- I was a kid and my voice changed.
I've been told by people all over the country,
people of different ethnicities, backgrounds,
I've been told by people
that I have an incredibly white voice.
That's what they say. (audience laughing)
And people try to act like they can't hear it,
but if I called and then showed up you'd be surprised.
(audience laughing)
Even my laugh is like (laughing).
Every time I laugh, someone somewhere gets audited.
That's what the auditing is. (audience laughing)
(Josh laughing) (audience laughing)
But I didn't realize how white my voice sounded to people
until I was in Louisiana where I grew up
and I was running for the bus.
And the bus in Louisiana is not like the bus anywhere else,
'cause the bus in Louisiana comes once a year.
It's a big deal, you need to make it.
Knees to chest, okay, the stakes are high.
I don't know if the bus stops, I've never been on it.
(audience laughing)
But I was running so fast and so hard
that I knocked down this old man,
and I mean I cleared him, okay.
Normally I'd feel bad,
but it's closest my little body has ever come to football,
so I was pretty excited.
I was like, "He might be dead, look at me go."
(audience laughing)
But I did feel bad, so I let the bus go,
I helped him up to his feet.
It was this old black man,
and I didn't realized that he was blind
til I saw his stick.
So I grabbed his stick, I put his stick back in his hand,
and I was like, "Sir, I'm so sorry.
"I hope you're not injured.
"You came out of nowhere, please forgive me."
And then this old blind black man went
"Get yo hands off me, honky!" (audience laughing)
And I was like "Sir..."
(audience laughing)
"Sir, I'm black.
"I'm black like you." (audience laughing)
And he was like "Nice try, cracker!"
There was nothing, there was nothing I could do.
I've never had to prove I was black before so I got mad,
but then the madder I got, the whiter I sounded.
(audience laughing)
Until a point where I was just standing in front of him like
"By golly, I'm black, gosh darn it!"
(audience laughing)
There was nothing I could do, it was terrible.
I don't know, I don't know how to talk to people.
It's a real thing, I just,
I have friends now but the damage is done.
When I was a kid I'd just sit in my room
and read encyclopedias,
which is not a kid you want to talk to.
It was like "How's it going, sport?"
"You want know how many miles the earth is from the sun?"
Oh gosh,
put that away.
You know what I mean?
But now I'm used to being alone,
so I'll just sit, I'll think about a thing, I'll sit,
and just be alone and thinking about the thing.
But then when I talk to someone,
they're like "What are you talking about?"
(audience laughing)
I'm like "No, no, no, I'm not crazy.
"I was thinking about this all day.
"I ran through all the channels, all right.
"I'm not crazy, you're crazy, okay.
"I can't be crazy, you need to check,
"you're just finding out, I've been here, all right."
The best example I can give is
I don't get in heated arguments with people
over like race or religion or politics or anything,
'cause all the stuff I care about
is too dumb for anybody else to care about.
Everyone is, you know what I mean?
It's just me, you know what I mean?
Just by myself.
The best example I can give is
when you go to the bathroom and you wash your hands
and then you go to dry your hands,
but there's no paper towels, there's just that air dryer.
Where is the air coming from? (audience laughing)
Where is the air coming from?
That is bathroom air!
That is,
that is ass air, all right!
You might as well fart your hands dry
if you're gonna dry your hands like that.
So then I leave the bathroom,
I leave the bathroom with my hands wet.
So then I shake people, like "Why your hand wet?"
"'Cause I'm clean, okay.
"I'm not crazy, you're crazy, okay.
"I'm not crazy, you're crazy."
Right? (audience laughing)
'Cause I would just sit alone and read
and think and read more and then have nobody to talk to
and then read and then finally talk to somebody
and they're like, "Oh God, what's happening?"
You know what I mean?
For instance, I read a lot of history books.
Just sitting in my room,
read a lot of world history, American history,
southern history, 'cause I grew up in Louisiana.
I just wanted to know.
And one of the things I read that's always tripped me out
is that after the Civil War they let the slaves go.
But the slaves still lived in the South.
So you probably ran into your ex-slave like all the time.
Which had got to be
the most awkward ex run in in history.
Just like, "Oh my God, there he is.
"Don't look, don't look, don't look, don't look,
"don't look, don't look, don't look.
"Hey!
"How are you doing?
"Are you mad?" (audience laughing)
What you gonna do?
I actually, no lie, guys,
I straight up, I had a nightmare one time.
A genuine nightmare that I was a slave,
which wasn't even the worst part of the nightmare.
The worst part
is that I was the worst slave in human history.
I was the, I was so bad.
I was yelling at the slave master like
"I'm not trying to start a revolution.
"I can't pick it up, all right."
(audience laughing)
"No, I've passed out from heat stroke twice today, okay.
"You can whip me if you want,
but I'm anemic, so I will bleed out
"and that's on you, okay.
"Oh, you're gonna kill me?
"Please kill me, please kill me.
"I would love for you,
"this heat is what's killing me.
"I've gotten hay fever for two months..."
(audience laughing)
And then they moved me into the house
but they didn't teach me how to read.
So I don't know any recipes.
So the food is so bad that even the slaves are mad.
Everyone is mad at me,
and then I almost burned the house down
trying to boil some water,
to the point where Massa comes up to me
at the end of the dream and he's like
"Look,
"look, I don't know what to do with you, you free, okay."
(audience laughing)
I woke up fired from being a slave.