Thank you guys very much. Thank you for being here. Thanks for coming to my house. You guys feeling good?
Good to see everybody. I'm Dane Cook. Thanks for being here tonight. This is
this is, uh, this is my house. This
is, uh, my actual house. I know some of you guys are like, that's not his fucking house.
But this is my house. Good luck Chuck did very well. That's all I'm gonna say. Okay?
Yeah. Fuck Rotten Tomatoes. This shit bought me a house. I
know. 35% splat? No. 35% mortgage paid. Trust me. It's
before we keep going, anybody have any questions about what's happening right now? What are your names? Robert
and Deanna. Robert and Deanna.
How long you guys been together? Over a year. Over a year. Yeah.
Or two years? He said
said over over that's
kind of a wide
you missed, you know?
A year, two years. Let's just call it five years.
Did you guys meet in real life? Did you meet through some kind of online situation? Talk to me. You're at my house. Let's just
We met in real life. You met in real life? And did you get it? Like, when you met him a thing happens with women that I've I I'm trying to understand. Like like,
you kinda know. There'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?
Right? You kinda butterflies came out of your vagina.
Right? Did you just you you knew something right away like, oh, wow. I wanna I wanna hang with this guy. Yeah? And so how's it been? You could be honest. Let's figure it out right now. Okay? You're either leaving together?
Yeah. It's been great? Yeah? Okay. 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.
Okay? You
fight from time to time? Yes. Let's talk about that.
Let's talk about that. And when you fight, do
your fights escalate,
or 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. You're loud.
She's always fucking yapping. She just wants to out yell.
I didn't even invite her to the show.
I'm kidding.
I'll bring you a meringue.
So
I've been dealing with a stalker
And it was legit. Okay? I don't I cannot even fathom
how I found myself
in this situation, but I did. I started getting about a year ago thousands of
DMs
on Instagram. You know, DMs, direct messages. It'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.
Throwback a hello or whatever. Every once in while, I get stuff that's a
little off kilter. Somebody has a bleached asshole picture and they send it to me thinking I maybe that's what I'm in the mood for.
But I noticed about a year ago that I started getting
thousands
of messages from this one woman's account. And 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.
Every minute.
Oh, look. 10:42AM.
Where you at, baby?
10:43AM.
Been looking all over for you, babe. You know, baby with, like, 15 a's? That's Babby, by the way. But fuck it. That's not
And 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.
And they got increasingly
more and more off kilter. Strange.
So 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. And 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.
And I was like, I gotta know.
You know, sometimes when you hit play on a video before it catches the
WiFi,
there'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.
And 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
and I saw her face, she was very, very ugly.
She had a horribly ugly fucking face.
She looked like a rock with makeup on.
And 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. You need to fucking call me back, Dean Cook. She's seething. She's spitting onto the camera. It'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.
I'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
yell at me and scream at me like that. It was so unsettling.
And as I was trying to really figure out what
would have made her so upset, I looked down. She sent me another video.
And in the second video, she was crying. She was wiping tears. She goes, this isn't me.
This
isn't me. This isn't us. She said that. She said, this isn't me. This isn't us.
And she just she was weeping,
and she looked so sad. She looked so downtrodden. She's
It
pulled you into that same level of emotion. Right? I found myself you know what? I'm gonna cry a lot, so the plane will go by. So it'll be a lot of crying. Ready to watch this.
I get to see Marty, my director. He's going like this, and if I stretch,
let that fucking aircraft go by.
We'll just get some extra crying. We'll cut around. Trust me.
I did my best.
I did my best. That's a callback to Vicious Circle. That's for you, Marty. Okay. The plane's gone. Let's keep going. Going. Here we go.
Anyway, shut up. Ready?
Do what you were doing before. Okay?
Get in that same mindset. So
she 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. I'm not crying,
but something, you know, I'm like, I'm in it with her.
The video ends.
Eleven 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
irate, over the top, furious anger
to then being so
despondent and sullen and low in the third video, she was just staring.
Just staring. Just staring into the nothing. No emotion. Staring and breathing like the
And I'm watching and I'm staring. I'm I'm breathing as well. I'm just
And 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. She looked a little bit closer into the camera and her eyes went a little wide
and then she ate almonds.
Oh, I watched the whole fucking video.
I was transfixed.
I actually counted. She put nine almonds.
Nine almonds in her mouth, and then she never chewed.
Never chewed. I challenge you to go home tonight. Put nine goddamn almonds in your mouth and don't chew. What the fuck, lady?
The the video ends,
and I I didn't even know where I'm at with this. I'm just like that Wow. This is all This is a very
strange individual, but I wasn't scared. Why wasn't I scared? Because 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? And 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.
Yeah.
And I said to the camera, you fucking are. You are getting close. I 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. I'm being hunted.
I'm glad you can laugh. So
I 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. And 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.
What is that? An o eight?
No. I knew it was her, and I was terrified. So what did I do? I 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. She goes, I saw you go in your fucking garage. You need to come outside right now and bring me a banana.
Oh, yeah. Demanding fruit immediately.
This crazy ugly lady.
Then I have a camera at my front door, I checked the screen. When 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.
So I'm I'm kerfuffle as fuck. I don't know.
You have to understand, I've never had anything
like 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. Midnight, she's still there. And two in the morning, she's still there. I'm in bed. I can't sleep.
I'm in the bed. I keep checking the DMs. And finally, at 02:30AM, she sends me a video.
So I hit play. I turn it all the way down. She's too close.
And 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
half of a whisper,
You made me do this.
And
then she looked a little closer,
and she shaved her fucking eyebrows
off.
Yeah. Trick.
Both eyebrows
off.
Off. Choke like a fucking goose.
Yeah. Like a heinous goose
at my door.
And I'm
I can't sleep.
I slept like a little bit and when I woke woke up, I immediately looked at the camera. She's still outside.
We're gonna call this part of the story day two.
Day two, she's out there all day.
And I'm like, I I I didn't wanna leave.
All of day two,
my 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
because 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
and 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.
Yeah. 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. Yes.
All of day two, she's out there.
Day three, I wake up.
Still there.
Call my friend who's a LAPD officer
for twenty five years.
And I called him up and I go, hey, man. This is, uh, really disconcerting. I've never
experienced anything like this. He goes, hold on. Dane Cook, do this. Ready? He goes, Dane Cook, send me everything
that she has sent you. Send me, uh, video screen captures, whatever it is. Send it over. So I did. I sent my cop friend everything she'd sent me. Forty minutes later, he calls me back before I can even say hello.
He goes, hey, hey, hey, hey. This is serious, man.
And I said, I know. That's why I reached out to you.
That was that was my notion. You're corroborating my ideas.
I did the detective slew thing on this end of the case. Copy?
He goes, no, no. You don't realize, man. This is really, really bad.
And 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?
She shaved her fucking eyebrows is how I know. I've been on the force thirty years. Once they shaved the eyebrows, that's it. That's the last bastion of humanity, eyebrows. You got a gun?
I said, I don't have a gun. He goes, you need a fucking gun, kid.
He goes, you need a gun. And then now I'm freaked. I'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. Hey. Hey. Hey. Fuck 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.
Yeah. I was like, somebody the link, officer?
This is what he says. He goes, now listen.
He goes, I want you to get this shotgun. I'll never forget this. And he goes,
I want you to follow my exact protocol
if 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?
He goes, let's say for the first scenario,
this woman,
this strange lady gets up on your property from the front.
He 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.
Fuck. No.
I 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.
I said, okay. I'll that, but why am I gonna he goes, doesn't matter. Just watch her feet. Every 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. Every 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.
When she gets to the very top step of the porch, I want you to shoot her and fucking kill her.
Yeah. And then he goes, are you listening? And I was like, I am only fucking listening.
Am I listening? No. You're on speakerphone and making eggs Benedictine and doing some salsa moves that I learned in eighth grade. No. I'm fucking dialed in, officer. Shoot to kill. Uh-huh. Copy.
He goes, now this is the important part. Right 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? He 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. You fired a warning shot. She kept coming. You shot her and killed her.
L a p motherfucking d.
They are good at bad.
Fifteen days.
Yeah.
Fifteen days she was outside of my house.
And 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.
I'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. I 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. You're gonna die now.
So you just like this, close, close, close, close. You're cheering for a door.
Close, close, close, close.
Fifteen days.
Day 15,
I come up around this corner.
I'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. And I remember as I was, uh, sitting there,
I thought to myself, maybe she moved, you know? Maybe she's in a different
vantage point looking at my property, which is sprawling.
And 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?
And and and nothing.
Nothing. Can't find her. Then I finally
come into the house and I checked the DMs. The DMs
that had been so constant for that year. And then, of course, over the fifteen days, nothing.
Everything stopped day
15.
And I remember
I was in the house,
and 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.
Later on that night, maybe 08:00, I walked over,
not there.
No DMs.
And 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.
This 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.
I was like,
she's a quitter.
I have no respect for quitters.
What a fucking loser to quit.
And then I looked out at midnight, my ego got involved.
Yeah. I got strangely insecure. I remember looking out there at midnight having this revelation. I was like, oh,
okay.
Yeah. What is she at Kevin Hart's house now?
And then nothing, nothing
for the longest time.
And what's so interesting about us being here in this moment that I wanted to capture
this 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.
And 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
what it said. Here's the letter she wrote to me a few weeks ago. It opens up. It says, um, Dane Cook.
It says,
I felt
a deep need.
I 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.
Then she went on to say, uh, I'm a schizophrenic.
I went off my medication
and as part of my spin,
I 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. I hear you have a big dick.
Alright. I added that. I added that.
Then
she ended the
letter by saying, I wish you nothing but great success in all your future endeavors.
Love and light,
Janice.
Love and light, Janice.
You have to understand something. I did not expect closure with this situation.
But in that moment,
I felt such empathy and I'm a sensitive guy and I was almost immediately
responding.
Yeah. I know that sounds wild, but I was. I was just I was enthused for her. And in that moment, what was I saying? I 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. I got a fucking gun.
I planned a murder and how to get away with that murder absolutely
in my favor.
So 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.
By the way, I'm in love. I just wanna you know, for the record, I'm deeply in love.
And for a lot of years, I was just a very lonely millionaire, and I did not know
I 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. I 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. You wanna check five boxes in a relationship. Five things.
If you meet somebody that offer up these five things, don't let go. Hold on tight. Hold on really tight. Koala bear tight.
Mindful, thoughtful, compassionate, collaborative, and caring. That's what I have. I'm so fortunate. And if you meet somebody who's mindful, thoughtful, compassionate, collaborative, and caring, don't fuck it up. Okay? And you know what? I'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
bet the Internet's happy for me. I should check.
Let 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. I 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. And to me, Googling myself is like cutting. Okay?
When 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. I think I felt hopeful that the Internet would be like, oh, wow. That's great. Dane Cook's happy. And I'm happy that he's happy. And so I searched and then, uh, right away, I was crestfallen.
I 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? Internet doesn't like it because I'm 49, my girlfriend's 23. And
the Internet was it
was 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. She was doing her homework, and I said to her,
I said, bedtime soon, Betty.
Let's talk before bed bed.
I said, baby, I love you. And she said, oh, babe, I love you. I love you. I said, I love you so much. She said, I love you so much. And we were being kinda cheesy.
And 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
a 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.
A 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.
I get very, uh, I get weird about weddings.
There's something about weddings. First of I don't do a lot of impersonations. Can I do a very quick one of all of you? I could do all of you at once. Ready?
This is anybody here getting a wedding invitation in the mail. Ready?
Fuck.
When is it?
You don't even look at who. When? When? What weekend have you stolen from me?
July 3. That's great.
July 3. Where is it? Yosemite National Park outside wedding. July 3. That's not gonna be hot as balls.
Then you don't even know who's getting married because I don't speak calligraphy. What the fuck? Is that a k? A q?
Who is this?
Right? And then you go here's the thing. I there's a lot of things that you go to the wedding
and 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,
and he's being cryptic. He's saying all the right. Do you? Do you?
Say what I say. Now you say.
And then oh my good vows. This always gets me, the vows.
They're gonna vow things to each other in front of everybody. Okay? Vows. You can't even keep promises
to 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?
And 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. Right? Thus, onto mine eyes, doth I are we burning a witch? What the fuck just happened?
What is this language? This code?
Here'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
huck that rice at their eyes.
Here's a fun little prank that you can do. Ready? Stand behind everybody outside of the church. Right? Just be like one of the last people at the very back.
And 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.
The
reason I wanted
to
share this
this evening with everybody is because
I feel like um, I'm always looking for that visceral
reaction.
Anytime I'm watching something on television,
I'm waiting for that moment where
you 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
and you're like, this is fucking
I'm alone. I I wish I had people. This is
I 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. It was one of those shows like, uh, 2020.
The the producers
had a husband and wife,
and 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. She 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. The 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. She grabs, like, 40 pictures. She starts rifling through. She grabs one. She's very excited. She drops the rest and she launches into a little tirade. She goes, oh, this I love this. This is
this is one of my favorite memories of all time. This is me when I was four years old. I 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
about 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. As they got closer and closer, her husband's head came into the frame.
All you saw was one incredulous eye.
And it was unsettling. She 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. And 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.
And his wife goes, babe, what? He goes, what?
I went to Disney World with my family when I was four years old. I'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. And 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. Yeah.
And the rest of you are what? Sociopaths? What are you? You're all looking at give me something else, Dan. I feel nothing.
Let
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.
If they were brutally,
brutally
murdered.
And the guy that killed them was also in the picture
when he was four years old.
I love crime.
I
love it. I can't stop with the
Citizen app. I'm always on the Citizen app.
Citizen 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,
but they're not delightful.
The updates are quite nefarious.
Right? And not only did they send an update, they send how far away
whatever is happening is happening. Couple nights ago, I'm sitting watching TV. I get an update. I looked down 0
four miles away, Woman brandishing dagger.
Let'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. Right?
I'm brandishing and will kill you.
0 four miles away, was like, fuck. I could probably get down there.
I love it. They were doing the updates
and it was on the news too. Did you see the the smash and grab gang? You saw them. Right?
There'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. The 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. They 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. Right? They're just so brazen.
Imagine you you get home and you're like, nothing fits me.
I ran through the kids aisle. Fuck.
I can't believe this.
I've always loved I I just I'm fascinated with criminals
and crime.
It's always been the stuff that I'm most interested. Like, 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.
Right? 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.
Okay. 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
coming out of whatever commercial, they show blood right away.
Right? They show they show smears of blood. They show flashes of blood, splats of blood, and then the narrator jumps in almost as quickly. There was blood everywhere.
Blood on the walls. Blood on the floors.
Blood on the family dog.
And you're like, woah, woah, blood on the dog. Wait a second. Hold on. Did the killer pet the dog? Did the dog kill people? Wait.
And then what do they do next? They pull you in a little bit more by giving you a tidbit of the salacious hour
you're about to experience. Right? They were just married three hours before.
And you're like, oh, shit. This is serious.
And then they give the entire episode a title. And the title's fucked up, but perfect. Tonight, I do no. I do want to kill you. Here's Lester Holt.
I love crime. Oh my goodness. I've watched so many thousands of hours of courtroom dramas. I think I know how to represent myself in a court of law and get away with it. Absolutely. So come along with me. Let's talk about that next. Here we go. First.
Okay.
Listen. It's not about guilt.
It's
not about innocent.
It's not about facts. It's not about yes or no or what was right and wrong. It does none of that matters. Okay? The whole deal
of
winning in court
is charisma.
That's the whole thing. It's all about charisma. I'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
get 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.
One person
needs to come up with some reasonable doubt. Okay? That's what we're looking for here. And this is how you're gonna get it. Ready? Very, very simple. This is what you do. You start off like this. First day, you're gonna win the first day. Okay? You're gonna dress up, gussy up real nice,
and then you're going to
you're gonna this is juries love this. Ready? You're gonna pace back and forth like this.
Juries love this. Ready?
Right. You see this little thing that I'm doing with my finger? This is little pantomime here. You'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.
And all you're gonna do, ready, very sincerely, you're just gonna greet them. That's all. You're just gonna greet the jury. You're just gonna look at everybody. Hello.
Good morning.
Good morning. Hi. Good morning.
Right away, somebody's sitting there going, he wished me good morning.
That made me feel really nice.
I believe in this person.
Now if you're feeling already like, oh, wow. Okay. I'm starting to feel a genuine
connection 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?
Next week, happy birthday. Who
doesn't love to be wished happy birthday?
Happy birthday. Wish me happy birthday. This guy didn't kill somebody.
Cared about my birthday greeting.
This
will work absolutely
except for one condition. It will not work if you're fucking ugly.
If you're ugly, you are going to jail.
Ugly people
are guilty.
If you have a cleft lip, you're done.
You're going to jail.
But if you look good, that's innocence right there.
There's certain things that juries just really
love. Here's something else that they love. They love when you point at them gently.
Okay? You're gonna point at them gently
and then follow your own handout,
and then you're just gonna ask a very obvious question about America.
Juries love this. Just like this, you're gonna go,
do you wanna live in an America where Chick fil A is closed on Sundays?
Because I sure don't. Justice.
Justice.
They
can't hire some atheists to work the drive through on a Sunday?
Come on.
Justice.
I was, uh,
I was asked one time if I'd ever
thought of, um,
quitting.
You know, did it ever get, uh, so severe and was I ever in such a,
you know,
rut 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. It's like
it is just so,
so hard.
And somebody asked me, he said, do you ever think about quitting? And I was like, yeah. He actually did. I did quit. I only quit one time. In thirty one years, I only fucking quit once.
Once. And it was for thirty seconds.
It was for thirty actual seconds. For 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
to letting go of the big dream. I was too scared. I I I was too, you know, encumbered.
I 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.
Thirty seconds
of complete failure.
I got hired to do a gig in Florida.
I'd never been to Florida. I was in Boston. My manager at the time called me and goes, you got a gig in Florida? I said, what the fuck? Am I even funny in Florida?
And he goes, well, we're gonna find out. This guy saw you at a local college gig. He wants you to come down and do a show. My heart's racing. I was like, what? Oh, wow. I'm going on the road.
This is where it starts. Oh, my goodness.
I said, what? Uh, wow. Okay. So where am I going? He goes, the name of the venue is the Rathskeller.
I go, the Rathskeller. Wow. That sounds pretty gnarly.
I go, okay. When is it? He goes, well, couple things first. He goes, there's no money. I said, there's no money? He goes, no. There's no budget.
Nothing. I 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.
I said, I'll do it.
Instantly, I was like, you know what? The profit is exposure. I'll do it. He goes, alright. Good. You gotta start driving right now. The gig is tomorrow night.
Yeah. So 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. And 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
it right past me. Was like, wow, this dude is fucking cool.
I was like, did he practice that? That was fucking amazing.
And he blew all the smoke.
He blew so much smoke, and then he walked through the smoke like Michael Jackson.
I'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.
I wanted to be Don.
You guys wanna see the joint? I said, yeah. We go in and we look at the rascalar.
Middle of the day. What am I seeing? Observation mode. Ready? I'm seeing a bar, TVs.
I'm seeing a nacho machine. I'm seeing arcade games. I see air hockey.
It's a joint. It'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. Hey, uh, Don,
where do I perform?
Where's the stage?
And 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.
I'd never seen anybody point at space.
It was unusual. And I when I followed his finger,
I 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. He goes, you're gonna be on the roof.
I said, I'm gonna be on the roof of the hotdog stand? He goes, yes.
I said, fuck.
I 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.
Yeah. Oh. Oh, yes. The Ratskeller hot dog stand ladder in the back. Yeah.
Yes. So
I look and I go I said, because dark.
I said, Don, is it's
wow. I said, is there lights up there? And he looked at me and he goes,
you need fucking lights to perform?
I said, Don, I'm a man of a thousand faces. Yes.
Or at least a dozen faces at this point.
I said, I need illumination
so people can see my behaviors.
And he goes like this. He goes,
fuck.
Fucking bullshit.
Fuck. Motherfucker.
And he swore all the way down the hall away from me.
I 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.
He comes around the corner. Ready? He hands me a lantern.
Yeah. Like the cover of a Led Zeppelin album,
lantern.
Like a Gandalf.
He goes, yeah. And I'm so beta at this point. I have no fucking spine. I took it. I was like, this will yeah. This will do.
Thank you so much, John.
I was such a little jerk. I 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. Said, 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,
you 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
mod ulate in different, uh, character modes. Yes. I'd like a microphone. He goes, fucking bitch. Fuck you. Fuck. Fucking bitch.
Motherfucker.
And the and the fucks got lower.
And then as I heard the volume go up on the fucks, I thought,
Don's returning.
He comes around the corner. Ready? This is what he hands me. He hands me
you ever see a Gorilla amp?
Gorilla amp's like this big. He 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. He hands me one of those. The clip is broken.
So it's just a tiny little mic
that I'm gonna have to hold like a fucking giant,
like a Lilliputian mic. Hello. Hello.
Hello. He
goes, yeah. And I go,
very good. Yes. I
said, Don, what time
does the show begin? And he goes, show's gonna start sometime between eight and eleven, so hang out.
I was like, 08:11. Perfect. That's my sweet spot.
I'll be revved eight to eleven.
Puts 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,
you know, you know, place where they put the mop with the bucket and even empty out the bleach. Bleach is still in there.
Finally,
at like 10:30,
Don comes around the corner and goes, yo, Dan Cook.
I said, yeah. And he goes, you ready to do it? I said, yeah. And 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
maybe army of fans that I have. Now I'm walking behind him.
And I remember I was like, oh, man. I just I was getting, a little bit of flop sweat, you know.
And then finally, Don stopped in the hallway. He goes, you good?
I said, yeah. And he goes, I think you're gonna be great.
I said, Don, I appreciate that. He goes, yeah. Now get the fuck up that ladder and do your shit.
Wisdom.
To 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. I
climbed a ladder like this, a makeshift ladder.
As
I'm approaching
the top of the hot dog stand roof, I'm realizing a couple of things. This is higher than I thought.
When 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.
But no. And I'm climbing. I'm sweating.
I finally get to the very top and I can hear it. I hear before I even get over the cusp of
the roof hustle
slash bustle.
It's packed.
It's showtime.
And I climb up and I put one foot, and when I come over the top,
everybody's moving around. Everybody's moving around. And very, very quickly,
I'm realizing nobody's sitting like you're sitting. There's no chairs facing this direction. People 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. And then people are on their arcade games.
And then people playing air hockey and I can hear that and it and they're hitting that back and forth. Oh shit. Fuck, man. One more game. One more game. And everybody's
moving 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. And 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
to the very end of the stand.
And when I looked down, the hot dog stand was open.
It was a functioning fucking hot dog stand.
And one woman, as she walked away with her hot dog,
noticed and realized I was there. And 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.
Look, there's a man. She protected
her heart.
Oh, there's a there's a man right there.
So I'm desperately, hello, hello, hi guys, hello, nobody.
And I'm realizing, oh man, I'm I'm losing. I'm losing them. And 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. He was standing like this,
and he was watching me.
He was watching me.
And 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.
I 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. This 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
switches. 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. So 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.
And 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. And 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. Ready? He looked and then he looked at the
and then he looked back at me.
He looked at the switches.
And here's the best part, my favorite part. He didn't just turn them off one at a time. He used his whole forearm and he fucking just shut down the whole fucking mainframe. TV's off. Arcade games off. Air hockey, no more air. Nacho machine's still on. I think it was on a generator. Point 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?
Who turned everything off? Who did it? And I heard a woman respond, and I think it was the woman who protected her heart. She goes, it's the man on the hot dog stand. He indicated.
All 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. One 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. But I got away from all of them, and I remember they kept coming. More and more and more hot dogs. It was
it was like
the opening of Saving Private Ryan, but instead of bullets, picture hot dogs.
Okay?
I 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
it 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. I 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.
I couldn't even drive anymore because I was so
emotional and upset.
And I was sitting in this little rest stop,
and I remember I looked at myself in the rearview mirror,
and I said, you're not funny in Florida.
Funny
anywhere,
you should just quit. And 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.
I said, you should quit.
And I did. And I was resolved to quit. Right 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. In 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.
I'm not quitting.
And it's that moment
that brings me to this moment tonight.
And 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.
I'm Dan Cook. Thank you guys so much. Alright.
You can all go home now.
That's a wrap. Thank you guys very much. Appreciate it. Thank
you. Thanks for coming to my house.
That's my chopper, guys. I gotta get out of here, really.
If you could just meet me in the back on the roof.
It's my neighbor, Tom Cruise.
He's probably flying himself to set. Carefully, my jump. He's a fun guy. Anyway okay.