Is This Anything?

by Jerry Seinfeld

Who wouldn’t want to wake up in the morning to a nice big bowl of “Almighty God”? Or New, “Almighty God With Raisins.” And if you don’t like it, you can go to hell.

What kind of an idiot walks up to a mirror and goes, “Hey look, there’s a whole other room in there. There’s a guy in there that looks just like me.”

So, Clark Kent wears the Super costume underneath the business suit. We’ve seen him tear open the shirt. What about the Superman boots? They go inside the regular shoes? How does that work? “I see Clark’s got those red leather socks on again today.”

I’d ask my mother for money and she’d always say, “What do I look like, a bank?” “Do I look like I’m made of money to you?” The truth is, when you’re a kid your parents are the bank. Where else am I going to get money? Am I going to walk into Chase Manhattan? They’re going to say, “What do I look like, your mother?”

I will intentionally ruin my entire appetite. Because as adults we understand… Even if you ruin an appetite, there’s another appetite coming right behind it. There’s no danger of running out of appetites. I can ruin 100 of them. Still have thousands left. Why are we being so careful with each one? I got millions of appetites.

“Listen, son, you’re not really cutting the mustard out there on that lawn. Now, I know you’ve been our son for 15 years. But I’m afraid we’re going to have to let you go. Don’t feel bad. We’re making cutbacks all over the house. The dog’s only coming in 3 days a week. He missed a couple Frisbees at the picnic. We had to trim his hours.”

Adulthood is the ability to be totally bored and remain standing. Supermarket line, Motor Vehicle Bureau. You hang right in there, solid as a rock.

Skydiving is definitely the scariest thing I’ve done. My question, what exactly is the point of the helmet? Can you “kind of” make it? I think if you jump out of a plane, and that chute doesn’t open, the helmet is now wearing you for protection. Later on, the helmet’s talking with the other helmets going, “It’s a good thing he was there or I would’ve hit the ground directly. You never jump out of a plane unless you have got a human being strapped underneath you. That’s basic safety.”

I got a waterproof watch. That’s important. “Well, I’m completely out of oxygen and look-at-the-time. Now, I’m dead AND I’m late.”

That was his other big advice when we’re moving something. “Easy… easy.” What does that mean? “Easy, easy, easy.” It’s not easy. It’s very difficult. You should be saying, “DIFFICULT… DIFFICULT… DIFFICULT… EXTREMELY DIFFICULT. IMPOSSIBLE. IMPOSSIBLE. PUT IT DOWN. PUT IT DOWN. PUT IT DOWN. IT’S IMPOSSIBLE.” At least be honest. You want easy? Let’s leave it here in the hallway. That’s easy.

We all try and save time. All our little shortcuts. But no matter how much time you save, at the end of your life, there’s no extra time saved up. You’ll be going, “What do you mean I’m out of time?

The proof that we don’t understand death is we give dead people a pillow. Are they uncomfortable? If you can’t stretch out and get some solid rest at that point… I don’t think there are any bedding accessories that are going to make a difference. And why do we have the guy all dressed up in a suit? Is he sleeping, is he going to an important meeting? Is he going to nap in a meeting? We need to decide where we think these people are going.

What is a date, really, but a job interview that lasts all night?

Let’s face it, the human body is like a condominium apartment. The thing that keeps you from really enjoying it is the maintenance. There’s a tremendous amount of daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly work that has to be done. From showering to open-heart surgery, we’re always doing something to ourselves. If your body was a used car, you wouldn’t buy it. You’d go, “Nah, I’ve heard about these human being bodies. This is one of those Earth models, right? Yeah, a cousin of mine had one. Too much work to keep them going. The new ones are nice looking, though.”

You can measure distance by time. “How far away is that place?” “About 20 minutes.” But it doesn’t work the other way. “When do you get off work?” “Around 3 miles.”

There’s really nothing you can do in traffic but try and see up ahead. People are always looking in traffic. “I think I see something. Can you see anything? Are they moving?” I love when people get so frustrated in traffic that they just get right out of the car. “What the hell is going on up there?”

I wish I was a phone machine. I wish if I saw somebody on the street I didn’t want to talk to I could just go, “Excuse me, I’m not here right now. If you just leave a message, I can walk away.”

Most difficult thing for women to find in their purse? Keys. No idea where the keys are. They just keep digging around. In there… They end up having to dump the bag out on the floor… (raking motion) Rake through it.

You ever see a guy with a mattress on the roof of his car, driving down the highway? Without fail, he’s got his hand out the window, holding the mattress. This is classic, male, idiot superhero thinking. This moron believes that if the wind catches this huge rectangle at 70 mph, “I got it. I got it… I am using MY ARM.”

I know I will never be able to understand how a woman can take boiling hot wax, pour it on her upper thighs, rip the hair out by the root. And still be afraid of a spider.

Of course Facebook, another great trash receptacle of human time… Which everyone loves because not only does the name Facebook complete the final whoring out of the word “book.” I’m sure looking at pictures of Timmy and Tammy drunk in Cabo is the same as reading Moby-Dick. But also because it expresses the outlook of young, dumb people, which is so beautiful. That, “People are so great.” And, “It’s great to connect with people.” I am hoping that I live long enough to see these young people in their 50s. Because when you blow out the candles on that 50th birthday cake your first thought is going to be, “The fewer people I have anything to do with, the better off I’m going to be.” Connecting with people is why there are lawyers, mace and cease-and-desist orders. Because of two people that “connected” with each other.

And of course, Twitter. Tweeting, of course, was originally invented by birds in trees. “Phoo-weet Phoo-weet,” that was the first Tweet. It meant “sex, worms, sex, worms.” Hashtag, #rocksmyworld As humans we were so impressed with this form of communication we decided, “Why should birds be the only ones dropping an annoying series of small daily turds upon the earth? We can do it too.”

The worst crisis is when the letters in the word “Crisis” start to crack and break apart. There’s pieces missing from the “C” and the “R” and the “I.” That’s a bad crisis. The word “crisis” is in crisis from the crisis. And that’s when it’s time to take an instant poll on the Internet. “Let’s get the perspective of a group of people even dumber than we are. The general public.”

If I look at my watch and then one second later, someone asks me what time it is? I look again. When you came in here tonight, How many times did you look at your ticket? Five? Eight? Human brain’s a sieve. Why do you think they run the same commercial 150 times?

I still can’t believe that every single day of my life I see people picking up their dog’s defecation with their hands. Every day of my life. The confidence they have in that Glad sandwich bag. Where does that come from? What do we know about the Glad sandwich bag? It locks in freshness? Which, I would think, is the last thing you want to do with a big steaming pile anyway. I don’t know how human beings make these mental leaps. “Glad keeps a sandwich fresh, I’ll pick up feces with it.” I hate just as much, before the event when I see them walking their dog, and my eye goes right to that suspicious little tuft of plastic or paper clutched in their other hand. and I know exactly what’s going to happen… If aliens are watching this through telescopes, they’re going to think the dogs are the leaders of the planet. If you see two life forms, one of them takes a crap, and the other one’s carrying it for him… Who would you assume is in charge of that society?

“Listen, dude, I don’t know how to get from these parties to having your own show on TV. I just went from having my own show on TV to these parties myself. I don’t know how to do it in reverse.”

I have never felt concerned when these little kids would hurt themselves while they are in my home. “Well, sure you’re crying, you just drove your head into the side of that television set. … That was the damnedest thing I’ve ever seen, by the way. No hesitation. You lowered your melon head and went right into it. That’s a very valuable lesson you just received. You learned, Dumb = Pain. You’re going to be learning this many, many times in your life, I have a feeling. Because when you’re dumb, life hurts.”

I’d like to be in a casual scene with Darth Vader. I really want to ask him, “So, are you able to go anywhere without the music? If you get up in the middle of the night to pee, does it come blasting on, waking everybody up? If you stop does the music stop?”

I don’t like great. I’m looking for “Not bad.” “How’s the food over there?” “Not bad…” “That sounds great. Let’s just go there and get this over with.” If you go to a great restaurant, they’ve got to tell you the Specials. “Would you like to hear the Specials…?” “No. If they’re so Special, put them on the menu. I’m not interested in food that’s auditioning to get on the team.” I don’t understand all the words they use, anyway. “We’re going to pan-sear it, we’re going to herb-crust it. And then we’re going to drizzle it with something that’s a reduction of something else.” They’re always drizzling in these places. Stop drizzling. We can’t take the drizzling anymore. “Maybe if you didn’t reduce it so much, you wouldn’t have to drizzle it.” The meal takes two and a half hours. Your ass is hurting by the end of it. It’s not half as good as a bowl of Lucky Charms and Pepsi, anyway… The check always comes in that special book like it’s “The Story of the Bill.” Yeah, here’s the story: “Once upon a time, you got ripped.” That’s the story. You’re standing on the street afterwards with your friends, “Was that great…? I don’t know if it was great… Actually, I think it sucked. That great place sucked.” Then you go to a baseball game. You have a hot dog. The hot dog is cold. The bun is not toasted. The vendor is an ex-con in a work-release program. You do not care. You love that hot dog every time. Does it suck? Yes. Is it great? Yes. That’s how close they are. Sucks and Great are the ...

You hear people talk about it. “Let’s go out. We should go out. We never go out.” Well… this is it. This is the “Out Thing” you people are constantly discussing. Now, the other good thing about being out is you don’t have to be out for long. Just long enough to get the next feeling, which you’re all going to get. And that feeling is, “I’ve got to be getting back.” After all that work you have put into being out, you’re only halfway through this nightmare at this point. You’re going to have to undo this entire process you just went through, in reverse. The people, the cars, the clothes. Everything has to go back where you got it from. Not the money, the money doesn’t come back. Forget that, that’s gone.

I was born in Brooklyn. We lived in the city. Then my parents decided they wanted to move out of the city and live on Long Island. You live IN the city. But if you decide to move out, you will be ON Long Island. You don’t live IN Long Island. You can’t get IN it. You just stay ON it. If you go to Jersey, you’ll say, “We’re OUT in Jersey. We’re OUT. We couldn’t make it in the city. Sometimes we go DOWN the shore. We’re DOWN and OUT.” My mother would say, “Jerry, get ready. We’re going IN the city today. We’re going IN. We’re going to get ON a train. And we’re going IN the city.” You don’t get IN the train. You get ON it. Even though, you see trains… There’s nobody on the trains. They’re inside the trains. But in New York we don’t talk like that. We get ON the train. Why do we get ON the train? So we can get OFF it. “Get OFF the train. This is our stop. This is where we get OFF. We’ve got to get OFF. So that we can get IN the cab.” We got ON the train. But we get IN the cab. We do not get ON the cab. Why do we get IN the cab? So we can get OUT. “Get OUT of the cab. We’re here. Get OUT.” Now we have UBER, that’s the new thing. What do we do with that? We don’t get ON it. We don’t get OFF it. We don’t get IN it. What do we do? We TAKE it. We TAKE UBER. Because there’s no money. Nobody understands how it works. People ask you, “How did you get here?” “I don’t know. We just TOOK an UBER…” It’s like M&M’s in a bowl. You just take them. “There was a little cartoon car on my phone....

People repeat words because it gives them confidence. They can say it with strength. “Business is business.” “Rules are rules.” “A deal’s a deal.” “What’s done is done.” “But when we go in there, as long as we know what’s what and who’s who, then whatever happens, happens, and it is what it is.”

What about the device dictatorship we live under now? Cowering in fear from our phones. “Where’s my phone? I need my phone. Can’t find my phone. Oh, here it is. I got it. I moved it from this pocket to this pocket. I wasn’t sure where it was for 1.5 seconds. But I’m okay now.” We are so hypno-phone-ified. You hand your phone to somebody now to show them something. After three seconds you’re like, (reaching out) “… Okay, you saw it… that’s it… give it back. I am completely off the grid right now!” You don’t know your cholesterol. You don’t know your blood pressure. But you know how much juice is in your phone. You know that number. I could ask anyone in this audience, “Tell me roughly, without looking, how much juice is in your phone right now?” You know it. I’m sitting on 25 backstage, I don’t feel that good I’ll be honest with you. Could be 15. I’m falling apart back there…! You used to think about your life. Now you think about your battery life. You have two lives you must maintain. And I don’t know which one is more important. If your phone dies, does it really matter if you’re still alive? Either way, that call is going straight to voicemail.

So, when they come up with these things like the camera in the cell phone do they ever go, “Hey, before we put this out to every human being all over the world… Are you sure this is a good idea?” “Of course, it’s a good idea. What do you mean?” “I don’t know… I was just wondering… You don’t think there’s any chance that this one feature all by itself, could result in so many useless pictures, video, posting, liking, not liking, comments and clapbacks that the entire essential life force of the human race just drains out like a puddle of piss by the side of the road and we never accomplish anything significant ever again? You don’t think there’s any chance of that, do you?” “No, I do not. Nor do I think that every restaurant dinner will end with some picture bully going, ‘Okay, everyone. Picture. Need a picture. Got to get a picture.’ ” “Why? We didn’t have a good time. I don’t want to remember this.” And let’s make sure we get the least phone-fluent person in the area to take the picture. Someone old, nervous, clumsy, confused or dim-witted. Someone whose fingers do not receive or respond well to brain commands. Can’t hold things, see things, aim things, press things. Someone who, the second they’re handed the phone it somehow slips off camera function, and they can’t get it back. “Hold on… Wait… Can somebody get it back on the camera? I don’t know… how to…” Let’s get them. So we can be standing here even longer with fake frozen smiles and your arm around someone you would...

When you walk in the sign says “Hospital,” but it could also be: Bed, Bath and Beyond.