§ 01 · The Hook
The bait, then the rug-pull.
He opens by welcoming the audience to his actual house -- bought with money from a film Rotten Tomatoes gave 35%. The premise is set in four sentences: Dane Cook is above it all, and he wants you to come inside.
Where the time goes.
00:00 – 03:03
01 · Cold open -- welcome to my house
Cook establishes the house setting, riffs on couple Robert and Deanna in the audience, and pivots to the stalker premise.
03:03 – 10:00
02 · The DMs begin
A year of Instagram DMs, every minute, escalating from casual to all-caps rambles. A screaming video, then a crying video saying this is not us.
10:00 – 16:00
03 · The almond video
Third video: she stares into nothing, puts nine almonds in her mouth and never chews. Then she scans the LA skyline on camera and says Getting close.
16:00 – 24:00
04 · The siege -- 15 days
She parks outside. At 2:30 AM she shaves both eyebrows and whispers you made me do this. Days two and three she is still there. Cook drives in and out of his garage at Olympic speed.
24:00 – 27:00
05 · The cop protocol
LAPD friend: eyebrows are the last bastion of humanity. Protocol: 10-gauge shotgun, watch her feet on every step, shoot to kill, then shoot the ceiling as a fake warning shot.
27:00 – 30:00
06 · Day 15 -- she disappears
Day 15 her car is gone. Cook stalks his own stalker around the neighborhood. Weeks later a closure letter from Janice: schizophrenia, missed meds, she is a fan. Cook responds with a video of himself eating almonds.
30:00 – 38:00
07 · In love -- the internet hates it
Cook is in love with his 23-year-old girlfriend (he is 49). Internet erupts. Riffs on five relationship boxes and the Disney World coincidence couple from a newsmagazine show.
38:00 – 43:00
08 · Weddings and vows
Calligraphy invitations, cryptic priests, inexplicable Old English vows, and throwing rice directly at their eyes if you resent attending.
43:00 – 47:00
09 · Crime -- Citizen app and Dateline
Citizen app updates, smash-and-grab hammer gang, and the Dateline formula: blood immediately, salacious tidbit, perfectly messed-up episode title.
47:00 – 50:00
10 · How to win a trial with charisma
Innocence is irrelevant -- you need one juror to think you are cool. Protocol: pet imaginary kitten, wish them good morning, ask about birthdays, invoke Chick-fil-A. Caveat: will not work if you are ugly.
50:00 – 57:40
11 · The Rathskeller -- origin story
First out-of-town gig in Florida: a hot dog stand roof inside a bar, a lantern, a broken lapel mic, the arm-sweep that killed the TVs, and being pelted with hot dogs. Driving back to Boston in tears. Not one hot dog hit me.
Visual structure at a glance.
Lines you could clip.
01:05
"Fuck Rotten Tomatoes. This shit bought me a house."
05:45
"She looked like a rock with makeup on."
35:00
"Where have you been all my life? And then I remembered she was not alive for the first twenty-six years of it."
33:00
"Googling myself is like cutting."
57:20
"Not one fucking hot dog hit me."
How they spent the runtime.
Hook length183s
Info densityhigh
Filler5%
Word for word.
HOOK opening / re-engagementCTA the pitch metaphor analogy story
00:54HOOKI know some of you guys are like, that's not his fucking house. But this is my house. Good luck Chuck did very well.
01:14HOOKbefore we keep going, anybody have any questions about what's happening right now? What are your names? Robert
01:36HOOKLet's just call it five years. Did you guys meet in real life? Did you meet through some kind of online situation?
01:48HOOKLike, when you met him a thing happens with women that I've I I'm trying to understand. Like like, you kinda know.
01:54HOOKThere's some I don't know what if it's what is it? Like, pheromones or does, your pussy tingle? Did it, like, buzz in your panties?
02:10HOOKRight? Did you just you you knew something right away like, oh, wow. I wanna I wanna hang with this guy.
02:22HOOKOkay. So here's what I wanna ask you guys, and you gotta be honest for all of us tonight. This is an evening about truths.
02:41HOOKor do they stay pretty, like, even keel where it's just kinda like Right? But is it you know, sometimes it'll, like I got a neighbor, like, right over here, and, man, she's a bitch. She's probably listening to the show right now.
03:06So I've been dealing with a stalker
03:15And it was legit. Okay? I don't I cannot even fathom
03:19how I found myself in this situation, but I did. I started getting about a year ago thousands of
03:27DMs on Instagram. You know, DMs, direct messages.
03:31It's like text that you can send to whoever allows them to be accessed. And I always keep it open to my fans and people write me stuff all the time. I love it.
03:39Throwback a hello or whatever. Every once in while, I get stuff that's a little off kilter.
03:44Somebody has a bleached asshole picture and they send it to me thinking I maybe that's what I'm in the mood for.
03:55But I noticed about a year ago that I started getting thousands of messages from this one woman's account.
04:04And when I really investigated, I I was like, oh, wow. I remember I was sitting there. I was like, well, she has sent me a a message every minute of every day.
04:13Every minute. Oh, look. 10:42AM.
04:17Where you at, baby?
04:2010:43AM. Been looking all over for you, babe. You know, baby with, like, 15 a's?
04:26That's Babby, by the way. But fuck it. That's not
04:34And so I would look, and then finally it was like, you know, like 04:14AM, she would be, where the fuck are you, Dane Cook? I'm looking for Dane Cook.
04:46And they got increasingly more and more off kilter. Strange.
04:51So over the course of a couple of weeks, they got then they were, like, all capital letters. And then it just turned into, like I couldn't even really make out what she was getting at. And it just kept going on, like, rambles and rambles.
05:03And I was sitting at lunch, uh, with a friend, and I finally said, you gotta see all these every minute. And my buddy goes, you she sent a video. And one of the luteurs, she sent me a video.
05:11And I was like, I gotta know. You know, sometimes when you hit play on a video before it catches the WiFi,
05:18there's that moment where it's it's gotta find the signal. So whatever the video is, it's just frozen on one still. It was her face, and she was like this.
05:28And it just stayed like that for a second. And I wanna be, again, really straightforward about how I felt about everything that I experienced. When I saw this video
05:36and I saw her face, she was very, very ugly. She had a horribly ugly fucking face. She looked like a rock with makeup on.
05:46And the video plays, and she's screaming and pacing. She goes, where the fuck are you, Dane Cook? I wanna know where Dane Cook is and why the fuck you won't call me back.
05:53You need to fucking call me back, Dean Cook. She's seething. She's spitting onto the camera.
05:59It's so fucking loud, screaming wherever she was. I know people must have been and she's, you're gonna fucking call me. And then it ends.
06:08I'm sitting there. I almost I was like, I never had had anybody yell at me like this my whole life. I never had anybody
06:15yell at me and scream at me like that. It was so unsettling. And as I was trying to really figure out what
06:23would have made her so upset, I looked down. She sent me another video. And in the second video, she was crying.
06:28She was wiping tears. She goes, this isn't me. This
06:32isn't me. This isn't us. She said that.
06:34She said, this isn't me. This isn't us.
06:39And she just she was weeping, and she looked so sad. She looked so downtrodden.
06:44She's It pulled you into that same level of emotion.
06:49Right? I found myself you know what? I'm gonna cry a lot, so the plane will go by.
06:52So it'll be a lot of crying. Ready to watch this.
06:59I get to see Marty, my director. He's going like this, and if I stretch, let that fucking aircraft go by.
07:07We'll just get some extra crying. We'll cut around. Trust me.
07:10I did my best. I did my best. That's a callback to Vicious Circle.
07:15That's for you, Marty. Okay. The plane's gone.
07:17Let's keep going. Going. Here we go.
07:20Anyway, shut up. Ready? Do what you were doing before.
07:24Okay? Get in that same mindset. So
07:32she was very sad. And that in turn, it made me emotional. So as she was crying so hard that I I was almost mirroring, but I didn't know was like, I was watching like that.
07:43I'm not crying, but something, you know, I'm like, I'm in it with her. The video ends.
07:49Eleven minutes later, she sends me another video and fuck, yes, I'm playing it. I need to know what what emotion is next on the seven levels of grief that I'm receiving. When I hit play on the third video, this woman who'd gone from being so
08:05irate, over the top, furious anger to then being so despondent and sullen and low in the third video, she was just staring.
08:17Just staring. Just staring into the nothing. No emotion.
08:20Staring and breathing like the
08:28And I'm watching and I'm staring. I'm I'm breathing as well. I'm just
08:36And then she did something that I'll never not see. I'll never get this image out of my mind for the rest of my life.
08:43She looked a little bit closer into the camera and her eyes went a little wide and then she ate almonds.
08:51Oh, I watched the whole fucking video. I was transfixed. I actually counted.
08:56She put nine almonds. Nine almonds in her mouth, and then she never chewed. Never chewed.
09:03I challenge you to go home tonight. Put nine goddamn almonds in your mouth and don't chew. What the fuck, lady?
09:12The the video ends, and I I didn't even know where I'm at with this. I'm just like that Wow.
09:17This is all This is a very strange individual, but I wasn't scared. Why wasn't I scared?
09:24Because part of me was like, you know what? I was a little concerned, but I was like, she doesn't know where I am. And who knows where she is in the world?
09:29And then a week later, I get a video, and she's scanning the LA skyline. Scanning the whole skyline, and then she slowly turns to the camera. And she goes, look at she goes, getting close.
09:40Yeah. And I said to the camera, you fucking are. You are getting close.
09:45I live here. And then everything switched up at that moment. And and and that's when I I was like, well, I'm being stalked.
09:52I'm being hunted.
09:55I'm glad you can laugh. So
10:00I I honestly, I was so screwed up by it. And then I remember a couple nights later, I I had a night where I was just gonna come back to the place and I I was gonna like, know, I'm just gonna try relax. I'm I'm not doing any shows locally tonight.
10:12And I remember as I, uh, came up around the corner, I was just about to go into my garage and then I see a car parked right in front of my house. And I say out loud to myself, I go, that car doesn't belong in this neighborhood.
10:26What is that? An o eight?
10:33No. I knew it was her, and I was terrified. So what did I do?
10:36I drove into my garage the fastest you can legally drive into your own garage. And then I ran up into the house, and I remember as I ran up, I I checked the DMs, and she was already sending me messages from outside of the house.
10:48She goes, I saw you go in your fucking garage. You need to come outside right now and bring me a banana. Oh, yeah.
10:54Demanding fruit immediately. This crazy ugly lady. Then I have a camera at my front door, I checked the screen.
11:03When I checked, she was in the street, and she was walking back and forth, and she was staring up at my house like she wanted to fight my house.
11:14So I'm I'm kerfuffle as fuck. I don't know. You have to understand, I've never had anything
11:21like this happen for the rest of the night. I was just so concerned, and I kept hoping she would just go away. Every time I'd look out there, she was still there.
11:29Midnight, she's still there. And two in the morning, she's still there. I'm in bed.
11:33I can't sleep. I'm in the bed. I keep checking the DMs.
11:37And finally, at 02:30AM, she sends me a video. So I hit play. I turn it all the way down.
11:43She's too close.
11:47And she's standing at my front door. She's standing with her back against my door, and she looks into the camera, and she said, almost inaudible, it was so just the slightest
11:57half of a whisper,
12:01You made me do this. And then she looked a little closer,
12:08and she shaved her fucking eyebrows off. Yeah.
12:13Trick.
12:22Both eyebrows off. Off.
12:26Choke like a fucking goose. Yeah. Like a heinous goose
12:31at my door.
12:34And I'm I can't sleep. I slept like a little bit and when I woke woke up, I immediately looked at the camera.
12:40She's still outside. We're gonna call this part of the story day two.
12:47Day two, she's out there all day. And I'm like, I I I didn't wanna leave. All of day two,
12:56my anxiety hits, like, I'm I never had anything like this since I was maybe, like, a kid. I was really scared. And yet at the same time, I was trying to keep myself busy
13:06because I wanted to check the DMs. I kept like I just wanted to know, like, what her mindset was. And so I and then I finally had to leave the phone
13:16and just to go into another room to just, you know, try to have a sandwich or just, you know, do something rudimentary. And then every once in a while, I'd hear her outside go, check your DMs.
13:27Yeah. So I would check my DMs, and so would you. If somebody bellowed, check your DMs outside of your residence, you'd check your DMs.
13:33Yes.
13:37All of day two, she's out there. Day three, I wake up. Still there.
13:44Call my friend who's a LAPD officer for twenty five years. And I called him up and I go, hey, man.
13:50This is, uh, really disconcerting. I've never experienced anything like this.
13:55He goes, hold on. Dane Cook, do this. Ready?
13:58He goes, Dane Cook, send me everything that she has sent you. Send me, uh, video screen captures, whatever it is.
14:03Send it over. So I did. I sent my cop friend everything she'd sent me.
14:07Forty minutes later, he calls me back before I can even say hello. He goes, hey, hey, hey, hey. This is serious, man.
14:15And I said, I know. That's why I reached out to you. That was that was my notion.
14:19You're corroborating my ideas. I did the detective slew thing on this end of the case. Copy?
14:25He goes, no, no. You don't realize, man. This is really, really bad.
14:29And I said, okay. Well, it doesn't feel right, but how do you know it's really, really bad? He goes, how do I know?
14:35She shaved her fucking eyebrows is how I know. I've been on the force thirty years. Once they shaved the eyebrows, that's it.
14:42That's the last bastion of humanity, eyebrows. You got a gun? I said, I don't have a gun.
14:48He goes, you need a fucking gun, kid. He goes, you need a gun. And then now I'm freaked.
14:53I'm like, I didn't even know where to like, I how? And I so I said in my comfort, I go, and then there's a a like a permit and there's a a waiting period. He goes, hey.
15:00Hey. Hey. Hey.
15:01Fuck all that. Get on the Internet. There's a 10 gauge shotgun you can have delivered to your house in five and a half hours.
15:08Yeah. I was like, somebody the link, officer?
15:14This is what he says. He goes, now listen. He goes, I want you to get this shotgun.
15:19I'll never forget this. And he goes, I want you to follow my exact protocol
15:24if you want this to go your way. To which I replied, I would like for this to go my way. Can we just cover that aspect and maybe not even look at the part where this doesn't go my way?
15:38He goes, let's say for the first scenario, this woman, this strange lady gets up on your property from the front.
15:46He goes, want you to do this and I want you to do it exact. Stand in the doorway about two and a half feet in with a shotgun and I want you to wait and I want you to let her come towards you. Fuck yeah.
15:58Fuck. No.
16:11I said, what am I supposed to do in the interim? He goes, if you forget everything else, I just want you to remember one thing, watch her feet. This is what the cop says, watch her feet.
16:21I said, okay. I'll that, but why am I gonna he goes, doesn't matter. Just watch her feet.
16:24Every single time a foot takes a step, I just want you to watch the foot. I don't care if she's doing crazy impersonations. Whatever she's doing, whatever her antics are, I want you to watch her feet.
16:33Every time a foot takes a step, I want her to watch that foot. He every time one of her feet touches one of the stairs on the porch, watch the foot touch the step.
16:44When she gets to the very top step of the porch, I want you to shoot her and fucking kill her.
16:50Yeah. And then he goes, are you listening? And I was like, I am only fucking listening.
16:57Am I listening? No. You're on speakerphone and making eggs Benedictine and doing some salsa moves that I learned in eighth grade.
17:02No. I'm fucking dialed in, officer. Shoot to kill.
17:05Uh-huh. Copy. He goes, now this is the important part.
17:09Right after you shoot her, before her body even hits the ground, Dean Cook, I want you to cock the gun again, and I want you to shoot into the ceiling. I said, shoot my own ceiling?
17:19He said, yes. I go, I'll do that, but why am I gonna do that? He said, when the police get there, tell them she came at you.
17:25You fired a warning shot. She kept coming. You shot her and killed her.
17:32L a p motherfucking d. They are good at bad.
17:43Fifteen days. Yeah. Fifteen days she was outside of my house.
17:51And you're probably wondering what was life like for you, Dane Cook, in those fifteen days. Man, I'll tell you a couple things. I got very good at driving in and out of my garage at high rates of speed.
18:01I'm like Olympic level ready, if that's ever a competitive thing. I actually know how high the roof of my car is, and then I put a sticker right there in the garage door so I didn't need to wait for it to all the up.
18:11I could just fucking Batman in. And then I get in, I hit the door, and I watch it close, and you're scared because we've all seen the movie. Somebody slides under last minute.
18:19You're gonna die now. So you just like this, close, close, close, close. You're cheering for a door.
18:26Close, close, close, close.
18:32Fifteen days. Day 15, I come up around this corner.
18:38I'm just about to boogie into the garage like I always did and I quickly look over in the car, gone. So I stopped and I sat there for a second.
18:48And I remember as I was, uh, sitting there, I thought to myself, maybe she moved, you know? Maybe she's in a different
18:55vantage point looking at my property, which is sprawling.
19:00And and so I closed the garage door and I had to know. So I I was driving around my neighborhood and I'm going block by block and I'm basically stalking my stalker at this point. I was like, where you at, baby?
19:16And and and nothing. Nothing. Can't find her.
19:20Then I finally come into the house and I checked the DMs. The DMs
19:25that had been so constant for that year. And then, of course, over the fifteen days, nothing. Everything stopped day
19:3215. And I remember I was in the house,
19:37and a couple hours later, I looked at the screen thinking she's gonna be back out there. I was like, she's gonna be back at her spot and is gonna go into the whole thing again. And when I looked out there a couple of hours later, still not there.
19:47Later on that night, maybe 08:00, I walked over, not there. No DMs.
19:53And it was at that point that I remember I finally was like, where did she go? I mean, I hated when she was out there, but at least I knew where she was.
20:03This was a new kind of terror that I was experiencing. Where'd she go? And then a couple hours later, I looked out there again and I had another notion unexpectedly.
20:14I was like,
20:16she's a quitter.
20:21I have no respect for quitters. What a fucking loser to quit.
20:28And then I looked out at midnight, my ego got involved. Yeah. I got strangely insecure.
20:34I remember looking out there at midnight having this revelation. I was like, oh, okay.
20:41Yeah. What is she at Kevin Hart's house now?
20:51And then nothing, nothing for the longest time. And what's so interesting about us being here in this moment that I wanted to capture
21:01this special, she wrote me a little letter. I mean, I thought when I saw the d first of all, when I saw that she dm'd me, when I saw the dm'd, I I was, uh, I was excited and terrified.
21:13And when I opened it up, I thought it was gonna be like another weird blurb, and then that was gonna turn into chaos, and she'd be back out there. But when I opened it, it was a long message. And so I memorized it because I wanted to tell you exactly
21:27what it said. Here's the letter she wrote to me a few weeks ago. It opens up.
21:30It says, um, Dane Cook.
21:34It says, I felt a deep need.
21:40I felt a deep need to reach out to you and explain why I did what I did. I'm so truly embarrassed, but I felt you need, uh, an explanation.
21:50Then she went on to say, uh, I'm a schizophrenic. I went off my medication and as part of my spin,
21:59I attached myself to you and the idea of being with you. She said, in truth, I'm a big fan and I love your stand up and I've seen all your films and and television.
22:09I hear you have a big dick. Alright. I added that.
22:13I added that.
22:17Then she ended the letter by saying, I wish you nothing but great success in all your future endeavors.
22:24Love and light, Janice. Love and light, Janice.
22:32You have to understand something. I did not expect closure with this situation. But in that moment,
22:39I felt such empathy and I'm a sensitive guy and I was almost immediately responding. Yeah.
22:45I know that sounds wild, but I was. I was just I was enthused for her. And in that moment, what was I saying?
22:50I was throwing some things on there. Was like I was saying like, I'm so glad that you caught this, and I'm sure that your family is happy, that you're healthy and okay. And then I stopped myself and I was like, wait.
22:58I got a fucking gun. I planned a murder and how to get away with that murder absolutely in my favor.
23:07So this is what I did instead, and I think you're gonna appreciate this even more. I deleted everything that I was gonna write to her, and all I did, I sent her a video of me eating almonds.
23:21By the way, I'm in love. I just wanna you know, for the record, I'm deeply in love.
23:28And for a lot of years, I was just a very lonely millionaire, and I did not know
23:36I would just be lost in the world. Sometimes I would just drive my Lamborghini somewhere and leave it because I was so frightened, scared, and alone.
23:44I didn't know where I was going in the world. And then finally oh, my goodness. I finally meet somebody, and here's the thing.
23:49You wanna check five boxes in a relationship. Five things. If you meet somebody that offer up these five things, don't let go.
23:56Hold on tight. Hold on really tight. Koala bear tight.
23:59Mindful, thoughtful, compassionate, collaborative, and caring. That's what I have. I'm so fortunate.
24:03And if you meet somebody who's mindful, thoughtful, compassionate, collaborative, and caring, don't fuck it up. Okay? And you know what?
24:08I'm so happy in my relationship that I made a terrible mistake. I was so happy that I was like, know what? I bet I
24:15bet the Internet's happy for me. I should check.
24:19Let me see what the Internet is rawr rawr ing about my relationship. And so I got a I don't Google myself, by the way, ever.
24:29I learned this lesson a long time ago. And here's the thing. If I do decide to Google myself, it's because I'm already in a rut.
24:34And to me, Okay?
24:39When I Google myself, I'm always like, okay, I'm gonna cringe. This is not gonna be easy to take. But I kind of I don't know.
24:47I think I felt hopeful that the Internet would be like, oh, wow. That's great. Dane Cook's happy.
24:51And I'm happy that he's happy. And so I searched and then, uh, right away, I was crestfallen.
24:59I should not have done this because the Internet was saying some very, very mean spirited things. And if you're wondering like, why? What what is the problem with, uh, my relationship?
25:08Internet doesn't like it because I'm 49, my girlfriend's 23. And the Internet was it
25:16was so it was so, like, completely deranged, some of the things people were saying, that I finally was like, you know what? I gotta talk to my girlfriend about because I really wanna share that I'm feeling this overwhelmingly depressed feeling. So finally, we sat down in the kitchen.
25:29She was doing her homework, and I said to her, I said, bedtime soon, Betty. Let's talk before bed bed.
25:42I said, baby, I love you. And she said, oh, babe, I love you. I love you.
25:46I said, I love you so much. She said, I love you so much. And we were being kinda cheesy.
25:50And then I got emotional, and I said, you know, I said, I'm so in love with you. And I never said that to a woman in my entire life. I said, I love you or I love you too, but I never told
25:58a woman, I am so in love with you. And she got even more touched by this, and then I got even a little sappier, and I said, where have you been all my life? And then I remembered she wasn't alive for the first twenty six years of it.
26:19A guy last night during the taping, a guy last night, he goes, oh, you're robbing the cradle. And I was like, let's relax. She hasn't slept in a cradle in like nine years.
26:34I get very, uh, I get weird about weddings. There's something about weddings. First of I don't do a lot of impersonations.
26:40Can I do a very quick one of all of you? I could do all of you at once. Ready?
26:44This is anybody here getting a wedding invitation in the mail. Ready? Fuck.
26:53When is it? You don't even look at who. When?
26:56When? What weekend have you stolen from me? July 3.
27:00That's great. July 3. Where is it?
27:03Yosemite National Park outside wedding. July 3. That's not gonna be hot as balls.
27:09Then you don't even know who's getting married because I don't speak calligraphy. What the fuck? Is that a k?
27:14A q? Who is this?
27:21Right? And then you go here's the thing. I there's a lot of things that you go to the wedding
27:25and I there's certain things I don't understand. First of all, the bride and the groom, I don't like the way the I hate the way the priest is is standing between them,
27:34and he's being cryptic. He's saying all the right. Do you?
27:37Do you? Say what I say. Now you say.
27:46And then oh my good vows. This always gets me, the vows. They're gonna vow things to each other in front of everybody.
27:54Okay? Vows. You can't even keep promises
27:56to yourself. You've been saying you're gonna lose 15 pounds for eight years. And now you're gonna vow to keep their bullshit dreams afloat?
28:12And then the vows. Here's the thing about the vows. That they're vowing, and then all of a sudden, for no reason, there's, like, old English in the vows.
28:18Right? Thus, onto mine eyes, doth I are we burning a witch? What the fuck just happened?
28:24What is this language? This code?
28:32Here's how you know you resent having to go to the wedding in the first place. When the bride and groom, when they come out of the church, if you throw your rice like this, you
28:46huck that rice at their eyes. Here's a fun little prank that you can do. Ready?
28:52Stand behind everybody outside of the church. Right? Just be like one of the last people at the very back.
28:57And then when the bride and groom come out and everybody's all happy and jovial, just not very loud, but just loud enough that you know they hear it, just yell, fuck you.
29:08The reason I wanted to
29:12share this this evening with everybody is because I feel like um, I'm always looking for that visceral
29:21reaction. Anytime I'm watching something on television, I'm waiting for that moment where
29:27you you have that moment where you emote to nobody. That's when you know something very, very cool is happening. When you're sitting alone and something happens on a program and you look at nobody
29:39and you're like, this is fucking I'm alone. I I wish I had people.
29:43This is
29:47I had, uh, I had a visceral reaction to something that I thought was just so cool and and unique. And if you happen to catch this, I think you would agree with me that it was one of the most, uh, unbelievable moments that I I've seen captured on television in years.
30:01It was one of those shows like, uh, 2020. The the producers had a husband and wife,
30:08and they were sitting on a couch, and the producer just wanted the wife she had a shoebox of old photos. They wanted her to take some, uh, pictures out, and she would look and she would smile some pictures.
30:19She would look at her husband, and they would, you know, check the photos out there. Like, ten seconds of togetherness is really all they needed.
30:25The camera would slowly pan by, and the narrator will give us a little backstory on the couple that we're about to meet. And then this is what ended up happening and they the cameras were rolling, mics were on. She reaches into the shoebox.
30:37She grabs, like, 40 pictures. She starts rifling through. She grabs one.
30:42She's very excited. She drops the rest and she launches into a little tirade. She goes, oh, this I love this.
30:47This is this is one of my favorite memories of all time. This is me when I was four years old.
30:53I went to Disney World with my family, my mom, my dad, myself. We had an amazing bonding experience. And she was so effervescent and excited
31:00about the picture that you couldn't help but feel that same enthusiasm. In fact, the cameraman was slowly moving towards her because she was on this bubbly little tangent, And then it happened very quickly.
31:11As they got closer and closer, her husband's head came into the frame. All you saw was one incredulous eye. And it was unsettling.
31:22She didn't know yet. And then without even asking his wife's permission, he just snatched the photo out of her hand. And and she was startled, and then the cameraman didn't know where the picture went, so he trying to land on it.
31:32And when it finally did, the guy was staring at the photo, and then he swore on the show and they had to beep it. He goes, holy shit.
31:41And his wife goes, babe, what? He goes, what? I went to Disney World with my family when I was four years old.
31:49I'm standing right next to you in this picture. And they showed the picture close-up, and they were literally standing shoulder to shoulder. Both kids were in line waiting for the same ride with their families, and they're all crunched together, and they're cheesing out.
32:03And they took the picture, and they go their own way for twenty eight years, meet, get married, find out they have a picture together when they're little kids. I'm glad six of you appreciate that.
32:12Yeah. And the rest of you are what? Sociopaths?
32:15What are you? You're all looking at give me something else, Dan. I feel nothing.
32:19Let me qualify it for everybody who may not really understand the weight of that. The only thing that would have made that moment more dynamic and uncanny and incredible is if that couple right after that interview, if they were murdered.
32:36If they were brutally, brutally murdered.
32:41And the guy that killed them was also in the picture
32:47when he was four years old.
32:55I love crime. I love it.
33:00I can't stop with the Citizen app. I'm always on the Citizen app.
33:06Citizen app for anybody who doesn't know. So the Citizen app, you can download it and then it knows your it knows your GPS coordinates, knows where you're at. And from time to time, it'll send you updates,
33:17but they're not delightful.
33:21The updates are quite nefarious. Right? And not only did they send an update, they send how far away
33:28whatever is happening is happening. Couple nights ago, I'm sitting watching TV. I get an update.
33:32I looked down 0 four miles away, Woman brandishing dagger.
33:40Let's talk about this for a second. First of all, what the fuck is brandishing? I feel like it's like threatening but with dance involved.
33:48Right? I'm brandishing and will kill you.
33:530 four miles away, was like, fuck. I could probably get down there.
34:01I love it. They were doing the updates and it was on the news too.
34:04Did you see the the smash and grab gang? You saw them. Right?
34:09There's 20 of them. They all had hammers and apparently, they all got together and they were like, hey, let's just rob everything all the time. And so it started a few months ago.
34:20The first thing that they did is they took their they took their hammers and they went to I think the first place that they hit was Nordstrom's. Right? And you saw the footage.
34:28They all ran out and they smashed the plate glass window. And then you see them all. They just run through the store and they're grabbing everything that they can and then they by the way, never even try anything on.
34:38Right? They're just so brazen. Imagine you you get home and you're like, nothing fits me.
34:45I ran through the kids aisle. Fuck. I can't believe this.
34:51I've always loved I I just I'm fascinated with criminals and crime. It's always been the stuff that I'm most interested.
34:58Like, you can't not watch Dateline. Dateline to this day is there anything better than a a brand new episode of Dateline? I don't think there is.
35:06Right? When you're sitting down and you you start first of all, Dateline, even if you're not planning on watching Dateline, you're gonna end up watching Dateline.
35:15Okay. Because there's a couple of things that Dateline, very crafty, that Dateline knows how to do. First of all, when the show starts, the moment Dateline begins
35:24coming out of whatever commercial, they show blood right away. Right? They show they show smears of blood.
35:30They show flashes of blood, splats of blood, and then the narrator jumps in almost as quickly. There was blood everywhere. Blood on the walls.
35:38Blood on the floors. Blood on the family dog. And you're like, woah, woah, blood on the dog.
35:45Wait a second. Hold on. Did the killer pet the dog?
35:47Did the dog kill people? Wait. And then what do they do next?
35:52They pull you in a little bit more by giving you a tidbit of the salacious hour you're about to experience. Right?
35:58They were just married three hours before. And you're like, oh, shit. This is serious.
36:05And then they give the entire episode a title. And the title's fucked up, but perfect. Tonight, I do no.
36:11I do want to kill you. Here's Lester Holt.
36:22I love crime. Oh my goodness. I've watched so many thousands of hours of courtroom dramas.
36:27I think I know how to represent myself in a court of law and get away with it. Absolutely. So come along with me.
36:32Let's talk about that next. Here we go. First.
36:34Okay. Listen. It's not about guilt.
36:38It's not about innocent. It's not about facts.
36:41It's not about yes or no or what was right and wrong. It does none of that matters. Okay?
36:46The whole deal of winning in court
36:51is charisma. That's the whole thing. It's all about charisma.
36:55I'm telling you right now. That's all you need to do if you wanna win the case. And there's a couple of things that you could do to instantly
37:01get that jury because you just need one person, one person in that jury pool to think you're cool shit. If you can't get one person to think that you're somebody they wanna hang with, well, you should go to fucking jail.
37:18One person needs to come up with some reasonable doubt. Okay?
37:23That's what we're looking for here. And this is how you're gonna get it. Ready?
37:26Very, very simple. This is what you do. You start off like this.
37:29First day, you're gonna win the first day. Okay? You're gonna dress up, gussy up real nice,
37:34and then you're going to you're gonna this is juries love this. Ready?
37:39You're gonna pace back and forth like this. Juries love this. Ready?
37:47Right. You see this little thing that I'm doing with my finger? This is little pantomime here.
37:50You're gonna do this. If you ever represent yourself in a court, do this. Pretend there's a tiny little kitten on the end of your digit and you're petting it.
38:01And all you're gonna do, ready, very sincerely, you're just gonna greet them. That's all. You're just gonna greet the jury.
38:06You're just gonna look at everybody. Hello. Good morning.
38:11Good morning. Hi. Good morning.
38:14Right away, somebody's sitting there going, he wished me good morning. That made me feel really nice. I believe in this person.
38:22Now if you're feeling already like, oh, wow. Okay. I'm starting to feel a genuine
38:27connection with this, uh, jury, then you might wanna go again, don't push it, but you might wanna go with this next. You might wanna go with, um, is anybody celebrating a birthday today?
38:40Next week, happy birthday. Who doesn't love to be wished happy birthday?
38:46Happy birthday. Wish me happy birthday. This guy didn't kill somebody.
38:50Cared about my birthday greeting. This will work absolutely
38:55except for one condition. It will not work if you're fucking ugly. If you're ugly, you are going to jail.
39:03Ugly people are guilty. If you have a cleft lip, you're done.
39:09You're going to jail. But if you look good, that's innocence right there.
39:21There's certain things that juries just really love. Here's something else that they love.
39:26They love when you point at them gently. Okay? You're gonna point at them gently
39:33and then follow your own handout, and then you're just gonna ask a very obvious question about America.
39:43Juries love this. Just like this, you're gonna go,
39:49do you wanna live in an America where Chick fil A is closed on Sundays? Because I sure don't. Justice.
39:58Justice. They can't hire some atheists to work the drive through on a Sunday?
40:03Come on. Justice. Justice.
40:10I was, uh, I was asked one time if I'd ever thought of, um,
40:18quitting. You know, did it ever get, uh, so severe and was I ever in such a, you know,
40:26rut and stand up? Because, man, those formative years are just man. If I had to go back and do it again, I just I'd do brain surgery.
40:35It's like it is just so, so hard.
40:40And somebody asked me, he said, do you ever think about quitting? And I was like, yeah. He actually did.
40:45I did quit. I only quit one time. In thirty one years, I only fucking quit once.
40:51Once. And it was for thirty seconds. It was for thirty actual seconds.
40:56For thirty seconds, I went to an alternate universe and I was like, that's my life. And when I get home, I'm gonna do da da da da and I'm changing and I I really committed in that moment
41:05to letting go of the big dream. I was too scared. I I I was too, you know, encumbered.
41:10I just so many, you know, issues with anxiety and but what brought me to the moment of realizing that I wasn't gonna keep it going is the moment that launched me to everything and then to standing right here wearing fucking sneakers that are an homage to my mom in my high school hoodie.
41:30Thirty seconds of complete failure. I got hired to do a gig in Florida.
41:37I'd never been to Florida. I was in Boston. My manager at the time called me and goes, you got a gig in Florida?
41:42I said, what the fuck? Am I even funny in Florida? And he goes, well, we're gonna find out.
41:47This guy saw you at a local college gig. He wants you to come down and do a show. My heart's racing.
41:51I was like, what? Oh, wow. I'm going on the road.
41:54This is where it starts. Oh, my goodness. I said, what?
41:57Uh, wow. Okay. So where am I going?
41:59He goes, the name of the venue is the Rathskeller. I go, the Rathskeller. Wow.
42:03That sounds pretty gnarly. I go, okay. When is it?
42:06He goes, well, couple things first. He goes, there's no money. I said, there's no money?
42:11He goes, no. There's no budget. Nothing.
42:13I go, what about a little bit of scratch maybe for a Greyhound bus ticket or coach class? He goes, there's nothing at all. Zero.
42:21I said, I'll do it. Instantly, I was like, you know what? The profit is exposure.
42:26I'll do it. He goes, alright. Good.
42:27You gotta start driving right now. The gig is tomorrow night. Yeah.
42:31So I jumped into my Chevy Cavalier. I got a a 95 south. I get down there and the the guy that I'm meeting, his name was Don.
42:38And I remember Don was standing outside of the Ratskuller and he was smoking. And as I came towards him, for whatever reason, he just flicked the cigarette towards me and it fucking rocked
42:47it right past me. Was like, wow, this dude is fucking cool. I was like, did he practice that?
42:52That was fucking amazing. And he blew all the smoke. He blew so much smoke, and then he walked through the smoke like Michael Jackson.
43:01I'd never seen anybody do anything like that. The only thing that could have made it better is that when he came through the smoke, a white tiger fucking jumped out with him. Fuck.
43:09I wanted to be Don.
43:16You guys wanna see the joint? I said, yeah. We go in and we look at the rascalar.
43:19Middle of the day. What am I seeing? Observation mode.
43:22Ready? I'm seeing a bar, TVs. I'm seeing a nacho machine.
43:26I'm seeing arcade games. I see air hockey. It's a joint.
43:30It's a place where people like to go and commiserate and hang out. And I was like, okay. But then I look around and go, wait a second.
43:36Hey, uh, Don, where do I perform? Where's the stage?
43:43And he pointed across the room and up, which I never seen anybody do that before. Normally, somebody's gonna point to a stage, it's a horizon line point.
43:52I'd never seen anybody point at space. It was unusual. And I when I followed his finger,
43:59I looked and inside the Rathskeller, there was another little building in the building. And when he pointed at it he goes, you see that hotdog stand? I said, yeah.
44:08He goes, you're gonna be on the roof. I said, I'm gonna be on the roof of the hotdog stand? He goes, yes.
44:13I said, fuck.
44:17I said, Don, I would I I didn't even know how I would get up there. And he looked at me and he said in a voice that that sounded like information I always should have known. He went, there's a fucking ladder in the back.
44:30Yeah. Oh. Oh, yes.
44:32The Ratskeller hot dog stand ladder in the back. Yeah. Yes.
44:36So
44:39I look and I go I said, because dark. I said, Don, is it's wow.
44:44I said, is there lights up there? And he looked at me and he goes, you need fucking lights to perform?
44:51I said, Don, I'm a man of a thousand faces. Yes. Or at least a dozen faces at this point.
44:57I said, I need illumination so people can see my behaviors. And he goes like this.
45:02He goes, fuck. Fucking bullshit.
45:06Fuck. Motherfucker. And he swore all the way down the hall away from me.
45:11I could tell he went very far because the fucks got very low. And then as I heard the fucks raise up in volume, I thought, Don's returning.
45:22He comes around the corner. Ready? He hands me a lantern.
45:27Yeah. Like the cover of a Led Zeppelin album, lantern.
45:32Like a Gandalf. He goes, yeah. And I'm so beta at this point.
45:37I have no fucking spine. I took it. I was like, this will yeah.
45:39This will do. Thank you so much, John. I was such a little jerk.
45:45I didn't just know how to be like, no. And then I now I'm a little bit more nervous. I looked back up there.
45:51Said, Don, I got I I one more I know you gotta go smoke and do that impressive thing you did, but I said, Don, is there a microphone up there? And he goes,
46:01you need a fucking mic? I said, yes. I said, Don, people need to be able to hear my tones and I need to be able to
46:08mod ulate in different, uh, character modes. Yes. I'd like a microphone.
46:12He goes, fucking bitch. Fuck you. Fuck.
46:15Fucking bitch. Motherfucker. And the and the fucks got lower.
46:22And then as I heard the volume go up on the fucks, I thought, Don's returning.
46:30He comes around the corner. Ready? This is what he hands me.
46:32He hands me you ever see a Gorilla amp? Gorilla amp's like this big.
46:37He hands me that and there's a wire coming off it, but it's not a regular mic. It's a it's a lapel mic. A lapel mic is when a person goes on a a talk show and they clip on that little mic.
46:48He hands me one of those. The clip is broken. So it's just a tiny little mic
46:54that I'm gonna have to hold like a fucking giant, like a Lilliputian mic. Hello.
46:58Hello. Hello. He
47:02goes, yeah. And I go, very good.
47:04Yes. I said, Don, what time
47:08does the show begin? And he goes, show's gonna start sometime between eight and eleven, so hang out. I was like, 08:11.
47:16Perfect. That's my sweet spot. I'll be revved eight to eleven.
47:22Puts me in a back storage closet and there's not even like a green room. This is just a fucking place where like they put a mop,
47:32you know, you know, place where they put the mop with the bucket and even empty out the bleach. Bleach is still in there.
47:39Finally, at like 10:30, Don comes around the corner and goes, yo, Dan Cook.
47:44I said, yeah. And he goes, you ready to do it? I said, yeah.
47:47And now, it all hit me. I was like, this this is where I'm gonna go out and I'm gonna start trying to figure out, you know, where the next
47:55maybe army of fans that I have. Now I'm walking behind him. And I remember I was like, oh, man.
48:01I just I was getting, a little bit of flop sweat, you know. And then finally, Don stopped in the hallway. He goes, you good?
48:09I said, yeah. And he goes, I think you're gonna be great. I said, Don, I appreciate that.
48:12He goes, yeah. Now get the fuck up that ladder and do your shit. Wisdom.
48:18To this day, anytime I'm feeling like I just don't really know how to take next steps or if you feel like you're at a dead end, just remember the words of Dawn. And you know what you do? You get to fuck up that ladder and you do your shit.
48:29I climbed a ladder like this, a makeshift ladder. As
48:36I'm approaching the top of the hot dog stand roof, I'm realizing a couple of things. This is higher than I thought.
48:45When I was on Rung 11, I was like, woah. I maybe it was an optical illusion, but it seemed like it was a smaller edifice inside this larger establishment.
48:56But no. And I'm climbing. I'm sweating.
48:59I finally get to the very top and I can hear it. I hear before I even get over the cusp of the roof hustle
49:05slash bustle. It's packed. It's showtime.
49:10And I climb up and I put one foot, and when I come over the top, everybody's moving around. Everybody's moving around.
49:16And very, very quickly, I'm realizing nobody's sitting like you're sitting. There's no chairs facing this direction.
49:23People are milling about everywhere. I'm looking over. Everybody's crowded at the bar, and they're all cheersing, and drinks are going everywhere, the sports highlights are on, and everybody's reacting.
49:32And then people are on their arcade games.
49:36And then people playing air hockey and I can hear that and it and they're hitting that back and forth. Oh shit. Fuck, man.
49:41One more game. One more game. And everybody's
49:44moving around. And I'm like, I've got the little mic and I'm like, hello, hello, hello. I'm trying to pull some focus.
49:52And as I'm trying to assimilate, I look and then I noticed there's people kind of walking towards in a way. But I'm so high up, what I finally do is I I tiptoe
50:01to the very end of the stand. And when I looked down, the hot dog stand was open.
50:09It was a functioning fucking hot dog stand. And one woman, as she walked away with her hot dog, noticed and realized I was there.
50:19And I heard her, and as I heard her, I watched, she protected her heart. And she went, there's a man. There's a man on the hot dog stand.
50:27Look, there's a man. She protected her heart.
50:31Oh, there's a there's a man right there.
50:36So I'm desperately, hello, hello, hi guys, hello, nobody. And I'm realizing, oh man, I'm I'm losing. I'm losing them.
50:43And I search the crowd, and then finally, there was one guy in a crisp white shirt at the very back of the room. And I remember he was standing in such a unique position that I had to really take it in.
50:54He was standing like this, and he was watching me. He was watching me.
51:00And when I noticed he was watching me, then I realized he was making a face that I can only describe it as he was almost entertained.
51:16I said, I'm gonna get him. I'm gonna get this guy, and then by proxy, the laughter will spread, and I will have this place rocking and rolling.
51:24This is gonna turn into a fun ruckus right now. And I looked at this guy again, and I noticed something the second time I observed that right under where his hand was so uniquely placed, there was a bunch of switches. There was, like, 12
51:38switches. And I quickly deduced those must be the switches to the TVs and the arcade games and the air hockey. If somehow I could communicate with this gentleman to turn the switches off, maybe I could pull everybody in.
51:49So I looked at this guy and I pointed like this. I just pointed at him. And when I pointed at him, he went like this.
51:59And once I knew he knew I was pointing at him, then I just went like that. This is it. Point and then I whipped my arm down like that.
52:06And he knew that this was the international sign for, hey, you should turn all those switches off. Because when I did that, he looked at me.
52:16Ready? He looked and then he looked at the and then he looked back at me.
52:21He looked at the switches. And here's the best part, my favorite part. He didn't just turn them off one at a time.
52:28He used his whole forearm and he fucking just shut down the whole fucking mainframe. TV's off. Arcade games off.
52:35Air hockey, no more air. Nacho machine's still on. I think it was on a generator.
52:39Point is, I had control. But I didn't because once everything went off, before I could even get a word out, heard one guy go, who the fuck did that?
52:48Who turned everything off? Who did it? And I heard a woman respond, and I think it was the woman who protected her heart.
52:53She goes, it's the man on the hot dog stand. He indicated.
53:00All of a sudden, in that exact moment, I looked and I saw something coming through the air. It took me one second to realize fucking thousands of hot dogs were coming at me. Hot dogs were coming from every angle.
53:12One of them just scud missile right past me. One hot dog I remember was and then two ricocheted up and they both went past, and then somehow five hit the ceiling and it rained hot dogs down around me.
53:25But I got away from all of them, and I remember they kept coming. More and more and more hot dogs. It was
53:31it was like the opening of Saving Private Ryan, but instead of bullets, picture hot dogs. Okay?
53:40I jumped on the ladder and I very quickly went down 72 rungs. And there was a back door and I remember I found the back door and I pushed
53:50it open, and I ran all the way across the parking lot, and I got into my little used Chevy Cavalier. And I was just in that car for a second, and then finally, I just drove away.
54:01I got an I 95 North, and man, I drove as fast as I could, and I was so sad that I had to pull over on the side of the road.
54:10I couldn't even drive anymore because I was so emotional and upset. And I was sitting in this little rest stop,
54:20and I remember I looked at myself in the rearview mirror, and I said, you're not funny in Florida.
54:30Funny anywhere, you should just quit.
54:34And I said it out loud and I'd never fucking let in to not doing this. Even though I knew I sucked at everything else in the fucking world. But I knew I could do this.
54:47I said, you should quit. And I did. And I was resolved to quit.
54:52Right at that moment, I relinquished my power and I said, I'm fucking quitting. And I put it in drive, and I was already heading towards a new life.
55:00In those few seconds, I'm telling you right then, I'd created a ripple and the universe was ready to cooperate. And then I fucking jammed it back in the park, and I said, I'm not quitting.
55:12I'm not quitting. And it's that moment that brings me to this moment tonight.
55:18And the reason I didn't quit is for that realization that I had there. The reason I didn't quit is because not one fucking hot dog hit me.
55:31I'm Dan Cook. Thank you guys so much. Alright.
55:40You can all go home now.
55:44That's a wrap. Thank you guys very much. Appreciate it.
55:47Thank
55:52you. Thanks for coming to my house.
55:57That's my chopper, guys. I gotta get out of here, really. If you could just meet me in the back on the roof.
56:05It's my neighbor, Tom Cruise. He's probably flying himself to set. Carefully, my jump.
— full transcript
§ 05 · For Joe
The hot dog stand is always the beginning.
Killing Excuses playbook
The 30-second quit moment -- crying in a car at a Florida rest stop after being pelted with hot dogs on a bar roof -- is the pivot point of a career. Not one hot dog hit him. That is the rule.
- Your worst gig is not failure evidence -- it is origin story material. The Rathskeller bit is better content than any arena show.
- The almond callback is a masterclass: plant something absurd early, let it sit 25 minutes, land it as the payoff. Long-form callbacks work in video essays too.
- Cook structures every bit as a tonal arc -- horror to comedy to pathos to absurdist release. Map your videos to four emotional beats, not just setup/punchline.
- The house-as-venue was the concept. He did not need a stage -- the setting WAS the first punchline. Your real environment is often a better set than anything you could build.
- Thirty seconds of resolve beats years of momentum. Find your not-one-hot-dog-hit-me moment and make it the anchor of your origin story.
§ 05 · For You
What the hot dog stand actually teaches.
If you are at your own Rathskeller right now
The moment you almost quit is not the end of the story -- it is the sentence that makes everything after it make sense.
- Embarrassment is survivable. A thousand hot dogs thrown at you in a Florida bar, and you can still get back on a highway and try again.
- Closure rarely looks like you expected -- sometimes it is a letter from a stranger who shaved her eyebrows off.
- The five boxes (mindful, thoughtful, compassionate, collaborative, caring) are a useful checklist for any relationship worth keeping.
- The people advising you through your worst moments are often also scared and improvising.
- Resolve is a decision made in five seconds, not a personality trait. Cook did not become un-quittable -- he just did not quit that one time, and that was enough.
