- Thank you very much for that
accurate response to my presence.
I appreciate that.
Good to see you, how you feeling tonight?
(audience cheering and applauding)
Oh, okay, you're feeling woo.
Good to know, good to know.
Don't worry, by the way.
I'm very funny, you know, because I'm Black. (laughs)
(audience laughing)
And that is history, science, and sometimes a curse.
No, people always ask me why,
where my sense of humor comes from, you know.
And it's because I grew up in kind of a rough neighborhood
where people had knives and guns,
especially this one guy
we used to call Stabby Stabby Gunshots.
(audience laughing)
And when you speak like this in that neighborhood,
you have to get funny quickly or you get killed slowly.
(audience laughing)
'Cause I'd walk up to people like,
perspicacity, I saw it in a dictionary.
And had to develop a sense of humor.
That was middle school for me.
"Mother-slur-fer, I will shoot you until you are stabbed."
(audience laughing)
And then I would say, why would you ever want to shoot me?
(Baron jazz scatting)
(audience laughing)
"You're right, the world needs clowns.
(audience laughing and applauding)
"I enjoy your elbows while scatting routine."
(audience laughing)
Did I say hello when I came out?
- No. - Yes!
- Okay, kind of.
Well, hello if I didn't say it before.
I'm trying to find a deeper,
truer meaning to the word hello,
'cause it's a word that we say so much
that sometimes it feels meaningless.
And I was looking it up online the other night,
and that's how you know you're alone.
When you are in bed alone on the internet,
late at night and you're not looking at porn,
(audience laughing)
like, you're beyond porn.
You're like, well, nothing left
but clips of breakdancers and Billions trick shot videos,
'cause knowing random things
is the same as a personality, right, myself?
(audience laughing)
And usually in that place I'm like,
what's the opposite of sex?
Education!
(audience laughing and applauding)
And I try to teach myself something.
So hello used to not be a greeting.
It used to mean one of two things.
It used to be a call into the darkness.
Is anyone there, you know.
You'd say hello in a forest alone
and hope you didn't hear wolves.
And then the other was what you said
when you were surprised by hello.
That was the other one.
You weren't expecting someone, and they were in your face.
Maybe a wolf, "Hello."
(audience laughing)
You don't have say it like you're in
a local production of Bye Bye Birdie, but--
(audience laughing)
It does help convey the meaning.
And I love that, 'cause that means on some deep,
visceral level, hello really means I am scared.
(audience laughing)
And that's what we're saying to people all the time.
We have no idea.
That's what we're doing, walking on the street.
"I'm scared, I'm scared.
"Oh, okay, I got an important phone call.
"Might be my boss, hold on real quick.
"I'm scared!" (audience laughing)
And I love that.
And goodbye used to be God be with ye.
But we were like, "I don't have time for that.
"Keep half the letters.
"Much more usable."
And I think we should go back to God be with ye,
because that is the scariest thing
you can say to someone's face,
(audience laughing)
right before they exit yours.
(audience laughing)
You gotta balance out I'm scared.
Like, next time someone's like, "I'm leaving,"
don't be like, "Okay, see you."
Put on a show! (audience laughing)
Put on some dramatic music and just go,
"I know not what will happen when you leave my sight.
"There is much world, and there are as many knives
"as there are strangers to wield them against you.
(audience laughing)
"Terror and fear are your only true companions
"in this beast's gut we call existence.
(audience laughing)
"I'd go with you, but I just got this couch
"to the perfect degree of ass warmth,
(audience laughing)
"and also these WorldStarHipHop bus driver video fights
"aren't going to watch themselves.
(audience laughing and applauding)
"So until next I gaze upon your face,
"God be with ye."
(audience laughing and applauding)
I really, I haven't been sleeping enough lately.
Love sleep.
Sleep, great, right?
Round of applause for sleep, if you love it.
(audience applauding and cheering)
Sleep is great!
You're just doing nothing while your brain defragments.
Being awake is great.
Being awake is awesome too, like what, orgasms and sushi!
But like-- (audience laughing)
It's the transition I don't care for.
Waking up, right?
Because you are ripped, ripped out of whatever
your brain was doing to make you happy.
Usually I'm in a hot tub with a successful Black actress
while she gives me a back rub and I make puns on her name.
They should call you Meagan Good-With-Your-Hands.
(audience laughing)
And then she looks at me and she's like.
(Baron imitating alarm blaring)
(audience laughing)
And I wake up like, what, sushi?
(audience laughing)
I'm just willing to wager that nobody here today
woke up this morning and said to yourself,
"Oh my God, that was the exact amount of rest I needed.
(audience laughing)
"I'm on time for everything I need to do today.
(audience laughing)
"I like you, me," to yourself in the mirror.
You walk out the door.
"Off to the place where no one
"misunderstands me, called work."
(audience laughing)
I just hate waking up more than anything.
It's like number one on my list, waking up.
Number one, number one, wake it up.
(audience laughing)
Number two is racism.
It goes waking up then racism. (audience laughing)
Got priorities.
And then small dogs.
That's really the order.
(audience laughing)
The only thing that could be worse is waking up to racism,
which is awkward, to say the least.
"What a lovely rest.
"Why is this rope around my neck?
"Why is there a burning cross
"and pugs and Chihuahuas everywhere?"
(audience laughing)
(laughs) That's how I assume people find the burning cross.
They kinda wake up to it, right, smell it cooking.
"What is that, breakfast?"
Nope, just hatred.
(audience laughing)
'Cause no one ever notices
the workshop of the cross, guys building it.
No one ever notices the dude sneaking down the street
in white robes with a bunch of two-by-fours,
just like a Warner Brothers cartoon.
It's like.
(Baron imitating footsteps sneaking)
(Baron imitating cross swishing)
(Baron chirping)
(Baron imitating hammer tapping)
(Baron imitating match striking)
(Baron giggling cartoonishly)
(audience laughing)
"Be vewy, vewy quiet.
"I'm running for senator."
(audience laughing and applauding)