Original subtitles

[ Water bubbling ]

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[ Down-tempo music plays ]

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♪♪

Joe: Hello.

My name is Joe Pera.

And don't worry.

No one turned me into a cardinal fish.

I just gave myself a bad haircut and prefer you watch

this aquarium footage I had saved instead.

Well, not so much saved as unused --

much of it because it's too relaxing.

[ Waves breaking, birds chirping ]

♪♪

Kind of reflects how I'm feeling right now,

but it's also pretty calming to watch.

Right?

I figured that to not share it

in times like these would be wrong,

and so I assembled the best of it here for you.

It's a little more casual than usual,

but if just one nurse can come home

and watch it to fall asleep, it'll be worth it.

♪♪

I mean, I can't think of a much better use

for my footage of a clay pot...

...or this coffee pot...

...and these trees.

[ Birds chirping ]

It's a shame that we couldn't find a place for them

before now.

But I have learned that people mostly want to watch shows

about people, so I tried to respect that.

Someday, though, I'll make a program with only trees.

Maybe even start my own network -- Tree TV.

No people. Just trees.

Maybe every now and then we'd show an NBA game, but that's it.

I can't be the only one who'd prefer to watch Old Tjikko,

a 9,000-year-old spruce, after reading the news.

♪♪

The downside is that my network won't provide much opportunity

for human actors.

But as we reassess what is essential,

I wonder if actors are.

Well, there are definitely two --

Ed Harris and Elizabeth Hurley.

Last week, I watched "Austin Powers"

for the first time in 10 years, and it holds up very well --

a complete send-up of spy films

and one of the things that makes me laugh most.

And Elizabeth Hurley is the perfect straight man

to Austin Powers.

She's one of the few people who can rein him in,

and that is no small feat.

Can you imagine if it were only Austin Powers?

It would be chaos.

A town where all the stoplights are green --

fun to imagine but in real life fatal.

Also, she's one of the only people in the movie

not played by Austin Powers.

It's just too bad that in the second film

she turned out to be a fembot.

It was distressing to me

and made dating hard for a long time.

Not the robot part.

Just imagine falling for someone who then tried to kill you.

But instead of going down that path,

why don't I give you some good news?

Tree TV is considered is considering a merger

with Waterfall TV.

And I'd say it was pretty likely,

'cause I am the CEO of both.

♪♪

Look at this.

[ Mid-tempo music plays ]

Trees on the move.

♪♪

Just as I could endlessly look out a car window,

I could endlessly watch this footage

of looking out of a car window.

It's conducive to thinking.

It helps the mind wander freely.

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

I recently discovered a great simple recipe

I'd like to share with you.

It's called maple syrup toast.

Basically you take a slice of bread, toast it,

and then cover it in real maple syrup.

If you do it just right, it's better than a steak for me.

Not only that, but you can eat it

for up to two meals a day without getting sick.

The syrup is energy.

Just please don't eat it while you're driving.

It's so good, you might crash.

Sometimes simple meals are the best.

Like two apples. Me and my friends know this.

♪♪

That's the one.

You're a nice girl.

♪♪

♪♪

There's some more footage of fish I'm excited to show you,

but I wanted to show you this first --

not because my old idea to use empty baseball diamonds

for outdoor church is more relevant than ever.

It's just nice to watch the grounds keeper lay down

the chalk lines.

He's giving boundary to the boundaryless,

and it's kind of comforting to watch in these times.

Steady.

Steady. [ Down-tempo music plays ]

Steady.

When we were learning geometry in third grade,

my teacher explained that unless it intersects with another line,

a line will continue on indefinitely,

even if the paper ends.

With graph paper, pencil, and a little arrow,

I could create something that continued forever.

What incredible power for an 8-year-old.

I don't know about you,

but lately I've been doing a lot of sitting --

so much that my back has begun to get sore.

It stinks. I thought I was good at sitting.

Despite all the sitting, I try my best to stick to a routine.

It's grid paper on which to sketch my days --

wake up, call all my uncles by 10:00 a.m.,

at noon, eat lunch to the sound of my refrigerator humming,

then do one of three things I meant to do, eat dinner,

then read or watch a Bulbar movie and go to bed.

The next day, I'll do it again.

Sounds humdrum, but now more than ever,

my routine is what stands between me and the abyss.

I learned this lesson on one evening

I decided to stay up all night to see what would happen.

Instead of going to bed on time, I drank a coffee after dinner,

then watched four Bulbar movies.

It was great until the sun came up

and I saw that there's nothing separating days but sleep.

I know days have cycles and seasons have cycles.

Time is not a cycle for us, just a straight line,

one that doesn't continue forever.

But that's all right,

'cause my routine helps me forget this.

Anyhow, I've been taking a lot of comfort lately

in the second law of thermodynamics.

Usually I don't, but right now it's nice to know

that all natural processes are irreversible

and things are always moving forward.

♪♪

And while I'm not sure it's possible to affect things much,

I've got hope that we can bump the path

in a slightly better direction.

There's a quote about how over time

the direction of the moral universe curves towards justice.

But that is not science,

and my friend brought it up recently

to suggest she didn't believe it.

"If that were true," she said,

"Henry Kissinger would be in jail."

"He's still alive," I said.

"There's still time."

Positive thinking.

What else are we supposed to do?

What do you want me to tell you?

I reached in,

explored a bit to find something that might be of use for us,

and came back with "Austin Powers."

And you know what? D-- Amen.

[ Exhales sharply ]

I mean, I don't know.

Don't you wish that we could all see the world

through the eyes of a poet?

We had the chance.

It was called Google Glass, and we took it for granted.

That's a final joke for the nurses.

♪♪

♪♪

[ Water bubbling, indistinct conversations ]

Well, t-that was supposed to be the end.

I told them I've got more aquarium footage,

so they asked me last minute to extend this.

So...I-I guess I'll keep going.

[ Water bubbling ]

Look. That striped guy doesn't look like a strong swimmer.

Ah. There he goes.

Don't let your kids see. There's more than one Dory.

I wonder if these fish feel a longing to be somewhere else.

It's hard to tell if they're resigned or unconcerned.

Their faces don't give much away.

You see, I can't read that.

It reminds me about a story I read.

It was called "Axolotl,"

and it's about a man who becomes an axolotl.

Uh, if you don't know what one looks like, it's like this.

In the story, he goes and stares at it in the eyes

every day at the zoo,

until one day, they suddenly change places.

I've only read a little bit of Kafka,

but I think that would be considered Kafkaesque,

because that's what they say

when a human turns into an animal.

It's, uh, based on his story "The Bug."

"Beauty and the Beast" -- Kafkaesque.

The story contained perhaps the best description of a lizard

I've ever read --

"I saw the rosy little body, translucent,

ending in a fish's tail of extraordinary delicacy.

And then I discovered its eyes, its face --

inexpressive features with no other traits, save the eyes,

two orifices, like brooches, wholly of transparent gold,

lacking any life, but looking,

letting themself be penetrated by my look."

Julio Cortázar.

I'm not sure if I understood all of it,

but at the beginning, the narrator thinks

they are immortal-seeming and wise in their stillness.

But then he becomes one and realizes that they don't move

'cause they're just trapped in a tank,

also trapped in lizard bodies, they can think like humans

but can't talk 'cause they are lizards.

Kafkaesque.

Seems like we've now got an animal theme going.

So I asked my friend Otis if we could borrow some of his clips.

In 2012, he went to Japan

and fed the monkeys apples and peanuts.

[ Mid-tempo music plays ]

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

Otis told me that the fences here enclose the humans,

not the animals.

It's interesting.

♪♪

♪♪

I got to admit -- I'm a little bit jealous.

But as we know, you don't need to leave the country

to feed apples to an animal.

Plus my horse friend Emma can eat a hundred times more apples

than those guys.

Proves my theory -- Everyone loves apples.

Horses...

...turtles...

chinchillas...

coypu, and on and on.

Apples are the connection between species.

Before you write this off as straight pandering or too cute,

know that many of these animals may be trying to get drunk.

A lot of species seek out apples

that have been on the ground long enough to ferment.

They'll eat them and get a little intoxicated.

Imagine driving home on a Friday night

and getting stuck behind a herd of sheep

that has eaten too many fermented apples.

[ Insects chirping ]

[ Bell chimes ]

[ Engines humming ]

All right. I have a question for you.

At this moment, if you could be anywhere in the whole world,

where would you be?

Anywhere.

Are you serious?

Taking a summer boat ride through downtown Milwaukee?

That's incredible,

'cause I've got a whole sequence of just that.

[ Down-tempo music plays ]

Don't ask me how I knew.

♪♪

I set it to a song by my friend Owen.

I hope you brought your own beer.

[ Chuckles softly ]

♪♪

♪♪

Man: ♪ Don't go down Haring Street

♪ That much anymore

♪ I had to get my glasses fixed ♪

♪ Right there in front of the old coffee shop was Walter ♪

♪ Just sitting where he'd always sit ♪

♪ He was staring in the window

♪ Maybe at you

♪ Maybe at whomever's walking in to fetch you muffins ♪

♪ And Sunday papers

♪ The way we used to

♪ I don't drink coffee all that much anymore ♪

♪ When I do, I fix it at home

♪ Don't do the crossword Sunday ♪

♪ I can feel dumb other ways

♪ I can never finish them alone ♪

♪ Some days I ride down to the dog park ♪

♪ On the other side of town

Joe: This power plant's actually in Marquette.

Just thought it looked nice.

Man: ♪ Just to sit down in the shade ♪

♪ And watch those puppies running 'round ♪

♪ I don't miss feeling bad and dreading every call ♪

♪ The constant screaming dialogue ♪

♪ I swear that there were some days ♪

♪ It felt like I was only coming around for your dog ♪

♪ All those sunny days with Walter ♪

♪ Chasin' squirrels around the park ♪

♪ The way he'd flip when he would see me coming ♪

♪ Like the way he did this morning ♪

♪ With that big old Walter bark ♪

♪ Bark, bark

♪ Bark, bark

♪ Bark, bark

♪ Hey there, Walter

♪ Bark, bark

♪♪

[ Dog barks ]

[ Down-tempo music plays ]

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

♪♪

Alright, Take Care and Good night.

♪♪

♪♪