I like my life.
It's good.
I live in a small town.
Anyone else live in a small town?
A couple of you?
I like being in a small town,
there's no rush hour.
People always think there's rush
hour, but there's nothing.
OK, I'm from a small farming town.
The closest thing we have
to rush hour
is if you drive towards another town
during the harvest.
(audience laughing)
Cause like all the combines
are just on the road
for some reason.
And they'll always pull over
to be nice.
But it's like, you're 40-feet wide,
dude.
That is helping nobody.
And turn your blade off,
you're making everyone nervous.
"What happened to Sheila?"
She was harvested.
"No, she was so nice."
She was so nice, but now she
is delicious.
(audience laughing)
Her mature trees couldn't save her.
(audience laughing)
I love small towns because it's just
a different energy in small towns.
I, one time, witnessed a fight
at my local thrift store.
And I shall tell you the tale.
So I'm in there and I'm thrifting,
that's what I'm doing in there.
And I heard a kerfuffle.
(audience laughing)
You do not have that word in the
United States of America,
but I trust you to figure it
out vis-a-vis, context.
So I heard a kerfuffle.
I did not know what the kerfuffle
was, but I knew there was
kerfuffling.
(audience laughing)
I got to the till
and it was me, a woman in front
of me, and then the kerfuffle.
And she was upset because she was
purchasing a two-piece bathing suit.
Let's just pause right there.
(audience laughing)
Yes, you can purchase a bathing suit
at your local thrift store.
But you shouldn't, OK.
(audience laughing)
If you do, listen, they wash it,
you still need to bleach it.
Do you understand what I'm saying?
(audience laughing)
Just trying to help.
So she was upset because the tag
said $1.25.
But what she did not realize
was that it was $1.25 per piece.
And this was, if you recall,
a two-piece.
Bringing the grand total to $2.50,
and she was having none of it.
(audience laughing)
I will never forget in all my life,
I heard her say, "well, maybe
"in the city."
(audience laughing)
Where in the city are you finding
a bathing suit for $2.50?
If you find a bathing suit
in the dumpster, you still leave $5.
It's a bathing suit.
(audience laughing)
And I'll be honest with you,
I was annoyed because
the money does not go
to some conglomerate
at the top of the food chain.
It goes to local charities
around our community
and it's a $1.25.
I did not say any of that
because I am a coward.
(audience laughing)
Woman in front of me, not a coward.
(audience laughing)
Brave woman.
She spoke up.
She goes, "oh, come on,
"it's only $1.25."
And the kerfuffer looks at her
and she says,
this is none of your concern.
And then, the brave woman gestures
to me and she goes, "well, I think
"it is our concern."
I'm like, leave me out of this.
You started it, you finish it.
And then something shifted
in the kerfuffer's eyes.
She's turned to the brave woman
and she said, "you just stay out
"of this, old lady."
And that is wrong.
That is wrong for two reasons.
Number one,
you do not call somebody old
and therefore invalidate them.
And second of all,
they were both old.
(audience laughing)
These were two old ladies fighting
over a bathing suit
at the local thrift store.
Would you like to know what happens
when you call an old lady
an old lady?
I shall tell you.
She moved her shopping cart to one
side, advanced on the first woman,
and straight up shoves her.
Immediately all the adrenaline
starts pumping through my body.
Like, let's go, we doing this?
Come on.
I'll separate you, bring you
both down, bam bam.
I didn't do that.
What I actually did was this.
That's what I did, that's my move.
That's my whole shtick.
No, please don't.
Stop the kerfuffing.
(audience laughing)
I was still in charge
of that situation, it's fine.
(audience laughing)
And then the kerfuffer,
she gets all frazzled.
She storms out of there.
I don't know if she paid
for the whole bathing suit.
Maybe she just took half
of the bathing suit with her,
but she got out of there.
And then the best bit happened.
The brave woman looks over at me
and she says, "well, maybe I should
"just dye my hair brown."
(audience laughing)
I'm still trying to figure that one
out, like--
(audience laughing)
Is she making fun
of the first lady's hair?
Was she saying she didn't want to be
called old anymore?
Or most likely, did she realize she
just physically assaulted somebody
in a public space,
and she needed to lay low
for a while.
(audience laughing)
I tell some jokes.
I diffused the tension a little bit.
I go to my car, I tell my wife.
She doesn't even believe me.
Of course, she doesn't.
Would you?
No.
And if you're from a small town,
you'll get this next part.
We drove from the thrift store
to the grocery store.
I walked in, I saw a friend of mine
behind the counter who loves stories
like this.
So with the biggest smile
on my face,
I told her the whole tale
from beginning to end.
And she had already heard
the story.
(audience laughing)
How fast does news travel
in a small town?
Faster than a Mazda 3, apparently.
(audience laughing)
Well, you wouldn't be able to tell
by looking at me, but I am the owner
of a home.
(audience cheering)
I really appreciate that.
And I am completely overwhelmed.
I don't know what I'm doing at all.
Like I played house when I was
a kid, but I was always the dog.
You know what I'm talking about?
When do those skills transfer?
(audience laughing)
We used a realtor.
They always try to upsell you,
don't they?
They're like, "no, you don't want
"this house.
"You want that house."
Yes, but that house is $50,000 more.
With a straight face he goes, "yes.
"But it has very mature trees."
(audience laughing)
For $50,000?
I'll take the immature trees.
Thank you very much.
Yeah, I don't need a tree
with a mutual fund.
No, you give me the tree that blames
everyone else for its problems.
That's the tree for me.
(audience laughing)
We bought a affordable home.
They called it a fixer upper.
But they do not tell you is
that when you are not handy,
a fixer upper is just a broken home.
So we live in a broken home.
Previous owners had cats.
- Oh.
- Yeah, and when I say they had
cats, I mean they had cats.
There was cat pee on the floor.
There was cat scratches on the wall.
There was a lump in the carpet,
turns out that was a cat, yeah--
(audience laughing)
I took care of it.
(audience laughing)
But I keep thinking like who got
the better deal?
Houses across the street,
they cost twice as much money.
Think about that.
I pay half the price,
I get to look
at these beautiful mansions all day.
They pay twice the price,
they got to watch me shirtless,
watering the lawn just--
(humming)
"Hi, Sheila.
"Your trees seem very mature."
(audience laughing)
No, you can't trust the realtors.
No, no.
You know why?
Because they can sell anything.
Did you know, in certain states,
you still have to legally disclose
if your house is haunted?
Think about that.
That means right now,
there are realtors selling haunted
houses.
And you know they're just going
for it too, putting all
their realtor spins on it.
They're like, "you're going to love
"this place.
"Look at the master bedroom,
"en suite bathroom.
"Look at that claw foot Jacuzzi
"soaker tub, tres chic.
"Don't need to tell you.
(audience laughing)
"If you look in the mirror,
"you're going to see
"a withered old woman,
"and an ornate wainscoting all
"along this wall."
(audience laughing)
Sorry what was that last part?
"Ornate dear, it means
"intricate wainscoting."
No,no, no, no, no, right before that.
"Oh, you're talking about the--
"oh, the withered-- OK, well, it's
"an apparition.
(audience laughing)
"And if you look into her eyes
"at around midnight, on a full moon,
"you'll notice some blood just kind
"of streaming down her face.
"It's a good steady stream,
"a nice strong flow.
"And technically, she's a tenant.
"So that's some extra income
"for rent, right there.
"Are you kidding me?
"In this economy."
I did it.
I finally reached the age where
literally everything annoys me.
Happened quicker than I thought.
For example, my toaster.
My toaster annoys me.
I'll tell you why,
because it's got that little dial
on the side.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6,
get your perfect temperature
of toast every time.
Come on, three, four, five, that
is all we need.
Who is using the other numbers?
(audience laughing)
One and two?
That is not a toaster, that's
a bread holder.
You wouldn't buy that if you saw
a commercial for it.
"Get the new Dura Soft bread holder
"2000.
"It puts your bread in,
"then pops it up.
"Four seconds later,
"completely unaltered."
Oh, that sounds good.
And six?
Who is using six?
That's not a toaster,
that's an incinerator.
Don't even pop up,
just ash and smoke comes out
of the top.
(audience laughing)
Anyone else want me to ruin
their breakfast?
I figured out a quick way to do it.
(audience laughing)
See, I always ruin the breakfast
because I don't trust the toaster.
I always pop it up prematurely.
You ever do that?
You ever do the pre-pop?
Yeah.
Now you've thrown off
the whole timer system.
Now you've got to hover over
the toaster
like an overprotective parent,
just checking in on it.
No, not done.
Burnt.
How is it burnt?
How!
(audience laughing)
I was right here.
(audience laughing)
When you were a kid, your mom
used to eat the burnt toast.
She said she liked it, she's a liar.
Nobody likes burnt toast
because burnt toast signifies
the fact that you screwed up
the very first thing you tried to do
that day.
(audience laughing)
You cannot scrape away the taste
of failure.
(audience laughing)
I never even want to see a toaster.
The only time it was ever
good to see a toaster
is when you only had
that 2-slot toaster, and then you
got upgraded
with the 4-slot toaster.
That was a good day.
We were making toast every meal
of the week.
We're like, "this is unbelievable.
"How did we ever manage
"with just two slots before?
"What were we, Amish?
"What were we thinking?"
(audience laughing)
But still, today, the number one
wedding gift in the world
is a toaster.
I don't know if that's true.
I haven't done the research,
it doesn't matter.
The point is why.
Why are we given to us?
Start the young married couple off
with a toaster.
Give them as many toasters as
humanly possible.
Listen, if you or the person you're
marrying don't already
own a toaster, maybe you're not
ready to get married.
(audience laughing)
Go out.
Live a little.
Make some toast.
(audience laughing)
Everyone wants you to have more,
don't they?
Want you to have more stuff.
Buy a bigger house,
get a better car.
Your laptop is just a pizza box
with Sharpie on it, whatever.
(audience laughing)
Nobody's happy with you.
You ever noticed that?
Nobody's happy with where you are
right now.
Everyone wants you to get
to the next phase of your life,
happens as soon as you're born.
As soon as you pop out of the womb,
right away.
"Oh, is he holding his head up?
"Is he holding his head up?"
He was just born, give him a minute.
When you hold your head up,
they're like, "when's he walking?
"Is going to be walking soon?"
When you're walking,
"when's he talking?
"Is he going to be talking right away?"
When you're walking and talking,
"what kind of elementary school
"are you going to put him in?
"You got to put him
"in a good elementary school.
"Elementary school, junior high, high
"school, what kind of college
"are you going to go to young man?
"You got to start thinking
"about your college."
Now you're in college,
"what kind of career
"are you going to get?
"You can't study forever."
Now you're in a career, "when are you
"going to work your way up
"in that career?
"Can't stay in lower
"middle management your whole life."
So you work your way up,
now you're CEO.
"What are you going to live to work
"your whole life?
"When are you going to settle down?
"When are you going to have a family?"
So now you get married.
"When you going to have kids?"
Now you have kids.
"When are you going to have more
"kids?"
Now you're spending time
with your family.
"When are you going to save up
"for that retirement?
"That retirement is going to sneak up
"on you."
Now you're retired, trying to enjoy
life, "when are you going to give
"back to the community?
"You got to give back
"to the community that gave you
"so much."
So now you're working, day in
and day out, busting your hump.
Until one day, you're dead.
And only then are people
happy with you
because they all gather around
your grave and go,
"he's at peace now."
(audience laughing)
(audience applauding)
Now, you listen to me right now.
You can and should be happy exactly
where you are in your life
at this moment.
Yes.
(audience cheering)
Good, just enjoy it.
Just enjoy.
Whatever you got going on
in your life right now, enjoy it,
embrace it.
You got a boring hobby?
Who cares?
So do I. In fact,
I can beat your boring hobby,
I'm a birder.
Yeah.
(audience cheering)
Do we have any birders
in the audience right now?
No, OK.
Surprised initial reaction then.
For those who don't know,
birder, that's what us birders
call bird watching.
And I'm into it, man.
I'm full in.
I'm knee deep in grackles.
I got everything too.
I got binoculars,
we call them knocks because we're
cool.
And I got two pairs of knocks.
I got a big pair of knocks that's
like my expedition knocks.
Big old knocks, you could peep
a hawk with those knocks.
And then I got a smaller pair
of knocks, those are my pocket
knocks.
Keep those on me at all times.
If I see a birds, I just whip them out.
Whippoorwill.
You know I'm talking about?
Or like another name of a bird.
I don't know all the names
of the birds yet, I'm getting there.
(audience laughing)
I got everything I need.
I got knocks, I got field guides,
I got a keen observational sense,
able to differentiate
between subtle differences
in vocalization, colorization,
and habitat.
But most importantly, I have an app
where you take a picture of the bird
and it just tells you what it is.
(audience cheering)
That one is particularly helpful.
The fun thing is my parents
discovered I was into birding.
So they transformed their backyard
into like a birders paradise
in order
to attract me to their lawn.
(audience laughing)
It works great too.
They got their hot tub set up right
beside the bird bath,
I'm just sitting in there, birdseed,
Doritos, just--
(audience laughing)
I'm making the water orange, oh no.
And they're just in their kitchen
window watching me,
"look he's bathing."
(audience laughing)
Oh, Sabrina forgot to shave his back
again, look at that.
(audience laughing)
I love my life.
I truly do.
I love my family.
I love my job.
I like being a comedian, it's fun.
People say, did you take
any stand-up comedy classes
after school?
No, but I did a lot
of stand-up comedy
in class during school,
does that count?
(audience laughing)
I was that kid.
The report cards always said
the same thing.
"Matt distracts others in class.
"Matt does not pay attention
"in class.
"Matt is rarely in class."
(audience laughing)
I got kicked out all the time.
My record is getting kicked out
seven minutes before class started.
(audience laughing)
I'll never forget.
It was grade 5 French,
it was right after lunch.
I showed up seven minutes early.
And I was like, "bonjour madame."
She took one look at me
and she's like no, not today.
Get out.
I'm like, "that's smart,
"that's a good idea.
"I had some material planned."
(audience laughing)
And everyone labeled me
as like a smart aleck, which I mean,
I kind of was.
But also, I was just super insecure,
just trying to act cool.
That's all it was, right?
And like, I remember one time it
backfired too.
I was trying to look cool.
I ended up looking
like a goody-two shoes.
I was in home ec.
My home ec teacher was like, "today,
"we're making angel food cake using
"vanilla.
"Does anyone know what it's called
"when we use chocolate?"
And as a joke, as a joke,
I said, yeah, devil's food cake.
She's like "that's correct."
I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
No I didn't--
"You're going to be quite
"the little baker, one day."
Hang on a minute, hang on a minute.
I should have said poop food cake.
(audience laughing)
Always trust your instincts, Falk.
It's the truth, it's just too easy
to get worked up nowadays, isn't it?
Just-- it's so easy.
And like, here's the thing,
I'll give you an example.
My wife and I went to go see
a concert.
This was before the world exploded.
And it was a wonderful concert,
perhaps a musician you've heard of.
His name is Sir Elton John.
Yes, Sir Elton Reginald John
the fourth.
And phenomenal piano show.
If you've never seen it,
highly recommend very good,
tickle the old ivories.
A lot of good songs, mainly popular
covers, 70s and 80s songs
from other people, I'm assuming.
I don't know, unless he wrote
all of them.
You don't think?
(audience laughing)
So he's doing a show, and what
annoyed me is that everybody was
filming.
Everybody had
their mobile telephones out
and they were filming Sir Elton John
the entire time.
Why?
Like actually, why?
I'll tell you why.
Because we're terrified.
We're terrified that as soon as we
put our cameras down,
Elton is going to do something
awesome.
He's going to do a backflip off
of that piano, and we're going to be
the only pots that didn't put it
on TikTok.
So instead of potentially living
in regret later, we just decide
to ruin every single moment
right now.
(audience laughing)
But who cares?
Even if we get the entire concert
on our phone, what kind of product
do we really have there?
I'll tell you what we got.
We got a blurry Elton John,
on a blurry stage,
with that great audio quality
only an iPhone can pick up from
200 yards away.
Try showing that to your friends,
they'll hate you immediately.
Check it out, check it out, check it
out, look.
(mumbling singing)
Hang on, I got another one.
(mumbling singing)
Hang on I got one more,
hang on, hang on, hang on,
got one more.
(mumbling singing)
Nothing good, right?
(audience laughing)
It's useless to have your phone up
for that.
The most fun you can ever have
with your phone at a concert
is when your buddy calls you.
He's at the concert, but you didn't
know he was at the concert.
You ever have this call?
It goes exactly like this
every time.
"Hello?
"Oh hey, Josiah I can barely hear you.
"I'm at the Elton John concert.
"You're here too?
"No, you're not.
"You can see me?
"Yeah right.
"Prove it.
"What am I doing right now?
"Excuse me, ma'am.
"What am I doing right now?
"Yeah, bouncing up and down.
"OK, where are you?
"Where are you?
"What section?
"A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J.
"OK, what row?
"What row?
"1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11,
"12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20,
"21, 22--
"1, 2, 3, 4--
"OK, just jump up and down.
"Jump up and down.
"Wave your arms.
"Jump up and down.
"I see, I see you, I see you.
"We're on the phone
"but yelling across the stadium.
"I see you, Hi."
But that's the peak
of the conversation, nothing good
happens after that.
It's always awkward you're
like, (panting)
"so where'd you park?"
That's it for me.
Thank you guys very much.
Allow me to tell you how ardently I
love and admire you.
Good night.
(audience cheering)
(upbeat music)