- 10 hours ago
Dropout Presents S02E04 Michael Cruz Kayne Sorry For Your Loss DRPO H 264
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00:00:09So, this is a comedy show, but it's also sad. There will be long stretches where you're
00:00:16not laughing, and I wanted to tell you that ahead of time so you don't feel like you have
00:00:22been tricked. You might cry. If you cry, that's fine. If you don't cry, that is rude. It's
00:00:33Garrett in the booth, it's Grace, it's all of them, and you.
00:00:45Can you believe it?
00:00:50Thank you. Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow.
00:00:59Welcome. This show is called Sorry for Your Loss. It's about grief. It is about death.
00:01:04The most recent experience I had with grief is that I used to work at this big company,
00:01:08and while I was there, a lady died. A dead lady.
00:01:14And the company sent around an email to help us process our feelings on the day that she died,
00:01:21and it had some steps in it, and these are they. Step one was accept the loss. They sent this
00:01:30the day she died. Step two, work through and feel the physical and emotional pain of grief.
00:01:38Great, fine, good step. Step three, adjust to living in a world without the person or item lost.
00:01:44Just cross that out. And step four, move on with life.
00:01:50Fuck you. She died today.
00:01:56This is the worst email ever sent. If I told you that it had been translated from one language into
00:02:02another,
00:02:02you would know exactly what I mean.
00:02:05So these are the stages of grief you're probably familiar.
00:02:09You've got denial, where you're like, it's not happening.
00:02:12Anger, where you're like, I'm so mad it's happening.
00:02:15Bargaining, where you're like, I wish it were cheaper.
00:02:22Depression, where you're so sad about it.
00:02:25And acceptance, where you will never ever be.
00:02:28Alright!
00:02:29Okay, that's a little heavy.
00:02:32Let me lighten it up with some classic comedy stuff like you, sir.
00:02:36What's your name?
00:02:37Pablo.
00:02:38Pablo, very good.
00:02:39That is my crowd work.
00:02:42So that part is kind of closed.
00:02:46I wish we talked about death more, because every single one of us will probably die.
00:02:52If you look to your left right now, you could do it.
00:02:54And to your right, those people.
00:02:56Those are pre-dead people, yes?
00:02:59So this is a list of some people who have died or will die.
00:03:05You've got you, me, Lady Gaga, Martin Luther King Jr., Frank Sinatra, Mary Binaldo, that was, my babysitter.
00:03:16Martin Luther King Sr., who by inductive reasoning must have been a person.
00:03:22Your mom, Jon Hamm, Mia Hamm, George Bernard Shaw, who wrote the play Pygmalion,
00:03:28which became the movie My Fair Lady, which starred Audrey Hepburn, who is dead.
00:03:33Louis DeBroy, any particle wave theory fans in the house?
00:03:37Woo!
00:03:38Okay, nice.
00:03:39Not that many.
00:03:40Most of us are just dumb and loving it.
00:03:45You've got Betty White.
00:03:46You've got Jesus, question mark.
00:03:51Ichiro Suzuki, Valentina Tereshkova, do we know who that was?
00:03:55Yes, who?
00:03:56Astronaut.
00:03:57Astronaut.
00:03:57Yes, that is correct.
00:03:58There was the first woman in space.
00:04:01The rest of you, sexist.
00:04:03Sorry.
00:04:04Okay.
00:04:05I'm getting ahead of myself.
00:04:07Let me go back to before I knew about grief.
00:04:11When I first started doing stand-up, it was because I was in an improv show,
00:04:16and a woman came up to me afterwards, and she was like,
00:04:19oh, my God, you're so funny and handsome.
00:04:23And she asked me if I did stand-up, and I said I don't.
00:04:26But if you tell me the deal, I'll tell one of my stand-up buddies, and he'll do it.
00:04:30And she says, okay, it's 15 minutes of stand-up, and we'll pay you $5,000.
00:04:35And I was like, stand-up?
00:04:37Oh, no, no, no, I'd do that.
00:04:38Sorry.
00:04:38I don't know what I thought you said.
00:04:40Grace.
00:04:40Give it up for Grace, everybody.
00:04:44Yeah, so I'd never done stand-up before.
00:04:46I kind of lied.
00:04:47But then I developed a set about myself that went something like this.
00:04:52I pass as white, but I'm half Asian.
00:04:55And because I pass, I think I've heard a lot of microaggressions
00:04:59that I might not have heard if I looked more Asian.
00:05:02For example, one that I've heard my whole life is that all Asian food is bad,
00:05:08and it all tastes the same.
00:05:10We just fucked up for two reasons.
00:05:13One, that's not true.
00:05:15And two, the people who say it, if you ask them what their favorite cuisine is, invariably,
00:05:21they say Italian.
00:05:23Italian food's great.
00:05:24I love Italian food.
00:05:26All Italian food tastes the same.
00:05:30All Italian food is pizza.
00:05:32A pizza is a pizza.
00:05:34A calzone is an inside-out pizza.
00:05:36Pasta, tomato sauce, cheese, that's basically a pizza.
00:05:39Chicken parmesan is a chicken that they were like, no, fuck it.
00:05:44It's a pizza.
00:05:45The only good food white people ever invented was Advil.
00:05:53Advil's delicious.
00:05:54My compliments to the chef.
00:05:57Let me also say that I make that joke about white people, and I know it can sound denigrating.
00:06:03So let me just say this.
00:06:04White people, if you're here, and I know you are, in this room, you are safe.
00:06:14And you are listened to.
00:06:16No matter what anybody says, in my book, white people, top ten race, all time, no doubt.
00:06:23The type of Asian that I am is Filipino.
00:06:27Yes!
00:06:29Thank you for your support, or fetish, whatever.
00:06:33It's cool.
00:06:33Filipino, my dad had the same one.
00:06:39My dad is here for sure.
00:06:41For sure.
00:06:42I love being Filipino for a lot of reasons, but probably the biggest one is that there are no bad
00:06:48stereotypes about us.
00:06:49And if you can think of one, I would say, keep that shit to yourself.
00:06:55The one that persists over here is that Filipinos are nurses.
00:06:59And that's fine, because that's true.
00:07:01It's not 100% true.
00:07:02It's like a square rectangle situation where not all Filipinos are nurses, but all nurses are Filipina.
00:07:13And I know you might be like, wait, hang on a second.
00:07:16I'm a nurse.
00:07:17I'm not Filipina.
00:07:19Bad news, bitch.
00:07:20Yes, you are.
00:07:21We got you.
00:07:22When I met my wife.
00:07:25Sorry, ladies.
00:07:29She was white.
00:07:32And then she became a nurse.
00:07:35And for a Filipino, that's a conversion.
00:07:38We flipped her.
00:07:40My other half is Jewish, like our Lord and Savior, Bernie Sanders.
00:07:46Yes!
00:07:48I'm a big Bernie guy.
00:07:49I know it's old hat at this point.
00:07:51A very old, very Jewish hat.
00:07:53A yarmulke, if you will.
00:07:55My thing with Bernie is that he is right about every single thing.
00:08:01For example, he believes that student loan debt should be forgiven.
00:08:04All of it.
00:08:06All of it.
00:08:06Yes, poor people.
00:08:07Yes.
00:08:08And there's no argument against that except, I had student loans.
00:08:12So you should have student loans.
00:08:15Which is crazy logic, right?
00:08:17You can't do that for anything else.
00:08:18You can't be like, I have chlamydia.
00:08:22So you should have chlamydia.
00:08:25Which is a bad example because that is how chlamydia works.
00:08:29But you understand what I'm getting at.
00:08:31When I met my wife.
00:08:34Sorry, ladies.
00:08:36She was Christian.
00:08:38And now she has generalized anxiety disorder.
00:08:43And for a Jew, that's a conversion.
00:08:46Flipped.
00:08:49Speaking of my wife, I would tell jokes and stories about her.
00:08:55Yeah, I love this picture of us because it shows that at 17,
00:08:59we were the two most opposite people in the entire world.
00:09:02She looks like a president's daughter and I look like a threat to our national security.
00:09:09A story I would tell about my wife is that when we first moved in together,
00:09:13she got a job in Thailand and to celebrate that job,
00:09:17I bought a bunch of wine and cheese for us to have the night before she went away.
00:09:22And that night we had pretty much all the wine and barely any of the very expensive cheese.
00:09:27So she went off to Thailand the next morning and I don't like to waste.
00:09:32So for breakfast, your boy ate two and a half pounds of aged cheese.
00:09:39And I gave myself a condition I know you have not heard of.
00:09:44Called cheese blindness.
00:09:48What does that mean? Great question.
00:09:50I ate so much cheese that I went fucking blind.
00:09:57I was working as a tutor at the time and I go in to see my student Molly or whatever.
00:10:02And she's like, Michael, how do you do this problem?
00:10:04And I'm like, Molly, I can't fucking see you.
00:10:07I call my dad who's a doctor and he's like, you got to go to the emergency room right now.
00:10:12So I go there as fast as I can, tears in my eyes.
00:10:15And before they run any tests, the doctor says,
00:10:18is there anything that's changed in your life recently?
00:10:22And I have to say, uh, yeah, I just ate two and a half pounds of cheese.
00:10:30And he goes, that's it.
00:10:34Apparently there's something in aged cheese called tyramine.
00:10:37And if you eat too much of it, it can trigger an allergic reaction in your body.
00:10:42And my body's response to that was, let's turn off the eyes.
00:10:48I had been without my wife for two hours and I was inventing new diseases.
00:10:56We never fight, never.
00:10:58Uh, except for one fight that we have recurrently,
00:11:01which is that I never want to have kids.
00:11:06Never, never, never.
00:11:07I tell her every day.
00:11:09I tell her 10 times a day.
00:11:11I'll write it on little post-it notes for her to find around the house.
00:11:14I don't want to have kids.
00:11:16And she gets so mad because we have two kids.
00:11:22I told that joke a lot.
00:11:23I told that joke on TV even.
00:11:25Two kids.
00:11:26Uh, this is the crew right here.
00:11:27Uh, yes, it deserves it all.
00:11:29Um, there's my beautiful wife, Carrie, my beautiful daughter, Willa,
00:11:33my beautiful son, Truman, and also me at a little, uh, restaurant around the corner from us.
00:11:38Um, I'll tell you about these people starting with Truman.
00:11:42Uh, this picture of him was taken at a MAGA rally, I guess.
00:11:50Uh, a story I would tell about him is that, uh, when he was really little, he loved Halloween.
00:11:58And one Halloween, I had been showing him the TV show, The A-Team.
00:12:02And so he wanted to go as Mr. T.
00:12:06And you might be too young to know who Mr. T is, but like the really important fact for this
00:12:10story is that Mr. T is black.
00:12:14And I'm not black, and his mom's not black, so he's not black.
00:12:18That's kind of the math on that.
00:12:21So, we gave him a mohawk.
00:12:23We got him camouflage pants.
00:12:25We got him a tank top.
00:12:26We got him some gold chains.
00:12:27And then we made what could be considered a crucial error and purchased some black makeup.
00:12:36For a beard.
00:12:38For a beard.
00:12:39You people are fucked up.
00:12:40It's you guys.
00:12:43We're putting the beard on half of him.
00:12:46And it's going great.
00:12:47It looks incredible.
00:12:48And then he says, I'm gonna do the rest myself.
00:12:53How could it go wrong?
00:12:5530 seconds later, full face of black makeup.
00:12:59And the worst part is, he thinks it looks great.
00:13:05So we are chasing him around the house, trying to take it off.
00:13:10He's screaming, leave it on, leave it on.
00:13:12And if you have kids, you will know the point that my wife and I got to, which was...
00:13:19Fuck it.
00:13:23Wear blackface then.
00:13:28So, I am walking around Williamsburg, Brooklyn, in front of my son, wherever we go.
00:13:37And we get to his friend's house, because we're doing a Halloween play date.
00:13:41And the friend comes to the door, and he is dressed as Gandalf.
00:13:46Now, you might not know who that is, because at some point in your life, you have had sex.
00:13:53But Gandalf is a character from Lord of the Rings.
00:13:56And he's got two main personae.
00:13:59One is the gray wizard, and the other is the white wizard.
00:14:04And that's what this kid is going as.
00:14:07So he is neck to toe in a white robe.
00:14:11He has a white pointy hat.
00:14:14He's got a beard.
00:14:15That's good.
00:14:15He's got a staff.
00:14:16Incredible.
00:14:17The beard and the staff are really helping us out.
00:14:21The beard makes my face itchy.
00:14:23The beard is in the trash.
00:14:24The staff makes my hand sweaty.
00:14:27The staff is in the trash.
00:14:28And the hat's too big.
00:14:30So it just keeps...
00:14:33Eking down over his little face.
00:14:35So I am walking around Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
00:14:39Not like rural Louisiana, where they'd be like, hell yeah, brother.
00:14:44With my son in blackface and his best friend dressed as a KKK wizard.
00:14:53There's also Willa.
00:14:56This picture was taken when she wanted to ride the teacups at a carnival alone.
00:15:08So she got into the teacup alone.
00:15:13And a woman we have never seen before or since got in the teacup with her and rode the whole
00:15:22ride silently.
00:15:25And this face is how we all felt about that.
00:15:34Willa is the only member of the family who is Christian.
00:15:39I don't know how that happened.
00:15:40It was like a recessive gene or something.
00:15:42Her favorite story from the Bible is Noah's Ark, which you probably know.
00:15:46It's a story in which God says, I'm going to kill all of you.
00:15:51And my son was like, don't you think that that story is a little harsh?
00:15:55And she goes, well, they don't believe they get punished.
00:16:01And he's like, isn't it too much?
00:16:03And she goes, consequences.
00:16:10She is very hard headed, which I think will serve her very well when she gets older, but it can
00:16:17lead to a decent amount of conflict.
00:16:20Once she was in the kitchen and I was in the living room.
00:16:24Just kidding.
00:16:25That's the same room.
00:16:27And she says, daddy, can you get me some water?
00:16:31And I'm like, oh, bro, it's right there.
00:16:33Just turn around.
00:16:33You can get it yourself.
00:16:35And she falls to the floor wailing and says, when mommy asks you for something, you get it for her
00:16:43right away.
00:16:46Do you love mommy more than you love me?
00:16:50Without hesitation, I said, yeah.
00:16:54I just met you.
00:16:57You don't know my middle name.
00:17:01When everything happened to me, I was working as a tutor, as I said before.
00:17:08Don't worry, I'm coming back.
00:17:11I love tutoring.
00:17:13Just kind of like hanging out with kids, mostly like high school kids.
00:17:16Teaching them math and English and a lot of SAT prep.
00:17:22And if I had time, at the end of a tutoring session, I would frequently teach my students about this
00:17:33concept that has fascinated me my whole life.
00:17:35Which is that sometimes the representation of something can be different, while the thing itself is the same.
00:17:45Yeah?
00:17:46Like, you think things are one way, but they can also be another way.
00:17:51And one of the ways I would teach that is through math.
00:17:56Yeah!
00:17:58Okay, so let's start with this.
00:18:02One-third.
00:18:04One-third.
00:18:04What is one-third as a decimal?
00:18:09Anybody?
00:18:110.333.
00:18:12That's basically correct.
00:18:140.333.
00:18:17I'm going to put a little symbol up here.
00:18:19That means it repeats forever, right?
00:18:21We just say 0.33 and then we run out of time.
00:18:23But if we did the long division, it would go on forever.
00:18:26Yeah?
00:18:26Great.
00:18:27Good.
00:18:27Two-thirds.
00:18:29What is two-thirds as a decimal?
00:18:33Very good.
00:18:34666 repeating.
00:18:36Excellent work, guys.
00:18:37This is pretty straightforward, right?
00:18:38No offense.
00:18:40We've seen this before.
00:18:41What I think is kind of cool is what happens when we add them up.
00:18:46What is one-third plus two-thirds?
00:18:49Anybody?
00:18:49Just shout it out.
00:18:50Three-thirds.
00:18:51I'm going to call it one, right?
00:18:52Three-thirds is one.
00:18:53Very good.
00:18:54And what is 0.3 repeating plus 0.6 repeating?
00:18:590.9 repeating.
00:19:02What?
00:19:06I empathize with that.
00:19:10The first time I saw this, I almost had a fucking panic attack.
00:19:14What are you talking about?
00:19:16Maybe what you mean is they're very close.
00:19:200.9 repeating is almost one.
00:19:22No.
00:19:23If this is true, and it is, and this is true, and it is,
00:19:29then when I add them up, this must be true.
00:19:31Another way of thinking of it.
00:19:33There is no number between that number and this number,
00:19:37because they are the same.
00:19:40And when you think of numbers, one is the best one.
00:19:46It's the first thing you learn.
00:19:48It's so digestible.
00:19:50But if you wrote it that way, you would never stop writing.
00:19:55You think things are one way, but they can also be another way.
00:20:00The more that I told those stories and jokes about my family, the weirder it felt,
00:20:12because this isn't really my family.
00:20:16It looks like this, but it's not.
00:20:20Truman is an identical twin, and his brother Fisher died when he was 34 days old.
00:20:26And that is what this show is about.
00:20:31And I know that is the saddest sentence in the English language.
00:20:36My son died.
00:20:38I don't talk about it very much, not because I don't want to,
00:20:42but because you don't want me to.
00:20:45Because if I tell someone that my kid died, they are obliterated.
00:20:51It turns their whole world upside down.
00:20:55And they try to comfort me, but I end up comforting them.
00:21:01So in this moment, where you don't have to say anything to me,
00:21:05all I want you to do is sit with whatever feeling this is for 10 seconds.
00:21:22Okay, this is just a small break to see if you're okay.
00:21:27I could see if at this point in the show, you were like,
00:21:33whoops, I didn't mean to come to this.
00:21:36I thought it was just going to be like a bunch of laughing,
00:21:39and then later on, me and my date would go have sex,
00:21:41and this guy fucked it all up.
00:21:44So, if at this moment, you feel like this is not the show for you,
00:21:50you can feel free to get up and go.
00:21:54No one will judge that.
00:21:56No one will even know that you left, except for all of us.
00:22:01But if you stay here, this is going to keep happening.
00:22:05Cool?
00:22:07All right.
00:22:11I cry all the time.
00:22:16I like it. It feels good.
00:22:18Not when it's happening, but when it's over.
00:22:20It's like a little orgasm for your face.
00:22:26Guys, men, you have to do it.
00:22:29Otherwise, it all builds up, you know,
00:22:31and you get like the emotional equivalent of blue balls.
00:22:36So, this is the story of what happened.
00:22:39Now, I always wanted to have kids.
00:22:42Always, always.
00:22:43I admired my parents.
00:22:46I wanted to do what they did,
00:22:47which was create the perfect person.
00:22:52And that enthusiasm for having children lasted all the way
00:22:57until I found out my wife was pregnant,
00:22:59at which point I freaked out.
00:23:01And then we found out it was twins, and I freaked out double.
00:23:05And then we got terrible news,
00:23:07which was that the boys had something called
00:23:09twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome.
00:23:12And you don't know what that is, but basically it means
00:23:14one of them is getting too much of the nutrients,
00:23:16one of them is not getting enough,
00:23:18and if you don't intervene, 100% mortality.
00:23:22So, we took the boys to the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia,
00:23:26or CHOP, which is the worst possible acronym for a hospital.
00:23:32And they performed this procedure on my wife, on Carrie,
00:23:35where they cut a little incision,
00:23:37and they put a laser in there, and they shoot it at the placenta.
00:23:41Not like that.
00:23:44And it worked.
00:23:45Everything was reallocated,
00:23:46and we kind of coasted along then for a few months.
00:23:50It went so well that the hospital said,
00:23:53we would love for you guys to come back
00:23:55and make a little video promoting this procedure.
00:23:57We're like, oh, fuck yeah.
00:23:58We're like prenatal movie stars, you know?
00:24:01Yeah, from then on,
00:24:02it was kind of like Easy Street for me,
00:24:06because my wife is pregnant, right?
00:24:08She's like monitoring every single thing.
00:24:10She is drinking protein shakes.
00:24:13She is thinking of it as her job to take care of them,
00:24:16and I think of it as my job to take care of her.
00:24:19The boys are born at 32 weeks, which is very early.
00:24:24But in a complicated pregnancy, we were happy to get that far along.
00:24:27They were born via C-section,
00:24:29which I had always thought of as the best way to have kids,
00:24:33because you can schedule a C-section.
00:24:36You know what I mean?
00:24:37You could be like, I'm gonna get dinner, do a little C-section,
00:24:40and then I'll watch Jeopardy!
00:24:41It's gonna be like, just like that.
00:24:42Also, I was into it because my wife had made me promise
00:24:46that if she had a vaginal birth,
00:24:48I could not allow the doctors to give her any painkillers,
00:24:52which is a crazy thing to say to me.
00:24:56The idea that, like, she's gonna be in the worst pain of her life,
00:24:59and I'm in the corner eating chips, like, this is what you wanted!
00:25:05Anyway, a C-section, as it turns out, is a full-ass surgery.
00:25:10And I know that now because they bring me into the OR a little early,
00:25:13and I get to see stuff that I don't think I should see,
00:25:16which is the doctors pulling things out of my wife
00:25:20that are not babies, right?
00:25:23I don't know what they are to this day.
00:25:25Like, whatever else is down here.
00:25:27Your brain, maybe?
00:25:30So he's pulling it out, right?
00:25:31And he's putting it on this other table over here.
00:25:33So, like, here's your wife,
00:25:36and here is, like, a tapas of your wife on this table.
00:25:41So they bring me around to her face, which is where I should be,
00:25:45and she's shivering from the anesthesia,
00:25:47and she is beautiful,
00:25:50and then they take out the boys, Truman and Fisher.
00:25:55Boom, boom.
00:25:55And there is life here that was not here before.
00:26:02Inside a woman, at any time, there could be more people.
00:26:12It's actually pretty sneaky.
00:26:16The boys are in the neonatal intensive care unit for a while,
00:26:21which was also pretty normal.
00:26:22We would go there every day, obviously.
00:26:24We would hug them, and we would feed them,
00:26:27and we would sing to them, whatever.
00:26:29And on the 33rd day,
00:26:31before we're going up to the hospital,
00:26:33my wife gets a call, and a doctor says,
00:26:35you've got to come quick.
00:26:36Something is happening to Fisher.
00:26:38And the doctor says,
00:26:39we think it's a necrotizing enterocolitis.
00:26:42And I don't know what that is,
00:26:44but my wife's mother, who used to be a nurse, is there with us.
00:26:47She hears everything.
00:26:49She grabs my wife and says, that's the bad thing.
00:26:54We go to the hospital, and by the time we get there,
00:26:56they've done an exploratory surgery,
00:26:58and they tell us right away, it's not what we thought it was.
00:27:01And we're like, oh, thank God.
00:27:03It's something worse.
00:27:05Fisher has suffered a volvulus.
00:27:06So his intestines have detached from the wall of his abdomen.
00:27:11They have twisted, and they have torn.
00:27:13So everything that should be passing through his digestive system is free.
00:27:18And he goes into what's called sepsis,
00:27:21and he dies very quickly thereafter.
00:27:25And everything around then is a hodgepodge in my memory.
00:27:30You know, I try to retell parts of it,
00:27:33and frequently someone who was there will be like,
00:27:36but that's not how it went down.
00:27:38I remember hearing the news and standing next to my wife
00:27:41and just kind of collapsing to the ground
00:27:43and grabbing her leg and crying,
00:27:46and she corrected me to say,
00:27:49you were standing with your dad, and you grabbed his leg.
00:27:53One thing I remember perfectly is they put you in this room
00:27:58for people to whom the saddest possible thing has happened,
00:28:02and my wife says to me through tears,
00:28:05how am I ever going to be happy again?
00:28:09And that is hard,
00:28:13because she thought of it as her job to take care of them,
00:28:15which she can't do anymore,
00:28:18and I thought of it as my job to take care of her,
00:28:20which I can't do anymore.
00:28:23We took pictures in the hospital.
00:28:25This is one.
00:28:27Kind of a top ten picture of all time, if you ask me.
00:28:30There is my wife with her boys.
00:28:35This is Truman over there, Fisher over here.
00:28:41Truman and Fisher.
00:28:42Those are their names because we live in Brooklyn.
00:28:47It was just what we did.
00:28:48I don't know if you can see from where you are,
00:28:50but Fisher's eyes are open,
00:28:52and he is reaching out to hold his brother's hand.
00:28:56This next one is a real dumb dad photo.
00:29:04I wanted to be a good dad so badly,
00:29:06I had no concept of what that entailed.
00:29:09I have just horrific eczema.
00:29:13Sorry, ladies.
00:29:17In this picture, you can't see it,
00:29:19but under that hoodie, I was so freaked out
00:29:21that I had a black rash
00:29:24that went from the bottom of my neck
00:29:27and covered both of my nipples.
00:29:29It was so gross that I showed it to a doctor,
00:29:33and she said,
00:29:36ew.
00:29:39We had these pendants
00:29:41that my sister and her then-boyfriend made for us,
00:29:43and we love them.
00:29:44We still have them.
00:29:45It's a fish.
00:29:46His name was Fisher.
00:29:48Fish.
00:29:48It's not like the deepest metaphor in the world,
00:29:50but we love those.
00:29:52And we wore them when we took Fisher
00:29:55to a funeral home,
00:29:58the one the hospital recommended.
00:30:00It was run by the two most Italian guys
00:30:02you can possibly imagine,
00:30:03who were like,
00:30:04oh, you're going to cremate him.
00:30:06That's beautiful.
00:30:09You just couldn't believe it.
00:30:11You can't believe it's surreal.
00:30:12You can't believe how far you are
00:30:14from what you thought your life was going to be.
00:30:18You know what I mean?
00:30:18What feels like a page from a script of a movie
00:30:21of somebody else's life,
00:30:23I paid for my son's funeral,
00:30:27and the receipt that they gave us said,
00:30:31thank you, please come again at the bottom.
00:30:34Thank you, please come again.
00:30:39Would you ever have thought
00:30:40that the receipt they give you at the funeral home
00:30:43is the same one they give you at an Applebee's?
00:30:48When I saw that for the first time, I mean,
00:30:51I laughed so hard.
00:30:54People don't think of grieving people
00:30:57as people who can laugh,
00:30:58but you remain a full human being.
00:31:02Another time that I really laughed,
00:31:04and this one might be too much,
00:31:07is I was driving with my brother and sister.
00:31:11Fisher had already died,
00:31:13and one of the doctors had given us a onesie for Truman.
00:31:17And I'm opening it up,
00:31:18and my sister says,
00:31:19what do you think it's going to say on it?
00:31:21And I say, I don't know, something like,
00:31:22my brother died,
00:31:24and all I got was this lousy T-shirt.
00:31:27It's a little dark, I guess.
00:31:31We had these cards at the funeral that we handed out.
00:31:35I'm going to read it to you now,
00:31:37because you can't stop me.
00:31:42Fish.
00:31:43Today the neighbors brought us food.
00:31:45The doorman ordered flowers for us.
00:31:48Your dad's coworkers offered to do his work for him.
00:31:51Your dad's family drove in from all around.
00:31:53Your mom's family flew in from Indiana.
00:31:56The neighbors brought more food.
00:31:58Friends wrote us letters and tried to help us out.
00:32:00This world is like that.
00:32:02People are good and kind and decent.
00:32:07You live in our hearts, Fish, as silly as it sounds.
00:32:10When we walk through this good world, you walk with us.
00:32:14Thank you for being our son.
00:32:16We love you.
00:32:21I always get a little emotional when I read that.
00:32:26Which is pretty vain.
00:32:29Because I wrote that.
00:32:35I really fucking nailed it.
00:32:45There is more than one way to teach the idea that things can be represented more than one way.
00:32:53Holy shit.
00:32:55They have the budget for two blackboards.
00:32:59In addition to math.
00:33:02We've got a little something called the English language.
00:33:06The English language.
00:33:07Heard of it?
00:33:08In English, we have something called homophones.
00:33:12Homophones, which are words that sound the same.
00:33:14Like there.
00:33:18There.
00:33:21And there.
00:33:22There.
00:33:23What is your name?
00:33:24Anya.
00:33:24Anya.
00:33:25Anya, would you mind using this one in a sentence?
00:33:31I literally can't think right now.
00:33:33Anya, absolutely don't sweat it at all.
00:33:37Literally do not sweat it.
00:33:40So just as an example, and you didn't have to say this.
00:33:42Like this is just something I would say.
00:33:45Their friends are all around.
00:33:48You did great.
00:33:50All right.
00:33:52All right.
00:33:54Literally, we love Anya.
00:33:57We also have homographs, which are words that are spelled the same.
00:34:01Like.
00:34:03Dove.
00:34:06And dove.
00:34:08Or dove and dove.
00:34:11You don't know.
00:34:13What's cool about this, right, is that the O is doing different work in each word.
00:34:19My favorite manifestation of this is given to us by the great playwright George Bernard Shaw,
00:34:26who wrote the play.
00:34:28Pygmalion.
00:34:29Which became the movie.
00:34:32Which stars.
00:34:34Who is.
00:34:35Nice.
00:34:37My favorite part of that bit is that there's like 80% of you who are like,
00:34:40I don't know, bro.
00:34:41I'll meet you at dead.
00:34:42I know that part.
00:34:51George Bernard Shaw supposedly gave us this.
00:34:55G-H-O-T-I.
00:34:57And said you could be a fluent English speaker, a master of phonetics, and reasonably believe that this is how
00:35:04you spell the word fish.
00:35:07Sounds kind of goofy.
00:35:08But if you imagine the word enough, the G-H makes fa.
00:35:20And in the word women.
00:35:26The O is making a I.
00:35:28Women.
00:35:30The O is making a I.
00:35:30And in the word motion.
00:35:34Motion.
00:35:36The T-I makes sh.
00:35:48from something totally inscrutable my son's name you think things are one way
00:35:57but they can also be another way
00:36:03when I first started dating Carrie I wanted badly to impress her with my masculinity
00:36:13that's not a joke so I did what any dude would do when he's trying to woo a chick
00:36:22I bought a Groupon to go skydiving something I have learned subsequently is that you don't
00:36:33want a Groupon for skydiving you want to pay the most possible money so I bought this thing
00:36:42it's really not my style I'm not a skydiving guy I'm more of a like have you heard of homophones
00:36:48that's more me but I bought it I was terrified of it I did not tell her about it until
00:36:56the day
00:36:57before it was set to expire at which point my desire to save money overcame my will to live
00:37:05and I was like babe look what I got and she's like oh that's so not like you and I
00:37:09was like yeah no
00:37:09shit I called the skydiving place I said look we got to come tomorrow and they said tomorrow's all
00:37:15booked the only way you can come is if you show up at six in the morning so we drive
00:37:20overnight to
00:37:21Long Island we sleep in the parking lot of a stop and shop very romantic and then we get up
00:37:28and we go to
00:37:28the skydiving place and when you get there the first thing they have you do is sign a waiver that
00:37:34says
00:37:35if I die my bad and then they make you read the waiver out loud into a camera
00:37:44so somewhere for recorded history is a video of me saying I guess I am paying to kill myself
00:37:55and in that moment I learned how brave Carrie was because she reads that waiver like Captain America
00:38:03like she would be honored to die on this day and I on the other hand am sobbing
00:38:12and at this point she'd probably seen me cry five or six times but every previous time
00:38:18was me explaining to her point for point the plot to Miss Saigon
00:38:25anyway we do all that and then the skydivers come out and I say the skydivers because when you go
00:38:32skydiving for the first time you don't go skydiving another guy goes skydiving and you
00:38:39are baby Bjorn to his chest so Carrie's guy comes out and bar none it is the hottest dude I
00:38:46have ever
00:38:47seen in my entire life he is fucking cut and you know like some people are too cut it's like
00:38:52all the
00:38:52veins and you're like oh relax dude this guy is yum yum two scoops like ooh delish his body was
00:39:00so good
00:39:01does this make sense his body was so good that I imagine he was born with a ribbed penis
00:39:10do we like that or like oh it's bumpy anyway oh and he also says uh he says
00:39:16my name is Sean and I used to be a navy seal oh fuck you Sean
00:39:24all right so he's putting all these straps on camera so many straps strap strap strap then he's
00:39:28telling her exactly how the day is going to go but so like you know tenderly and I know I
00:39:33should
00:39:33be jealous but I'm really like this is hot and then my guy comes out and you can really see
00:39:41the
00:39:41groupon kicking in you know what I mean his uh his face is covered in burns for no reason I
00:39:48could
00:39:48possibly know uh it is also smooshed in on one side as if say I don't know maybe he had
00:39:54jumped
00:39:54from a plane even and landed right on his fucking face he only says one sentence to me the entire
00:40:03day
00:40:03which is if you touch my hands we both gonna die
00:40:09I don't know what race this guy was but when I find out I'm gonna be racist against those people
00:40:15we get on the plane which is basically a coffin nothing fucking works the radio doesn't they have
00:40:20to swap it out the propeller a kid has to come out on the runway and flick it like this
00:40:25as if to be
00:40:27like one more flight baby you can do it the co-pilot seat has been torn out I am sitting
00:40:33on the lap of
00:40:34my monster man with my feet touching these pedals you know and the pilot's like golly it's tough to
00:40:40steer this thing today and I'm like oh is it because my feet are touching these and he goes oh
00:40:45yeah yeah
00:40:45don't touch those why the fuck am I sitting here Sean and Carrie are strapped to each other living both
00:40:54of our fantasies we get up to like the right height wherever we're supposed to be you know it's like
00:41:00oh this
00:41:00is the most of the time to die and they get up literally and figuratively bound together and Sean
00:41:05says I'm gonna walk you to the aperture we'll both tumble out and that is exactly what they do it
00:41:10is
00:41:10beautiful synchronicity symbiosis it's fantastic my Frankenstein lurches to his feet and that's when
00:41:19I realized for the first time how much taller than me he is because as he's doing this my feet
00:41:25are just
00:41:25dangling in the air he looks at the opening and runs full fucking speed hits the air and goes
00:41:33all the way down the whole way it's fucking it's insanity and there's one point where you're at the
00:41:42opening and you're totally vertical and you're looking out and you're like oh my god the world
00:41:46is so beautiful and then you tip a little bit and you're like fuck I'm not supposed to do this
00:41:50this is wrong the other thing that's crazy is that it takes forever to fall if you've ever done
00:41:57this before you cannot believe how much time you have to consider everything that has led you to
00:42:02this point you can see all of Long Island from end to end and everybody is just doing their regular
00:42:12shit you know what I mean like they're picking up their kids from school they're going to McDonald's
00:42:17they're playing tennis whatever the fuck they do not care that you are right there hurtling through
00:42:24the sky it is a perfect and abject solitude that I've only felt twice in my life one was skydiving
00:42:34and the other was trying to reintegrate myself into the world after my son had died you can't believe
00:42:42believe that everybody keeps doing their regular shit I'm at a restaurant with my wife and my dad
00:42:50and the table over here is laughing and having such a good time and I want to be like could
00:42:56you shut the
00:42:57fuck up and there's all this commotion the waiter drops off the menus my dad goes to the bathroom
00:43:04we're in the middle of this you know hubbub and I look at Carrie and I say we're the only
00:43:13ones
00:43:15and she nods and says nothing my dad comes back they take our order we eat dinner I went back
00:43:26to
00:43:26tutoring most of my students had switched to other tutors which makes a ton of sense no one wants to
00:43:33learn
00:43:33the law of cosines or whatever from the world's saddest man the hospital that asked us to make the
00:43:38videos quietly rescinded that offer also very smart those would have been some extremely sad videos
00:43:46it wasn't anybody's fault but we felt utterly alone
00:43:54and grief wasn't always like that it used to be back in the day you expected people to die and
00:44:04they did
00:44:05and everybody dealt with it
00:44:10this next part of the show is
00:44:14it's a little controversial I guess
00:44:20my feeling is that
00:44:23advances
00:44:24advances
00:44:25in in medical science
00:44:27are what ruined
00:44:29the way that we relate
00:44:31to grief
00:44:33first of all
00:44:34COVID is a hoax
00:44:36in 2016
00:44:37Hillary Clinton sent an email to a lab in Wuhan
00:44:41I'm just kidding but
00:44:47imagine
00:44:47imagine if that was the point of the whole show
00:44:50I do all of this to get you there
00:44:53you go out in the lobby I'm like selling quartz and shit
00:44:57no but for real
00:44:58this is how I believe science fucked up grief
00:45:02for most of modern history grief was very public
00:45:05ritual wailing the death wail keening
00:45:08a bunch of ladies screaming that was totally normal all over the world
00:45:11in China Brazil Australia Scotland Ireland
00:45:15in a lot of these places you would hire a lady to scream her friggin brains out to mourn the
00:45:19dead
00:45:20and the best wailers were in high demand
00:45:23religion has always played a huge role in grief especially rituals
00:45:26Muslims observe hiddaad a three-day mourning period
00:45:29the Jews my people sit shiva for seven days not to brag
00:45:33and Christians have something called the funeral
00:45:36and that's it
00:45:37no
00:45:38actually that whole religion is grief
00:45:40if this dude doesn't die we don't have any of it
00:45:43no Christmas
00:45:43no Easter
00:45:44no Pope
00:45:45no Pope Mobile
00:45:46no two Popes
00:45:47no young Pope starring Jude Law
00:45:49which means no this picture of Diane Keaton playing question mark basketball question mark
00:45:55we needed the rituals because everyone was dying all the time
00:45:59you'd be living in the woods have 12 kids seven of them die and everyone's like yeah no shit
00:46:03if you got sick you died runny nose you're dead headache dead rash dead
00:46:08if you got sick you went to your priest or your rabbi or whatever to get right with God
00:46:13because you were going to die
00:46:15and hopefully you didn't give them whatever you had because then they were going to die too
00:46:18so grief was terrible but it was normal
00:46:21this lasts all the way up to at least the middle of the 19th century
00:46:24when there is so much grief
00:46:27here in the U.S. there's a civil war that the North won depending on who you ask
00:46:31but it killed 600,000 Americans
00:46:34while in England the Queen's husband dies and she goes into mourning for 40 years
00:46:39this is what I'm calling peak grief
00:46:41Queen Victoria was a national icon and hero
00:46:45so when she started wearing mourning dress it became chic
00:46:47if you were an English woman in the 1860s you were like please let my husband die
00:46:52because you had a killer black situation you were dying to put on
00:46:55it was like the boot cut jeans of 200 years ago
00:46:58but at the same time something happened that changed the grief world forever
00:47:03this dude Louis Pasteur discovers that germs cause sickness and medicine goes crazy
00:47:09before Pasteur one of the prevailing scientific beliefs is something called spontaneous generation
00:47:15the idea that life can come from nowhere
00:47:17you would have a fish that died and maggots would just appear in the fish
00:47:22he proved that wasn't true
00:47:24he proved it was germs and bacteria that infiltrated living organisms
00:47:28and eventually these were revealed to be the causes of so many illnesses
00:47:32this is a slide about that experiment
00:47:35I don't understand it
00:47:37literally why did I put it in there
00:47:40before Pasteur no anesthesia no antiseptics
00:47:43so if you had surgery you were awake and you felt it
00:47:46so the best thing a surgeon could be was fast
00:47:49this was the man Robert Liston
00:47:51the best surgeon in the world who could do an amputation in 25 seconds
00:47:56the problem was it was very easy to get infections
00:47:59because we use the same tools all day for every surgery
00:48:02no hand washing
00:48:04you have butt cancer
00:48:05you need a c-section
00:48:07you're both getting the same knife
00:48:09same hands
00:48:10here's how bad this was
00:48:11Robert Liston's most famous surgery
00:48:14he's amputating a dude
00:48:15he accidentally slices his assistant's finger
00:48:18the patient dies from an infection
00:48:20the assistant dies from an infection
00:48:22a guy watching dies from shock
00:48:25making it the only surgery in history
00:48:27where one dude went in
00:48:29but three dudes died
00:48:31and that's the best surgeon in the world
00:48:35after Pasteur a guy named Joseph Lister
00:48:37no relation
00:48:38incorporates Pasteur's discovery into surgeries
00:48:41and everything changes
00:48:43surgeries work
00:48:44people stop dying from infections
00:48:47in fact
00:48:48Joseph Lister was so successful
00:48:51that to this day
00:48:52we have a mouthwash named after him
00:48:55called
00:48:55Scope
00:48:57you're right of course
00:48:58it's Listerine
00:48:59I just love this ad for Scope
00:49:01called the Onion Test
00:49:02I don't know exactly how it works
00:49:04but I do know that at the end
00:49:05those two people for sure
00:49:07fuck that onion
00:49:10now when you get sick
00:49:11you don't go to your priest
00:49:12you go to your doctor
00:49:14you don't get sicker
00:49:15you get better
00:49:17and once people stop dying
00:49:18death isn't normal anymore
00:49:20it's not inevitable
00:49:21it's a failure
00:49:22it's a shame
00:49:23so we don't talk about it
00:49:25we keep our grief to ourselves
00:49:27and that
00:49:28is how science
00:49:29fucked up grief
00:49:31what a good job I did
00:49:35there are parts of the world
00:49:37where people observe some traditions
00:49:38that are very different in grief
00:49:40in Ghana
00:49:41they have these things called
00:49:42fantasy coffins
00:49:43where you might be buried
00:49:44in a coffin that resembles
00:49:45something you loved
00:49:46during your life
00:49:47so if you loved animals
00:49:49you might be buried inside of a lion
00:49:50if you love vehicles
00:49:52you might be buried inside of a car
00:49:53and if you love chili peppers
00:49:55literally no problem my dude
00:49:57we're gonna bury you
00:49:58in a friggin chili pepper
00:49:59in Tibet
00:50:00sometimes the ground is too cold
00:50:02to dig a grave
00:50:03so a priest might carry
00:50:05your cadaver up a mountain
00:50:07smash it into pieces
00:50:09vultures fly in
00:50:10eat your body
00:50:11and fly off in separate directions
00:50:12in something called
00:50:14a sky funeral
00:50:15and in Papua New Guinea
00:50:17the Da'ani tribe
00:50:18used to have a ritual
00:50:20where if someone close to you died
00:50:22you would amputate
00:50:24the tip of your finger
00:50:25and I know that sounds brutal
00:50:27and it is
00:50:29but it's also
00:50:30a beautiful
00:50:32shorthand
00:50:36for
00:50:38who's going to understand
00:50:39my grief
00:50:40right
00:50:41because it can be so hard
00:50:42to talk about
00:50:43with people who don't get it
00:50:45case in point
00:50:46I am now going to show you
00:50:48some of the real cards
00:50:50on the internet
00:50:51that you can give
00:50:52to someone
00:50:53who has lost a child
00:50:54and you will see
00:50:55how fucking weird
00:50:56we are about this
00:50:57these are real cards
00:50:59first one
00:51:00there is no grief
00:51:01carried as heavy
00:51:02no loss
00:51:03aching as deep
00:51:04than a child
00:51:06forever so missed
00:51:07what
00:51:10first of all
00:51:11that's not how you spell grief
00:51:14second
00:51:15the grammar's insane
00:51:16as deep
00:51:17than a child
00:51:18no
00:51:18and finally
00:51:20the audacity
00:51:21the temerity
00:51:23to change fonts
00:51:25every
00:51:25line
00:51:27it doesn't make me think
00:51:29you feel bad for me
00:51:30it makes me think
00:51:31you are right now
00:51:32doing cocaine
00:51:35this one
00:51:36yeah you're seeing it
00:51:37it is a child loss
00:51:39musical sympathy card
00:51:41no one
00:51:42wants this
00:51:44what song
00:51:45could possibly
00:51:47play
00:51:47when I open
00:51:48this up
00:51:52somebody
00:51:53wants
00:51:54to be
00:51:54no thank you
00:51:55this is the most
00:51:57common stuff
00:51:57the tide
00:51:58the tide recedes
00:52:00but leaves behind
00:52:00bright seashells
00:52:01on the sand
00:52:02the sun goes down
00:52:03but gentle warmth
00:52:04still lingers on the land
00:52:05the music stops
00:52:06yet echoes on
00:52:07and sweet soulful
00:52:08refrains
00:52:08for every joy
00:52:09that passes
00:52:10something beautiful
00:52:11remains
00:52:11author unknown
00:52:14I too would be
00:52:15unknown if I wrote
00:52:16shit like that
00:52:18but
00:52:18in fairness
00:52:19let me say that
00:52:20people don't know
00:52:21what to say
00:52:22and
00:52:23there is nothing
00:52:24good to say
00:52:25right
00:52:25you're fucked
00:52:25so
00:52:26you go to a card store
00:52:28and you buy this
00:52:29and you hope that it will
00:52:30say it for you
00:52:31and
00:52:31somebody gets this card
00:52:33and they toss it in a drawer
00:52:34because they think
00:52:34it's bullshit
00:52:35and they open up that drawer
00:52:36six months later
00:52:37they read it
00:52:38and they just start sobbing
00:52:40and they're like
00:52:41oh my god
00:52:41bright seashells
00:52:43only author unknown
00:52:45really knew me
00:52:47this is a picture of my kids
00:52:48that I love
00:52:49it was taken when they were
00:52:53dealing drugs I guess
00:52:58we talk about grief with them
00:53:00a lot
00:53:00I don't know
00:53:01too much maybe
00:53:02and it has manifested itself
00:53:04in some interesting ways
00:53:05Truman was at a show and tell
00:53:08and
00:53:08one kid says
00:53:09I have a bicycle
00:53:10another kid says
00:53:11I'm from Minnesota
00:53:12and Truman says
00:53:13I have a dead brother
00:53:16we tipped that teacher
00:53:17like a trillion dollars
00:53:18at Christmas
00:53:20Willa was at a museum
00:53:22at a children's museum
00:53:23at this exhibit
00:53:24and at the end
00:53:25of this museum
00:53:26there was a little exhibit
00:53:27where they were passing around
00:53:28a fantastical hat
00:53:29and whoever's wearing the hat
00:53:31gets to be the leader
00:53:32in a game of
00:53:32follow the leader
00:53:33so they put the hat
00:53:34on this one little boy
00:53:35and he proudly shouts
00:53:39everybody jump
00:53:40and a whole sea of kids
00:53:42jumps at the same time
00:53:43it's really
00:53:44it's beautiful
00:53:44it's life affirming
00:53:45and they put the hat
00:53:47on this little girl
00:53:48and she's shy
00:53:49and she says
00:53:51everybody touch your toes
00:53:53and a whole room of kids
00:53:54simultaneously
00:53:55touches their toes
00:53:57and it's really
00:53:57it's really wonderful
00:53:58and then they put the hat
00:54:00on my daughter
00:54:00and she crosses her arms
00:54:03and steps back
00:54:04and goes
00:54:06kill yourselves
00:54:12it's probably the funniest thing
00:54:14I have ever seen
00:54:16in real life
00:54:20she brought the idea
00:54:22of death
00:54:23to these children
00:54:24and also
00:54:25they're a very compliant bunch
00:54:27so they're all like
00:54:28how would I
00:54:32this is them
00:54:33now
00:54:35yeah Truman's just got
00:54:36the braces in
00:54:37so he has Nick smiling
00:54:38with teeth
00:54:39for a little while
00:54:39that's my dog
00:54:41he plays soccer
00:54:42he's really into history
00:54:43Willa
00:54:44was recently voted
00:54:46most likely
00:54:46to be an Olympian
00:54:47in her class
00:54:48among several
00:54:48other superlatives
00:54:49she is into gymnastics
00:54:52and theater
00:54:53and they are the best
00:54:56and they are pretty good siblings
00:54:58they get along
00:54:59almost like
00:55:0020% of the time
00:55:02and they have each other's backs
00:55:04which is cool
00:55:05even if they don't understand
00:55:07exactly what it is
00:55:08they are supporting
00:55:09a great example of that
00:55:11is that
00:55:12Willa really likes
00:55:13Taylor Swift
00:55:14so we took her
00:55:16to see
00:55:17Taylor Swift's
00:55:18movie
00:55:21and Truman was like
00:55:22yeah I'll come
00:55:22I'll see what all that's about
00:55:23so here's a video of that
00:55:25great movie by the way
00:55:27everybody having the time
00:55:28of their lives
00:55:29you're going to see
00:55:30my wife
00:55:31and my daughter
00:55:32and there
00:55:33is Truman
00:55:41yeah man
00:55:41they're just
00:55:42they're just
00:55:44there is
00:55:45nothing better
00:55:46than those kids
00:55:47they're the best people
00:55:48that I know
00:55:48if I had a million hours
00:55:49I could never tell you
00:55:50how much I love them
00:55:53a thing that I think about
00:55:54all the time
00:55:56is that
00:55:58Fisher would have liked them
00:56:03I
00:56:04told you
00:56:06the saddest sentence
00:56:07in the English language before
00:56:09I think the second
00:56:11saddest might be
00:56:13I
00:56:14started
00:56:15a podcast
00:56:18which I did do
00:56:19and
00:56:20I don't want to
00:56:21plug it or anything
00:56:22gross like that
00:56:23I will only say
00:56:24that it is
00:56:25transcendent
00:56:29I talk with
00:56:31my friends
00:56:32and other people
00:56:32that I find interesting
00:56:33about grief
00:56:34and one of them
00:56:35said something to me
00:56:36that really stuck
00:56:37with me
00:56:38which is that
00:56:39the dead are still
00:56:41with us
00:56:42and that
00:56:43sounds like bullshit
00:56:45on its face
00:56:45but the way he explained
00:56:47it made a lot of sense
00:56:48he said that
00:56:50well
00:56:51all of you
00:56:52yeah
00:56:52you all have people
00:56:54in your lives
00:56:55living people
00:56:55who are not here
00:56:58they're just
00:56:59one room over
00:57:00say
00:57:01and
00:57:02even though
00:57:03they're not here
00:57:04everything you do
00:57:06is processed
00:57:07through an algorithm
00:57:08of your relationship
00:57:09to those people
00:57:10who are not here
00:57:12okay
00:57:13the dead are also
00:57:15not here
00:57:16maybe they're not
00:57:17in the next room
00:57:19but just
00:57:20one room further
00:57:21and yet
00:57:23everything you do
00:57:25is processed
00:57:26through
00:57:26your relationship
00:57:28to
00:57:28and your memory
00:57:29of them
00:57:31you think
00:57:32things are one way
00:57:33but they can also
00:57:34be another way
00:57:38when
00:57:39I was at the bottom
00:57:40of this
00:57:41one of the places
00:57:42that I turned to
00:57:43for comfort
00:57:44was the internet
00:57:47which is a bad idea
00:57:48and an especially
00:57:49bad idea
00:57:49was turning to
00:57:50Twitter
00:57:50which is the worst
00:57:51place in the world
00:57:53as an example
00:57:54I once tweeted
00:57:55something benign
00:57:56like
00:57:56I want waiters
00:57:58to like me
00:57:59and the first
00:58:00response was
00:58:01someone saying
00:58:02I hate people
00:58:03like this
00:58:06but every year
00:58:08on the anniversary
00:58:08of Fisher's death
00:58:09I would write something
00:58:10put it on Facebook
00:58:11or Tumblr
00:58:12or Twitter
00:58:12or whatever
00:58:14and on the
00:58:1510 year anniversary
00:58:16of his death
00:58:17I wrote a long
00:58:19thread of tweets
00:58:20that started with this
00:58:24this isn't really
00:58:25what Twitter is for
00:58:26but 10 years ago
00:58:27today my son died
00:58:28and I basically
00:58:28never talk about it
00:58:29with anyone
00:58:30other than my wife
00:58:31it's taken me
00:58:3210 years to realize
00:58:33that I want to talk
00:58:34about it all the time
00:58:35this is about grief
00:58:38I wrote that
00:58:39late at night
00:58:39close the laptop
00:58:40go to bed
00:58:41wake up in the morning
00:58:42and it's like this
00:58:45thousands and thousands
00:58:46of likes
00:58:47thousands and thousands
00:58:48of retweets
00:58:48and thousands
00:58:50and thousands
00:58:50of comments
00:58:51which
00:58:52didn't really make sense
00:58:53to me
00:58:54because I'm not
00:58:55popular on Twitter
00:58:56but for whatever
00:58:58reason
00:58:58this thread
00:59:00had opened up
00:59:01a space
00:59:02for people to talk
00:59:03about tragedies
00:59:05brutal tragedies
00:59:07and all they wanted
00:59:09was for other people
00:59:10to know
00:59:11that they had
00:59:12happened
00:59:13and it was
00:59:14all kinds of people
00:59:16priests
00:59:17rabbis
00:59:18doctors
00:59:18teachers
00:59:18republicans
00:59:19democrats
00:59:21people from
00:59:22porns
00:59:23that I have seen
00:59:27responding to this
00:59:29and the stuff
00:59:31they told me
00:59:32that they told everyone
00:59:34was brutally sad
00:59:36and perversely
00:59:39it made me feel better
00:59:42here's some of what
00:59:43they wrote
00:59:45my three-year-old niece
00:59:47drowned in a pool
00:59:49I lost both of my parents
00:59:51my daughter died
00:59:53in a car wreck
00:59:55when people ask
00:59:56how many kids we have
00:59:57I want to say three
00:59:57but then I have to explain
00:59:59that we lost
00:59:59our first ten years ago
01:00:02I lost my 16-year-old son
01:00:05stillborn daughter
01:00:08my first grandchild
01:00:10my best friend
01:00:13my dad died
01:00:14from ALS
01:00:16this person said
01:00:17that's exactly
01:00:18how I felt
01:00:19when my daughter
01:00:19was diagnosed
01:00:20with cancer
01:00:21she's great now
01:00:23then get the
01:00:24fuck out of here
01:00:27we're not doing that
01:00:32unbelievable
01:00:34no it's very nice
01:00:37I also
01:00:39I wrote about
01:00:40my wife
01:00:42my dead son
01:00:44has a legacy already
01:00:45and my wife
01:00:46who became
01:00:47a pediatric
01:00:48intensive care nurse
01:00:49because of him
01:00:50can you believe it
01:00:52being around sick
01:00:53and dying children
01:00:54all day
01:00:55healing and caring
01:00:56for them
01:00:57she does that
01:00:58because of my son
01:01:00I don't know man
01:01:01that's pretty fucking cool
01:01:03going back
01:01:04into the place
01:01:05where the worst thing
01:01:06happened
01:01:07to make sure
01:01:08it doesn't happen
01:01:09to other people
01:01:11by way of contrast
01:01:13I started a podcast
01:01:19when we met
01:01:21my wife wanted
01:01:22to be an actor
01:01:23but that's not
01:01:24where her life
01:01:25took her
01:01:25it took her
01:01:26someplace different
01:01:27someplace better
01:01:29you think things
01:01:30are one way
01:01:31but they can also
01:01:32be another way
01:01:36when she graduated
01:01:37from nursing school
01:01:39they gave her
01:01:40a little pin
01:01:41to commemorate
01:01:42all the work
01:01:42that she'd done
01:01:43and at that ceremony
01:01:45my wife was pinned
01:01:47by her son
01:01:48Truman
01:01:49I love this picture
01:01:50but my favorite detail
01:01:52is probably
01:01:52this jealous gal
01:01:54right here
01:01:55ooh
01:01:55so jealous
01:01:59I maintain
01:02:00this obsession
01:02:02with the idea
01:02:03that things can be
01:02:04more than one way
01:02:07in quantum physics
01:02:10and I am now
01:02:11about to step
01:02:12like way
01:02:13outside my wheelhouse
01:02:14so
01:02:15if you are
01:02:16a quantum physicist
01:02:17and you're here
01:02:19and I say
01:02:20something wrong
01:02:20please
01:02:21shut the fuck up
01:02:24I have always
01:02:26thought of
01:02:26all things
01:02:28as particles
01:02:29right
01:02:30particles
01:02:31something I can
01:02:32touch
01:02:33that's obviously
01:02:34different from
01:02:35a wave
01:02:36right
01:02:37my voice is
01:02:38traveling out
01:02:38to all of you
01:02:39right now
01:02:39as a wave
01:02:40a wave
01:02:42is in motion
01:02:44a particle
01:02:47is
01:02:48like this
01:02:51and a wave
01:02:54is like that
01:02:57in quantum physics
01:02:59they hold
01:03:00that under the right
01:03:02circumstances
01:03:03everything
01:03:04can be both
01:03:06a particle
01:03:07and a wave
01:03:10a particle
01:03:11is here
01:03:12now
01:03:14but a wave
01:03:15which is also you
01:03:16under the right
01:03:17circumstances
01:03:18can be in multiple
01:03:20places
01:03:21crashing on shores
01:03:23simultaneously
01:03:24everywhere
01:03:27we are not
01:03:28just particles
01:03:29we are waves
01:03:31we are not
01:03:33just where we are
01:03:34we are
01:03:35everywhere
01:03:37my son
01:03:38was not
01:03:39just a particle
01:03:40he was a wave
01:03:45his life
01:03:47however short
01:03:50leads to me
01:03:51being here
01:03:52to my wife
01:03:53becoming a nurse
01:03:56something I hope
01:03:57you will remember
01:04:00things can be
01:04:01one way
01:04:03but also
01:04:04another
01:04:05way
01:04:10when I first
01:04:11started doing
01:04:12this show
01:04:14my stand-up
01:04:15friends
01:04:16were like
01:04:17don't
01:04:20you're funny
01:04:21this is sad
01:04:23and when I first
01:04:24started doing
01:04:24comedy
01:04:25the only thing
01:04:26I wanted to be
01:04:27was funny
01:04:29but then
01:04:30you reach the point
01:04:31that I got to
01:04:32which is that
01:04:33you become
01:04:36incredibly
01:04:36funny
01:04:41and then
01:04:42you're like
01:04:43what am I
01:04:44going to do
01:04:44with that
01:04:45so I'm doing
01:04:46this
01:04:46I wanted
01:04:48people to
01:04:49have permission
01:04:50to ask about
01:04:51this
01:04:51to have permission
01:04:52to talk about
01:04:53it
01:04:53to feel
01:04:54anger
01:04:55and sadness
01:04:56but also
01:04:57joy
01:04:57and whatever
01:04:59but most
01:05:00of all
01:05:05I wanted
01:05:07to keep
01:05:08my son
01:05:09alive
01:05:13I thought
01:05:14his life
01:05:14would be
01:05:15one way
01:05:16but it's
01:05:17not
01:05:18it's this
01:05:19way
01:05:22I wouldn't
01:05:23be here
01:05:23without Fisher
01:05:25you wouldn't
01:05:26be here
01:05:26without Fisher
01:05:28so who
01:05:29are we
01:05:29to say
01:05:31that he
01:05:32is not
01:05:32alive
01:05:36in the end
01:05:38I wanted
01:05:39to leave you
01:05:39with this
01:05:40beautiful tweet
01:05:41from one of
01:05:42the kindest
01:05:43people on
01:05:44the internet
01:05:48thank you
01:05:49and if you
01:05:50can't read
01:05:50the handle
01:05:51there
01:05:51it is
01:05:52potato
01:05:52pussy
01:05:53trademark
01:05:59Fisher
01:06:00Daniel
01:06:02Cain
01:06:05forever
01:06:05and ever
01:06:09things can
01:06:09be one
01:06:10way
01:06:10but they
01:06:11can also
01:06:11be another
01:06:12way
01:06:14he was
01:06:14a particle
01:06:16he is
01:06:17a wave
01:06:17a wave
01:06:18and
01:06:25oh
01:06:28yeah
01:06:32I
01:06:33I
01:06:36then
01:06:40I
01:06:41do
01:06:43I
01:06:44do
01:06:46I
01:06:46do
01:06:46do
01:06:46I
01:06:47I
01:06:47I
01:06:47I
01:06:47I
01:06:54I love you!
01:06:55Thank you!
01:07:00Thanks for coming.
01:07:02Have a great night, everybody.
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