-Our next guest has his new stand-up special
"Born in '86" available now on YouTube.
Making his "Tonight Show" debut,
please welcome the very funny D.J. Demers.
[ Cheers and applause ]
♪♪
-Hello.
[ Cheers and applause ]
How are ya?
Thank you, thank you so much.
What a dream. Thank you so much for having me.
Keep that applause going for my interpreter Caroline, everybody.
[ Cheers and applause ]
Yeah.
Yeah, I wanted to have an interpreter.
I wanted to make sure that all my deaf homies
could appreciate the show as well, 'cause I'm deaf.
You know, I'm not full deaf. I wear hearing aids.
I actually don't know sign language myself.
I'm bad at being deaf,
But -- [ Laughter ]
Yeah, I'm not good at hearing either.
I'm like a daywalker. I don't --
I don't know where I belong.
But I actually learned recently there's a bit of a beef
between the deaf and hard-of-hearing communities --
a quiet beef, but a --
[ Laughter ]
But a -- But a beef nonetheless.
But I want no part of that.
I got nothing but love for everybody, deaf people.
I've never felt deafer than I did during this pandemic.
For real, man. Everybody's had a mask on.
I haven't had a real conversation in two years.
I don't know -- [ Laughter ]
[ Cheers and applause ]
Honestly. For real.
Gosh, it's been brutal.
People used to always ask me, like,
"How much can you actually hear and how much are you, like,
lip-reading?" and now that everybody's been covering
their mouth, I was finally able to run the numbers,
and it turned out I'm lip-reading 100% of the time.
[ Laughter ]
Yeah. Yeah.
Man, oh, man.
The worst is when they have a mask on
and they're behind plexiglass, you know?
You walk into the bank, you're looking at a guy.
He's got the mask on. He's behind the glass.
I just -- I'm staring at the teller for like 10 seconds
before I'm finally just like, "Hey, man,
have you started talking yet?"
[ Laughter ]
"I legitimately have no idea."
[ Applause ]
Man, if this is important,
could you -- If this is important,
could you, like, write it on a piece of paper
and put it up against the glass,
like a reverse robbery situation?
[ Laughter ]
Man.
I don't know sign language,
but I realize that it might be time for me to learn.
You know?
But that wasn't learned, by the way.
That was poop.
But --
That was a joke for my deaf homies.
[ Laughter ]
Might have ruined the joke by explaining it,
but I had to for my blind homies.
[ Laughter ]
Yeah. Had to do it.
Yeah.
I knew the pandemic was real when they took
all the sports away. That's when I knew.
You know, 'cause I'm an idiot.
Like, when I first started hearing about COVID,
I was one of those morons.
I was like, "Guys, this'll be over in four or five days.
We'll be back to business."
And then they took all the sports away.
I was like, "It's pretty serious, guys.
Pretty serious. They took all the sports away.
We should probably start washing our hands."
They took them all away, and I love sports.
Like, I need sports.
When they took them away -- Like, I love every sport --
violent sports.
I mean, it is a bit difficult for me to watch violent sports
sometimes because I played a lot of hockey growing up
and I got a lot of concussions,
and I feel like they might have scrambled my brain a little bit,
but I don't know, I just love violent sports.
It is a little hard for me to watch violent sports sometimes,
though, 'cause I played a lot of hockey growing up
and I got a lot of concussions
[ Laughter ]
And...
[ Applause ] Yeah.
Feel like I might have scrambled my brain a little bit, but...
That but was a joke, but if I do it again,
call an ambulance, please.
[ Laughter ]
But, yeah, then they took them all away.
All of a sudden, I had no sports to watch.
I had to, like -- I went on YouTube.
I started watching weird, random sports
just to fill the void in my heart.
I got into darts for a while.
I was watching darts.
Cornhole -- I got deep into cornhole.
That was weird.
I started watching a lot of speed walking.
Speed walking is amazing, though.
Like, I stand by that.
I know it's easy to hate on speed walking.
I've been there, but once you get over your prejudice,
undeniably the sexiest sport on the planet.
You know? Undenia--
What other sport is literally all in the hips?
You know? And they go hard.
They go for 50 kilometers -- 31 miles.
30-- Could you imagine doing this for 31 miles?
[ Grunting ]
[ Applause ] My hips would break.
Man, it's no joke.
You know what I love about speed walking, too?
It's the only sport with, like, a built-in limit.
Every other sport, the coaches are like, "Give it 110%."
Speed walking is the only one where they're like,
"Better cap it at 98%," you know?
"If we're not careful, this could turn into a jog."
It's a dangerous game we're playing here.
Speed walking's got a marketing problem.
It should be the biggest sport on the planet.
What I would do if I was in charge of speed walking,
I would license it out to all the other sports,
and create brand-new beautiful sports with speed walking.
Take your favorite sport,
add speed walking to the front of it,
you got a beautiful -- Think of any sport you want.
Speed walking baseball.
[ Laughter ]
You see it?
You see it, right?
A guy up to bat, just hits the it to the left field,
guy is going down to first base.
[ Laughter, applause ]
Outfielder trying to track it down.
Come on.
Speed walking football.
Could you imagine speed walking --
Just, hut!
[ Laughter ]
Receiver trying to get it.
Come on.
Man, oh, man. It doesn't even have to be, like, a real sport.
Like, a random event I would watch
if they added speed walking to it.
You know the running with the bulls they do
every year in Spain?
[ Laughter ]
Big deal. Anybody can run with the bulls.
Let's see what you're really made out of, you know?
Speed walking with the bulls.
That's what I'm talking about.
Thousands of people die every year.
What a sport.
Pure violence.
Be a little hard for me to watch, though,
because I played a lot of hockey growing up
and I got a lot of -- [ Laughter ]
What's so funny?
You guys have been amazing.
Thank you so much.
I'm D.J. Caroline, everybody.
[ Cheers and applause ] -Oh, come on!
Oh, my God, fantastic.
D.J. Demers right there.
"Born in '86"... [ Cheers and applause ]
...is available now on YouTube.
We'll be right back, everybody. Come on back.