Transcript
Speaker: Welcome back to Dirty Briefs.
Speaker: And you're probably wondering, why am I laughing like that?
Speaker: Well, it's a great time to laugh at any point of the day.
Speaker: Have you laughed enough today?
Speaker: Here's why I want to talk about this.
Speaker: A lot of you know, I am back on the road.
Speaker: I am traveling again, and it feels so good.
Speaker: I used to really hate being in airports, just the monotony and the sluggishness of having to go from place to place.
Speaker: But...
Speaker: Somebody got it in my head a while ago.
Speaker: Just enjoy being at the airport.
Speaker: Enjoy it.
Speaker: Look at the people.
Speaker: Think about where they're going.
Speaker: Sure, a lot of them are probably going straight to hell.
Speaker: But think about the vacation they're about to go.
Speaker: Or who is this businessman?
Speaker: Where is he going?
Speaker: What company does he have to earn millions of dollars for to squash the lower-level employees into ever getting benefits or...
Speaker: valuable wages.
Speaker: Here's why I want to talk about this.
Speaker: So I'm in the airport a couple of days ago and I had a layover in Phoenix on my way back from New York to Los Angeles.
Speaker: And I'm sitting there eating a salad, a $17, very small salad.
Speaker: And suddenly I hear this family talking about how their flight was delayed.
Speaker: And these are the options that were given to them.
Speaker: And as they talk about how they can be rerouted to here, or maybe they have to spend the night in this city to then get to that city, a lot of people would have been furious at the situation.
Speaker: But this father...
Speaker: is laughing his ass off.
Speaker: Just like every single time he goes, well, we could go to Ontario.
Speaker: And his kids are like, Canada?
Speaker: He goes, no, California's like, California's like, I know to go back to Charlotte, we need to go to California, but don't worry.
Speaker: They are giving us $14 meal vouchers, everybody.
Speaker: And the kids are laughing.
Speaker: The wife is laughing.
Speaker: The dad is just this jovial character.
Speaker: He's
Speaker: He kind of looked like an old fish fan or something like that, but he was wearing a kilt.
Speaker: His attitude never waned.
Speaker: Obviously, this situation was frustrating.
Speaker: It's not fun to be stuck at the airport and to be rerouted and maybe miss whatever event or appointment you're supposed to be getting to.
Speaker: But attitude is everything.
Speaker: And in some situations, all you can do.
Speaker: is laugh.
Speaker: That's all you can do.
Speaker: You can't change the circumstances.
Speaker: You don't have a way to commandeer that flight.
Speaker: And even if you did hijack it, you don't know how to fly a plane.
Speaker: Come on.
Speaker: You can barely drive a car.
Speaker: It made me think about certain situations where I had to just laugh. 2017,
Speaker: I'm on a vacation in Thailand and we were down in the islands.
Speaker: This island called Kopipi.
Speaker: Absolutely amazing.
Speaker: There's no cars on the island.
Speaker: There's no roads on the island.
Speaker: And we are probably about 30 minutes away from our hotel room on the other side of the island.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We're tripping on acid because we're in Thailand and we're in a beautiful beach.
Speaker: And suddenly this monsoon rainstorm comes crashing down from the sky, just drowning us in this warm water.
Speaker: There's nowhere to go.
Speaker: Nowhere.
Speaker: We have no cover.
Speaker: All we can do
Speaker: is just get soaked.
Speaker: And at first it's very uncomfortable because you're like, I don't want to be wet right now.
Speaker: I'm tripping.
Speaker: I already feel like my entire body is melting.
Speaker: I don't need to actually be wet.
Speaker: What?
Speaker: We looked at the situation and understood there was nothing we could do.
Speaker: So we just laughed and we danced in the rain.
Speaker: Now, every once in a while, we would look at each other and go, ugh.
Speaker: because the gravity of the discomfort would set in.
Speaker: But for the most part, it just was one of those things where we're like, we know this is going to be a great story to tell on dirty briefs seven years later.
Speaker: It was incredible when I look back at that, because we could have been upset.
Speaker: But why?
Speaker: Why?
Speaker: Another time, if you've ever listened to my first album, I talk about this very, very quickly.
Speaker: I just make a quick line about it.
Speaker: I'm on my way back from a gig in Seal Beach, California, which is about an hour, 20 minutes south of where I lived at the time in Los Angeles.
Speaker: I'm driving back down the freeway.
Speaker: Suddenly, I'm
Speaker: My side passenger, another comedian, he just goes, tire!
Speaker: I look over and I see a loose tire bouncing down the freeway directly in the direction of our car.
Speaker: I'm freaking out.
Speaker: I realize I'm about to slam into this thing.
Speaker: I do a quick break so it doesn't hit the windshield.
Speaker: And then we smash into it and it goes bouncing across the Jersey wall into the other side of the freeway.
Speaker: We pull off and we're in the middle of a very bad neighborhood.
Speaker: This is not a place where you want to be stuck at 1230 at night.
Speaker: What are you going to do?
Speaker: What are you going to do?
Speaker: We laughed.
Speaker: Where did this tire come from?
Speaker: How did this even happen?
Speaker: What an impossible situation that we have just found ourselves in.
Speaker: And yes, we could be endlessly angry or upset, but why?
Speaker: This is hilarious.
Speaker: You put that in a movie and people are going to crack up at the situation.
Speaker: This was our own sitcom.
Speaker: Here's a darker one.
Speaker: My Bubby, she spent her entire life as a professional actress.
Speaker: And she even did a one-woman show when she was 91 years old.
Speaker: Incredible.
Speaker: She had the memory and just the posterity of just this beautiful human performer.
Speaker: And yet she got dementia in her later years.
Speaker: This is a woman who spent her entire life being able to remember every single tiny word in a huge play or a movie, whatever.
Speaker: And suddenly I walk into a hospital and she doesn't know my name.
Speaker: I remember she said, now, what do you do?
Speaker: And I said, oh, I'm an actor in Los Angeles.
Speaker: And she goes, my grandson is an actor in Los Angeles.
Speaker: Maybe you know him.
Speaker: And I was like, yeah, maybe I do.
Speaker: Seems sad, right?
Speaker: Maybe a little bit, but this is a woman who has lived into her nineties and had an incredible career and a beautiful life.
Speaker: I'm not sad about it.
Speaker: I'm laughing at the fact that now she doesn't know who I am.
Speaker: A woman who used her memory throughout her life to be to her advantage.
Speaker: And now we're in a situation where she can't remember her own grandson's name.
Speaker: Sometimes you have to transmute your energy into something positive.
Speaker: If a situation can make you angry or sad, dig a little deeper and you'll realize it can also make you.
Speaker: Because there are plenty of situations that we fall into every single day where we could be furious or we could be depressed or we could be confused or
Speaker: but there's always something funny happening.
Speaker: And if you can laugh at those situations, not only do you alleviate the entire aura that is happening in that place, but you also will quell your own insecurities, your fears, your rage.
Speaker: It helps everybody.
Speaker: Some people are going to be like, why are you laughing right now?
Speaker: Because it's the best option.
Speaker: It's always the best option.
Speaker: Why aren't you laughing right now?
Speaker: A tire just came down the freeway and smashed into our car.
Speaker: There's a monsoon in a beach in Thailand, in an island, in a place that is magical that we have never been.
Speaker: And we're tripping.
Speaker: What's not to laugh about?
Speaker: If you want to laugh more, well,
Speaker: I'm very excited to announce.
Speaker: I have a brand new show at the Comedy Store.
Speaker: Sunday, October 15th at 8 p.m.
Speaker: in the Bentley Room.
Speaker: Tickets are on sale now.
Speaker: They're at HooperComedy.com.
Speaker: And of course, when you go to look at that show, that's if you're in Los Angeles, you're going to find a bunch of other shows on the road.
Speaker: Because next week, I'm going to be in Las Vegas.
Speaker: I'm going to be in South Dakota.
Speaker: I'm going to be in North Dakota.
Speaker: And then shortly after that, I'm going to be in Orlando.
Speaker: I'm going to be in Tampa.
Speaker: I'm going to be in Alameda.
Speaker: There are so many places to go.
Speaker: Because I'm laughing about everything.
Speaker: I just spent a year
Speaker: sick, practically dying.
Speaker: Well guess what?
Speaker: That's hilarious because now I'm on stage talking about
Speaker: What if I was just a sad fuck?
Speaker: You guys wouldn't listen to this.
Speaker: You wouldn't support me.
Speaker: You wouldn't have any reason to say, wow, Alex Hooper is lively.
Speaker: His spirit is on fire.
Speaker: He's fun.
Speaker: He makes us feel better about who we are.
Speaker: Me being public about everything makes it a little bit easier for me to laugh at myself too.
Speaker: I make mistakes.
Speaker: I fuck up all the time.
Speaker: but I laugh about it because that's the way to move forward.
Speaker: That's the way that you raise the vibration of yourself and everyone around you, which in turn will raise the frequency of the entire world into a more positive place.
Speaker: I hope you can do that.
Speaker: So find a reason to laugh today.
Speaker: Even if they tell you, sorry, you're in the wrong line that you just waited two hours in at the DMV, please go to this other DMV where then you will fill out more paperwork and waste an entire day.
Speaker: Everything's hilarious, as long as you keep it that way.
Speaker: I will see you all next week when I discuss my most controversial joke.
Speaker: Love you!
