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♪ Hey! I wanna get better ♪
Official YIFY movies site: YTS.MX
♪ I didn't know I was lonely Till I saw your face ♪
♪ I wanna get better ♪
♪ Better, better, better I wanna get better ♪
♪ I didn't know I was broken Till I wanted to change ♪
♪ I wanna get better ♪
♪ Better, better, better I wanna get better ♪
♪ I didn't know I was broken Till I wanted to change ♪
[cheering and applause]
[music fades]
Thanks.
Thank you!
Thank you so much. I'm gonna put this on.
You gu... you guys can turn off your things.
And, uh... and we can start this up.
Thanks for, uh... thanks for... thanks for making it here,
to this big, beautiful theater.
I'm gonna... I'm gonna tell you a story tonight.
But first,
I want to tell you
about my couch.
[laughter]
I love my couch.
It's first thing I ever dropped money on in my life.
In your twenties, you just sort of get a couch...
[laughter]
on the street.
Like, it's garbage.
[laughter]
And then, you bring it home to your six roommates.
[laughter]
And they're like, "Nice!"
[laughter]
And then, you reach an age... For me, I was... I was 25.
I was living in Astoria, Queens, and I was just like, "I'm a goddamn man.
[laughter]
I'm gonna buy a goddamn couch."
And I went to a department store and I was like, "Wait.
How much is it?
[laughter]
A thousand dollars?
Is there gonna be a sale?
[laughter]
This is the sale?
[laughter]
Do you think you might go out of business at some point?
[laughter]
You are going out of business?"
[laughter]
I thought about this a lot. I think the reason a couch is so expensive
is that it's a deceptively sophisticated piece of technology.
It's a...
It's a bed...
that hugs you.
[laughter]
Right? It's like, "Do you want to watch TV?
[laughter]
Do you want to eat pizza?
[laughter]
You sure do like eating!
[laughter]
But I like that about you."
And beds are comfy.
But they know it.
[laughter]
They're like, "I'd like to be called a 'king.'
[laughter]
I'm gonna need a box spring."
I'm like, "For what?" They're like, "I don't touch the floor."
[laughter]
"Get your hands off that tag.
[laughter]
I'd like this room named after me."
[laughter]
Couches are humble. They're like, "This is about you."
[laughter]
"Do you want to take a nap? Be my guest.
Do you want to have sex with my arm?"
I'll think about it.
[laughter]
I feel terrible. How...
I'm gonna pause for a moment...
and point out that you seem younger
than some of the other audience members.
Is this your mom?
[woman] Yes.
-How... -[laughter]
I know sometimes it's a rude question. How old are you?
[laughter]
-Eleven. -Eleven!
[laughter]
Before we proceed...
[laughter]
I want you to know
that I am not doing anything wrong.
[laughter]
You... you just have bad parents.
[laughter]
-[laughs] I, uh... No. -[applause]
They're wonderful parents,
but there may be some things they need to explain later.
[laughter]
Or in seven years.
-Um... -[laughter]
But I'm thrilled you're here. I, uh...
[laughter]
[laughter continues]
My wife and I got married almost exactly ten years ago,
here in New York City.
Actually, at City Hall, which is about 56 blocks that way.
And, uh, it's a great place to get married.
If you have a chance, very convenient, lots of subway lines.
We took the subway home.
We took selfies on the subway.
We ate pizza and hamburgers
at this place in our neighborhood at the time, called Big Nicks,
and then we took a nap...
on our couch.
[laughter]
We've spent thousands of hours together...
on this couch.
We've watched classic films on the couch.
We've eaten 20 birthday cakes on the couch.
We've laughed hysterically on the couch.
We've cried in each other's arms
when we realized we were gonna have to put our cat, Ivan, to sleep
on the couch.
It's soft, yet firm. Filthy, yet spotless.
Colorful, yet no one can agree on what color it is.
[laughter]
I think it's green.
My wife thinks it's gray.
I looked it up...
Chocolate.
[laughter]
Which isn't a color...
[laughter]
But it's fitting, 'cause there's chocolate in it.
[laughter]
I love being home on my couch, but I travel for my job.
I do this in, sometimes, a hundred cities in a year,
which is more cities
than there are.
[laughter]
Some of them are just an Applebee's with a dream.
-And... -[laughter]
And I-I love the shows, but the travel can be rigorous.
Often, when I return home, I'm entirely empty.
Just bones, and garbage, and Diet Coke,
all strung together
by those plastic ringlets that bind sodas and strangle ducks,
and I collapse on the couch,
and I say to my wife,
I say, "Clo..." Her name's Jen.
[laughter]
"Clo...
leave me by the side of the road.
[laughter]
But she doesn't.
She revives me.
Jen has a soft, sweet voice.
It has a thread count of 600.
[laughter]
It always seems like she's telling you a secret,
like, "I'm gonna make tea."
I'm like, "I won't tell anyone."
[laughter]
So, we'll lie on the couch,
and she'll order me a chicken kabob platter
and scratch my back,
and we'll snuggle with our cat Mazzy
and watch a documentary about murder.
[laughter]
And that's what love is.
[laughter]
And it all takes place...
on the couch.
In October of 2012, I'm doing a show in Boston,
and I'm staying with my brother Joe.
My brother Joe used to be so cool.
-And then he had two kids. -[laughter]
And now he's a loser.
-[laughter] -No, he's not a loser.
I will say, like, it's just less fun to visit his house.
Like, I'm trudging through living room
and there's crap all over the floor.
I'm trying to eat breakfast at the kitchen table
and I realize there's one of those sticky yogurt pouch containers underneath me,
and the table's filled with wet Cheerios, and sippy cups, and Aquaphor.
And Joe's trying to show me this video of his son,
but his son is sitting right there, and I'm like,
"I got Henry live!
-I don't need Henry on tape." -[laughter]
And the video itself... underwhelming.
-You know, like... -[laughter]
"This is a 12-minute video of Henry picking apples."
-I'm like, "Nobody wants to see that." -[laughter]
There's so much great content out there. I mean, I...
[laughter]
I was on YouTube, I saw a 90-second video
of a cat giving another cat a massage.
[laughter]
Don't waste my time...
[laughter]
...with Henry picking apples.
And as I'm watching this,
actual Henry starts whacking me in the eye
with this foam bat,
and I'm like, "What game is this?" And my...
My brother does nothing.
He's like a world wrestling referee, like, "I don't know.
He's not supposed to do that."
[laughter]
I don't know what to do.
I hide in the bathroom and I'm trying to pee,
but they have the child-proof circle inside the circle, inside the circle,
like a carnival peeing game
that I'm losing badly.
And then Henry pushes in the door.
Now I'm peeing into the wall...
which has pee on it already.
And then...
I lock the door.
I'm standing in Joe's bathroom for 15 minutes,
doing no activity
other than avoiding his family.
And I pull out my phone.
I'm looking up things going on in town that night.
I walk out, I go, "Joe, we should see this band at the Paradise."
He says, "I can't go to a concert, Mike!
I have kids!"
I said, "Sorry."
And he says, "Don't apologize. It's the most joy I've ever experienced."
[laughter]
Congratulations on your ambiguous tone. And so...
[laughter]
So we don't go out.
We stay home and watch these Baby Einstein videos,
which have yielded no geniuses to my knowledge. There was...
[laughter]
There's nothing about the theory of relativity in the one I saw.
It was a pig playing a xylophone,
and then a dog barks, and a lady's voice goes, "Pillow!"
-And then... -[laughter]
my nephew spits yogurt on his shirt,
and my brother's like, "He's a genius."
And I'm like, "I'm not seeing it, but..."
[laughter]
I fall asleep around 7:30 p.m.,
because being around children
makes me want to be unconscious at all times.
-And then... -[laughter]
I'm wide awake around 4:15 a.m.
with this fierce cold from sleeping in this Petri-dish house, and this...
ringing foam-bat headache,
and I hobble onto a 6:30 a.m. flight,
and, sure enough, there's a baby across the aisle,
screaming at the top of his lungs.
And in that moment...
I can't defend this, but in that moment, I remember thinking,
"That baby doesn't need to be anywhere!"
-You know what I mean by that? -[laughter]
I can't even begin to defend it. It's just how I felt.
I was like, "It doesn't know it lives in Boston!
[laughter]
It doesn't know what New York City is!
I'm wearing noise-canceling headphones,
-which apparently are not enough. -[laughter]
You need baby-canceling headphones,
which are condoms, I guess. But I...
[laughter]
Look, I think we've got to get babies off planes.
I feel like we got rid of smoking in the '80s,
we can get rid of babies now,
or bring back smoking,
get these babies some cigarettes, 'cause they're...
[laughter]
They're so stressed out.
And so, I land...
I land at JFK, I take a cab to our apartment,
I collapse on our beloved couch,
and it hugs me.
Jen gets me some mint tea and some hot-and-sour soup,
and I say, "Clo...
[laughter]
people with kids...
are miserable."
[laughter]
And look, maybe I have a low tolerance for children, 'cause...
I've lost a lot of great friends to kids.
[laughter]
Because it really is like a disease in some ways,
but it's worse than a disease, 'cause they want you to have it, too.
[laughter]
They're like, "You should have kids, too."
"I'm watching you do it
and I'm thinking I'm gonna not do it."
They're like zombies. Like, "You should eat brains."
"I'm watching you eat brains and it seems like it ruined your life."
And the way you kill zombies--
You probably know this from the movies, right? Is you shoot 'em...
-in the head... -[laughter]
with a shotgun.
Or...
you chop off their heads with a machete
or a samurai sword,
which is also
the way you kill anyone.
[laughter]
So I'm talking about this with Jen, and she laughs,
and I laugh, and we laugh...
as one.
[laughter]
And then she says,
"But if we had a baby,
I think it would be different."
[laughter]
And I was like...
[imitates gun being cocked]
[laughter]
You got bit!
[laughter]
I tried to remain calm. I said, "Clo, I was very clear...
when we got married that I never wanted to have a kid,"
which, by the way, gets you nothing.
[laughter]
Being very clear...
[laughter]
is apparently useless,
because she said I was clear.
I didn't want to have a baby at the time, but that I might change.
And I said, "I was clear...
[laughter]
I would never change."
[laughter]
She said, "If you don't want to have a baby,
maybe I'll have one on my own, and we can stay married."
And I said, "Oh, that'll be a good look."
[laughter]
Just you, and me, and this kid
that's a cross between you and some grad student
jacking his way through SUNY Purchase. I mean, you can't...
[laughter]
You can't have a kid on the side, like...
-[laughter] -"We keep him in the shed!"
I mean, people do it. I've seen the documentaries.
It's just... those aren't my role models.
And then people will be like, "You guys have kids?"
I gotta be like, "She does."
[laughter]
She says a baby wouldn't have to change the way we live our lives.
I said, "Did you get...
less smart?
[laughter]
Because you used to be so smart,
and what you're saying currently, it...
-is factually incorrect." -[laughter]
By the way, I've never wanted to have a kid for seven specific reasons.
[laughter]
Number one, I've never felt like there should be more of me in the world.
Don't get me wrong. I think one is funny.
You know? One...
Ha-ha! Good one!
You know what I mean? Like...
"Let's get tickets." But...
[laughter]
But I believe in survival of the fittest,
and this is not the fittest.
-Like I... -[laughter]
I have the body of someone who's just about to start P90X.
[laughter]
And then, doesn't. And...
[laughter]
And I have a long medical history.
I had a malignant tumor in my bladder when I was 19.
I was very lucky.
Uh, they took it out.
Uh, it hasn't come back, but every year I go for what's called a cystoscopy,
where they take a rod about this long,
with the width of a Twizzler and a camera on the end,
and they stick it
through your urethra to look at--
I know!
[laughter]
While you're awake.
[laughter]
I should say while other people are awake.
I get knocked out for it. But I didn't...
[laughter]
I didn't the first time. When I was 20...
my urologist, Dr. Kaplan,
stuck me in the chair with the leg stirrups,
and he put on a local anesthetic and some jelly,
which was quite cold. And the moment...
The moment he made contact,
I go...
[screams]
[laughter]
And he said, "Relax your butt."
And I said, "You relax your butt!" Which...
[laughter]
By the way, if you ever find yourself in a situation
where you need to convince someone to relax their butt...
[laughter]
one thing I would suggest not saying...
[laughter]
is, "Relax your butt."
I feel like it has almost a reversing quality. I...
Look, if that's your end game,
maybe throw a curveball like, "Relax your ears!"
You'd be like, "Oh, my butt feels pretty loose!" And then, it just...
Then it just slides right in there, which is all to say...
I get knocked out for this every year.
Last year was particularly eventful, 'cause I went for my physical,
and I was nearing 40, so they asked to do the prostate exam,
which you probably know, is a finger in the butt
and one in your mouth if you're close to the physician. And I...
[laughter]
I think that's what it is. I couldn't...
I couldn't handle it. Like...
He went for it, and I was like...
"Oh! No, thank you!" And so...
So, when I went for my cystoscopy, I said to Dr. Kaplan, I go, "Hey...
while I'm under...
um, do you mind...
also...
sticking your finger...
[laughter]
in my butt?"
[laughter]
Dr. Kaplan goes, "Yeah, I can do that."
[laughter]
And I thought, like, I might be a medical genius.
Like, I never... I never went to school for this,
I barely finished Our Bodies, Ourselves,
-and I just... -[laughter]
invented the Urology two-for, which if it catches on,
should be renamed the "Birbiglia Bonus." And so...
[laughter]
So, I had bladder cancer.
I have a life-threatening sleepwalking disorder, which is very extreme.
I mean, 13 years ago, I jumped in my sleep
through a second-story window of a La Quinta Inn.
[laughter]
Yeah. When I say "through," I mean "through the glass."
The glass was double-paned.
I ended up with 33 stitches in my legs.
The glass was a centimeter from my femoral artery.
Had it struck there, I could have just bled out on the front lawn and died.
I was diagnosed with a very rare thing. It's called REM Behavior Disorder.
So when I go to bed at night, I take medication
and I sleep in a sleeping bag...
up to my neck.
And I wear mittens...
[laughter]
so I can't open the sleeping bag.
[laughter]
And that's my life!
-So... -[laughter]
Yeah, there are details in my life
that are both setups and punchlines. And...
[laughter]
I make a lot of jokes about it, but it's a very serious thing.
There are people who have what I have, who, in rare instances, have been known,
to physically harm the person they're in bed with
while remaining asleep.
Uh, there was a news story a few months ago,
which people were tweeting at me, which, by the way...
[laughter]
-Don't do that. Where... -[laughter]
A guy goes camping with his wife.
He has a dream there's a wild animal in the tent,
and he's punching and kicking, and he wakes up.
It's not an animal, it's his wife.
And she's dead.
-[audience gasps] -I know.
[laughter]
So I don't think that's a great quality in a dad. So...
[laughter]
So I had bladder cancer,
I have a life-threatening sleepwalking disorder.
My health is not trending upward.
Last year, I went for my physical. My doctor took blood and he called me.
He said, "You have Lyme disease...
and..."
"And?"
[laughter]
"...diabetes."
I was like, "One at the time. Everybody's gonna get a chance."
-It was like... -[laughter]
It was like going to a parent-teacher conference,
and they're like, "Your son's getting D's,
and he's been molested by the gym teacher.
[laughter]
We're gonna need separate meetings.
[laughter]
I couldn't believe it.
Thirty-nine years old, diagnosed with type-2 diabetes.
He said, "Is there anything in your diet that might be spiking your blood sugar?"
I said, "Sometimes, I eat pizza until I'm unconscious."
[laughter]
He said, "I think that might be it."
So I had Lyme disease, diabetes,
I'm generally devoid of joy.
[laughter]
I really am. I try.
Like, I was listening to this TED Talk about how to find joy in your life.
And the host said,
"One thing everyone enjoys...
is confetti."
[laughter]
And I thought, "Oh, no!
[laughter]
I hate confetti."
To me, confetti is just garbage that we throw into the air.
[laughter]
So I had cancer, life-threatening sleeping disorder,
Lyme disease, diabetes,
I dislike joy.
[laughter]
I'm not exactly handing off A-plus genes here.
Number two...
[laughter]
[applause]
I love my marriage, and I feel...
I really do, I feel so lucky to have found my wife.
And I don't fall for these clichés at weddings,
where they'll say, like, "Two becomes one."
But I do feel, if you're lucky,
in a relationship, there are moments...
And I mean...
moments.
[laughter]
Like, this is a moment.
That was a moment.
[laughter]
There are moments...
where you feel like your souls are colliding
in a way that two souls have never collided in the history of humankind.
And you think, "How did I get this lucky?"
My wife and I hate going to parties, but we love driving away from parties.
[laughter]
A few years ago, we went to our friend Katie's birthday,
and this lady got up and gave a speech, which isn't a thing.
-And... -[laughter]
that's why I remember it so well.
She said, "Last year, Katie and I went scuba diving,
and her oxygen tank got stuck on the rocks,
and I wriggled it free,
and I may have saved her life.
I saved your best friend's life."
[laughter]
Jen and I lock eyes from across the room,
and we project the sentence,
"We're gonna talk about this for years."
[laughter]
And we have. So, here's...
Okay, here's how it comes up.
Whenever Jen and I do something sweet for one another,
like if she zips me up in my sleeping bag before bed,
what she will do, and she'll say, "It's time to put you in your pod!"
And I'll say, "Thanks."
And she'll say, "I saved your best friend's life."
[laughter]
[applause]
It's never not funny.
It literally has never not been funny.
And I don't want to give that up. I don't want that to change.
I don't want a third person showing up like, "What about me?"
I'm like, "We don't even know you!"
[laughter]
Number three.
[laughter]
I don't know anything and I'm not ready to teach the children.
I mean, I've read hundreds of books.
I've retained very little.
[laughter]
In third grade, they taught us photosynthesis,
and I thought, "This is not gonna stick."
[laughter]
And it hasn't.
I'm not 100% sure why it rains.
[laughter]
I'm not sure you are either.
[laughter]
I don't know anything for certain.
I think it's entirely possible consciousness is a hallucination.
How do I explain that to a kid?
"See that juice box?
Don't be so sure."
[laughter]
I can't explain existence.
I was raised Catholic, but I didn't really believe in God.
I just believed in my mom.
And my mom believed in God.
It was like I was in this weird three-way with God,
where I'm like, "It's okay if He's here while you're here,
but and I'm not gonna do anything with just me and Him."
[laughter]
To be clear, I've never had sex with my mom.
[laughter]
Or God, or had a three-way.
So it's a true metaphor.
[laughter]
Number four, I have a cat.
-Number five, I... -[laughter]
I have a job.
That's what we're doing here.
It took me a long time to figure out anything I was good at.
I wasn't good at video games, or archery, or whatever the hell kids do.
And then, I figured this out. I don't want to give that up.
My brother's like, "Mike, you can have a kid and a career."
And I said, "Yeah, Joe, but it'll be worse."
[laughter]
If we're being honest with ourselves...
kids hold us back.
[laughter]
My best example of this is the history of women.
Stay with me.
-[laughter] -Uh...
I feel like women are smarter than men, their brains are more sophisticated,
and they make 21 cents less on a dollar.
I think women are smarter from birth. You ever talk to a two-year-old girl?
Two-year-old girls are like, "Would you like to have a tea party?
A two-year old boy is like, "No!"
[laughter]
And it doesn't get better. I mean...
Marginally better. If I were a woman, I'd be furious at all times.
I'd be like, "These morons are in charge of anything?
How did this happen?"
The answer is "children."
[laughter]
Which brings me to number six: I don't think there should be children anymore.
[laughter]
Nothing drastic. I think the current children can see through their term.
[laughter]
I just think maybe we cut it off there, because...
[laughter]
Look, we were given the Earth and we failed.
At a certain point we got to call it, right? I mean, I...
And I live here with you guys in this supposedly liberal city.
If we're honest, we barely recycle.
-I mean, come on. -[laughter]
It's like there's the garbage, and then the blue bin,
which is basically like, "Is this anything? Like...
[laughter]
Here are some batteries stuffed in an ink cartridge,
could you turn that into something else?"
-And then... -[laughter]
And then we just throw it on trucks and ship it to Pennsylvania,
which is fine, till New York sinks into the ocean,
and we all have to move to Pennsylvania, like...
"I'll sleep in the almond milk jug,
and you can sleep in the packing peanuts.
Someday we'll move to Blu-ray Mountain." I mean...
[laughter]
In Germany...
In Germany, they recycle 45 percent of their garbage.
Thirty-eight percent of their garbage, they incinerate.
Granted, their history of incineration, not great, and...
[laughter]
Obviously sensitive, I get it.
Germans are always like, "We're not Nazis."
I'm like, "Yeah, but you know some." I mean, I don't...
I don't know any. How many do you know?
Some? I think that's enough to exaggerate for humor.
[laughter]
Which brings me to number seven.
People aren't great.
Not just Nazis. I mean, people in general are not great. And...
And look, you guys seem fine.
And the conventional wisdom is that people are generally good.
But are they?
[laughter]
I'm not sure. Like, I think women are okay.
[laughter]
I think men are on thin ice.
[laughter]
I mean, historically, right, if you zoom out a little.
Currently,
if you zoom back in, and then...
And then, personally, think about the men you know,
think about the men you've met in your life.
When I do that, I think, like, two or three are horrible.
[laughter]
Really, unspeakable.
[laughter]
Just a few, two or three. Most are decent.
I think that's sort of the ceiling for men. I think...
I think "good" is aspirational.
I think "great" is a fantasy.
[laughter]
If you're with someone who's great,
get out of there.
[laughter]
The men we used to think were great
were priests, politicians, and gymnastics doctors. It hasn't...
[laughter]
It hasn't ended well for "great." And look...
I think sometimes it's hard to tell.
When I was 23, I was in Amsterdam with a friend of a friend,
which is a cautionary type of person.
[laughter]
A friend of a friend is someone you murder people with, or...
buy steak knives from.
And we're walking...
[laughter]
through the Red Light District. This is how naive I was at 23.
I didn't know what that meant.
If you don't know,
it's a neighborhood in Amsterdam that has literally
hundreds of prostitutes in windows,
illuminated by these red lights.
And I'm walking with my friend of a friend,
I'm thinking these are bars or strip clubs,
and I say to my friend of a friend, like, "Should... should we go in one?"
[laughter]
He says, "Yeah, but we gotta choose carefully."
I said, "How come?"
He said, "It's expensive." I said, "How expensive?"
He said, "It's about $200."
I said, "$200...
to go into a strip club?
He says, "No...
[laughter]
They're prostitutes."
I said...
[laughter]
"We gotta choose carefully."
[laughter]
[sighs]
I wanna be very clear.
[laughter]
I don't want to tell you...
this story.
[laughter]
It's the only story I'll tell you tonight I genuinely do not want to tell you,
but I feel like it's essential to the larger story I'm telling.
I chose someone who didn't have a long line.
[laughter]
There was something about the line that made it too real.
Like, if I were waiting in line, I could imagine thinking,
"The line for this prostitute is outrageous!" And I...
[laughter]
I chose someone who sort of looked like me.
She was a cross between Matt Damon and Bill O'Reilly. And...
[laughter]
She walks me up these rickety steps
into this room that's brightly lit and spare.
There's only a bed in the shape of a gurney.
[laughter]
She says, "Take off all your clothes and sit on the bed," and I did that.
And my body...
was not excited.
[laughter]
Which is, of course, a euphemism...
[laughter]
for my penis.
And I... I thought that would be it.
Like, she called it, like an umpire. Like, "Rain delay."
But-but that's not...
[laughter]
That's not what happened.
What happened was that she took a condom and she put it on the thing.
Which I didn't know was physically possible.
I grew up in Massachusetts, and we had health class in seventh grade,
and we put a condom on a banana,
but never on a water balloon.
-And... -[laughter]
So...
So she puts the thing on the thing, [stammers] and then...
starts fellating the thing.
And then, if I were to guess, I'd say about 40 seconds later, I just...
And then, she said, "I guess you're done."
And I said to her... and I'll never forget this.
I said, "Can't we just hang out?"
[laughter]
[sighs]
I'm telling you this long, embarrassing story to make the point...
[laughter]
that I consider myself...
decent.
[laughter]
So I explain all this to my wife.
[laughter]
Because it's part of my larger point. I said, "Clo...
[laughter]
Why would you want to bring a child into this world with me?
I'm a walking pre-existing condition,
the Earth is sinking into the ocean,
we're about to be living in the movie Waterworld,
which did terribly at the box office.
[laughter]
People are horrible, and I'm not great."
She gets real quiet. My wife is a poet, like an actual poet.
So, she'll say one line,
and then there's a lot of space.
[laughter]
She says, "I know all of that.
And I think you'd be a good dad."
So that night, we have sex without a condom,
which, if you haven't tried it...
[laughter]
by all means, give it a chance.
[laughter]
Not with my wife, but with your partner. It's a...
[laughter]
It's a phenomenal activity. There are videos of it online. And...
[laughter]
But I was anxious.
When we were doing it, I was like, "I'm not sure!"
Which is not sexy language.
That's right up there with "Is the oven on?" And...
"I'm gonna wear my shirt." And...
[laughter]
I was anxious, 'cause I'd never had sex without a condom,
which is a shocking thing to do for the first time.
It's like going on a road trip, and halfway through the trip,
the car just flies, and you're like...
[laughter]
"This is better!
[laughter]
There's no traffic!
[laughter]
And we can go anywhere!"
And so...
[laughter]
So it's exhilarating, but also nerve-racking.
The next day, I call Joe. I'm like, "I am freaking out,
'cause I'm flying the car."
[laughter]
And he says, "What's the worst thing that could happen?"
I said, "I don't think you're following the analogy. I...
[stammers] I'd have a kid.
Is there anything I should know?"
He says, "You can't know what it's like to have a kid...
until you have a kid."
And I say, "Can you be more specific?"
[laughter]
And he takes a long, deep breath...
and he says, "It's relentless."
[laughter]
I say... I say,"What do you mean by 'relentless'?"
He says, "You know how you go to the gym
and you push, and you sweat, and it sucks?"
I said, "Yeah." He says, "When you have a kid,
you can't even go to the gym."
[laughter]
And then he says, "But I'm not worried about you, Mike,
'cause whatever happens, whether you have a kid or not,
it's not gonna be better or worse.
It's just gonna be new."
So, Jen and I attempt to conceive for eight months, and it does not work,
'cause like I said, my body is a lemon...
[laughter]
and my boys don't swim, which killed me, 'cause if I'd known that in my twenties,
I would have had a much better time.
-In my twenties... -[laughter]
I treated my sperm like it was plutonium. Like...
"Don't let that sperm anywhere near those eggs!"
Like, there'd be this infestation
of tiny neurotic Mike Birbiglia toddlers,
like, "Why would I slide down the slide when I can walk down the steps?"
[laughter]
It turns out I do not have plutonium, I have flat soda.
-And, uh... -[laughter]
[laughs]
And my boys don't swim, which isn't surprising.
I mean, I don't swim.
-[laughter] -Uh, I...
I swim, but in circles.
I'm always ordering hot dogs at the side of the pool.
Which is not a quality you want in your sperm,
that hungry, lethargic quality.
You want your sperm to be like,
"I swim from sea to sea!"
Like the Ryan Lochte of sperm without all the fake robbery.
But I found out...
[laughter]
'Cause I... [stammers] I went to Dr. Kaplan,
and he asked me
to masturbate into a cup.
I said, "That's rude."
[laughter]
And he said, "No, it's a medical procedure...
called 'masturbating into a cup.'"
[laughter]
I said, "If it's for science, sure, I get that."
[laughter]
Two things about masturbating into a cup at the doctor's...
I will limit it to two.
[laughter]
I could talk about this for six hours.
[laughter]
One...
[laughter]
everybody knows what's happening.
[laughter]
Everybody!
Doctors, nurses, people in the waiting room,
the UPS guy down the hall.
And you're trying to play cool. You're like, "Oh, yeah,Brexit."
-You know what I mean? Just like... -[laughter]
"Sea levels rising rapidly."
Everyone's like, "You're about to ejaculate in Tupperware."
-And... -[laughter]
Two.
[laughter]
They give you porn,
and it's the most extreme porn I had ever seen.
-I was... -[laughter]
I was like, "Easy, medical porn."
Like, here I was...
[laughter]
all these years,
thinking I'm taking in the USDA recommended levels of porn,
and they're like...
[laughter]
"You're gonna need a lot more than that.
You're gonna need to take a multi."
And so...
[laughter]
So I go in and I do the thing.
Dr. Kaplan calls me a few days later with the results.
He says, "Mike, you're gonna have to come back in...
-and masturbate into a cup." -[laughter]
Again? And now I'm like, "Is this a joke?" I mean...
[laughter]
Really, 'cause I'm in the jokes business,
-and actually... -[laughter]
that would be a pretty good joke,
-where... -[laughter]
you convince a stranger to masturbate...
[laughter]
into a cup,
and then you're like, "He did it!"
[laughter]
They're like, "He did?" "Yeah, now what do we do?"
"Ask him to do it again."
"Ask him to do it again? Why would he do it again?"
"I don't know. I don't know why he did it in the first place.
This whole thing is a sham!"
[laughter]
A cup, by the way, being the least conveniently shaped receptacle.
One could masturbate into a cup,
assumes a level of composure and accuracy...
[laughter]
that is so rare in this activity.
A cup assumes the precision of an archer, like...
[laughter]
[whoosh]
[bing]
[laughter]
When, in fact, you're like, "It's everywhere!
[laughter]
Put some in the cup.
[laughter]
Get me some gloves!"
[laughter]
And now everybody knows. And so...
[laughter]
So I go in and I do it again. This time, I waive off the medical porn.
I say, "I'm gonna use memory porn, 'cause I'm a...
I'm a Christian." And, uh...
[laughter]
Dr. Kaplan calls me at the office a few days later with the results.
He says, "Mike...
If you want to get your wife pregnant,
you're gonna have to have what's called a varicocele repair.
I'd never heard this term.
He said, "We cut an incision in your abdomen,
we go into the vein adjoining a testicle,
we squeeze out the excess blood,
we patch you up,
and you can't walk for about a week."
[laughter]
I said, "I don't even want to have a kid." Like, I...
[laughter]
I had to level with him because it was escalating so rapidly, and...
[laughter]
I was like, "Dr. Kaplan, I wasn't gonna tell you this,
but I don't even really want to have a kid,
and now you're describing a Black Mirror episode, and I don't...
[laughter]
I don't want to be in that one." And...
[laughter]
Dr. Kaplan says to me something
I never expected anybody to say to me as an adult,
never mind a medical professional.
He says, "Mike, here's what they don't tell you.
No men want to have kids."
[laughter]
And I go, "That's not true.
Tell me more."
[laughter]
He said, "Our wives want us to, we all go along with it.
It's the best thing that'll ever happen to you.
You'll call me and you'll thank me.
It is the most joy...
you will ever experience."
And I stumbled out of his office
in a daze.
I mean, I nearly wandered into traffic.
And then, I turned around...
[laughter]
and I walked back in,
and I make an appointment for a varicocele repair.
And they ask you to sign some pretty extreme forms.
Like, "We may accidentally cut out your balls."
I'm like, "Do your best, Mike Birbiglia."
[laughter]
"We may replace your balls with Chinese yin and yang balls."
"Namaste, Mike Birbiglia."
[laughter]
The night before the scheduled procedure,
I made the mistake of going on a surgery message board. And...
[laughter]
Oh, I know!
-And... -[laughter]
Okay, a gentleman who had had this exact procedure wrote,
in all caps...
[laughter]
which I found aggressive...
[laughter]
D-- [laughs]
[laughter]
"Do not have this surgery.
[laughter]
Your p-- [laughs]
[laughter]
Your penis will never work again."
[laughter]
Also all caps.
[laughter]
I call my doctor,
in the middle of the night,
and I say, "Hey, I was just doing some research,
and I was talking to this one guy,
-and he was shouting about... -[laughter]
how his penis doesn't work.
Is that possible?"
He goes, "Mike, a lot of these people are getting this stuff done by amateurs."
[laughter]
Which I pictured immediately, like, "I like huntin',
I like fishin',
I do varicocele repair down in the garage."
[laughter]
At this point, Jen didn't think it was a good idea.
I didn't think it was a good idea.
I remember sitting up in the middle of the night,
thinking, "My wife would be a great mother,
and I don't want to get in the way of that.
So, I'll let him tinker with my balls for a few hours."
[laughter]
Well, tinker they did.
[laughter]
The next morning, after several hours, I limped out of outpatient surgery.
For eight days, I walked around New York City...
[laughter]
like a cowboy in the snow.
[laughter]
People were like, "What happened?"
I was like, "Unnecessary ball surgery."
[laughter]
But it worked. At that point, I'm shooting firebombs,
-slinging rockets... -[laughter]
in every direction, laser accuracy.
Everyone I'm even shaking hands with is walking away pregnant.
-And... -[laughter]
One of those people...
was my wife.
[audience] Aww.
Thanks.
[cheering and applause]
I'll tell you, I was more excited than she was.
I came back from a trip to Appleton, Wisconsin,
and she said, "I'm pregnant." And I said, "Yes!"
'Cause I'd forgotten I didn't want to have a kid.
I mean, that's... that's how dumb my brain is.
Like, even though I didn't want to have a kid,
when Jen said she was pregnant, I was like, "We got a win!"
-Like... -[laughter]
"Now, what?" And...
[laughter]
She was pregnant for about 75 months.
-And I'm not sure... -[laughter]
of the exact amount of time, but it was a long duration,
and it was a brutal pregnancy.
It was hard for her, too.
Because...
[laughter]
[laughs]
There was...
No, there are just a lot... there are a lot of extremes.
The first one I learned about
is in a woman's first trimester, her hormones double...
[laughter]
every three days.
[laughter]
That's so much! And...
[laughter]
The first hint of this is when we interviewed this OB-GYN,
and she seemed very sharp.
We walked out, and Jen said, "She's a fucking monster!"
And I said, "I totally agree.
She's not good at being a doctor."
And that was not enough.
She said, "No, she's a fucking monster!"
And I was like, "Yeah! She's a fucking monster!"
And now I'm screaming at the top of my lungs,
in broad daylight,
on the corner of 29th and 1st,
about a doctor who I think is pretty good.
[laughter]
When we get home, Jen says,
"Will you go to the grocery store and get me some pretzels?"
I said, "Yeah, I'll head over there in a few minutes."
[laughter]
And then, what happened...
[laughter]
is that Jen starts crying the most I've ever seen her cry
in 15 years of knowing each other.
I... I go, "Clo, what's wrong?"
She says, "I need the pretzels now!"
[laughter]
So, I sprint to the store like a snack-food superhero,
and I take photos of three types of pretzels,
and I text them to her, and she writes back, "All of them!"
[laughter]
And I wrote, "I saved your best friend's life."
[laughter]
[applause]
My neighbor spots me photographing the pretzels.
He goes, "Mike, what are you doing?" It was early, we weren't telling people.
So I had to be like, "This is something I'm into.
[laughter]
I got a lot of secrets, Tony!"
[laughter]
He said, "When my wife was pregnant, she craved pretzels."
I said, "That's irrelevant."
[laughter]
That's all she could eat for a while, was pretzels.
She had this awful morning sickness,
and it continued into the second trimester, which is more rare.
So then, we're Googling, "What happens when it doesn't stop?"
-And... -[laughter]
The internet's like, "That isn't a thing."
And we're like, "But it's happening."
And it's like, "Try the other internet."
And we're like, "There isn't one."
And it's like, "Exactly."
-And then... -[laughter]
Jen said, "I found this one site
that says that blowjobs can cure morning sickness."
Which wasn't on WebMD. It was just...
[laughter]
in the comment section. You know...
[laughter]
Heroes aren't always the people you expect.
[laughter]
[applause]
It's not just the firemen or the first responders.
-Sometimes... -[laughter]
it's a guy with a laptop and a convincing username.
[laughter]
One night, Jen wakes me up in the middle of the night,
and she says, "I'm bleeding. A lot."
And we jump in a cab.
We rush to the hospital and the doctor explains
that it's her placenta that's bleeding.
And I said, "Is it gonna be okay?"
And she said, "Its going to bleed more,
or it's gonna stop bleeding."
[laughter]
I thought, "That's like what I would say if I was pretending to be a doctor."
[laughter]
Like,"It's gonna bleed more
or less!
[laughter]
I prefer cash!"
[laughter]
The bleeding continued for weeks, and on top of the bleeding,
Jen had hypermobile hips,
which meant she might break or dislocate her hip during labor,
which is obviously not great timing.
-And we were... -[laughter]
so worried that we went to this holistic birthing education class,
which wasn't a great fit,
because it was too much optimism for us
-at that moment. -[laughter]
The instructor was like, "What's the most exciting thing
about having baby?"
Which is a new thing for us where they don't say "the" baby,
they're just like, "Baby!"
We were like, " We just want baby to live.
We don't... we don't have high hopes for this thing,
'cause we went to hospital,
-and... -[laughter]
we spoke with doctor, and...
she did test, and it's touch-and-go at moment. And that...
[laughter]
That wasn't anyone else's answer.
One lady was like, "I just want to hold baby skin-to-skin."
And one lady is like, "I just want to see the world through baby's eyes."
And I was like, "See the world through baby's eyes?
How did you make this about you?
-[laughter] -It's another person!
Now you've invented this futuristic eye surgery?
Get a hold of yourself! What happens if the baby is blind?"
[laughter]
Feel so bad for himself,
like, "My mom only had me for my baby's eyes.
[laughter]
They don't even work!"
[laughter]
At one point, the instructor says, "When baby comes out,
they'll try to take her away and check her vitals...
but don't let them."
[laughter]
I was like, "I think I'm gonna let them.
[laughter]
They're called "vitals," not "optionals."
I think I might go with the grain on that one."
[laughter]
One night, we were walking home from birthing class,
and Jen starts making out with me,
because the same hormone that causes hypermobile hips
causes some people to crave sex.
And so, we got home, we have this magically pregnant sex
with all these contractions and these very loose hips.
It was like having sex with Space Mountain.
-I was like... -[laughter]
-"Hold on!" -[laughter]
We were both so worried that any moment, she might give birth
-into my penis, which... -[laughter]
they never discussed in birthing class.
Like, "I just want to see penis through baby's eyes."
[laughter]
In the third trimester, the bleeding stopped,
which was a huge relief, and the morning sickness went away.
And Jen started eating like a college freshman.
Just hot dogs, and ice cream, and mayonnaise.
At one point, she's eating three hot dogs, all at once.
She's a vegetarian. And...
[laughter]
She looks up at me...
[laughter]
and she says, "I feel like I understand you now."
[laughter]
I said, "I think that's the most offensive thing you've ever said to me.
Is that... is that how you have viewed me all these years? Just...
this ogre who swallows buckets of hot dogs,
and ice cream, and mayonnaise?"
Yeah, that's a part of me, but that's...
that's not the whole picture.
[laughter]
One morning, we were lying on the couch,
and we're sharing a pint of double peanut-butter chocolate-chip ice cream,
and I'm rubbing Jen's shoulders,
and she says, "It's hard for me to breathe,
or speak,
or move."
I said, "That really limits your options. That's...
[laughter]
That's my big three."
[laughter]
She said, "I feel...
like a mammal."
[laughter]
I said, "You've always been a mammal.
[laughter]
[stammers] We're both mammals. And, uh...
But what do you want to do?"
She said, "I want to go to the Museum of Natural History...
[laughter]
with the other mammals."
[laughter]
So that's what we did. We went to the Museum of Natural History.
And I... and I took photos of Jen with her exposed pregnant belly,
next to porpoises,
and walruses,
and narwhals, and dolphins.
Then we get to the big blue whale.
[laughter]
And she says, "I want you to know...
I know you never wanted to have a kid,
and I want to make sure this doesn't change the way we live our lives."
And I said, "Thanks."
And the next morning, at 10:04 a.m.,
our daughter was born.
Which is a reality-bending experience,
because two colossal events occurred simultaneously.
One is that a human being enters the Earth.
And the second is that my wife, this person I love and cherish
and know better than anyone,
in front of my eyes,
becomes a mother.
And I...
pretty much stayed the same.
[laughter]
And that was really the strangest part,
because I'm watching this go down,
and I'm thinking, "That's nuts.
[laughter]
I don't know what I could possibly do to help.
[laughter]
I guess I'll just write an email to anyone we've ever met,"
which is the chief responsibility of the dad.
The mom births a living fire hydrant through her vagina,
[laughter]
and the dad knocks out an email to his list.
She does the physical.
And I do the clerical.
[laughter]
I forgot to write the email.
-And... -[laughter]
Not proud of it. Uh...
[stammers] I was stunned for those first ten hours
by the trippy hospital lights, and chlorine smell,
and I'm wearing the art school smock, and the shower cap.
At a certain point, they hand me this monkey.
And I'm like, "But we're humans."
And they're like, "This is what it is."
And then I'm like, "Can we speak with a manager?"
And they're like, "There isn't one."
And I'm like, "That's the problem. There's no accountability." And...
[laughter]
And then you have to take it home.
I mean, it's completely frowned upon to leave it there. And...
[laughter]
They tried to dress it up.
They're like, "We'll put a striped blanket on it, and a beanie.
We'll make it look like E.T.
[laughter]
You can give it a name."
[laughter]
So we... so we called her Oona.
Which means "one."
As in, "We're only having one."
[laughter]
I've been very clear.
[laughter]
And then, we bring home this monkey.
[laughter]
And she wouldn't sleep for a year.
[laughter]
And that's when I remembered I didn't want to have a kid.
[laughter]
[audience gasps]
[laughter]
[cheering and applause]
It's a little bit like this...
where people send you...
all this crap!
They're like, "This is a chair that shakes the baby!
This is a blanket that smothers the baby!
This is a Magic Sleepsuit!"
This is an actual item.
A Magic Sleepsuit!
[laughter]
You're so desperate
for your child to sleep...
[laughter]
you'll believe...
[laughter]
in magic!
[laughter]
And that's not all! There's the Boppy!
There's the Breast Friend, which is what I thought I was!
[laughter]
There's this worm!
[laughter]
There's bibs, and balls, and binkies,
and Slumber Buddies, and a Baby Shusher,
which is an owl that tells you to stop talking.
There's a Moses basket in case you want to ship your baby down a river.
[laughter]
There's rattles, and a rainstick in case your baby's a shaman.
[laughter]
And none of it works!
[laughter]
Everybody tries to give you advice.
They're like, "Have you tried sounds of the ocean?"
I'm like... [yells] "Yes, we've tried sounds of the ocean!"
[laughter]
"Have you tried massaging her legs?"
[yells] "Yes, we've tried massaging her legs!"
[laughter]
"She should be sleeping."
[yells] "I know she should be sleeping!"
[laughter]
[yells] My wife hasn't slept in weeks!
Though I'm sleeping pretty well, because...
[laughter]
Well, I had a doctor's note. As you know...
[laughter]
I have a rare and dangerous sleep disorder.
[laughter]
And...
[laughter]
[laughs] And Jen... and Jen...
Jen and I were...
Jen and I were both very worried about this.
We went to my sleep doctor after Oona was born,
and we said, "Is this dangerous?"
And he goes, "Oh, yeah!"
[laughter]
He said there are people who have REM behavior disorder
who have dreams their son is a football,
and they kick them through the goalposts,
which are above the fireplace.
And I said, "I wish you hadn't put that image in my brain,
but I see your point."
[laughter]
He said, "One thing you might consider
is sleeping in a separate room
from your wife and daughter, and installing a chain lock
from the inside."
[laughter]
So we did that.
And then, to supplement the sleeping bag,
I created a fitted
sleep sheet,
that fits me
into my mattress.
[laughter]
I cut out a hole for my head and one for my wife,
though she never used it, and then...
[laughter]
I secured the sheet under the mattress with a rope...
and a camping clasp.
And so, now, I'm like a relatable Hannibal Lecter. And...
[laughter]
This is real.
And, uh...
Yeah, I brought this from home.
This is a double-sided zipper, in case I'm suffocating.
So, that's fun. And, uh..
[laughter]
[laughs]
I made this.
I took it to the tailor on my corner.
[laughter]
And I said, "Can you make more of these?"
And he said, "No!"
[laughter]
And he walked me out of the store,
'cause he clearly thought it was some kind of S&M sex sheet
for Orthodox Jews, which it isn't.
-It's a... -[laughter]
It's a homemade medical device.
You might remember that we also have a cat.
And, uh, her name is Mazzy, and she was a street cat.
And so, she wakes us up every morning
by scratching our faces, which is, I believe,
a survival instinct from the streets,
but in a domestic setting, it's much less charming and can be dangerous.
You can't have that around an infant,
so we locked Mazzy in the bedroom with me.
[laughter]
You can see where this is going.
And so, every morning,
she wakes me up by scratching my face,
but I can't protect myself,
[laughter]
'cause my arms are bound by the sheet.
I'm like, "Outta here, street cat!
[laughter]
Nobody wanted you!"
And she's like, "Well, well, well!
Cat's got your arms!" And...
[laughter]
If you have a cat, you know that we had to keep the litter bin
in the locked bedroom.
In the first week,
I forgot to scoop the litter, and Mazzy peed on this linen chair.
I don't know if you've smelled cat pee...
[laughter]
but it's a little bit like if regular pee...
took a shit.
[laughter]
It's... [laughs]
It's the most...
[laughter]
rancid smell.
Before...
Before we had Oona, Jen said to me,
"This baby isn't gonna change the way...
[laughter]
we live...
our lives."
[stammers] And I feel like it has.
-Because... -[laughter]
I sleep in a straitjacket...
[laughter]
in a room that is chain-locked from the inside,
[laughter]
filled with cat litter dust and super pee,
and every morning, I'm awoken by a wild animal...
that is trying to murder me in my sleep.
[laughter]
I feel like this baby has changed the way we live our lives.
[laughter]
One morning, I'm walking home from Rite Aid with cat litter and diapers,
and I walk into our apartment, and Jen is crying on the couch a lot,
like "pretzels" level.
[laughter]
And I say, "Clo,
what's wrong?"
And she says, "Oona is never gonna be in my belly again."
That's how close
Jen and Oona were.
One day, I found this.
This is a... a short poem that Jen had written.
This is one of her actual poetry notebooks.
This is called Little Astronaut.
"A newborn rests her head on the earth of mother.
Everything else is outer space."
This is the most profound level of love...
I had ever witnessed.
And I was there, too.
[laughter]
It's almost like I didn't know what "nothing" meant
until I became a dad.
And then, I was like, "Oh, that's what nothing is."
I was so nothing.
I was this pudgy, milkless vice-president of the family.
[laughter]
Huge title, no power.
Also oversees Congress.
My whole job...
was to be around
and have no opinions.
Like, if I expressed a hint of an opinion, everyone was like, "What's that?"
I'd be like, "I was just mumbling to myself...
about the news." Like...
I was the intern of my own family.
I was like, "Does anyone need coffee?
I'll clean up your crap.
Someday, I hope to be a member of the family." And...
[laughter]
I was a good intern. I showed up on time,
I worked hard, but it would always be junior level activities.
Jen would put Oona down for a nap,
stick her in the stroller and say, "Take her for a walk,
and when she wakes up, return immediately."
[laughter]
So I would do that. When I wasn't interning,
I was on the road, in every Applebee's with a dream.
And one night, I'm in Weatherford, Oklahoma,
which is a direct flight from nowhere, which is why, after the show,
I drove a rental car four-and-a-half hours down to Dallas.
I caught the first flight in the morning,
but we were delayed from thunderstorms all... all day, so...
After 26 hours of travel, I walk in our apartment at 1:00 a.m.,
and I make my way through the living room.
And I'm drenched,
and exhausted,
and empty.
And I get...
[whispers] to the couch.
And Oona is asleep...
on the couch.
And I tiptoe
into the kitchen.
And I say, "Clo,
it's not a big deal,
but that's my couch."
[laughter]
Jen says, "Great news.
That's where Oona likes to sleep."
[laughter]
I said, "I totally get it.
[laughter]
As a short-term solution, I think that's phenomenal,
but long-term, I think Oona should sleep in a crib."
Jen said, "We decided that Oona doesn't like to sleep
in a crib."
[laughter]
I said, "Who's in 'we'?"
[laughter]
She said, "Me and Oona."
[laughter]
I said, "I'm not in 'we' anymore?
I'm a founding member of 'we'."
[laughter]
It is a shocking revelation when you are evicted...
from your own life.
[laughter]
So I decide I'm gonna win back my wife...
from my daughter.
The next day, we're strolling Oona through the park,
and I said, "I was thinking we should set aside one night a week
and get a babysitter."
And Jen looked at me like I was suggesting we sell Oona into slavery,
and then, Oona starts screaming,
like the meanest heckler I've ever encountered.
Like, a heckler not only hates what I'm saying,
but every word individually in any context, and...
Jen looks at me and says, "Oona doesn't like it when we talk."
[laughter]
This baby isn't gonna change the way we live our lives...
but she doesn't like it when we talk.
And then she started to talk when she was six months old.
Jen said, "Hi!"
And then, Oona said, "Hi."
And I said, "Hi!"
And Oona said...
[laughter]
When she was eight months old,
Jen wrote this...
"An infant reaches for something. I don't know what.
Pushes it farther away
and cries in frustration each time she reaches,
without realizing she is crawling for the first time.
She is just like her father."
[laughter]
That's a poetry burn. And...
[laughter]
When she was 13 months old, she was teething.
As far as we could tell, she was growing 234 teeth.
[laughter]
The only time she wouldn't scream was when she was suckling my wife's boob
with her freaky shark teeth.
One morning, we're at the kitchen table, and Oona is just sucking all the life,
and food, and energy out of my wife.
Which is what I want to do.
[laughter]
But I can't,
'cause I'm doing the dishes.
[laughter]
She says, "You're doing a great job." And I say, "Thanks."
Sometimes, I'm not sure.
She says, "Not you."
[laughter]
Cool!
[laughter]
Two hours later, Jen has to pee, and she hands Oona to me.
The moment I take her, it was like holding the angriest thing I'd ever held.
It was like... it was like holding my dad.
[laughter]
She was like...
[screams]
I was like, "How do you think I feel? I don't know what I'm doing.
I don't know anything."
At that moment, the church bells on our corner
start chiming the song Ave Maria.
[church bells chime Ave Maria]
And she stops crying.
Looks up.
Starts bobbing her head.
I said, "I know.
It's a classic."
[laughter]
She's bobbing her head,
and I'm thinking, "She's got a really good rhythm.
Maybe she could be a drummer, or a DJ,
or an agreeable person.
[laughter]
Maybe this'll help her sleep.
She won't need the Slumber Buddies,
or the Dream Dust, or the...
Magic Sleepsuit.
And the song ends.
She's looking at me, and I'm looking at her,
and we both know...
it's about to go down.
[laughter]
So, I go...
♪ Ave Maria ♪
[laughter]
♪ Ave ♪
♪ Maria ♪
I don't know the words, and so I go...
♪ There will be a Jesus ♪
♪ In your womb ♪
♪ It's actually a pretty big honor ♪
♪ It's more like an Oscar than an Emmy ♪
[laughter]
Eventually, I run out of lyrics,
and she's staring at me, and I'm bracing myself,
and she looks me in the eyes and says,
"Dada."
[audience] Aww.
For that moment, I was the pudgy, milkless vice-president
with record high approval ratings for no reason.
[laughter]
Ten hours later, I'm back on the road, but this time, I have the flu.
And when I get the flu,
it is worse than when other people get the flu.
[laughter]
I'm backstage at the Byham Theater in Pittsburgh.
I'm lying on the floor in the darkness.
My cheek is pushed up against the cold tile,
my throat feels like I've swallowed broken glass,
and the tour manager opens the door a crack.
He says, "Mike, we have to start."
And I roll off the floor,
and I hobble onto the stage. I didn't know what to do.
I was looking at the audience like I'm looking at you now,
thinking, "Should I tell them?"
Like, what would Springsteen do?
[laughter]
Like, "This might take the fun out of 'I'm on Fire'...
[laughter]
but my ass is on fire. Here we go!"
Everyone would be, like, "Bruce, no!"
[laughter]
I made it through, but the next morning, I'm even sicker.
And I'm driving home, I pull over to Starbucks,
I don't mean to be crude,
to use the restroom aggressively.
[laughter]
Which I believe is the rudest thing one can do
at someone's place of business.
They're like, "We've got muffins, we can make you a latte."
-You're like, "That's all well and good... -[laughter]
but what I'm gonna do...
[laughter]
is go into this private room you have in the back
and unload the most vile substance
my body's been able to conjure in 39 years of existence.
Then I'm gonna leave and I'm not gonna purchase anything.
[laughter]
And I'm gonna drive as far away from this location
as physically possible
to forget this ever happened.
[laughter]
Do you have the code?"
[laughter]
So now...
Now I'm driving, I'm sweaty and flu-ish.
After seven hours, I walk into our apartment,
I collapse on our beloved couch, and it hugs me.
Jen walks in, who has the sweetest, softest, thread-counted voice.
And says,
[yells] "Get the fuck off the couch!"
[laughter]
I said...
I said, "Clo,
I have the flu."
She said, "If Oona gets the flu, I'm gonna be up all night
holding her until my arm is numb,
using the other arm to rummage through the darkness
for the baby Tylenol and the thermometer.
And I've tried to make it so this doesn't change the way we live our lives.
I don't wake you up,
I change the diapers, I give her baths, but right now,
you're in the way."
You tell that story about me breastfeeding at the kitchen table,
and the only part that isn't true...
is that you do the dishes."
[laughter]
I roll off the couch,
and I walk into my dungeon,
[laughter]
and I lock the door.2
And I get into my straitjacket...
[laughter]
[sighs]
and I can't believe my own thought.
I think,
"I get why Dads leave."
[laughter]
And I'm only comfortable saying that,
because I'm not gonna leave.
I love my wife.
And where would I go?
[laughter]
Who's gonna zip up my sleeping bag?
I'm not gonna be out on the town,
like, "What do you say we get out of here, and you put on my mittens?"
[laughter]
"Do you mean a condom?" "Not exactly."
[laughter]
I'm comfortable saying it, 'cause I'm not gonna leave,
but for the first time in my life, I get it.
And I know that's a sensitive subject. especially if your dad left.
But if your dad left, I want you to know it is not because of you.
It's because...
you exist.
[laughter]
And I'm gonna clarify that, 'cause it's a very subtle distinction.
It's not because of your personality, or that you don't deserve love.
It's that your dad maybe didn't want to be a dad,
and he doesn't understand causality that well.
[laughter]
[sighs]
And now, you're alive.
And I think that's great.
So who cares if your dad's around, 'cause who needs a guy like that anyway?
That said...
[laughter]
I get it.
[laughter]
Because this person who I have sworn to spend the rest of my life with,
this person who I've spent thousands of hours on a couch with,
who has saved my best friend's life...
[laughter]
is in the greatest love affair of her entire life
that I'm watching through a window.
And all day, people come up to me and they say,
"Is it the most joy you've ever experienced?"
And I have to say,
"It's the most joy.
[laughter]
I didn't know what joy was...
until now.
And now I know what it is.
[laughter]
It's this."
[laughter]
I'm literally empty bones, and garbage, and Diet Coke,
and people say, "Are you full?"
I have to say,
"I'm so full."
[laughter]
So I fall asleep and I have the best sleep I've had in a year,
because I've accidentally locked Mazzy out of the bedroom.
[laughter]
And in the morning, I wake up and I open the door,
and I smell the most unmistakable,
heinous stench,
because Mazzy has peed all over the couch.
-[audience] Oh. -I know.
[laughter]
So, I order a pizza...
[laughter]
[laughs]
to compete with the smell,
and when the delivery guy shows up,
I pay him $20 to carry the couch with me
out to the street.
And that's where it died.
I'm in the bedroom for four days with the flu,
and on the fifth day,
I wander out at 4:30 in the morning.
And I wander into the kitchen.
And I do the dishes.
And I enjoy it.
That week, Jen started writing poems for Oona
for when she gets older, and I found...
this.
"Oona...
in our house, there is always a congregation of ants
summiting around a noodle,
or carrying their weight in popcorn across the kitchen floor.
And in the sink, there is always a pile of dishes.
But this morning,
your father...
did the dishes.
And it made me want to fuck him."
[laughter]
And I'd like to think that was for me.
[laughter]
That week, we took Oona...
to a department store,
and she spots this couch.
It was blue.
My wife thinks it's green.
[chuckles] I looked it up...
"Lagoon."
[laughter]
Oona loves the couch. She goes, "Couch!
Wug!
Piwwow!"
She's a genius.
[laughter]
The three of us sit on the couch in the department store.
[laughter]
Oona is hiding behind each of us.
And we go, "Where's Oona? Where's Oona?" She's clinging into my back as I spin.
The more she clings, the more I'm committing. Like...
"Where is Oona? Where is she?"
[laughter]
And she starts laughing so hard,
like the hardest I've ever seen anyone laugh in my whole life,
and I'm in the jokes business.
[laughter]
At this idea that she's tricking us,
the people in power, the people who know everything.
She's fooled us completely, at least this once.
And look, I know she's gonna grow up
and find out that the Earth is sinking into the ocean,
and we might have to live in an almond milk jug in Pennsylvania,
-and... -[laughter]
people can be horrible,
but as I'm staring at this monkey on a couch,
I feel like she might be one of the people who changes that trajectory.
She's laughing so hard that I start laughing in a new...
way, from my perspective, and Jen's perspective,
and Oona's perspective all at once. We're laughing...
as one.
And in that moment,
I feel...
full.
I've seen the world...
[laughter]
through baby's eyes.
[laughter]
[cheering and applause]
♪ I wanna get better ♪
♪ Ave Maria ♪
♪ Gratia Plena ♪
Thanks.
-[cheering and applause continues] -Thank you, guys!
♪ Ave Maria ♪
Thank you!
♪ Gratia Plena ♪
♪ Ave Maria ♪
♪ Gratia Plena ♪
♪ There will be a Jesus in your womb ♪
♪ It's actually a pretty big honor ♪
♪ It's more like an Oscar than an Emmy ♪
♪ Yeah ♪
♪ There will be a Jesus in your womb ♪
♪ It's actually a pretty big honor ♪
♪ It's more like an Oscar than an Emmy ♪
-♪ Yeah ♪ -♪ I wanna get better ♪
♪ I didn't know I was lonely Till I saw your face ♪
♪ I wanna get better ♪
♪ Better, better, better I wanna get better ♪
♪ I didn't know I was broken Till I wanted to change ♪
♪ I wanna get better ♪
♪ Better, better, better I wanna get better ♪
♪ Ave Maria ♪
♪ Gratia Plena ♪
♪ Ave Maria ♪
♪ Gratia Plena ♪
♪ There will be a Jesus in your womb ♪
♪ It's actually a pretty big honor ♪
♪ It's more like an Oscar than an Emmy ♪
♪ Yeah ♪
♪ There will be a Jesus in your womb ♪
♪ It's actually a pretty big honor ♪
♪ It's more like an Oscar than an Emmy ♪
-♪ Yeah ♪ -♪ I wanna get better ♪
♪ I didn't know I was lonely Till I saw your face ♪
♪ I wanna get better ♪
♪ Better, better, better I wanna get better ♪
♪ I didn't know I was broken Till I wanted to change ♪
♪ I wanna get better ♪
♪ Better, better, better I wanna get better ♪
♪ Ave Maria ♪
♪ Gratia Plena ♪
♪ Ave Maria ♪
♪ Gratia Plena ♪
♪ Ave Maria ♪
♪ Gratia Plena ♪
♪ Ave Maria ♪
♪ Gratia Plena ♪
♪ Ave Maria ♪
♪ Gratia Plena ♪