This was the logic of a 20-year-old boy
who didn't know women at all.
If you like a girl
and she doesn't like you back enough,
the worst thing you could do is be like,
"Oh, you don't understand.
I'm never leaving."
[grunts]
[dark electronic music]
♪
[grunting]
♪
[grunting]
♪
[cheers and applause]
- Ladies and gentlemen, you know this next guy
from his own podcast called "Julian Loves Music."
Please give it up for Mr. Julian McCullough, everybody.
[cheers and applause]
- All right, so I grew up in a musical family.
We care too much about music,
and it hurt me real bad.
I'm actually named after Julian "Cannonball" Adderley.
That's Miles Davis' saxophone player,
which is a lot of pressure to put on a tiny white baby.
[laughter]
But my dad loves jazz, and not even the jazz you don't like.
He likes way worse jazz.
My dad likes avant-garde jazz, which is the kind that's like...
[squawking]
And the drummer's playing a different song.
[laughter]
So I've always cared too much about music.
I get to college.
I make the biggest mistake
you could possibly make in college
besides go to Rutgers.
I fell batshit, head over heels,
crazy in love with the most maladjusted, toxic girl
I could possibly find,
but when you're 20, you're like, "They're the hottest."
So there were red flags everywhere.
She walked into class four days late.
That was the first time I ever saw her,
four days late, and half an hour late that day,
she walks in, head to toe all black.
Black hair, covered in tattoos, sunglasses.
Sits down in the front row, loud and pissed off, like--
like she was trying to sleep,
and we built a classroom around her.
She never took her sunglasses off
the whole time at 10:00 a.m.,
so you're either drunk or an asshole.
Either way, I was like, "I'm Julian.
What's your name?"
And...
So I ask her out,
and she says no the first time.
I ask her out nine more times.
This is when I was young.
I was hungry. I was persistent.
I'm not like that at all anymore.
Now I'm like a cat on a windowsill with women.
You know what I mean? Where I'm like, "Meow,"
and they're like, "No," and I'm like...
I have the sun.
So...
she finally agrees to go out with me,
you know what I mean? And it's amazing.
It works. We start dating.
We're boyfriend and girlfriend. I can't believe it.
I've never had a real girlfriend in college yet.
And she's dangerous and out of my league.
I'm, like, it's amazing.
The problem is, it was never even.
I was obsessed with this girl,
and she was, like, kind of on board
that she had a boyfriend from English class.
Like, that was the two levels we were at.
I don't know if you've ever been in a relationship
that uneven before, but if you haven't,
I highly recommend it, because if you're confident,
it'll fix it.
So...
we're going out, but I'm miserable the whole time.
I'm basically chasing my own girlfriend
in this relationship,
and it wasn't completely one-sided.
You know, we did have a song together.
She didn't know that we had a song together,
but I picked a song for both of us
that I would listen to alone in the dark
when she wouldn't call, and it was called
"Lover, You Should've Come Over" by Jeff Buckley.
It's a very intense love song from the '90s.
Yeah, he drowned.
Anyway, I'm laying there in the dark one night
in my room alone, listening to the song,
and I get an epiphany from the lyrics
about how to handle my situation.
One of the lyrics is,
"She's a tear that hangs inside my soul forever,"
and I was like, "Yup."
But it called her a tear, and that's when I was like,
"Oh, my God. She's had a sad life."
You know what I mean?
Like, her dad ran out on the family.
Her mom was addicted to pills.
Her ex-boyfriend sold all her stuff for drugs
one time when she came home.
Everybody that's ever said "I love you" to this girl
has also completely screwed her over.
So she thinks because I say I love you,
I'm gonna screw her over.
I need to prove to her that I'm never gonna leave,
and then she'll love me back.
This was the logic of a 20-year-old boy
who didn't know women at all, because if you like a girl
and she doesn't like you back enough,
the worst thing you could do is be like,
"Oh, you don't understand.
I'm never leaving."
[laughter]
What I should've done is been like,
"Let's go to lunch," and then just left her
in a field somewhere,
and if she ever made it back to town,
she'd be like, "You need a blow job.
You're mysterious."
So...I didn't know that at the time, you know.
I was, like, 25 when I found that out.
So... so I get an epiphany in bed,
and I get out of bed that night, and I'm like,
"I know what I'm gonna do."
I walk a block down to the tattoo parlor
that's close to my apartment, right?
You don't know what's gonna happen.
And...
I walk in, and I go,
"I would like one tattoo, please."
And the guy was like, "First time?"
And I was like, "You don't know my life."
He goes, "What are we doing?"
I go, "All right, I'm in love with my girlfriend.
"She's kind of on board. We need to fix it.
"We have a song together that she doesn't know about
"where he says she's a tear that hangs inside my soul forever.
"She has a butterfly tattoo on her bicep,
"which is really cool.
"I need that butterfly tattoo
on my stomach, where our souls are?"
"With tears above it."
And he goes-- wait, what did he say?
He goes--oh.
"No."
[laughter]
"No way, dude. I'm not giving you that tattoo."
And I was--I couldn't believe it.
I was like, "What are you talk-- this is a tattoo store.
I give you money. You give me a tattoo."
He goes, "That's not how it works.
"That's the worst thing I've ever heard in my entire life.
I'm never giving you that."
I go, "But--but I love her."
He goes, "How long you been together?"
I go, "Six months." He goes, "Get out
"of my fucking store.
I'm not giving you that tattoo."
I go, "Fine, I'll just go somewhere else
and get a worse one."
You know? Now he knows I'm mature.
So he goes, "Ugh, all right.
"Look, go home. Wait seven days.
"If you come back, you still want it,
and you're not drunk, I'll give it to ya."
And I was like, "You're on, motherfucker."
And he was like, "It's not a challenge.
I don't want to do this."
[laughter]
So I go home. I wait seven days.
I listen to the song over and over again.
I go back in, put $200 on the counter,
and he gives me this.
[audience murmuring]
[applause]
So...
that was 15 years ago,
if you're wondering if tattoos are permanent.
[laughter]
And it's somehow brighter today than the day I got it.
I don't know how that happened. It's supposed to fade, right?
About an hour into it, he's like, "I'm done."
I looked down. It was a black outline.
And I must have said, "Gayer,"
'cause it's rainbow-colored on the inside.
I don't know why I thought that would be a good idea.
That was 15 years ago.
I've been doing comedy for 13 years.
This is the first year I've ever talked about this onstage.
That's how long it took me to be okay with it.
[cheers and applause]
Not because of you guys.
You guys are very supportive.
But all my friends are comedians.
You can't show this to a comedian.
They won't talk about anything else ever.
I don't even want to get off stage right now
and go back to the green room.
[laughter]
I showed it to one comedian friend one time,
and he goes, "Oh, why didn't you just get two dudes
"butt fucking on your stomach?
That would have been less gay."
[laughter]
And I said, "'Cause those weren't the lyrics."
[laughter]
You guys were awesome.
Thank you so much. Have a great night.
[dark electronic music]
♪