And I want to tell you, I relate. I identify. I do. I feel your pain. And it hurts. It hurts a lot. And I want to help. But I can’t help. There’s not much I can do about it from this vantage point.

I don’t have any answers. I don’t have any “message.” I can’t make you think unless you were already thinking before you came by the theatre. Which is a fifty-fifty proposition. All I can do up here is distract you for about seventy-five minutes. Make you numb, sedate you. Make painless this unending trail of shit we call a life. This tar pit of stupidity, this vat of spiritual oatmeal, this slimy snail track of frustration, this pointless, stupid, mosh pit of fuckwits and hypocrites and pinheads with whom we must cohabit like ants on an anthill, like crabs in a bottle, like bacterium in a dirty drop of water, endlessly fighting and competing, fighting and competing, fighting and competing, consuming and shitting. Like food tubes with absolutely no purpose whatsoever.

Let’s be honest. You’ll sit here tonight, watch the show, leave, shove an ice-cream cone down your throat, and come tomorrow morning this show, like that ice cream, will be nothing more than a vague memory, flushed away and forgotten.

I don’t know why I waste my breath. Because everybody knows, everybody knows what I’m saying, but everybody pretends not to know. It’s mass delusional self-hypnosis. It’s meaningless. Really. C’mon! Communication? Inspiration? Insight? Bullshit.

If I had any guts at all, I’d walk off this stage right now. (Walks offstage; from off) I’d walk off and I wouldn’t come back. (Returns) But I don’t have any guts. And I need the check.

OK. OK. OK. You want insight into human nature? OK, here’s some insight into human nature. Let’s play a little game, we’ll call it: “The Insight into Human Nature Game”!

No, that’s a lousy name for a game. Here’s a much better name. We’ll call it: “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?” But we won’t play the TV version, that’s bull. Let’s play it the way it’s really played in the real world. “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?”

(He jumps over to the mike, and speaks in an announcer voice:)

OK, contestants! You know the rules! There’s a little button in front of each one of you. Push the button and one million dollars tax-free is instantly deposited in a Swiss bank account in your name. But don’t forget when you push that button, millions of people will also be instantly thrown out of work and spend the rest of their lives in abject poverty and misery.

(He drops the voice and steps back toward the audience.)