You're about to experience some incredible hurricane comedy, recorded right after the aftermath of Hurricane Helen, or Helena, or whatever, and Milton, back to back in Florida. Like, back to back, you know, Dallas Cowboys, except for hurricanes. We got the worst hit ever in Florida, and I'm gonna see if I can make some jokes about it. I'm Jerry Banfield, full-time YouTuber, and I set the intention: let's see if I can make anything funny. So today's topic is hurricanes. Oh God, he already hasn't made me laugh yet, and it's been 30 seconds. This is hopeless.
The naked neighborhood
I was looking outside at all the furniture. You know, normally people's houses are really private. You don't usually get to see what's inside someone's house, like the kind of couch they have, the bed they have. And walking my dogs in the neighborhood after people's houses flooded for the first time ever — my house got three inches of water; it's never flooded any other time since 1950-something, when it was built, so we tossed out both our couches, all the rugs — and normally I wouldn't see my neighbor's couches and rugs and beds. God, when is he gonna get to the funny part? Ha ha ha ha ha.
It's so intimate. Like, normally we walk around with clothes on and you don't get to see everybody's, what's under their clothes, you know? I'm imagining what's under somebody's clothes now. And right now I feel like neighborhoods are just, like, all this junk out, all these intimate parts of people's lives and homes just dumped out on the street. It's as if, if the houses were people, it's like if everybody just got their clothes wet and just took them out of the house and threw them on the ground, and everybody's, like, walking around naked, disgusted and traumatized, like, I can't believe my clothes got wet. No, it's really funny, Jerry, for all these people who've lost everything. It's so tragic.
It's not like clothes, it's not — I mean, you look at some of the stuff people have thrown out. It's like, really, your upright piano? Your upright piano was damaged by flood? Maybe if it got like three feet, okay. You see some stuff like this thrown out, like a clock. Why? You had a clock? I would imagine that was on the wall. How did your clock get damaged during the flooding? You get the feeling that some people are just using this as an excuse, like, I'm gonna just throw my whole house out right now, we'll just put that on the contents damage.
Screw those stuffed animals
You see some sad stuff too, like there's kids' toys that looked precious and loved. My son had this rainbow dinosaur that was on the ground when the floodwaters came in, and because it was 1:30 in the morning, I didn't take the time to pick it up off the floor and get it away from the floodwaters. I looked over and I thought, screw those stuffed animals. The next morning I showed my son the dinosaur that had got hit with the nasty flood water. The flood water has all kinds of stuff in it, like oil, gas, sewage, all the nasties. Oh, does it have this comedy routine in it? Does it have this comedy routine in it, Jerry? Because that's nasty.
I've now spent almost four minutes sitting here trying to laugh with my pants off and my stuff out in front of the yard. All right, buddy, just a second.
You're only crazy if you interrupt yourself
Some people say, well, you're not crazy if you talk to yourself, but if you interrupt yourself, then you're really crazy. I don't agree. Like, why can't I interrupt myself if I can talk to myself? I grew up in a house where we interrupted and talked over each other. I don't think I'm crazy just because I interrupt myself. Oh, you are, Jerry. Are you ever. You only told them what you were really thinking about.
Well, we got some great comedy routines coming. I'm setting the intention that — oh, setting the intention, that sounds so enlightened — I'm just recording some comedy because I feel like it every day, to see how good I can get at stand-up comedy. You make me laugh. Yeah, that's gonna help you. If you practice every day, you're not gonna get good, buddy.
Walking the dark neighborhood
I love walking around my neighborhood when things are unusual. Unusual, not your regular neighborhood. Let me touch you — you're gonna feel something unusual. Oh God, does this get any better? That's what she said.
So I was walking around, the power was all out the other night in my neighborhood. When's the comedy gonna start? I was out in my neighborhood and the power is out, it looked like a third world country. Jerry, that's insulting for third world countries. I mean, who even knows what a third world country is? It's a way of saying somewhere that looks like a rough neighborhood. Also insulting. It looked crazy. I'm walking around and there's all this furniture, all these naked homes with their insides right there on the outside, so we can see them, and — oh, you wish those were boobs, don't you, Jerry? Yeah, I'd rather do the scenario where everybody just takes their clothes off and throws it down, because seeing everybody's houses turned inside out just leaves me feeling kind of crazy. I don't know if it's awkward, but I guess if everybody just took their clothes off all of a sudden and threw their clothes on the ground, it'd kind of be awkward too, because I at least do feel comfortable staring. I mean, I'll stare at people's crap piles, I'll stop there. Oh, of course you stare at people's crap piles, Jerry. How long you been doing that?
I'm the next Nate Bargatze. That's not how you say it. Whatever, he's got enough listeners on Spotify, it doesn't matter if I pronounce it correctly. So I'll sit there and park my dogs in front of a pile of junk and just look at it, like, really, this painting? Why did this painting get flooded? Was this painting like laying on the floor? You already did that routine, Jerry, the clock, you already did that with the clock, man. But still, I'm like, why is a painting in this junk pile? Was the painting laying on the floor when it got flooded? I picture people, like, just seeing their houses flooded and having a tantrum and throwing everything on the floor, just walking in and grabbing the toaster and throwing it on the floor, and pushing over, ripping stuff off the walls and just throwing it on the floor and being like, look, it's all ruined, you know? There's one painting left on the wall that's like, ha ha, I made it, I made it, and the person walks over and just rips it off the wall — it's like, screw you, you're dying too, killing you off with all this other stuff, you're dead to me. Painting's laying in there drowning, it's like, I didn't deserve this, why me, why me, if I was in Jerry's house I'd still be alive. Oh my God, this has gotten really demented.
I made them disappear
So I was walking around the other night and it was all dark outside and you could see the stars and it was so beautiful, and I was thinking, like, Home Alone, I was looking around. And I'm big into manifesting, you know, like I'm the creator of my reality, that I make everything happen, and I'm looking around and I'm like, I made them disappear. I'm like, yes, so nice, just peaceful, walking without all these aggravated, fearful people buzzing around me. But then I've been happy to see people come back. I don't understand that. Maybe I do, because I'm God. Oh, we're gonna stick you on the cross if you think you're God, Jerry. That's not funny. Where did you even come up with that?
Oh, he hasn't done his Indian accent yet. It is offensive, but it is funny also. Oh God, not that one. I used to hate it when Eminem did some accents in his music, which I don't listen to anymore because, wow, that's rough.
Mandatory evacuation: how exciting
It's like sticking your head right in the — not the eye of the hurricane, but, like, all around the sides. I enjoyed it. They tell me to evacuate and they're like, mandatory evacuation, get out or you're gonna die. Am I the only one that sees those messages and I'm like, nice? It's like, it's gonna be a fun couple of days. Am I the only one that's like, how exciting? The wind is gonna blow harder than usual. I'll tell you what blows harder than usual, Jerry. What is it, what is it, my mom or this comedy? You wish your mom blew harder than usual.
I just try and see how hard I can make myself laugh, because the truth is, I'm just standing in my office by myself. I hit record on a video, took two minutes — two minutes is generous — all right, it took maybe a minute, and I'm like, oh my God, I'm gonna throw up this hurricane picture off a Canva and slap some text on it, and I'm just literally talking to myself in my studio.
So you're wondering, well, how did you get the idea to do these comedy routines in your studio by yourself without a live audience? Well, you see, I evacuated for the hurricane too. Oh, I thought you didn't evacuate. It's all fun and exciting, like, okay, I thought it might be nice. They're like, it might flood and you could die, and I'm like, it'd be stupid if I died, and I'm like, oh, died up in the attic by myself trying to punch through the roof, and I couldn't make it through the roof and I just drowned in the attic, and that was my obituary. It was like, this: Jerry drowned after not listening to 68 text message alerts that said get out you're going to die, and then he died in his attic.
If you want the straight, non-comedy version of those same days, I wrote up evacuating for Hurricane Milton and what I came home to in the day after Hurricane Milton.
A one-hour set in my own sheets
So I thought I could easily go to a friend's house who offered their home. It was really intimate being in somebody's home. Like, how does somebody trust me this much? And, well, my daughter did stay at their house, because this is my daughter's best friend, so, okay, I guess my daughter stayed here. You let your kid stay somewhere, that's really trusting. You know, it's probably not as intimate to let somebody stay at your house when you've already let them watch your kid overnight.
So I'm laying in bed — where is this going? Oh my God — I'm laying there and I woke up at like three in the morning during Hurricane Milton, the wind had stopped blowing, and for some reason I hadn't filmed a video in like 18 hours, so I had these creative juices flowing. Actually, I had done a 10-minute livestream, so maybe it'd been less than 12 hours. But I'd been thinking about doing comedy, I'd been listening to all this stand-up comedy, and — oh, don't tell them this, Jerry, they're never gonna watch again, ha ha ha — I proceeded to perform a one-hour stand-up comedy routine by myself, in bed, in my daughter's best friend's parents' bed, with my own sheets on it.
I don't know who does this, but I just thought, I'm gonna stay at somebody else's house, I should pack my own sheets. Like, I'll take the clean sheets out of my closet, because they evacuated, they probably didn't plan on having somebody sleep in their bed, so I took my sheets, I took their sheets off, put my sheets on, and I'm in my sheets in their bed, and from three to four in the morning I did a one-hour stand-up comedy routine. And the material was so raw and crazy. I was looking around, I'm like, I don't know, man, if I'm so used to filming YouTube videos, the community guidelines are so stuck in my head that even by myself, doing a comedy routine in the middle of the night during a hurricane, I'm like, can I say that? Can I say that? Like, that's so crazy. Oh yeah, Jerry, it's so crazy. I bet you're really wild at three in the morning. You're sober, you're a parent. Oh, you're so wild now.
And I thought, you know, if I just love doing this this much, to talk to myself out loud for an hour, and I laughed so much, I was cracking the craziest jokes — I'm like, you know what, I guess this would be fun to do at home too, wouldn't it? This would be fun, to just turn the mic on and do a little bit of comedy, see what squirts out. Oh God — see what comes blasting out of my mouth. That 3am set in somebody else's bed is the whole reason I decided to turn my life into a comedy diary.
Maybe it's too soon
So this turned into a little bit of hurricane comedy today. Maybe it's too soon for some of my neighbors. I'm like, how do you have this much stuff? There's junk piles that are almost as big as their house, they've torn out the entire inside of the house. And maybe it's too soon for them, so I hope they don't watch this until it's not too soon — or if it is too soon, whatever. Oh God, please stop recording, I haven't died yet laughing, please cut it off. That's not what he said.
My first comedy album
So if you enjoyed this, I recorded it live, and I'm going to drop it on Spotify and the music platforms as my first comedy album. Oh yeah, that's not gonna sell, is it? Well, good thing you can just listen to it without paying for it. Oh yeah, because you're not even gonna be able to get people to listen to this for free, are you? Suck it, critic self. People are gonna listen to this and they're gonna laugh and they're gonna put dead emojis, they're gonna go and open up a chat and text me dead emojis because they laughed so hard. Suck it, critical self. Oh yeah, you would like me to suck it, wouldn't you?
If you enjoyed this, you can watch my newest videos in my Life playlist, and if you want to send me those dead emojis in person, come hang out with me in the Jerry Banfield Family.
The darkest thoughts in laughing yoga
Is he laughing for real? Is he laughing for real, or is this like one of those — I did a laughing yoga before. Oh, please stop it before it gets to 20 minutes, that's too long. That's never what she said.
I did a laughing yoga before, it's one of the weirdest things I've done in my life. So you just make yourself laugh? Dude, I had the darkest thoughts when you try and force yourself to laugh. Because, you know — oh, my mic, I need to turn the noise suppression off, it's censoring my laughter. Oh, thank God somebody's censoring something on here. It's censoring some of my laughter. But oh my God, I did this laughing yoga, and you can just make yourself laugh for about 10 minutes, but the last 50 minutes I needed to reach deep into the darkness of my soul to pull laughter out. By the end of this I was getting the darkest thoughts in my mind. It was just me and one other girl, the yoga instructor — because who wants to go do a laughing yoga? — and we're staring into each other's eyes as we're laughing. And I'm having the darkest thoughts. I'm like, what if the roof just fell and smashed us apart right now? And I'm having just one thought like that after another. It's like, what if we just started punching each other in the face right now? Oh, look, he's laughing at it right now, isn't he? So maybe — I don't think this is like that, but I think I'm going to stop now.