Are there Jewish people here?
[cheers and applause]
Oh, my God, this is like a JCC. Wow.
Where'd you go to camp?
[laughter]
You're Jewish? Did you go to sleepaway camp?
[stammers] Um...
[laughter]
I do a lot of shows for old Jewish people in Florida,
and you wouldn't know this,
but they're the hardest crowd there is.
There's no harder crowd.
After each show, I eat a live pig.
I'm not even kidding.
It's really hard
because most of the crowd is 80, 90.
Some have passed.
And I...
have to make them laugh.
And they have horrible faces.
I mean, I'm gonna end up looking like this.
This is the face
of every old Jew--
I'm gonna end up looking like them.
No matter how beautiful you are,
you end up looking like that.
I mean, I'll be doing stand-up in 30 years.
"How's everyone doin'?"
And they do it even when they're saying something positive,
like, "It's gorgeous outside."
"Look at the sun. It's beautiful!"
"This meal is delicious!"
"The test came back negative. I'm gonna live!"
Are you sure you're happy, Phyllis?
You look fucking miserable.
Phyllis is a hot name, isn't it?
[in deep voice] "Ugh, Phyllis, yeah!"
Um...
"Get over here, Ruth! Ugh!"
When I do these shows, they talk very loud,
because they--they feel like they can.
"I can talk whenever I want to talk.
I can talk. You can't tell me not to talk."
And they talk loud because they're deaf.
This is totally true.
So I'll be in the middle of my act,
and I'll hear them having whole conversations,
like "Did she just say she's from New Jersey?"
"I think she did say she's from New Jersey."
"What part of New Jersey?
Do you think she knows the Eisensteins?"
They sound like cats being raped, just "Ahhhhhh!
Ahhhhhh, a discount!"
I, um...
[applause]
"Ahhhhh!"
[cheers and applause]
I, um...
They also walk up to you after the show
and always have a comment about your comedy.
Like, you wouldn't know that,
no one would ever know that,
but non-Jewish people don't do that.
They--well, they'll come up to you,
but they'll be like, "I'm so sorry to bother you.
"I'm so sorry, but you were really funny.
"But I'm so sorry to take your time.
"I'm really sorry.
I'm so sorry I was ever born."
These old Jews walk right toward--
they can't wait to tell you what they thought.
It's amazing.
It's like "Night of the Living Dead"
when they walk to you.
It's like "Thriller," just...
And they can't wait to tell you what they thought,
and it always starts out nice and ends up nasty.
It's the same thing every time.
Like, "I thought you were very talented,
"but no one around me laughed once.
"Not one person even smiled.
You should kill yourself, you fat fuck."
Or, "You're so pretty up close...
"But on stage, you look like an animal,
"a goddamn animal, you loser.
You'll never make it, you stupid idiot."
No one in my family listened.
My grandmother would actually answer her own questions.
I swear to God, she would be like,
"How you doing, Jessy, good?
What do you want for dinner, chicken?"
There was no time in between the question and the answer.
I can't imagine if she were a game show host.
The show would end in five seconds.
She'd be like, "Where you from, Minnesota?
"What do you do, lawyer?
"You make a lot of money? Of course.
"Where you from, Rhode Island?
"What do you do for a living, librarian?
"Are you boring? Yes. Okay.
"Who wants to go to the bonus round? Everyone.
Who's gonna win? Carol."
And that's the end of the game.