Nick Kroll: Little Big Boy

What's up, Washington D.C.?

Thank you guys for coming out.

Look, it's crazy times out there right now.

And we're all just doing our best, and I want you guys to know,

that for the next four to five-and-a-half hours,

everything is gonna be okay. Okay?

Thank you.

Didn't always feel that way.

I remember, I was in seventh grade.

And it was our first, like, boy/girl party.

Uh, and that was always very exciting.

This was back in the day when everyone was still straight.

And I was hyped.

And so, I was wearing my purple button-down shirt,

and I was wearing my GapKids khakis,

with the elastic around the waist,

for the kids who were like: "I need to go poopy now!"

I was very excited, particularly about this party,

because there was this girl there, Lizzy,

who I'd had a crush on my entire childhood.

And she's sitting alone, watching TV.

And I walk in.

I already had my opening line ready to go, I go:

"So did you hear Mrs. Goldman's daughter might have cancer?"

Just spitting hot game.

And just as she looks over at me,

Jenny, the girl whose house it is, comes up behind me,

and she pantses me.

Those GapKids khakis with the elastic waist come right on down.

And then below that I'm wearing silk boxer shorts.

Like a business man on vacation in Hong Kong.

Those slide right on down...

Lizzy looks over at me, and she is now eye to eye

with my bald little cashew.

She is horrified.

Jenny, the girl who pantsed me,

is mortified.

And I am now a comedian.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I was a late bloomer,

and that's why it was so terrible getting pantsed at that age.

I was also a picky eater.

As a little kid I basically would only eat mac and cheese.

And, uh, I remember

my mom would try to feed me other stuff, I didn't want anything else...

Every once in a while she could spice it up

with something like fettuccine Alfredo.

Which in reality was just creaming it up. It was...

Fettuccine Alfredo, the wettest of the pastas.

One night I just slurp up a big old bowl of fettuccine Alfredo.

A great pre-karate meal.

Especially for an undiagnosed six-year-old lactose-intolerant.

So I finish the fettuccine Alfredo.

Hop in the minivan. I'm not trying to brag,

but we had the Plymouth Voyager. It was not a big deal.

I get in the way, way back. I'm in deep right, okay?

My mom gives me a peach for dessert.

And I'm just like: "Ew, this peach is juicy!"

She's like: "Well, then don't eat it." And I just take it

and I just jam it into the cup holder.

Put a napkin over it, and I'm just like: "Peach!"

Because at that point in my life I did have a "spees" impediment.

We then arrive at karate.

I took karate. I was a little Jewish boy,

and I took karate with ten Irish-Catholic firemen in my town.

At a Catholic school in my town called Resurrection.

This was a school that I was not welcome at during the day.

But I wanted to be like:

"Without me, I don't know if you got the name?"

Allegedly, D.C.

So I roll into karate.

And I say hello to my fellow martial artists.

You know, like, show them great respect.

I don't know if you have ever had the privilege of attending a karate class

or even better, a karate demo.

Which is the occasional ceremony where you show

that you can do a TikTok dance very basically.

To be like... And I'm like...

I don't know. I'm sorry. I won't do it.

And you would slowly move up from a white belt to a yellow belt

to a black belt.

And so I'm in karate,

and I'm doing all the kicks and all the punches.

And I'm just like... "Okay, I'm good."

"I'm good at karate."

And all of a sudden I hear like:

And I'm like: "Oh, fettuccine Alfredo."

So I excuse myself from karate.

From all the martial artists.

And I

go into the hallway and then do that, you know, that, like, speed walk you do,

when you're like, you know.

And it's so fun being in another school's hallway.

You see, like, an inspirational poster.

You know, like Jesus that says, like: "Hang in there." And...

Oh... And I get to the bathroom, and I'm getting ready to go.

And I've, like, knotted the gi.

Now, I don't know if you guys are familiar again with the martial arts,

but a gi is the outfit you wear for karate.

Now, "ghee" is also a word that is now used for clarified butter.

For those of you who may be familiar with the keto diet

or bulletproof coffee.

I'm currently doing bulletproof coffee, and that is where you put

like, a lot of clarified butter in your coffee.

Five years from now they're gonna be like: "Remember when everyone's veins exploded?"

It was like the Atkins diet.

Remember the guy who invented the Atkins diet

died of a heart attack?

Or the guy who invented the Segway?

Do you guys know how the guy who invented the Segway died?

He fell off a cliff on his Segway...

Which is a good segue back to...

...my gi.

Which I had knotted like a hundred times,

because children don't understand the future

or consequences.

So I'm trying to unknot the gi.

And then I just spray the gi...

...with fettuccine Alfredo foam.

I now have to go back through the school hallway

kind of like moseying along.

Like a little John Wayne. I get back into karate, and I'm like:

"Howdy, Kemosabe."

The firemen do not say a word.

But you know they went home to their wives and were like:

"The fucking Kroll kid shat his fucking gi."

So what I'm trying to tell you is:

I walked into karate that night a white belt,

but I left a brown belt.

Thank you.

I really am a late bloomer. It took me a while to do a lot of things.

Like the first time I said: "I love you."

Does anyone here remember the first time they said "I love you" to someone?

And not like, you know, a family member or like a gorgeous plate of chicken parm.

Do you remember? You can shout out how old your were

the first time you said "I love you" to someone.

Thirteen. Eighteen.

I was thirty-two.

Does anyone here remember the first time they had their heart broken?

Thirteen. Sixteen.

I was thirty-three.

That means that the first woman I said "I love you" to

was also the first woman to break my heart.

And she fucking got me good!

This was like ten years ago. Her name was Kate.

And she was like the kind of woman that I'd always thought

I could never get. She was beautiful and funny.

And smart.

She was the kind of girl that I always had a crush on in high school.

But we were just friends, you know.

I don't know if that kind of dynamic is familiar to people

who come to comedy shows.

But you know that thing, where you're like...

You're friends, and one person likes the other person.

And the tension just builds, until someone's like:

"Jocelyn, can I speak to you tonight?"

"Boy, this is gonna end well."

Then I'd go to a party and get kinda drunk and be like:

"Jocelyn, as I mentioned earlier today,

I wanted the opportunity to speak with you

and let you know that I value our friendship so much.

But I also need you to know how often I jerk off to you."

And she'd be like: "Oh, Nicky, that is so sweet.

But I think we're just better as friends."

And I'd be like: "Yeah, that was the outcome I was hoping for."

And then she would go outside

and give a hand job to a lacrosse player

with multiple concussions

at a party at my house.

Okay?

But now I'm 32, and I've met this woman, Kate.

And we are in love. We're talking about moving in together.

We're having those conversations you have when you think you're with your person.

You know, you're like...

"Well, if we even had a kid..." Like, you know.

"What would we even name it?", you know?

And I was like: "Kilometer.

Kilometer Kroll. It's a strong name."

Cause like, I'm a huge Miles Davis fan.

But I'm, like, an even bigger fan of the metric system.

So we were really, we were in it, and uh...

She gets a gig in New York,

and we have a wedding in New York, and I fly to meet her at the wedding,

and then we're gonna have this, like, really romantic weekend together.

And we go to the wedding.

I don't know if you've ever been to a wedding with the person that you're dating

and you're watching the wedding being like: "Is this like what we'd...?"

"I mean, I guess this little ring-bearer girl is cute,

but we would have like a dachshund in a white tuxedo hold the rings, right?"

And I'm watching the vows, and I'm just bawling.

And then I look over at her, and she's crying a lot less.

We go home after the wedding, and she's like:

"Nick, we have to talk." And I'm like:

"About what? The future?"

And she's like: "Sort of."

And I'm like: "What's going on?" She's like: "I think we should break up."

And I'm like: "What? What do you mean? We're great."

She's like: "No, Nick. We've been talking about this."

And I'm like: "We have not been talking about this!"