Too Ugly For Comedy. Bengt Washburn - Full Special

it's like playing Django with your face and uh, it's a premium on youth, it doesn't exist in our culture in this business, it's magnified and I learned this when I was in my early 40s, that you just have to look young for this business and I was in Los Angeles, I had a good set, as did all the other young comedians of the early '30s and '20s. They had good sets after the show. There is a man in a very important suit looking through the crowd. I was looking at all the comics and we thought, "Oh, this is a manager this is an agent coming towards us someone's going to have a break who's going to be the older guy who paid his dues one of the young guys came right at me only I got his card I was a manager I was an agent no I was a plastic surgeon oh and I got his last card by a certain plastic surgeon with a card 300 people I received the card what does that say and I asked him: do you think I need surgery? , I've been thinking about but you think I need it, sir, I'm not

ugly

, he said we'll come to my office sometime we can talk about it and I said, well, can't you just look at a diagnosis Actually, can't you? didn't just look at a diagnosis you gave me?

Your last letter makes me the winner of your

ugly

little contest. Can't they just look at it? Does anyone know or are these plastic surgeons like all the other doctors? pulse, they weigh you and measure your height and there are blood samples, urine samples, stool samples, do plastic surgeons do it? They call him a few weeks later with the lab results. Well, we got your results back, sir, and uh, it doesn't look good, much worse than we thought, we found ugly in your blood. your urine and stool high levels in your stool you are very ugly I think you should do something about it immediately this is if you don't want to die like this I recommend an elective emergency surgery first thing Monday morning I am going to cancel on all the others dates will be a little upset because they're a little ugly too but I'm going to show them your photo, they'll understand and then you'll say well, this is weird, I didn't even feel it. ugly and he was like well you've probably been ugly for years you just got used to it like everyone else around you this is what the plastic surgeon told me and I kind of admitted he said like you said you know you're just getting a little old and you're right, e

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ly in this business, why look a little old when you can get plastic surgery and look creepy?

That's not fair because it works a little. Plastic surgery looks great. I have friends who have done some and it looks amazing. they make a little more, it looks cool, they make too much and that's how it is, there's no such thing as exceeding the threshold and bammo, it's like you adjust, you make another adjustment and then everything falls apart with the last thing it's like playing django with your face and uh and I probably will probably I will because I'm worried I will and I will lose I will lose playing Jenga with my face showed my family Christmas party and of course my four older brothers are going to tease me about it.

Wow, bent. I see you worked a little. A little seems like too much work. It seemed like yes, is this the look you were going for? surprised, you seemed surprised, you look surprised, frankly, it's like there's an air horn somewhere, you're the only one who can hear it, it seems, but a little blunt, my name is ben

washburn

and i make a living doing stand-up

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for 26. years old and I've been doing this for 26 years and I have yet to tell you who I am. I'm glad you think it's funny that's how it's become not famous and I'm a comedian no one has heard of in fact when you're not a famous comedian and you're funny people are surprised you're surprised they come up to me man you're not bad there's confusion it's like something people believe if you're funny and you're not funny it's because you're incompetent that's fair right if you're not famous for doing it you're not good at doing it that's fair I think it's a standard that we should apply to everyone, what do you do, sir, what is your job, what was that structural engineer that I hate. say this but you don't look familiar what's your name kevin miller kevin miller i've never heard of you you must suck it must be pretty bad i don't want to offend i would hire you uh because you're all i can afford because i'm not famous uh that's how it is so you know How does it feel, right? not being not being famous is horrible life is horrible every time we meet someone we have to tell them our name it's humiliating I have to tell them their name because they're not famous and then they have to tell us their name because they're not famous either.

Then, of course, we instantly forget each other's names because none of us are famous. Why do you remember? You know it's a meaningless interaction. It is humiliating. There's someone famous here. tonight we have some famous, not a famous person, this is a ridiculous meeting, well, we will do what we do, of course, people wonder this, eh, they will say dubbed, you are not famous, how did you get this sweet gig in a dry bar? you're not famous, well first I told them I was someone else and then I didn't let them find out who I really was until it was too late, look tell me someone else, don't let them find out who you are until it's too late, too late , it's a lot like running for office, you know, showbiz and politics won a long time ago and of course the longer you're not famous, the worse it gets as you get older and you're not famous because look, There's this thing about a young comedian.

You say, well, they're not famous, but there's still time for them to make it big, they probably won't, that's the business, but it might be more awkward when a comic my age has a bad scenario. It's much more uncomfortable because there is still hope with a young man. comedian they have a bad set you're doing well at least they're young at least she's young I hope she gets better one day she's famous she makes her parents proud right I have a bad set well at least her parents aren't alive to see it these are dead I hope They're dead, they're not, don't show them this for the love of God.

The last thing a parent should see is that the show is doing well. Uh, I mean, for someone who's not famous, it's pretty good. I didn't swear. Once I'm. quite proud, the career is going well, now it actually is, I mean I'm not famous, but when I started it was horrible. I have to be honest, when I started the company, I was a 30-year-old man living in a tent. I got divorced and lived in a tent at 30, that's when I started getting divorced and living in a tent, where I could have slept on couches, but I wanted the tent so I could have more privacy to cry.

Turns out it's really hard to cry in a tent in the woods the first time I did it I started crying and then I heard something outside yeah I couldn't get it out of my head if you're crying in the woods there's a bear or a cougar thinking, hey. that an injured animal was in that store and it was hard you don't want to say it it's harder for children who get divorced it's horrible because they live in two different worlds now that's very difficult with different rules those irreconcilable differences two different places affect how my daughter she She is with her mom who is very clean and tidy bedtime at eight do your homework bedtime at eight and very nice not like me nice you know like oh don't say stupid darling stupid is a bad word that steals the dignity of people then she comes to my house you know it's time to sleep at eight that's stupid and sometimes she corrected us with rules from her mom's house like oh grandma you said stupid my mom says the word stupid is bad my mom says that the word stupid robs people of their dignity and then my mom has to stand her ground, you know, oh honey, stupid people don't have dignity, they lose that when they do something stupid, just ask your dad, he knows that living in a tent he cannot even stand upright in his shelter.

It's not really a shelter, it's a tent, it's not a shelter when a dart can kill you in your sleep. He had a forceful mother. She was great, very direct. I didn't tell people I was going through this for a long time. time and I finally started telling people about the embarrassing situation of divorce and when you tell a lot of your friends and family that you are divorced, you soon find out which of your friends and family should probably get divorced too based on the answer they gave. one of my brothers, I'm divorced and I live in a tent, he said, man, I envy your freedom, that's a bad sign for a marriage if you're jealous of a homeless man's freedom, that should never be done if you see someone sleeping on a park bench at noon and you think my wife would never let me do it look at that lucky midday guy sleeping peace

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y undisturbed the whole bench to himself look at that I didn't know you can turn it around that's the beauty of life you can change life it can change you make a few good decisions in a row you just stick together and this is kind of surprisingly true this is totally true I met my wife of 18 years while I was living in that store it's not that surprising that's how, but here it is That's it like the blind date is crazy, eh, thank god for horrible friends, they set her up with a homeless guy, even I don't know what they told her.

Well, he loves it, he's outdoors, he's good with knots, he smells like DEET, but you. I won't have to worry about mosquitoes or mosquitoes on your date we went out all summer well I lived in that tent all summer and then I know for me things got really serious in the fall when it got colder and then I happily buried him extended, so it goes Well, it's gone well, in fact, that's how it goes. I bought new clothes for this show. Totally new clothes. I know the pants don't look new, but they are. That's how expensive they are.

Look at all the fading that is pre-faded, yes you pay more for that. I remember this. How old am I? I remember when pre-washed jeans were in, then pre-worn ones came out and then sometime in the 80's they came out with pre-destroyed mangled and mutilated pants and My first thought was how do you get blood stains out? They look like you just pulled them out of the bin in the emergency room. Wow, this guy got stabbed in the groin. He's so cool that he's crazy and then the kids love them and he's awkward as a father. buy a teenager a pair of those pants because as a parent you want your teenager to feel grateful, guilty for everything you buy them and it's hard to do with these pens, it doesn't work well verbally, you're lucky kid, I hope.

You would appreciate why when I was your age we had to wear our own clothes. If I wanted pants like that, I'd have to, I don't know, get attacked by a badger from the waist down, roll in bleach, not our clothes. We were new, we looked ridiculous, we couldn't afford to pay someone to ruin our pants like that, it's amazing that people get paid to do that somewhere on the other side of the ocean there are kids who They like to spoil these fatties or maybe they don't, maybe they just wear out their pants and send them here maybe the teenagers are wearing second hand clothes from the third world, it's possible, but that's not really what's happening, they're in a factory, just a 14-year-old kid in a factory wearing perfectly new pants because that's all he can afford. at him with a fork, a saw and a sand gun and then man, Americans are crazy, this is weird, now I can't, now that I can afford those really ripped shitty pants, I can't wear them at my age, you can't escape with ironic poverty so as not to look modern or homeless again I can't get away with irony and sarcasm eh, I think it's an age difference at my age it's hard to get away with sarcasm because young people just think you're being bad at my age so I was joking, I don't think you were, it was irony, I was really being ironic at your age, plus what is and isn't bad has simply changed the boundaries of ownership and I lose count.

I'm always inappropriate about it, like this happened, I was joking, I was buying TVs, I was going to buy a new one, no, I was going to buy several, I bought a TV, things are not going so well with all the TVs in front of me and I. I'm trying to choose them and I'm clear, you know, between a Sony, which is like a Japanese television brand, a Sony, a Samsung and an LG. I'm looking at seven or eight screens for about 40 minutes and I just can. I don't know which one to buy and I finally turn to the clerk and say, you know how much I hate to admit this, but to me I think all Asian TVs look alike, it's a joke, it's a joke, come on, because that's what he did.

I shook him like, come on, I was joking and I can't tell the difference between Asian TVs, they all look the same, he noticed, of course he can, he's Korean, yeah, he's Korean or Japanese, I can't tell, but the point is that racist I don't think it is, it's just that I'm stupid, I've never been inexperienced, I've never had the opportunity to see those two different nationalities side by side, you know, I didn't have it in college, I never took a math class was never a little racist but also accurate i never tookmath I guess some people would say I'm racist I don't think I know this I'm definitely less racist than my great-grandparents that's changed Did you ever know that racism wasn't even that term?

It wasn't even coined until 1902. In 1902 they came up with that word, which seems a little late to be doing something so big and not even have a word for it, hundreds of years and it makes me wonder what a horrible thing. What are we doing? Now that we don't even have a word for and then your kids will come up with that word young people and they're going to throw it in your face like grandpa, you were a dealer, we were all doodlers, all of us? scribbled, it was a different world, yes, we accumulate debt, we live beyond our means, we scribble, yes, and you know why we accumulate all that debt, because it is expensive to ruin the earth, it costs money, to make all the nuclear and chemical weapons , large quantities of them cost money. they had to pay someone to protect all that plastic in the ocean, you think it was free, no, we had to buy it, throw it in there and buy some more, you know, if we were to spend that money right now it would only be two degrees warmer Instead of six, do you know that it takes money to turn up the heat?

We hadn't done that, but right now you'd be wearing a sweater, you're welcome, and those ripped pants would be a little cold, right? You're welcome so I don't know, it's a sensitive topic global warming very political climate is now the most political hot topic it used to be literally small talk now a fight will start I mention it and everyone wonders if he I believe in global warming and I will answer your question by asking you a question: Do you believe in global warming? Because honestly, whatever you believe, that's what I'll believe if I hang out with you long enough.

That's how we work on this problem, I think the problem. It's, uh, it's too easy to believe things, humans are really susceptible to believing things, you know, these humans will believe almost anything if we hear it three times, if you hear something three times, you'll believe it, do you believe me or not? I need to tell you one more time I said this is how it works this is how it works you hear something crazy the first time maybe you don't believe it maybe you heard this maybe this spread across provo you, todd, you heard this, you know?

The average person swallows eight spiders in their sleep every year, you heard your brain say that couldn't be right, but a couple of days later you heard from someone else, did you know that the average person swallows eight spiders in their sleep every year and your brain says I know, I think I've heard that before, a couple of days later you're with someone, they said, you know, the average person swallows eight spiders, yeah, in their sleep every year, I know I'm not an idiot, okay. , I hear things I remember. that and I believe it I'm like you I'm self-taught okay average age that's average okay that's average depends on where you live depending on how many I've noticed this once you create just kind of nonsense As you hear, you'll add your own flavors and spices.

It's the average if you live in the north. It's too cold, there aren't as many spiders to swallow, and there are more beards per capita, so the spiders can't crawl over the beards while you sleep. the average goes down you live at the equator it's too big the spiders are too big to swallow no one swallows a tarantula while sleeping that makes the average go down what makes the average go up is the temperate climate like in North America, where there are billions of bite-sized spiders that live there in the spider belt or in the arachnid alley, depending on which term you hear three times, this word is simply touchy, we can all end this silly opinion, did you ever have one, sure if you haven't then I definitely have something that works man it's easy to form a dumb opinion and stick to it smart opinions are hard but you have to learn things and think critically and there is logic and stupid opinions are much more easy to form, it is also easier to defend them as an intelligent opinion you have to cite evidence you know stupid opinion this is how you defend a stupid opinion you are ready to say this you defend you say do it right that's not that's what I heard you can just cite hearing it as evidence That it's true, it's a pretty stupid opinion, well, I've heard it like three times, okay, everyone says it, any idiot knows it, yes, we consult the idiots, we think, well, let's see what the idiots say, it's very easy to defend , they are all very easy to attack.

This is how you attack a stupid opinion right, they say do it right that's not what I heard you would just cite not hearing it as evidence that it's not true you expect me to believe there is something true I haven't heard it at least three times this is the first time I I hear this and none of the idiots look, I'm an idiot and then you get defensive, we do that, people get defensive, huh, they say, are you going to call me a liar? I heard something that's not true like three times so believe it I'm not calling you I'm not calling you a liar I'm calling you stupid you say I'm stupid you're saying I'm stupid well that's what I heard several times times is your wife all the idiots, right? you heard it three times you believe it this is what's here is the strange press confirmation bias what you've heard about several times confirmation bias is the part of us that if we hear something that matches what we already believe then it we'll believe the first time we hear it, so now you're believing things the first time you hear them if it matches the things you heard three times, see what I mean, that's how it works, do you know the average? a person swallows about 18 bugs in their sleep each time, i think we're already swallowing like eight spiders, that's probably why they get in there, they're chasing the bugs, that's what's going on, it's surprising that anyone is starving to death, frankly , that's how it is with I think with global warming it's one of these things, there's definitely a generational difference with global warming, it's like my daughter had a completely different feeling about there being a warm winter day here a while ago, It's like last year he was seven years old and came home. from school, scared, talking about global warming, saw that I was scared by a warm winter day when, when we were kids, we enjoyed a warm winter day, it was funny because we didn't see it as a symptom of an impending catastrophe, so we enjoy it anyway.

So you would enjoy a sudden weight loss until you discover that it is an intestinal parasite. It's fun and it's actually much worse. I don't know if you know, if you're not old enough to remember, the environment was a lot worse for a while. We made progress, we should be glad that much of the air was much worse, much worse, it was so bad, the environment was so bad, we noticed it, scientists didn't have to tell us there was a problem, you know, with global warming, would you notice that on your own? If you lived near a glacier, yes, you would look out the window and say, "wow, now we have a yard

full

of rocks," when did that happen?

But, like global warming of the ocean, it used to go up like a little less than two millimeters now it's going up almost four millimeters a year, but would you really notice that change in depth for yourself when you went to the beach? Would you go? Hey, the ocean seems a little deeper to you. this year this seems a little deeper if you notice yes and it's a little more acidic. Did you try it? Will you see zinnia? Isn't it more acidic? I think you're right. I think this beach could use a couple tablespoons of baking powder, while it was so bad, it was so disgusting that we didn't need a scientist to tell us in the 70's that there was a problem when in 1973 the Cuyhoga River in Ohio burst into flames see what I mean, any idiot knows there is a problem when there is a flammable river, you don't need to be a scientist, you don't even need a college degree for that, he probably dropped out of high school smoking by the river because it was good for you and he liked to throw the butt in the river and also, oh, that's not supposed to do that that's uh, I'm not a scientist, but I'm pretty sure that that's supposed to distinguish my cigarette, it's that this is getting Spreading like a son of a gun, well yeah, call the fire department, but tell them to check their water, that's all, we might have had a couple of idiots displaced here in Flaming River and I feel bad for the scientists to some extent. way because they have to try to communicate these things to a guy like me for years.

I thought, well, why can they? If you don't explain it to me, a lot of people will explain it to me and say, "Ben, we can't, you're too stupid." What do you mean? I also remember earlier that you didn't take math, that's the problem that they don't understand it and then they have to try to not just point out something that you wouldn't notice that worries you, and they're not always the best at marketing a bad word about warming. global, if you want to mobilize people. I don't put hot in the title oh no, worm, will it be hot too?

Well, warm is at worst inconvenient, at worst damn my kit kat completely melted. All contest instructions are covered in chocolate. Gotta lick this rapper to see if I'm a winning worm, isn't it scary now in the 70s, bad problem, marketing genius, who came up with this great idea to mobilize people, what's scarier, global warming, acid rain that will catch your attention, acid will be raining from the sky, you want all the information and details. Well, what kind of acid, holy cow, what kind of acid, like sulfuric battery acid, what do I do, do I keep my car in the garage, that kind of acid, or is my hippie-dippy hippie neighbor going to run out with mouth open, it's a party or a problem that will catch your attention anyone's attention acid rain that's that's crazy that's even crazy from the Old Testament even the god of the Old Testament would like to calm you down you know what Moses, let's stop acid rain aside maybe on second thought, let's leave acid rain aside, let's see how they respond after we kill all their firstborns, you guys have been great, good night everyone.