Watch or listen to the stand-up comedy special 'Word - Live at Carnegie Hall' (2012) by Louis CK on Comedy Buff. Transcript available. Tracks include: Intro, 20 Year Olds, Three 5 Year Olds, Unhealthy Father, and Sleep.

Louis CK

Word - Live at Carnegie Hall

Thank you. Thank you. very much. Thank you. Hello. Hi. But anyway, I'm glad I'm here because of you and I want to do a good show for you. That's my job. That's the simplest thing in the world to me, is that you should do your job. You should do it well. And not because of how well you get paid, but because that's your job. I never understand people when I go to a place to get a thing and they do their job shitty out of spite for how shitty their job is.
That makes no sense to me. Why wouldn't you want it? Why do you have to make my coffee sarcastically? I don't even care. Hear your majesty, enjoy your coffee. You know, why? Why wouldn't you want it to be? You know why? Because you're 20, you piece of shit. That's why. Because you're a 20-year-old piece of shit. I'm sorry, but I am prejudiced against everyone who's 20 years old that works at a place.
They just think that if you just stand there and hate it, somebody will go, oh, well, then let's make you a director. That's how that works. Just if you clearly are better than this. 20-year-olds are the worst people because that is a person who has been taking and just sucking up and absorbing fucking education and love and products and just giving nothing back. They're just, they're ripe like a big, fat, ripe orange on a tree.
And the tree's like, get the fuck out of here. Jesus, this is crazy. Whoa, fuck you. I don't want to go. If you're 20, I guarantee you, you never did anything for anybody. Yes, you went to Guatemala on a school trip and they told you you helped, but you didn't help at all. You were a way bigger pain in the ass than you were any help to those. They're like, I got a mudslide in my house and I got to babysit a fucking college student.
Just take a picture of her with a shovel so she can put it on Facebook and leave us alone. I had such an amazing experience. Really, did you take from them too, you motherfucker? 20-year-olds are not interesting people. They have nothing to say. Nothing has happened to you. My parents moved and I go to school. Who gives a shit? Unless you beat cancer as a child, you have nothing to say. I'm more interesting because I'm 43.
That mathematically just makes me more interesting just because shit has happened to me. I've collected stories. When I was 35, a woman blew me and two years later, she killed herself. She hung herself to death. That's an interesting story. That's worth listening to and pondering. Because it means it takes two years after blowing me for the shame to be too much that you got to do yourself in. That's the gestation period.
What if every woman that ever blew me died exactly two years later and some detective picked up on it and when he realizes why, he's like, well, I can't do anything. It's not illegal to have a disgusting penis. It's just a shame. Anyway. I don't like when a 20-year-old is working because you never get an attitude from the 65-year-old guy. You ever go to Best Buy and the guy selling you a DVD player is like 65?
That guy is trying to get a Nobel Prize for selling DVD players. He's amazing. You never get the 65-year-old guy like, does it have Blu-ray? Well, let me read the box that you could have read. No, he's like, well, let's find out. You need to know that. He's so excited to help you. And he has reasons to be bitter, this 65-year-old guy. He's 65. He works at Best Buy. He had to come out of retirement because his kid is gay and does crystal meth and he ruined his life.
And it's partly his fault because he didn't accept his son being gay. That's why he's on drugs. The point is he's had a hard day and he's still showing up at fucking Best Buy wearing a bow tie. They don't make you wear those. That's how much he gives a shit. I don't know, man. Younger people, okay, fine. You know, I'll wait and see. Maybe you'll be interesting. Thank you. But now my kids, I take them everywhere.
I'm responsible for every second of their lives. I'm with them all the time, watching them do their thing. I take them to soccer. Yeah, you're playing soccer. You're playing soccer right now. I know you're playing. Are you done? Okay, let's go over here. Was that fulfilling? Was that strengthening and confidence? You have to do everything with them. And I have two kids, a five-year-old and an eight-year-old, and when it's just the three of us, it can be challenging because they're very disparate skill levels.
The eight-year-old is blossoming. She can do all kinds of stuff. The five-year-old is not good at anything. I mean, she's five. She's appropriately shitty at everything for a five-year-old. But what that means is that when we go out together, we have to choose shit that she can do. We're all brought down to her level. We're like three five-year-olds of different sizes just doing boring five-year-old shit.
It's limiting. Hey, let's go for a bike ride. I'm not very confident in my bicycle. Oh, fine, let's just sit here and look at each other then. Is that... Jesus. We went swimming once, the three of us, and it was torture because the eight-year-old is amazing. She's swimming, and she's in the deep end, and she's swimming alone. She's lonely. She's like, Daddy, please swim with me. I'm like, I can't because this one won't...
We're in the shallow end, and she won't let go of me. She's like, I'm going to drown. Just, it's to your tits. Just please fucking stand there. It's nothing. It's too deep. What? Really? What? Like, I would just go, ha-ha, you're dying now. That's funny to me. Like, really? If I wanted to kill you, I'd wait until you're sleeping and do this for four minutes. That's all it would take. You should thank me every morning you wake up alive.
That's how easy it is to kill you. So why would I take you to a fucking swimming pool in the afternoon to murder you? It's just hard, because that one can't. She's nothing. Please. I wish I could. I wish I could say, you know what? Can you get out of the pool so I can go be with my friend? Who I have shit in common with? Do you have to ruin every day of our fucking lives? No, that kid was a bad idea.
I'm serious. And I love her. I love her. But I wish she was never born. That's just, this is... Any honest parent will tell you that they live with that ambivalence. And it's torture. You look at your beautiful child's face, and you have two feelings at the exact same time. I love my daughter in a profound way. I cry at the drop of a hat when I think about her. This kid has made me love her so much that it's made me more able to love other people.
I can love people that are dead that I didn't love properly. Her love for me makes my love transcend time and travel through space. This kid is amazing. You cut a tomato on a plate and she smiles like you just fucking adopted her from Zimbabwe or something. And she's an amazing creature of pure beauty and love, and I regret every single thing that led to her birth. That's how you feel. That's how you feel.
Because it's fucking hard. If you're really putting the time in as a parent, there's no parent that's really raising their kids who hasn't given the finger to the back of their head at least three times. That means you're really doing the work. If you haven't done that, you have nannies and shit. You're not a dad or a mom. You're not a dad or a mom. Goodnight, sweetie. Okay. Goodnight, sweetie. Goodnight, sweetie.
Okay. Light of my life. Light of my life. Light of my life. Light of my life. I think that, you know, I think one of the advantages of having kids is that they just cheer you on. Like, I have eaten shitty my whole life, and my kids just think it's hilarious. They don't care. They're like, Daddy ate 40 cookies. They just think it's the funniest fucking thing. Okay. I had kids too late in life, I think.
And I didn't take good care of myself. I'm a shitty, unhealthy father. And I think that's unfair. And I wish I'd taken care of myself when I was younger for their sake. It's another thing young people do. They don't look ahead. They don't think about the future. There's a view of the future that changes as you grow up. Like, 20-year-olds have no idea what's going to happen to them. They're mystified by 30.
What's it going to be like when I'm 30? Maybe I'll be a space person helper. They don't have any idea that when you fuck with your body, you're ruining the parent that you're going to be. If you're 35 and you're out of shape and you don't have kids, don't have kids. Because it's not fair to them. My kids deserve a 25-year-old father with a kid on his shoulders going, Whoa! Whoa, I'm going to get you!
I'm going to get you! I'm so not that guy. I'm not even the cool salt and pepper dude throwing the football through the tire on the Viagra commercial. I'm not even that guy. You know. Because I didn't take care of myself. Young people are arrogant. They're like, fuck it, man. Woo! Who gives a shit? Who wants to live forever anyway? Woo! And they think they're going to die. That's how dumb they are.
Get fucked up! And they think they're just going to explode like just a nebula of excess. Just a beautiful... They're going to turn 50 and then just... Oh my God! He did just what he wanted the whole time! But you don't die, you idiot. You just have a long, shitty second half. You get to like 38 and you're like, ugh, I'm uncomfortable a lot of the time. Sorry, I don't know what that is. I sweat with no activity involved.
I mean, when I walk in the city in the summer, I have to touch a building when I'm walking. And I got 40 more years of this shit. I'm not dying. Most of the abuse I've done to my body has been the way that I eat. I've only learned recently that food is supposed to be fuel. That enables you to do things. Food, you're supposed to eat like a little piece of salmon and a berry and go, Whoa, shit, look at this.
Food is not supposed to be a disgusting, debilitating vice. You're not supposed to have to cancel shit because of what you ate. Just clear the day so you can take the hit from what you put in. That's all Americans. We're uncomfortably full all the time. That's why we need the air conditioning on. We need it to be 70 degrees always. Because we'll have a heart attack from all the grease. Do you know that it costs 10 times the fuel to air condition our homes than it does to heat them?
Did you know that? 10 times the fuel just for comfort. How shocking is that? Especially because it's not true. I made it up. But it's fun to... It's like it is true. Who cares? Just go home and Google it. I'll get home before you and put it in the internet and it'll come up. But, um... We really, we eat too much as a nation. You ever go into like a real American restaurant like Applebee's and everybody's just in pain at their tables?
You have to lift your lungs up over the fat to make room to... Do you want dessert? Yes, bring it, stupid. I don't... It's... I'm fine. I'm just trying to... You're supposed to eat with purpose. You eat a little piece of lettuce and the guy in your belly is like, oh, awesome. I can make some skin cells and some blood cells and some energy. The guy in my belly hates me. Hates me. He gets my third donut.
He's like, what the fuck do you imagine I'm doing with that? There's... There's no part of you I can make out of donuts. It's just a storage issue. You're creating work for everybody. And, uh, four. He's having four fucking donuts. It's ten o'clock. The other guy's like, what do you want to do with it? Just shit it out. Seriously. You know what? Shit it out whole. Let him find a donut in the toilet.
Let's see how that educates this fat piece of shit. I'm tired of this. Shit it out whole. He chewed it. Reassemble it and shit it out. I'm serious. Get everybody on it. Bring the guys up from the feet and put that thing together and shit it out. And shit it out the hard way, too. Not like a coin out of a slot. Make him blow it out of his asshole like a smoke ring of dough. Just a... I just shit a coconut donut.
It's perfect. Perfect. But it's not fa