What a TOOL

[Applause]

[Music]

[Applause]

hey everybody and welcome tedx

naperville

my name is mark lundholm and i started

doing comedy

in jails rehab shelters detoxes prisons

places i have lived a lot in my life and

today it’s a pleasure to work for people

who choose to be an audience

yeah that would be you i grew up in a

dysfunctional family that’s what they

they told me in court uh they said it’s

uh your family’s dysfunctional i said oh

i thought we had problems

you ever go to court and plead maybe

dysfunctional certainly yeah i’m the

oldest of five kids

in our house add stood for all different

dads

yeah my mom was a drinker she was an

alcoholic my dad drank because he was

married to my mom he was an alcoholic

with a reason i drink to take the edge

off

i drink to smooth out the rough edges

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dad wasn’t an alcoholic he was a circle

i’ll tell you what i’m a believer in

shortcuts straighter route more direct

approach from here

to hero from wrong to strong from now to

wow

i’m the guy who does the funny so that

we can get to the truth and the truth is

if we can laugh about it we can talk

about it if we can talk about it we can

start to heal from it

deal with it make it useful to us moving

forward we can get stronger

safer more solid the humor muscle we

were given from birth humor muscle

to develop for balancing unfairness and

raising truth and raising trust and

lowering shame and guilt

the humor muscle before you were able to

speak or walk or

clean your own frame or feed your own

face as an infant you had this

that was before medication you know i’ve

never had the luxury of perceiving

reacting seeing thinking like most

people

normal average uh i have a busted lens

and a dysfunctional kind of

fractured outlook on things i give you

an example normal people most people

they would look at a high school

yearbook

and say hey look at that that’s me

that’s me i’m on

i’m on six pages of this book for me

that’s the dsm five i don’t think like

normal people so i’m a comedian

at least that’s what it says on my tax

return every year on my tax return where

it says occupation

i write comedian what i could write

man with a mental illness who’s done a

lot of felony time

and has learned how to market all of

that stuff as a skill

so he could pay a bunch of child support

that’s what i could write on there and

i’ll tell you

shortcut number two here today

if you want a hundred percent help tell

a hundred percent truth

because the truth you tell

is equal to the help you will receive

first show i ever did was in san quentin

state penitentiary i’m a california guy

and uh i had volunteered to do this show

for the inmates

uh i’d never done stand-up comedy before

uh the inmates in there there were

about five six hundred guys and now i’m

standing behind a cyclone fence in the

prison gym there on the railing up above

on the second tier there’s two ceos

correction officers they got

a beanbag gun shotgun type things and i

don’t know if there’s bullets rubber or

otherwise in there but

everybody’s under threat and i’m

supposed to be funny

let’s be funny funny man i walk on the

stage with the cyclone fence between me

and the general population there and

right in the front of the inmates

section there’s a guy

he’s the man huge muscle-bound rip

buff cut he’s got muscles in his eyes

tank top tattoos from his ears down to

wherever else he has that i can’t see

but i look at him and i’m intimidated

and i said hey

look at look at you smooth head all that

ink you could be a ballpoint pen

nobody laughed on the railing up there

right here

the big guy stood up the man put his

fingers to the fence big old

sausage-sized fingers ham hock hands and

he said

hey funny man i’ve got friends on the

outside

they will find you tie you to a tree in

your yard

burn your house to the ground i remember

thinking

this is a heckler oh yeah you ever have

the joke show up late

you were on time for what you’re

supposed to be you were at the joke but

the joke’s not there now

nobody there was that the joke and you

got it just then you go

sorry your honor yeah that’s funny now

as is this truth be told here so the

help will show up here

i was a four-point restraint mental

patient in the 80s

uh i was in a hospital in oakland

california my hometown

four-point restraint ankles and wrists

strapped to a platform you cannot get up

from

until the staff at the hospital is ready

to let you up that’s the part they don’t

mention in the lobby during questioning

right four points ankles wrists

ouch scared angry livid

loud i said you’d let me up or i’ll kill

everybody in this place i’ll find out

where you live i’ll hurt your families

i’m gonna ah that won’t that won’t get

you up

as it turns out i got an extra day for

that little statement that verbal vomit

i threw at them

i decided that i would never tell the

truth as long as i lived ever again

because it was expensive

but i needed the help after a couple

days i don’t know i wake up come to

and i’m in this fog and this in this

funk and i’m in the

detox and i look over next to me and

there’s a guy in five-point restraint

and i’m thinking oh my look at him

i said look at you buddy

what a loser i’ll never be as bad as you

i could puke on either shoulder winner

if i don’t know 100 of the truth to tell

i can’t get 100 of the help i need

uh not necessarily because i’m dishonest

it’s because oh yeah

i don’t know how to tell the whole truth

when it’s going to help me

or benefit us i’m selective in my gifts

you know

i’m the kind of person i’ll get a whole

bunch of tattoos and then tell someone

i’m afraid of commitment

yeah that’s the truth clearly the

message here is

after 32 years sober i’m not quite right

still

sober doesn’t mean serious and it

doesn’t mean

sane sane no

i still suffer from what i call first

thought wrong

ftw first thought wrong answer wrong

direction

wrong solution uh unkind uh cruel

criminal uh inappropriate inaccurate

whiny ungrateful you know

ungrateful uh you ever run a yellow

light and the guy in front of you

doesn’t

wow what’s the resentment there what’s

your first thought right there hey buddy

we run yellows in this car yellow means

step on it and part of the red

belongs to me too sucker i’m on my way

to church i’m

late move it now

in that last bit i had a chance to curse

to spice it up a little bit there

i did but i didn’t because

shortcut number three today profanity

reduces credibility at least at this

level

there was an hr guy from silicon valley

asked me one time listen

uh you’ve been asked to present here and

we know you’re pretty good but you’re

not going to use adult language are you

i said oh yeah lots i’m going to use

words like

401k retirement responsibility

grandparenting skills

he said oh no no no what i mean is i

said i know what you mean

hell depending on who i’m working for i

curse like a kindergarten teacher on a

smoke break

i could use the f word today all i have

to say is the f word really

did you think first thought wrong did

you think fatherhood

freedom friendship philosophy any of the

other ones

no probably not wait what

philosophy

philosophy there’s two f’s in philosophy

man

i try to listen to the people who’ve

been on the path to professional before

me

right jay leno said write faster than

people can steal from you man

sam kinnison said hey it’s not getting

everybody in the room to like you it’s

getting a small percentage that

really love you bill hicks said

the joke doesn’t need to be funny it has

to be interesting

jerry seinfeld said hey you know if you

have to curse the joke is not finished

george carlin said seinfeld

and right there humor will disarm or

alarm

depending on who’s doing the listening

that’s its job comedy really that’s its

job

humor will highlight hurt it’ll

eliminate illness it’ll it’ll create

some kind of

oh impression of where we’re cracked

fractured that’s what it does comedy

does that so today

if you don’t laugh real hard it’s not

because i wasn’t funny

it’s because you are broken

shortcut here hey hashtag be first

hashtag b first if you don’t see some

where you’re at where you go where you

are be some where you’re at where you go

where you are

take it with you show up prepared grace

hope patience love kindness equality

that’s the stuff that we’re looking for

how about if we each bring some

hashtag be first if you don’t see some

be some

because what you give energy to will

continue where you

aim yourself is where you’re gonna find

yourself which put your toes on goes on

that’s the way it works

sometimes the shortcut we make is the

direct route from

hear hurt harm potential healing

humor can do all of that it’s the right

tool

about time for another shortcut right

yeah well shortcut number five today

if you have to keep it a secret don’t do

it

if you’ve already done it don’t keep it

a secret tell somebody because a secret

means

nobody knows oh yeah but i

knew that made me nobody i didn’t want

to be a nobody i wanted to be somebody

problem was in 1988 i was a homeless guy

120 pound shake and bake look and cook

tweak and peak thump and bump street guy

in oakland california my hometown i was

a street guy

homeless not useless not worthless

homeless and every once in a while

somebody will still inquire oh i read

your biography

i read your bio about you were a

homeless guy homeless really homeless

drug addict were you homeless what was

that like

well uh let’s see uh i had a lot of

liberty

homeless what’d you do with all your

stuff

first thought wrong second thought wrong

third thought wrong uh

my stuff did you look up the word

homeless right

oh oh yeah did you have like a storage

unit

no storage unit that would have been a

good home no secrets because

we’re only as sick as the secrets we

keep keeping

gladman hospital oakland california

psychiatric detox that was the

four-point restraint day

it was also the day i met the

psychiatrist he said

do you know why you’re in here young man

i said yeah cause i’m crazy i’m crazy

whoa

crazy wristband meds and that my

mother’s a pisces crazy he said

no you’re a drug addict i said doc can

you give me something for that

see we learned how to make that drop

from head to heart from smart

to heart from head to hear that one and

a half

foot drop from i’m thinking i’m keeping

i’m secretive to i’m including other

people we dropped from the attic into

the living room here

relationship humor the most awkward

probably the most fruitful

for comedy and humor and haha my

grandfather was married for

57 years somebody asked him one time

hey old timer how do you stay married so

long he said well

well you know he had fingers that are

bent like the roots of a tree

he would point at you like you’re around

the corner of a building it was awkward

you’d go

me really me he said let me tell you

something we stayed married a long time

she and i because because i make the big

decisions she makes all the little ones

big decisions little decisions and in 57

years of marriage we did not have

one big decision not one

that guy was the funniest man i knew

i’ve worked with professional comedians

my whole career and

grandfather was the funniest guy i’d

ever met in my life to this day

he died of alzheimer’s and parkinson’s

imagine

he would say sometimes i forget to shake

and that’s what you do right now what

you’re doing you go

can i laugh at that yeah because for him

old-timer that he was seasoned veteran

wise guy

it was a tool comedy was a tool humor

was a tool that’s how he coped

one of the people i admire most on this

planet is my ex-wife

the plaintiff that’s the most expensive

joke of the day

people right there but uh we were

divorced a while ago

actually we’re catholic so we got an

annulment and

an annulment is the catholic version of

the lemon law you just you just turn it

back in i got a bad one can i can i

trade

see parents are like passengers or

patients in a hospital

we all have this in common only rookies

panic and only bullies get loud

only bullies yell and only rookies

scream

i’m neither but i’ve been both and i

don’t choose to be either one

especially when it comes to conditions

that i can’t control

i still suffer from depression and low

self-esteem at times low self-esteem

uh joke coming at you let’s lighten it

up here a little bit you ever had such

low self-esteem i mean low

self-esteem that you’re making love to

somebody and you think

i can’t trust them look at the choices

they make

my favorite relationship probably these

days is with my son he’s a teenager and

god bless him he’s a little man he’s an

old old soul

in a young adolescent body and the

challenge is gosh i don’t want to screw

him up you know

i grew up a certain way he gets to grow

up a different way because

freedom starts with forgiveness and

grateful never relapses and

100 truth equals 100 help and

all the shortcuts we’ve talked about

today that’s what i get to pass on to

him

save him some time and i don’t have to

be

bullied and i don’t have to be a bully

to him

so here’s the thing i don’t get loud

when i’m talking to my boy i will lower

my voice

and raise my standards as a parent just

like that

because as it turns out volume doesn’t

substitute for content

and volume doesn’t substitute for

message or character you know

i can whisper and be heard i don’t yell

at grayson my boy because

well he’s ptsd for noise we we think it

was conception

and i don’t yell at my ex because well

it’s unproductive as it turns out yeah

a loud arrogant husband is the number

one cause of vaginal dryness

i’ll do that joke at a corporate show

and i’ll get men

writing it down putting it in their

ipads or tablets

whisper until monday she likes that

in this time of downsizing and all this

other stuff we’re doing corporate or

business-wise

i’m going to give you a little extra

shortcut today freedom starts at

forgiveness

freedom starts with forgiveness you can

forgive the perpetrator or become the

victim

anything happens to you today weather

illness

some kind of disrespect out there in the

real world

be first hashtag be first if you don’t

see some out there be some out there

healing and grace and hope

cause 100 truth here life is life

and you can take it personally ouch or

look at it truthfully

ah thanks for the lesson freedom starts

with forgiveness because

what you don’t forgive you will become

there’s the strength for today i’m the

most important person in the room today

just like you

if that’s true for both of us i’m first

you’re first

nobody’s even second here

i’m mark lundholm and i have a little

love task for you

if you don’t see some be some humor is a

gift

open it up today if you don’t see

some out there be some out there

patience love understanding kindness

humorous laughter ha ha if you don’t see

something be some

don’t hide it provide it now go go go

go