Mae Martin: SAP

Oh!

- Jesus! Mamma mia, Mae! Jeez! - Hey. Sorry.

- Marshmallow? - Uh... No, I'm good.

- Rubber band? - Sure, I'll take one.

- All right. - Thanks.

Oh!

Story time.

- Nice. Well, I'll settle in. - Okay.

Um...

Mae, I just got mine replaced.

Hope you backed up the pictures from your wedding.

- Um, can you introduce me? - Okay.

- Can you do the "And now" one? - The "And now"? Okay, got it.

Thank you.

And now, please put your hands together,

and welcome to the stage,

the one, the only,

Mae Martin!

Hi!

How we doing?

Hey.

Hi.

Nice to see you.

Oh my God. This is the best.

Thank you so much for being here.

What's... Uh... Okay.

I have so much to tell you, genuinely. Um...

What is everybody's name? Should we just start...

On the count of three, everybody say your name.

Ready? One, two, three.

Hello, uh, I'm Mae.

I'm so pumped to be in Canada right now.

Just, I really...

Um, I... I am Canadian.

I'm very Canadian.

But, please, I've been living in England for the past 12 years.

I've been living in London. So I do sound a bit like an asshole.

I do have a slight,

like, Madonna lilt.

And I'm trying so hard to fight it. I'm really sorry. But it's...

My dad's British. Like very... He's very, very British.

He's like... My dad's like a mystical British gentleman.

He's very... He's a magical man.

He's very into, like, the phases of the moon.

He's... He's a moon man. He's into, like, um...

He knows all the birds that ever visit his garden

and he has a specific relationship with each bird.

And my childhood, like my whole childhood, was pretty mystical.

Like, the best example I can think of...

Okay, when I was about eight years old,

my dad was driving my brother and I to karate class.

And it was a very Canadian scene.

It's like 5:00 p.m., the sun's already going down.

It's snowing, we're on the highway. We're going to the karate dojo.

Me and my brother in the backseat. I'm eight, my brother's 12.

I was a green belt in karate, my brother was a yellow belt.

So he was four years older, two belts lower.

Um...

Which is not important, but I thought I would flag it.

And, uh, we're driving along the highway

and suddenly my dad, like, swerves to the side of the highway

in, like, a panicked move.

And tires are screeching, people are honking. Really dangerous.

He pulls over, and he's really shaken up, and he goes,

"I'm so sorry, children, but we have to get out of the car."

We're like, "What?" And so we get out of the car.

We're standing by the side of the highway, in the snow.

My brother, 12 years old, so embarrassed, he's like, in his karate uniform.

And people are driving by, they're like, "Is he a yellow belt? 'Cause..."

"Hang on a second. He looks older..."

"We're gonna turn the car around. Check this out."

And so we're like, "What is going on?" And my dad goes,

"I've just seen the new moon through glass."

So, he had seen the sliver of the new moon through the windshield

and we had to pull over, get out of the car,

and he made us bow to the moon three times.

We had to do this whole ritual.

We had to say, "Good evening, Lady Moon." It was...

It was mystical. He's a moon man. He's deep into the moon.

And, um, I was just visiting recently, uh, visiting home.

This is my childhood home that I grew up in,

and they've had it since long before I was born.

And I'm in the kitchen with my mom and dad,

and my dad comes up to me and goes, "Meet me in the study at dusk."

I'm like, "But I..."

I go to my mom, I'm like, "What time is dusk?"

She's like, "I don't know."

And I go up to the study, which is like...

It's been many things over the years, it's been like a spare room or whatever.

My dad's there with a glass of wine, looking out the window.

He wanted to show me there's a family of raccoons

that lives in a tree in the neighbor's yard.

And, like, every night at dusk, they emerge,

and he's got, yeah, a relationship with them all. Um...

So, we're standing, waiting for the raccoons,

and he just really dreamily goes, um...

"Do you know you were conceived in this room?"

Which...

So I was like, "Oh..."

And I don't like to shut him down when he's being vulnerable, so...

I was like, "Wait. You remember the specific night that I was conceived?"

And he said this phrase, which truly has haunted me

ever since. He said,

he goes, "Yes, of course I remember it."

"I remember it well."

This is what he said.

"The moonlight shone in over your mother's bottom."

Over your...

I feel like you're not fully getting, like...

I now know the position I was conceived in.

I'm horrified.

Nobody wants to be conceived doggy style.

It's so bleak.

You don't want... You want to be conceived face to face.

Eye contact.

At the moment of ejaculation, just like we...

"We're making a choice

to make a life."

Not like, "Ah! Bite the pillow!" It's horrible.

It's... It's bleak. It's like...

It's changed how I see myself.

Like, how I...

I'm like, "I'm a doggy-style baby."

Makes a lot of sense, actually.

Explains a lot.

It's, like, affected my posture. I'm just a little more... I'm like...

Just a little hunched.

I feel like I can spot other doggy-style babies

when I'm out in the world, 100%, there's...

I'll be getting on the subway, and there's someone...

Smoking on the subway. I'm like, "Oh, yeah."

Or I'll be in a bar, and the bartender's like,

"Sorry, someone's just sent you a drink." I look down the bar, and...

Another doggy-style baby.

There's some in here tonight. I can see us. Several.

They...

Every time I go home to visit, something like this happens.

Something that derails my... my grasp on reality.

Like, um, okay, my parents have this anecdote,

and it's a story they've been telling my whole life.

Like, once a year, they'll have a few drinks

and tell this story at a dinner party or whatever.

Um... And it makes me feel crazy,

because I'm like, "It cannot be true."

So, why are you doing this to me? What is this?

Um, and my brother and I get really upset.

I'll tell you the story and then you can be the judge,

if you think it's true or not. Okay?

Okay.

So, my parents swear

that when they were in their late twenties,

they were driving through Northern Ontario,

down a winding road through a forest,

and they drove under a moose.

They swear.

They swear.

My mom says they were driving down this winding road,

the moose was horizontal on the road,

and they drove under its belly.

It makes me feel insane.

I'm like, "What are you talking about?"

It's... And so it's...

She does a sound effect

of the sound of the belly fur of the moose

gently grazing the roof of the car.

Just like...

Can you imagine?

It makes me feel insane. It makes me feel crazy.

And, uh, it makes my brother irate, as well. Because...

So, the last time I was visiting,

me and my brother were like, "We need to get to the bottom of this."

We need to find out if this is even possible.

So we did research

and we found out the height of a Toyota Tercel.

That's the car they were driving.

So, the height of the roof of the car.

We Googled the largest ever recorded moose.

And the infuriating thing is

it could just have happened.

It could just have happened.

If they happened to stumble upon the biggest-ever recorded moose,

I guess it's possible.

It makes me feel insane.

You think it's true? Give a cheer if you think it's true.

Really?

Give a cheer if you think it's bullshit.

See?

I don't know.

I think it says a lot about your worldview.

Like, if you believe in the moose, you're young at heart. You...

You've retained a sliver of, like, childlike enthusiasm

about life.

And if you don't believe in the moose, you're...

Look, it's been a tough couple years.

It's been tough, hasn't it? Oh my God.

It really has. We got to do whatever it takes to get by.

You know? Whatever makes you feel good.

Like... So my father sent me a news article recently.

Uh, he sent me this news article, and was like, "I thought you'd like this."

"I thought you'd relate to it." Those are the words he used.