WEBVTT

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So I have one little
seven page-- seven minute

00:00:03.596 --> 00:00:05.096 align:middle line:84%
thing, if you want
me to just-- it's

00:00:05.096 --> 00:00:06.130 align:middle line:84%
going to be in the
New Yorker next week,

00:00:06.130 --> 00:00:07.950 align:middle line:84%
and this'll be the first
time anyone has ever seen

00:00:07.950 --> 00:00:09.200 align:middle line:90%
or read it, if you don't mind.

00:00:09.200 --> 00:00:11.982 align:middle line:84%
I don't want to be one
of these people who--

00:00:11.982 --> 00:00:14.070 align:middle line:84%
well yeah, like I said,
but what could you say?

00:00:14.070 --> 00:00:14.570 align:middle line:90%
No, no!

00:00:14.570 --> 00:00:15.788 align:middle line:90%
No, really.

00:00:15.788 --> 00:00:17.140 align:middle line:90%
All right.

00:00:17.140 --> 00:00:19.922 align:middle line:84%
So listen, I was saying to the
students earlier that I had--

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I have a production of
about two stories a year

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no matter what I do.

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So I started writing.

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I did the screenplays.

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I did the kid's books.

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And I also started doing
these little humor pieces

00:00:28.090 --> 00:00:29.257 align:middle line:90%
for the New Yorker magazine.

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So this, I think, should be
in next Wednesday, or maybe

00:00:31.920 --> 00:00:34.790 align:middle line:90%
the Wednesday after that.

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I just turned 47 this year,
so this is kind of a, I think,

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a pretty serious
reflection on that.

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It's called "Nostalgia".

00:00:41.860 --> 00:00:43.360 align:middle line:84%
The other day, I
was watching TV,

00:00:43.360 --> 00:00:46.750 align:middle line:84%
and it occurred to me
that I've become a prude.

00:00:46.750 --> 00:00:48.880 align:middle line:84%
The show in question
was innocuous enough--

00:00:48.880 --> 00:00:50.380 align:middle line:90%
nothing shocking.

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Just an episode
of Hottie Leaders,

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featuring computer simulations
of what various female world

00:00:56.560 --> 00:01:00.740 align:middle line:84%
leaders would look like naked
and in the throes of orgasm.

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But somehow, between that
and the Pizza Hut commercial

00:01:02.990 --> 00:01:05.170 align:middle line:84%
where Paris Hilton and
Jessica Simpson engaged

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in some girl on girl action in
a vast field of pizza sauce,

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something snapped.

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I mean, I know what the
problem is, I'm old.

00:01:13.710 --> 00:01:17.980 align:middle line:84%
I came of age in a
simpler sexual time.

00:01:17.980 --> 00:01:22.210 align:middle line:84%
Back in those ancient
prelapsarian days, girl on girl

00:01:22.210 --> 00:01:24.260 align:middle line:90%
hadn't even been invented yet.

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And at that time, girl
on guy had only recently

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been discovered.

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I remember my parents and their
neighbors standing in the yard

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with a pair of crude
human figures made of wood

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trying to work out the details.

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Sometimes a couple
would get all worked up

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and forget where things
were supposed to go,

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and the husband would
have to call a friend.

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Only, phones were new too.

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So sometimes you'd go over
to visit a pal from school,

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and there'd be his dad
just standing there naked,

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phone in hand, and
totally flummoxed.

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And women could get
pregnant from merely

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watching a kiss in a movie.

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Girls, or at least
the good girls,

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would go to movies blindfolded.

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I remember once
in fourth grade, I

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had to get engaged to a girl
whose coat I'd brushed up

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against in the cloakroom.

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They were simpler
times, but in some ways,

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I think better times.

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Same deal with violence--

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I remember how shocked we all
were when the Cain and Abel

00:02:17.615 --> 00:02:20.130 align:middle line:90%
thing happened.

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What?

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What?

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We kept saying, he bludgeoned
his brother with a rock?

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I remember the first time a
severed limb was shown on TV.

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People were running out
of their houses screaming.

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And it was just a
fake leg in a cartoon.

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Imagine how shocked those
screaming people would be now.

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And for example, you can
log on to the "evidence

00:02:39.420 --> 00:02:41.430 align:middle line:84%
of evil" evil
website, and they'll

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send you a box full of
bloody prosthetics--

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which you can reassemble
into a crack addicted whore.

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Who will then admit some clues
through her computerized voice

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box.

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And when you think
who murdered her,

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you enter the name of the
killer on the website.

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And if you're right, you
get to see a short porn

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clip of her making love
with her killer moments

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before he hacks her
to bits, while she

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has a flashback of her mother
beating her with a chair leg.

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I mean, OK, there was violence
when I was a kid, sure,

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but nobody really
talked about it.

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If you got strangled
and dismembered,

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you just got up the next
day whistling a happy tune

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and went down and did some
riveting for the war effort.

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As for computer simulation,
sorry, we had no computers.

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All we had was sketch
pads and pencils.

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If we wanted to see what various
female world leaders looked

00:03:28.680 --> 00:03:30.760 align:middle line:84%
like naked in the
throes of orgasm,

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we had to use a little thing
called the imagination.

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Plus all the world leaders
were men back then.

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And believe me, once you've
drawn Richard Nixon naked

00:03:39.720 --> 00:03:41.880 align:middle line:84%
and in the throes
of orgasm, you never

00:03:41.880 --> 00:03:46.092 align:middle line:84%
have quite the same interest in
using your imagination again.

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And every time you even see a
pencil, you get a little puke-y

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and have to sit down.

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Whenever I talk to
young people, like

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some of the teenagers
in my neighborhood,

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or this one toddler
Maxie, or, even

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a couple of fetuses I
run into occasionally--

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I say to them, trust me,
you guys, enjoy your youth.

00:04:04.140 --> 00:04:05.940 align:middle line:84%
Because the level
of sex and violence

00:04:05.940 --> 00:04:08.460 align:middle line:84%
is going to continue to
escalate, and by the time

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you're my age, the
world of your youth

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will seem like a distant,
innocent paradise.

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The teenagers and
the toddler, Maxie,

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sometimes they seem to get it.

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But the fetuses-- well, you
know fetuses, they're arrogant.

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To them, it's always going
to be a soft, gentle ride

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in a warm, comfortable
space, right?

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And I'm like, OK, smart
guy, call me in nine months,

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and we'll talk.

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Or I will.

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You'll just be lying
there pink and newborn

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with a terrified look on your
face realizing I was right--

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apologizing to me with
those little, shocked eyes.

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I don't know.

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Things just keep getting worse.

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I suspect that in 40
years, when I'm 87,

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I'll look back at the present
level of sex and violence,

00:04:47.100 --> 00:04:49.800 align:middle line:84%
and go-- huh, you call
that sex and violence?

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That was nothing.

00:04:51.210 --> 00:04:54.180 align:middle line:84%
That was Puritanism and
pacifism compared to now.

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But then I'll have
to go, because it

00:04:55.680 --> 00:04:58.710 align:middle line:84%
will be stripper night
at the old folks' home.

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I'll have to find the
costume and my back brace.

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But on the way
there, I'll be killed

00:05:04.560 --> 00:05:07.500 align:middle line:84%
by a mysterious old
folks' home invader, who

00:05:07.500 --> 00:05:09.740 align:middle line:90%
actually works for Fox.

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And is committing
and filming my murder

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for later broadcast on, "When
Codgers on Their Way to Strip

00:05:15.150 --> 00:05:16.020 align:middle line:90%
Look Terrified".

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Same with music though, right?

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I used to love music,
back when it had

00:05:21.870 --> 00:05:24.060 align:middle line:90%
melody and chords and lyrics.

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But now, it has no melody and no
chords, just thwack thwacking.

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And they even seem to be cutting
back on the thwack thwacking,

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so now it's sometimes just thwa.

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And as far as lyrics, do
you consider these lyrics?

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Hump my hump.

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My stumpy, lumpy hump.

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Hump my dump, you
lumpy, slumpy dump.

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I'll thump your hump, and
then just hump your dump!

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You lumpy frumply clump.

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I'm sorry, to me,
those are not lyrics.

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In my day, lyrics were used
to express real emotion--

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like the emotion of
being totally stoned.

00:06:02.085 --> 00:06:06.720 align:middle line:90%


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And trying to talk this totally
stoned chick into sleeping

00:06:09.150 --> 00:06:10.695 align:middle line:90%
with you in the name of love--

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which lasted forever, if only
you held on to your dreams.

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These kids today, I don't
know what they believe.

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I mean, I don't even know
what I really believe anymore.

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But one thing I
don't believe, is

00:06:24.720 --> 00:06:27.750 align:middle line:84%
that watching Paris Hilton and
Jessica Simpson roll around

00:06:27.750 --> 00:06:29.940 align:middle line:84%
in pizza sauce is
helping our youth

00:06:29.940 --> 00:06:33.450 align:middle line:84%
as they go forth and try to
figure out what they believe.

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Scientific evidence suggests,
that even the fetuses inside

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of mother's watching
that commercial

00:06:39.240 --> 00:06:43.035 align:middle line:84%
are getting one, dumber,
and two, little baby boners.

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I don't go for that.

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I think that when a
fetus is in the womb,

00:06:51.870 --> 00:06:54.270 align:middle line:84%
it should just be
floating around

00:06:54.270 --> 00:06:57.330 align:middle line:84%
with his undersized,
arrogant head empty,

00:06:57.330 --> 00:07:02.195 align:middle line:84%
and his little, nascent penis
just, you know, inactive.

00:07:02.195 --> 00:07:03.570 align:middle line:84%
They grow these
kids up too fast.

00:07:03.570 --> 00:07:05.400 align:middle line:84%
And next thing
you know, out come

00:07:05.400 --> 00:07:07.890 align:middle line:84%
the Indian and the
Chinese fetuses,

00:07:07.890 --> 00:07:12.120 align:middle line:84%
and they start taking away the
jobs of our Homeland fetuses.

00:07:12.120 --> 00:07:12.870 align:middle line:90%
And why?

00:07:12.870 --> 00:07:16.400 align:middle line:84%
Because the foreign
fetuses aren't jaded.

00:07:16.400 --> 00:07:18.900 align:middle line:84%
They're innocent, like I was--
like my whole generation was,

00:07:18.900 --> 00:07:20.310 align:middle line:90%
when we were fetuses--

00:07:20.310 --> 00:07:22.650 align:middle line:84%
back in those long,
forgotten, idyllic days

00:07:22.650 --> 00:07:25.290 align:middle line:84%
when American fetuses
walked the Earth like happy,

00:07:25.290 --> 00:07:30.090 align:middle line:84%
unsoiled giants, doing algebra
and reading the classics.

00:07:30.090 --> 00:07:34.590 align:middle line:84%
And yet, I don't like the
fact that I've become a prude.

00:07:34.590 --> 00:07:36.240 align:middle line:84%
Life expectancies
being what they are,

00:07:36.240 --> 00:07:38.520 align:middle line:84%
I may be only halfway
through my life.

00:07:38.520 --> 00:07:41.520 align:middle line:84%
And who wants to live out
half one's life as a prude?

00:07:41.520 --> 00:07:42.870 align:middle line:90%
Not me.

00:07:42.870 --> 00:07:45.750 align:middle line:84%
I want to live about 1/10
of my life as a prude--

00:07:45.750 --> 00:07:49.320 align:middle line:84%
that last tenth, when I'm
inert and confused and immobile

00:07:49.320 --> 00:07:51.570 align:middle line:90%
anyway.

00:07:51.570 --> 00:07:54.360 align:middle line:84%
So I decided to start
prude proofing myself,

00:07:54.360 --> 00:07:57.480 align:middle line:84%
via a series of daily
micro-immersions in sex

00:07:57.480 --> 00:07:59.190 align:middle line:90%
and violence.

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Last week, for example, I sat
on my couch looking at a bra

00:08:02.370 --> 00:08:03.270 align:middle line:90%
for over an hour.

00:08:03.270 --> 00:08:05.850 align:middle line:90%


00:08:05.850 --> 00:08:07.500 align:middle line:84%
Then I forced myself
to watch a video

00:08:07.500 --> 00:08:10.982 align:middle line:90%
of a duck being hit by a car.

00:08:10.982 --> 00:08:12.940 align:middle line:84%
Then I tried listening
to the sound of the duck

00:08:12.940 --> 00:08:17.110 align:middle line:84%
on the video being hit by the
car while looking at the bra.

00:08:17.110 --> 00:08:19.210 align:middle line:84%
Next, I turned up the
sound while looking

00:08:19.210 --> 00:08:21.762 align:middle line:90%
at a slightly sexier bra.

00:08:21.762 --> 00:08:23.470 align:middle line:84%
Then I watched the
duck being hit while I

00:08:23.470 --> 00:08:25.510 align:middle line:90%
ran my hand over the bra.

00:08:25.510 --> 00:08:28.578 align:middle line:84%
Then I had my wife
put on the bra, which

00:08:28.578 --> 00:08:30.370 align:middle line:84%
was a very effective
technique because as I

00:08:30.370 --> 00:08:32.140 align:middle line:84%
tried to run my
hand over the bra,

00:08:32.140 --> 00:08:35.350 align:middle line:84%
my wife nailed me
with an ashtray--

00:08:35.350 --> 00:08:39.220 align:middle line:84%
just as the duck was
hit by the car, one

00:08:39.220 --> 00:08:41.409 align:middle line:84%
of the best micro-immersions
in sex and violence

00:08:41.409 --> 00:08:43.690 align:middle line:90%
a guy could ask for.

00:08:43.690 --> 00:08:46.390 align:middle line:84%
And tonight is my biggest
de-pruding test yet.

00:08:46.390 --> 00:08:49.180 align:middle line:84%
I'm going to, while hitting
myself with a brick,

00:08:49.180 --> 00:08:51.820 align:middle line:84%
and begging my wife
to walk by in her bra,

00:08:51.820 --> 00:08:54.648 align:middle line:84%
watch an episode of
"Dream Your Final Dream".

00:08:54.648 --> 00:08:56.440 align:middle line:84%
On which a contestant
selected from a field

00:08:56.440 --> 00:08:58.030 align:middle line:84%
of more than 5,000
applicants will

00:08:58.030 --> 00:08:59.913 align:middle line:90%
be granted his final dream--

00:08:59.913 --> 00:09:02.080 align:middle line:84%
which, in this case, is to
be beaten nearly to death

00:09:02.080 --> 00:09:05.860 align:middle line:84%
with a tire iron, so that
Carmen Electra can come in naked

00:09:05.860 --> 00:09:09.070 align:middle line:84%
and give a lap dance in the
final moments of his life.

00:09:09.070 --> 00:09:10.330 align:middle line:90%
I have high hopes.

00:09:10.330 --> 00:09:11.800 align:middle line:90%
I know I can do this.

00:09:11.800 --> 00:09:13.370 align:middle line:84%
And if I succeed,
our whole culture

00:09:13.370 --> 00:09:14.620 align:middle line:90%
will once again be open to me.

00:09:14.620 --> 00:09:17.650 align:middle line:84%
And who knows, I may
even go see a movie.

00:09:17.650 --> 00:09:20.250 align:middle line:84%
Thank you very
much for your time.

00:09:20.250 --> 00:09:29.000 align:middle line:90%