The argument in one line.
A moment of nearly quitting comedy after being pelted with hot dogs taught Cook that perseverance through humiliation, not talent or confidence, is what separates working comedians from everyone else.
Read if. Skip if.
READ IF YOU ARE…
- You're a stand-up comedian or comedy fan who wants to study how a veteran performer structures a 50+ minute set around personal stories and audience interaction.
- A storyteller working in any medium who wants to see how a 25-minute narrative arc (the stalker story) builds tension, uses callbacks, and lands a payoff.
- Someone interested in the mechanics of performing in unconventional spaces and how a comedian adapts material when filming at home rather than on a traditional stage.
SKIP IF…
- You're looking for technical filmmaking breakdown — this is about comedy structure and performance, not cinematography or production design.
- You want analysis of Dane Cook's career trajectory or cultural impact — this focuses on the special itself, not his legacy or place in comedy history.
The full version, fast.
Dane Cook's first major special in years argues that the moments closest to quitting are the ones that define a creative career, and that a comedian's job is to convert genuine terror, loneliness, and humiliation into a story the room can sit inside. The mechanism is structural: he commits to one long, escalating narrative � a fifteen-day stalker ordeal anchored by an absurd almond callback � then mirrors it with an origin story about performing on a Florida hot dog stand roof until the crowd pelted him with hot dogs. The takeaway for the reader is that specificity beats premise, callbacks pay off setups planted twenty minutes earlier, and the thirty seconds you almost quit is usually the proof you shouldn't.
Members feature
Chat with this breakdown.
Modern Creator members can chat with any breakdown — ask for the hook, quote a framework, find the exact transcript moment. Unlocks at T2: refer 3 friends + add your own API key.
Create a free account →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.
Lines worth screenshotting.
- Performing a comedy special at your own home converts a private space into a stage — the intimacy eliminates the distance that arena venues create between performer and audience.
- A 25-minute stalker story anchored by an almond-eating callback is the structural proof that stand-up comedy can be storytelling when the laughs per minute target is met throughout.
- The stalker narrative works because the emotional whiplash — fury, sadness, vacant staring, nine unchewed almonds — escalates to absurdity without losing the real unsettling feeling.
- Self-deprecating callbacks to both a film's weak Rotten Tomatoes score and the mortgage it paid signal comfort with contradicting narratives rather than needing one clean image.
- A Florida rooftop bar gig where the crowd threw hot dogs at him is the near-quit origin story — most performers have the equivalent of this moment and it is the hinge point in every career.
- The 30 seconds he almost quit stand-up is more revealing than the arenas — what pulled him back was the specific craft satisfaction that the stage produces, not the money.
- Performing for a small backyard audience after selling out arenas demonstrates that audience size is not the metric that makes the performance feel meaningful.
- Audience participation in the first minutes (asking Robert and Deanna about their relationship) is the method for reading the room before the first structured bit.
- Crowd work about conflict and communication is a trust-building device — it tells the audience that the performer is present with them, not just running a set.
- A comedy special filmed at home eliminates venue costs, network approval, distribution gatekeepers, and scheduling constraints — the tradeoff is production polish.
- 31 years of stand-up craft means the architecture of a set is invisible — what looks like rambling is a calculated scaffolding of callbacks and escalations.
- The comment 'this isn't me, this isn't us' said by someone the performer has never met is the emotional pivot that makes the stalker story human rather than just comedic.
Thirty seconds of quitting launched everything
What it teaches
A 57-minute backyard set that builds to one origin story: a 30-second decision to quit, made in a Florida parking lot after being pelted with hot dogs, that reversed itself and launched a career.
01Cold open -- welcome to my house
- Setting a performance in an unusual or personal location immediately changes the contract between performer and audience — it shifts from a transaction to an invitation.
02The DMs begin
- A stalker situation that escalates from Instagram DMs to a 15-day siege demonstrates how quickly a manageable nuisance can become a genuine threat — and how institutional protocols can be grimly practical.
03The almond video
- The almond video works as a story beat because it is concrete, specific, and entirely resistant to explanation — some images stay with you exactly because they have no clear meaning.
04The siege -- 15 days
- Sustained threat produces a strange combination of fear and adaptation — after enough days, a person starts optimizing the coping behaviors rather than waiting for the situation to resolve.
05The cop protocol
- Official protocol, delivered with total seriousness in an absurd situation, is funny precisely because the logic is internally consistent — the comedy is in the deadpan, not the deviation.
06Day 15 -- she disappears
- Closure does not always arrive on schedule — sometimes it comes weeks later, in a letter that explains everything and reframes the entire experience.
- The right response to closure is not always words — sometimes a callback to a shared absurdity communicates more than any formal reply.
07In love -- the internet hates it
- Genuine happiness in a relationship is often most visible not in grand gestures but in the five ordinary qualities that are easy to overlook when they are consistently present.
- Public joy does not guarantee public approval — sharing good news online can immediately surface criticism that would have been better left undiscovered.
08Weddings and vows
- Wedding rituals contain layers of social performance that participants rarely examine directly, which is why naming them produces instant recognition.
09Crime -- Citizen app and Dateline
- The Dateline formula works precisely because it follows a reliable sequence: blood first, salacious detail second, title that makes the conclusion feel inevitable.
10How to win a trial with charisma
- Courtroom charisma is less about innocence and more about giving one person a reason to think well of you — small gestures of warmth produce disproportionate credibility.
11The Rathskeller -- origin story
- The first out-of-town gig is almost never what was promised — the value is not the venue or the pay but what you find out about yourself under bad conditions.
- Thirty seconds of genuine commitment to quitting, fully felt and then reversed, is not weakness — it is the moment that separates people who do the thing from people who wanted to.
- The reason to keep going is often not strategic — it is a single fact that lands with the force of proof: not one hot dog hit me.
Terms worth knowing.
- DM
- Short for direct message — a private one-to-one message sent through a social platform like Instagram, separate from public comments or posts.
- Callback
- A stand-up technique where a comedian revisits a joke, image, or phrase from earlier in the set, getting a laugh from the recognition rather than from new material.
- Citizen app
- A mobile app that uses your location to push real-time alerts about nearby crimes, fires, and emergencies, often pulled from police scanners and user reports.
- Brandishing
- A legal term for openly displaying a weapon in a threatening way, even without using it. Carries criminal weight in most US jurisdictions.
- Smash and grab
- A type of theft where a group breaks a storefront window or display case and quickly grabs merchandise before fleeing, usually within seconds.
- Dateline
- A long-running NBC newsmagazine show best known for hour-long true-crime episodes, typically built around a single murder case with dramatic narration.
- Lapel mic
- A small clip-on microphone worn on a shirt or jacket, designed to sit hands-free near the speaker's mouth for TV interviews or presentations.
- Gorilla amp
- A small, cheap practice amplifier popular in the 1980s and 1990s, known for being portable and underpowered — not built for performing to a room.
- Rotten Tomatoes
- A movie review aggregator that scores films by the percentage of critics who reviewed them positively. A score under 60% earns a "rotten" (splat) rating.
- Reasonable doubt
- The legal standard a jury must meet to convict in a US criminal trial — if any juror has a sensible reason to doubt guilt, they must vote not guilty.
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.”
Word for word.
metaphoranalogystory
00:36Thank you guys very much. Thank you for being here. Thanks for coming to my house.
00:39You guys feeling good?
00:42Good to see everybody. I'm Dane Cook. Thanks for being here tonight.
00:44This is this is, uh, this is my house. This is, uh, my actual house.
00:54I know some of you guys are like, that's not his fucking house. But this is my house. Good luck Chuck did very well.
01:00That's all I'm gonna say. Okay? Yeah.
01:02Fuck Rotten Tomatoes. This shit bought me a house. I know.
01:0635% splat? No. 35% mortgage paid.
01:09Trust me. It's before we keep going, anybody have any questions about what's happening right now?
01:17What are your names? Robert and Deanna.
01:21Robert and Deanna. How long you guys been together? Over a year.
01:24Over a year. Yeah. Or two years?
01:27He said said over over that's kind of a wide you missed, you know?
01:35A year, two years. Let's just call it five years. Did you guys meet in real life?
01:40Did you meet through some kind of online situation? Talk to me. You're at my house.
01:43Let's just We met in real life. You met in real life?
01:47And 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.
01:54There'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?
02:03Right? You kinda butterflies came out of your vagina.
02:10Right? Did you just you you knew something right away like, oh, wow. I wanna I wanna hang with this guy.
02:15Yeah? And so how's it been? You could be honest.
02:17Let's figure it out right now. Okay? You're either leaving together?
02:20Yeah. It's been great? Yeah?
02:22Okay. 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.
02:28Okay? You fight from time to time?
02:31Yes. Let's talk about that.
02:35Let'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?
02:47But 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.
02:54She's always fucking yapping. She just wants to out yell. I didn't even invite her to the show.
03:01I'm kidding. I'll bring you a meringue. So I've been dealing with a stalker And it was legit.
03:17Okay? I don't I cannot even fathom how I found myself in this situation, but I did.
03:23I started getting about a year ago thousands of DMs on Instagram.
03:29You 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.
03:38I love it. Throwback 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 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?
04:44I'm looking for Dane Cook. And they got increasingly more and more off kilter.
04:50Strange. 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.
05:00And 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.
05:09And 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.
05:21So 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 and I saw her face, she was very, very ugly.
05:40She had a horribly ugly fucking face. She looked like a rock with makeup on. And the video plays, and she's screaming and pacing.
05:48She 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.
05:56She's seething. She's spitting onto the camera. It's so fucking loud, screaming wherever she was.
06:02I 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 yell at me and scream at me like that.
06:18It was so unsettling. And as I was trying to really figure out what would have made her so upset, I looked down.
06:24She sent me another video. And in the second video, she was crying. She was wiping tears.
06:29She goes, this isn't me. This isn't me.
06:32This isn't us. She said that. She said, this isn't me.
06:35This 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 she was very sad.
07:35And 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.
07:47The 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.
08:00When 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.
08:17Just staring. Just staring into the nothing. No emotion.
08:20Staring and breathing like the And I'm watching and I'm staring. I'm I'm breathing as well.
08:30I'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.
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 I I honestly, I was so screwed up by it.
10:03And 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.
10:21And I say out loud to myself, I go, that car doesn't belong in this neighborhood. What 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 like this happen for the rest of the night.
11:24I 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.
11:31And two in the morning, she's still there. I'm in bed. I can't sleep.
11:35I'm in the bed. I keep checking the DMs. And finally, at 02:30AM, she sends me a video.
11:41So I hit play. I turn it all the way down. She'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 half of a whisper, You made me do this.
12:04And then she looked a little closer, and she shaved her fucking eyebrows off.
12:12Yeah. Trick.
12:22Both eyebrows off. Off.
12:26Choke like a fucking goose. Yeah. Like a heinous goose at 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, my anxiety hits, like, I'm I never had anything like this since I was maybe, like, a kid.
13:01I was really scared. And yet at the same time, I was trying to keep myself busy because I wanted to check the DMs.
13:08I 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.
13:21And 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 if you want this to go your way.
15:28To 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.
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 vantage 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 that had been so constant for that year.
19:27And then, of course, over the fifteen days, nothing. Everything stopped day 15.
19:34And 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.
19:40I 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.
19:52No DMs. And it was at that point that I remember I finally was like, where did she go?
20:00I 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?
20:09And then a couple hours later, I looked out there again and I had another notion unexpectedly. I was like, she'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 this special, she wrote me a little letter.
21:04I 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.
21:23And 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.
21:30It opens up. It 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, I attached myself to you and the idea of being with you.
22:04She 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.
22:13I added that. I 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, I felt such empathy and I'm a sensitive guy and I was almost immediately responding.
22:45Yeah. I know that sounds wild, but I was. I was just I was enthused for her.
22:49And 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.
22:56And 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.
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 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.
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 bet the Internet's happy for me.
24:16I 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 was so it was so, like, completely deranged, some of the things people were saying, that I finally was like, you know what?
25:22I 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.
25:35Let'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 a woman, I am so in love with you.
26:00And 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 and I there's certain things I don't understand.
27:27First 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.
27:35He's saying all the right. Do you? Do you?
27:39Say 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 to yourself.
27:58You'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 huck that rice at their eyes.
28:50Here's a fun little prank that you can do. Ready? Stand behind everybody outside of the church.
28:54Right? 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.
29:08The reason I wanted to share this this evening with everybody is because I feel like um, I'm always looking for that visceral reaction.
29:22Anytime I'm watching something on television, I'm waiting for that moment where you you have that moment where you emote to nobody.
29:30That'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.
29:42I 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.
29:53And 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.
30:14They 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.
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 about the picture that you couldn't help but feel that same enthusiasm.
31:04In 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.
31:16All you saw was one incredulous eye. And it was unsettling. She didn't know yet.
31:22And 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.
31:37He goes, holy shit. And his wife goes, babe, what?
31:43He 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.
31:53And 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.
32:09I'm glad six of you appreciate that. Yeah.
32:13And the rest of you are what? Sociopaths? What are you?
32:15You'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.
32:24The 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 when 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, but they're not delightful.
33:21The updates are quite nefarious. Right? And not only did they send an update, they send how far away whatever is happening is happening.
33:29Couple nights ago, I'm sitting watching TV. I get an update. I 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 coming out of whatever commercial, they show blood right away.
35:28Right? They show they show smears of blood. They show flashes of blood, splats of blood, and then the narrator jumps in almost as quickly.
35:34There was blood everywhere. Blood on the walls. Blood on the floors.
35:40Blood on the family dog. And you're like, woah, woah, blood on the dog. Wait a second.
35:45Hold on. Did the killer pet the dog? Did the dog kill people?
35:48Wait. 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.
35:58Right? They were just married three hours before. And you're like, oh, shit.
36:03This is serious. And then they give the entire episode a title. And the title's fucked up, but perfect.
36:09Tonight, I do no. I 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 is charisma.
36:53That's the whole thing. It's all about charisma. I'm telling you right now.
36:56That'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.
37:08If 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, and then you're going to you're gonna this is juries love this.
37:38Ready? You're gonna pace back and forth like this. Juries love this.
37:42Ready?
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 connection with this, uh, jury, then you might wanna go again, don't push it, but you might wanna go with this next.
38:32You 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 except for one condition.
38:57It will not work if you're fucking ugly. If you're ugly, you are going to jail. Ugly people are guilty.
39:06If you have a cleft lip, you're done. You'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 and 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, do you wanna live in an America where Chick fil A is closed on Sundays?
39:54Because 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, quitting.
40:20You know, did it ever get, uh, so severe and was I ever in such a, you know, rut and stand up?
40:29Because, 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.
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 to letting go of the big dream.
41:06I 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.
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 it right past me.
42:48Was like, wow, this dude is fucking cool. I was like, did he practice that? That was fucking amazing.
42:54And 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.
43:03The 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.
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, I looked and inside the Rathskeller, there was another little building in the building.
44:04And when he pointed at it he goes, you see that hotdog stand? I said, yeah. He goes, you're gonna be on the roof.
44:10I said, I'm gonna be on the roof of the hotdog stand? He goes, yes. I 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 I 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, you need a fucking mic?
46:03I 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.
46:11Yes. I'd like a microphone. He goes, fucking bitch.
46:14Fuck you. Fuck. Fucking bitch.
46:16Motherfucker. And the and the fucks got lower. And 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 that I'm gonna have to hold like a fucking giant, like a Lilliputian mic.
46:58Hello. Hello. Hello.
47:01He goes, yeah. And I go, very good.
47:04Yes. I said, Don, what time does the show begin?
47:10And he goes, show's gonna start sometime between eight and eleven, so hang out. I was like, 08:11. Perfect.
47:16That'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, you know, you know, place where they put the mop with the bucket and even empty out the bleach.
47:36Bleach 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 maybe army of fans that I have.
47:56Now 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.
48:05And then finally, Don stopped in the hallway. He goes, you good? I said, yeah.
48:09And he goes, I think you're gonna be great. I said, Don, I appreciate that. He goes, yeah.
48:13Now 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.
48:25And 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.
48:33As I'm approaching the top of the hot dog stand roof, I'm realizing a couple of things.
48:41This 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.
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 slash bustle.
49:07It'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.
49:15Everybody's moving around. And very, very quickly, I'm realizing nobody's sitting like you're sitting.
49:21There's no chairs facing this direction. People are milling about everywhere. I'm looking over.
49:26Everybody'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.
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 moving around.
49:45And 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.
49:58But 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.
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 switches.
51:38And 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.
51:52I 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 it was like the opening of Saving Private Ryan, but instead of bullets, picture hot dogs.
53:38Okay? I jumped on the ladder and I very quickly went down 72 rungs.
53:46And 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.
53:57And 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.
54:10I 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.
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 you. 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.
56:10He's a fun guy. Anyway okay.
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.
Visual structure at a glance.
