I'm a former New York City
sanitation worker of 20 years.
(audience cheering)
Thanks, that's what it deserves.
(audience laughing)
No, but sanitation,
working sanitation was a humble job.
Helped support the family, kept food
on the table, clothes
on my children, you'd be surprised
what people throw out.
(audience laughing)
People would call me a garbage man.
Garbage man, it's a good job title.
It's honest, direct.
Not like these other job
titles, life coach,
mixologist, social media influencer.
People have such huge egos
about their careers.
It's like get over yourselves
already.
Anyway, sorry.
So when I was on sanitation, working
as a garbologist--
(audience laughing)
I hate how the other garbage men
acted so macho,
so much testosterone
in that job.
Like in the locker room,
they made fun of me
because I didn't hang up
any pictures of swimsuit models
in my locker.
Yeah, I didn't hang up any pictures
of women in bikinis
so they said my masculinity was
suspect.
Suspect, that's a big word
for those garbage men,
and I got really offended when I
Googled it
(audience laughing)
Back then, I had two pictures
in my locker.
Two pictures, a picture
of that basketball player
from the NBA Larry Bird
and a pic of Bea Arthur
from The Golden Girls.
Just two pics, Larry Bird and
Bea Arthur.
If you don't know Bea Arthur,
she was the Golden Girl, the one
that looks like Larry Bird.
(audience laughing)
Sorry, I shouldn't make fun of
Larry Bird.
(audience laughing)
Because I worked for sanitation
for 20 years,
people often come up to me and say,
"so when you were on your route
"picking up garbage,
"did you ever find anything
"in the trash?"
Yeah, a lot of times
we find garbage.
People tend to throw that stuff out.
That's why it's called garbage
and not keepage.
(audience laughing)
But there are exceptions.
I found great stuff when I worked
in Manhattan on the upper east side,
home to the rich and famous.
Garbage day
was like an outdoor Pottery Barn.
(audience laughing)
And up there, they'd also throw out
new flat screen TVs.
You'd find a year old TV
in the trash just because Samsung
came out with a newer, flaterererer
flat screen.
Now the janitors, they would drag
the garbage from the high rise
buildings to the street
so they would get
to the elite garbage before me.
And they turned into garbage snobs,
teasing me.
"Enjoy your year old flat screen,
"loser.
"I just found this old Rolex.
"It was Mayor Bloomberg's."
Big deal, I got Kevin Bacon's
blender.
Meh.
on my route, I hurt my lower back
throwing a sofa bed into the truck.
It was my fault,
I should have lifted with my legs
and woke that dude up.
(audience laughing)
But I did get hurt so instead
of surgery I decided to try yoga,
and the deep stretching helped me so
much I got into it.
It became my second job,
I started teaching yoga.
And yoga is a journey
of self-discovery and I discovered
that nobody believes I teach yoga.
(audience laughing)
Yet, you had no problem with garbage
man.
(audience laughing)
People say they don't believe I
teach yoga because how I look
and the way I pronounce yoga.
(audience laughing)
I'm from Queens,
I struggle with words that end
in the letter A, and this was just
brought to my attention
by my wife Yolander.
(audience laughing)
You know, sometimes people don't
believe I teach yoga during class.
(audience laughing)
The first class I ever taught,
I walk in the room,
and there's this much older Long
Island lady there.
Oh you know the type, really fit,
no body fat, and no filter.
"He's our yoga teacher?
"He doesn't even have a man bun.
"This guy is suspect.
"I don't trust anyone who looks
"like a thumb."
(audience laughing)
Some nerve, her making fun
of my looks.
Yeah, I guess in the 80s,
she probably looked like Madonna.
Now that she's in her 80s,
she looks like Madonna.
Teach the hot yoga, it's 110 degrees
in that room.
Oh, it's intense, but doing hot yoga
is great for my Irish complexion.
(audience laughing)
No, but hot yoga does keep me
looking medium rare.
(audience laughing)
The extreme heat,
the 110-degree temperature
is meant to simulate the heat
of India, where people have been
meditating for thousands of years
searching for inner peace
and central air conditioning.
Oh, man it's hot.
(audience laughing)
My wife teaches yoga too,
but we refuse to call ourselves
yogis.
You know, like, we hate labels.
We ride bikes,
we don't call ourselves cyclists.
We love birds, we're not bird
watchers.
We watch NASCAR, we're not racists.
(audience laughing)
I'm joking, we hate birds.
(audience laughing)
And what's with the chirp chirp,
speak American.
(audience laughing)
Anyway, if you're going to try
hot yoga, some advice.
Make sure you hydrate, and set
yourself up next to the vegans.
They smell like fresh cut grass.
In a hot room,
stay away from the McDonald's
people.
They smell like secret sauce
and broken dreams.
(audience laughing)
I hope I didn't offend any vegans.
Are there any vegans here?
You would have told us already.
(audience laughing)
I'm very blessed to have
a beautiful family.
Beautiful children, my wife and I,
we have two kids.
My son is 12 years old,
and my daughter is my favorite.
(audience laughing)
That's
because my 10-year-old daughter is
exactly like me.
She's a former New York City
sanitation worker.
(audience laughing)
No, but it's human nature to favor.
My kids are hanging from a cliff
and I'm only allowed to save one,
she's coming home.
(audience laughing)
My son is fine with this.
He knows we don't live near a cliff.
(audience laughing)
And he gets it, he's smart.
Honestly, my son is brilliant.
Straight-A student,
he's a perfect blend of his mother's
looks and his mom's brains.
(audience laughing)
He gets it.
He says, "dad, you just
"say that cliff joke to shock
"the crowd, be absurd,
"and mommy's my favorite."
(audience laughing)
Then he claims that studies show
that all boys favor their mom,
and he says I should Google it.
I said, maybe we should move
near a cliff.
(audience laughing)
He's been making fun of me lately.
He's going through a phase,
in public, too.
Like the other day,
we're all out to eat.
We're sitting in a booth at a diner,
separate checks,
and I say how's school?
He says, "dad, school is great.
"Did you know the word bald
"is an adjective and balding
"is an action verb?"
Here's an adjective for you,
hereditary.
(audience laughing)
My daughter, she's twisting
my arm.
Actually, she wants a dog.
You don't really have to twist
my arm, I love dogs.
Growing up, we always had one.
I love them, but now the word
on the street
is you have to get a rescue.
Oh, you're getting a dog?
Make sure you get a rescue.
You have to adopt a rescue that's
what good people like me do.
If we pay for a little puppy,
we're going to get dog shamed.
Nowadays if you own a dog that
doesn't at least have a limp,
you're a monster.
You ever notice, though, today
people brag, they tend to brag,
on how ragged
and messed up their dogs are?
This is Duke, he has one eye, one
leg, and half a tail.
I rescued him.
I think you're a little late.
(audience laughing)
The dog looks like a rabbit's foot
hanging from her keychain.
(audience laughing)
This rescue dog needs
its own comfort dog.
(audience laughing)
These days, guys who look like me,
bald, blue collar,
are being profiled.
I'm sick of people just assuming
that I'm handy.
(audience laughing)
I look like I can do it myself.
I can't even do it if people help
me.
(audience laughing)
For home improvements,
I have to go out and hire one
of those real men.
(audience laughing)
But little things,
as far as changing a showerhead,
or even installing a hot water
heater, that all gets
done by my wife.
(audience laughing)
So when my son's eyeglasses broke,
I told my wife I got this.
Honey, I can handle it.
I'll fix his eyeglasses, I got it.
So I'm at Home Depot buying
duct tape
(audience laughing)
and this handy guy
in the checkout line
starts making handy guy talk with me
like we're going to flip a house.
(audience laughing)
I'm building cabinets
with this plywood, none
of that particleboard junk.
Don't you hate particle board?
I hate it with a passion.
(audience laughing)
Plywood, particle board, I don't
know.
I never even heard of a particle
tree.
(audience laughing)
I can't relate to this handy Home
Depot man.
He's wearing two tape measures,
steel-toed boots, buying plywood
and power tools.
I'm wearing Crocs, holding duct tape
and a peach Snapple.
(audience laughing)
Oh, Snapple fun fact, you're not one
of those real men.
I'm not mechanically-inclined,
especially car repairs.
I pay AutoZone to change my air
fresheners.
(audience laughing)
I don't change my own tires,
forget about that.
I mean with roadside assistance,
it's easier just to call AA and have
them come out and do it.
AA, I mean, AAA.
(audience laughing)
AA can change my ties, it would just
take them 12 steps.
(audience laughing)
And I learned to accept the things
I can't change like tires.
(audience laughing)
My father was a handy man,
but he never passed it on.
My father was a great guy.
I miss him.
You would have liked my dad,
but dad was a major procrastinator.
He started as a crastinator,
then he went pro.
(audience laughing)
Let's hear from the procrastinators.
(audience cheering)
The real ones would clap later.
(audience laughing)
My dad put everything off.
His last words were, "Let me get back
"to you."
(audience laughing)
Everything got delayed.
I remember one Thanksgiving.
That's it, the rest were postponed.
(audience laughing)
Everything got delayed,
he put everything off,
but as a young boy,
Easter was the best.
That's when I open Christmas
presents in my Halloween costume.
Dad said, "Who are you supposed
"to be?"
I'm Batman, happy new year.
Would you like a Valentine?
(audience laughing)
My dad put everything off,
everything got pushed back.
For my 10th birthday,
he got me circumcised.
(audience laughing)
I know, I wanted a skateboard.
(audience laughing)
Circumcised at 10, it's OK.
It's starting to heal.
(audience laughing)
My dad may have been
a procrastinator,
but he was very considerate.
In his will, he left me all his IKEA
furniture.
Now my wife has to put it together.
(audience laughing)
I try to lead a healthy lifestyle.
Some people get too fussy,
no bread, no sugar, no smoking while
pregnant.
(audience laughing)
Hey, my mom smoked, voila.
(audience laughing)
She didn't smoke
the whole pregnancy.
She was responsible,
she took a break
after the first contraction.
I came out blowing rings.
(audience laughing)
My first words were, mama.
The apartment was filled with smoke.
She was always smoking as a child.
My first steps were stop, drop,
and roll.
(audience laughing)
Smoke everywhere, the pets couldn't
take it.
Our dog ran away.
He didn't get followed with one
lung,
(audience laughing)
But my mom finally stopped
smoking.
She quit as a present
for my ninth birthday.
I wanted a skateboard.
(audience laughing)