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[children shouting excitedly]
DEREK DELGAUDIO: They ask you,
"What do you wanna be when you grow up?"
Later they ask,
"What do you do?"
Which is just another way of saying,
"What have you become?"
It's not enough to have a name.
People need something to call you.
So you search.
You look at the roles the world offers you,
trying to find the one that reflects who you are.
♪ serene instrumental music playing ♪
♪
Only a lucky few get to play the part they want.
The rest settle for what's left
or struggle with what they've been handed.
Then we all learn to embrace our illusions of identity.
I did.
I thought I knew my role.
♪
Then I met a man who told me who I really was.
And I knew he was right.
I just didn't know why.
♪
We're here because I heard a story.
♪ mystic music plays ♪
Five years ago, I was in Spain visiting a friend of mine.
And this friend, he took me to a small bar,
and it was there that I was introduced to a stranger.
And this stranger, he told me a story.
He told me a story about a sailor
who returned home after the Great War,
and this sailor quickly discovered the only thing more difficult
than fighting in a war was surviving one.
'Cause for him, without a war to fight, he felt lost.
So the sailor searched for himself at the bottom of a bottle
only to find himself with no friends, no family,
no prospects.
So one day, at the end of his rope, this desperate man,
he turned to a game of chance.
A game of Russian Roulette.
The game was highly illegal, but it was organized.
The players would enter their names at the door.
And when a player's name was drawn, they'd be escorted into a dark room
full of a bunch of strangers.
The strangers would proceed to place bets.
They would decide the value of the player's life.
Once all the bets were collected, a single bullet was ceremoniously loaded
into one of six empty chambers of a pistol,
the chambers then closed and spun, the pistol handed to the player
who had one job: place the gun to your head,
pull the trigger.
Your odds of surviving this game, of winning were five in six.
And if you won, you were handsomely rewarded.
All your troubles were over.
And if you lost,
all your troubles were over.
So‐‐ [audience laughs]
First time this sailor played, he won,
but no one noticed him.
And no one paid any attention to him.
But the second time,
second time he played, people started to pay attention.
And mostly because nobody who won this game ever came back the next day.
And the third time that this man played and won, that was the night,
that was the night the people gave him the name.
They started calling this man
the Rouletista.
[gun clicking]
[clicking]
The fourth night, the fourth night, the crowd nearly doubled in size.
Word spread of this guy.
And people just wanted to see what the fuss was about.
So again, the people, they all placed their bets,
and again he played.
[whirring]
Click. And again he won.
It was about this time people started to speculate,
okay, maybe this guy figured out a way to cheat at this game.
Or may‐‐ or maybe the organizers of the game,
they just rigged it for him to win, you know,
drum up some promotion for their own business.
So people got smart, they stopped betting, they stopped playing altogether.
So the Rouletista, without anyone asking him to do this,
he said he'd be willing to add a second bullet to the gun.
So people took the bet. And again he played.
[whirring]
Click. And again he won.
He agreed to add a third bullet.
This time, no one really cared if he was cheating, you know.
[audience laughs]
People just wanted to be able to say that they got to place a bet against him.
[whirring]
Click.
He added a fourth bullet. And a fifth.
Eventually, he agreed to add a sixth and final bullet.
Yet nobody bet.
No. Instead, they just bought a ticket to watch, you know.
Watch a man stand on a stage and place a loaded gun to his head.
Believe it or not, for the first time in a hundred years,
there was an earthquake in that region.
[rumbling]
The building shook so hard‐‐
[rattling, crashing]
A beam fell right from the ceiling, knocked the gun
right out of the Rouletista's hand.
[whirring]
He took this as a sign. That was the night he retired.
But he, he was wealthy at this point, though.
So he got married.
[audience laughs]
He had some kids.
Got himself some grandkids.
He lived in the biggest house
on the highest hill in his town.
People, when they saw him, they would cross the street
just to come shake the man's hand
or to get the hell away from him.
He w‐‐ he was a living legend.
One night, he was asleep in his bedroom,
he heard someone downstairs rummaging around.
He went down to investigate,
only to discover a burglar was down there trying to break into his safe.
The burglar stood up and pointed a gun at the Rouletista.
[whirring]
Rouletista looked back at the man and said,
"Do you know who I am?"
Burglar replied,
"No."
[gunshot]
Fired a single shot.
Killed the Rouletista right there in his own home.
That's it. That's the story.
[audience laughs]
This is a story the stranger told me at this little bar.
And I looked at him and said, "That's a fascinating tale, sir.
"Why did you tell me that?
Wha‐‐ what made you think of this?"
And he, he looked at me and in all seriousness replied,
"Because you are the Rouletista."
I had my friend translate that. Perhaps I misunderstood him.
And he just repeated himself, "No,
"you are the Rouletista.
I just thought you should know."
And he left.
And that night, I stared into a mirror trying to see the man that he saw,
but all I could see is the same thing I see
every single day.
I‐‐ I've retraced the footsteps of that encounter
over and over again, looking for clues as to why he might have said that.
I didn't say but two words to him.
I wasn't dressed like a sailor, you know.
I didn't put a gun to my head. So what was it?
What did he hear that I didn't tell him?
Or what did he see in me that I didn't show him?
[gun clicks]
[click]
[clicking]
♪ suspenseful music playing ♪
♪
You think this is a performance.
You see a man in a theater.
There's an audience.
His lines are memorized. His actions are rehearsed.
[inaudible]
It is difficult to see past what this looks like.
Hell, it's easy to lie on a stage. It's even easier to lie in a film.
♪
I do not expect you to believe anything you're seeing or hearing.
And knowing you won't believe me,
that's the only reason I'm going to tell you the truth.
♪
[waves crashing]
You do have a choice, though.
You can see it for what it is,
or you can imagine what it could be.
[waves crashing]
[birds squawking]
♪
[birds squawking]
[waves crashing]
I need someone to come back tomorrow.
Okay.
On, on, on every ship, there is a book.
And this book is called the ship's log.
And it was, it was the sailor's job
to write down everything that happened on a journey.
They were supposed to write it down inside of this book.
But long before modern instruments, this book,
it wasn't just a record of the journey.
It was a really important part of navigation.
Because sailors used the stars and the sun to navigate.
They would determine their location,
and then they would write those coordinates down inside of this book.
But from time to time, on a journey, sometimes clouds would fill the sky
and it would be impossible for them to determine where they were
But on these days, they still needed to make an entry in this book.
So on these days, sailors were forced to imagine where they were.
And they had to write that down.
And they relied heavily on the previous entries
to help keep them on course.
Eventually, the clouds would part, they'd find the stars again,
get back on track, arrive at their destination.
But the, the end result for that book, it told an honest story
of the journey that had taken place,
but it was comprised entirely of information
that was both real and imagined.
We have a book. And in order for it to continue,
I would need one of you to come back to our next performance.
All right, sir. Um, I see you raising your hand here.
I should point out, I'm serious.
[audience laughs]
Are you comfortable with me referring to you as Mr. Tomorrow
just for clarity's sake?
[audience laughs] DEREK: Okay.
Okay. Tomorrow,
you will now be responsible for the most terrifying moment
of the performance for me.
It's the moment when I ask this question:
"Did the person from the last show come back?"
This is Ms. Yesterday. Welcome back, Ms. Yesterday.
[audience laughs]
Hi.
Come on down.
[audience applauding]
Thank you very much.
Welcome back.
Sorry. He's aware of this. The rest of you probably are not.
This is, this is the only time I ever get to look at this.
So if you'll just indulge me for a moment,
I handed this out on our very first performance.
This has gone out to sea with someone else each and every day since,
and it's remained out there, but it's always,
always managed to find its way back to me in this moment.
I've been asking people to document
what they've been witnessing in here.
And some people,
some people have made some really interesting artistic decisions
in this process. [audience laughs]
Holy shit. Okay.
Derek seemed to have a sadness in his eyes. And‐‐
[audience laughs]
These are the first two pictures ever pasted in here.
Pictures of the rappers Ice‐T and Ice Cube.
[audience laughs]
Well, that was a good one.
[audience laughs]
Bit of an overachiever there. Yeah.
She interlaced it with lyrics from the musical Hamilton.
[audience laughs]
Post‐it Note Guy, he just went through the book
and talked shit about everyone else.
[audience laughs]
Did you see the elephant last night?
‐ Excuse me? ‐ Did you see the elephant last night?
‐ We talked about the elephant. ‐ I know,
but with your eyes, did you see it?
‐ My literal eyes.
‐ Yeah, li‐‐ literal. It's not a trick. ‐ No.
‐ You didn't?
‐ No. ‐ Okay.
There will be an elephant here a little later on.
It was right, right before we threw you out.
We threw him out of the show.
Last night, he did not see the end of the show. Uh‐‐
She still has not seen the end of the show because we
booted her out of here before it was over. So‐‐
You have that to look forward to, Mr. Tomorrow.
There will be a reason for your sacrifice tonight.
There was a reason for his in the last show.
Because of it,
you're gonna ensure this story doesn't end.
Instead of letting it end today,
I'm gonna have you take it with you.
And instead of seeing an ending, I'm going to ask you
to imagine one and write that down,
which is what I asked her to do in the last show.
Is this your writing here? ‐ Mm‐hmm.
‐ I have not heard this yet.
I will... I'll be hearing this with all of you for the very first time.
Uh, what did you choose last night?
‐ Uh, last night was pathfinder.
‐ Pathfinder. All right. This is‐‐
This is how our pathfinder‐‐
Our traveler.
Our novelist.
Our contrarian.
Our observer.
Our heretic.
Our warrior.
Our producer.
Our gift.
Our clown.
Our father imagined this story ends.
Secret agent. Stage is yours.
All I ask is loud enough so they can hear you.
‐ Right. ‐ Thank you.
[clears throat]
‐ Ummm‐‐
‐ "By the time I left‐‐"
Sorry. I can't read my own damn handwriting.
[audience laughs]
‐ "This is the scary part, because I know this is the part
"I will have to read in front of everyone.
"But I don't have all day to spend time on a writing assignment
I got from a show that I paid to see, so here goes nothing."
[audience laughs]
MAN: But how did it end?
"A bright flash, music crescendos, then silence.
"On the scale where Derek once stood is a full‐grown elephant.
The scale‐‐"
[audience laughs]
"The‐‐"
It's gonna be great. [audience laughs]
"Every person will find love.
"No one will be judged.
Our 'I ams' will become 'We are.'"
[speaking German]
[continues speaking German] ‐ ...butterfly...
‐ Butterfly. I got that one. ‐ Butterfly.
‐ Yeah. [audience laughs]
‐ "The Rouletista made the mistake of being defined
"by the six chambers of the revolver.
"And although Derek is described by the six chambers along the backdrop,
he should not be defined by those six chambers."
‐ "People describe my parts, my fac‐‐ my facets,
"uh, but do they ever really know the whole me?
"Uh, how could they when I, like Derek, hide an ugly truth,
"my secret,
when it should be my pride."
‐ "When I walked in and had to choose my identity card,
I started to panic."
Sorry. [exhales forcefully]
"I'm not great at making decisions, so naturally, I hesitated
"and over thought things.
"My constant fear crept up. What if I choose wrong?
"Without realizing it,
"I was saying to myself,
[voice breaking] 'I don't think I know who I am.'"
[sniffles]
WOMAN: "A further introspective note:
"We all label ourselves and live according to our label.
"But while I am an accountant, as are thousands of other people,
"there is only one me.
"No one else has lived every single one of my experiences.
I am not a label. I am a sum of all parts."
DEREK: We are all the unreliable narrators of each other's stories.
Based on the little that they know,
they're asked to imagine how this story ends.
And it's that blank page, it's that blank page of,
here's everything you know, everything you've just heard,
everything you've seen.
Now what?
What are you gonna fill it with?
And it's just like the person sitting next to you, across from you.
What do you know about him? What have you heard? What have you seen?
What are you gonna put on that blank page?
And it's that responsibility that that, that that book
presents to people.
Is the responsibility,
we are all writing one another's stories.
♪
WOMAN: "The Rouletista.
"Aren't we all gambling pieces of ourselves daily?
"Don't we all have something to lose?
How do you know when you're holding a loaded gun?"
[audience applauding]
DEREK: Thank you.
‐ Okay.
[indiscernible whispering]
[applause continues]
[whooping]
[gun clicking]
[click]
♪ suspenseful music playing ♪
♪
[Derek sighs]
♪
There's a light.
This light happens every day. It ha‐‐
It happens at the same time every single day.
If you stare out towards the horizon,
right as the sun hits it, you're gonna notice.
It's very difficult to decipher anything that's standing
between you and the sun.
This time is called "The Time Between Dog and Wolf."
This expression, "The Time Between Dog and Wolf," it comes from the middle ages.
This‐‐ it was a cautionary expression that parents would use
to scare their children.
Make sure that they got home before it got dark out.
"You better get home before the time between dog and wolf."
At this, at this time of day, it's very difficult
to distinguish a friend from a foe at a distance.
It's hard to tell the difference between a dog and a wolf.
And by the time it gets close enough to you
for you to make out what it really is, too late.
I never saw this as a dangerous time, though.
I... I always saw this as a time of possibility, you know.
It's a very specific moment for metamorphosis.
For me, this was the time when a dog
could also be a wolf.
♪ piano music playing ♪
♪
I‐‐ I'll never forget the first time I saw someone perform sleight of hand.
I'd like to say it was love at first sight,
but I fell in love with all the things I couldn't see.
And I had to learn. So I started with the very basics.
How do you hold a deck of cards properly.
And then I read it would take eight years
to learn how to hold a deck of cards properly.
Eight years.
And which grip are you gonna learn to hold them in?
You gonna learn the mechanic's grip.
The full grip, straddle grip, box grip, dealer grip?
I couldn't decide.
So, I just learned them all.
Taught myself how to shuffle. You take one and another and another.
Eventually, I could speed up.
Start throwing as many as I'd like.
I learned the variations on these things.
Taught myself the cuts.
I learned how to do 'em one‐handed.
I taught myself how to riffle shuffle using my leg.
Do‐‐
[audience laughs]
Eventually, I didn't need my leg, but‐‐
But I always threw in a bridge.
You know, I wanted people to know I had been practicing.
You gotta put it to good use, so you start finding cards.
Do you remember your card, sir?
Ten of spades? You're welcome.
[audience laughs]
Okay. And then, what about you, miss? Do you remember your card?
The six of hearts? All right. [blows]
From the ten [clicks tongue]
to the six.
And you there. In the third row.
Do you remember your card?
You didn't have a card. That's all right, we can do that.
[audience chuckles]
I wanted credit for all this stuff, though.
So you start throwing in the flourishes.
Learn how to spring the cards. That will get them every time.
That way, they know you're professional.
That way, they know you're working.
But you start to question that,
and you think, well, maybe they'd like a waterfall more.
I mean, that's a bit more nuanced.
It's a little more elegant.
Same thing with the fan.
You learn the thumb fan,
and then you think, you know what, maybe they'd like a pressure fan more.
I mean that's got something [clicks tongue]
a little extra to it.
And what's better than a fan?
I know. Two fans.
After you learn this, it's mandatory you get that headshot.
[audience laughs]
I loved it.
I lo‐‐ I loved it so much.
And, and I shared it with other people.
And then, then it was like,
it was like the more I shared it with others,
the more disillusioned I became.
And I didn't understand that.
[riffling cards]
Now, looking back, I can see that other people,
other people just couldn't appreciate what I appreciated about it.
It's not their fault.
It's not my fault either. It's nobody's fault.
Other people literally couldn't see what I saw.
But then I met someone who could.
[telephone ringing]
[ringing continues]
DEREK: [over phone] Hey, Wolf? WOLF: [over phone] Yeah.
DEREK: Hey, it's Derek.
WOLF: What's up?
DEREK: So, is it cool if I record this conversation?
WOLF: Yeah.
DEREK: Okay, so the last time I saw you,
you told me about
the first time you saw him.
WOLF: Yeah.
DEREK: Can you tell me that story again?
WOLF: So... I got me into this game.
It's a game my older brother used to play.
And I'm sitting in this game next to this guy,
and we're playing.
And at the time, I hadn't been in too many card games.
At that time, I was mostly fuckin' around with dice.
But, uh, I'm in this game, and I'm next to this guy.
And I ain't never met this guy before.
But at that time, I ain't never met a lot of people.
So, I'm sitting there, and he leans in to bet.
Now, he confident but real sloppy.
So, he leans forward to bet, and I seen what he's holding.
He just being lazy.
And I think to myself, "I've got this motherfucker beat."
Only problem now is keeping him in the hand.
I didn't want to scare him off, know what I'm saying.
So, I raised, he raised,
and that shit went back and forth.
And I'm doing my best not to laugh at him,
'cause I know this motherfucker ain't got shit.
But I'm playin' it cool.
And I go all in.
He calls. And we roll over our hands.
And he had me beat.
Now I'm thinking, "Am I hallucinating?"
'Cause I know what I saw.
But then when it ain't there I start to think I'm losing my mind.
And I look up at this motherfucker,
and he's smiling right at me.
And he knew and he's smiling.
That's when I knew
he was the Devil.
And I wanted to be just like him.
‐ And I wanted to be just like him.
So he taught me.
So I learned.
And I remember him saying to me,
"Okay, Derek, all that time you spent learning to become a dog,
"all that razzle‐dazzle you've learned, you can forget it,
"because dogs like to please people, and we're not about that.
"So from now on, you're gonna shuffle cards like we shuffle cards.
"You're gonna deal 'em like we deal 'em.
"And you, you're gonna learn to be invisible.
"You can start by getting yourself a new name.
And make sure you pick a name that's easy to remember."
So I thought about it for a little bit.
I went with the name Cody.
Cody is my middle name.
I just‐‐ I figured that would be very easy for me to remember.
King of spades.
It turns out that's actually really good advice.
Pick a name that's easy to remember.
'Cause the last thing you need is to be sitting at a card table
and shuffling, dealing, playing cards,
having a grand old time with a bunch of strangers,
and then someone you don't know says
what's supposed to be your name a few times
and you don't respond.
You can't be sitting at these tables trying to remember what your name is.
You got other things on your mind,
more important things to be keeping track of.
Things like that king of spades.
Which is now 17 cards from the top.
There's 16.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight,
nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen,
seventeen.
King of spades.
[chuckles] I remember him saying to me, "Okay,
"Cody, listen, when you sit down to deal,
"there are a few things you're going to need
"to remind yourself from time to time.
"One of those things... some of these guys sitting at these tables,
"some of them are just going to be staring at your hands while you're dealing.
"And if you ever notice that, you gotta just stay calm, stay focused,
do your job."
♪ suspenseful music playing ♪
♪
"Now you gotta understand, kid, even if they're staring at your hands,
"they can't see what you're doing.
"And they can't see what you're doing 'cause they don't even know it exists.
"And they don't know someone like you exists.
"And they're just staring at your hands
"'cause they're waiting for their next card.
"These guys are gamblers. They're always just gonna be sitting there
"waiting for their next card.
But you have to believe me when I tell you they cannot see that you're a wolf."
Didn't take long for me to realize, on most nights,
one card, one card was not gonna be enough.
On most nights, you needed to find at least two.
And on those bad nights,
three.
And on those really bad nights, all four.
I remember him telling me, "Look, kid, when you beat these guys,
"they're gonna get pissed.
"If you learn to accept it now that they're gonna get upset,
"it will be a lot easier for you when you're actually sitting with them
"and then you hear these guys start to whine about losing,
"when you hear 'em start to bitch and moan
"or when they start yelling or making threats.
"I mean, you gotta understand, kid, some of these guys,
"some of these guys might have the nerve to accuse you of cheating.
"And if that ever happens,
"you gotta take a moment and remind yourself of the truth.
"They just lost all their money.
"So they're furious.
"And you're one of the only people in the world
"that they can take that out on.
They don't know that you're a wolf."
After their shuffles,
they always insist that you pass the deck
so someone else can give it a cut.
I guess they thought this sort of procedure would keep the wolves at bay.
I don't know. I just‐‐ I remember being told,
"Look, look, you gotta let them have those types of illusions, Cody.
You always want them to have their illusions."
Four kings.
[sighs]
From the middle.
♪ suspenseful music playing ♪
♪
Didn't seem to matter how well I did, though,
how hard I tried,
how proud I tried to make him.
Whatever I had, he always insisted I give him a better hand.
That, that at the end of the day is the problem I found with hustlers.
These guys, they really only care about one thing, you know. Money.
And the sad truth is you can make as much money
on any given night with one move.
One great move can win you the same amount of money as every move combined,
so, a lot of these guys, they only bother practicing one thing.
And some of them become the best in the world
at one thing.
I spent most of my youth tracking those few men down.
Asking them to teach me what they've learned.
And I learned a lot of great lessons from 'em,
but the best came when I was 17 years old.
I got on a Greyhound bus, I went to Denver, Colorado
looking for the man when it came to one thing.
I found him at a pool hall, introduced myself.
After some convincing of why someone like me
would be looking for someone like him,
he took me into a room in the back where there was a card table,
and he set a deck in front of me and said, "All right, kid,
let's see what you got."
This was like the old gunslinger testing the kid, you know.
See how fast he is. I didn't hesitate.
I took the cards. I started shuffling.
I'm sitting there looking down at my hands thinking, "Oh wow, this looks good."
[riffling cards] I've been practicing.
And I finish my shuffles and I look up from my hands
to see he's now holding a gun.
And he says,
"Just hope they get you in the heart, kid."
And what he was doing was teaching me a valuable lesson,
which is if I were ever to attempt these sort of things at a card table,
with strangers, for money, I better make damn sure
that I'm not sitting there with 'em just staring at my own hands
and admiring my own work.
So‐‐
He taught me how to practice.
I've practiced everything this way since,
and I will share it with you as I try to run up a decent hand
for... his favorite game.
♪ suspenseful music playing ♪
Bridge.
The idea here, in theory, is pretty straightforward.
Specific cards get shuffled into specific positions.
Hopefully.
In this case, we're looking for as many of the spades as we can find
so that in a moment, when I'm dealing, the deals can be fair,
because right now it's the shuffles that are crooked.
♪
All right, let's see how we do.
A spade? AUDIENCE: Yes.
‐ Thank you.
Spade? AUDIENCE: Yeah.
‐ Spade?
All right. Let's just see how many we miss.
♪
[audience applauding]
Yeah. Okay, good.
Uh... no, I've finished this before, I've had people say,
"That's awesome, but they're not in order."
[audience laughing]
Which, you know, I would have done for you folks,
but I had a fuckin' tie on my face. So‐‐
[laughing]
For any perfectionist that might be here‐‐
Using those deals from earlier,
starting with the ace of spades, you should be able to bring it home
like this.
Ace, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight,
nine, ten, jack, queen, king.
Now they're in order.
[audience applauding]
It really does seem like no matter how
long it's been or how hard I try,
I've still got a whole lot of wolf in me.
♪ dramatic music playing ♪
♪
[audience gasping, applauding]
♪ suspenseful music playing ♪
It's true, you stare out towards that horizon,
and it is very difficult to decipher anything that's standing
between you and the sun.
But if you are willing to turn your back on the sun,
everything else is illuminated.
[high‐pitched screeching]
[screeching intensifies]
[gun clicks]
[click]
[screeching fades away]
♪ suspenseful music playing ♪
Every secret has a unique weight to it.
I learned this at an early age.
My mother‐‐
My mother.
She had me when she was only 17 years old.
And my father, he was,
he was a little bit older than she was,
but he decided to split town
right when he found out she was pregnant.
But my mother,
she managed to work I don't know how many jobs and go to school,
and she still somehow found the time to tuck me in at night.
I mean, she found the time to read me bedtime stories.
And‐‐
I honestly don't know how she did it by herself for so long.
But when I was, when I was six years old, that all changed.
I don't, I don't remember if I was already asleep
or about to fall asleep, but I do vividly remember
being thirsty.
So I remember grabbing my little cup off my nightstand,
leaving my room, going down the hall past the living room
to discover, oh hey, the TV's still on.
And there on the couch is my mother kissing another woman.
And this for me is confusing.
But... my mother, she sits me down.
She introduces me to a very nice lady
and proceeds to gently explain
the nuances of love
between two human beings.
I cried myself to sleep that night.
And not because she told me she's gay
but because that's the night I knew I would never have a father.
But she was happy.
I wa‐‐ I was happy.
I mean, for the first time in our lives, we were enjoying the comforts
of a nuclear family.
[inaudible conversation]
My best friend,
my best friend at that time was a neighbor kid.
His name was Ryan.
And my playtime with Ryan consisted of riding bikes,
playing tag.
We us‐‐ we used to pretend we were pirates,
in a sandbox.
One day, I told my best friend, Ryan,
about my new mom.
And the next day, Ryan told me he couldn't be my friend anymore.
That's what he was told.
And then I remember coming home from school
and finding a Bible on my doorstep,
and I remember hearing the sound of glass shattering
and then finding a brick.
And I remember hearing picketers and learning the words "faggot"
and "queer" and "dyke".
And learning all three of those words meant the same thing:
Mom.
We moved...
right after that.
And I learned...
[sighs]
I learned how to keep a secret, you know.
How to...
protect one.
How to create one.
I, I started to use language
I could hide in to...
avoid all discussion of life at home.
And I developed rituals.
If a new friend were to come over to my house for the very first time,
I would ask them politely, "Hey, dude, do me a favor,
"wait outside here at the front door.
I'm gonna go inside. I wanna make sure the house is clean for you."
And cleaning meant me running around the house,
hiding all the rainbow flags and Indigo Girls CDs
and, you know, hiding anything I thought might expose me
for who I wasn't.
Hiding all of the evidence of my mother's pride.
I got really good at that.
[chuckles]
Then I remember Lindsey, this girl from school.
I remember summoning up
every ounce of courage I had in me
to ask her to whatever dance it was
and she telling me she couldn't because she heard from one of her friends
that my mother is gay.
How did they know? I mean, how did everyone find out?
I had been so careful.
After that, my secrets were replaced with "go fuck yourselves."
And... I like to think that this honest new disposition came
from a place of maturity, but‐‐
[sighs]
It was exhaustion.
'Cause every secret has a weight to it,
and you can only carry them for so long.
[high‐pitched screeching]
[screeching stops]
[thud]
[chuckles]
This is just a brick.
But it's gonna be very difficult
for any of you to see it that way anymore.
This brick was painted gold
and it was placed on this stage,
and I just told that story.
I mentioned a brick in that story.
I, I sat right here
next to this brick when I mentioned it, so‐‐
It's gonna be very difficult for any of you to see this
as just a brick now, 'cause you know too much, you know that story.
And that is what you will
think of now when you look at this.
Sorry.
I can help with that.
[thud]
[mutters]
♪
[sighs]
♪
Someone here is a tourist.
Tourist, wherever you are, please raise your hand.
♪
Hey, tourist, could you please name, uh, an avenue in this city
that we'd all recognize if we heard it.
WOMAN: Avenue A.
DEREK: Avenue A. That might work.
Someone here is an idiot.
[audience laughs]
Idiot, wherever you are, please raise your hand.
♪
[laughing]
That's about right. Uh‐‐ [audience laughs]
Uh, someone here is a film buff.
Film buff, wherever you are, please raise your hand.
Hey, film buff.
Could you please name, uh, a street that intersects with Avenue A
that we'd be familiar with if we heard it?
‐ Third Street. DEREK: Third Street.
Third Street and Avenue A.
Thank you, both.
♪
We all start so pure.
There's no information that's tainted our experience
of what it means to be human.
And what we, we know about this world is just pure. It's just‐‐
It's what actually is, and then slowly but surely,
opinions are thrust upon us and knowledge is put in our head
and we're given ideas, and we start to make associations
between what's good and bad
and what a good person is and what a bad person is.
And it's all that knowledge
that conceals what a thing is.
♪
That brick is now on the corner of Avenue A and Third Street.
And it is, it's sitting now right there on the corner,
and people are walking right by it.
Pe‐‐ people are driving right past it.
And if, if you go there, just look, just observe,
and you're gonna notice not a single person stops
to look at that brick.
Not a single person takes a moment
out of their day to look down at the ground and go,
"Oh hey, there's a gold brick here on the corner of Avenue A and Third Street.
What is this brick doing here?" Nobody, nobody does that.
And...
nobody takes that moment out of their day to acknowledge that brick's existence
because they don't care, and they‐‐
They don't care 'cause they don't know anything about it.
They don't know where it's been. They don't know its story.
Only the people in this room know anything about that brick right now
and to everyone else on the planet,
that's just a brick.
Which it is.
It's just all in how you look at it.
[blows]
[wind whooshing]
DEREK'S MOTHER: Hey! Oh! [laughs]
How does it feel, honey?
[gun clicks]
[click]
♪ suspenseful music playing ♪
♪
‐ Nobody move.
Nobody make a sound.
Uh... can you please choose somebody for us.
Who'd you get?
Let me see that.
Okay. Nobody move, especially not the Stabilizer.
The Gentleman.
The Tsar.
The Mediator.
The Teacher.
What does a reflection look like?
You don't need to think about it. We have one here.
[audience laughs]
Uh, Reflection.
[sighs]
Wherever you are, please raise your hand.
I promise no harm will come.
Hey, Reflection. Could you please stand up.
And if you could just turn around real quick.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is what a reflection looks like.
[audience laughing, applauding] Thank you very much, Reflection.
There's a story you should know.
There's a story all of us,
all of us should know.
This story is about these six dudes.
And these dudes, they're walking through a field,
and they come across a thing,
and they don't know what this thing is.
So these guys decide
instead of just moving along,
instead of just minding their own damn business,
these guys decide they're gonna stop,
they're going to investigate.
And by God, they're gonna figure out what this thing is.
There's a‐‐ there is a problem with their idea.
All six of these guys are blind.
And even though they're all touching the same thing,
they're all touching a different part of it.
So each guy thinks it's a totally different thing.
For instance, the guy at the front of this thing, he's touching this part.
Feels all long and round. Gets thicker towards the top.
It's kinda rough, almost scaly.
It's wet at the tip. "Oh, hey, guys, back up. It's an enormous snake."
The guy at the opposite end, at the back end,
he feels something similar but different.
It is long and round back here. It's not very thick though.
It's kind of the same width all the way up.
It's fuzzy at spots.
It's fluffy at the end.
"Hey, man, it's not a snake. It's just rope.
Don't freak us out."
And the guy touching the side of this thing,
this guy is touching the big broad side of this thing.
This thing is so big and so heavy and hard
when he presses up against it, it doesn't budge, doesn't move an inch.
So this guy, he thinks it's a wall.
And the guy just below that, he's got his arms around this part here.
"That feels like a tree trunk, gentlemen."
There's another one and another and another.
"It's four tree trunks, guys."
And the guy on top of this thing‐‐
I don't, I don't know why there was a guy on top of this thing.
[audience laughs] But he's up there.
He's feeling around,
and he feels this part here.
Feels, feels kinda leathery.
Shaped like a fan. Oh, there's two of them.
"It's like two big fans, guys."
Anyways, the point being,
these guys argue amongst themselves for quite a while,
and it, it was not until they learned to communicate
and work together
that they were able to, you know, "see" the thing they were all touching
is just an elephant.
Now this, this is an old story.
There's lots of versions of this really old story
from all around the world.
I have read every version of this story I could get my hands on,
and I've noticed every version of this story has one thing in common.
There's... there's not a single version of this story
that takes into consideration what this experience must have been like
for the elephant.
[audience laughs]
Think about it from its perspective for just a moment.
Ima‐‐ imagine you are standing alone in a field minding your own business
and six perverts come out of nowhere
and start fondling you.
[grumbling]
And then they start arguing about what you are,
and they can't decide.
They can't figure it out. So they form a really creepy committee,
and they discuss what you are.
And they come back and go, "Hey, we talked about it. We figured it out
You, you're an elephant, Elephant."
[babbling]
What if they're wrong? I mean, they are blind.
Or in, or in this instance, what if they were right in the first place?
What if these blind guys didn't stumble across an elephant?
What if they really did stumble across a magical creature?
Something that had a snake for a nose,
and tree trunks for legs and a wall for a body,
and then they just, they convinced each other
it was just an elephant
And worse than that,
what if they could convince it it was just an elephant.
And then what if this thing,
what if this magical creature didn't have someone around who knew it,
someone who saw it for what it really was and loved it enough to say,
"No, they're all wrong, and you're more than that."
I don't know.
Maybe that's why we don't see those types of magical creatures
roaming around anymore.
Reflection, please join me on the stage.
WOMAN: Hi. ‐ Pleasure to meet you.
Uh, take a seat. I'm gonna grab my chair. I will explain what's happening.
I've been doing my best. Uh, I've been doing my damnedest to keep
an antiquated form of communication from going extinct.
In other words, I've been having letters sent to me.
And I have,
[exhales forcefully] I have enough here
for... almost everyone, but it doesn't matter.
Uh, it doesn't matter 'cause each day, each performance
we only get to open one,
and today you have been selected to decide which of these we're gonna open.
So please go through, decide on one you'd like to open,
and keep it for yourself.
MAN: This one. DEREK: Okay. I'll take the rest.
I'm just gonna point out a few things that you can see right now that most of them can't.
First of all, you may have noticed, all of these are actually addressed to me,
to Derek DelGaudio, care of the Daryl Roth Theatre.
That's me. That's this place.
Second, you may have noticed all of the return addresses have been removed.
And finally, if you turn it over on the back,
you'll see this says "Cousin," "Friend."
What does yours say?
‐ Sister. DEREK: Sister.
‐ Grandfather. ‐ Grandfather.
Sibling. Do you have any siblings"
‐ Yes. ‐ This is a rude question.
Do you have any friends?
‐ I think so. ‐ You think so. Okay, good. I have to ask.
What does yours say? ‐ Father.
‐ Father. Do‐‐ uh, do you have a father?
‐ I do.
‐ Is he here with you tonight? ‐ He is not.
‐ Perfect.
Okay.
Freak, two things are about to happen.
Uh, these two things are gonna happen almost simultaneously.
One of these things, you will see.
And the other thing,
we will see.
Uh, here is what you are about to see happen.
Right now, you're holding an envelope.
And presumably, inside of that envelope
is a folded card or piece of paper.
But in a moment, you're gonna open that up,
you're gonna unfold whatever's in there.
And when you do, you're gonna see this thing
transform
into a handwritten letter
to you
from your father.
From your friend.
From your nephew.
From your son.
From your cousin.
From your sister.
From your child.
[audience laughs]
None of us will see that.
Only she will see that.
What the rest of us will see, in my opinion, it's,
it's better.
In a moment, you're gonna open that up.
And when you see this thing transform,
we get to see you, the reflection‐‐
The conceptual artist.
The teacher.
The pediatrician.
The lieutenant.
The unicorn.
The dog lover.
The fighter.
Transform into... something else.
Okie‐dokie.
Uh‐‐ [audience laughs]
You don't even need to read that aloud. That's just for you to read.
But we are gonna watch.
I will be right here if you need anything
at any moment.
[audience laughs]
[scattered laughter]
‐ Ohh. What?
‐ No!
‐ What the fuck!
[audience laughs]
‐ How‐‐
[audience laughs]
[laughs]
‐ Uh, okay. [laughs]
[sniffles]
‐ [whispering] You had a moment for yourself.
Are you comfortable sharing this?
I can help if you need.
‐ I don't understand.
‐ I know. Please stand.
[clears throat]
‐ "To the Hairy Gary Gorilla‐‐
"despite being away from home for ten years,
"I want you to know
"you're still a big part of my life,
and a very big inspiration."
‐ "You are everything to me.
"You are amazing to be around, because you are smart,
funny, and beautiful inside and out."
‐ "I'm not sure that I've ever completely conveyed to you
"how proud I am of you
"more than anyone I've ever met.
"You have a strong moral core
"and the courage of your convictions.
"Whether you're standing up for the little guy
"against the big football players,
"like you did in college,
"or starting your venture to teach adolescents how to live
an ethical Jewish life."
‐ "I am truly lucky to have‐‐ found a friend as awesome as you so late in life
when it gets really hard to do so."
‐ "I want to tell you how much I admire your independence
"and your strength, especially to get through
"the tough times in life.
I love our common love of Dachshunds and Chardonnay."
‐ "Just in case you haven't noticed, your mama's proud of you."
And then she signed it 63,
which is a family shorthand for "I love you."
‐ "I look forward to many more happy years of friendship
"and worldwide travels together.
"Love, Ducky.
"P.S.,
there's nothing like El Baño at the 717."
‐ El Baño?
‐ That's the bathroom we used to get high in.
[audience laughing]
‐ "You once said to me
"'Dad, what color is God's skin?'
"Your mother and I said to you,
"'It's black, brown, it's yellow.
"'It is red. It is white.
"Every man's the same in the good Lord's sight.'
"To your mother and me,
"you have always embodied this message to the world.
Love, Dad."
[sniffles]
And he's
dying of Parkinson's
and is...
in the last stages, and every time I see him
I say goodbye to him, because I don't know if I'm gonna see him again.
‐ I don't know if you all saw the moment.
I no longer see a reflection on this stage.
I see someone's daughter.
I no longer see a free thinker on this stage.
I see somebody's son.
I no longer see an organizer on this stage.
I see somebody's friend.
I no longer see a fighter on this stage. I see somebody's father.
I don't know when you plan on seeing your dad or talking to him
but in the meantime,
I mean this, take a moment, get a piece of paper, write him back.
Write her back.
Write him back.
It always means a lot more.
‐ Thank you. ‐ You're welcome.
‐ Thank you.
[audience applauding]
[sighs]
Uh, Mr. Tomorrow? Mr. Tomorrow.
Hi, Mr. Tomorrow.
Pack your shit. It's time to go.
[audience laughs]
Thank you very much for doing this.
We're gonna throw you out right now.
I don't want you to feel like you're being excluded from this.
It's easy to feel that way in this particular moment,
but I, uh, I assure you it is quite the contrary,
because in a few moments,
all of this,
all of this, it's gonna end
for all of them.
And whether they all know it or not,
when this ends, they will have decided what it is.
And they will have decided what I am.
But not you. But not you.
But not you.
For you, this is gonna remain a mystery a little bit longer,
and this story is gonna continue now 'cause you're gonna take it with you,
and... that means it could be whatever you want it to be.
I'd like you to write down what you saw here up until this moment.
Just as you saw. Like a recap for us.
And then, more importantly,
I want you to imagine how this story ends.
Uh, it can be anything you want. Give us an ending.
I will have you read that imaginary ending
to the nice people that come tomorrow.
And then some day,
if someone were to read all of this, it's gonna tell 'em an honest story
of everything that has ever happened here,
even though it's composed entirely of information
that is both real and imagined.
I'm grateful you're part of it. I'll see you tomorrow.
Thank you. [audience applauding]
[gun clicking]
♪ suspenseful music plays ♪
♪ dramatic music playing ♪
♪
Before you came in here, there was a wall.
On that wall, there were a bunch of cards,
and a lot of you probably had fun with it.
Chose something like Ninja.
But others may have taken it seriously.
Maybe you chose something you feel reflects
who you really are in this world.
How you'd really like to be seen by others.
If you're one of those few people, please stand.
♪
I remember reading that True Identity,
and not just identity, True Identity is that which
exists within one's own heart
and is seen by another.
Honestly, I have no idea if that's true outside these walls these days.
But in here,
I see a bartender.
And a curiosity.
And a heavyweight.
And an individual.
And an achiever.
A singer.
[sighs]
The truth‐teller.
A soother.
And a lover.
And a stargazer.
They're gonna regret it, the one that got away.
An explorer.
And a good Samaritan.
And a vegan.
An alchemist.
An independent.
A maker.
And a good time.
[laughter]
If I'm right so far, you may be seated.
♪
A visionary.
♪
Keep up the good work.
♪
A disruptor.
A feminist.
An iconoclast.
A journalist.
Counselor.
A life coach.
A fish out of water.
A public servant.
A reconciler.
An artist.
A midnight toker.
[audience laughs]
An introvert.
Sorry to make you stand.
[laughter]
[exhales forcefully]
♪
You're like me.
An accident.
A traveler.
A mystic.
A leader.
A skeptic.
An anthropologist.
A nurse.
A makeup artist.
A single mother.
An adventurer.
♪
Nobody.
An intellectual.
A reader.
♪
[indiscernible whispering]
[woman chuckles]
A real mensch.
[chuckles]
[Derek chuckles] A breath of fresh air.
Welcome. Our immigrant.
My brother.
An accountant.
Hey, Grandpa.
[audience laughs]
A New Yorker.
A masochist.
[audience laughs]
An Adonis.
[audience laughs]
An exhibitionist.
A unicorn.
A real catch.
[audience laughs]
♪
Hi, Mom.
[audience applauds]
♪
An entomologist.
My teacher.
A shaman.
A multitude.
Everything.
Howdy, pilgrim.
Your Highness.
My advocate.
One of a kind.
A lone wolf.
A searcher.
An oracle.
An experimenter.
Life of the party.
My good luck charm.
My confidant.
A connector.
A fixer.
A dreamer.
A dog lover.
A believer.
Possibility.
An interpreter.
An organizer.
And you, Miss, you are a storyteller.
Please sit down.
[audience applauding]
And I am...
♪ suspenseful music playing ♪
♪
the Rouletista.
[sighs]
Beca‐‐
Because that...
that's how he saw me.
And then that's,
that's how I started to see myself.
And now I come here
day after day after day, and I stand in a dark room
full of a bunch of strangers
letting them decide the value of my life while I load up six chambers
and attempt to defy some odds.
So, yeah,
I am the Rouletista.
♪
But I also know that I'm a son.
And I know that even though I am a son, I know I'm also an orphan.
And I know that I am a sailor even though I've never left the shores.
And honestly, I don't‐‐
I don't expect anyone to be able to decipher
whether I'm a dog or a wolf, 'cause I, I understand.
For most people, it's inconceivable that I'm both, but I don't‐‐
I don't need anyone to see all the things that make me what I am
to know I'm more than just an elephant.
I'm more than just one thing, 'cause I'm not just defined by what you see.
I'm also defined by all the things you will never see.
We all are. And...
I see that now.
♪
♪ music intensifies ♪
Click.
[audience gasps, murmurs]
♪ upbeat music playing ♪
♪
WOMAN: [laughing] Holy fucking shit.
♪
MAN: We're on the corner of 25th and 7th.
There's a golden brick here.
We're taking it.
♪
WOMAN: Okay, this is the craziest thing in my life.
[laughing]
The brick is right here.
♪
MAN: Can you take a photo of us?
♪