I said the 20-somethings are dumb.
They're not dumb.
It's just certain ways of the world.
The reason I say that, you watch,
in the not too distant future,
hackers are going to knock out
our cellphones and the internet.
These 20-somethings will come
to a stop, stare at their phone,
and have no idea what to do next.
Because they've always
had an internet connection.
If we lose the internet,
us old folks,
we got a plan B. You 20-somethings
are going to have to find
a bunch of old people
and ask us how to do stuff.
(audience laughing)
"Hey, mister, can you help me get
"home?
"I don't know how to do directions."
(audience laughing)
Well, I can draw you a map
but you're gonna have to listen
and store the information
in your head.
(audience laughing)
And I'm not here to tell you life
was better before cellphones.
It wasn't.
I love my phone.
I'm addicted to that thing.
You ever lose your phone?
Oh, that's a panic attack.
I lost my kid at the mall one time
and didn't panic like that.
(audience laughing)
Because I have two kids.
(audience laughing)
Never has technology moved
so quickly
as the past 20-plus years.
My son was at my house
a couple of years ago.
He called my mom, his grandma.
He turns to me, he goes, "I think
"grandma's phone broken."
I go, why?
He goes, "listen to this."
It's a busy signal.
(audience laughing)
He'd never heard one.
(audience laughing)
He goes, "now what do I do?"
Hang up.
(audience laughing)
He goes, "how do I leave a message?"
You don't.
(audience laughing)
He goes, "now what do I do?"
I go, wait a few minutes.
Call her back.
He goes, "that's stupid."
(audience laughing)
And I don't know what it was
like in your house growing up.
My house growing up, my dad never
answered the phone.
He wasn't getting out
of his big old chair.
That phone rang, he just looked
at us kids.
It was our job to answer the phone,
right?
I was telling my son that story
one day, he goes, "why didn't you
"tell your dad to get the phone?"
(audience laughing)
My World War II marine dad?
(audience laughing)
I tried it once.
(audience laughing)
Had no idea he could get out
of the chair that quickly.
(audience laughing)
When I woke up, that phone
was inside me.
(audience laughing)
"Hey, Dad, why don't you get--
(audience laughing)
Here's something that kills me
about technology and old people.
By old people,
I'm talking about people my age.
Watch us when people are taking
pictures.
They've got the camera.
We all stop.
We don't walk in front of it
because we think we're going to ruin
the film.
(audience laughing)
Hey, Boomer, no more film.
Keep moving.
These guys delete more pictures
in an hour
than we used to take in a year.
You remember roll of 24?
That thing would last year all year.
You get that back, you go, look,
there's Uncle Billy.
He's been dead at least a year.
Oh, my.
I got-- I got some new Uncle Billy
photos.
(audience laughing)
And photos weren't unlimited,
you had to keep track.
Remember that little counter
on the bottom of the camera
told you how many were left?
That's why all the sasquatch photos
are crappy.
(audience laughing)
Everybody was down
to their last shot.
Like, oh, there is.
Click.
Ah.
(audience laughing)
Behind a tree.
Before COVID, I worked in Singapore
and Hong Kong.
I worked these English speaking
comedy clubs and I flew from
Hong Kong to Singapore on Tigair.
It's this cut rate Asian airline,
they cramming you in close together.
And I don't feel like a big man.
But in Asia, I'm gigantic.
(audience laughing)
I did not realize it till I was
standing at the gate looking
around going, oh my, I'm the biggest
guy here by a lot.
So I'm 6'1", 190.
195.
(audience laughing)
200.
(audience laughing)
Probably 202 this morning.
Anyway, I was the biggest guy
by a lot on the jet
and I had a window seat.
There was a guy in the aisle
and I said, can I sneak past you?
(audience laughing)
(audience cheering)
He said, "your sneaking days
"are over, my friend."
(audience laughing)
In mid-December I was in downtown
Seattle and I came across one
of those live nativity scenes.
And I've never seen one before.
Go and check it out,
a live nativity scene.
Look there, that's a-- that's a--
that's a homeless encampment,
all right.
(audience laughing)
Where did they get a camel?
(audience laughing)
I got a cheap hotel recently.
I knew it was cheap.
I wanted free parking,
continental breakfast.
That's all I needed.
I went down to the lobby
in the morning, there was bucket
of water, two raw potatoes.
(audience laughing)
I said to the guy that works there,
I go,
your website says there's
a continental breakfast.
He said, "doesn't say which
"continent."
(audience laughing)
That is an excellent loophole,
my friend.
(audience laughing)
And it doesn't matter where I travel
in the country.
It doesn't matter where you go
on the country, highway construction
everywhere.
It just never ends.
And this is what I know
about highway construction.
Could they bring
the temporary cement walls
in any closer
to the edge of the highway?
(audience laughing)
Like driving isn't hard enough.
It's pouring down rain,
it's pitch black,
you're trying to follow
that white line, the white line goes
under the cement wall.
(audience laughing)
You ever see those skid marks go up
the side of those walls?
(audience laughing)
What happened there?
I'm a habitual speeder.
Anybody else?
Habitual speeders?
Where are my people?
(audience laughing)
That's part of the problem
right there, there's not
enough of us.
(audience laughing)
There is nothing wrong with traffic
we couldn't fix with some speed,
folks.
Let's go.
(audience cheering)
You know what would
make more water
go through a hose?
Turn it up faster.
(audience laughing)
There's trouble merging
in this country too.
Let me tell you how merging works.
Listen up, listen carefully.
I want you to take this with you
tonight, OK?
Here's how you merge.
Ready for this?
Speed up.
You see how that works?
(audience laughing)
Go faster.
Term is merge, not wedge.
(audience laughing)
Here's the All-American merger right
here.
10, 20, 30, 40, 30, 20 10.
(audience laughing)
If all the traffic's going 70,
you don't come down the ramp at 50
and make a hole,
you come down at 80
and find one.
Yeah.
(audience cheering)
Be a team player.
(audience laughing)
Everybody cheers that, no one ever
does it.
Let me tell you how you get off
the highway.
Exit, then brake.
(audience laughing)
It's not brake, exit.
It's exit, brake.
That works best for all of us.
How many of you here
suck at driving?
How many of you suck at driving?
I need-- I need to see more hands.
(audience laughing)
Way more hands.
I need to see way more hands.
A couple of you are honest.
A couple of you-- the rest of you,
you don't understand.
Here's a traffic scenario I'd like
to ask you about.
Oncoming traffic
and you need to make a left
to the oncoming traffic.
How much room
do some of you need?
(audience laughing)
You only have to miss the bumper
of the car that just went past.
(audience laughing)
Some of you apparently need
to see the horizon.
(audience laughing)
I've made a left out
of the second position many times
in my life before.
I'm like, OK, he could have gone there.
(audience laughing)
He could have gone there.
(audience laughing)
Could have gone there.
(audience laughing)
He's not going here, I am.
Boom, right there.
(audience laughing)
Yeah.
You got places to go.
And who put in all these traffic
circles and didn't tell anybody how
they work?
(audience laughing)
That circle doesn't have to be empty
for you to enter it.
There just has to be enough room
for you to fit.
Pick out a hole and hit that thing
like an NFL running back.
If you've ever driven up
to a traffic circle and stopped,
I want you to go home tonight,
lay down your keys,
and never ever pick
them up ever, ever again.
(audience cheering)
I told you, I'm always speeding.
I'm 15 over when I'm early.
I don't know what it is.
I just think if gamblers can
attribute their problem
to a disease,
I should be able to plea
the same thing, don't you?
Please, Your Honor, don't fine me.
I'm just going to speed again.
I need treatment.
(audience laughing)
You ever been on a two-lane highway,
seen an RV, 10 or 12 cars
stacked up behind it?
Nobody can pass.
One guy, some psycho guy,
goes nuts from the back of the pack,
passes the whole row, you ever seen
that?
I'm that guy.
(audience laughing)
Nobody else has any guts,
I'll do it.
(audience laughing)
See you suckers later.
(audience cheering)
I think passing is a lost art form.
I could pass on a two lane bridge
with a school bus coming at me.
No problem.
(audience laughing)
It's a question of three things--
heart, commitment, horsepower.
That's the other one.
(audience laughing)
You don't want to pass in that
Smart Car, you know.
(audience laughing)
I don't feel very smart right now.
(audience laughing)
I went into a parking garage
in Seattle recently.
I pay my money, I go up the ramp.
There's a big sign on the wall says,
speed limit, five miles
an hour.
Then in big red letters
it says, strictly enforced.
Five.
How'd you like to drive around
the corner,
see a cop standing with a radar gun?
"Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey,
"hey, hey."
(audience laughing)
Chase you with his flashlight.
Woo!
(audience laughing)
Do you know why I pulled you over?
"No."
Caught you doing seven.
(audience laughing)
How would you like to go to court
on that?
"Mr. Upton you've been charged
"for doing 7 in a 5?
"How do you plead?"
Embarrassed.
(audience laughing)
In the state of Washington,
where I'm from,
we have some of the most restrictive
anti-smoking laws in the country
due to secondhand smoke.
They're good laws.
You know what I'm tired of, though,
We need a law about?
Everywhere I fly now,
I have to sit like this.
You know what I'm getting tired of?
Secondhand fat.
(audience laughing)
Son of-- every time I get on a jet,
there's a 600-pounder coming down
the aisle.
I'm like, oh no, no, no, no, no,
no, no, no, no, no.
They always say the same thing.
"Can I sneak past you?"
(audience laughing)
Your sneaking days are over,
my friend.
(audience laughing)
Could you sneak past the Golden
Corral one time, all right?
(audience laughing)
You guys can relax on that joke.
I look around the room before I do it.
(audience laughing)
Sometimes I have to change it
to 800.
(audience laughing)
Felt pretty safe at 600 tonight.
(audience laughing)
If you saw my last special,
I make fun of millennials.
I don't know if you remember that
or not.
(audience cheering)
It was quite popular.
Do we have anybody tonight
under the age of 30?
Any 20-somethings?
That's still the dumbest group
of humans I've ever met in my life.
(audience laughing)
You're not dumb academically,
I'll get to that.
But you are soft emotionally,
I can tell you that.
(audience laughing)
The reason I say that, when I was
growing up,
our parents let us play
in the street, climb trees, and blow
stuff up.
And you know what happened if you
got hurt or maimed?
You got a new name.
(audience laughing)
I had two friends I grew up
with Aimer and Niner.
When Amir was six,
he was in the garage
with his big brothers blowing stuff
up.
He lost his right eye.
It was closed the rest of his life.
He looked like he was aiming a gun.
That's how he got the name Aimer.
(audience laughing)
He was the aimer.
Everybody called him Aimer.
(audience laughing)
I did not know his name was not
Aimer.
(audience laughing)
So the first day of third grade,
the teacher said, "Ross Thomas."
We all went, Ross Thomas, who?
Aimer, is your name Ross?
(audience laughing)
We started laughing.
That sounded funnier to us
than Aimer did.
(audience laughing)
And Aimer says to the teacher,
no, my name's Aimer.
My mom is the only one
that calls me Ross.
And she goes, "well, Aimer, how did
"you get that name?"
He goes.
(audience laughing)
Can you imagine now a kid even
pretend to point a gun at a teacher.
(audience laughing)
There'd be a lockdown.
There'd be a helicopter
above the school.
My friend and I
are in the fourth grade.
There were four of us who were
all out in the woods together.
We're all climbing trees.
We're all up about 15 feet
and he fell.
And on the way down,
he was trying to grab branches.
And by the time he hit the ground,
he'd lost most of his ring finger.
(audience laughing)
Every time I tell this story,
I still picture it.
It's 55 years ago and still makes me
laugh.
Because he got up
and he's dusting himself off.
He's going, "I'm bleeding somewhere.
"I'm bleeding.
"I'm cut.
"I don't know what--"
(audience laughing)
And my other friend says,
look at your hand.
He screamed and he ran home.
(audience laughing)
We all climbed down and followed him
but none of us
thought to look for his finger.
(audience laughing)
About four days later, he's back
in class.
His hand's all heavily bandaged up.
We're learning about decimal points
for the first time in our life.
He raises his hand and he says,
"I have 9.2 fingers."
(audience laughing)
Called him Niner for the rest
of his life.
(audience laughing)
When I was a kid, everybody had
a nickname.
Every single kid-- nobody went
by their real name.
And it was given to you
by your friends,
usually about a body part that was
not flattering.
(audience laughing)
I have friends who are Ponch,
Taterhead, Lips, Chin.
Lips had big old Pete Davidson lips.
Chin didn't have one.
(audience laughing)
We originally called him Viola
because we knew he'd never play one.
(audience laughing)
I had a--
I had another friend in high school.
He had a short right arm.
It was just-- it was fully
functional, but it was just-- it was
a short kind of short arm
on this side, right?
So he had a big hand
and little hand,
we called him Clock.
(audience laughing)
Everybody called him Clock.
The teachers called him Clock.
(audience laughing)
He was Clock.
Clock was awesome, too.
He was in my second period algebra
class and we were supposed to be
in our seats every day at 9 o'clock
when the bell rang.
But Clock would always wait out
in the hall until that bell rang
and he'd burst through the door
every morning like this.
(audience laughing)
It was never not funny.
(audience laughing)
Every single day we waited
for that moment
and laughed for 10 minutes.
(audience laughing)
One day, we're sitting in class,
the bell rings, and he doesn't come
through the door.
We're like, oh, well, that's weird.
Where's Clock?
Must be absent.
Well, he was tardy.
10 minutes later, he burst
through that door.
(audience laughing)
We laughed until 9:30.
(audience laughing)
And Clock was the best student
in class.
And he was by far the best student
in class.
And every Friday, we had to race him
on problems.
The teacher would put problems up
on the board.
We had to compete against him.
We called it beat the Clock.
(audience laughing)
Nobody could beat him.
He had that left hand going
like this and the eraser
in his shorthand.
(audience laughing)
One time in PE class,
this is after class,
we're in the locker room changing,
right?
And we had two new kids in class
and they were bullies,
and they were bullying Clock.
And so Clock's in there and he goes,
"I'm going to knock you out
"with this hand."
And then he goes, boo.
And knocks-- just spins this kid
knocks him out.
Just boom, hits the ground.
And then he turns to the other one
and goes, "or this one."
(audience laughing)
And we hit that kid.
We all hooted and hollered
and the teacher came running out
of his office.
"What's going on?
"What's going on?"
We said, well, these guys were
bullying Clock and he knocked one
of them out.
And by then, this kid's kind
of getting up and the teacher just
walks over and goes, you just
got knocked out by
a kid with a half arm.
(audience laughing)
Hope you learned
to keep your mouth shut.
(audience laughing)
And that was the end of it.
Nobody got sent to the office,
nobody got suspended,
nobody's parents got called.
Nowadays, Clock would have been
the one that got suspended
for throwing that first punch.
And then you'd
had to bring your parents
and get an anger--
anger management plan.
Well, I got angry
and I punched that kid,
that's the plan.
(audience laughing)
Can you imagine now calling kids
by their afflictions?
Hey, here's my buddies, Blinky
and Snort.
(audience laughing)
Here's my other friend, Orphan.
His parents were anti-vaxxers.
(audience laughing)
Not accurate?
(audience laughing)