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I went to John Mulaney's show, "From Scratch" in San Diego on 10/30. I complied a tl;dr list of things I found notable in his stand up. Major spoilers for those who are going to future shows of his, or who might want to wait for a special if one is planned to air.
Let's gossip about our favorite messy tall white guy of the year!
[Spoiler (click to open)]
He didn't talk about Olivia Munn or his ex-wife Anna, but he did talk about the baby:
-Opens the show saying everyone hates him because he went to rehab, got divorced and is having a baby. He had never heard of someone getting 'mixed reviews' after announcing that they are having their first child.
-He said it looks like for Halloween we all dressed up as white people who care too much about his interpersonal life, and went on a little rant mocking stans and shipping culture.
-He said we probably notice that he isn't as energetic as he used to be on stage. He asked us if we think we might know why (alluding to his coke addiction). He said he's old news and we've moved on to liking Bo Burnham more. note: what I noticed was that he gained some weight and his thighs were looking juicy juicy
-At one point an audience member from the back rows made their way closer and just stood there at the front. John sees him and says, "Oh hello, did you just get here? I just got out of rehab and everyone hates my baby... that's the recap".
Most of the intervention segment was already told on Seth Meyer's show, but he does a lot of name dropping:
-There were 12 people at his intervention and it was star studded. He mentioned the names Bill Hader, Nick Kroll, Seth Meyers, Natasha Lyonne, Fred Armesan, Marika Sawyer (SNL writer). Half of them were in-person and half were there via Zoom, and he let the Zoomers know multiple times that if they really cared about him they would've flown out to be there in person. He also told them all that they don't really care about him, they just don't want him to die. He admits that he was a huge asshole at his intervention and he was on a three-day bender with no sleep when it happened.
-It was Natasha Lyonne who finally convinced him to say yes to rehab. Her speech was sweet and she said even sober they can walk around in New York together chain smoking, looking cool and being misunderstood weirdos.
-He was heavily abusing klonopin, xanax, coke and adderall for about a year when the intervention happened. He told us how to find a doctor that will prescribe you anything. How, you may ask? Filter your search on doctors in your area by lowest rating.
-Pete Davidson wasn't at the intervention because he was traveling, but Pete called right as John checked himself into rehab. Pete told him he was worried that everyone would put the blame on him. John joked that people think Pete gives him drugs because, "Pete has tattoos and I am plain". John says he has never once done drugs with Pete.
He gives some history with drug and alcohol abuse:
-When he was 6 years old his parents would give him beer and wine, their reasoning being that he needs to "get used to it" and that they have a "European approach" to alcohol. John jokes that that was the only thing they had a European approach to, and everything else was very much a Midwestern approach.
-At 12 years old he was asking strangers to buy him alcohol outside of liquor stores. At 14 he was doing drugs in his school parking lot.
The majority of his set goes into his experiences in rehab:
-One of the steps in rehab was to "break up" with your drug dealer. His dealer, Leon, said he was proud of him and admitted that he only sold drugs to him so that he wouldn't get into bad stuff from someone else (probably referring to fentanyl). At this point John realizes he has no idea how they met. His dealer said he was just a painter who had never sold drugs until John randomly approached him demanding he get him some. John jokes that many dealers will turn people into drug addicts, but he might've been the first drug addict to turn someone into a dealer.
-In rehab he took an IQ test and was disappointed that he scored dead average. He was actually hoping to score low so that he could say he cheated the system.
-His biggest fear entering rehab was that he would be recognized. Instead, his worst nightmare happened, and not one person the entire 2 months knew who he was. He said it destroyed him. He admits at one point he was so desperate to be recognized that he left out a newspaper that had a front page article about him going into rehab.
-In group therapy one of the patients asked John what he did for work. He said stand up comedy, and everyone in the group was surprised he could make a living off of doing that. Still no one knew who he was.
This segued into him talking about how he has always been desperate for attention:
-When he was in elementary school he used to hope & pray that one of his grandparents would die. He saw how much attention those kids would get from everyone and it made him jealous. He says we all can think of that one 'disposal' grandparent that we wouldn't mind if they died in exchange for a full week of attention at school. He says that person is probably our dad's mother.
-John notices a young kid in the audience and asks him how old he is. The kid says he's 12. He wonders what kind of parent would let their child watch his stand up knowing the past year he's had. He asks the kid if he likes school and he says no. John asks him what he doesn't like about school, he says everything. John says, "uh oh, I didn't like anything about 7th grade either and that's why I got into drugs". He asks the kid if he does any 'extra shit' like sports or band after school, he says no. John says me too, this is not looking good. He tells the kid to forget what he said about finding doctors that will write any prescription. He told the kid he hopes he isn't coming across as glamorizing substance abuse. Throughout the rest of the show he starts throwing out advice to the 12-year old as he thinks about it. One of the more memorable pieces of advice was, "you cannot fix internal issues with external things".
-He says in the midst of his drug abuse and time in rehab he never thought he would be happy again or even continue stand up comedy. good thing a baby will fix that, amirite?
He did get a little off-putting at one point:
-John says everyone should get vaccinated but he doesn't get people who say "trust science". He admits he has thought about the possibility of the Earth being flat (???wut???). He also thinks it's bullshit that scientists were able to figure out how a dinosaur looks based on their fossils.
He ends the show by reading some quotes from the GQ interview he did 3 days before his intervention (at the source). He lets us know he was high out of his mind during it, and that the best thing you can ever ask someone on coke is if they would like to be interviewed.
Overall, it was a very entertaining show and felt vulnerable, definitely the most insight into himself I've seen him share on stage. Anyone else see him on this tour?
Source: photo & the GQ interview & me attending his show