- I do comedy to meet white people.
(audience laughs)
Judging by the audience,
another successful night.
I'm from East New York, Brooklyn.
(audience cheers)
That is not the appropriate response.
(crowd laughs)
For those of you that haven't been to East New York before,
keep it that way.
You're doing great.
You were making better life choices than I do.
East New York is not the safest of neighborhoods.
People don't want to be outside that long
so we've developed really efficient shopping.
You know, like I went into a store last week,
same store I bought a raw chicken,
a baseball glove,
and a used air conditioner.
I went in for a T-shirt.
Like, I didn't get what I wanted,
but I got what I needed.
(audience laughs)
I'm a landlord in East New York.
(audience groans)
That is also not the appropriate response for that.
While black, I was driving up to one of my buildings
when I got out the car,
this white lady walked up to me
and she asked me for directions.
Like in front of everybody.
I can't have that.
It's going to ruin my street cred, you know.
I can't be so safe that I'm white people approachable.
In East New York, that's a problem for me.
I got hood tenants.
They not going to pay me rent
if they think my friends crocheted.
(audience laughs)
It didn't bother me at first
but there was a crossing guard, there was a cop,
like she choose me.
She looked around and said,
"Nah, you're the safest option."
She was like, "Excuse me."
I was like, "Nah, excuse me.
Why did you ask me for directions?"
And she was like,
"Oh, I'm sorry, sir.
I just noticed in the back of your car,
you had two car seats.
I didn't think you were that dangerous."
Apparently, gangsters don't care about child safety.
If that's a rumor in the white community,
I'm here to dispel that today.
Just so y'all know, my kids will get to class,
but I still might shoot you.
I been having trouble with white people at work.
You know, this white lady came up to me.
She was like, "Gastor, that's a weird name."
My name's not weird, it's affective.
Say what you will for the rest of your life,
when somebody says,
"Hey, have you met Gastor?"
You instantly know yes or no.
(audience laughs)
White people haven't figured out,
that's the purpose of names.
(audience laughs)
Hey, have you met Michael?
That's not enough information.
(audience laughs)
They realized this was a problem so they added middle names.
But the middle names sound like first names.
No, I meant Michael John.
We still in the same place, man.
Michael John, he's married to Tracy,
live in Astoria, they work on the second floor
in accounting.
Why do I need all this information?
Why couldn't your parents do work?
They had nine months to come up with something better.
This is not a problem in the black
and brown community.
We're great with names.
Like one of my friends growing up,
his name was Da'Rel.
It sounds simple, but it's effective, you know.
Real deceptive name.
This is how his mom spelled it,
capital D,
lowercase A,
apostrophe,
capital R,
lowercase E,
lowercase L.
And people say, "Hey, have to met Da'Rel?"
"Da'Rel, with the apostrophe?"
Conversation over!
(audience laughs and applauds)
I explained to her like, yo, you know,
it's a little troubling having to go through this
with people all the time.
She's like, "I don't see how that could be you know,
stressful for you to explain your name."
I was like, "Oh, you don't understand
how having your name
and culture questioned 40 hours a week,
every day of your life so you can assimilate
at a job in white corporate America
so you could pay bills,
could be mentally taxing, Amy?"
(audience laughs)
"You don't relate to that struggle?"
Take note of that.
Feel like I can be honest with y'all.
Yo, I hate kids.
Like, not all kids 'cause I have kids,
but the rest of them kids, plus one of my kids,
hate them dudes, yo.
They always in a way, you know what I mean?
Like, I was dropping off my son at school.
I got called into the principal's office.
I'm 30 years old.
I didn't know that was still on the table.
I get upstairs and she's like,
"Oh, Mr. Almonte, we been complaints from the other parents.
Apparently, you've been knocking over kids
in the school yard?
You got anything to say about that?"
And I was like, "Well ma'am, they were in my way."
She's like, "You're pushing kids in the school yard?"
I was like, "No, ma'am, don't be ridiculous.
It was more like an NBA pick.
You know, like I didn't extend, but I stood firm."
She was like,
"Mr. Almonte, don't you think there is another way
you can handle that?"
I was like, "Ma'am, I'm six feet tall.
I'm 300 pounds. And I don't move fast.
If that kid didn't see me coming,
like he not going to see life coming."
(audience laughs)
If anything I did that for him, you know.
My wife doesn't like that joke.
She said, "Gastor, when you talk like that,
it sound like you don't want kids.
Kids are a blessing. Everybody wants kids."
And that's just not true.
Nobody wants kids.
Anybody who says they want kids,
doesn't have kids.
And the second you have kids,
you stop wanting more kids.
That's not true for anything else good in life.
Like, I had a slice of pizza yesterday.
Guess what? I want another slice today.
Tomorrow? No surprises there.
Next week, there's more to come.
But I promise you, I've had my last kid.
I seen him every day around the house,
it's getting awkward.
He knows the situation.
He asked me, he was like,
"Dad, I'm the last son in the family.
It's my job to continue the name, right?"
I was like, "No little man. You are why the name must end."
(audience laughs)
You know how I know nobody wants kids?
In East New York,
if you got something nice
and somebody else wants it,
somebody would try to take it from you.
Nobody has tried taking my kids.
Not one time.
I'm not that great of a parent.
I don't even know where they are right now.
But I promise you, when I get home tonight,
through no effort of my own,
they'll be there.
(audience laughs and cheers)
The truth is,
reason I don't like having kids is 'cause
they give you imposter syndrome, you know?
Like, you don't realize until you have kids
that you don't know shit.
'Cause they ask you questions
and you become aware you don't have answers.
A while back, I was relaxing in my living room,
Saturday morning, hanging out.
My son comes out to the living room, he was like,
"Yo dad, what do you know about tectonic plates?"
(audience laughs)
I don't know shit about tectonic plates.
Judging him from y'all initial response,
I don't think y'all know shit about tectonic plates either.
So, I was like tectonic plates.
And he's like,
"Yeah, dad, we was studying in school."
And I was like, "Yo, I'm sorry, little man.
I don't remember covering that in third grade."
And he looked at me
and he goes like this, "Psss, this guy."
Like, I'm the asshole in this conversation so far.
Then he goes down the hallway,
knocks on his sister's door,
my daughter's ten,
and they come out to the living room
and they talked about tectonic plates.
For 15 minutes.
In my face, you understand this?
You know how stupid you feel?
You watch your kids have a conversation
you don't understand.
And you pay the school that makes it possible.
A nine-year-old gave up on me in my house.
(audience laughs)
He tried three times to explain it to me
then he looked at his sister,
he was like, "Yo, he's not getting it."
Before I let y'all go,
I felt like I owed it to y'all.
Tectonic plates,
(audience laughs and cheers)
are the things that move that cause earthquakes.
And I'm saying it that way
'cause that's how he had to dumb it down
for me to join that conversation.
That's my time.