-Rainn!
Rainn! Hey, hey, hey!
Hey, man. Hey.
-Whoa. -Hey, what's up?
-Demetri. How's it going? -Good to see you.
-Nice to see you. What are you doing out here?
-I was -- I'm just -- I was in your hood.
And I'm thinking... -Uh-huh?
-...God, I love that van thing he does.
-The talk show. -Yeah.
-We got to get you on it sometime.
-I'd love to do it. I accept.
I mean, absolutely.
And, you know, I'm good for --
I have most of the day open right now.
-You're saying now?
-Just, like a shorter, maybe we'll do a quicker one.
If I can just kind of hop in.
-Get in the van.
-All right. You're welcome, by the way.
-[ Singing ] Take a sip from your soul
On a metaphysical milkshake
-You know, it's a magic van.
We can go anywhere. Where do you want to go?
-Paris would be great.
Oh, nice, yeah.
Texas -- -That's the best --
-No, I meant Paris, Texas, but it's fine.
I mean, that's first-thought Paris.
-Um, thanks so much. It was really great having you.
-Was that it?
-I think we got what we need.
-'Cause I'd love to just --
even a few more minutes.
Just of...
-Okay, what's a joke that you loved
that you tried to make work... -So many times.
-...so many times, and it just didn't work?
-I can't think of one -- I probably could if I used
up the whole time here just sitting here silently
in your van. -Okay, we can do that.
-Just sadly jogging my memory.
And you could just watch the change
of expression on my face as I relive the failures
of the last decade of my career. -[ Laughs ]
And I'll think about mine, too.
So, here we go.
All right, that was great. That was great.
Thanks so much.
Hey, hey, hey, are you okay?
-[ Crying ] The joke was so funny
and I told it so many times.
-What happened? What happened?
Shh. Come here, come here, come here.
What happened? What happened?
What was the joke? Tell it.
Tell it to me. Tell me the joke.
-It's about fat people.
-It was about fat people. That's tough.
See, that's risky material.
One of the life's big questions from SoulPancake
that we often ask is "what is one thing
that you know for sure?"
-I'm gonna die. -Okay.
-It bums me out. -I love talking about death.
People never want to talk abut death, ever.
It's my favorite topic, honestly.
-What I find interesting is belief.
-Mm-hmm.
-How somebody acquires the belief,
and how they lose one.
If somebody holds a gun to me and says,
"What do you actually believe?"
-Mm-hmm. -And you've got
to be completely truthful about what you believe.
That's a harder catalog
to go through, to say, "What do I believe?"
And then someone says, "Explain to me how you acquired it."
What you actually believe. You know what I mean?
You see people driving trucks into buildings with explosives
in them, and I'm guessing they really believe something.
-You're talking about belief, faith,
which is a deeper belief than what is proven.
-Even principles.
I often think of someone's religion,
if they tell you their religion,
they're saying, "Hey, here's a shortcut
if you want to offend me."
-Ah, interesting. -And if someone's an atheist,
it's a little tricker.
"All right, I can't do religion. Do you have kids?"
-You could make fun of Darwin or Newton or science.
Oh, science! -Excuse me, scientific method.
Gay. Pbht.
There's nothing wrong with being gay,
and I think science is gay, and I mean that in a good way.
-But it sounds like this is something
that you know for sure.
That there is comedy
and that things can make you laugh and uplift you.
And that that is a kind of a glorious mystery
as to how that works.
-A few years ago, there was a story
that I saw on the Internet about some archaeologists,
they uncovered ancient joke books
written in Greek from Rome, stone.
That had jokes carved into them. -No kidding.
-Yeah. Fat jokes.
Fart jokes. Ugly-wife jokes. Slave jokes.
There were a lot of slave owners at that time.
A guy sells a slave to another guy.
The slave dies.
The buyer then goes to the seller
and says, "We have a problem.
The slave you sold me died."
The seller says, "That's impossible.
He never did anything like that when he worked for me."
That joke is like a couple thousand years old.
That's an actual joke.
-That is a 2,000-year-old Borscht-belt joke.
-Yeah! And so they said in the article
that this is the dead parrot sketch
from Monty Python, 2,000 years
before they wrote it. -That's fantastic.
-And I just found it fascinating.
Architects can look at the Parthenon.
People in comedy, we don't quite have the equivalent.
But then you see something like that.
And somehow, it made me feel more connected
to the lineage of human thought
and comedy and the idea of how we make each other laugh.
-Yeah.
So, you're working on a book of drawings?
-Yeah. I'm working on a book of,
like, little ink drawings, like single-panel line drawings.
It's called "Point Your Face At This."
-When is that gonna come out? -March 19th.
-And you've written several books.
-This is -- I've only written one
that anybody ever saw,
called "This Is A Book" by Demetri Martin.
Hey, so, can we do that thing, like that kind of, you know,
big questions, milkshake,
exploding whatever? I mean, do I get that?
Am I -- -The lightning round?
-Yeah, have I made the cut to the lightning, or...?
-Okay, check this out.
Boom! Lightning round!
Boom! Where's the line between imitation and inspiration?
-Right after the "M." No, right after the "I."
-Why do you love Venn diagrams?
-Ohh, I think because I like circles,
and I like information,
and I think Venn was a genius.
-What is God? -God is a concept
by which we measure our pain.
John Lennon.
-What's one eye-opening experience
every person should have?
-Waking up. -What is love?
-Love is a band from the late '60s
that I like that a lot of people might not be familiar with,
but you should check out their stuff.
-Where's the weirdest place you've ever done stand-up?
-New Jersey. -So, Demetri
and I are going to take today's SoulPancake challenge,
which is called SoulScribble.
We are going to draw
what we think our souls look like,
and we will share them with you.
Ready? Go.
[ Clock ticking ]
[ Ding! ] -Mine says "flip over."
And then you flip it over, and it says "Now flip back quickly."
The idea is you know how many souls
in this ethereal point here,
between or above the third dimension, moving through time,
and it's a nondescript, kind of unattainable,
really indefinable, if that's a word...
lacuna or pocket in the space-time continuum, but --
-Indefinable is a word. Lacuna is not.
Mine is a paisley.
I always thought that my soul looked
kind of like a paisley,
which is a little bit like a spermatozoa.
And then I was eating something,
and I spilled a little bit.
So, SoulPancake viewers
and YouTubers, please upload a video of yourself --
you could even do time-lapse -- doing a SoulScribble.
Draw what you think your soul looks like.
And give it the old try.
And Demetri and I will watch every single video
that you post, promise.
What's five non-physical traits that turn you on in a woman?
-Okay. I'd say her --
the area just in front of her breasts
and just behind her [bleep]
[ Both laugh ]
That's -- And then double that, so that's four.
-[ Laughing ] [Bleep]