Thank you very much. Nice to be here.
I was exercising today and there was a man on the machine
next to me, listening to a disc man.
Today. Today. This happened today.
I didn't recognize it initially.
They're much bigger than you remember much, much bigger.
I thought he was listening to a pizza.
(audience laughs)
Huge. Huge. And don't get me wrong,
I had a disc man. This is how long ago I got my disc man.
I paid $188 for my disc man.
$188.
I could go over to Rite Aid right now with $188 and bring
back at disc man for everyone in this room.
(audience laughs)
In fact, if you'll go ahead and reach under your seats-
(audience laughs)
For $188, though, it came loaded.
All the best features all the-
Base boost? You betcha.
(audience laughs)
You bet it had bass boost.
If at anytime you thought to yourself,
"Is that all the bass?"
(audience laughs)
Boost. Oh! Oh, false alarm, everyone.
Plenty more bass where that base came from.
It had anti-shock.
Indispensable.
Get the anti-shock because of if you were strong enough to
jog while carrying this manhole cover,
this Olympic discuss then, then the disc would not skip
for the minute the batteries lasted
while in anti-shock mode. It was pivotal.
The sweetest feature on the disk man though, the must get,
beg, borrow, and steal my friends,
but get the shuffle.
Get the shuffle.
You do not know what in the Sam Hill is coming up next
when you hit shuffle on a disc.
Every time a song ends, cliffhanger.
(audience laughs)
Oh, which one of these songs is going to pop up next?
Which one of these 10 songs?
(audience laughs)
(audience claps)
If it's "Rocket Man" again, I will lose mind.
And it's "Rocket Man"! Oh my Lord!
What are the chances? What are the chances?
10%.
(audience laughs)
I shouldn't make fun of the guy.
He's just trying to make ends meet. The economy is bad.
Sometimes I go to the mall;
I can't believe certain businesses are still open.
Best example, "Things Remembered".
(audience laughs)
How do they stay profitable?
They'll etch your initials in an $80 letter opener.
I don't know about you guys,
but the first thing I cut into when times got tough?
Engraving.
(audience laughs)
My engraving budget is a skeleton of what it was last year.
Yes, last year we were all loosey goosey.
We were engraving everything we could drag
into Things Remembered.
But now, when I wake up in the morning
and I go over my "to engrave" list, I say, "Gary,
do you have to engrave this today?"
Today?
Does this money clip, with three ones and a bus pass,
does it need
(audience laughs)
a monogramming today?
No? Put it off. Discipline.
I'll tell you who's doing well though.
The A with the circle around it.
The at sign, the abbreviation for at.
It's on Twitter, it's on the email, your email address.
And when I was a kid,
the only time you saw it was when Charlie brown swore.
(audience laughs)
Lucy would pull away the football and he would let loose
with a vulgar string of pound signs, asterisks, and at signs
that would make a hooker blush.
(audience laughs)
It was riddled.
And now it's everywhere. It's the abbreviation for at.
We're shortening two letter words.
(audience laughs)
Who is that lazy?
Oh, if I have to cross one more damn T.
It's sucking the life out of me.
I love crossing a T.
I love it.
It's so empowering.
Confession time:
When I was a kid,
I wanted my parents to change my name to Scott,
because there are two T's at the end of the-
(audience laughs)
And by cursive law, you have two T's in a row,
you get to sign them both with a flourish.
It's not eh, eh. It's (whoosh sounds).
(audience laughs)
And that's why Scotts'' are always very well adjusted,
confident men, because since they were little kids,
they get to sign their name, like their baseball stars.
I'm Scott! I'm Scott!
Who are you? I'm Scott!
I'm six years old and I'm Zorro. I'm Scott!
Thank you very much, everyone.