Original subtitles

-Hello, everybody. Don't mind me.

Don't, don't. No, no, no, no, no, no.

No, no, no.

Hello. Sorry.

I didn't think this through.

I practiced without people here,

and then I thought that would be fun.

Hello.

Oh! Oh! Thank you.

Thank you so much for coming.

Um, is everybody comfortable? Is everybody happy?

Yes. There's gonna be points in this show

where you're not gonna be sure if you should laugh or feel sorry for me.

I suggest you laugh.

Because if you don't laugh,

this shit still happened,

uh, but it will have happened for nothing.

And that's on you.

You know, maybe I can ask you questions.

Do it like an interview.

Yeah, well, that's... That's a good point.

That's a good point.

So I was walking to the hospital and I bumped into a guy

that I used to run with.

And I say I used to run with him, we weren't in a cool gang

selling drugs on the stoop like The Fast and the Furious,

to afford drag racing on the weekends.

Uh, I was in an athletic squad and he was in my squad.

Uh, he wasn't my favorite member of the squad.

He was a very clean-cut American guy and he spoke about women

with that exaggerated respect

that implies a severe Madonna-whore complex.

You know, the kind of thing that's gonna lead to a sexless marriage

and an angry self-loathing porn habit.

But very polite.

Very nice to talk to.

He was not my favorite member of the squad.

My favorite member of the squad was a guy called Toby.

And he was beautiful. He was just incredible

and he was fast and I had the kind of...

I had the... Okay.

I didn't go to athletics training because I liked it.

I didn't go because I was good at it,

I went 'cause I went to pick up my brother one day from training

and Toby was there.

And I just kept coming to training.

Six days a week. Six days a week.

I ran three marathons.

I had the kind of crush where you can't look at their face.

You know, I'd be running behind him in the back,

angle of his jaw was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.

And he was so fast, he was so beautiful,

and he would say things that I couldn't, like, didn't quite make sense,

and I was never sure he was one step ahead of me or quite stupid.

And I adored him, I adored him and one day,

one day he asked me if I would like a lift home from training.

Yeah, of course.

Cool.

Okay.

It had been already a long training session.

I was sweating and shaking before I got in the car.

And then I got in the car, and I was sweating and I was shaking,

and I couldn't look at him, but I could smell him.

He was there and I was there, he was there and I was just breathing and...

After a while,

after a while, I realized, um,

that the silence in the car

had gone

too long.

Like, way too long.

Like, you know, your only job as a passenger in a car

is to make pleasant conversation, and I had said nothing,

I'd said nothing, and I was... I didn't have a phone,

and I couldn't... I thought I had to break this silence that's been going on.

It's been going on a long time. Whatever I say has to be good.

But I've got nothing. I thought, I'll just start talking.

You're a smart woman, Alice.

You can start talking and something good will come out.

So I broke the silence.

I said,

"So how do you feel about soup?"

And then there was more silence.

And then he said,

"I like pumpkin soup."

And I said, "This is my house here. I'll just get out here."

I got out of the car and I walked through the front gate

and down the side of a house that was not mine.

And I hid behind some bushes and waited for him to drive away

and then I walked the two and a half kilometers home.

It would've been fine, would've been fine.

I would've got away with it too,

except that that weekend was squad brunch

at my house.

So he came to my house, my actual house, and he was there,

he was eating bircher muesli, he was looking at me, I assume.

And he said,

"This isn't where I dropped you off."

And I said, "Oh, yeah, no, yeah, I forgot."

I forgot.

I forgot.

So he thought either that I had forgotten where I lived,

or he thought that I didn't trust him with my home address

until the weekend.

Or he thought, that his pumpkin soup answer

had been so offensive,

that I just had to jump and roll.

He asked me out three weeks later, and I said no out of surprise.

Obviously I hadn't seen it coming. I wasn't reading any facial cues.

So he was my favorite member of the squad. This American guy was not.

But, you know, we'd run together. It's a special bond.

So when he said, "Where are you going?" I told him.

I said I'm going to the hospital to visit my mum, she's very sick.

And he said, "Oh, yeah, I'd heard that."

Which is a weird thing, right?

'Cause I hadn't told him, but he already knew.

It's something that happens nowadays more and more often

'cause we're living in an age of social media.

Social conventions haven't caught up to the fact that we're in a panopticon.

You know. You say, "I had a great sandwich the other day."

They go, "I know, I enjoyed them.

"I liked it on Twitter and Instagram."

But it was weirder still in this instance

because I had not been talking about the situation with my mum on social media.

Because the situation with my mum was sort of so complicated

and difficult that it would've needed

like a three or four or five paragraph Facebook status update.

Right? And you know those three or four or five paragraph Facebook status updates.

All you need is one typo in the wrong place

and you look like the crazy aunt who is tweeting about her divorce.

You know, she's telling you in length and detail exactly what he's doing wrong,

and you understand exactly what he's doing wrong

and yet also somehow exactly why he's divorcing her.

I think you should be allowed to print out those very long Facebook status updates

and hand them in at your local pharmacy over the counter

for, like, heavy schedule pre-psychiatric medication.

"Hi, I have a severe lack of judgement, have you got anything..."

He already knew, and I assume he's heard it through the grapevine,

and then we proceeded to have a very strange conversation,

a very odd conversation.

Because every question he asked, he already knew the answer to.

It was like doing a weird dance. Like every question, he's like,

"Oh, yeah, I know." Then I was, "Why am I answering these questions?"

"Why are you asking these questions if you already..."

"Why am I answering these questions if you..." I was just...

After a while, I was getting annoyed,

and so when he, when he asked me exactly what was wrong,

I told him.

I told him exactly what was wrong.

And he...

Um, he put his hand on my face.

Like a mafia head hug.

And he said, uh,

"Well, I believe God heals."

Which was new.

It's not normally what people say when you tell them bad news.

Normally what people say when you tell them bad news is,

"Oh, I'm so sorry, let me know if there's anything I can do."

That's a nice thing to say.

That's a nice thing to say even if they don't mean it.

It's a nice thing to mean to say, right?

But "I believe God heals." And he said it with the courage of conviction,

not just that he believed what he was saying,

but that he believed it was the right thing to say.

This guy.

Let's call him Dick.

'Cause that's his name.

Not what people call him or what's on his birth certificate,

but, you know, his soul name.

So I didn't know what to do, I didn't know what to say,

I didn't know what to do, I didn't do what I wanted to do,

which was push him down the stairs, and say, "How's God on broken legs?"

I didn't do that, I didn't do that.

'Cause there were no stairs.

And, you know, obviously he meant well, and I knew he meant well,

because he sent me a message later on Facebook,

saying, "I feel like I can offer you some comfort."

Which is what a serial killer would say, but also,

you know, someone who meant well and had no social skills.

I didn't know what to do, I didn't know what to say,

so what I did was I stared at him.

And then I walked away,

like Jason Statham walking away

from a burning building in an action movie.

Except he wasn't on fire.

Except in my head.

He was on fire.

I love action movies. I love action movies.

I love action movies because I think art is a beautiful way

to turn pain into beauty.

Right? And action movies do that.

Obviously, in action movies, the pain is of a man whose lats are so big

he can't touch his belt.

You know. He has to wake up at three o'clock in the morning

and drink a chicken milk shake.

Eating spoonfuls of protein powder.

Smelling like milk.

Yeah, have you heard about this? A lot of bodybuilders smell like milk.

They do this thing called the GOMAD protocol.

Look it up online, it's a thing.

Particularly teenage boys that are trying to bulk up.

GOMAD, it stands for, a gallon of milk a day.

Oh, that's so much milk.

That is nearly four and a half liters of milk.

That's so much milk.

That's so much... So if you don't like, if you don't like action movies,

do what I do the next time you are watching an action movie.

And when you see them running around the corner,

and they run out of sight of the camera,

if they're, like, Tom Cruise, they run at a more acute angle

'cause he's got a lower center of gravity that's...

Just imagine they then immediately fold over

and throw up three and a half liters of milk.

By then it's cheese, bleh, bleh, bleh.

Doing those protein powder farts, like hitting the bottom of a talc bottle.

Poof, poof, poof.

Art is a great way to turn pain into beauty, and I was thinking about this

when I was walking away from Dick, because, uh, that day

it was three days before the very first trial of this show.

And I, I was gonna write this show, and what I wanted to write

was a silly, funny, happy, lighthearted comedy show

and the show was gonna be in three days,

and I had nothing.

I had nothing.

I had one silly banjo song and nothing.

Because I was really sad.

I was really sad and it's very hard

to write comedy about things that are actually sad.

Right? 'Cause it's... Comedy is good for surface sadness.

"I have difficulty relating to women because I don't respect them."

And they can tell, like...

That kind of...

But it's not good for things that are actually, genuinely, truly sad.

Because it's not just that it's hard for me to write,

it's hard for you to laugh.

Right? Because you're not sure if you should laugh if I'm not okay.

Right?

You know what? It's not even that you don't wanna bully me.

It's like, I'm the bully. I'm, you know, saying horrible things

and then you, you don't wanna be the guy on the sidelines, being like,

"Yeah, put the boot in, Kevin." Like...

'Cause I think there are plenty of things that are sad that are actually funny.

Like things that are genuinely sad that are also very funny.

Like, in my mum's hospital room, they had a paper towel dispenser.

You know the...

Krrrt. Krrrt.

I'm not good at mime, go with me here.

It was on the wall, it was directly above the sink.

Pshhh.

But not "pshh," because it was a motion sensor sink.

Um, which meant that every time you pulled the paper towel...

Krrt, pshhh.

Krrt, pshhh.

It turned on the sink and wet the paper towel.

It was a perfect self-sustaining capitalist economy, just...

Just supplying the demand for the supply it was demanding.

As initially satisfying as it was,

at second glance, incredibly self-defeating.

You know, like if you sold anti-depressants,

but were also a producer on the X-Factor.

I wanted to write, then I thought maybe

I can't write this silly, funny, happy, light-hearted show.

Maybe I'll write a show about things that are sad.

Right? 'Cause what is comedy for

except for talking about the things that people don't talk about?

Isn't it? Isn't that what it's for?

I just don't think there's enough room in civilized society for sadness anymore.

Like, people say "Call me anytime." They do not mean it.

They don't mean it. They want you to package away your sadness

into one-hour blocks, see a psychiatrist, see a psychotherapist,

see a sex worker, whatever it is. Take anti-depressants, heroin,

just package it away.

Even in places that you should be allowed to be sad, you're not.

I went to a funeral that was a happy funeral.

Have you been to these?

It was like a celebration, everyone had to wear bright colors,

and there were flowers like there are ordinarily flowers

but these were more colorful flowers.

And they had balloons.

And they had bubble blowers.

I did not know until that day that the saddest thing in the world

is watching somebody blow bubbles like this.

Beautiful bubbles going out in the air,

each one reflecting a perfect panorama of sadness.

At this happy funeral, everyone was trying to be happy.

I thought, this is what is wrong with everything.

Like, this is the... Everything has to look good and be fun

and smell good and taste good and not have hair on it.

Like this is the... This is the slippery slope that leads to anal bleaching.

You know that's a thing, right?

That's a thing. It's not just sitting on a lemon.

People pay for it.

I...

I mean, do what you want with your body and all of that, but also...

Like, if you're sitting there with one of those, like,

paint color charts from a hardware shop trying to pick what shade you'll go,

just know this, these three facts.

If you take nothing else away from this show,

let it be these three facts.

Buttholes are brown.

They are meant to be brown.

And we're all going to die.

Just take that onboard and you will live such a happier life.

So much less stressful. There's no room...

Even in places where you should be allowed be sad

there is no room to be sad. I went to an art therapy class,

and I ruined it.

I went to this art therapy class, a bunch of other girls in my running squad

and when they were getting to their late 20s,

apparently that's what you do in your late 20s.

Art therapy, I don't know.

If you are into art therapy, this is the only one I've ever been to.

This is the only class I've ever been to. It may have been a bad one.

We had to hold hands around a candle

and dedicate ourselves to the class.

And if anyone said anything or shared anything

we had to say,

"Thank you for sharing."

And then they told us to make a collage about our fears

and they gave us Clag glue

and women's magazines.

Uh, if you're not from Australia, you don't know what Clag glue is.

It's like a pot of non-toxic semi-translucent sort of...

paste.

It's bullshit!

Clag glue is bullshit. Slippery, ripply, never dry.

Gets carpet stuck to it, it's bullshit.

I think they give Clag glue to children who have artistic talent

to convince them they have no artistic talent.

So they just give up and become accountants.

I'm there, I'm trying to make my fear collage...

Just everything's getting... And I just did what you always do with Clag glue,

which is you give up, you get frustrated and you eat it.

That's why they make it non-toxic.

You look disgusted. It's also imaginary.

And then we had to go around the circle and share

how our collage has represented our fears.

One of the girls got up and she said, "Um,

"this picture of the environment represents the environment

"and this picture of a sassy businesswoman from Cosmopolitan magazine

"represents my career.

"And I feel like I'm focusing very much on my career right now,

"but I'm ignoring the world around me, and my fear is that

"I'm making the wrong decision and that I'll regret it later."

"Thank you for sharing."

Next girl got up and she said, "This picture of a baby

"represents a baby. I'm gonna have a baby.

"And this picture of a sassy older woman from Cosmopolitan magazine

"represents my mum.

"Uh, my mum is, like, great, but she's like, so intense.

"She's like, whoa, too intense, Mum. Like, way too intense.

"She's like always calling me, and bringing me around food

"and, like, calling my boyfriend, and asking about my boyfriend.

"It's like, 'Whoa, Mum, too much love. Slow down, calm down.'"

Right?

Does anyone have one of those, like, intense mums?

Yeah, you have one of them.

Look, I get that that is a genuine problem.

Like, I understand intellectually that it is a problem.

But my mum, my mum was sick my whole life.

She had MS, which is multiple sclerosis.

It's a degenerative neurological condition.

It's where your body sees itself as the enemy and attacks itself.

It's like a teenage girl.

Comedian with a drinking problem.

A young man who just got his motorcycle license.

What that meant is she never had the energy to be that kind of mum.

She loved us so much, but she just didn't have that kind of energy.

So when people are like, "Oh, my mum's, like, too intense."

I get that it's... Like, I do. I understand that it is...

But in my ears, um...

In my ears, it just sounds like...

"I got a blister from my yacht."

"I ate too much caviar and now I feel a bit queasy."

Like, I do get that it's a problem, but also, fuck your problem.

And then I got up.

And I said, "This bit here that's kind of sliding off the edge,

"represents that I've been looking after my mum since I was a child, right?

"And I'm not sure if I go out in the world,

"if I know how to be without being needed.

"And I'm worried that if I go out, I'll just desperately try and find

"someone to need me, and I'll never be a real person. Um...

"And this bit here with carpet stuck on it..."

"...that represents that she's been sick for so long,

"and getting worse for so long,

"uh, that sometimes I just want it to end.

"But there's no way for it to end without...

"I mean, wanting it to end means wanting her to die, right?

"And wanting to go on means wanting her to keep getting worse.

"And who wants either of those things for a parent they love?

"Um, and this bit here..."

"This represents

"that ever since I left home in my mid 20s

"and went out into the world,

"I've been trying to prove something.

"And there is nothing

"that I can ever do that will be good enough

"to justify abandoning the most important human duty

"a child has to a parent."

And I ruined the class.

I ruined the class. I ruined the...

I didn't mean to. I kind of meant to. I...

They're all just sitting around in a circle, eating Clag glue and crying.

I think that's a successful art therapy class, I don't know.

It's the only one I've ever been to.

I mean, I'm saying there's no room in a civilized nation for sadness.

There's no room in nature for sadness either, right?

I was brought up as a little Buddhist kid.

Um, so it's nature, right? Tooth and claw.

If you don't know, if you weren't brought up as a Buddhist,

you're not allowed to kill any of the little creatures in your house.

You're not allowed to kill ants or cockroaches, or door-to-door salesmen.

Not like the other kids.

And people assume that means you're squeamish.

'Cause, like, I don't want to kill even the smallest creature.

They don't realize that if you don't kill any of the little creatures in your house

as a child, what you get to see is a lot of little creatures

killing each other.

You go into school, you know, the teacher says,

"Alice, you're late. The early bird catches the worm."

And you go, "Yes, Miss Melafont.

"And the early worm dies brutally and is dragged away by a colony of ants,

"which is eaten by a passing lizard, which is gutted by a snail,

"and spends three days dying in the hot sun.

"Oh, the naughty corner again."

I was brought up Buddhist. I remember running into my Dad.

"Dad, death, death is gonna happen."

Dad said, "Yes, Alice, life is suffering and then you die."

"Happy fifth birthday.

Like, for years, I never had faith, right? I never had, and I didn't understand

when Dick put his hand on my face and said, "I believe God heals."

I didn't understand what he meant.

Like, he's heard of ebola, right?

You know, I couldn't... I was jealous.

I wanted to know why he believed that.

How he could hold that level of faith in the face of reality.

Right? You know, you believe God heals I believe people are dying... Right?

I believe everybody is dying, but some people are more dying than others,

to paraphrase the French Revolution.

I was walking away from him and I was thinking about faith.

And here's the thing that I think about faith.

As someone who doesn't understand it.

Um, this is what I think about all faiths, Christianity, CrossFit, everything.

And I think, if you are of a faith,

pretend for this bit that I'm talking about not your one.

So I think faith is where you have two things...

and you believe them both.

Equally. You think they're both true, right?

And they don't fit together, though.

They don't, they don't fit together. They're both true, but they can't...

So, like life after death,

or the lion and the lamb at the same time,

or vegan paleo.

Corporate wellness.

And you believe them both, so they have to fit together somehow,

but they don't fit together, so you're trying to push them together

in your head.

You're trying to push them together and they won't go together.

You push them together and they won't go together.

It's like two opposing magnetic forces.

And you're trying to push them together and they won't go together

and you feel, after a while,

you start to feel

like there must be

something

there.

Right?

That thing that you can't see and you can't understand.

And doesn't... It's not anything, it doesn't feel like it's there,

but it has to be there, right?

And you realize it must be beyond the scope

of your human understanding, right?

And in that moment, you realize that there is a scope

beyond your human understanding. And in that instant,

your tiny human brain, which can only contain what it can contain,

contains for an instant the idea of the infinite,

and it blows you apart.

And it feels amazing.

And after I gave up on wanting this to be a silly, funny, happy,

lighthearted comedy show, I decided I wanted it to be about that.

About that feeling of transcendence, of being, like, together you're more

than the sum of your parts. Like, uplifted and transported and...

And I'm not sure if I can deliver that.

Um, because I don't have the faith that Dick had

before I didn't push him down the stairs.

I did do a TED Talk.

Which is, like, what we millennials have instead of church, right?

Like, I got asked to do a TED, so I ran into my mum at the hospital.

I was like, "Mum, I'm sorry I'm not gonna be here this afternoon.

"I'm gonna go do a TED Talk."

And she said, "Oh, darling, I'm so proud of you.

"I'm so proud of you. What's a TED talk?"

And I said, "It's like a packaged inspiration deal.

"You have to say an idea that you think can change the world,

"and I want to talk about vanity in the face of death.

"I want to talk about vanity in the face of death."

'Cause I was going in to the palliative care ward every day,

and there was an informercial that everyone was watching.

Right? It was for a guy called Dr. Butt.

With his three-way butt system to improve your butt.

Some of these people did not have butts.

So I went to do this TED talk. I went to do this TED talk, and I show up,

and they tell me the program, and the program is, I'm on last.

That's where comedians go, comedians go last.

That's where they put us.

And before me is a space video.

Some small thing to make some big thing go faster. I don't know, I don't care.

It was probably not important.

I mean, it's probably important for, like, the future of space travel,

but not important to me in that moment.

Except insofar as it serves like a palette cleanser.

Because before me is Turia Pitt.

Do you know Turia Pitt?

Yeah. I... She is... If you know her story, you'll know...

And I knew this was gonna be intense. I'm glad there's a space video.

It can sort of reset the crowd. Because she is incredibly inspirational.

And she was a beautiful young lady,

she was caught in an ultra-marathon, in a fire,

and burned over 65% of her body,

and very badly disfigured. And she does these speeches.

And I knew it was gonna be intense. I'm backstage being microphoned up,

and they have piles of boxes of tissues.

Piles.

It's like 500 people. Like, one per three...

It's gonna be intense.

I'm like, "Thank God there's a space video."

So Turia Pitt walks out,

this small, dignified figure.

She stands on this red dot in the middle of the stage,

and, to 500 people, she talks about what it felt like

to be burned.

What it felt like. And then she talked about how her friends found her,

but they didn't recognize her until she spoke,

and then she saw in that moment of recognition in their eyes

how bad it was.

And then she spoke about being in the hospital,

hearing the screams of people coming down the ward.

Having their bandages changed in the burns ward.

Because it's so painful to have your... Begging not to have her bandages changed.

And she talked about how people told her boyfriend that he should leave her

because she wasn't beautiful anymore.

And he said that he wouldn't leave her, because she was still beautiful to him.

And they start deploying the tissues.

Up the aisles, just

bucket chains of reverse moisture.

And I'm backstage and I'm

being caught up in the power of her speech and I am also thinking,

"Thank God there's a space video."

And she talked about how she had to wear, like, a mask, like a balaclava

on her face to keep her face on, for, like, a year.

And then she didn't need to wear it anymore, but she didn't take it off.

She didn't wanna take it off because she didn't want to take it off

and see that this is what she looked like,

and acknowledge that this is who she was now,

and that she didn't want other people to see her

and to know her

as she was.

And then she talked about how she decided that she was gonna take it off,

and walk out in the world and feel proud and feel beautiful.

Because then anyone, she thought, anyone looking at her

who thought anything was in their way, could look at her,

proud and strong and beautiful, and know that they could do anything

and be anyone that they wanted.

And I thought...

"I hope the space video is long."

And then she looked at this 500-person audience,

and she said, "Think about the masks you are wearing."

And then she walked off.

She came past me.

And then the compère, the MC, walked on.

Man in his mid-50s, mustache, in tears

and he said,

"And now for something a little bit funny."

Is it a funny space video?

"Everybody put your hands together, welcome to the stage, Alice Fraser."

"I don't wanna, I don't wanna..."

They're like, "No, no, no, he forgot. There's no space... He..."

Like, "Go, go, go."

You can look this up online. You can look it up online.

I walk out, I stand on this red dot, I face 500 people in tears.

There's a woman in the third row who's sobbing so hard she's retching.

Bits of cheese falling out into...

And I say,

"They said there was gonna be a space video."

Because my first four and a half minutes are about body image.

Fuck.

Fuck.

Fuck.

So the moral of the story

is that Turia Pitt was the victim of a terrible accident,

but she rose above that, right?

She went beyond that, she transcended that,

she did not let that define her.

So I think we can all agree on who the real victim...

I stand by everything I said, every stupid joke I made on that stage.

I think it's ridiculous that we care so much about how we look.

Particularly women. I think it's an outrageous thing that we care

so much about how we look.

It's not that I don't want to look good. Of course, I wanna look good.

I just wanna look good in a way that does not involve a lot of effort.

Like, "Oh, yeah, if she put some work in..."

That's the level

that I wanna... Like, that's all... Just 'cause there's so many people

spending so much time and money and energy and effort

on what is essentially a depreciating asset.

That is the reason, like, you see... And particularly, like, young women

and you see them out in the 12% clothes, 88% goosebumps.

I'm not slut shaming. I'm not... I'm just...

You know what's attractive is a survival instinct, and...

Just print out a nude selfie and staple it to a warm jumper,

and we'll all...

Everyone will be happy.

Um, feminism, I'm so conflicted by this modern feminism.

It seems to be a lot about how you feel about yourself.

You know... Look... Loving your body on Instagram

as a sign of feminist... Like...

I don't, I don't.

I don't Instagram love my body. I'm fine with it.

All my elbows are in the right places and I probably do the right amount of poo.

Can that be enough?

I just... I just...

I got in an argument recently with a friend of mine, who said,

"You shouldn't say that women shouldn't focus on their appearance, right?

"'Cause it's an evolutionary thing, right?

"It's an evolutionary thing for women to focus on aesthetics and..."

Look, I'm not saying that, like, beauty and fashion and all that...

I'm not saying that those things are less important

than other more important things.

I'm just saying they're fine, but also we ask men to overcome

their evolutionary impulses all of the time, don't we?

We ask men to. They don't always, but we ask 'em.

Right? You're not allowed to just become the CEO

by arm wrestling someone to death anymore.

Not since the '80s. We've moved on.

You don't blink an eye if a woman tells you

she spent 45 minutes blow drying her hair.

You know what blow drying is, right?

It's where you get a tiny robot to shout at your head.

Till it's the right shape for professional life.

I realize this is all very binary men and women-y stuff,

but, you know, we love a binary, don't we? Binary versus nonbinary.

That's another binary, isn't it?

I don't know, I get it. I get the idea that you, if you...

If you, a lot of my friends who are women have this idea

that if you get the right face cream, if you just get...

You can hold off death and age

if you just get the right combination of nutrients in.

Like, if you just get the right moisturizer,

you will be an eternal jelly fish floating forever in a sea of cocks.

I get it.

I just never...

I just never had that kind of faith either.

Mm.

Um...

Mm.

Mm.

Mm.

Mm.

So...

I did not just do athletics training

because I was chasing Toby around the oval.

I did it

because

that health and fitness rhetoric is so appealing, isn't it?

That idea that you can just keep training

and getting better and fitter and better and fitter

until you're lifted by the gods and put in the stars

like Hercules, right?

That if you're not getting better,

it's 'cause you got your program wrong, right?

"He died. Didn't he hear about kale?"

And all of that stuff, beauty and fitness, it's a lovely idea,

it's a beautiful idea. I just think it's all a distraction

from the reality of the world, which is that life is a process

of weaning you off how good it was to be a baby.

How good was it to be a baby?

Do you remember it? Do you remember when you were little?

Do you remember how amazing it was? Do you remember...

Do you remember eating ice cream in the sun

on a hot day when you were, like, three?

With no shirt on, just running...

Do you remember what it felt like eating hot soup on a cold night?

Running around in wet grass,

knowing there was a hot bath waiting for you when you got in.

Does anyone have any good childhood memories?

Any good... Show of hands...

What's yours?

I remember being so incredibly happy every time I got the new stationery

at the start of the school year.

Yes. Yes.

Oh! Infinite possibilities in your hands.

Anyone else have any... What's yours?

I remember going up to my nana's backyard

and she had a huge oak tree.

And underneath it was that really soft clover,

and we used to take our shoes off and walk around in that clover.

It was cold, but it was really soft and velvety.

It was amazing.

Yeah, just the intensity of that.

Just an incredible thing.

Think about your childhood memories. Think about those good ones,

the ones that are so intense and hyper colored,

and surreal and beautiful and deep inside you.

Think about how amazing they were.

And then think about this.

There are people who do jobs

that they hate

on a bet.

On a bet, and this is the bet, and they pay it down every day,

and they pay it with their lives. This is the bet.

They pay it hour by hour. This is the bet.

The bet is that by the time you reach retirement age,

you will not be sick,

you will not have a sick spouse, or a sick parent, or a sick child,

and you will be as capable of enjoying yourself then

as you are now,

when you can remember now what it felt like

to eat an ice cream in the sun when you were three.

I'm sorry, over here ice cream tastes like dust.

It's fine, everything tastes like dust.

You've adjusted. You have a fine appreciation

for the nuances of dust.

When was the last time you spoke to someone very old

and said, "How are you?" And they went, "Amazing."

You have to enjoy things when you can, while you can.

It's the same thing... The opposite, the flip side of the same coin.

When teenage girls are, like, running at adult problems.

Oh, complicated emotional... Oh, adult...

You know those ones. They're just, "Oh, boys, men! Oh, complicated!"

"Oh, I'm feeling so many grownup..."

Like, sweetheart...

Life will fuck you.

Yes.

And men will come, they'll happen.

In both instances, probably before you're ready.

My mum was diagnosed with MS when she was 27,

which is younger than I am now.

My mum was brilliant.

She could play any instrument she put her hands to.

She could... She taught herself Russian and Chinese for fun.

Like, she was so brilliant and fast, and charming

and, and beautiful, and, and...

And then she couldn't feel her hands.

And then, um, and she lost things, then she lost, you know, bits and pieces.

She lost feeling in her hands, she lost her balance,

she lost her temper, and bit by bit,

um, she lost everything that she thought made her special.

And then she needed help getting up and down the stairs,

and then she needed help getting out of bed,

and then she needed help going to the toilet

and keeping herself clean, and then...

She had MS for 33 years.

And then about halfway through

the Melbourne International Comedy Festival in 2015,

she was diagnosed with cancer.

And then Dick...

put his hand

on my face

and said, "I believe God heals."

And I

walked away.

Because I don't know what I believe. I don't know what I believe in.

I don't know what I... I don't know what I believe,

but just 'cause you know what you believe in and I don't

doesn't make you right and me wrong.

I don't know what I believe. What do I believe?

I believe young men these days show too much skin.

Those short tight short shorts.

I think it's scandalous.

I believe people who buy umbrellas are trying to hide from the truth.

I believe I'm half mermaid, half human,

but the mermaid half is the human half of the mermaid.

So essentially 100% human, but I have a deep spiritual affinity

for Jason Momoa in Aquaman.

I believe it is a very sad, very bad thing

that we have to walk home with our keys between our knuckles.

And there's always one key that you're not sure where you got it from

or what it's for.

But I believe you never know when you're gonna meet the thief

whose heart it will unlock.

I was walking in the city the other day.

I was walking in the city, and I felt so lost.

And I saw one of those maps, you know, the maps on the pole, those things...

And there's a map on a pole and it had a bubble, a red bubble,

and it said, "You are here."

You are here. And I thought,

"Oh, good.

"There's is me, and there's a here, and I'm here."

And I walked on.

I came back later, I came back later,

and it knew I was back.

I think people who say that they believe in God,

but they don't really believe in God anymore,

say things like, "God is good,"

or "God is love."

Let's put "God is good" aside for a minute.

That is just a problem with counting "o's".

God is love. God is love. What kind of love?

What kind? Is it the kind of love where you can't look at their face?

Is it the kind of love where you got like a relative, like an aunt or something,

and you love them, but every Christmas they play Monopoly, and they cheat.

So next year you're not gonna play Monopoly

and you won't get them such a good present, but you still love them.

What kind of... What kind of love?

Right?

I have a friend who lost his faith, right,

watching the movie There Will Be Blood.

Right? You know that movie? There's a bad preacher that convinces the parish

to give up their land to a greedy oil baron

by working them to a religious frenzy, by making them sing songs together,

and then they feel uplifted and... My friend, watching that movie...

He'd always thought that that feeling that you have of singing together,

of being together, of feeling like together

you're more than the sum of your parts,

he'd always thought that that was proof of the presence of God.

And he hadn't realized you could fake it.

Right? I'm not anti-faith.

I think it's wonderful if you manage to have faith in this world.

All the other things that religion used to provide

have been outsourced to the gig economy. I'm glad you have your faith.

All the other things that religion used to...

You've got the financial sector for corruption now.

You've got the right wing media for vilifying the other.

The left wing media for moral puritanism.

Online streaming services for terrible stories

about terrible people doing terrible things to other people.

And the dark web for its...

My friend, he lost his faith

watching people singing.

So I want to sing a song...

Uh, with you, if that's all right.

Yeah? Don't worry, there are no words.

I mean, there are words. It's an old French folk song.

You might think you recognize the tune.

But you don't.

There are other songs that are based on that original French folk song,

but the original French folk song is not under copyright law.

So, instead of singing the words,

'cause I can't be bothered teaching you all French, um...

Let's take all those "oohs" from before,

all those O's and... I'll start and then you all can join in.

We'll go "ooh" all together, okay?

-You got it?

Okay, excellent.

Everyone, all together. Please. Thank you.

Otherwise they won't let me film this.

One more time.

Give yourselves a round of applause.

That was beautiful.

And in return, I will tell you a secret.

I did not just say no to Toby when he asked me out, out of surprise.

I said no because he was perfect.

He was perfect, right?

And the best relationship you ever have

is the one you never have.

Right?

'Cause only the unfinished can contain the infinite, right?

Only the thing that you don't actually...

Anything, however good it is, is what it is.

Right? It's only if you...

If you leave it in the infinite realms of the unfinished of potential

that it can be anything.

Here's another true story about love.

I used to live in Cambridge, in England.

It's a beautiful city. People wanna come visit,

and when they wanna come visit, they wanna stay with you.

I lived in shitty student digs, and my friend Monty came to visit.

He came to visit, and he, he slept on my bed,

he was a very big man, and I slept on the floor.

And he slept on my bed for one night, and then he said,

"Alice, your pillow is shit.

"Your pillow is bullshit."

And it was true.

I had one of those shitty student pillows that was like half rolled-up socks

half human fists.

Brown tidal marks made out of head sweat and regret tears.

He said, "Your pillow is bullshit." And I got defensive about my bullshit...

I was like, "It's fine, it's fine, it's mine, it's fine."

My friend Monty went out.

He went out to the local fancy supermarket,

and he spent £60, 60 British pounds,

on a pillow.

He bought a £60 pillow, and he brought it home

and he slept on it for two nights and he left.

And he left me the pillow.

He was a lawyer.

He left me the pillow, so every night, every night, when I went to sleep,

for the rest of my time there, months and months and months and months,

every night when I went to sleep, I thought,

"Oh, Monty."

He had no idea that he left that in my life.

He'd be super creeped out if he knew.

That's the thing though. You don't know what you leave in people's lives.

You don't know. You don't know what incredible...

I don't know what you're gonna walk away with from this show.

I don't know what you're gonna take with you.

Whether it's gonna be to call your mum.

Whether it's gonna be the butthole thing.

Whether it's gonna be that teeth are really weird.

They are.

Teeth are really weird. Really.

Little disposable mouth bones.

When you brush them, you're polishing the only exposed part of your skeleton.

Don't...

Don't think about it,

on a date.

I don't know what you're gonna take away with you.

But I do want to say something, right?

Which is that

when I say you're pushing two things that don't fit together

that's what faith, isn't it?

It's something that feels like there's nothing there.

Hmm?

I am not saying that the thing that isn't there

is not important.

'Cause there's plenty of things that aren't there that are important.

Those three days before the very first trial of this show,

when I bumped into Dick,

I had nothing.

I walked away from him

and I was so angry,

so angry, and I couldn't push him down the stairs,

and I went and I sat in the palliative care ward

with Dr. Butt playing in the background,

and an unlimited supply of wet paper towels,

and I wrote this show.

I wrote this. This is what I wrote.

And I performed it three days later.

And I wrote... I had this final paragraph in the show,

um, and it's not in the show anymore.

Um, I had to change it. It's not in the show anymore,

but I'm gonna read it out to you.

'Cause it's not there, but it is...

It is important.

This is the original ending.

This is what I said at the end of that show.

"So the thing that you notice when somebody is dying

"is that you say you love them a lot.

"Like, a lot.

"Sort of compulsively.

"And I don't know why.

"It's not like I'm trying to convince her.

"I know she knows I love her.

"Of course she knows. I'm just saying it again and again.

"I love you, I love you, I love you.

"I'm so proud of you.

"And I realize that it's not because I'm trying to convince her,

"or myself, or anyone.

"It's because I know that, at some point,

"I'm going to stop being able to say it to her

"and have her hear it.

"And I'm trying to pack in a lifetime's worth,

"and it will never be enough.

"Once things are over,

"they are over."

And that was the thing that I wrote for the show.

It's not in the show anymore.

But it is important 'cause I did that show,

uh, three days after I bumped into Dick and 14 days after that, my mum died.

And I had to

change the show. I had to rewrite the show.

And I wrote it, I changed it.

I changed all of it in little ways,

and then I came and I realized I couldn't change that paragraph.

Because when I read that,

I remember what it felt like to write it.

I remember what it felt like

writing it knowing that she was dying, but that she was still alive.

And I...

I believe that it's important to remember that feeling,

so I can't...

I can't change that paragraph.

Uh, and what that means is I can't finish the show.

Sorry.

I'm sorry, I wish I could've given you more than that.

I wish I could've given you a warm pillow to sleep with at night,

or some transcendence,

or something amazing or beautiful,

or better than advice about buttholes.

But I can't. I won't.

I won't because...

I would...

I wish I could give my mum anything

anymore, and I can't.

I wish I could give her everything,

and I can.

Because only the unfinished can contain the infinite.

So what I will do, if you're all right with it,

is instead of finishing the show, I will play the last clip of my mum

and I talking,

and then I will give you seven seconds of silence.

And then it will be the end of the show.

And then we can all walk out and sing something silly and fun together.

Um, forget this ever happened.

I don't know, tweet about it or something.

Is that okay with you?

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you so much for coming.

No.

Mmm.