and they were like, “Put down your stuff. Assembly you never knew was coming when you were a kid. Although this is different than assembly because you bought tickets, you knew this was coming. ‘Cause look at you all, you’re just sitting there in chairs, looking at a guy with absolutely no expertise, who’s going to talk for a while. This is the closest we get in adult life to assembly. Once you leave school, you don’t get to have assembly. And assembly was the only part of school I ever liked. I love doing stand-up for crowds because this right here, this reminds me of assembly in grade school. Every time I go to the zoo I’m like, “Hey, where’s the jaguar?” And the zoo guy is like, “He must be in the inside part.” The inside part? Tell him we’re here. Ever been to the goddamn zoo? Those guys are never where they’re supposed to be. You don’t always get to see the things that you paid to see. And then we showed up so you got to see the things that you paid to see. How would that ever work? Like years later, I’d be in college about to go down on some rocking twink and I’d be like, “Wait a second… What would Leonard Bernstein do?” I’ve never talked to my dad about that, but I figured I would tell all of you. But that is how he thought to phrase it to a 12-year-old boy. And I don’t know if he was discouraging me from being gay or encouraging me to be a classical composer. And according to a biography I read of him, when he was holding back the gay part, he did some of his best work.” Now we don’t have time to unpack all of that. I’m your father.” And then he said the following, “You know, Leonard Bernstein… was one of the great composers and conductors of the 20th century, but sometimes he would be gay. I was like 12 years old and my dad walked up to me and he said, “Hello… Hello, I’m Chip Mulaney. A lot of people ask me if he gave me a sex talk. How are you better than a Nazi?” And then my mom said, “I made a salad with Craisins!” And the conversation ended. You gotta stop the Nazis.” “But you saw what they were doing to Tyler and you did nothing!” “Because I was over on the bench.” And then my dad said, “Just explain to me this. …when people saw what the Nazis were doing and did nothing, were those good people?” “No, those are bad people. I was over on the bench.” “But you saw what happened?” “Yeah, ’cause I was over on the bench.” “So you saw what happened and you did nothing?” “Yeah, ’cause I was sitting over on the bench.” “Let me ask you this. My dad goes, “How was school today?” I said, “It was good but someone pushed Tyler off the seesaw.” “And where were you?” “I was over on the bench.” “And what did you do?” “Nothing. One time I was at the dinner table when I was like six, because I had to be. So he would pick us apart psychologically. I said, “My dad never hit us.” My dad is a lawyer and he was a debate team champion. So he’s “talk, talk, talk.” It’s my turn next! And… Anyway… He was talking and I was waiting for him to be done so I could talk. You know, my friend was telling me that his dad used to beat him with a belt and that’s just the setup to my story, so… Forget about that poor son of a bitch. “Let’s change the subject! Why are we even talking about Penelope… or whatever her name was? I didn’t kill her! Whoever did kill her only did it to protect her from this world.” She said, “I never told you this before but our house, when you were growing up, was haunted.” I said, “Say more right now!” She said, “Outside you and your brother’s room, I used to see the ghost of a little girl in a Victorian nightgown and then she would walk down the hallway and then she would evaporate.” And then my dad said, “Let’s change the subject!” And I think he was just doing that dad-thing of, like, “This is a weird topic and I want to talk about a book I read about World War II.” But the way it came off was that he definitely killed that little girl. ‘You ever seen a ghost?'” And my mom said, “Yes.” Which is the best answer. So I was home for Christmas and we were just eating Triscuits in silence and I was staring at the floor and I was like, “Well, here goes nothing. That’s where we’re at conversation-wise in our relationship as a mother and son, because I’m 35 and I don’t have any children to talk about and she doesn’t understand my career. I asked my mom if she’d ever seen a ghost. I keep walking through cold spots being like, “I wonder who that used to be.” What a historic and beautiful and deeply haunted building this is. This is so much nicer than what I’m about to do. I love to play venues where if the guy that built the venue could see me on the stage, he would be a little bit bummed about it. Thank you for coming to see me at Radio City Music Hall.

Hey bunch shut thefuck up