Mr. Keegan-Michael Key, everybody.
[cheers and applause]
I'm from Detroit.
[scattered applause]
Good night!
No, I'm kidding.
So one day in 1990,
I was driving my 1976 Buick LeSabre down the street.
I had a 1976 Buick LeSabre.
It got 400 feet to the gallon.
And I was on the north side of 8 Mile Road.
You guys saw 8 Mile with Eminem?
Okay, and there was a dude standing in the parking lot,
and he comes up to my car, and this guy--
He's just looking rugged, like, looking rough.
He looked like a cross between, like, a--
like, a beaten golden retriever and sad Gary Busey.
It was--
So anyway, something came over me, like the angel.
There was an angel sitting on my shoulder,
and the angel spoke into my ear and said,
"This is the day that you're gonna make a difference.
"You're not gonna just give him a dollar.
"You're gonna do onto others today.
Do it for this guy." I said, "Okay, all right.
"I'm north of 8 Mile. I'm good to go.
"I'm gonna help this mother[bleep].
I'm gonna help this guy."
And the guys comes up, and he's like,
"Hey, man, I swear, man,
"if you could just help me out for a second.
"If you could just-- there's a church,
"like, just a mile north of here,
"and I know some guys at the church.
"And if you could just drop me off,
"there's a shelter there, man. I really appreciate it.
That's all I'm asking you to do. God bless you, God bless you."
I'm like, "That's good. That's fine.
He's not asking for money."
Get in the car.
So we get in the car,
and I'm asking him about himself,
and his name is "Jeff."
We're gonna call him Jeff.
And we were driving down, and all of a sudden,
we're driving, and I'm asking him,
"How did you fall on hard times?"
He's telling me his story. Da-da, da-da, da-da, da-da, da.
And then I realized we're driving south,
and I was just like, "That's another thing, Jeff--
Oh, [bleep], I'm south of 8 Mile!"
And so I got south of 8 Mile, and we pull over,
and he's like, "Just wait right here.
"Just wait right here. I'll be right back.
I promise. I'll be right back."
So Jeff gets out of the car, and for like a minute--
for, like, a minute, I just see him going,
and he's walking around the church
and back and back again.
He's like, "Just give me one second."
And then he's back around here, and he goes into a house, okay?
Right then, that's the moment I should've driven away
as fast as possible,
but that angel deafeningly screamed in my ear,
"Just help someone, you [bleep] 19-year-old
"with your trench coat,
looking like you're in Lost Boys."
Right at that moment is when I should've driven away,
but I didn't.
I didn't. I'm gonna help this guy.
I'm gonna be a Good Samaritan if it kills me.
I get out of my car-- me, Corey Feldman--
and I go, and I open up the trunk of my car,
and I get out a tire iron, and then I close the trunk,
and I'm leaning against the trunk of the car
with my tire iron
like--like everybody within a two-mile square radius
doesn't have a handgun.
What am I gonna do with my tire iron?
I'm gonna--
[imitating bullets ricocheting]
So he comes back. Jeff comes back.
And he's walking towards my car.
He's walking towards my car like this,
and he's really in a hurry.
And he gets up to me, and he goes,
"Oh, man, what's going on with the tire iron?"
I said, "Just, you know, protection for myself
just in case anything-- any shit went down."
And he goes, "Oh, man, that's-- Whoo, you had me nervous there
"for a second, 'cause I was back there,
and things did not go well."
And so we got back in the car,
and we're driving down the street.
I said, "Did not go well. What happened, Jeff?"
And he goes, "Oh, yeah, I was in that house
"talking to a dude, and then he hit me
with an aluminum baseball bat."
So I was like, "Oh, shit."
And so he's like, "Oh, no, no, stop here,
stop here, stop here," and I'm like,
"Okay, this is the time when I'm gonna"--
"Okay, Jeff, I think it's time.
It's time to get out of the car."
But we look across the street, and across the street,
there's this house, and there's a kid
standing on the house.
He's got one of these huge,
like, triple-fat goose down jackets, a white one.
He looked like the Michelin man,
like a black Michelin man.
And he was standing here, this kid,
and he comes up to the car.
He looks in my window, and he's like,
"What's going on, Jeff? What's up?"
And Jeff says-- Jeff says,
"I'll be back in a couple of hours.
"If you could just help me out right now,
"I'll be back in a couple of hours.
I'll have four VCRs."
Now, here's me. I'm like, "Four V--What?"
So kid goes back up to the porch,
and he's on the porch like this, and he goes--
And then there's a drain pipe here,
and my boy reaches down like this
and puts his hand in the drain pipe, right,
takes his hand out, comes--
saunters back across the street to my car,
presents crack cocaine to Jeff.
So, you know, crack cocaine's, like, here.
I'm like, "I've never seen that before."
And he goes, "So I'll be back
in about two hours with four VCRs."
So, guys, if you ever find a time machine
and go back in time to 1990 and you want to buy crack,
the ratio from crack rock to VCR is one to one, okay?
And as the kid backs up from my car,
he's like, "All right, Jeff. All right, Jeff."
And he brushes his jacket back,
and there's nickel-plated .45 caliber in his pocket,
so I'm just like,
"I'm the dumbest person in the world."
And so--And then I got really stern, guys,
and I said, "Jeff, this is it.
"I have to be at play practice in two hours.
"I'm stage managing Early One Evening
at the Rainbow Bar and Grill."
So he--So anyway, Jeff is rummaging around
on the floor of my car, grabs a soda can,
then rummages around on the floor of my car,
grabs a paper clip, okay?
Paper clip.
And he starts, like, doing a hole
in the top of the can, okay?
So he's making a hole in the top of the can.
So I'm sitting here, and I'm just like,
"Oh, man, I can't--
"If I can get in this parking lot,
I can just get Jeff out of here."
I turn and look.
My man Jeff is scrooched down in my car,
just smoking crack, just smoking crack.
[smacking lips]
This guy looks at me and goes, "Hope you don't mind."
I get to Coolidge Road. It feels like it took six years.
And, guys, I only had two hours. I had to get to play practice.
And he gets out of the car, and he's like,
"Thanks so much, man. I really appreciate it, man.
Appreciate it so much. God bless."
I'm like, "Get--You really need to get out of the car, Jeff.
"I need to jettison you out of the vehicle.
I need you gone."
And he leaves, and I--
You know, I go on with the rest of my life,
and I encountered him, you know, later in my life one time.
And I saw him walking in my neighborhood,
and that little angel on my shoulder is like,
"Hey, there's Jeff.
Maybe we should give him one more try."
And I said, "Hey, angel, f--k off."
Thank you so much, everybody. Appreciate it.