Racquetball is the only sport where simultaneously you can be looking at the ball and it'll hit you in the back of the head at 90 miles per hour.
People will adjust what they just said based on other people's reactions to it. I've always been amazed by that. They'll just change what they just said. No matter how much you would think they would stick to what they just said. "I think it's wrong to kill people with a machine gun." "Oh, I kill people with a machine gun." "Well, sometimes it's OK. But what I'm saying is I don't think you should kill like a lot of people with a machine gun." "Oh, I've killed scores of people." "I'm talking about the people who are always killing people. Day and night. Killing people with a machine gun. I don't think you should do that." "Oh, no. I don't do that." "Yeah--that's what I'm saying."
If anyone out there is having a baby and you're trying to think of baby names, if any name you come up with rhymes with anything, it ain't no good. It's no good--because the other kids are going to find the rhymes, when he's growing up, and torment him. There was a kid in my neighborhood, growing up--I couldn't believe it. His name was Bidiot. What were his parents thinking? And his brother Jimbecile. But we were so stupid, we couldn't find the rhymes. "Bidiot, Bidiot, he is a stupid-face! Jimbecile's a moron stupid-head. Stupid." My parents were embarassed. "Sound it out. Bidiot. What does that sound like?"
I've been watching these strongman shows. You seen these things? It's got these big Nordic looking guys. Their neck starts at like the top of their ears. There's no vowels in their name. Their name is like Kttksvrdgrdgn. How do you call him for dinner? "Kttksvrdgrrrrrrrrrr! Get your brother, Gttsbrgnglvn. Gttsbrgnglvn! We're having goulash!" I'm not making fun of them, you know, in case one of them's here. It's a competition that I think is weird. They're not lifting weights. It's like, "Alright, Kalkervick, we filled these grand pianos with molten lead. See how many you can hurl in that third-story window in thirty seconds."
[Airplane announcement:] "Ladies and gentlemen, we're about to begin boarding. If we could ask for your cooperation, please stay seated until you row has been called." ... That's what they say--but somehow, by the time it comes out of the speaker, it sounds like, "Everybody up and rush the door! Everybody up and try to squeeze your big fat butts in the small gate door area! Immediately! ... Do whatever you have to do to get on board. This is the last helicopter out of Vietnam!"
Why would a dog bark at three o'clock in the morning in your neighborhood? ... I'm talkin' about when there's one dog doing a monologue... What are they doing? I think they just go on the porch at that hour, and just go, "Hey, it's nice and quiet. Why don't I bark it up for no reason whatsoever?" (Barking noise) And right when you think he's done, (More barking noises) "What the hell's the matter with you?" "I'm a dog. Barking." How do you argue with him? Wouldn't it be weird if people were like that for no reason? Like if some guy went on his porch at three o'clock in the morning. Nobody knows him, new to the neighborhood. "HEY, HEY, HEY, HEY, HEY, HEY, HEY, HEY, HEY, HEY, HEY, HEY, HEY, HEY." "Hey, you alright, man?" "HEY, HEY, HEY."
[We took our kids to a butterfly pavillion, and] this worker goes, "I'll be happy to answer all your butterfly questions today." "Okay. All of them?" Where do you begin when you get that kind of green light? So this guy's following us around, and it's falling on me to brainstorm up butterfly questions. I'm just, like, "Um... this... what I wanna... does this one like to eat? ... I was thinking, could there be a less stressful job than working in a butterfly pavilion? I mean, what could possibly go awry? "So how was work, dear?" "Don't even get me started. I've had it up to here with those butterflies. I had this yellow one landing lightly on flowers. And this purple one fluttering around and around. Like I don't know what he's up to! I can't take the politics!"
The Kennedys are great speakers, right? John Kennedy said, "Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country." And then Robert Kennedy was credited with, "Some people look at things the way they are and ask, 'Why?' I look at things that never were and ask, 'Why not?'" It's powerful. But it must have been weird growing up with them, you know, speaking in flip-flops around the dinner table. "Ask not if someone can pass the salt and pepper to you. Ask if you can pass the salt and pepper to someone." "Some people look at creamed corn and ask, 'Why?' I look at creamed corn and ask, 'Why not?'" And then Ted's like, "There any more rolls?"
This is an actual negative campaign ad--I'm not making this up--about the other candidate. "He voted to allow seven-year-olds to be tasered." That's an actual ad. And they interviewed the guy who had voted for that. He was like, "I meant worst-case scenario. If the kid gets a weapon, we don't wanna hurt him. In the worst case you can taser him and get the weapon away." As if that was that man's platform. "I want to taser seven-year-olds!" He's talking with his staff--"When I'm elected, can we have some seven-year-olds on the stage with me? I think I'll swear in, and then I'll taser a seven-year-old. Think that'd be a nice way to start the term. 'I solemnly'--and then I'll taser another one. How many can we bus in for this?"
I like watching C-SPAN. C-SPAN is daring. Because the other news stations won't go a second without somebody talking. C-SPAN will show when a press conference is over. And they'll show some guy wrapping TV cable around his elbow for 15 minutes. And I can't turn the channel. "I wonder how much more cable he's got. How come nobody's helping him?" But then they show really cool stuff. They show Congress deliberating. They way they do it just intrigues me. "I would like to respectuflly submit to the distinguished Senator from the fine state of South Caroline, that although I applaud your many years of service in this legislative body, on this particular issue, I must respectuflly disagree." I'm like, "Is he mad at him?" Wouldn't it be great if couples argued like that? "I would like to respectfully submit to my beautiful wife, that although I've enjoyed our many years of matrimonal happiness, if you're not ready within the next five minutes, the car will be leaving without you."
How come they don't think you can handle a new story out of the blue [on the TV news]? They gotta make a little lame segue. "Hey, that's a big lotto jackpot! Speaking of lotto, there was a lot o' crime in the city today." Oh. I'm right with you. I'm right on your tail. Thanks for smoothing that out. I would've been lost.
I did some writing for that movie. The remake of Planet of the Apes. I didn't write the script. But I wrote some lines that they ended up... not using. ... I wrote one line. I thought it would've been perfect. I don't know if anyone saw the movie. It's the scene where the ape general comes in. And they're trying to decide if they should attack right there, or wait until a little later. And I wrote: "Man these bananas are good!" But they didn't use it. I did all of that research.
If a movie makes it really big, they do the obvious thing, right? They make an amusement park ride out of it. ... The connection is obvious. You get off, "Man, that was just like the movie! Only the movie had a storyline and characters, and that was a little more like a roller coaster."
We also had to get the phone turned on. It's different than I thought. I didn't know how it works, so I asked him, "How does that work? Do we have to wait in our home for a few days for the phone people to come out?" "No--we do it differently now. We can just flip the switch from right here." "Oh, great ... Can you go ahead and flip it?" "We're gonna flip it next Thursday." "Can you flip it right now?" "We're gonna flip it Thursday, late, or Friday, or sometime in November." "Can you see it from where you're at? Can I come down and flip it?"
I’m just trying to go through life without looking stupid. It’s not working out too well. Sometimes you’ll say the right thing but at the wrong time and feel stupid. Something like: “You, too!” I was getting out of a cab at the airport and the driver goes, “Hey…Have a nice flight!” “You, too! You, too, you have a nice flight, too. In case you ever fly someday. Don’t anybody look at me. I’m a moron. Don’t know when to say the 'you, too' phrase. I can’t handle it." I never learn. Like a waitress will bring my meal. “Hey, enjoy your meal.” “You, too. But you don’t have one, do ya? I’m a dufus. If you do eat, enjoy it when you eat it, if you have a break or something, later. If you get an opportunity.”
You’d show up [at school the day the science project was due. And] you’re scared because you don’t have anything good--and you find out all the other kids, their parents made theirs for them. I hated that. They’re backing them in on flatbed trucks. One kid with a volcano. He didn’t know how to zip up his own pants--but he built a volcano. “How’d you swing that?” I didn’t know what to do for my project. So I brought in a paper cup filled with dirt, just hoping that she’d know I’m an idiot, and just walk right on past me just as long as I was holding something. “What do you have there, Brian?” “It’s a cup of dirt. Just put an ‘F’ on it there and let me go home.” “Well, explain it.” “Well, it’s a cup. With dirt in it. I call it ‘Cup of Dirt.’ You should move on now. Just go ahead and move on. Head on down the line there.” So she went to this one kid; there’s a kid in my class who made the same solar system like 19 years in a row. A bunch of Styrofoam balls held together with coat hangars. “Hey, you’re breaking some new ground there, Copernicus.” He’s going, “The big yellow one’s the sun! The yellow one is the sun!” “OK. Alright. What are these other planets?” “The big yellow one is the sun!” “Alright! Calm down!”