So my parents got divorced when
I was a kid
and my mom remarried
my stepfather.
I love my stepfather.
Helped me become a man.
I just think he's a little too
humble.
He's a quiet guy.
So I went to the United States Air
Force Academy.
That's where I went to college.
Thank you very much.
So after basic training
and then like in the middle
of the semester,
they let your parents visit
for Parent's Weekend.
First time my parents had come
to visit me at the Air Force
Academy.
We're driving around.
I'm like, hey Dad, let's go
look at the F-86.
That's my favorite old time fighter
plane.
He's been married to my mother
for 10 years at this point.
He goes, "oh yes, I flew that
"in the Venezuelan Air Force."
What?
You were a Venezuelan fighter pilot?
He's like, "yes."
(audience laughing)
How was that?
(audience laughing)
He goes, "it was fun."
(audience laughing)
Did you ever get shot at?
"Yes."
(audience laughing)
How was that?
"Scary."
A little more information, Dad!
(audience laughing)
So I have been in the Air Force
a long time,
and that's what I tell audiences
because I used to tell them
I'm an Air Force pilot, which I am,
and audiences didn't know what to do
with that.
They'd be like, they let the Cubans
fly the plane?
(audience laughing)
Shouldn't he be in the Coast Guard?
(audience laughing)
You don't want Cubans in the Coast
Guard.
People going to start talking
like Mexicans in the border patrol.
Just going to assume it's like,
"stop right there.
"Oh, that's my cousin.
"Welcome to America!"
Do you know what I mean?
Don't need that kind of pressure.
(audience laughing)
Been in the Air Force a long time.
This year in June it will be 27
years since I joined.
(audience cheering)
You know what I discovered?
We are not considered
the tough branch.
(audience laughing)
I think it's because we don't have
a cheer, right?
Army's like "hoo-arr."
Marines are like "ooh-rah."
Air Force is, like, "Four," like, we
don't have a good cheer.
(audience laughing)
It's hard to motivate a room
full of Air Force.
It's like 80% desk jobs.
You're like Air Force.
They're like "paper cuts are real,
"bro!"
(audience laughing)
We don't even have an accurate song.
The Air Force song says nothing can
stop the US Air Force.
That is not true.
They need to add some words
in there.
Nothing could stop the US Air Force
unless the internet is down and then
(audience laughing)
we're not
as effective at that point.
(audience laughing)
We had a tough guy.
We had an Air Force tough guy who
was kind of proud of it.
I don't know if you remember.
They made a movie about it.
There was a gunman on a train
in Paris years back,
and an Air Force airman tackled
that gunman
and save a bunch of lives.
Yeah!
I was like yes, baby.
Air Force got our tough guy now.
We got a tough guy.
Then they showed him on TV
with his shirt off.
I'm like, you got to work out, man.
(audience laughing)
Come on.
You're our first tough guy.
You're all bloop, bloop, bloop,
bloop, bloop.
Come on.
(audience laughing)
I had to add a part to that joke
because I was doing a show in Vegas
and three rows back he stood up.
(audience laughing)
I was like, ooh,
you're bigger than TV.
(audience laughing)
So I just want to say,
for the record,
in case you're watching,
he has amazing abs and eyes you can
get lost in forever.
He's really good with animals
and he loves walks on the beach.
And he's sensitive but also strong.
All right, so just had to add
that part in.
Please don't beat me up.
(audience laughing)
But it is good to be back
on the road.
And I get to travel now because I've
gotten to that stage in my career.
I can travel by airplane.
Very safe because I used to drive
everywhere
and that was very dangerous
because I drive a car that makes
people angry.
Anybody guess what I drive?
- Prius!
- Toyota Prius.
That is correct.
That is the car.
That car makes people
angry in different ways.
I don't understand it.
All I know is nobody on the highway
likes to get passed by a Prius.
(audience laughing)
People start-- I passed an older
lady in a Cadillac.
She's like, "I love Jesus.
"Oh no, sir."
Turned into a drag race.
(audience laughing)
Gets weird reactions.
I was at a red light.
This muscle car pulled up.
He looked at me and was like--
(engine reving noises)
Are you serious?
(buzzing noises)
You want to hear my engine, sir?
Is that-- let me turn down NPR.
Do you want to hear my engine?
Get ready for this baby.
Bring, ding, ding, ding, ding.
♫ It's a small world after all ♫
(audience laughing)
I drive a car that shoots flowers
out the back.
I'm not racing anybody.
(audience laughing)
I know it's not a tough car
because I've hit many animals
with it and they are all OK.
(audience laughing)
I hit a deer down in West Texas.
I heard it go, "what was that?
"Something bit me, Bambi.
"Something bit me.
"Why am I covered in flowers?"
(audience laughing)
I just did a corporate show
for Toyota and they found out I just
bought a new Prius,
but my Prius that I bought at 2007
had died in 2015 at 389,941 miles.
Yeah.
Drove it back from Japan.
(audience laughing)
So after the show
they were like,
"that's awesome with the car.
"Do you want to do a commercial
"for the Toyota company?
"For like the Prius?"
I was like, I'd love to.
And they're like, "could you be nicer
"to the car in the commercial?"
I was like, could you fix some stuff
on the car?
They're like,
"what's wrong with the Prius?"
Like, well,
I don't know, off the top
of my head, could you toughen up
the horn just a little bit?
(audience laughing)
Anyone ever try to use a Prius horn
in here?
Ha, ha.
It's like a happy dolphin.
I can't use that in traffic.
(audience laughing)
I was behind a guy at a red light.
He was on his phone.
The light turned green.
I went ha.
He looked up.
He goes, "no, we're not going
"on that."
(audience laughing)
It's worse when you hold it down.
Like haaaa.
Someone is killing a banshee
over there.
(audience laughing)
I have this vision of going
A Team on the car
and putting like a train horn
on top and some fog lights
so at least at night
I come behind you like--
(deep groaning noise)
You get out of the way.
"There's a dragon behind me."
Then I drive by.
I love science.
(audience laughing)
When I bought the Prius,
I lived in Texas and so I had Texas
plates on it.
So I drove around the country
in a Prius with Texas plates,
and that confused everybody.
(audience laughing)
And I was thinking of ways to keep
confusing them even more.
I thought like I could put a gun
rack on this thing, but they don't
make them that small
so it just looks like I stole
like a fin off a bigger car.
(audience laughing)
So my parents got divorced when
I was a kid
and my mom remarried
my stepfather.
I love my stepfather.
Helped me become a man.
I just think he's a little too
humble.
He's a quiet guy.
So I went to the United States Air
Force Academy.
That's where I went to college.
Thank you very much.
So after basic training
and then like in the middle
of the semester,
they let your parents visit
for Parent's Weekend.
First time my parents had come
to visit me at the Air Force
Academy.
We're driving around.
I'm like, hey Dad, let's go
look at the F-86.
That's my favorite old time fighter
plane.
He's been married to my mother
for 10 years at this point.
He goes, "oh yes, I flew that
"in the Venezuelan Air Force."
What?
You were a Venezuelan fighter pilot?
He's like, "yes."
(audience laughing)
How was that?
(audience laughing)
He goes, "it was fun."
(audience laughing)
Did you ever get shot at?
"Yes."
(audience laughing)
How was that?
"Scary."
A little more information, Dad!
(audience laughing)
So I have been in the Air Force
a long time,
and that's what I tell audiences
because I used to tell them
I'm an Air Force pilot, which I am,
and audiences didn't know what to do
with that.
They'd be like, they let the Cubans
fly the plane?
(audience laughing)
Shouldn't he be in the Coast Guard?
(audience laughing)
You don't want Cubans in the Coast
Guard.
People going to start talking
like Mexicans in the border patrol.
Just going to assume it's like,
"stop right there.
"Oh, that's my cousin.
"Welcome to America!"
Do you know what I mean?
Don't need that kind of pressure.
(audience laughing)
Been in the Air Force a long time.
This year in June it will be 27
years since I joined.
(audience cheering)
You know what I discovered?
We are not considered
the tough branch.
(audience laughing)
I think it's because we don't have
a cheer, right?
Army's like "hoo-arr."
Marines are like "ooh-rah."
Air Force is, like, "Four," like, we
don't have a good cheer.
(audience laughing)
It's hard to motivate a room
full of Air Force.
It's like 80% desk jobs.
You're like Air Force.
They're like "paper cuts are real,
"bro!"
(audience laughing)
We don't even have an accurate song.
The Air Force song says nothing can
stop the US Air Force.
That is not true.
They need to add some words
in there.
Nothing could stop the US Air Force
unless the internet is down and then
(audience laughing)
we're not
as effective at that point.
(audience laughing)
We had a tough guy.
We had an Air Force tough guy who
was kind of proud of it.
I don't know if you remember.
They made a movie about it.
There was a gunman on a train
in Paris years back,
and an Air Force airman tackled
that gunman
and save a bunch of lives.
Yeah!
I was like yes, baby.
Air Force got our tough guy now.
We got a tough guy.
Then they showed him on TV
with his shirt off.
I'm like, you got to work out, man.
(audience laughing)
Come on.
You're our first tough guy.
You're all bloop, bloop, bloop,
bloop, bloop.
Come on.
(audience laughing)
I had to add a part to that joke
because I was doing a show in Vegas
and three rows back he stood up.
(audience laughing)
I was like, ooh,
you're bigger than TV.
(audience laughing)
So I just want to say,
for the record,
in case you're watching,
he has amazing abs and eyes you can
get lost in forever.
He's really good with animals
and he loves walks on the beach.
And he's sensitive but also strong.
All right, so just had to add
that part in.
Please don't beat me up.
(audience laughing)
I'm a pilot, which a lot of people
don't know much about
because they're immediately like,
oh, you're a pilot?
Like Tom Cruise in Top Gun?
Like, no.
I'd be this little.
Um, yeah.
(audience laughing)
I can't do that joke in Los Angeles
because lawyers and stuff.
Yeah, Scientology may not be real
but their legal department
is definitely real.
(audience laughing)
No, I'm a cargo pilot.
That's the job I had.
So if you ever see the movie Top
Gun, there's a part when his boss is
yelling at him.
He goes, "if you screw up just
"this much, I'll have you flying
"cargo planes full of rubber dog crap
"out of Hong Kong."
And that's the part in the movie
when I go, that's me!
That's me, you guys!
That's what I'm talking about.
I'm in Top Gun.
Check it out.
(audience laughing)
Because as a cargo pilot,
your stories aren't the same.
People-- you got any cool war
stories?
I was like, well, you know,
they're
either embarrassing or weird.
(audience laughing)
I'll give you an embarrassing one
first.
Scariest moment of the Iraq war
2003.
We're on the ground
refueling my airplane
when we got hit by a mortar attack.
Listen, in the air I got training.
I'm in the Air Force.
On the ground I am useless.
Like that mortar went off.
I couldn't put the clip in the gun.
I had the Kevlar half off.
I pooped a little bit.
It was not a good day.
(audience laughing)
I heard the mortar and I screamed
like a child.
Like ah!
They found me and the co-pilot
hiding
behind a crate full of ammunition.
(audience laughing)
So they're either embarrassing
or they're weird.
One time they told me I was supposed
to carry 600 pounds of cages
full of live chickens.
I'm glad we didn't eventually have
to do that because a bunch
of chickens in an enclosed space,
I was born in Cuba!
I'd have been in the back.
"Ladies and gentlemen.
(audience laughing)
"That's what I'm talking about."
Who's flying the plane?
"Whatever, do
"the white and the red one.
"Do the white.
"We call this one Mike Tyson.
"He like to bite."
(audience laughing)
Told that story during a show,
and an instructor of mine
in simulators that flew
during Vietnam saw the show
and he says, I got a joke.
You can add this story
to your story.
Just don't use my name, OK?
So Colonel Cooper was flying into--
(audience laughing)
flying in Vietnam.
They had cages of live chickens
in the back.
They get to this village
where they're going to land and do
these like assault landings,
and the runway's been bombed out.
They can't land.
And they can put parachutes
on everything
except cages of chickens.
So they've got a problem.
They get a meeting on the flight
deck of the airplane
and the commander's
like, what are we going to do?
I need ideas.
What do we do with these chickens?
We can't throw them on the back
in the cages.
We're going too fast.
All the chickens will die.
What do we do?
Young 18-year-old airman loadmaster,
first mission, goes, "hey, chickens
"are birds, right?
(audience laughing)
"We just chuck them out one by one,
"how about that?"
The way it works in the military,
when you have a bright idea,
you got to go do that idea.
So they're flying over this village
in Vietnam.
They got the cargo doors open
on three airplanes in formation.
And then in what's
got to be the weirdest Air Force
radio call of all time
they said, "drop the chickens
"over Vietnam."
(audience laughing)
They don't hear anything
from intercom in the back.
"Loadmaster, did we get the chickens
"out?
"Loadmaster, hey, can we get a report
"from the back?"
The door to the flight deck opens.
In walks in this 18-year-old airman.
Left arm is clawed up and bloody.
He's got feathers on his shoulders.
They go, what happened?
He goes, "that worked
"for the first chicken.
(audience laughing)
"And then the rest of them
"got real smart."
(audience laughing)
I just imagine the chickens
in the cages
like, what's he doing with Maria?
It's a Cuban chicken.
Obviously a Cuban chicken.
What's he doing with Maria?
"I don't know."
Oh, look, I think we're getting
a tour of the deck.
They're throwing us out the back!
Kill this guy!
(audience laughing)