Punching Henry

Oh, yes, that's funny.

Oh, that was so funny. I like that one.

Henry. Henry Phillips.

Hey, John, man, I'm a huge fan.

Oh, thanks. These are my friends.

We're all gonna see your show tonight.

Hey, how's it going? Thanks for coming.

We drove all the way from Greensboro to see you.

Oh, wow. We reserved the table.

I called ahead. We got a table front row and center.

I was like, "We wanna be right up front

to see Henry Phillips.

That's really cool. Thanks, thanks so much.

Please tell me you're gonna sing the bitch song.

Uh, you know what, that one hasn't really grown on me.

So, I don't think I'm gonna play it tonight.

Come on, man.

Oh shit.

Are you okay, man? Oh, shit.

Oh, shit.

Oh, my God, you're bleeding.

What the hell. We have to go to the hospital.

God. Oh, my God.

- Oh, no. - Tilt your head back.

Yeah. It's like your nose is broken.

Are you okay? Are you guys... are you...

So, we're going to the fucking hospital?

I hope it gets better, man.

We drove all the way from Greensboro.

I'm sorry, Henry.

This is Sharon Levine and you're listening

to Mouth Fuck and I'm here with comedian Henry Phillips.

You call yourself a rambling troubadour extraordinaire.

What's that?

Uh, yeah, that's... my manager says that.

I don't even know what that means exactly.

I mean I'm a troubadour and that... l guess

I play music and I travel,

so that's the rambling part.

I don't know about extraordinaire.

Extraordinaire, that seems like it might be subjective.

- Yeah. - It's like calling

yourself the king of pop or something.

Well, for a while there I was calling myself

the king of hit-and-miss comedy folk music

at shitty one-night bar gigs,

but apparently I'm not the first to own that one.

You got to Google that stuff

to make sure it's not taken.

- That's true. - My trick.

Gonna do a song for you now,

um, that I wanna dedicate to anybody out there

in this room, and I hope you enjoy it.

Sorry.

Shit.

Ma'am, you can't use your phone in here.

All right, everybody, I actually happen to have

one of these pills on me right now.

We're gonna take this and see if it works.

I've never tried this before, but...

Chug, chug, chug, chug...

Thank you...

for supporting what's clearly a problem that I have.

Ow!

Thank you. I wanna say I sell these pills

for $10 a piece after the show if you guys wanna come up and, uh...

How do you describe what you do?

Well, I've always like to say that what I take from my life

I give back through my art.

And so far, I've taken nothing but shit.

Thanks, everybody.

- Ellen? - Henry?

Hey.

It's so good to hear your voice.

Same here. How are you?

- I'm great. - Hey.

Okay. Hey, how are you doing? Are you on the phone?

I am. I'm sorry Ellen. Hold on one second.

Okay. Listen. I thought you were

really, really, really funny.

Thanks for coming to the show. I was laughing and stuff.

I've had four beers and, um, eight shots.

No But listen,

you just got to keep trying.

- Henry, are you... - Hey, man.

What's up, man? Guess what, guess what.

What's that? My name is Phil.

Oh, awesome. My name is Henry Phillips.

Same difference, who cares. Dude, come have some beer.

No, no, no, I got to... Dude, come on.

My friends are super funny.

They should be comedians. I know. Man, I...

Dude, come on, we're going to the city bars.

It's gonna be fun. Come on, dude.

No, I got a gig. Don't be a pussy, bro.

Next week. You're so weak bro.

No, I suck.

Hey, I'm out now. Sorry.

I can hear you. What's up?

Well, let me just cut to the chase.

Do you know who Jay Warren is?

Jay Warren, the director?

Well, he's not just a director.

A producer, major producer.

He wants to meet with you.

He wants to meet with me?

Yes. Why?

He heard what happened to you

out here five years ago and,

well, he's fascinated and he wants to see your act.

Let me guess, this means that I have to go out to LA?

I know you have a bad taste in your mouth

about last time

but if nothing else you get to meet a big time producer.

I mean, are things really going that great out there?

Yeah. No, I mean, things are going good.

I've got, you know, people coming out.

I had a whole bunch of people coming out from Greensboro

just to see me so.

If you need a place to stay,

you could stay with me.

No, we don't... we wouldn't have to do that.

I have this friend Jillian who just moved out there

and she's been pressuring me to go out and visit.

So, I could stay with her.

Mouth Fuck is brought to you by Read to Me.

Read to Me is our sponsor,

and we love them, and they will read to you

if you can't read, or you don't feel like reading,

or you're too lazy or too stupid.

Listen to a book

in your earholes, Read to Me.

- Sorry. - Oh, that's all right.

I know you got to pay the bills.

So, how does the misconception

about being racist, uh, occur?

It had to do with...

Being racist? Yeah.

No, I think that people wanted me

to be racist because it's sold,

you know, advertising.

See, I came out to LA a few years ago

and it started out pretty good.

I even got a record deal.

But one day I was at a meeting,

and I asked this guy at the label

where they got their bagels, and the truth is

I didn't give a shit where they got the bagels.

I was just trying to make small talk but, anyway,

the guy started yelling at people,

you know, power tripping. Saying like,

"Henry Phillips needs to know where the fucking

bagels are from," or whatever

and it made me look like an asshole.

Anyway, eventually there was an article in the paper

saying that I was a Neo-Nazi or something.

Uh, you know, there was a lot of stuff that happened

in between there but either way,

it ended up with me getting run out of town

but I'm back now to try it again

and I'm just hoping it goes better.

- Oh, my gosh. - Hey.

You look the exact same.

Thanks, you too. Yeah.

Oh, it's so good to see you. It's so good to see you.

Come on in. Yeah.

This is Zoe. Hi.

Zoe, this is Henry.

Yeah, nice to meet you too.

Yeah, finally.

I'm so glad you're here. It's so good to see you.

It's funny I feel, like I just...

No. Oh.

- I'm sorry about that. - Oh, no, it's fine.

Um, was that expensive?

Yeah, it's a glass tomato.

Of course, it is. I can take your guitar for you.

Sorry, I have this new case, it's bigger.

Be careful. Yeah.

All right. Why don't you take a load off.

Go sit down and maybe take Henry out to the patio...

Yeah. I'll show you the patio. Okay.

Oh, that sounds amazing.

Again, I'm sorry about that whatever that was.

Well, fast-adopt allows for you to foster a child

or even a baby and then after certain amount of time,

the judge decides if you can keep a child or not.

Oh, wow. So, you could actually have a child,