Is This Anything?

by Jerry Seinfeld

  We even went to the moon just to see if there were any women there.

  That’s why we brought that little car.

  Why would you bring a car, unless there’s some chance of going on a date?

  What the hell were they doing with a car on the god damn moon?

  You’re on the moon already!

  Isn’t that far enough?

  There is no more male idea in the history of the universe than,

  “Why don’t we fly up to the moon and drive around?”

  Phone Control/Sex Control

  Woman called me up the other day, asked me out on a date.

  I’ll tell you guys, I don’t know if this kind of thing is as good for us as it seems on the surface.

  It changes the balance of power in the dating world.

  Which is, women have sex control, men have phone control.

  In the beginning of a relationship, women control all sexual decisions.

  Who, where, when, type, style, duration, and rate of progress.

  The basic conversation between every man and every woman on every date

  is the man saying,

  “I would like to have sex right now.”

  And the woman saying,

  “Well, we’re not.”

  Sometimes the woman will give the man an excuse.

  She doesn’t really have to.

  She can say anything.

  “I’m tired.

  I’m not tired.

  You’re tired.

  Someone in Italy is tired.”

  Anything.

  Now, on the other side, the power that men have is phone control.

  That’s why we try so hard to get your number.

  “Did you get her number?”

  “I talked to her, she said she might give me the number.”

  “You should get the number.”

  “I’m trying to get the number.”

  We want that number.

  That’s phone control.

  Now, we can call.

  If we want to call.

  We might call.

  We might not call.

  We might wait.

  You might wonder.

  You might worry.

  But now, if women are calling, then they have phone control too.

  And they already had sex control.

  So what do men have now in the dating world?

  Nothing.

  We’re just driving and paying now.

  You might as well put us in a baby seat in the back of the car.

  That’s how much power we have.

  Give us a foam rubber steering wheel with a red button in the middle.

  “Beep, beep. Hey, you missed the theater. Beep. That’s where the movie is. Beep, beep.”

  And even though women are getting phone control,

  they’re not giving us any sex control in exchange.

  You can’t give men sex control.

  That wouldn’t be good.

  Women would never see the inside of a restaurant for the rest of their lives.

  We’d show up at your house with food.

  We’d drive by restaurants, you’d go,

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s a clubhouse you don’t need to know anything about it. We’re going home.”

  We’d trade in all the sports cars.

  Just drive those aluminum snack vans with the sides that swing open.

  Who needs a sports car if you’ve got sex control?

  You just need a quick bite to eat, later.

  The Nineties

  I remember so well sitting there with Larry David at our pitch meeting for Seinfeld at NBC.

  And I remember saying,

  “We want the show to be about how a comedian gets his material.”

  In my head I’m thinking,

  “What a load of nonsense this is.

  Is anyone dumb enough to believe what I’m saying?

  But it does sound good.

  I think that’s what this meeting is about…

  Just say stuff that sounds good…”

  Then I threw in some bit I had about waitresses in coffee shops walking around

  with a pot of coffee in each hand looking for people that had coffee, trying to give them more coffee.

  That got a laugh.

  And the next thing I knew I had a TV series.

  * * *

  “How a comedian gets his material.”

  Please.

  If you could go back to any time and place in history,

  would you go back to Van Gogh in an art store buying the paint??

  NO. Of course not.

  What the hell is that?

  You would go back to watch him painting!!

  That’s what you want to see.

  And that’s what you’re seeing in a stand-up set.

  The artist painting the picture right now, right in front of me.

  That’s why it’s so compelling.

  It’s happening right now.

  Why he’s doing it and where he got the ideas are stupid questions.

  * * *

  The stand-up stuff I did for the TV series was not at all the way I liked working.

  I love working really slowly and taking a really long time figuring out what I want the bit to be.

  In the series I had to work really fast and had no time.

  I do think because Larry and I approached the show as stand-ups is why the comedy works so well.

  There is a stand-up rhythm to the dialogue

  and a stand-up mindset to the story lines.

  * * *

  When we finished the series the celebration was much more like the over-drained marathoner than the sprinter.

  They do one weak little fist pump, not even above their head

  and then right into the aluminum blanket.

  The look on their face is,

  “Obviously, that was worth it. But also… a ridiculously long run.”

  First Aid

  What do you think First Aid was like hundreds of years ago?

  They had no medicine, no drugs, no technology, no equipment.

  Basically, they were there first.

  That was it. That was the whole First Aid.

  They sat with you, that’s all they could do.

  “Can you help me in any way?”

  “No. But we were the first ones here.

  Did you see our truck?

  ‘First Aid,’ that’s our motto.

  We do nothing. But we show up before anybody.”

  Museum Security Guards

  Do the security guards in the art museums

  really ever stop anybody from taking the paintings?

  Are they going up to thieves,

  “Hey, hey, hey, where do you think you’re going with that Cézanne?”

  Look at the job that this man is hired to do.

  He’s getting five dollars an hour to protect millions of dollars of priceless art, with a light mocha brown uniform and a USA Today.

  That’s all he’s got.

  Crooks must look at this guy and go,

  “Alright, all we’ve got to do is get past the folding chair and the thermos of coffee

  and we can get a Rembrandt.”

  Men’s Jobs

  Women have to like the job of the guy they’re with.

  They don’t like the job, they don’t like the guy.

  Men know this.

  That’s why we’ve invented the phony, bogus names for the jobs that we have.

  “Right now, I’m managing regional development systems.

  Doing research, production, overseeing and administrating, assistant to the supervisor.

  Consulting on a lot of things in the area.

  I’m out of work.

  Can I be honest with you?

  I have no job at all.”

  But if a man is physically attracted to a woman it’s not really important to him what her job is.

  “Slaughterho
use, really?

  That sounds great.

  Must be interesting with all the blood.

  So you take a big meat cleaver and are just lopping their heads right off?

  Amazing.

  Anyway, why don’t you wash up

  and we’ll grab a couple of cheeseburgers and catch a movie?”

  Psychiatrist

  Then there’s the psychiatrist.

  Why is it that with the psychiatrist every hour is only fifty minutes?

  What do they do with that ten minutes that they have left?

  Do they just sit there going,

  “Boy, that guy was crazy.

  I couldn’t believe the things he was saying.

  What a nut…

  Who’s coming in next?

  Oh no, another head case.”

  Money

  I have not done well as an investor in things.

  People always tell me, “You should have your money working for you.”

  I’ve decided, I think I’ll do the work, I’m going to let my money relax.

  Because who knows what your money has been through before it got to you?

  Maybe it’s been working. Maybe it’s tired. Maybe that’s why it left where it was.

  Maybe if I’m nice to it, it’ll stay with me.

  I hate when they call up to check if your credit card is good.

  I always feel like they’re talking about me.

  “You won’t believe what he’s buying now.

  It’s some kind of yellow thing.

  I don’t even know what it is, we’ve never sold one before.

  Get down here right away, I’ll try and stall him…”

  Office Space

  To me, the most annoying thing about the couple of times that I’ve worked in offices

  is that when you show up in the morning

  you say “hi” to everyone.

  And then for some reason, you have to continue to greet these people all day every time you see them.

  You walk in at the start of the day,

  “Morning, Bill. Morning, Bob. How are you doing?”

  “Fine.”

  Ten minutes later you see them in the hall, again you say, “Hey, how you doing?”

  I already know how he’s doing.

  I just saw him.

  But you’ve got to keep saying something each time you pass.

  So you keep coming up with different little greetings.

  Nicknames… “Jimboo.”

  You do the little smile with the small head/eyebrow raise.

  The almost imperceptible beneath-the-breath “Hey” with a half-smile.

  If it’s a narrow passageway, you have “Excuse me.”

  But it has to have a very friendly, singsong quality.

  You kind of go up a note on the “me.”

  When walking by a group of 3 or more men, “Gentlemen.”

  To confer a misplaced air of sophistication.

  People like any mention of “the weekend.”

  “Good weekend?”

  “Weekend’s almost here…”

  We should all agree that we’re just going to say,

  “Acknowledge,” as we pass people in the halls.

  You know, just walk by,

  “Acknowledge.”

  “Acknowledge.”

  We’ll become Vulcans for four seconds

  and not have to wrack our brains every time we just want to go to the bathroom.

  The Casual Heil

  I was watching a World War Two Nazi movie.

  The Nazis in those movies seemed to have two different “Heil”s.

  They had the regular arm-extended “Heil” that they would do at parades and stuff.

  And then, around the offices, they had this casual “Heil”

  where they would just kind of show their palm.

  They come in the office, “Yeah, Heil, how are you?

  Is the kid back with the coffee yet? Are you finished with the copier?

  Yeah, world domination, Aryan race, whose donuts are those?

  Hey Heil, nice to see you. How’s the Holocaust going…?

  Mind if I take the last jelly?”

  Malls

  Every mall has a Hoffritz knife store in it.

  I’m sorry, but this has got to be kind of a scary place to work.

  They put like a 16-year-old girl behind the counter.

  And all day people are coming in saying things like,

  “I need knives. I need more knives.

  Do you have any bigger knives? Sharper knives?

  I need a big, long, sharp knife.

  That’s what I’m in the market for.

  Do you have one with hooks and ridges on the blade?

  That’s the kind of knife I’m looking for.

  I need one I can throw, and I need another one I can just hack away with.

  Do you have anything like that?”

  Really Bad Traffic

  The complete dead stop is, of course, the ultimate traffic experience.

  You look down, you can see gum right there on the road.

  It’s not even a car now.

  It’s just a weatherproof chair out on the highway.

  The only gesture of optimism left is people leaving their hands on the steering wheel.

  I love that. That’s hope.

  Sitting there stopped, frozen solid.

  But the hands on the wheel.

  Like maybe the earth will just suddenly open up.

  All these cars will disappear.

  And I’ll just take off.

  And when you’re in the complete dead stop you think,

  “Well, at least I know it can’t get any worse than this.

  We aren’t moving at all.”

  But we know in the future, traffic will get worse.

  I wonder if someday it will start going backwards.

  We’ll be going,

  (looking over shoulder backing up)

  “This is some bad traffic now, boy.

  This is reeally… bad.

  Traffic so bad, you never even get where you’re going.

  You just have to visit whoever’s house you end up at.

  They go, “How was the traffic?”

  You go,

  “Terrible.

  I don’t even know who you are.”

  Parking Garage

  The problem with the mall garage is that everything looks the same.

  They try to differentiate between levels.

  They put up different colors, different numbers, different letters.

  What they need to do is name the levels like, “Your mother’s a whore.”

  You would remember that.

  You would go,

  “I know where we’re parked. We’re in ‘Your mother’s a whore.’ ”

  And your friend would go,

  “No, we’re not. We’re in ‘My father’s an abusive alcoholic.’ ”

  Future Outfits

  I’m sick of clothes.

  Sick of buying them.

  Sick of picking them out of my closet.

  Sick of trying to come up with different little outfits for myself every day.

  I think eventually fashion won’t even exist.

  And we’ll all just wear the same thing.

  Because any time you see a movie or TV show

  where there’s people from the future or another planet,

  they’re all wearing the same outfit.

  They got sick of it too.

  They just decided.

  “Okay everyone, listen up…

  From now on, this is going to be the outfit for this planet…

  We’re all wearing this.

  It’s just a one-piece silver suit with the V-stripe and the boots.

  That’s it.”

  We should have an outfit election for Earth.

  Candidates propose different looks for us.

  No speeches.

  Just walk out, twirl, walk off.


  “That’s nice. I like that one…

  Better than the backless number.

  That’s not for me.”

  * * *

  I think I was named best-dressed man one year.

  But I don’t remember the year and I don’t remember what I was wearing.

  I hate clothes.

  I hate the selecting, the trying on, the conversing with the sales help.

  There’s another oxymoron, sales help.

  You’re either helping me or selling me but they’re not the same thing.

  I hate shopping bags.

  I hate receipts.

  I hate tags, pins, labels, hangers, buttons, zippers, drawstrings, lapels.

  I hate bleach, color-safe bleach, detergents, liquids, powders, tablets, stain lifters, stain fighters, stain neutralizers, special crystals,

  active ingredients, enzymes, whiteners, brighteners.

  I hate hot water, cold water, warm water.

  I hate getting $1 off. I hate getting ⅓ more FREE.

  I hate fabric softener and static cling, so I lose either way.

  I hate detergents that are good for the environment, bad for the environment, not even aware of the environment.

  I hate carrying laundry bags.

  I hate dry cleaning plastic, people that work at dry cleaners,

  talking about my stains to the dry cleaner.

  I hate and refuse to read any poster or notice anything on the wall of the dry cleaner.

  If it was posted, “We reserve the right to steal your clothes,”

  I wouldn’t care. I’m not interested. Just take the clothes.

  Just let me get the hell out of here and back to the world as soon as possible.

  Maid

  The first time I could afford a maid I couldn’t handle the guilt.

  I followed her around the whole apartment.

  “I don’t know why I didn’t pick that stuff up.

  Obviously, I could have.

  I just didn’t.”

  I’d be a terrible maid.

  Because that’s the attitude I’d have.

  “Oh, I suppose you couldn’t do this.

  No, no, don’t get up.

  Let ME clean up YOUR filth.