couple
of significant big exes,
but I have this one who...
I want to tell you this story.
So basically, this ex,
it was a really intense relationship,
it was like four years.
And it was a secret relationship
because it was her first
non-heterosexual relationship.
She was like, "We can't tell anyone."
And we lived together.
It was so stressful.
And she broke up with me,
which is not allowed. Um...
Which... I thought I had made that clear.
Um...
It was a long, drawn-out break-up.
Anyway, so at the point
where this story takes place,
I hadn't seen her in a year and a half
or had any contact.
I was in London and I was doing a show,
and I was feeling good that night.
You know what I mean?
Like, I had a fresh haircut.
I was freshly shorn. You know the feeling?
I was wearing a crisp black T-shirt and...
Crisper than this. I'm sorry about this.
This is... crumpled.
Crumplestiltskin over here.
Do you remember Rumpelstiltskin?
What happened to him?
He used to be everywhere.
We used to always talk about him.
When you're a kid,
Rumpelstiltskin this, Rumpelstiltskin...
Now you never hear about him.
I get it.
It's hard to stay relevant. You know?
He's, like, faded into obscurity.
Anyway, so I'm feeling good
on this particular night, feeling crisp.
Feeling shorn, and, uh...
And also my best friend Joe
was with me that night.
He was in the audience of my show.
I love having Joe in the audience,
he's a generous laugher.
He's a real angel,
like, my best, best friend.
And, um, I do the show, it goes well.
And I go to the green room afterwards.
Out the green room door to meet Joe.
And I'm... It was a good show.
I'm like, "Hey, man. Fun show."
But he's like green.
Just all the color has left his face,
and he just goes,
"She's here."
And I'm like, "Fuck."
I know exactly who he means right away,
so I'm like, "Okay."
And he goes, "Look, she's upstairs."
"She doesn't know you're in the building.
She came to the bar to have a drink
with some of our mutual friends."
He goes, "Let's just sneak out the back."
"Let's have a fun night.
We'll go to a different bar."
And I thought about it.
And then I thought, "No."
"I don't want to have a fun night."
So, I'm like, "No, we'll go upstairs."
We go up, I'm feeling confident.
I see, there she is
with our mutual friends and, um...
You guys would have been very proud of me.
I walk over very cool.
What does that mean?
I walk over...
Uh...
Um... No, I walk over
feeling confident. And...
I'm also... I have the element of surprise.
She doesn't know I'm in the building.
I think this is gonna work in my favor.
So I walk over, go, "Hey."
Our mutual friends, they all know
how bad the breakup was by this point,
so they see me coming.
I go, "Hey, how's it going?"
She's like, "Oh my God, hi."
She stands up. We hug.
It's really nice.
I go, "Great to see you."
"Hey, I heard you got that part,
that's so great."
She's like, "Yeah. Congrats on stuff."
And I'm like, "Yeah, great."
It's going well, and I suddenly think,
"You know what,
I need to be the one
to end this interaction." Right?
I need to retain control of the situation.
Like, I need to...
We talked for a while, and I go,
"Listen, so good to see you..."
She goes, "You want to sit down?"
I'm, "No, no, I'm gonna hang
with my friends at the bar,
but it's really nice to see you."
We hug again, she sits down.
I'm walking to the bar
and she's still kinda casting glances
over her shoulder as I walk to the bar.
And, as I'm walking to the bar,
I suddenly realize,
"What friends at the bar?"
There are no friends at the bar.
Joe has sat down at her table.
He's a snake.
He's dead to me.
I'm panicking 'cause
she's still kinda looking.
And I'm walking to the bar.
Thank God, at the last second,
I see three girls who were in my show.
They were in the front row of my show.
So I'm approaching the bar,
thank God, one of them goes,
"Hey, great show tonight."
So I think...
I think probably what
she wanted out of that interaction,
like, what she expected
from that interaction, was kind of like,
"Hey. Great show tonight."
"Oh, cheers, thanks for coming."
What she got was so intense.
I was like, "Hi, how are you?
What are all of your names and jobs?"
So tactile as well. Weirdly tactile.
Like my arm around all their shoulders,
like my head on their shoulder. I'm like...
Mm!
They're like, "Whoa, okay. Uh..."
We're chatting.
Then, thank God, we start chatting,
it's going well, we're getting along.
So I'm like, "Crisis averted."
They're like, "You want a drink?"
I'm like, "Yeah." We're having a drink
and I suddenly feel a tap on my shoulder,
and I look around and it's my big ex.
This time she has the element of surprise,
because I wasn't expecting it.
She goes, "Hey, sorry to interrupt,
I want to say bye, I'm leaving now."
I'm like, "Yeah, yeah." And we hug.
And she said something awful, like...
Like...
"I'm sure our paths will cross one day."
You know what I mean?
Something like that,
where all my organs dissolve.
Get the plastic bag out. Oh God.
Um...
And so we hug,
and she's leaving, she turns.
She's still kind of
saying goodbye to some people here,
and I turn back to my "friends,"
and suddenly, like,
I guess I just got overwhelmed.
And the floodgates just open
and I just start sobbing.
So... No, my face
like crumbles, my shoulders...
I'm literally just like...
They're like, "Oh my God, are you okay?"
And I just go,
"Laugh, laugh!"
"Laugh!"
It was psychotic behavior.
I'm literally like, "Fucking laugh. Ah!"
And they're all like...
"Ha-ha-ha-ha."
There's no real punchline
to that story, it's just...
a vignette, if you will.
To illustrate the level of emotion
I'm operating on. I mean...
I have a lot of feelings.
Do you guys have a lot of feelings?
It's exhausting, you know.
I'm full to the absolute brim
with feelings.
I always visualize, um...
like Campbell's tomato soup.
That it's... You know what I mean?
Campbell's cream of tomato soup.
And then I'm full to brim.
Right to the top of my skull,
just trying to keep it contained.
Just trying to keep it
from sloshing out of my orifices
as I make my way through life.
That's how I feel about my feelings.
All it takes is
one person goes, "How are you?"
And it's like... fling!
Like, it shoots out my ear.
They're like, "Oh God."
I'm like, "I'm sorry."
"That's not about you."
No, I'm all right.
I got a therapist recently.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, you have to, guys. You do. Like...
Well, if you're gonna complain
as much as I complain,
unfortunately, you do have to get one. Um...
Yeah.
I feel like my friends were
starting to be like,
"You should pay someone
to do what you expect of us."
I was like, "Oh, okay."
I found this therapist
and he's really smart and we Zoom.
And he said something interesting
where he said,
"Remember, you are not the feeling."
"Sure you feel consumed by the feeling,
but you are not the feeling."
He said, "Within you, and within everyone,
there's a very still,
neutral, eternal self."
"And you experience the feelings,
but you're not consumed by them."
He said, "Rather than identifying
so much with the feeling,
like, 'I'm anxious, I'm this.'" He said,
"Don't be consumed by the feeling."
"Just observe the feelings
as they come, with curiosity."
Have you heard that before?
Apparently that's the...
So I think you're
just supposed to be like, "Huh."
"I'm experiencing
rage."
"How curious."
"How curious."
I had a really, um, weird thing
where, during the pandemic...
I spent the whole pandemic in London.
I was just in my apartment,
in the rain, in London for... years.
And, uh, I noticed
an unexpected feeling bubbling up
where I was, "Why do I feel embarrassed?"
Like, I would wake up feeling embarrassed.
And I was spending a lot of time,
obviously, in my apartment.
in my living room,
and in my bedroom, specifically.
And I was like,
"Wait, okay, maybe it's this."
Okay, stay with me.
Don't you think it's kind of embarrassing
that we're adults
and we still have rooms?
Okay, stay, wait.
That we're like, "This is my room. Hm."
"This is my room."
"Don't go in my room."
It's embarrassing.
"I have to clean my room."
And, like, please. I, of course, accept
and understand that we need rooms.
You need four walls within which
to lay your weary head each night.
But I think what I find
so embarrassing about it
is, like, the way we decorate our rooms
to reflect our individuality.
And we're like, "I'm me." Right?
"I'm myself in my room."
It's so embarrassing.
"I have one Himalayan salt lamp."
"Yes I do, and I'm me."
"I have my picture on the wall and I..."
When you finish reading a book,
you never get rid of it.
You're like,
"I put it on the shelf in my..."
"That is my personality
on display for all to see."
"No one else is me."
And then I was thinking...
Okay, this is a little abstract,
but don't you think, in a way,
our brains and our minds
are like our rooms,
and we furnish our minds
with experiences that we collect
to then build what we think of
as our identity and selves?
And that's all we're doing.
We're little experience hunters,
collecting these
to put them on our brain shelves
and be like, "I'm me."
And I always visualize
every experience that we collect
is like a little novelty snow globe.
We're just going around, being like,
"One time I saw Antonio Banderas
at the airport. Yes, I did."
"I'm myself. And no one else is me."
And then
all human interaction is, really...
I really noticed this coming out
of the pandemic. All interaction is just
basically taking turns
showing each other our snow globes.
And being like, "I..."
And just pathetically taking turns.
And, like, someone will be
showing you their snow globe, you know,
and you're trying to be a good listener.
It's a story about a party
they went to five years ago.
And you're like, "Yes,
and you are you as well."
Like, "Yes, exactly, yes."
"How wonderful to be yourself as well."
But the whole time,
your eyes are darting to your own shelf.
A hundred percent, the whole time...
You're like, "Mmm, yes. Well, no. Yes."
Waiting for your moment
to be like, "And me as well. I have one..."
Thank you.
This is so exciting. You know what?
I was thinking...
Well, I watch a lot of stand-up specials.
Then my friend's special
came out recently,
and they put out the trailer.
I was like, "Fuck, it's so dynamic."
Like, she's so physical onstage and doing...
I was like, "I don't really move much."
Like I'm very...
Then I was like, "What if?"
'Cause I really want
my trailer to be dynamic.
So, I was like, "What if I just..."
I know in my head
the things I want to see in my trailer.
I just haven't written the jokes
that go with the movements.
So I was like,
"Maybe I just do the movements."
And then I put it in the trailer
and it's just, like...
Just like this.
That's in the trailer,
how good would that be?
You'd be like, "I gotta watch that."
I should just have, like,
a hundred trained dogs.
They all come out on the stage like this.
And they're all on their hind legs jumping
and then we just have it in the trailer
and never in the show.
Um...
Yeah, feelings. I got a lot of feelings.
So... rage, embarrassment.
These are some of the feelings. Um...
Another feeling that I...
It's very dominant in my life,
and I think a lot of people
relate to this, it's, like, nostalgia.
I'm very nostalgic.
You know?
And I know that's kind of a useless
emotion, like I'm...
I'm nostalgic for pre-pandemic times
and we didn't know how good we had it.
I'm very nostalgic, really,
for pre-puberty, if I'm being honest.
That's where it all went wrong.
Like...
Yeah, and my friends are like,
"Oh, yeah. You missed the '90s."
That's so original.
"Do you miss how all of our parents
used to have a lot of rubber bands?"
Do you remember how
everyone had rubber bands?
You'd find them
around drawer handles and shit.
There'd be a whole ball of them.
What were they for?
I have no rubber bands now.
"Do you miss how all parents
had one big conch shell in the bathroom?"
I'm like, "Yes. Yes, I do miss that."
Yeah.
And I miss the easier access
to abortion and less populism.
Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah.
I do feel, I think I'm someone who
I never really got over puberty.
Well, for a couple of reasons.
I think puberty hit me
like a ton of bricks, really.
First of all, I'm exactly
the demographic where, um,
for me, puberty coincided almost exactly
with the arrival of the Internet
and the popularization of the Internet.
I'm so lucky. I had, like, one to 13,
kind of... It wasn't around.
And I remember the one computer
in our classroom got the Internet.
And overnight, the world just exploded,
everything changed, it was like...
We all got our first e-mail addresses.
Thank you.
Those were the days
you could get the good email addresses.
But it was like overnight the world
went from being very manageable...
Everything I needed to know
was in just in one set
of Encyclopedia Britannica's
in my parents' basement.
It was so relaxing.
It was like a finite amount of facts.
That was it.
The nice, thin paper.
You know what I mean?
It was manageable. It wasn't...
Also, it was like objective truth.
Like, no one was putting out
the devil's advocate set of encyclopedias.
You know what I mean? Like, "Well..."
"Are you sure Lima
is the capital of Peru?"
Um...
And then overnight it was like...
I was obsessed with it.
I remember my friends at lunch being like,
"We're gonna go out
and play at recess. Wanna come?"
I'd be like, "No, there's so much work
to be done on the Internet."
"There's so much going on."
I was like, "I have to
copy and paste images
of Buffy the Vampire Slayer
into a Word document."
I then have to print that Word document.
The paper will be sodden with ink.
Just heavy with ink. Like...
I have to cut those pictures out,
and it's going to be like
cutting wet toilet paper.
I then have to stick those pictures
onto my homework diary.
Like, I'm busy. I...
I truly feel like
I've been busy ever since.
I'm exhausted.
And another reason that
I think puberty really hit me was, like...
Okay, so, yeah. Regular puberty stuff,
then the Internet arrives
and the stuff that brings with it.
And then for me, also, puberty
triggered kind of a wild gender dysphoria
and a gender thing.
- You know what I mean?
- Yeah!
Uh-huh?
Dead silence. Um...
No, but really, like, before puberty,
I felt like I was
this bounding, androgynous child,
very confident,
did a lot of Ace Ventura impersonations.
And then suddenly puberty hit
and my body's changing,
I felt very like...
And this was the '90s too.
This was the era of girl bands
and boy bands, right?
This was the very pop-fueled binary.
And I went to an all-girls school,
which I just, like...
The ubiquitous question,
the question you needed
to know an answer to at my school
was which Spice Girl are you?
And it was like,
there's only five possible answers.
You needed to know. You'd be in the hall,
and a group of girls would corner you,
"Which one are you?"
'Cause they're organizing
lip-syncs and stuff.
They need to know, no judgment.
They did need to know
where you fit into the constellation.
It was like, "Which one are you?"
And I was like,
"Justin Timberlake. I don't know."
"Nick Carter?"
Um...
I think, regardless,
if you experience gender stuff,
puberty anyway is a fucking nightmare.
Like, you feel like an alien,
and everything that was cool about you
just becomes worthless overnight.
Like, okay, I had this trick.
Okay, well, it's a noise
that I can make with my hand.
And I swear, it was really popular.
People loved when I did it,
it killed at parties.
I'm going to do it for you now. Uh...
Okay, maybe some of you remember this.
Um, okay, this is the noise.
Do you remember that?
Guys, I swear, it used to kill at parties.
People would request it,
they'd be like, "Do the noise."
I'd be like, "Okay."
I did it in a school assembly once.
That was... That was too far, but, um...
It was really cool, and then,
all of a sudden puberty hit,
suddenly I'm at a house party,
I'm in a cupboard
with a pimply 13-year-old boy
who's got a semi, and I'm like...
And he's like, "What the fuck?"
He's like, "I thought you were
gonna give me a hand job." I'm like, "No."
"I said...
that I could do something cool
with my hand."
He leaves me alone in the cupboard.
I'm there in the dark by myself, like...
Really mournful.
It's hard to live at that age.
It's really... I mean...
Don't you think
that the only way to flirt when you're 13,
the only acceptable way, is to go,
"How big are your hands?"
That's... Don't you think?
Do you remember that?
"How big are your hands?"
I still kinda think that's a great move
to make physical contact
with someone that you like.
Except I was at my all-girls school,
just sort of slightly getting it wrong.
"Yeah, my hands are pretty massive."
"Yeah, yours are tiny, of course."
Going around the playground, being like,
"Well, you know what they say."
"Big hands, massive labia."
But...
So all that was going on, you know?
And I think for everyone,
at puberty, you do kind of...
You develop critical thinking
and suddenly, sort of,
the hard facts of life are hitting you.
I think if you're, like,
different in any way,
like, if the dominant narrative
that's being told to you by everyone
doesn't match what you're experiencing,
know what I mean?
Like, with gender, people being like,
"There's two. And you're a woman
and this is what it's like."
And you're like, "Okay."
But you're experiencing
something completely different.
Then you kind of have two options.
You can either question the validity
of yourself and your experience
or you can question the validity
of everything else and the whole system.
Once you start pulling that thread,
you're fucked. It's like...
Monogamy, you're like...
Can I bring two people to prom?
Why not? I don't get why not.
And I really felt... And also, like...
For me, I, um, I started doing comedy
when I was 13 and I discovered...
I got really into drugs,
like psychedelic drugs.
So that just exacerbated
the general existential wave.
Like I felt like I was peeling
back the wallpaper on reality
and I was seeing this very flimsy
scaffolding holding everything up.
I was just like, "What is going on?"
You suddenly realize
your parents are flawed,
your teachers are,
like, lonely or something.
I remember being,
"Mm, I think Ms. Buchanan's lonely."
"I feel a huge amount of pressure
to laugh at her jokes. And I don't know."
Um...
And yeah, I remember
being really stressed by
why don't we, as a society,
talk more about the fact that
the movie Antz and the movie A Bug's Life
came out in the same year.
Surely, powerful forces are at play here
and we're just not going to address it?
Like what the...
Um... Yeah.
So, yeah, I was stressed and...
And also, I think with drugs,
it was a way to get out of my body.
I was feeling very uncomfortable
in my body and it was this trap door.
And so I got heavily into drugs,
and the bullet points are,
I went from psychedelics
into, like, the really bad ones.
I got kicked out of my house.
I dropped out of school.
Fast-forward, I ended up in rehab.
When I was 19,
I went to a rehab day program
for nine months. Uh...
A rehab day program for teens,
objectively, a bad idea.
Well, in a way, right?
Like, you get a group
of teenagers together,
all they have in common
is they love doing drugs.
Every day, at 3:00 p.m., the bell goes
and they're like,
"Off you go with your new friends."
"Run along. Bond in the alleyways."
"The only way you know how."
Um, but it was very eye-opening for me.
It was a big turning point
because I got into this program
and there were 12 other kids in there.
I was suddenly like, "Oh, fuck."
These kids have come
from actually difficult lives,
and difficult family situations.
Like who am I? You know?
I'm this privileged, middle-class kid.
What am I rebelling against, really?
But I needed to be there, and it was good.
I wanted to fit in with all these kids.
They'd been there a while,
they were all really bonded.
And they had nicknames for each other.
I've never had a nickname
and I wanted to be in on it.
I was very excited because
after like two months in the program,
I came in one morning
and one of the guys goes,
"Yo, Bath Water, what's up?"
I was like, "Bath Water?"
And they all start calling me Bath Water.
Then the teacher starts calling me...
It catches on.
The teachers are,
"Good morning, Bath Water."
I'm like, "What is happening?"
But I get into it. I don't want to admit
that I don't know why
they're calling me Bath Water.
I'm like, "Yup. Not much. All good."
Yeah. And then finally,
I get comfortable enough with them
and we all get close.
I'm like, "Guys, I've been meaning
to ask you for months."
"Why do you call me, Bath Water?"
And they said,
"Oh, it's because when you arrived,
we all had a conversation
and decided you look like the type of kid
who would drink their own bath water."
It's...
so specific.
So insulting.
And creative, yes.
Drink their own...
I mean, look,
I've drunk some bath water in my time.
Sure.
Haven't we all?
I mean, not like with...
With a straw. Just...
No, but, like, we all...
We've all drunk some, haven't we?
Okay, wait. Do you remember bath time?
Remember bath time?
Did you ever, um, in bath time,
take your wet flannel...
Do you call it a flannel or a facecloth?
Flannel? Yeah. Canada, yeah.
Did you ever take your wet flannel
and lie it on your face,
and breathe through it?
And then you suddenly feel like
you're waterboarding yourself?
You're like, "Oh no, God!"
Or did you ever suck
the water out of your flannel?
Right?
It feels so squeaky on your...
What a feeling.
Bath time.
You know what I mean?
Know what I miss most?
I'll move on from bath time,
but I will just quickly say
what I miss most about bath time is just
once a day, somebody going,
"Uh, it's bath time."
How good is that?
I feel like we don't appreciate it
when we're young,
but imagine you're on
a shitty Tinder date,
and the waiter comes over, they're like,
"I'm so sorry to interrupt.
Um, it is bath time for you."
You're like... You'd be out of there.
Youth is wasted on the young. You know?
Youth is wasted on the young.
Um...
Yeah, so that's... Yeah.
I think the reason
that I obsess over my teens,
and I'm constantly processing it,
is that I feel like
a completely different person now.
And I did have this kind
of chaotic adolescence,
and it was really dark, like it was crazy.
Now I feel truly
like a completely different person.
Like, I'm very risk averse now.
You... Yeah.
You should see me
on an escalator, it's insane.
I hold so tight to the railing.
I'm very like...
As the thing's approaching, "Oh my God."
I'm like, "One, two, three, go."
Waiting for my moment.
If I'm not ready and it's coming,
I'm walking backwards.
I'm going, "Okay..."
"One, two..."
Yeah. Yeah.
But I do still... I feel different.
I do, I guess, still get
that self-destructive feeling.
Like, that pressure building up.
I feel like we all
kind of sometimes have those impulses
and you have to find the healthy way
to deal with those feelings.
Um, I do a lot of escape rooms.
I'm always escaping a room.
Constantly. Um...
Like, I was on tour recently
and touring is intense.
Also, I tour by myself.
I don't usually have an opening act,
or a tour manager, or whatever.
I just travel by myself.
I have these long days
in these random cities in the UK.
And I was doing a show in Edinburgh.
I was Scotland,
in Edinburgh, by myself for the day,
and I was having the feeling
of pressure building up.
You know what I mean?
And, like, I had just seen
Trainspotting, so I was like,
"We're in the danger zone."
And, uh, I said, "What should I do?"
So I go online and I found
the Edinburgh dungeons were open.
That's kind of like the London dungeons,
where it's like this horror,
immersive horror experience,
where actors dress up
like Victorians and scare you.
And you walk through a maze of hell.
So I was like, "Great." Um...
And I got the VIP package as well,
which is just you pay 20 extra bucks
and all it meant was, when I arrived,
they take a picture of you
in front of a green screen.
And then they give you a key
and they project a graveyard
and give you the keychain of the...
That was when I was like, "Oh. This is
something you should do with friends."
Friends or loved ones.
I do now have a keychain that's just...
So,
I go down and it's me
and this group of strangers
and we're going to go together
as a group through this horror maze.
It's tourists and families,
there's like ten of us.
We're about to go through it,
and this guy comes out,
and he's dressed
like a kind of Victorian butcher.
He's covered in blood
and he's got a big butcher's knife,
big beard, Scottish guy,
and he goes, "I'm the butcher!"
I can't do the accent very well.
He's like, "Welcome to
the Edinburgh dungeons,
we're gonna fucking kill you."
And I'm like, "Yes!"
"Yes, I've been praying for death!" Um...
Then he goes, "But first,
I do have a few safety announcements. Um..."
"If you are pregnant or you do
have epilepsy, don't go in the dungeon."
Uh...
I'm like, "Okay." Then he said,
"At no point will any of the actors
in the dungeon touch you or grab you."
So I was like, "That's good." Right?
Nobody wants to be grabbed in the dunge.
So I was like,
"Sweet." Um...
So we start going through
and guys, it's so scary.
Like it's just... I'm quaking with fear.
I'm with these strangers going through.
They do this thing where they love
to turn off all the lights, pitch-black.
And then when they come back on, there's
a woman standing an inch from your face
and being like...
It's so scary,
but I'm loving it. I'm like, "Ah."
There's sort of a narrative arc
where, at the very beginning,
the butcher was like, "You're gonna meet
the legendary cannibal Sawney Bean."
Does anybody know Sawney Bean?
Legendary cannibal, apparently, and...
We're like, "We don't want to meet him.
We're frightened."
He's like, "Oh no.
He's going to love you guys."
We know it's building to something.
And we get to this part where
there's a sort of boat underground,
we're in the bowels of Edinburgh, right?
And there's a boat
on a track and we all get in it.
And we can hear
Sawney Bean in the darkness,
toward where we're headed,
going, "I'm Sawney Bean."
We're like, "No!"
The butcher goes, "Okay, guys,
you're on your own now. I'm leaving you."
We're like "No, wait.
We've learned to love you, we need you."
He's like "Fuck you, guys" and he leaves.
Now it's me and my group
and we're in the little boat.
The lights go off and it's pitch-black.
You can't see your hand
in front of your face, it's so dark,
and it's damp and it's cold.
We can hear, "I'm Sawney Bean."
And I'm freaking out.
Then I feel these hands on my back.
Going up my back,
and kind of coming around my neck.
And I'm freaking out
because I'm remembering
they're not allowed
to touch you in the dunge. Right?
I'm like, "What's happening?"
The lights come back, I spin round,
and there's just this middle-aged woman
who's part of our group.
And she just goes...
"Ooh!"
It was...
insane.
"Ooh-hoo-ooh."
And she was
with her two teenaged daughters
who are sitting
on either side of her. They're like,
"Mom, what the fuck are you doing?"
She's like, "Ooh."
I think about her all the time.
She's like the mailman.
She's a hero, you know.
A hero to us all.
But, yeah, I do things like that
to, you know, to feel alive and, um...
Yeah, I try to be
very vigilant about my brain
because I have a lot of shame
about my teens.
I behaved very badly. You know?
I was very self-destructive and I...
The weird thing is I was so angry,
I was really angry. And, uh...
The weird thing is since, like, 2016...
I remember when Trump got elected.
I was like, "So we can't deny anymore
that the world is slightly off its axis."
It's a little fucked, right?
We have so much information
available to us now,
it's hard to deny the system
doesn't work for everyone.
Like, billionaires don't pay taxes
and all the stuff we know.
So I'm like, "Okay,
in a way, my anger was valid."
I think a lot of teenagers feel
this righteous indignation and stuff.
But the method of my rebellion
was garbage.
Like, it was so self-destructive
and self-involved.
You know, it was impotent, ultimately.
I got this tattoo
when I was 16. It says, "Oatmeal."
Um...
It says, "Oatmeal," twice.
I remember being like,
"Fuck the man, you know."
Like, what?
So that's there for good. Uh...
I...
I remember feeling like...
I felt like the world was a house
that had been sold to me
at a very young age when I was
too young to be signing mortgages.
A house that was sold to me
by a really shady realtor.
Like, a kind of greasy, with a...
A doggy-style baby realtor.
"Sign here, kid."
And I'm like, "Okay."
"All your dreams will come true."
I sign it, suddenly I'm in this house.
You develop critical thinking.
You wake up in the house in your teens.
You're like, "Wait."
Hang on, the foundations
of the house are rotten,
the backyard's on fire
'cause the previous owners
kept heating it
with fossil fuels exclusively.
So my reaction was, I thought,
"All right, I'll just bulldoze
the house with myself in it."
And of course, now I realize
what I should have done
is put any amount of energy
into fixing the house, right?
That's what we need to do is...
That's hopefully what
we're trying to do. We have to, right?
Put some energy into making
the house a nicer place to live.
'Cause it won't do it... Yeah.
I do feel we have to consciously do it.
Or else it won't happen. You know? Um...
And that's why I am really... I love...
I feel like Gen Z is incredible.
I don't believe that they're
just on TikTok. I think they're wicked.
They're out there. They're doing stuff.
You know, protesting climate change
and dismantling rigid gender binaries.
What was I doing?
I was slithering around being like,
"Does anyone have any acid?"
Just like useless behavior.
And they're wicked.
I want to talk about...
I want to talk about, like,
the gender thing for a sec.
So...
Just because I've been in the UK,
and now I'm in the States,
and in both places there's
a real hysteria right now around gender
and gender identity.
And I think part of it comes
from this misconception
that it's a recent Gen Z fad.
Or a millennial fad, right?
To have this fluidity
around gender, it's like...
Of course... As long as
there's been human civilization,
we know, right,
there's been variances in gender.
There's been different cultures
that recognize third and fourth genders.
Not just recognize, revere.
Like I could have been revered.
I could have been revered.
It sucks.
And instead I'm like, "Which bathroom
am I allowed to use, please?"
Um...
And really it is a recent colonial fad
to have this very rigid gender binary.
It's really like we just went around
the world bulldozing over the nuances of
all these beautiful things. Um...
In the UK, where I've been living,
I remember in 2018,
India decriminalized homosexuality,
and it was great.
Like, big celebration, really exciting,
but it was really frustrating
'cause the coverage of it
on the news in the UK was so smug.
It was like, "It's about time, India."
And it's like, England went into India
and criminalized homosexuality
in 1896. Like, it's...
It's the ultimate gaslighting.
It's like lighting someone's house
on fire and being like,
"It's really awkward how long
it's taking out to put that out."
"It's so embarrassing."
Yeah. Thanks.
Um... Yeah.
And the annoying thing is
I don't really want to talk about gender
because it's kind of lose-lose, right?
Especially if it's something that
personally affects you and you care about
then it's hard to debate.
You get emotional, you've already lost.
'Cause you're like...
Like, it's hard,
but I feel like I should talk about it
because everyone else is. Like, comedians.
Big multimillionaire comedians,
in their stand-up specials are, like,
taking shots and punching down
at a time when
trans rights are so tenuous,
and slipping backwards, it's just not...
Yeah. And, uh...
No, no, no. But I feel...
You're like,
"Yeah, they're slipping backwards, yeah."
No, just kidding.
I'm suddenly like, "Oh, fuck."
The thing... And I watch
those specials so I can be informed
when I'm asked in every interview
to talk about those guys' specials.
But, like, the thing that
kept coming up was, "Gender's a fact."
That was the refrain of one,
"Gender's a fact."
Then they cut to the audience. "Aw, yeah."
They're loving it. And it's like, um...
I feel like I'm kind of preaching
to the choir a little here, but
just to quickly say... Of course,
biological sex is real. It's a thing.
Within that, there's tons of variation,
it's very much like...
Scientifically, it's not as binary
as we think. There's intersex people,
there's hormonal variation,
all kinds of stuff.
But, yeah, for sure, biological sex,
no one denies is real,
but gender is so much more ephemeral
and much more what to do with
what's in here and in here.
Very much like,
you know, a social construct.
And more fluid.
And the way I explain it to people
who are trying to understand
the difference between
biological sex and gender is
I picture the gender spectrum.
You know the movie Beauty and the Beast?
Okay.
So imagine if at one end of
the gender spectrum, you have Gaston.
You remember him?
He's like, "No one fights like..."
Hot. He's hot.
He's like extreme masculinity.
On the other end of the spectrum
you have Belle,
who has Stockholm Syndrome.
So dark, but, um...
But, guys, she's still
an excellent role model
because she can read.
She loves a book.
You got to hand it to her. Um...
And then in the middle of the spectrum,
you have the candlestick, right?
You have Lumire.
And I really relate to Lumire.
I connect with Lumire.
And obviously the more we empower Lumire,
the more fun
Gaston and Belle are gonna have.
Lumire's throwing parties.
They're like, "Be my guest!"
Yeah.
I have this fantasy.
I have this fantasy that like...
It's a really clear image in my head of...
You got Dave Chappelle,
Ricky Gervais, Louis C.K.
Throw Joe Rogan in there.
And they're eating a hog roast.
In this fantasy, it's a huge hog,
and they're ripping the flesh off it.
They're drinking goblets of mead.
That medieval drink.
They're throwing their money.
And then they turn the TV on
and they see me doing my
little Beauty and the Beast gender...
Just like... "And the candlestick."
And they're watching it, and are like,
"Oh my God, we... Guys."
"We were wrong."
"Oh."
And then they just...
That's my fantasy.
Then they just like...
You know what I want? I want them to...
I want them to cradle each other.
I want them to hold each other gently,
and just gently rock.
I want them
to re-parent themselves, basically.
Just give a little... That.
'Cause I do understand too. I get it.
It's hard to learn new language. You know?
Although, is it? Like...
Omicron, you know?
We picked that up pretty fast. Um...
But the...
The joke I always hear,
and this has been a joke...
This was hack in the '90s, this joke.
It's come back with a vengeance
on the stand-up circuit.
It's like, "Well, like,
I identify as a cactus."
Or, "I identify as a lamp post,"
or this inanimate object.
And it's like...
Um, yeah, I'm non-binary,
which is under
the banner of trans identity.
In that like the sex
I was assigned at birth
doesn't feel like it fit.
Um...
And, uh...
But it's like, I don't want to necessarily
identify as non-binary or trans,
I just am that, I just am.
And to say otherwise would be bizarre.
It would be like doing
a violence to myself.
That's what it would feel like.
It would be like
the hot tomato soup thing,
times a hundred, just full of tomato soup.
It's tricky because it's like...
You just have to take my word for it
that I know who I am.
It's so hard saying that to people.
It's like, I just...
You just have to take my word for it.
I am certain of it. And it's like...
I may not be certain
if a Toyota Tercel can fit under a moose.
Very unsure.
But I do know this.
Also, you don't have
to understand it even.
You know what I mean?
Like, I do not understand Wi-Fi.
How does it work? What is it?
But I know that it's real.
I know it exists among us.
I just accept that it's there, whatever.
I don't let it keep me up at night.
I'm not like...
Yeah. Um...
Yeah, so I had top surgery last December
and I'm on a low dose
of testosterone for this past year.
And it's been
the best year of my life. Genuinely.
And I'm 35 years old.
This has been the best year of my life.
Yeah.
Thanks. Um...
And it's like...
What's weird is, like, I'm not that happy.
I'm not skipping around.
It's truly just the absence of agony.
That's all it is.
And that's a low bar,
and who are we to deny anybody that?
The absence of agony, yeah.
That's going to be my...
That's going to be my album title.
Um...
Yeah, okay.
And also, I'm really just so grateful
to have the language now. Right?
Growing up I didn't have that language.
But I always felt this way
and I remember being...
You know when you're four or five and
your parents tell the story of your birth?
You know? And...
I feel like my parents...
It sounds like they were always
talking about my conception and my birth.
I swear we had
normal conversations as well.
But I remember my dad telling me,
"Your mother went into labor,
we went to the hospital."
He was saying,
"Maybe you'll have your own kids one day."
And I'm imagining having my own kids.
In my fantasy of having children,
I was never the one having the kids.
It was a really specific fantasy where
I was this 1950s businessman father,
just like pacing
the halls of the hospital.
Smoking. Just...
Really like a very 101 Dalmatians vibe.
Then some nurse
would be like, "It's a boy."
And I'd be like, "Cheers, gentlemen."
"I'll name it Buster."
"Send it down the mines."
Um, yeah. Okay, we're almost at the end.
I have one more thing to tell you.
I'm gonna get my mic stand.
If I... Yeah, imagine if I lost it?
So, I feel like... And by the way,
thank you so much. This has been really...
You've been amazing.
I feel like we've been through, like...
In terms of our worldview,
we've been through pessimism and optimism.
And I really want
to end on a positive note.
So I want to tell you
this Buddhist parable that I love.
Um, this is... Stay with me. So...
I love this story. Um...
And then I'm gonna go.
It takes place in the forest, actually.
We're back in the forest.
And, basically, in this parable,
this man is being chased,
pursued through the forest by
what I can only describe
as a beast from hell.
Like, a really terrifying creature
with a lion's jaws
and this monstrous body.
Its nature is pure hunger.
It wants to devour this man,
and it's been chasing him for days,
and he's been running.
And he's starting to get exhausted.
At some point, he's going
to succumb to the beast.
Just when he thinks he's gonna pass out
and the beast is gonna get him,
he sees this little stone well
in the middle of the forest,
little circular well.
He's like, "I'll hide
in the well from the beast."
He jumps in.
Sure enough, the beast doesn't follow him
It stops at the top and is like...
He's like, "Great." He's falling
down the well, and as he's falling,
he feels water splashing up onto his feet.
He's like, "That's weird."
And he looks down.
And below him, where he's headed,
the water is churning wildly,
and he realizes...
What's at the bottom of the well?
Another beast.
Yeah. It's a double beast situash.
Bad. Bad news.
Beast at the top, beast below.
Like that.
And, at the last second,
he sees this branch
growing out of the side of the well,
like a gnarly branch.
So he grabs onto it
and he uses his last remaining strength
to maneuver himself up onto this branch.
And his muscles are quivering.
But he's like, "I made it."
The beast is there, the beast below.
And the branch is creaking
under his weight,
like, this is not
a permanent solution. Right?
At some point,
the branch is going to give out.
And he's sweating...
he's sweating
in that crease here. You know?
If you're sweating in that crease,
you are in trouble.
And suddenly he looks to the end
of the branch and he sees
something glistening on the end.
He's like, "What is that?"
And so he balances
and he reaches out with one finger
to the end of the branch,
and he gets it on his finger.
It's golden, glistening tree sap.
It's tree sap.
And he puts it in his mouth and he's like,
"Is that? That's delicious."
Guys, it's positive. Wait.
That's... That's it. No.
Hello?
Okay.
Okay. Uh...
Trust me, I find it very positive.
You got to get on board. Please.
I've called the show SAP.
You truly must get on board.
Like, this was not cheap.
No, but I really do find it positive
because it's, like, look.
Life might be a double beast situash.
That might be just what life...
In a way, is it not? Know what I mean?
But luckily there's so much sap,
and we have to just to take the time,
it's worth it to enjoy the sap,
and cultivate it where we can.
And luckily there's
an abundance of sap, I think.
Like everywhere you look,
if you look hard.
You got dogs.
Every dog on this Earth.
Like a good pair of jeans.
That's sap. That can be sap.
The Beatles, for me, are sap. Um...
Your friends. The TV show Friends.
No, like having friends.
Um, sex is good.
Sex with your friends is pretty good. Um...
Scaring people, "Ooh." Yeah, if that's...
I like campfires, roasting marshmallows,
the song "Bennie and the Jets"
by Elton John.
Um...
Yeah, hugs and sparklers,
Christmas lights,
all those things are fully sap.
All those things can be sap.
And genuinely, this may be corny,
but truly, this is sap for me.
Doing this makes me so happy
and it's sap for me.
And I'm so grateful to you all for coming.
Thank you so much.
Thank you so much. Thank you very much.
Oh, fuck.
Oh my God. Oh my God.
Are... Wait. Are you crying?
Yeah, I mean, it was all just so sad.
It was supposed to be funny.
- No, it wasn't.
- Yeah, it was. The whole thing.
Really?
Guess you and I just have
different senses of humor.
Well, thank you
for listening anyway.
It's good to get that stuff off my chest.
No, it's...
It's me. I'm me.
You are you.
It's wonderful.
- Well, should we get started?
- Yeah.
- Are you excited?
- Yeah, I'm a little nervous. I'm excited.
Nervous is normal. This is a bit heavy.
The Buchanan's got
a lot of mail this season.
- Oh, really? Popular?
- You're gonna love this.
- Okay.
- All right. Shovels.
- Yeah.
- Yeah? Ooh.
- I'm so happy you came.
- Yeah, thanks for having me.
I can't believe
it was supposed to be funny.
- Yeah, well...
- That's crazy.
Parts were poignant, I guess. But...
- Yeah. All right, so here we go.
- Okay.
Let's get a little hole going here.
There you go. Get in there.
You're gonna love this, Mae.
- Over-the-shoulder?
- Oh, yeah.
- Yeah, ready.
- One, two, three. Yeah!
- Feels good, huh?
- Sick. Should we...?
- Yeah, grab some mail.
- What do you...
What do you usually? Is this one fine?