John Mulaney: The Comeback Kid Page #5

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watch TV on a school night.

So, every school night, I

would 100% be watching TV.

And I would hear my dad coming, I

would immediately turn the TV off

and grab any book, magazine,

periodical, anything.

And I'd open it and pretend

to be doing homework.

My dad would walk in

the room and he would go,

"What are you doing? Are you watching TV?"

And I'd go, "No, man. I'm not watching TV."

And the TV wouldn't even be dark yet.

It would still have, like,

a neon green halo around it.

It'd be sizzling like a glass of Pepsi.

And I would look my dad in the eyes and go,

"No, I'm just reading this Yellow Pages."

My dad loved us.

He just didn't care about our

general happiness or self-esteem.

I remember, one time, we

were really little kids.

I have two sisters and a brother,

and all four of us were

in our family car ride

for three hours going to Wisconsin.

My dad was driving, going down the highway

in our white van with wood around the side.

'Cause you remember when you

wanted your car to be made of wood?

You remember that era?

Where we were like, "How much

wood can we get on this car...

without it catching on fire?"

But then the big announcement.

"We here at Plymouth-Chrysler

can put a saucy stripe of wood

safely on the outside of your car,

for all those times you've looked

at your minivan and thought,

'Huh! It needs a belt.'"

So, we're going on the highway. We've

been on the road for three hours.

And in the distance, we see a McDonald's.

We see the golden arches.

And we got so excited.

We started chanting, "McDonald's!

McDonald's! McDonald's! McDonald's!"

And my dad pulled into the

drive-thru, and we started cheering.

And then, he ordered one

black coffee for himself.

And kept driving.

And, you know, as mad as that made

me as a little kid, in retrospect,

that is the funniest thing I

have ever seen in my entire life.

How perfect is that?

He had a vanload of little

kids, and he got black coffee.

The one thing from McDonald's

no child could enjoy.

My dad is cold-blooded.

He once shushed a kid

during Lion King on Broadway.

That actually happened.

We were at Lion King on Broadway,

and there was a

five-year-old behind us going,

"Look, it's Pumbaa! Look, it's Timon!"

And my dad turned around and said,

"Are you going to talk the entire time?"

He's my hero.

The weirdest thing when I was a kid

was how much they scared

us about smoking weed.

They scared us about it constantly.

And I've been on tour this year...

Marijuana is legal in 18 or 19

states in some form or another.

It's insane. Yeah, well...

All right, don't "whoo" if you're white.

It's always been legal

for us. Come on, sir.

We don't go to jail for

marijuana, you silly billy.

When I was arrested with a

one-hitter at a Rusted Root concert,

I did not serve hard time.

I think I got an award.

Eighteen or 19 states.

And, by the way, I agree,

it's a very good thing.

But it's also a really weird thing,

because this is the first time

I've ever seen a law change

because the government is just like,

"Fine." You know?

I've never seen it before.

Like, gay marriage and healthcare,

we have to battle it

out in the Supreme Court,

and be like, "Gay people are humans."

And they're like, "We'll think about it."

But with weed, it was just

something we wanted really badly,

and we kept asking them for 40 years, like,

"Excuse me."

And then suddenly the government

became like cool parents,

and they're just like,

"Okay, here. Take a little.

We'd rather you do it in the

house than go somewhere else...

blah, blah, blah, blah, blah."

Those stupid parents.

And that's a big deal because they

scared us about weed constantly.

It would be on our sitcoms.

We'd be watching Saved by the Bell,

we'd be having a great old time.

And then, suddenly, a

character we had not seen before

would show up with some weed and the

episode would stop cold in its tracks.

And they'd always hold the joint...

The bad guy would hold the

joint in a villainous way.

They'd always offer the joint in a

way that no one ever holds a joint.

Like it's a skull in a Shakespeare play.

And now it's legal, and that is great news.

Unless you're a weed dealer,

and then it is terrible news.

And I don't just mean because they're

about to lose out to Amazon.com.

I more feel bad for weed dealers

'cause they're about to find out that

we only showed them a

certain amount of politeness

because they had an illegal product.

And we don't show that same politeness

to people who deliver legal products.

Like, when the Chinese

food delivery guy comes,

we don't let him hang out after

he's delivered the Chinese food.

And we don't look the other way

when he says weird sh*t to the

girls we're hanging out with...

to try to preserve the relationship.

And we definitely don't give

him some of the Chinese food.

He's never like, "Hey, can

I get in on those dumplings?"

And we're like, "Yeah, we're all friends."

What are you, on your

phone? Hey, V-neck. Hey!

- What's your name?

- Sam.

Sam?

Cool!

What do you do to afford V-necks, Sam?

Typing numbers. Ah...

numbers, the letters of math.

I'm sorry to bother you. I

don't mean to single you out.

I hate when people get

pulled out of the audience.

Like, are you familiar with

the Cirque du Soleil, Sam?

They're a group of French a**holes

that are slowly taking over America

by humiliating audience members one by one.

We once went to see Cirque du

Soleil at Navy Pier when I was a kid,

and my brother came,

and he was 12 years old.

You remember being 12, when you're like,

"No one look at me or I'll kill myself."

And these French bastards

come into the crowd,

being like, "Le volunteer!"

And they pulled my brother

up on stage, and I was like,

"No!"

And they brought him up, and

they reached into his sweatshirt,

and they were like...

And they had planted a bra,

and they pulled out a

bra and they were like...

And everyone at Navy Pier

was like "Ah, ha, ha, ha, ha!"

And my brother was like, "That's great!"

I have had other jobs besides comedy.

I was an office temp for a while.

I really miss that.

I loved being a temp,

because I would just

go from office to office

and be terrible at a

different job for a week.

And then you just get to

retire like Lou Gehrig.

You're like, "Thank you. No

one will ever see me again."

And they're like, "Goodbye!"

I worked at an office once on

57th Street in New York City.

I was there for a couple weeks.

I was in a cubicle next

to this other cubicle.

This woman named Mischa

sat in the other cubicle.

I want to get the number right.

I think Mischa had...

about 900,000 photos of her

daughter up in her cubicle.

Almost like she was trying to solve

a conspiracy about her daughter,

A Beautiful Mind-style.

I think about Mischa two times a week...

because of a phone call

she had next to me one day.

It was one of my first days,

and I was sitting next to her.

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