Sandra Bernhard, holy shit.
I wouldn't fuck Sandra Bernhard with Bea Arthur's dick.
Anyway, Biebs, you have such a huge career behind you.
Snoop, love you, man, so much.
Only person that's inhaled more smoke than Snoop
is Pete Davidson's dad inside the World Trade Center.
-Thanks, Pete. I'm sorry, Shaq. -What? It's funny.
I know that was your favorite building to climb.
Tom, you're an example to future generations
that if you work hard, eat right,
film the other team's practices,
deflate the balls, and have the NFL make new rules just for you,
then you, too, can be the third most famous guy
in a Dunkin' Donuts commercial.
Let's fucking go!
New York City!
Please welcome the Roastmaster General,
Jeff Ross!
Let's go, everybody!
What are we doing? What are we doing?
What's going on? How you doing, everybody?
We're on Broadway, baby!
Whoo!
Take a deep breath, everybody.
Wherever you're watching this from right now, take a deep breath.
Leave the outside outside.
I want this to be a cathartic experience for all of us.
If you're going through something intense in your life right now,
you're in the right place.
I've become really good at cheering people up.
My friend Donald was 86 years old in hospice care.
His kidneys were failing, he didn't want to go on anymore.
His daughter Sarah, who's one of my besties,
she said, "Jeff, my dad loves you. You're the only one he wants to talk to."
"Please go cheer him up."
I sat with him for a couple hours, I held his hand.
We talked about his great life, his beautiful family.
Finally, I said, "Donald, I'm no longer comfortable
with you as my emergency contact."
So, stuff you're going through, you think you'll never get over, you'll get over it.
You might even laugh about it someday.
I used to have a big, beautiful Jewfro.
Oh, I loved it. I took it everywhere.
And one day on a plane, I scratched my head and a big clump of hair fell out.
Then that night in the shower, the whole drain was full.
Within a week, I was bald.
Within three weeks, my eyebrows, my eyelashes were all gone.
Turns out, I have alopecia.
Any other alopecians here?
It's not life-threatening, but I did transform into Voldemort's lawyer.
I know I look like Jeff Bezos if instead of Amazon, he invented mozzarella sticks.
I look like Bruce Willis if his trainer also had dementia.
Yeah.
My kind of crowd.
I can laugh at myself because I have thick skin.
I come from a family of ball-busters in Newark, New Jersey.
Security.
My real last name is Lifshultz.
That's an old Hebrew word. It means, "Hey, you ought to change that."
My middle name is Ross.
I'm named after my Great-Grandma Rosie.
Yep. England had Queen Elizabeth.
Newark, New Jersey had Queen Rosie.
She was a pioneer in her field.
She started a catering hall in Newark in the '50s,
before women really had big businesses like that.
She ran it with her three sons.
My pop Herb was the band leader.
That was his music you heard when you were coming in.
My Uncle Murray ran the kitchen, and my Uncle Albie cooked the books.
It was a family business.
Judy Blume even wrote about Clinton Manor in one of her novels.
She said it was every Jersey girl's dream to grow up
and have a big, schmaltzy wedding at Clinton Manor.
Yep, Great-Grandma Rosie, she'd work in the kitchen all day long,
and at night, she'd go upstairs, she'd put on a gown,
she'd put a rose in her hair, and she would run these big, beautiful weddings
and make dreams come true.
There she is.
Right before she got drafted by the Pittsburgh Steelers.
And she threw big family parties.
She kept our crazy family together, and she taught us right from wrong.
One time, Great-Grandma Rosie was driving down to Florida for a vacation
with her husband, my Great-Grandpa Gus,
and this guy Lee that worked in the catering hall with them.
I remember Lee, he was a wonderful guy.
And they stopped in South Carolina to rest for the night,
and the hotel wouldn't let them check in because their friend Lee was Black.
So my great-grandma Rosie went back to her car, got her gun,
and killed everyone at the hotel.
"Don't fuck with the Jews."
That's what she used to sing to us at bedtime.
So I learned early on that comedy isn't just in my blood,
it's my superpower.
And this is my origin story.
When I was a young boy in Newark
Just trying to be a mensch And do my schoolwork
This bully didn't like me
"Dirty Jew," he'd heckle
And then he punched me Right in my schmeckle
As I lie on the floor in pain
I knew my best weapon was my brain
So I stood up, I said, "Hey, jerk you'll never be a scholar
'Cause your uncle is also your father"
All the kids laughed As the bully's face turned red
The kid was fine But the bully inside him was dead
And then, like a miracle
Jokes started flowing out of me faster and faster
And that was the day I became
The Roastmaster
So, don't fuck with the Jews
Don't fuck with the Jews
Unless you want your ego badly bruised
Never again fuck with the Jews
Yeah!
Growing up, the Jews I knew
were all hard-working, blue-collar union people,
patriots even.
My Uncle Murray was an Army medic during World War II.
He helped liberate a concentration camp.
What'd you do today?
He got a Purple Heart and a Silver Star from the U.S. Army.
My sister Robyn is the funniest one in the family.
She's a special ed teacher, so she always has new material.
My cousin Steve, who's here tonight, is an emergency room surgeon.
My nephew Jared fights wildfires.
And when I was six, I was getting bullied at school,
so my mom dragged me off to a karate class,
where all the kids took turns beating me up.
But it toughened me up quick.
My mom took me every day, my dad picked me up afterwards.
I learned discipline. I learned respect.
And at the age of ten and a half, I became the second-youngest black belt
in the United States.
They call me Kosher Kai.
Jews, we've been around a long time.
We survived the pharaoh The Nazis, and Saddam Hussein
And if Jesus comes back
We'll kill him again
So don't fuck with the Jews
Don't fuck with the Jews
Even if that killing Jesus thing Isn't really true
Never again fuck with the Jews
Yes.
Eventually…
Eventually, that catering hall passed down to my dad,
the New Jersey catering legend Ronnie Lifshultz.
Give him a round of applause.
There he is, fearlessly serving prime rib with his bare hands.
Anything to make the customers laugh and be happy. Whole family worked there.
While my friends were out partying, I was carving briskets at bar mitzvahs.
Clinton Manor was a melting pot of ball-busting.
All the waitresses were Irish and Scottish,
and all the guys who worked in the kitchen with me were Haitian.
Gregory made the salads. He was Russian.
Lester made all the Jello molds. He was Hungarian.
And I was the boss's son.
So I learned to take it, and I learned to dish it out.
And I worked as hard as anybody in that catering hall,
but I knew that that wasn't my destiny.
I wanted to follow in that great Jewish tradition of creating things.
Jews, we've created some of the most amazing inventions
in the history of the world, such as
Barbie dolls, teddy bears
Nuclear-powered submarines
Typewriters, Prozac, Drones, and denim jeans
Bagels are really good
Comedy roasts, Hollywood
All created by Jews
Hey, Plan B, color TV
Theory of relativity
Google, kugel, cosmetic surgery
You're welcome, lady.
Pickles, pagers, lipstick, and lasers
All created by who?
The Jews!
Christmas…
Oh, Jews, we love Christmas.
Because it celebrates the birth of a Jew, Jesus Chaim Christ,
who was a Jewish carpenter, the only one in all of civilization.
Somebody told me the other day that the singer Adele is Jewish.
Yeah, her full name is Adele Katessin.
And even the Christmas carols, the classics, like…
I'm dreaming of a white Christmas
…was actually written by a nice Jewish man named Irving Berlin,
who was probably just…
Dreaming of some 4th quarter profits
Capitalism, feminism, Circumcision, cheesecake
Radiation, irrigation, Vaccination, for Christ's sake
Gramophone, mobile phone E.T. phone home
All created by who?
Jews!
The microphone.
Yeah, at some point, some Jew was like,
"I think we need to be louder!"
And now, in honor of our Great-Grandma Rosie,
my crazy family gets together as much as possible
and makes her recipes.
Don't fuck with the Jews, especially those Chinese ones on the end.
Any fans of matzo ball soup here?
Great-Grandma Rosie called it "Jewish penicillin."
but the Jews, we didn't stop there.
We also invented penicillin.
So in honor of our Great-Grandma Rosie, follow the bouncing matzo ball.
One, two, three, so,
Don't fuck with the Jews
Wow!
Don't fuck with the Jews
If you want To hear cheers and not boos
Never again
Fuck with the Jews
Or the Blacks, or the Mexicans, or the Muslims, or the Puerto Ricans,
or the Italians,
or whatever the fuck this guy is, I don't know.
Peace on Earth!
Yeah!
L'Chaim!
Oh! Oh!
For the Pope. For the Pope. For the Pope.
For Taylor and Travis. For Taylor and Travis.
What a hot crowd, wow!
Hey, say hi to my good friends, Felix and Asher, everybody.
Wow.
Both graduates of the Berklee School of Music.
Don't be impressed, they studied accounting, but still.
I love this, beautiful people laughing in a beautiful venue.
I don't have a wife and kids to go home to.
This is what keeps me going.
And I almost died last year.
After that Tom Brady roast, I had a few weeks off.
So I was like, let me catch up.
Let me go to the dentist, let me go to the shrink.
And my buddy Jordan had been texting our chain for two years,
saying we all had to go get colonoscopies.
I had never had a colonoscopy before.
And I finally went, and it wasn't as much fun as I thought it was going to be.
I mean, there was music and baby oil, and Diddy was there.
I never got a bill, come to think of it, but…
I woke up an hour later, and the doctor was standing over me.
And he said that he found a stage 3 tumor in my colon.
And I'd never really been sick a day of my life.
I never thought it would happen to me. I canceled my shows for the year.
And last summer, I had seven inches of my colon removed.
Now I have a semicolon.
Feels good to let that out, guys.
Can I open up to you guys tonight?
Yeah?
My mom had huge tits.
Like, gigantic. And a great sense of humor.
So my dad would make her laugh just so they'd bounce up and down.
We didn't have Netflix back then. That was our entertainment.
My crazy family, we never throw anything away.
And I found a bag of love letters
that my dad wrote to my mom
when he was a freshman at this little school upstate
called Paul Smith's Junior College.
He was studying hotel and restaurant management
so that he could eventually take over the family business.
And my mom had an office job not far from here on 34th Street.
And you can see how in love they were right away.
"Dear Marsha, I don't know why you were so worried about me not writing."
"Believe me, baby, you'll never have anything to worry about
as far as you and I go."
"What do you need a bowling ball for?"
"You get them free when you go bowling."
"I haven't received my restaurant management grades yet,
but I think I failed frozen foods."
"Baby, I don't know what you're doing to me."
"Sometimes when I go to sleep, I grab my pillow and I dream that it's you."
"I really think I'm going crazy."
"Love and all the rest of the crap that goes with it."
"Ronnie."
"P.S. My birthday's November 3rd. When's yours?"
So that was it. He flunked out.
They got married at the Clinton Manor.
Great-Grandma Rosie cashed in all the favors,
threw them the wedding of the century.
And they went upstairs to the bridal suite,
they took each other's clothes off,
and they started making… me.
Ah.
Don't judge me, I was much cuter on the ultrasound.
I was born with two minor birth defects,
which was pretty good for New Jersey back then.
Jersey!
I had this weird bump over my eye.
I looked like the UFC baby weight champion of the world.
And the hole in my penis was too small.
Yeah.
So on my first day alive, a surgeon had to cut a second hole
right behind the first hole.
So to this day, I urinate out of two separate streams.
I call them the Lincoln Tunnel and the Holland Tunnel.
My parents tried everything to get rid of me.
They tried drowning me.
When that didn't work, they tried giving me diabetes.
Ah. There's my Pop Herb and my Aunt Donna.
I get sentimental when I see these films.
I miss that cake. That was a good cake.
16 months later, my parents tried again, and they got it right.
My sister Robyn, I called her "Wawa."
She was born, and you can see, she was a perfect baby, a baby's baby.
Even other babies looked at Wawa and were like, wow, that's a BILF right there.
My dad…
would do anything for a laugh.
Hanukkah is eight nights long.
Kids usually get a different present every night.
My dad would always give us a terrible present
right before he gave us the one we really wanted.
"Oh, thanks, Dad, scotch tape."
And he'd wait like 15, 20 minutes, and he'd be like,
"All right, go in the fridge, get me a soda."
I'd open the fridge, and there'd be a puppy in there.
It was a simpler time.
You could still freeze a puppy for a laugh.
One time, I was mouthing off to my mom, and she went to smack me,
and because I'd been studying karate…
…I blocked it and sprained her pinky.
She wasn't mad. She laughed all the way to the emergency room
because she knew she was preparing me for whatever was next.
When I was 12, we found out that my mom had leukemia.
And it became my mission to cheer her up.
She used to collect little elephant statues.
A lot of people know about this.
She said if the trunk was up, then that brought positive energy.
My mom's so positive.
They originally told her she had six months to live.
Two years later, she was in remission, coming out of the hospital,
excited for my sister's upcoming bat mitzvah party.
And I found this letter…
that she wrote to my dad from the hospital.
"Dear Ronnie…"
"I'm coming home in the morning, and I wanted to tell you some things."
"My fingers are shaky from the medication, but you can read it."
"I couldn't have made this recovery without your support,
and sneaky little hidden things you wouldn't let them tell me."
Both my parents kind of let themselves go over the years.
My dad was working long hours at the catering hall,
and it put a strain on their marriage.
But her illness glued them back together.
We were visiting her at the hospital, and my dad picked up her medical chart
and saw that the doctor wrote, "Patient is SOB."
My dad threw the chart down, ran out in the hallway, he found this doctor.
He said, "How could you call my wife a son of a bitch?"
"She's a sick woman! You're a son of a bitch!"
The doctor politely explained that SOB stood for "short of breath."
Or else the doctor was very good at improv.
Either way, I liked that my dad had my mom's back.
"Ronnie, we have a wonderful, wonderful family, the four of us,
with a chance to start over, almost a miracle."
"Maybe it is one."
"We'll all work hard together, slowly please."
"First, you have to get me through the next month, day by day."
"I'm very frightened."
"If this horrible disease is what it took to bring us closer, it was worth it."
"These last few years, it was me that I was hating, not you."
"My fat made me so unhappy."
"Have patience."
"Love you very, very much."
"Marsha."
So honest.
And yeah, she's wearing a wig in these pictures.
But we had a great time that night.
We danced a lot.
We even danced to her favorite song, "Piano Man," by Billy Joel.
Don't play it, we can't afford the rights.
By now, we were living in a new town.
My sister and I were trying to make new friends.
My mom was back in the hospital a lot.
So my sister Robyn and I were becoming more independent,
making our own dinners, doing our own laundry, and…
One afternoon, my dad came home from visiting my mom in the hospital.
He called us into the living room.
He said, "Jeff, Robyn, come here."
He put his arms around us.
He said, "I don't know what to tell you kids, but… Mommy passed away today."
"You can stay here with me, or you can go in your room, whatever you want."
I remember sitting in my room.
I was 15,
thinking, "Wow, is this what life is?"
"You think it's one thing and it's just another?"
Like when you go to a comedy show and some guy starts talking
about his dead relatives.
Sometimes you've got to sit back and go with the flow, know what I'm saying?
But we didn't talk about my mom much after that.
She would come to me in dreams. A lot of people tell me this happens to them.
I'm sleeping, and boom, there she is. "Mom, I thought you were dead."
"No, I'm alive." We would just laugh and cry, hug and kiss.
And of course you wake up and realize it was just a dream.
It's like getting the news all over again.
But it was about that time that I decided my life was going to be different.
I was responsible for my own happiness,
and I was going to make the most of my life.
I learned early on, human beings were made to mourn
and then move on.
You can't mourn forever, or a part of you dies.
That's not fair.
So we did what human beings are supposed to do.
We bounced back.
My dad started making real money in the catering hall,
and he was a single dad doing the best he could.
He started going to Atlantic City. The casinos opened up.
He would play blackjack.
He met Don Rickles at a steakhouse.
He was becoming this rock star caterer, everybody knew him.
One day I was playing poker with my high school buddies at the kitchen table.
I took this photo, and my friend Hamo over here was crying
'cause he was down 100 bucks playing poker.
My dad came in from work, still in his tux with a pocketful of cash,
and he saw Hamo crying.
He said, "Hamo, hold on, I got you. Hold on, Hamo."
My dad went to the fridge, he opened it, and pulled out a stick of butter.
And my dad put it on the kitchen table.
He said, "Hamo,
if you can eat this stick of butter…
I'll give you $100."
Hamo took three bites and threw up in the sink, and my dad gave him $47.
Moral of the story, I have no fucking idea.
My dad was a character.
One night I had to take the garbage out, it was chilly,
so I threw his tuxedo jacket on quick,
and I happened to reach into one of his pockets,
and I pulled out a little plastic baggie of white powder.
I was like, "Why is dad carrying his own salt?"
But I figured it out, and I guess I wasn't that surprised a year later
when he picked me up early at school one day to take me to a meeting
with a college admissions counselor.
My dad hopped the curb with his car, and he was talking a mile a minute.
I realized what was happening. I got embarrassed, and lied to him.
I said, "Dad, I think they want to see me by myself for this first meeting,"
and I went without him.
A year later, I headed up to college.
I went up to Boston University.
I majored in film, and I minored in political science,
but mostly I just did bong hits and watched Spinal Tap with my friends.
Some of them are here tonight.
I started playing in punk rock bands.
I was the music director of my college radio station.
The highlight of every week was Saturday nights.
My friends and I would go to the Exeter Street Theatre
and act out The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
Oh, I looked so hot in those fishnet stockings.
I was letting my freak flag fly for the first time,
having so much fun, being creative.
Halfway through my junior year…
I got an urgent call from my grandfather, he'd been living with us.
And he said, "Come home right away, champ."
My dad was in the hospital. He had a brain aneurysm from the cocaine.
He was in a coma, and three days later, he was gone too.
And I try not to be mad at him.
He was living his life.
Do I wish he hadn't lied on his life insurance policy about quitting smoking?
Yeah, I wouldn't be doing eight shows a week, I'll tell you that.
His funeral was my first time behind a microphone.
I said, "If you knew my dad, you'd know he'd want to be remembered
not with sorrow, but with a smile."
Everybody we know came to the house. My sister and I were still teenagers.
So our neighbors and friends were all like,
"You and Robyn are orphans now."
"Come live with us. We'll adopt you."
And we were like, "Get the fuck out of our house."
"This is our house now."
The rabbi came over to do this mourner's prayer.
Everyone's in the room, it's very sad, and my sister and I
locked eyes across the room.
She looked down, started laughing.
So I looked down, and I saw that her puppy
had been quietly humping the rabbi's leg.
The rabbi was pretending it wasn't happening.
Within seconds, I was laughing, and everybody was laughing.
Even the rabbi and the puppy were laughing.
That's when I realized our parents left us with another self-defense technique
in the form of a sense of humor,
an ability to laugh at the darkest things.
And it saved my life.
My parents, they never saw me perform, not once.
They would have loved my life, man.
They would have loved this for sure. They would have been here every night.
They would have.
Probably sitting right here in the front row
instead of these… two random nobodies.
Are you proud of me?
Yes.
I'm proud of you guys, too. You're doing a great job.
You know, I was putting this show together, thinking,
"Should I even be talking about my parents like this,
reading their love letters?"
They're not here to laugh along with us.
My mom, I barely remember my mom at this point.
My dad died suddenly with so much left unsaid.
So I wanted to think about it, clear my head.
I took a few days off and went camping with buddies upstate.
I'd never been there before, and I'm driving to the campsite.
It's getting dark, and I'm lost.
I'm so lost, I don't even realize I'm lost.
I drive 20 minutes in the wrong direction, and I finally figured it out.
And right where I happened to do a U-turn,
right in front of my car was a bench
and a bus stop
and a sign that said, Paul Smith Junior College.
I was like, "What? Wait."
"That's that college that my dad fell in love with my mom, wrote love letters."
Like, I couldn't believe it.
I knew it meant something…
because right next to the bench were two deer,
just standing on the side of the road, just staring at me.
One of the deer had huge tits.
Other one had white powder here, talking a mile a minute, giving me directions.
I was like, "All right already!"
But it did inspire me to keep going,
to keep trying to understand my parents better
so that maybe their lives would help others understand their lives better.
Right before this run, I went through all their stuff again,
and I found an old box of tax returns
I kept for some reason.
I pulled out a FedEx envelope, I opened it up, and this slipped out of it.
I must have read it once, thrown it in the envelope, and forgot about it.
It's the only letter my dad ever wrote me.
"Dear Jeff, you know, I'm not very good at letter writing,
but I felt what I had to say should be put into words."
"Most fathers love their children, but very few are fortunate enough
to like them as friends also."
"I'm not sure you will understand what I mean,
but someday with kids of your own, I know you will."
Well, Dad,
I've personally paid for 11 abortions.
I don't know if that's what you mean.
But I'm with you so far.
"The first thing I would like to do is go back and remember the joys
you've given me over the years."
"Coming home from karate school
and all the laughs we had over silly things in the car."
"And of course, watching you run out on the field
for the high school state championship game."
We were 0-11. He's just fucking with me here.
"Watching your excellent work habits when you started working for Clinton Manor,
and never taking advantage of being the boss's son."
That felt good.
"The way we laughed when you threw spaghetti on my lap."
My mom would start spaghetti fights in the kitchen.
She'd go, "Spaghetti, one, two, three," and we'd throw spaghetti all over.
My sister and I still do it.
I highly recommend it.
"And today, Jeff, watching you receive your high school diploma."
"I know we hardly ever talk about your mother,
but I know we all think about her from time to time."
"How proud she must feel right now."
"I know over the years I've not shown the emotion I really feel for you,
but it's always there."
"If I cut you short when you were looking to talk to me, I'm sorry."
We worked long hours in the catering hall.
If I wanted to talk to my dad in private, we had to go into a walk-in refrigerator.
So all our father-son chats were brief, and our nipples were hard.
"Since your mother has passed away,
I haven't spent enough time with you and your sister."
"It was difficult 'cause of the way my business has grown
and the way I was running out at night instead of spending more time together."
"I hope you haven't missed a traditional home life too much, and if you have,
let me apologize now."
"I want to close this letter by saying you're the best."
"I couldn't ask for a better son."
"You're kind, you're good, and you have your head on straight."
"Stay that way, Jeff, and you will always be happy and do well in life."
"I will always love you and like you as a friend."
"Your father," with an exclamation point.
Dad, if you're proud of me, send me a sign.
Thank you, Dad.
Maybe after the show.
I feel so lucky.
I had great parents, and they raised me just enough.
You know, you take hits like that as a young person, it changes you.
Some of you know.
Sometimes it's hard to make long-term plans
because you feel like it's all going to fall apart.
Sometimes it's hard to get close to people 'cause you feel like
they're just going to disappear.
I do the best I can.
Sometimes I put on a fake smile, hoping it becomes a real smile.
That usually works.
And my pal Mark, he's right there. Hi, Mark.
He said, "Why don't you take this comedy class,
this stand-up comedy class with me? I think you'll be good at it."
So we took the class. I had nothing to lose.
I was just this chubby loser living in New Jersey with my grandfather,
and I loved the class right away.
I hadn't been that excited about anything since karate as a little kid.
Here I was, channeling my life experiences
into something fun, something healing.
One of my first open mic jokes, I said,
"Never let your grandfather fix you up on a blind date."
She opens the door, I took one look.
Heinous.
That was her name, Heinous.
Her Hebrew name was Yech.
Man, I was hustling,
handing out flyers, doing everything I could for stage time.
Finally, the emcee at the best comedy club in New York took a liking to me.
Started inviting me to the diner across from the club.
After the shows, he'd give me tips and pointers, advice.
Nobody ever believed in me before. It was so cool.
One night he even said, "Jeff, I think you could become an actor."
"Really? "Yeah," he said, "You should take acting lessons."
"Wow, okay."
He said, "You know what, I'm going to give you your first acting lesson."
It was two o'clock in the morning. He said, "I live just a few blocks away."
We went back to his apartment.
He said, "Let's start with some breathing exercises. Close your eyes."
He put his hand here. He said… "Relax."
"Breathe, Jeff."
"Jeff, you're not relaxing. Keep your eyes closed, relax."
"Breathe, Jeff, relax."
And his hand got right about here.
And I realized, and I stepped back.
I said, "Hey, man, I don't know. I don't know, man."
"I got to go. I got to go."
"My grandfather's waiting for me back in New Jersey."
And I was humiliated.
But I still went back to that comedy club every night.
I don't want to let this weirdo stand in my way
of my new dream of being a stand-up comic.
Sometimes I feel like I even owe the guy a debt of gratitude
for showing me how tough show business could be.
And he's here tonight. Give him a round of applause.
Henry, I thought that was you.
No hard feelings.
Well, a little hard, you remember.
Sometimes I feel Like a motherless child
A long way from home
Said a long way from home
Every night after I got offstage,
I'd head back to Port Authority right over here.
I'd hop on the 114 Express bus back to New Jersey,
where I lived with my 78-year-old roommate,
my mom's dad, my Pop Jack,
my main man, my best friend, my soul brother.
We ate every meal together. We wore each other's clothes.
All my friends became his friends.
I even threw him a birthday party when he turned 79.
"Champ, tell everybody I'm 80."
"I'll get better presents that way."
I would take him to doctor appointments all day.
At night, I'd come into New York and try to get on stage,
and Pop would always give me a few dollars for the bus and a banana.
Say, "Hey, Champ, here, take a banana for the ride."
"Go ahead. You might have a potassium emergency, or…
you might get stuck in traffic,
or maybe you'll meet somebody."
"In a pinch, you can use it as a dildo. Go ahead."
"If you get sad, you can turn it sideways."
"It'll remind you to smile."
There's also his way of saying, "I can't go with you,
but I'm there with you on the ride."
He was always there for me,
even as a baby crawling on the floor of his apartment.
His wife, my Nana Helen, was making tea, and she tripped over me with the kettle
and poured a little bit of boiling water right here.
And I still have a scar, but it's not too bad,
because my Pop Jack scooped me up with his big catcher's mitt hands,
and he ran me 13 blocks to the emergency room.
World-beater energy.
He was a retired construction worker from the Bronx.
A tough guy.
Called himself a world-beater.
See that ring right there?
His ring is actually a steel bolt
from a captured Nazi submarine from World War II.
The U.S. Navy captured one Nazi U-boat the entire war.
The U-505, it's on display right now at a museum in Chicago.
And they towed it back to America to learn how the technology worked.
And my Pop Jack was a shipbuilder stationed in Baltimore,
and his crew was in charge of maintaining this captured Nazi sub for a few days.
So he pulled off a bolt, he sanded it down, and he made a ring.
And he tapped it on stuff for good luck.
Wore it his whole life. World-beater energy.
Now here we were. His wife was long gone, my sister was away at college.
We were just two lunatics living in the house that I grew up in, in New Jersey.
Sometimes I would strap on my electric guitar and our friends would come over.
Pop Jack would sing the blues in our living room.
Feeling tomorrow
Just like I feel today
Gonna pack my bags And make my getaway
Here I was, 23 years old,
trying to start my life,
wondering how much longer I could take care of my grandfather.
He was recovering from another surgery, a tough one,
and a social worker at the hospital suggested I sneak out
and tour an assisted living facility, an old-age home.
And I did, and it was nice, but I knew that wasn't for us.
I knew we were gonna ride it out together.
There's a great organization that used to come by my house,
check on my grandfather and drop off a hot meal
so I could come into New York and pursue my dream.
So big shout-out to Meals on Wheels. Great people.
And I bet there's people here tonight that are caregivers,
and I salute you.
Because I know how hard it is to take care of somebody
who can't take care of themselves.
But I can promise you this. You will look back on this time in your life with pride.
I promise you will.
Pop had this wonderful nurse, a Jamaican lady named Lily.
She used to say, "Everyone's twice a child."
"Once when they're born, and once when they die."
And I really felt that with my Pop Jack.
One time I was sleeping, and he stumbled into my room in the middle of the night
and collapsed across the bottom of my bed with his legs hanging over the side.
He was in a lot of pain. They had to crack some ribs for the surgeries.
He was lightheaded, kind of out of it, and he slept through the night,
holding my ankle,
like for grounding or warmth,
the way a little kid might hold their mom's hand as they slept.
We woke up in the morning, he wasn't embarrassed.
Just sort of resigned to the situation.
"Champ, I know I'm a pain in the balls,
but you think you can help me get out of this bed?"
And I ran around to the front of the bed, and I gave him my hand.
He didn't take my help. He just shook it. An energy shake, world-beater energy.
And he pulled himself up,
rib by rib,
like a prizefighter…
until he was standing up straight.
I said, "Pop, are you okay?"
He smiled. He said, "I wish I was a ring on my baby's hand."
"So every time she scratched her ass,
I'd see the promised land."
And that's how we started our day.
He never lost his swagger,
no matter what happened.
He even got himself a girlfriend. Her name was Sarah.
He met her at the senior center.
He said, "Champ, when it comes to romance, a little bit goes a long way."
For her birthday, he took her to the mall, got her ears pierced for the first time.
"They had to hold her down, but she did it."
But he wouldn't let Sarah visit him at the hospital. He was too proud.
He didn't want her seeing him as anything less than a Superman, a world-beater.
But I was there at the hospital with him once, and her name came up.
And he wasn't doing well, but he perked right up.
He said, "I want to talk to her. Champ, dial her number up."
So I dialed her phone.
It was the last time they ever spoke.
"Hiya, baby. It's me."
"You're not knocked up, are ya?"
"Okay, I'll be right over with my fly open."
"Anyway, baby, I hope the post office don't go out of business
on account I ain't sent you a love letter in a while."
"Have I been dreaming all this while that life could be so fair?"
"Have all these dreams I've had of you
been just castles in the air?"
"Okay, Mama, Wildflower, Zaza, Falanga,
just wanted to hear your voice."
"Pretty soon I'll be moving and zooming again, baby. I'll come scoop you up."
"We'll go get a necklace to match those earrings."
"Okay, baby…
up to the sky."
"Bye."
"Champ, shoulda seen her."
"One gold stud in each ear."
"Beautiful."
"All right,
beat it, hit the road."
"Have a good show, take a banana for the ride."
Here's the ring.
Whenever I need a little bit of that world-beater energy,
I tap this ring on something and I think about my Pop Jack.
Sometimes I think about this chick in Denver I fingerbanged one time, but…
mostly I think about my Pop Jack.
This ring isn't just a symbol of good over evil.
It's a symbol of resilience.
My Pop Jack outlived his wife,
his daughter, his body.
But he never complained, and he never felt sorry for himself,
and he taught me, "Be ready for anything,
and just keep going and going."
Our next guest is a funny young comedian
making his network television debut.
Ladies and gentlemen, a nice welcome for Jeffrey Ross.
Jeff!
Yeah! Oh, man!
This is one that my dad wrote for my mom.
It's called "Enough With the Bread Already."
Your smile blooms Like a bright summer flower
Your hair flows down Like a soft rain shower
Your eyes are like open seas Blue from coast to coast
So how come your ass looks like a truck?
Enough with the bread already
All right.
In all fairness, I want you to know my next poem was one my mom wrote
back to my dad in rebuttal.
called "Put a Shirt On, You're Scaring the Children."
Comedy has given me this backstage pass to the world.
I've performed in Australia, New Zealand, Africa, all over America,
even war zones in the Middle East.
But when I really got my black belt in busting balls
was when two of the best to ever do it, Chris Rock and Dave Chappelle,
invited me to come with them to London to be a special surprise guest
at their shows at the O2 Arena.
They said, "Just do whatever you want."
So I walked out in front of 15,000 people
and I started talking about Queen Elizabeth,
which Americans aren't supposed to do.
She was just a few miles away at Buckingham Palace.
and I said, "I love the queen 'cause she reminds me of my Great-Grandma Rosie."
"They both kept their crazy families together."
And the queen had just adopted those two Corgi puppies.
I said, "Wow, adopting puppies at 96."
"How optimistic is that?"
"Oh, we're going to grow old together,
my little Jubilee, Bubilee.
They were a gift for her husband, Prince Philip,
who was 99 at the time, in the hospital.
She gave him 2 Corgis as a get-well present.
Which is really sweet, but I always felt like it might be a publicity stunt,
'cause that was the very same week that Meghan Markle went on TV
claiming that the royal family is racist.
Of course, most of us were like, "Thank you, Detective Markle."
"Huh."
"Wow."
"Are you trying to tell us that these 100-year-old crackers
who wear crowns and capes
and live in castles and colonized 70% of the planet
might just have some antiquated views on race?"
"How did you crack that case, detective?"
"Wow!"
"Scotland Yard would like a word with you."
The rest of us assumed the Queen of England
was just rolling around Buckingham Palace one day,
like, "Oh, Philip, I spoke to Harry."
"Great news, we're finally going to have a Negro in the royal family."
"Oh, a fresh prince."
"No more incest babies to take care of."
"Puppies, let's celebrate."
"Philip, Philip, Philip, fuck me one last time."
"It's tea time, Philip."
"I command you to tea bag your queen right now."
"Drop those 99-year-old balls in my mouth."
"Philip, Philip, give me a pearl necklace
on top of this actual pearl necklace."
"Philip, eat my shepherd's pie one last time."
"Puppies, off the bed."
"Philip, Philip, Philip, fuck me like it's 1939."
"We just colonized Barbados."
"You remember, Philip."
"Oh, Philip, I'm coming, Philip! I'm coming, Philip!"
"God… save
me!"
"Oh, babe."
"Well done, Philip, well done, old boy."
"Oh, Philip."
"Philip…"
"Philip?"
She gave him two puppies.
He died three days later.
Prince Philip died the same day as one of my favorite rappers, DMX.
But ironically, it was Prince Philip whose final words were,
"Where my dogs at?"
That was a great gig.
A great gig.
But the gigs, the gigs come and go.
It's the friendships we make along the way.
Comedians are my tribe.
I'm a comedian before I'm anything else.
That's why it hurts so much, more recently,
when three of my best pals all passed away within eight months of each other,
the Mount Roastmore of comedy right here.
Man, these guys made me laugh until I was in tears.
Somehow I'm the one left to tell the story.
Any Norm Macdonald fans here?
Yeah!
Norm had one of my favorite jokes. He used to tell it twice a year.
He'd say, "Daylight Savings Time's coming up."
"Eh, I give it six months."
One of my first paid gigs ever was opening for Norm Macdonald
at a comedy club in New Jersey.
He wasn't really famous yet. He had an underground following.
He was this quirky Canadian with a strange accent.
The crowd didn't always get him, and he bombed four out of the seven shows.
Whenever Norm killed, we would go backstage
and play poker till the next show.
But whenever Norm bombed, for reasons I still don't understand,
Norm would go stand by the exits
and say goodbye to every single person as they left.
It was so awkward.
Norm was always one step ahead of everybody.
I just wish he'd been more honest about his health.
We would have given him a proper send-off.
Any Gilbert Gottfried fans?
My man, Gilbert! There he is!
One of his last times on stage, he surprised me at a show
and walked out and told this long, crazy joke
about skull-fucking his dead grandma.
So at his funeral, I said, "Gilbert's comedy is fearless
and ruthless and subversive."
"Yet he's so lovable that he can get us to laugh
at a joke about skull-fucking a dead person."
Then I looked at his coffin and I said,
"Not so funny now, huh, Gilbert?"
His wife, Dara, called me recently,
said she wanted to bring her kids, Gilbert's kids,
her teenagers, to this show.
And I said, "Well, they just lost their dad not too long ago."
"This show might be a little intense for them, a little too soon."
Dara, to her credit, said, "No, I want them to see
that you went through something similar in your life
and that you're doing okay."
Not only am I doing okay, but they're doing okay.
Lily just became a film school freshman in college.
And Max just felt his first tit.
Way to go, buddy!
I love going over to your house for dinner.
I miss sitting around the table with Gilbert,
singing songs from Fiddler on the Roof.
Sunrise, sunset
Swiftly through the year
Jeff, I'm in a car, and I'm sitting, and I miss you, and…
Happy birthday to you Happy birthday to you
Happy birthday, dear Jeffrey
Happy birthday to you
Kind of dwindled off at the end there. It happens when you get older.
I love you, have the best night.
And thanks for inviting my daughters, and I got to make a left.
Bye. Love you.
Love you too, Bob.
Bob Saget, America's dad.
Like Bill Cosby.
Except Bob put people to sleep the old-fashioned way,
by talking about his charity work for the Scleroderma Research Foundation.
Listen, I wish you all a friend like Bob in your lives.
He was the greatest.
Always told you he loved you.
Every conversation, you heard it there.
Bob preached positivity.
He'd say, "I don't do negative." He taught me to block the haters.
He did a couple of Broadway shows, Bob, and he was so proud of that.
He was a big TV star known all across the world.
But Bob loved being a comic.
Bob lived the life of a stand-up.
He even died like a comic.
Some of you know the story.
He was in Florida. He did an amazing show.
Afterwards, he was back in his hotel room, and somehow Bob slipped and hit his head.
Which I always felt was perfect for a guy who hosted America's Funniest Home Videos.
You can use that one, Bob.
Or you can use that one, Bob.
He was a complicated guy, but…
I really missed Bob when the pandemic hit.
I was going through a breakup, and Bob wasn't around
with one of his usual late-night pep talks and pastrami sandwiches.
We all lived through it. It was a tough time for all of us.
All my shows were canceled.
I was home alone.
Lonely for the first time in my life.
My ex must have felt sorry for me because one morning she dropped off a stray dog
she found on the street, a German Shepherd.
How old can a dog be?
This dog had to be early 40s.
Hair missing, teeth messed up, bottle of scotch under her arm,
still owed Michael Vick two grand.
I was like, "I don't want this dog."
"This dog has a problem."
Plus, I'm allergic to dogs. I'm afraid of dogs.
But it was like the universe
challenging me to love this dog.
She needed a home.
I needed a friend.
So I cleaned her up, I got her some meds.
We became besties. It was a pandemic. We were together 24/7, codependent.
If I went to the store for an hour, I'd come back…
And the dog would be like…
At night, we'd go outside and stare at the moon.
When it was full, we would howl at the moon.
She loved that.
One morning I woke up and I noticed her tail was wagging.
"Huh, she's happy."
"Maybe I'm a little happier."
"Let's celebrate." Took her to a dog park, I'd never been before, had no idea.
It's all like perfect poodles walking around
on two legs vaping and shit, right?
I walk in with my dog, the hunchback of the dog park.
My dog just barking in the wrong direction.
Tennis balls hitting her in the face.
Period blood dripping out of her.
Never been fixed, the poor thing. Everybody's staring at us.
Some lady's like, "Is your dog a rescue?"
"No, I'm her acting coach."
"She's fine. She's just rehearsing for her next film."
She's gonna get hit by a bus in a Martin Scorsese movie.
That's Barbra Streishound right there. Put some respect on that name.
"Is she a rescue? What do you think, lady?"
"I beat my dog and bring her to the dog park
to show her off, you sicko?"
"Yes, she's a rescue."
"And yes, I'm keeping her."
"I post her picture on Instagram."
The caption, "This is her fur-ever home."
A zillion likes.
Everyone's like, "Aww!" All my messages started filling up.
Direct messages with these desperate dog shelters during the pandemic.
Asher, play some sad dog commercial music.
Yeah.
You know how this works, right?
I get this message.
"We have another German Shepherd here."
"This one's just a puppy."
"And if we don't find her a home in the next 12 minutes…
we have to punch her in the face…
make her into a smoothie, and feed her to the other dogs."
What?
So there I was.
Never had a dog in my life.
Suddenly I'm home alone with two German Shepherds.
-Oh, yeah. -Aww.
Yeah.
Oh, and they know I'm Jewish.
Every morning.
"Wake up, Jew! Dog park, schnell!"
"Dog park, schnell!"
"Where are you hiding the treats?"
"Where are the treats, Jew?"
"We smell treats."
"Where are the treats?"
"Better you give them to us then we find them on our own."
"Where are the treats? Are they in the attic?"
"Where are your papers, Jew?"
"We have to pee. Where are your papers?"
I named them Ausch and Schwitz.
I love them, but I still kick 'em once a day for every Jewish person
we lost in the Holocaust.
Don't fuck with the Jews. They think it's funny.
Most dogs are afraid of fireworks.
My dogs love fireworks,
'cause it reminds them of the glory days.
Ah!
Paw.
They're the worst guard dogs, 'cause if anybody ever broke into my house,
they'd be like… "The Jew's in there!"
"He's sleeping in there!"
"Unsuspectingly!"
"Now's your chance!"
The little one, I named her Nipsey.
She's learning everything from the older dog,
so she walks down the stairs with a limp.
She gets in the car like an old dog,
like two legs up, then she waits for me to pick her up like this.
The old one, I call her Nana,
'cause look at her, she's a Nana.
I don't know her backstory. She's a street dog.
But the vet said she can tell Nana's had a lot of litters, a lot of puppies, and…
She's got all these weird bumps on her body,
and she's got dementia, and her legs hurt.
So sometimes I blow a little pot smoke in her face.
"Come here, Nana!"
And you can just see her glaucoma correcting itself.
She always gives me a look with that Nazi stare, she's like…
"You're one of the good ones."
We were at the dog park one day, and Nana was playing with the other dogs,
playing and she fell.
And her leg just…
And when an old dog falls, it's scary.
And I pick her up, and I'm carrying this 100-pound German Shepherd
to the car to take her to the vet
with the same thumping in my chest
that I felt decades earlier,
carrying my Pop Jack to the car
to take him to the emergency room for the last time.
I even clicked his ring on the fence of the dog park
and thought, "This might be it."
"I don't know if I'm going to be able to take care of this dog anymore."
And I got to the vet's office,
and I had to make that decision to say goodbye.
I'd never gone through that with a pet before.
Clap if you've had to go through this.
You know, I was crying like a little kid.
I called my cousin Ed, I said, "Ed, can you come to the vet right now,
and can you bring Nipsey?"
"I want her to say goodbye to Nana. We have to say goodbye to Nana."
"And can you bring a steak for Nana's last meal?"
And I sat on the floor of the vet's office,
and I waited with Nana,
and I held her paw,
and I thanked her for being my friend through the pandemic.
She looked up at me, and she said,
You took me in
When I was alone
You let me shed
All over your home
We cuddled in bed
Like husband and wife
I gave you fleas
You gave me life!
You're
One of the good ones
After about an hour and a half,
my cousin Ed showed up
with the other dog and the steak.
By then, the inevitable happened.
I was starving.
Nana looked up at me like, "Is this Jew bastard going to eat my last meal?"
I reached in my jacket pocket,
I pulled out a bruised-up banana I'd been carrying around all day by chance.
And I ate my banana,
and Nana ate her steak,
and we had one last laugh together.
The vet came in to give her that shot.
And just as the vet pushed the needle down into Nana's fur,
to break the tension,
I said, "Doc, I changed my mind."
And Nana opened one eye like, "Too soon, motherfucker!"
And she opened her other eye.
She looked into mine one last time.
She said,
I never obeyed
Playing fetch was torture
I'm the only Nazi that doesn't follow orders
But you
You never judge me
You
You only love me
My teats may be sagging
But my tail won't stop wagging
You're
One of the good ones
Hey, you want to howl with me? It'll feel good.
Think about who's ever on your mind tonight and let it rip.
A couple weeks later,
the vet sent me Nana's ashes.
And I didn't know what to do with them.
So me and Nipsey said a little blessing about a Jew cremating a Nazi for once.
And we rolled her into a joint and we smoked her.
That's what Nana would have wanted.
But I remember thinking,
"How did this even happen?"
I never wanted a pet.
Now I'm weeping over this mangy, anti-Semitic bitch.
But that shows you the power of love,
the power of friendship.
You lose something, something's bound to show up out of nowhere
and fill that space in your heart.
But you have to let it.
You have to be open to it.
And that's what Nana did for me.
Sometimes I feel like she's still doing that for me
because my oncologist is from Germany.
And I feel like it's Nana coming back to take care of me.
"Jeff, we have some good news and some bad news."
"Okay, Doc, what's the bad news?"
"You will need six months of chemotherapy."
"Fuck. What's the good news?"
"You lost your hair a long time ago."
I woke up the morning after surgery and everything hurt.
My whole body hurt.
I had catheters coming out of the Lincoln Tunnel and the Holland Tunnel and
Verrazzano Bridge.
I wipe my eyes and I look down.
There's a tray there they left with a cup of decaf and a banana.
I was like, "What? Come on."
My doctor comes in.
I say, "Dr. Lenz, am I supposed to eat right now?"
"I just had half my colon removed."
He said, "Yes, the colon is very resilient."
"The quicker you eat, the quicker we know everything is working."
So I ate my banana,
and I tapped Pop's ring on the side of the bed and I thought about him.
But I didn't think about the tough guy, world-beater.
I thought about the guy that I took care of.
And now here I was.
I was him.
From caregiver to care-getter, just like that.
And the chemo was tough.
Some of you know.
But it wasn't as tough as when my mom had to go through it.
In fact, I did so well that my doctor let me drop the very last session.
"You are the only human being ever to gain weight on chemotherapy."
The rest of the year goes by and I'm getting ready to leave California
and come back to New York to do these shows.
So I said, "Doc, can I go? Can I travel?"
"Can I work? Can I do this?"
He says, "Well, we will schedule a follow-up colonoscopy,
and we will see what we will see."
I'm trying not to worry about it,
but I'm worried about it.
The night before the colonoscopy, I'm laying in bed thinking,
"Know what, last time I took the ring off
and I put it in my dresser drawer and that colonoscopy didn't go so well,
so let me leave it on this time."
5:45 in the morning, it's still dark out,
I Uber myself to the clinic and I'm laying on the bed waiting.
Not as "Jeff Ross, the Roastmaster," I'm Jeff Lifshultz,
just a guy in a gown and socks.
And there's curtains separating all the patients around this big clinic.
I see glimpses of the other patients as they walk by
and I can hear them through the curtains talking to the nurses,
answering all those questions they make you answer
when you go to a medical procedure.
And this nice nurse comes in, Angie, and she says,
"Mr. Lifshultz, you have to put your ring in this bag now."
And I say, "Please, can I keep it on?"
She said, "It's against regulations,
but I can go get a guy and you can sign a waiver," and she does and I do.
And she starts asking me a thousand questions
about my family's medical history
and my personal medical history and all my medications
and, "When's the last time you did this? What color is this?"
And I'm doing the best I can to answer all these questions.
I'm tired. I've been up all night.
I haven't slept. I haven't eaten.
I'm nervous.
Finally, she says, "We're almost done,
but we have to ask everyone this."
She leans in.
She says,
"Do you ever have thoughts of harming yourself?"
"Do you have a strong support system that you can always rely on?"
And I start crying.
I don't know why.
I wave her off, shake my head, and she starts to move on to the next question,
and for some reason I stop her.
I say, "Angie, can you please repeat that?"
"Do you ever have thoughts of harming yourself?"
"Do you have a strong support system that you can always rely on?"
I can't stop crying, and I don't know why, I'm
blubbering and…
Because I have no eyelashes from the alopecia.
The salt from the tears is burning into my eye,
and I can't see, and I can barely talk, and it's…
They give me the anesthesia, it's all a blur.
Next thing I know, my buddy Eddie picks me up, I'm in his car,
trying to explain to him what's happening,
and I can't get the words out without crying.
And we're back at my house, and I try again,
and now we're both crying, and I sat there
until I realized I was crying for the other people
that I could hear through the curtains
who might not have a good answer to those questions.
I realized
it didn't matter what the result of my colonoscopy was
because I had a phone full of emergency contacts.
It's not just the fight.
It's the army.
It's all my friends who packed into my hospital room
with a box of donuts and a guitar and kept me company all night long.
And when they sent me home from the hospital,
my buddy John Stamos was there waiting for me
with his ugly fucking kid, and…
My sister Robyn, who dropped everything
to come take care of me for two months.
Spaghetti fights and all.
When she had to go back to work, she called in reinforcements.
My Aunt Donna flew out and took care of me
just like she did when I was a little boy.
Then my cousin Aaron and my cousin Rona, who are both here tonight, they flew out,
and they made all Great-Grandma Rosie's recipes.
And this weird neighbor I hardly know made banana muffins
and left them on my front porch so that I'd have something to bring the nurses
every other Tuesday when I went to chemo.
It's the army, and I'm proud to say, whatever was inside me,
we killed it before it killed me.
I feel great.
I still have my chemo port, just in case,
but I feel so good.
All my life, I've had this incredible army.
My buddy Mark, who told me to try stand-up comedy.
My buddy Jordan, who told me to get that colonoscopy.
My agent Stacy, who gets 10% of this gig.
And it's not just my friends and family.
It's the audience. You're the army.
Because you give me purpose!
Purpose!
A reason to eat less red meat
so that I can pursue my mission.
My life's quest to heal the world.
To heal people through roasting.
So if you're going through something intense in your life right now,
stand up and earn your banana.
If you're celebrating something, stand up.
If you're just gross, stand up.
-Hello, lady. -Hi. How are you?
I'm great. What's going on with you, babe?
My sister has pancreatic cancer.
Your sister has pancreatic cancer.
-What's her name? -Vicky.
Vicky? How you doing? Are you taking care of her?
Yeah.
What about your hairstylist?
Does that person also have cancer?
Wait, it looks that bad?
No, it looks beautiful.
This is for you. I love you.
Thank you for sharing that. I hope your sister's okay.
Who else?
Oh, fuck.
I don't have time for this.
Tomorrow's my day off. We're going to be here all fucking night.
Uh, hello?
It's like Dilbert fucked a troll doll.
This is too much for my brain right now.
I hope this guy has cancer.
This is the oddest couple I've ever seen.
Know what? Whatever floats your boat. Who's going to catch this?
Eleanor… Asher, I need a drumroll. This person's 140 years old.
Look at this. I've seen younger faces on cash.
Come on, Eleanor. It's a big, big moment. You ready?
You got backup, right, bud?
All right, Eleanor, pay attention.
This is big. The whole fucking Netflix special depends on it.
Catch this banana.
Yeah!
Missed it completely!
But she tried, and that's all that matters.
Three years ago, I called Suicide Hotline, and they said, "Do you have a gun?"
And I said, "No."
And they said, "Can you call back in 15 minutes?"
What the fuck are you talking about?
I've known you for three minutes, I want to kill myself.
This old bitch is eating her banana right in the middle of the fucking show.
I love it!
-Hi. Gary. -My name is Gary.
When I was 11, I lost my hands in an explosion.
And this is a positive story, because I ended up going to art school,
and I was a successful designer for 30 years,
and I'm retired, and I'm here watching you.
I love it! I love it!
Look at you, man. You are an inspiration.
I'd ask for a fist bump, but I don't want to be insensitive.
What if you want to say, "Fuck you" to somebody? How do you do it?
You just have to adapt.
This guy's a legend. Oh my God!
-You have to adapt. -You have to adapt.
-That's a great life lesson. -Yep.
-This is my wonderful wife. -Wonderful life.
This poor woman, never been fingerbanged in her whole life.
There you go. Here's a banana for her, too.
I love you. Put it under your arm.
Who the fuck's going to top that?
Here! Up!
-Where? -Right here!
-What's up? How you doing? -Hi!
I'm celebrating being divorced five years!
Oh my God!
Wow!
Wait. I just had my boobs done!
And you just had your boobs done.
That's good, so if you fall, you bounce back up.
I would be remiss if I didn't point out a little bit of my family history.
The great writer Judy Blume is here.
I don't want to embarrass you.
Judy, are you there? It's me, Jeff.
Wow!
You know, it's funny, I just re-read your book
because I just got my period for the first time.
You're saying your house burned down in the Palisades?
Everything's gone, like everything.
We were there for 56 years, and everything's gone.
We have nothing.
I can tell by the way you're dressed.
I lost a lot of fucking clothes!
You recently lost two of your children. Is that what you said?
I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry.
I don't even… Would it be wrong to ask what your children's names are?
-My daughter was Patty. -Your daughter is Patty.
And my son was Joe.
Joe. I'm dedicating tonight's show to Patty and Joe.
Come here, I need to hug this lady. Look at you.
Thank you, honey.
That's a tough one. That's a tough one.
Yeah. Yeah.
On the bright side, you have my mom's tits.
I love you, baby. For Patty and Joe.
And look at this guy. How you doing, sir?
Oh, my dad's Coke dealer's here, great.
-What's going on with you? -I'm good.
-All right. What's your name? -I'm Keaton.
Keaton. What's your story, Keaton?
My grandpa passed about two weeks ago, and my dog died three days ago, so…
You're having the worst week ever.
-What was your grandpa's name? -Gerald.
-What was your dog's name? -Maisie.
Maisie and Gerald. Know what? Fuck that lady's kids.
I'm gonna dedicate this show to your grandpa and your dog…
No?
I love you, honey. You're the fucking best.
This is truly medicine.
What do you do, Keaton?
I'm a student at NYU.
-Student at NYU? What are you studying? -Studying acting.
-You're studying acting. So cool. -That I am.
Come here. Look at the screen.
You're making your Broadway debut right now.
So beautiful. So beautiful.
How about a hand for all my volunteers, everybody?
My mom used to write little messages on bananas.
She'd write, "I love you, I miss you, and she'd put it in my school lunch."
I miss you too, Mom.
Especially tonight.
You know, bananas, they grow in bunches.
They protect one another.
And like us, bananas, they get bruised, but they're still good.
In fact, the more bruised they get, the sweeter they are.
And they're mushy on the inside, but they're protected by this outer layer,
this thick skin, something we all need to get through life,
'cause you never know what'll happen when we walk out those doors.
So stay strong, everybody.
World-beater energy, repeat it with me.
World-beater energy!
Now promise me this.
When life is going wrong, and the world is picking a fight,
just think back and laugh at your favorite jokes from tonight.
Did you have fun?
I feel like the luckiest motherfucker on Earth,
celebrating my 60th birthday
on Broadway, baby!
But if I do bite the dust,
don't make a big fuss,
'cause I'll always be by your side
every time you take a banana
For the ride!
Up to the sky, baby!
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!
I love you! I love you so much!
Stay strong!
How about a hand for Felix!
And Asher!
Hold on! And Nipsey!
Come here, you Nazi bastard!
Come here, Nipsey!
Nipsey, let's howl.
It's like Annie, where the dog comes out at the end,
except I play the bald guy and the orphan.
Good night, everybody!
Enough with the bread already. the orphan.