Thanks SeaBass.
Hello everyone.

Fear…

Let’s talk about … fear.

In keeping with the Halloween theme, I thought I’d talk about this thing called fear and some of my fears in particular.

Like right now, this is scary. Being up here. Scary. I’m so scared my testicles have retracted right up and they’re up here around my heart. That joke writes itself basically. Yes, my testicles and my heart are in the same place. Anyhow… that’s not even a joke yet, really. It’s just sad cause I’m … a dumb man. Truth in every joke.

Yes… a bit scared.
Never done this before. My day job is I’m a writer in advertising.
Any other capitalists in the house. Yay acquiring and consuming stuff, right? Ya, Fuck earth!

* Yes, I write ads for a pay check. Not good ads, really. Things like – More chocolate chips per cookie. Or 3% interest on new accounts! Yes, I write stuff like that – that’s my life’s work so far. You’re welcome, world.

Anyhow, in my job I do make presentations. I speak in front of people. But it’s not standup comedy. Hence I have to use notes. Not just watching porn. Porn on your phone is so sad, isn’t it? You can’t see anything. They’re so small. Ya. Look at those tiny nipples. That’s so hot. Mobile porn.

So fear, right. Stay on topic, Andrew.
It occurred to me it’s a strange emotion or feeling. This Fear.

I kind of feel evolution really fucked up with being scared. You’d think it would have been weeded out of us somewhere in the evolutionary development of humans right? Cause it’s kind of a useless thing in a way. Personally, it just holds me back today.

I’m guessing it developed in us because humans weren’t always top of the food chain. And we were the ones being hunted at one time. We were the food.

It was your brain saying run – something’s coming to eat us. A dinosaur or something. I’m half-Japanese so it was probably Godzilla by the way.

But when I think of the time I was most afraid in my life, you know happened – I shit my pants.
Ya, sure. Come on, I’ll admit it. It’s not just standup tonight. This is therapy.
I shit my pants.

So how did my bloodline survive when this is how fear affects me?
Like if I’m being chased by a dinosaur, and I shit pants. Or loincloth or whatever. How does this help me get away? That would just be awkward right? Why does your body thinks this is a good escape strategy? Either I’ve gotta slow down or at the very least, this trail of poo or smell is gonna lead whatever is chasing me right to me. Like you can’t hide that. Like, my bloodline shouldn’t even be here.
It makes no sense.

Fear is such a bizarre thing to me.

When I was a kid, you know what I was most afraid of? Going to sleep.

Yes. Sleep.
Who’s afraid of sleep?

It sustains us. You get to dream nice things hopefully.
Maybe you lost a tooth and you wake up in the morning and there’s money. Or Santa came. Go to sleep and we’ll have pancakes tomorrow!

No, I didn’t want to sleep. Terrified.

Why? Because I thought something was in my bedroom closet and I was convinced that as soon as I fell asleep, it was going to attack me.
That thing, everyone, was a gorilla.

I was convinced there was a gorilla in my closet, just waiting there for me to nod off and it would come out of the closet and attack me.

That sounds scary, right? But here’s the really fucked up part.
This gorilla – I knew this, all it just wanted to do was just tickle me. That’s what he was going to do when I fell asleep. Attack me with tickling.

This gorilla wanted to make me laugh. And bring me joy. This terrified me.
I was afraid of love, people.
Yes. Horrified of intimacy.

Okay, so since I already mentioned poo, I’m just gonna go with this.

You know what else scares me?
Looking in the bowl after pooing.

Come on, we all do it. You know you do it.
So you think I’m worried about seeing blood or maybe after a really bad one, I think I might see a kidney down there? No.

I’m afraid of seeing a dick down there in the bowl. Yes.

Yes, every six months or so my colon decides to push out a perfectly formed erect dick shape, complete with testicles.
Accurate size too.

And this scares me.
I mean first of all, that’s a very talented colon. And no, I’m not afraid of having a dick in my butt or anything. No.
It scares me cause I think the universe is just giving me a little fuck you.
Just a little karmic ‘fuck you Andrew’.

You’d think if my colon can do that, it’d be a smiley face. Or the image of Jesus.

No. What do I get. I get a dick, people.

Speaking of dicks – Being naked scares me. Yup.

Afraid to be naked around people. It made sex the first time with anyone really scary.

I mean, look at me, people. I’m short.
I’m half-Asian.
You know what anyone who is about to see me naked is expecting right? Like they’re thinking Ken doll down there. Asian Ken doll. Concave.
I mean, basically anything bigger than a little thumb is over achieving for me though right.

But anyhow, this is one fear I think I curtailed. I went on the World Naked Bike Ride last year.

A three-hour bike ride through the streets of Toronto, naked with a bunch of other naked people. It’s held in a bunch of cities all over the world same day.

I used to make fun of it when I heard about it but then I read what it was all about. They said anti-oil, pro-bike riding. Take back the streets. Body positivity.
So I figured okay. These are things I’m into. Cool.

So I show up. And first of all, it’s 95 percent dudes. Seriously.

There’s maybe one attractive woman and I felt bad for her cause it was just like all these creepy naked dudes looking at her.

And we start riding, and I quickly realize none of these people have even seen a bike in the last year much less been on one. They are terrible bikers. I mean, forget the physical shape they’re in – gravity has seriously taken over if you know what I mean – no they just don’t know what they’re doing. A couple of people fell right out of the get go. Someone couldn’t get up the first little hill to Queen Street and turned back.

And I realize… Oh, god these people – they just like to be naked. These are just nudists.

They’re dope smoking hairy hippies. They don’t give a fuck about the other stuff – sharing the road, anti-oil, take back the streets. They just want to be naked.

So anyhow, I go with it. I’m there. There’s about 100 of us. It’s late June, beautiful day, and we ride right through downtown, all around. Along Queen Street. Through Kensington Market. Police escorts. They stop traffic for us. University Avenue. Bloor. Down Yonge street. People cheering and stuff. And I’m just one of the naked herd.

And afterwards, the end point is a park down by the water. And they’re all hugging and lighting up, getting out drums to have a big party. Maybe a big orgy. And although I’m doing this to get over my own body issues, I’m not really ready to have group sex with a bunch of hippies. Even showered hippies. They’ve been in the sun, biking, and sweaty for three hours.

And I should remind you they don’t bike. So these bikes were probably borrowed from people. They’re giving them back after sitting on these seats all day.

That was scary.

I’m afraid of being arrested.

Now not for the reasons you might think. Like going to jail.
I admit I wouldn’t do well in jail. My best strategy would just be like when I fall skiing – I just go limp and hope for the best. No fighting back. Makes it worse.

No, here’s what I’m afraid of if I was arrested.

I’m a short man. But I lie about my height. Like Tom Cruise. I can say I’m 5’5 or 5’6 with some Prince platform boots maybe. But I know the truth.

So I go in these stores where I think ya, I wanna shoplift here.
I like shoplifting. It’s fun. It’s a real rush, y’know. Did it a lot as kid.

But these stores now have these height markers at the exit along the door frame. LCBO, convenience stores, banks. All the best places to shoplift. And these are there so when they look at the video footage later, they know how tall the shoplifter/criminal was, right?

Now I know I’m small but, I don’t really need some police bulletin in the media with my image on it saying they’re looking for this person who’s 5’2 maybe 5’3 on a good day. And everyone going oh shit. That’s Andrew. It wouldn’t be ‘He’s shoplifting? That’s so sad.’, it would be ‘Ya, I knew he was short but I didn’t know he was that tiny. Wow. And asian. That’s a shame.’

That’s worse than going to jail maybe.

Okay, so I’ll bring this back to Halloween.

One day that’s supposed to be scary.

As if the other 364 days aren’t pretty fucking scary these days, right?
Anyhow, the message to kids about Halloween scares me.

I mean, these kids dress up as whatever. They’re cute. The small ones are adorable. They’re so innocent. And they go door to door and they get free candy.

It sounds on paper like it’s beautiful thing right? These kids won’t dream of gorillas. But you know what I think we’re telling them. It’s scary.

We’re telling them the world won’t actually love you for you really are.

You have to dress up as someone else to get candy. You have to lie about who you are to get rewarded and liked in this life.

That’s so twisted I kind of like it.

Almost done. But Halloween in general doesn’t scare me. Costumes don’t really scare me. Except one.

You know the whole slutty costume thing, right? I mean, you all know what I’m talking about. It’s well trodden comedy territory. But somewhere Vampires and Witches and Werewolves got replaced with the costume of just being a slutty whatever. Nurse. Police officer. Or animal. Slutty animals.

And none of these ever turned me on though. I like sex.

Until one. And it scared me that it turned me on.

Here’s what it was. So I’m on Spadina, around 5 o’clock on Halloween. Still just getting dark. And I see a girl dressed up, walking along dressed up as a Slutty Hamburglar.

Yes, the McDonald’s land character The Hamburglar.

And this turned me on. All the other slutty things took a backseat. This just got me and my small half-asian short dick going.

She was wearing the whole Hamburglar thing. Black and white striped stockings. A little black vest. A mask and a black hat. And she was even carrying a little happy meal box.

But then I thought why does this turn me on? I mean Hamburglar is a thief. A bad boy. That’s a prison outfit actually. He escaped from prison. Do I like the idea of prison?

What’s so sexy about Hamburglar. He doesn’t even talk. He just makes these guttural noises.
Rubble rubble. Could you imagine dirty talk with Hamburglar?
Rubble rubble oh ya rubble rubble.
Hamburglar’s banging you from behind and all you hear in your ear behind you is rubble rubble.

And then I wonder – what’s wrong with me? I want to fuck Hamburlglar.
And is this a gateway drug to to other McDonaldland characters? Like Grimace?
Is masturbating to Grimace far behind?

This is the stuff scares me. Don’t be afraid of life, everyone.
Thanks for listening.