- I was like, "Fuck, yeah, sounds like a great idea."
So I pile into a car filled with strangers...
and headed out to find Santa Claus.
What could go wrong?
[police siren blaring in the distance]
[dark electronic music]
♪
[coughs]
♪
Ha! Yes! [laughs]
Whoo! Whoo! Whoo! Whoo! Whoo! Whoo! Whoo!
Yeah! Yeah!
Yeah!
[truck horn honks]
♪
- One of my best friends in the world,
you guys are gonna absolutely love him.
Please give it up for Mr. Steve Rannazzisi, everybody.
[cheers and applause]
- I love pot. I love it.
People think that I actually have a problem with pot,
but I don't remember their fucking names,
so it doesn't matter to me.
It doesn't affect me at all.
But I don't like traveling with pot.
Being a comedian, you got to travel all over the place.
I'm not good going through the airport.
I'm paranoid enough as it is.
I'm usually high on the way to the airport.
So the last thing I need is to be my own drug mule,
going to TSA worrying about getting busted, you know?
Last time I did it, Ari told me,
"Just put some joints in an airtight thing
and put it in your underwear."
They have these little airtight containers.
So I put the joints in the airtight thing,
and I put it in my underwear.
And as I'm going through TSA,
it starts to slip down my pants leg.
And now I'm like, "Oh, boy, if it falls out, this is it."
So I'm dead-legging it the rest of the way through the airport.
People are like, "Can we get the man with cerebral palsy
"a wheelchair, please?
Please."
So I don't do that anymore.
But luckily for me,
I played a character named Kevin
on a TV show called "The League" for a couple years.
[cheers and applause]
Yeah, thank you,
and the show's got a huge stoner demographic,
so I'm taken care of.
Lot of heavy handshakes on the road.
Everybody wants to smoke pot with Kevin.
Everybody--"Oh, shit, it's Kevin,
let's fucking smoke."
No one gives any shits about Steve.
No, Steve is just a vessel
to take drunk and stoned Kevin wherever he has to go.
But this pot, it doesn't come free, you know.
You think, "Oh, you're just gonna get free pot on the road."
No. There's a price you pay.
Yeah. Awkward conversations.
Dealing with people who aren't used to smoking pot.
I smoke a fucking shit ton of pot.
I'm used to it,
but you will get people who just smoke so much
that they just smoke themselves onto the spectrum.
You know? They just-- they smoke themselves special.
They'll just stare at you.
And you got to deal with these people.
You're among strangers. You don't want to be rude.
So you're just, like, hanging out with them,
and they'll just stand there, lingering, staring at you,
you know, introducing themselves multiple times,
asking questions, answering questions nobody else asked.
Just weird... [groaning awkwardly]
You try not to--"Hey, man, I think our time here is done."
They don't pick up on any social cues.
So you have to deal with these people.
I call these people pot blockers, okay?
They block the fun for everybody else.
We all want to be fun on pot, and you're ruining it for us.
So I stay away from the pot blockers.
And now--recently I was in Nashville,
and after my first show-- I was doing stand-up.
After the first show, talking to people,
hanging out after, smoking joints with the staff,
some fans hanging out, and it was real shit dirt weed.
So I'm not usually like this, but I was like,
"Hey, I don't want to be an asshole,
"but does anyone have any better weed than this?
You know, like, I didn't come to Nashville for this shit weed."
And they were like, "Oh, let's go to Santa's.
I got some friends. We can smoke some pot there."
And I was like, "Fuck, yeah, sounds like a great idea."
So I pile into a car filled with strangers...
and headed out to find Santa Claus.
What could possibly go wrong, guys?
What could go wrong?
And as I'm dri-- They're driving.
We're smoking more of this shit weed,
and I'm starting to get paranoid,
'cause I'm seeing less and less civilization
and more and more "Making a Murderer," you know?
I don't know if we passed Steven Avery's house,
but I think I saw him.
And now I'm like, "Oh, shit."
I'm getting nervous, 'cause I'm like, "This is it."
I know what I'm in the middle of.
I'm being kidnapped. I'm in the middle of being kidna--
This is Kidnapping 101.
This is the first thing you would teach--
You would be like, "Hey, buddy. Hey, you.
"You like puppies?
"Yeah, my friend Santa's got all the puppies.
"He's got them. Get in the van.
He's got them in a bucket at home--he'll give you one."
"Okay, I'll get in the van."
So I'm nervous, and then all of a sudden,
one of the passengers we're with goes, "Oh, we're here.
We're here. We reached it. This is Santa's Pub."
And that's where we were going, Santa's Pub.
Santa's Pub is the number-one dive bar in Nashville,
and it's not really-- Have you been there before?
I mean, it's not really a bar as much as it is
a double-wide trailer that they tried to convert into a bar
and just shoved it into the middle of the woods.
It looks like Santa Claus went through a really bad divorce
in the '70s
and this is all Mrs. Claus would give him.
Just take your shanty shack and sit in the woods, fat man.
[laughter]
Here's a great example
of the clientele that goes to Santa's Pub.
Beer is $1.
Water is $2.
Yes.
So anyplace-- Think about it.
Anyplace where beer is less expensive than water
and you're not in Flint, Michigan,
you're gonna have a good time.
[cheers and applause]
So I was like, "Fuck it.
Let's go into this Santa's hovel."
We walk inside, and they do karaoke every night.
Karaoke seven nights a week,
'cause it's Nashville, and everyone can sing.
They take it seriously.
Everyone's hanging out. They're singing.
They're getting their songs together.
And this dirt weed must have started kicking in,
because now I'm in the book and I'm like, "What"--
I'm already picking out my third song.
I've got one and two.
I've got "I'm Too Sexy" followed by "Pink Cadillac."
In my mind, I would've taken the house down with "Pink Cadillac."
And all of a sudden, everyone went nuts,
because that's when Santa showed up--
the guy that owns the place, Santa's Pub--
and he was with his buddy, and this Santa Claus--
he takes it very seriously, okay?
This is not ironic Santa.
He's got the beard,
the hair, all white, the big belly,
except he puts his own little twist on it, okay?
He looks like Santa Claus gave up
all that Christmas nonsense 20 years ago
and started making meth in the woods with his friends.
He's a little rough around the edges, this Santa Claus.
I was fixated on it.
I couldn't believe it, but everybody else was so psyched.
They didn't care about Santa. They cared about his friend.
They were like, "Oh, shit, he's here."
I'm like, "Who?" They're like, "That guy is
the greatest unknown singer in Nashville."
I'm like, "Really?
"The guy in pajama pants, Tevas,
and a T-shirt in the middle of the woods?"
They're like, "Oh, no, that guy's got a voice of an angel."
I'm like, "Oh, sure.
I heard that's how Springsteen started out, too."
Like, "Oh, you have to hear him sing."
I'm like, "Well, when does he go on?"
They go, "Well, he smokes pot with Santa
"around the back of the trailer,
and then he goes on whenever he feels like it."
And all I heard was "smokes pot with Santa,"
and I fucking bee-lined for the door.
I was like, "I'm going to find these fuckers."
30 seconds later, I am slopping through the snow in Jordans
around the back of his double-wide trailer.
Pitch black, I can't see anything at all.
I'm going, "Santa?
Santa? Is Santa here?"
Finally look over, and I see three people.
I see Santa Claus, the angel-voiced guy,
and a third person who was holding court.
The guy was in the middle of a conversation, talking,
and I walked up to them, right?
And they must have heard me coming,
because they stopped talking and they were,
like, they were shocked.
I guess that's the way you would be
if a stranger came tumbling out of the woods
and interrupted your conversation.
So I didn't want to seem weird, so I just was like,
"Okay, I'm just gonna introduce myself,"
so I walk up to Santa and I was like, "Hey, Santa.
"Hey, my name is Steve, and I'm super excited to meet you,
and I-I really love your place."
And he just stared at me like, "Does this motherfucker
think I'm the real Santa Claus?"
He probably thought, like, "Is he gonna sit on my lap
and tell me he wants a 10-speed for Christmas next?"
So I was like, "Oh, okay, strike one."
So I turned to the second guy, the angel-voiced guy,
and I'm like, "Hey, man, my name's Steve.
"Nice to meet you. Um, I-I heard you can--
"heard you got a great voice.
You going on tonight?"
And he's like, "Yep!"
And I was like, "Angel Voice just left me for dead."
And I was like, "Strike two."
So I turned to the third guy,
and before I could say anything, he goes, "Hey, I'm Bob."
And I was like, "Oh, okay, cool.
"All right, Bob. Look at us.
"What a crew we got out here.
"We got Crystal Meth Kringle,
"Susan Boyle, and Bob.
Nice, let's smoke pot."
Except this Bob wasn't any old Bob, all right?
This wasn't just a run-of-the-mill Bob
you run into.
This guy, his real name was Robert James Ritchie.
Does that ring a bell to anyone?
Yeah, you may know him by his better-known name, Kid Rock.
Yes.
I interrupted Kid Rock's conversation,
and he wasn't fucking psyched.
He was staring at me like I was Tommy Lee's dick,
just like, "What the fuck is this guy doing here?"
Now I'm starting to put all this together.
I was like, "I interrupted their conversation.
"I'm asking questions. I'm lingering.
"Holy shit, I'm the pot blocker now.
Fuck, how do I get out of this?"
But you know what? I didn't want to get out of it.
I wanted to stay there,
'cause how many times in your life
are you gonna get an opportunity to smoke pot
with Santa Claus and Kid fucking Rock?
I mean, if you asked me in 1994, what do you want for Christmas?
Smoke pot with Santa and Kid Rock.
And maybe instead of Angel Voice,
it would've been the fucking Joe C. guy--
the little guy that Kid Rock used to hang out with.
He would've been the other guy there.
So I was like, "I'm gonna stall
"and try to wait for someone to pull out some sticky icky,
and let's get this party going."
So everyone is still staring at me like I am a science project.
So I just--I go, "Okay, what do I do next?"
So I turn to Bob and go,
"Hey, Bob, are you gonna go on tonight?"
And he goes, "What do you think?"
And I just went, "Okay."
And then all of a sudden, thank goodness,
out of the front patio, you hear someone go,
"Hey, Kevin, we got more weed!"
And I was like, "Oh, that's me, guys.
I got to get out of here."
And I turned and started shame-slopping my way
back around the front.
And as I got about 10 feet away, I heard Angel Voice go...
[whispering] "He doesn't even know his own name."
And they started laughing, and I was like, "Oh, this is a low.
This is a true low."
[laughter]
So I got up front to the front patio,
and everyone was like, "Hey, did you get to see Santa Claus?
Did you find him?"
I'm like, "Yeah. "Yeah, I found Santa Claus.
And you could have told me
Kid Rock was around the corner, too."
And they're like, "Oh, bullshit, Kid Rock"--
I go, "Yeah, Kid Rock's right there.
He's around the corner." "Oh, fuck you, Kid Rock's"--
I go, "Listen, I understand that I am a known liar,
"but Kid Rock--
"I understand, trust me, I get it,
"but I promise you, Kid Rock is 100 feet away
around the corner," and they all went for him,
and I used that to slowly back my way--
and I got into a cab and I got the fuck out of there.
And the cab driver's driving home.
You know how you start to replay what you--
You're like, "Oh, what have I done?
This is not good."
And I'm like, "How do I make up for this?
How do I make this better?" And I go, "Okay, oh."
I text my friend Chris Porter.
Chris Porter, comedian-- very funny comedian.
He's also great friends with Kid Rock, and I texted him,
and I was like, "Dude, I think I just met Kid Rock,
"and it didn't go well at all, and just please let him know
that I am not mentally challenged."
And I went to be feeling much better about myself,
and I woke up in the morning
to a text message from Chris Porter.
It was a screen grab, and he had cut and paste
exactly what I had sent to him and sent it to Kid Rock,
and Kid Rock wrote back-- I shit you not--
on my sons' lives, "Yes, he is, period."
[laughter, cheers, and applause]
And I can't say I disagree.
Thank you guys very much. Thank you.