A NETFLIX COMEDY SPECIAL
Turn it on.
We have to do this. This is a municipality thing. Rule.
Whatever is on the poster... Otherwise people complain about it.
To avoid "It's on the poster, he went on with a T-shirt" complaints.
Look, I did the whole thing. I didn't skip it because of the pandemic.
Welcome.
Just because I've never had a big stage costume,
I wanted to do something like this with a cape, you know?
It's cool, isn't it?
Right? Because you don't use the cape in daily life.
Actually, I'm personally very sorry that it's outdated.
Look at this. Imagine yourself in this in Zincirlikuyu. Right?
I mean, who can cut in front of you in line for the metrobus, you know?
Who can ask for your HES code? Look at this.
You, standing there like the Duke of Bağcılar.
Cool, isn't it? I'm leaving my cape here.
Just to clarify, you know,
it's not like I'm passing the torch here.
I never had a beautiful costume. I started this tour in London first.
I wanted to take my cape and baton for the tour.
They didn't allow this on the plane, dude.
They said, "You can't bring that into the plane."
As if I was trying to shove it into the plane.
"You can't bring it into the plane."
They asked, "What are you going to do with that in England?"
I mean, it's clear that it's a baton, right?
I don't know what comes to your mind, but...
I'd get the concern if this came in a set with some lotion.
Can't take this on the plane, can't take that on the plane...
I swear, I'm tired of it.
Do you know why our show is called "Diamond Elite Platinum Plus"?
I went to a faculty of theology in Bursa for a talk.
Someone said on social media,
"Cem, beware, this is theology!"
God. As if the Vatican sent me to Bursa.
With incense in my hand.
"Green Bursa will be ours."
What's gonna happen in the faculty of theology? God created me, too.
I was chatting with the young students. One asked,
"Why is your show called 'Diamond Elite Platinum Plus'?"
I said, "Dude, it represents you, it's not about me."
"You're the diamond, you're the elite, you're the platinum."
"You don't deserve regular treatment. You deserve much better, that's why."
"What will you talk about?" he asked. I said, "What I know."
I said, "I've seen that many people have benefited from the things I talk about,
so I'll continue doing that." I hadn't been on stage for some time.
I saw you make your own comedy, you're creative.
Like your TikTok videos, Instagram videos...
Your jokes while driving a car... Like this, like that...
You made jokes with a teapot when I wasn't around.
Didn't you? "Alala mamama, fuck your grandma..."
But I kept my patience...
I decided to do a show before Ata Demirer makes another Aegean movie.
You know, he has those movies with a clarinet. "Fuck, what is happening, yo?"
I said, no more.
Time for me to talk now.
But nobody owns the rights to make comedy. Of course you'd make your own.
Not only that, to me... I'm someone...
I tell the jokes that make me laugh... Seems like my rivals were closer to me.
The enemy is within.
I brought my son to one of my shows so he could see what I do.
He keeps getting diamonds for his iPad games, tap, tap, tap.
I wanted him to see his poor old man getting 100 liras, one by one.
This is how we get our diamonds.
It's very laborious for a celebrity to have a kid, you know?
With your kids, you guys are freer. You're on each other's Instagram accounts.
People write nice comments. Send "Namaste" and heart emojis. "Such an angel!"
If we uploaded a video of our kid dancing,
they'd comment, "The kid must be a moron."
And it doesn't matter if the kid has the accumulated IQ of his whole family.
I'm not looking for a diamond in the rough, but he's a brilliant kid.
He says really smart things.
Young people ask me, "Cem, sir, should we have kids?"
If you have a tablet, go for it. You have an iPad, do it.
If not, don't even think about it.
Honestly.
Experts complain, "Oh, they give the child a tablet right away."
I dare you not to!
What happened with the pandemic? Everything's on...
Can you take the tablet away from the kid?
All his school life would end.
As far as the experts are concerned,
whatever is trending, keep your kid away from it.
When I was a kid, they used to say, "Don't let them watch too much TV."
Dude, they would turn the TV on at 7:00 p.m.
There was only one channel. With my brother,
we would play in front of the turned-off TV,
to see our reflection on it and have fun.
Poor us. The '70s kids.
With starch, cracked wheat and tarhana soup, that's all we could do.
We achieved all of this just on potatoes. Our generation is the real deal.
They say, "Oh, the new generation..."
"They are so smart."
Dude, if you gave me that much folic acid...
Folic, folic, folic, folic... "Did you get your folic?"
"Take your iron. Take your folic acid."
The baby gets all that folic...
When he gets out, he asks, "What's the iPad's passcode?"
Yeah...
I even saw a kid who was registered for school
as he came out of the delivery room.
Comes out, all wet...
"I want to attend Robert College."
The generation before ours, poor things, thought there were people in the radio.
Fucking idiots!
What were you fed? "We thought there was a man inside the radio."
Twisted generation.
New generation is so smart... For their own parents.
We have a saying: "You can't pay your debt to your parents."
Yeah, but it can be calculated, bastard.
Honesty is important.
Our elders who raised us, our role models,
that's the way they were. My dad, my mom, really...
I can give examples of men.
My maternal uncle, my uncle-in-law,
they were important figures. We learned a lot. My uncle,
he's one of the most important alcoholics.
You know who my uncle is? My uncle... You know AMATEM?
Addiction treatment center. My uncle graduated from it twice.
My uncle is the big boss at the end of the game in AMATEM.
You need to defeat heroin to fight my uncle.
He hasn't been drinking for 15, 16 years.
He was an important alcoholic.
And his tragedy saved our lives.
My dear uncle, during the '60s, '70s, '80s, '90s and early 2000s,
because he was drinking all this time, neither me or my brother nor my cousins
ever had anything to do with alcoholism.
Because my uncle would drink everything.
He drank it all, so we had nothing to drink.
His drinking was off the charts.
Unbelievable.
Nobody could compete with the amount he was drinking.
In '87, he had a car accident.
In Yedikule, his car rolls over five times.
My uncle flies through the windshield.
He is on the road like this, 300 meters away from his car.
Lying on the ground like this.
For half an hour.
Half an hour later, this happens.
He sees a car crash ahead.
Decides to go help them.
He asks the police officer what's going on.
Buttoning his jacket and all.
The policeman says, "There's been a huge crash, but we can't find the driver."
My uncle says, "Humanity is not dead," so he starts looking for the driver too.
Really.
He is a very important man.
He hasn't been drinking for 16 years. My advice to young people is,
it really is not something I'd recommend. For example, me, I don't drink much.
I drink. But I drink responsibly.
Sometimes, just because I have Instagram photos or videos drinking rakı,
people go, "You godless..."
Man, I drink normally.
That's all I drink. Don't get shocked to see me drinking on Instagram...
"He posted rakı on Instagram." Yes.
Because normally, I drink, that's why.
Should I have done this instead,
shown hot dipping sauce, icy almonds, melon, ice,
but no rakı?
Just like, "Allah doesn't follow me on Instagram anyway."
"He sent a request, but I didn't respond." Like that?
How shameful. If I drink, I drink.
If I burn in hell, so be it. What can I do?
But of course, it's not something I'd recommend.
The answer to what I really talk about is this.
My show is about eliminating the things that drain the happiness out of our lives.
Seriously.
Look, we have serious problems with having fun.
It's the same all around the world,
but our people have extra issues with having fun.
There's a thing called genetic poverty.
Like "poverty of happiness."
I'm included in this group, too, but...
if we can remove these from our lives...
For example, that's the "plus" I'm talking about on the poster.
Pay attention to the man who says this while laughing:
"We're having so much fun. Wish we had seen this before."
Listen to that.
"Oh, very funny. Really."
"Isn't it?"
"Better record it, so I can laugh again later."
These are key indicators.
A moment... You know, people have learned this during the pandemic,
"I've learned to live in the moment."
Fuck off! We know nothing about the moment.
"Moment" was important in the 1970s or '60s.
There's no such thing as a moment now.
It's in our photos.
Look at the birthday photos of my generation.
A single frame. Cake and friends.
Our vacations, a single frame.
Ephesus ruins and us.
Living in the moment was then.
Now, at a kid's birthday, at a special occasion...
Man, there's a button called "burst" on the camera.
Just as they're about to slice the cake...
Two hundred and seventy-eight shots of this.
Which one is "the moment"?
None.
Bro, how long does it take to get to the islands from here?
The Princes' Islands. Heybeli, Büyükada...
An hour? By swimming?
Do you live on the Anatolian side? Okay. It'll take 30 or 45 mins, right?
Are there any Islanders here?
How beautiful that would be. You go from here and you get fresh air.
I was born and raised in Istanbul.
The islands are where we go to get fresh air.
When you go there, "Oh, nice."
"I can smell the linden." And then there's this.
Is it nine carbon, six hydrogen, or six carbon, nine hydrogen?
Do you know what I mean? Horse shit.
That smell is so strange. It comes from the horse-drawn carriages.
The smell gives you the desire to buy a house on the island.
Because it takes you back to the nomadic times.
Yes, and you say, "I must get a house here."
But when the smell goes away, you say, "What the hell would I do in Burgaz?"
Now they changed the carriages.
The horses were treated cruelly. Poor things. I was upset by that.
There are horse-drawn carriages all around the world.
I saw carriages in Switzerland too, but you should see the horse.
You'd think the coachman was working for the horse.
The horse was like this. "Did we take care of your health coverage?"
"Eat now, then we'll go on."
In New York, in Central Park, et cetera.
None here.
I went to the islands recently.
Three or four years ago.
Man, you'd go to the island, get a little fresh air. Beautiful.
There'd be genetically poor in the group, I mean someone unhappy...
They'd start mumbling
and manipulating you, but with positive comments at first.
Like this: "I'm glad we came here."
Pay attention to this remark. This is how it all starts.
"I'm glad we came here. This island is like paradise."
"I wish we'd come here before."
"Nuran, we're here now. Let's enjoy it."
"No, we never come. We are missing out in Istanbul."
"Nuran, here we are."
"No, bro, we're fucking lost causes."
"Look, the island is so close." "But we never come."
Dude, that two or three hours of joyous time...
Nagging the whole time...
"No, we're missing out, really..."
For example, a nice walk on the beach... "We never walk, bro. Really."
"Man, we're walking!"
"No, bro, no. We never walk."
No matter how often, you'd still go to the island.
That makes it joyous.
"We must come, bro. We must do it..."
Like a Sunday barbeque. It's always like this.
"We never do this. Really, we never do this, man."
"But we're doing it right now, Sadettin. We are eating now."
"No, brother, no. Really.
"Look. So good."
"Damn it."
"We never do this!"
Always postponing, putting things off.
Complaining about the past.
I have a summer house in Bodrum, if I do say so.
A humble place. Come visit me someday.
But in Bodrum. I don't have a stone house in Alaçatı.
I'm not that wealthy.
And I'm not that stupid either.
They always sell stone houses in Çeşme.
They show off, saying their house was a church in old times.
"Oh, we bought a stone house in Alaçatı. It used to be a church."
So what?
As if they have visitors from the Vatican.
"Oh, we bought a house, and there is a small chapel inside it."
"Really."
"And we live in a gated community. It used to be a church."
"We forgot to pay the monthly fee, so they crucified my husband."
I mean...
Leave me the fuck alone!
I have a summer house in Bodrum.
I'm in my pool. We're in the water with a friend, this deep.
We have champagne flutes in our hands. Next to each other, two men.
You know what he says?
"Dude," he says, "if we had the chance..."
I mean, are we gonna stick these up our asses if we had the chance?
When will we ever live in the moment?
With all negatives and positives, even from the smallest one
to the most significant one, there's always that safety valve,
always hitting the brakes.
A sense that things should've happened before or must happen all the time.
Utter nonsense.
Wants to live in the moment, my ass. We need to get rid of this attitude.
And when you pry into this, you always get in trouble.
My son had this thing at school... What do you call it?
A play.
They were taught a few things. He was in first grade.
They learned a little English.
They wanted the parents to see it.
So we went.
But, you know, his mother and I went separately.
And that's where I learned that we were the only divorced parents in the world.
Since the Sumerians, the first to divorce...
Because the other parents were like this,
"They're divorced."
"Divorced. Divorced."
So what?
Pitying the kid... "Poor kid. Divorced."
What are you upset about? The kid has two iPads.
Pity yourself.
There are no more kids to feel sorry for but Prince Kemal.
All those blondes with an inch of their roots showing,
the parents that study more than their kids, they were all there.
You know those women, getting excited and all.
"We counted apples today."
Lady, you graduated long ago, fuck off. It's the kids' turn.
Anyway, we went to the play.
I swear, I didn't even touch my phone to record my kid there.
Because the play was like this.
They form a line. They had the poor kids memorize a few lines. Pictures in hands.
One has a picture of sushi. "I am Sushi."
"My name is Sushi, I am from Tokyo," for example.
Or Japan, something like that.
"I am from Italy, my name is Spaghetti," they say.
They were all assigned a food name and a picture.
That's all they say, "I am from..." That's the play.
Man, I saw a family that brought a tripod there. A tripod and a camera.
Mother was there, father was there, they even brought the grandmother.
Grandma had such a perm...
She looked like a Tesla coil.
She looked as if she was given the perms of all the ladies
in the Republican Party's Women's Branches in Istanbul.
Like this.
If you accidentally take your credit card out,
her hair would magnetically pull it like that.
Anyway, my son walked on stage.
"I am from America..." He was assigned the hamburger.
"I am from America, my name is Hamburger..." and so.
Then he was like "Hi, Dad!"
This Tesla coil turned to me and said,
"Cem, sir, he's just like you."
Just like me?
Dude, I have 15 movies.
I've been on tour all around Anatolia, Europe, America...
I've been on stage 5,000 times.
Is that the same?
I said, "Tesla, you waste less,
but you talk too much."
God helped me. Their kid walked on the stage and said,
"I'm from Italy, my name is Sgabetti." Fucked it up.
It's on tape.
Can you believe it?
Wants to live in the moment...
In one of their gigs,
my brother tells a joke about my uncle.
A smartass among the audience says,
"Cem has already told the story of your uncle's alcoholism."
And my brother says, "He's my uncle too."
Fuck...
Why would you even bother trying this over the age of 50?
"My uncle too."
Forget about your uncle.
Talking about himself would be 1,000 times funnier.
I'd be pale in comparison, but not everyone has that personality.
I would talk about my stupidity, he wouldn't.
But I can tell one of his stories now.
Guys... My brother's kids are adults now.
Fifteen years ago, he wanted to film his younger daughter's school play.
Okay? My God!
I mean...
The kid was doing all sorts of different performances.
Sings a pop song, then an anthem, folk dancing...
Doing this, playing that...
The play was one and a half hours long.
And my brother recorded it as a parent. The whole play.
Then they go home, watch the video. There's another kid.
My brother shot the wrong kid.
His kid says, "Dad, this is not me!"
And he says, "She was good, what can I do?"
So he is fair like this.
Crazy, he's really crazy.
Really crazy.
Living in the moment was possible when I was a kid.
I'm a '70s kid.
But back then I was... People always say this in a nostalgic way.
Since the Sumerians... "Our generation was crazy!"
"We were crazy in high school."
I'm sure.
Every generation has their own thing, but there's also the spirit of the time.
For example, I was known as a rogue, a whip-smart man,
but I was a very romantic kid. I was never rude to my elders.
I was never a smartass.
"Alala mamama, fuck your grandma..."
"My grandma boils molasses..."
No such things.
I didn't have those skills when I was a kid.
I was just a little bit of a womanizer.
And it only lasted until last week.
I'm cutting down on it.
Cutting it down.
When I was five, I proposed to the 20-year-old neighbor girl.
Why would you propose? You're only five.
Sit on her lap, play with her boobs. That's it.
Why would you take yourself that seriously?
That's the '70s spirit. I was institutional.
I shall get married, or engaged. Turkish movie style.
I had a suit I had worn for my circumcision ceremony.
I turned it into a groom's suit.
Because it was a dark blue velvet suit with a ruffled shirt.
Shoes like my father's.
Take the mashallah band off,
and the prince hat, that feathery thing. You're Erol Evgin. That's it.
I got a ring from my mom. Rang their doorbell.
And said, "I'm here to get engaged." But the reason is this...
Try to recall those days.
I'm talking to ladies my age. I don't know if they still do this.
They call the younger boys, "My fiancé, my boyfriend, my lover."
Girls, don't do that.
It's not forgotten.
Look, this is a story from 44 years ago. Can you believe it?
So, I took it seriously. All I lacked was the Turkish delight.
I had the ring, a bowtie...
And her parents were like, "Welcome, son."
I walked in, sat on the couch, my feet wouldn't even touch the floor.
They gave me crackers and tea.
I was dunking my crackers in the tea.
"Do you love my daughter?"
"I do."
Good God!
For a second, I thought, "Is it okay to move out before school?"
I got scared that I was about to get married.
So I made up an excuse. I'll never forget it.
The TV was on.
And my favorite cartoon started, Sinbad.
I said, "Sinbad is on, I gotta go," and fled.
That was my first time running away from marriage.
Dude, think about it, my kid would be 44 years old now.
What confidence!
So, being a womanizer is tough when you're a kid.
Our downstairs neighbors were a newlywed couple.
The man worked all day, so the new bride was alone at home.
And their apartment was known as "the new bride's place" in the neighborhood.
And the girl was gazing out of the window. We lived in Samatya then.
Looking out the window.
And I was five. I wondered, "Is there anything she needs?"
She's bored at home all day, her husband isn't there.
And I used to think I was a small man then.
Drawing on a mustache with a pen.
I'm saying this as if it's a normal thing, forgive me.
Uckers, board games... I had games brought from Germany.
I tucked them under my arm, knocked on her door and said,
"If you're bored, we can play Uckers together."
"I'd love to," she said.
I started going there every day. Every day.
I was thinking like, "That husband, he doesn't deserve you."
"But I do."
We'd put the games on the floor.
You know those board games. You roll the dice, you're green, she's red.
You have a team, you advance, you know.
We look into each other's eyes... She's 21, 22. I'm five. Like this.
"You're either mine or you're dead."
We play, look into each other's eyes.
"Six, your turn." "Four."
At a moment of absolute silence, this happened.
"Now, it's your turn. Play."
"Two."
She farted, man!
Most people think, because I was a kid, I farted. No.
She farted. I was heartbroken.
Such a clear gesture that she didn't take me seriously...
Okay, I may be a kid, but did you have to fart?
I didn't ask you to get divorced and marry me instead.
But we were playing Uckers. That's a serious thing.
I had just rolled a six. I was about to win.
You know...
"Your turn," she said. I said, "I'm never coming back."
Maybe due to that trauma, I'm still single.
So weird. If she had sneezed, I'd have said, "Bless you!"
If she had yawned, I'd have said, "Let's go to bed."
Man, one in three bodily functions
turned the situation into such a story.
Farting is such a weird thing.
You wouldn't know because you don't fart.
It's only done by people like us.
What a weird thing.
In my youth, people said, "In Germany, farting in public is allowed."
As if it's such a big, weird social finding.
"Farting is allowed in Germany."
So? "That's why they have an advanced automotive industry."
And anyway, farting in public is not acceptable in Germany.
In many societies, farting is considered weird.
But have you ever wondered why?
Why it's shameful or why it's funny?
Whenever a comedian talks about farting, people say right away,
"Whoever laughs at fart jokes doesn't have a fart's worth of brains."
What is this? A scientific finding?
It's like, "The world is run by four families."
"Where are you going?" "To the coffee shop."
Does reality change when you say, "Whoever laughs at fart jokes
doesn't have a fart's worth of brains"?
Why is farting shameful?
Why?
Let me explain it scientifically. In times of hunting and foraging,
women and kids hide in caves because they are vulnerable, right?
And men go hunting, as a group.
An animal is gonna be caught for the first time. They'll finally have meat.
"Gentlemen!"
They don't want the farter to join them again.
These are scientific facts.
I too could get my clarinet, talk like an Aegean and go,
"What the fuck is it?"
Just because farting ruined the first hunt, it's now shameful.
Go, look it up. You draw the bow...
Once, twice, three times... Then they shunned the farters.
In time, it came to this.
Scientific.
Either believe it
or make fun of it.
You, seven and a half months... Still going, right?
His wish hasn't come true.
I hope you deliver it nicely.
I hope it is better than the first one.
An elaborative work.
But I'm sure these things I say have enlightened some people.
That's all I want. Enlightening.
One time, I was going home from the movie set.
I started getting several emails from Apple.
Like, "Thank you. We are happy for your cooperation."
They were constantly charging me 49.90 liras.
I got annoyed. "Thanks, you got Bunny a hat for 149.90."
Bunny's jacket, Bunny's glasses...
My son, at home... There was a character in his game.
He was constantly downloading diamonds.
And my wallet kept getting lighter.
A hat for 49.90, glasses for 149.90...
I hadn't even bought a winter coat for myself. Bunny got everything.
In the background, Bunny was fucking us over.
I got so annoyed.
Like I said, our generation was more innocent.
When we were given one lira,
we'd get chocolate with half of it, and ice cream with the other.
"I should save half of it." "I saved, and turned it into five liras."
We used to feel it, it was a physical thing.
Now that it's virtual, he taps and taps...
Having a kid is like downloading a free app. It's free to make the baby.
But there are "in-app purchases." The purchases are done later.
But downloading is free.
Ask these two.
Man, in 20 minutes, I lost 6,000 liras. I got really upset.
I mean really... I don't collect the money from the trees.
It's not like, "I have shitloads of money. Make it rain." That's ridiculous.
And I don't want my kid to be senseless.
I decided to punish him when I got home but until then, Bunny kept screwing me.
So...
I got home.
The guilty one is right in front of me, still tapping.
I walked in angrily, took the iPad from him.
I said, "Get your shit together, I'm not Acun!"
He should know that.
Well, Acun is broke now, but still.
He's been wearing flip-flops lately. Haven't you noticed?
Says it's his style. "I was in the Dominican, that's why."
You have no money, don't lie.
But Acun is fine. He is immortal, that's true.
I swear to you. Nothing bad happens to him.
He's a great persuader. And I'm a so-called clever man.
I don't have a devilish mind. Pure mind.
He persuades a man like me... He's great at it. He even roped me in.
I collected donations for Ali Koç live on TV.
Me. I don't even have a pot to piss in.
We were saying, "Don't worry, Ali."
He's a big-time manipulator.
But he ran out of money.
A man has three wishes. Have you ever been divorced?
Oh, good.
Three wishes. I believe Acun has made all three come true.
That's right. That's what I call a divorce.
God, nothing can destroy him.
Right now, God forbid, may we all live long lives,
but if I died now, I'd be called and questioned,
all those rakı photos on Instagram, I'd confess to it all.
You laughed at it... "But, God, you know it."
I'd say, "I did it because you told me to."
Because He created us. I'm not a byproduct.
But Acun could convince even Him, I'm sure.
"God, let us split in two groups..."
"Sinners and volunteers. What do you say?"
Listen.
If he doesn't make you send voting texts from here, I'll change my name.
"Type 'Sübhaneke, ' then add a space
for the sake of your lost ones."
I'm telling you, honestly. He's untouchable.
He'd even make you watch the recap clips on weekends.
"Souls that fell off the stairs to heaven are leaving the island."
Wouldn't he? He would.
But he doesn't have money now. Nusret does.
Nusret... Is there Nusr-Et in Japan?
It's in civilized places. In Arabic countries and in America.
Not in Europe. No way.
I can't imagine a shop where a cow is fingered
opening up in Stockholm.
God forgive them.
I wonder what happened between that kid and the cow.
This is the era of showbiz. Everyone has gone crazy.
There are no more small eateries, after seeing these...
And then there's the one that chops himself...
Nobody is normal anymore.
I can't find a normal place to eat chickpeas and pilaf in my neighborhood.
You ask for it, they bring a fire extinguisher first.
They write your name on pita.
With black sesame seeds.
They write "CMYLMZ Fundamentals," and you hold it up like this.
What the heck is this?
You want mussels,
"Stand across the road, our chef will toss it into your mouth."
What happened to not joking around with your food?
And there's this one with a mustache. "What shall we eat today?" Shit!
What?
You know, digested pilaf.
How ridiculous.
Wasn't it like this in the old times? I sound like a nostalgic old-timer.
We had a saying, "You shall not joke around with your food."
Nothing religious, a folkloric thing, but still.
Wouldn't step on a crumb. Pick up the bread like this.
You'd place the bread up somewhere high.
Slapping the cow... Why would you stick your finger in a dead lamb's ass?
Dips it in gold in the end. He's gonna suffer in the afterlife, I'm telling you.
He's gonna have a hard time.
That Nusret. And he can express himself well there.
"Cappuccino," you know.
They have it in America. I didn't go there.
Right, there was one in Miami.
I had a gig in Miami. I can't go everywhere, like Nevşehir.
I was about to take to the stage in Miami.
I checked the audience from behind the curtain.
Who was there? Who? What? I'm a curious person.
Not like, "Has everyone taken their seats? Then I'm coming."
I'm not like that.
A group of people had gathered around someone in the front row.
They were taking selfies, getting photos together.
I have lots of stories about having photos taken,
so I wondered if they were preparing a prank.
People sometimes make this joke,
"Sir, you get angry, but can we have a photo?"
For years... Why would I get angry?
Because of those old stand-ups, I keep hearing this now.
"You get angry, but..."
That actually means, "You get angry, but we don't give a fuck."
It means that.
I don't get angry at having photos taken,
I get angry when they fail to take a photo.
It can't be taken. Unbelievable. You wouldn't believe the things I see.
And they ask me... They take the photo, and then,
"Can İsmail join us?"
I don't know.
Am I supposed to know that? You look at İsmail from afar.
He's like, "No, no."
İsmail plays hard-to-get.
You say, "Come, İsmail."
"I won't. I won't." And you try to convince İsmail.
I had a recent one. Ass-to-ass. She pushed me, he pushed her...
"Let's get all five." "Let's squeeze Burcu in, Hasan in..."
In the end, I wasn't in the photo.
I didn't say anything.
And girls have these weird filters. They take a photo with you.
And they have their own filters. They end up looking like dolls.
They take it. And I become Murat Boz.
That's not me!
I'm not exaggerating.
I said it before, they even took one in a sauna. But there's been worse.
I attended some events at Adana Film Festival.
We had kebab at a restaurant. I went to the restroom.
I was peeing at the urinal in the restaurant's restroom.
A man walked in. "You have nowhere to run now," he said.
Why would I run away?
And he says, "You take it."
I said, "Okay, you hold this, I'll take it."
So... What can I say?
Anyway, everyone was taking pictures with a man in the front row.
I was wondering if that was a joke. No, it wasn't. Then I wondered who he was.
Anyway, the bell rang, people took their seats.
Then I saw him, a familiar face.
Rahmi Koç.
From my entourage.
Rahmi Koç is one of the most important business people of our country.
"Wow," I said, "Sir, what are you doing here?"
"What brought you here to Miami, sir?"
And he jokingly said, "Dearest Cem, we came here to see you."
I said, "Rahmi, drop the act."
You couldn't find a ticket to Maslak, "M for Miami, okay."
I asked, "Seriously, sir, what are you doing in Miami?"
He was sitting in the front row at my show.
He said, "Cem, we bought a marina here."
He bought a marina.
Look, I can understand buying a yacht.
Dude, why would you buy a marina?
What kind of shopping is this? You go to Miami and be like,
"Do I have a marina?" Shit!
Asks his friends. "Do you have a marina?" "No."
"Really?" "I have one. For me."
So they buy one for him.
Bought a marina.
We can't understand the numbers or lives the big business people talk about.
Like I said, I can only understand buying a yacht.
I mean, wow, he bought a marina, man. They talk like that.
"How much does this investment cost?" "Three to five billion dollars."
Is it three or five?
How can you say three or five billion?
"30 to 40 billion dollars." Between 30 and 40, there are 10 billion dollars.
Fuck off.
We don't even get how much money that is.
We have a game, we couldn't play it there that day.
The game is about money. What would you do
if you woke up one day and had 100 million dollars?
We couldn't play it on that show when Rahmi Koç was there.
What could he say?
"Sir, what would you do if you had 100 million?"
He'd say, "I'd bawl my eyes out."
Think about it. You're Rahmi Koç.
You wake up one day and you have only 100 million dollars.
You'd lose your mind. "Ali!"
"Find me Acun."
"Right, all the money has gone to Fenerbahçe."
"Cem must come help me."
A special night for Rahmi Koç.
This is a social test that shows us we don't know the value of money.
"What would you do if you had 100 million dollars when you woke up one morning?"
I've been asking this on stage for a year or two now.
As you see, due to the pandemic, we are at half capacity.
Imagine that it was fuller and I asked this every day.
I have yet to hear an idea for a medicine, a brilliant idea, nothing.
100 million dollars.
Because people don't know how much money is worth.
For example, how much is $100 million?
How much is it now? 850 million liras, right?
Or 860, something like that. Tell me how much it is by the end of the show.
100 million dollars.
Now, when someone else has money, we all have some ideas.
For example,
"Look at this douchebag. He's rich but doesn't know how to spend it."
They come up with really stupid responses. Now listen to this.
"You wake up with 100 million dollars. What do you do?" And he said,
"In the morning?"
No, at noon.
One told me that they'd count it.
What are you talking about?
Yesterday, a girl said, "I'd invest it."
Money spending is an art. It's a different story.
What was the prize money for last New Year's lottery? 100 million liras.
I ask them, "What would you buy with that?"
The answer is ready, "First, a mansion by the Bosphorus."
Okay...
"A big-screen TV."
"And precision scales." "What for?"
To weigh their balls.
Is this how you spend it?
They want a mansion first. The money is gone, you're already five million short.
They did street interviews when I was a kid.
There's a ticket booth that is believed to be lucky.
Nimet Abla's booth.
TRT has always done street interviews there since I was a kid.
"What would you do if you won the big prize?"
"I'd give it to the poor." "You?"
"I'd share it with people in need."
"You?" "I agree with my friend. I'd share it with them too."
"You?" "I'd give it to the poor."
Four holy angels.
Who the fuck are you?
How good-hearted you are.
What are you doing in the ticket line then?
You know what it is? A very sad thing.
Trying to deceive God.
"Dear God!"
He means, "Give it to me, I can hand it out."
How absurd.
The great force that created the whole universe
couldn't hand out 100 million liras,
and instead decides, "Oh, İbrahim has an idea. Let's give the money to him."
I asked this during a show in Germany. But I asked it differently.
Like, "What would you do if you had 100 million euros, bro?"
A little different like that.
He said, "I'd travel, bro."
"I'd travel."
I liked that idea, but then he got busted by his wife.
She asked him, "Where are you going?"
I liked the idea of travelling.
To be honest, my friends, we all really work hard.
We go through unfortunate times.
It doesn't only happen in our country. Look at the world.
We haven't been hit by a meteor yet.
Somebody posted this on social media, so I replied.
"A meteor is approaching."
That's not the problem. What if it bounces up into our ass...
We are at that stage now.
Meteor. So? It didn't go in my ass. No problem.
We are at that point.
But isn't travelling a very meaningful activity?
I always wanted the arrogant people to travel the world.
I wish you could go to the Galapagos and see the Komodo dragon.
See what God has created.
Some people think that God only created them.
And they treat us like a byproduct.
But if they see that Komodo dragon, how nicely God has created it...
It sticks its tongue out... A more sophisticated creature than you.
But people look for miracles in the wrong places.
On social media,
they share the video of a lion saying, "Allah."
It says, "Allah!"
I mean...
Shame on you. Seriously.
So the lion itself is not miraculous enough, is it?
"This is not Allah. No, it didn't say it."
What a shame.
There's the lion, the panther, and all the other creatures.
There's the peacock and whatnot. The single-celled ones.
The blue whale, the orca, and all the others...
"Allah."
How shameful to search for a miracle in this.
So shameful.
It's okay. That's all right.
You can explain it in the afterlife
next to Nusret.
"Hello, Nusret, sir."
"Why are you here?"
"Because of this."
"Cappuccino."
It's so nice to travel.
But genetic poverty is a different story.
So, is there a thing called wealth?
Yes, of course. There's something called being rich.
But there's also the gains by breaking a sweat.
There are things that give you various feelings.
They're all different.
Resting after hard work is different than lying down all the time.
Now you see it sometimes.
A well-dressed creature who has clearly spent so much money, wandering around.
It doesn't make any sense. I mean, it doesn't work.
Why? Because...
It comes from the soul.
Give them 100,000 euros.
"Take it and spend it in Rome."
Two minutes, it'd take two minutes.
Or an hour.
Salvatore Ferragamo, Gucci, Prada, et cetera.
If you're genetically poor,
your body will automatically take you to the Mecidiyeköy of Rome in two hours.
You'd suddenly find yourself shopping for shoe soles,
phone chargers... Suddenly.
That's how it works.
You'd find yourself talking to the immigrant chestnut sellers.
"What's up? How's Mogadishu?"
That's how it is.
If I had so much money, what would I do?
I'd travel too. I'd go on a vacation. I never get a chance.
But you still see me on vacation. They post pictures of me on my yacht.
Last year, they even censored my nipples.
Did you see that? They placed a black band over my nipples.
And these are the so-called conservative newspapers.
Headline reads, "Not what it used to be."
As if I used to breastfeed the audience.
Or at the end of the show, I rubbed their head here like this.
This is so shameful.
I'd travel around.
I'd have a vacation. I miss it so much.
Don't be fooled when you see me in shorts.
They post the same photo twenty times for six months,
looks like I'm always on a vacation. Not true.
It was the year '85 when I last had a vacation.
"Cheri Cheri Lady," "Self Control" were the hits. I swear.
It was '84, not '85.
'85. '84, '85, both. That's the only vacation I remember.
My uncle-in-law, in 1985...
Back then, the most advanced technology to capture a moment
was the video camera.
Our vacation... We'd travelled across the Aegean coast.
He recorded the whole trip on video. My dear.
Such devotion. How long has it been? Thirty... 36 or 37 years.
Man, he was also overweight. Around 130 kilos back then.
He was an interesting man. Not suitable for this job.
He used to tell a story, breaking it into pieces.
Like a 1,000-piece puzzle.
He'd spew out all the random details, you had to put it together.
You know that type of man. He'd tell it like this,
"There is that thing in Yenimahalle near the hippodrome."
"This wooden thing. What's it? You tell me."
And you'd be like...
What the fuck is that in Yenimahalle, near the hippodrome?
Limitless possibilities.
"In Yeniköy, there's this thing, restaurant. There's this man, blue-eyed,
big guy. Has a son." What the fuck?
"You know what he told me?" No!
"And what did I tell him?" Uncle, please...
Is there a story or not?
He gives you these details...
Hippodrome, yes.
A man in Yeniköy.
And there is a minibus. What do I do with this?
He gives you the anecdote under construction.
If you can connect the dots, fine.
"Guess what happened in the end?"
And he leaves you brooding on it.
But he left us this memory.
May he rest in God's light.
His surname means "light" by the way.
The camera, in '84 or '85, weighed 20 kilos itself.
Camera was 20 kilos. There was a recorder, you hung it on your neck.
That's another 15 kilos.
The battery was also 15 kilos.
If you wanted to do a night shoot, there was a flashlight, this big.
So he was carrying 40 kilos on him.
He weighs 130 kilos himself.
So we went to...
There's a place in Ayvalık...
What is it called? Devil's Feast?
No, that's Ata Demirer's footprint.
Yeah, there Eyyvah Eyvah... He was like, "Fuck it!"
Oh, my dear. Dear Ata.
I like him. I don't make jokes about people I don't like.
"Oh, my."
"What the fuck happened?"
"How the fuck would I know?"
I'd make a movie like that if I could pull it off, but I can't.
"Fuck..."
"Oh, my..."
Clarinet...
So, Devil's Feast, you go down and there's Pamucak, Kuşadası, et cetera.
As you head south, there's the House of the Virgin Mary. Ephesus...
Seljuk, Ephesus ruins... There, my dear uncle would climb up to the top...
We were three families.
And lots of kids. Each family had two or three.
He shoots us coming and going.
He goes on top of the amphitheater to get a wide-angle shot.
Comes down all sweaty, shoots us by the tombs.
All 45 days, he shot the whole trip.
Like this.
Anyway, we returned to Istanbul. Dad said, "Ömer, let's watch the video."
So we started watching it. Our trip was like a Polish porno.
Okay, we were in it and all, but...
He was a fat man.
Microphone was close to him. As he said, "Oh, oh..."
Our trip was both shaking and moaning, "Oh, oh..."
Dad told him to stop it.
Looks like we're gonna get screwed when we get to Gönen.
There's a memory for you.
That was my last vacation, '85.
But I love it so much.
The summer is coming, but there will be no vacation.
Those movies you don't like...
I mean, the movies you won't like next year,
we shoot them this year.
Or the ones you won't like two years later,
we think about them two years earlier.
I won't have a vacation this summer.
I won't. There's nothing I can do.
I'm filming Erşan Kuneri. No luck. But...
Oh, well, no vacation.
Not that I haven't had a summer vacation. I have a yacht, small, 20 meters long.
I could only get that with halal money.
Why are you laughing?
Been playing sold-out shows for 25 years, I can only get a 20-meter long one.
I go on the stage every day.
I can buy a 20-meter long yacht, just one.
And you're laughing at it, motherfucker.
Instead of crying, you're laughing at it.
Your choice, dude. Hashtag.
I have a small yacht. We decided to go on a vacation.
People complain about my movies, "He makes movies with the same people."
It even got to this point,
"In his movies, he is always in the limelight!"
Dude, this is my own movie.
There are people who don't want Arif in G.O.R.A.
I only act with friends in my movies.
They think I act with my friends from my neighborhood.
Dude, my friends are actors.
This is my entourage.
People have this weird notion. As if they are butchers, sellers, grocers,
and I call them over and say, "Come, the audience won't understand."
Dude, this is my entourage.
These are my people.
These are my friends. Russell Crowe, Şener Şen... These are my people.
I'm the only person in the world
who's made movies with both Russell Crowe and Şener Şen.
Even Russell Crowe doesn't have a movie with Şener Şen.
Yeah.
I don't only make movies with my friends. I go on vacation with them too.
One day, we had a yacht vacation. But since we're genetically poor,
it was like an army recruiting office on the yacht. My brother said,
"Dude, in music videos, there are girls on yachts."
I said "Dude, we are genetically poor. We are the working class, man."
"For five days, we'd sail the Aegean Sea, go to Kos, Greece,
that's all we will do." Anyway, we set sail.
Vacation means summer vacation to me. That's coded to my subconscious.
I don't have a winter vacation culture.
You wear a pair of trunks
and do the things you do in winter.
It gives you the feeling that it's a vacation.
We're on the yacht. We'll dive in the sea, get out.
Repeat. Then we'll get hungry, dive again.
We'll drink, and dive again, then sober up.
I was dreaming of these things.
Zafer had made a playlist, brought CDs.
Fazıl Say, Chopin's Nocturnes, and so on.
Dude, he played a Nocturnes CD. Man...
What does summer mean? Listening to Tarkan and dancing like this, isn't' it?
Or something like...
I'm the father of misery
Or songs like "Cuppa."
So the Nocturne by Chopin started playing,
and suddenly we were in an award-winning movie.
We started staring at the horizon.
I thought about breaking the bottle and slitting Zafer's throat.
Just to spice things up.
Or strangle my brother in the cabin.
There was a nocturnal situation. That was the feeling.
I asked him, "Zafer, bro, okay, you created an atmosphere of
being in a nice festival movie, but we only have five days."
I thought we'd better go to Kos and buy a Tarkan CD.
So that the yacht would liven up. Because summer means Tarkan music.
We bought the album of that year. What was it?
"Can't get enough of your kisses," or "Every once in a while..." How does it go?
Is it "Write your name in my heart"?
"Write my name in your heart and don't forget me." Yes, thanks.
We were having a blast. Have our breakfast in the morning.
We are all the same.
We had breakfast, ate our caviar.
Continued with white wine...
Rakı in the afternoon, laughter... And Tarkan was playing nonstop.
Even if it's every once in a while You gotta call me
Tarkan's lyrics and dances don't really match.
Have you noticed that?
For example, he says, "I'm the father of misery..."
What kind of misery is this?
Did your spangles fall off?
Send...
I'm the father of misery
Would you tell Tarkan your problems like this?
"Tarkan." "What's up?"
"The kids are starving."
Send them
He's a sensitive man, actually. I'm just joking.
So...
All those Tarkan songs, 15 or 12, or 14 songs
kept playing and playing. Afternoon's rakı finished.
We drank rakı in the evening, too. Then switched to whiskey.
The only thing we didn't drink was our own piss.
Dancing with towels like this.
We were away from the coast.
Send, send my destiny...
Danced our asses off.
We dropped anchor at a bay.
Still dancing at sunset.
A yacht with a Scandinavian flag, maybe Finnish, I don't know,
approached us.
They dropped anchor. One man was sorting the lines...
And we were dancing. The man said, "Hello."
My brother said, "They're fags."
Man...
What a thing to say.
For the last nine hours, we were like this...
Five men on a yacht.
Dancing. Washing clothes,
swinging heads, all those moves.
Two Scandinavians said, "Hello."
My brother says, "Be careful."
Why are we like this?
Homophobia...
Do you know what it means? Homophobia means this:
"God, I hope I don't start liking those men."
This is what homophobia means.
I asked him, "How can you think that way? That's ridiculous."
Two men, they said hello. What kind of an idea is that?
He said, "Dude, drop it."
"I know what this is."
I asked him, "How can you get this idea?"
He said, "What would two men be doing alone on a yacht?"
Dude, we were five men.
Based on that, we should be the federation of that business.
We are in charge of it at that bay.
"Wear your leggings. It's not tight enough."
"Your balls are not showing."
Homophobia...
Really...
There are so many other sensitive matters,
but because I'm telling this story, in some people's minds,
just because I'm telling a homophobic story,
somebody says, "You're telling a homophobic story."
Homophobia is a thing, isn't it?
Why would I be homophobic?
I'm not homophobic, but I feel like I have to prove it.
That's ridiculous. He wants to see me hopping on his lap.
I'm not interested in men.
That doesn't make me homophobic. I don't like men sexually.
I shouldn't say, "I don't like men who like men."
That's confusing. Let me show it by kissing...
It's not a problem that concerns me, but some things are mixed up, you see?
Once, I went to a massage parlor in Antalya.
So I went there to sign up, not to write my name in your heart.
I went there to get an appointment.
One employee, one male staff member...
Really, I'm having a hard time explaining this.
The language changed a lot.
If you don't know the jargon, you're doomed to fail.
You can't save yourself by saying "person of science" instead of "man of science."
It all started like that. "Let's not call it 'man of science, '
let's make it genderless, 'person of science.'"
"Shall we?" "We shall." "Now, you're screwed..."
For example, sexual preference, right?
Say "sexual preference" and they instantly correct you,
"It's not preference, it's orientation! Fuck you, motherfucker."
Calm down, bro. Why are you mad?
The jargon may not be known by everyone.
Why would you think that it's used in a negative way?
"You shall not say sexual preference, say orientation."
"Or else, I'll fuck you up."
Okay, don't get angry, bro.
Everybody raises a banner.
All the communities that have suffered come at the innocent. Objective ones, too.
I was gonna get an appointment. The man told me,
"I will be massaging you."
I said, "Thank you, but I'd prefer a lady to do it."
"What do you mean?" he said, "This is inappropriate."
"If you..." He was accusing me of being uncivilized.
"If you act this way, others would do worse." He got pissed off.
He raised his banner. "L, G, B, T, S, C..."
I froze. I said, "Can I get a letter?"
It was a simple thing about getting a service.
I don't want to be massaged by a man. Do I have to?
Not that I haven't.
You end up listening to their military service stories.
"Once, we were in Hatay..."
Fuck off!
I'm in Çırağan. What is Hatay?
"The commander was putting so much pressure on us..."
Fuck off.
Or this other guy who was all aggressively like, "I will massage you."
I said I didn't want it.
"I can't believe you'd say that."
"Can't a man massage another man?"
I said, "He can, but you're too passionate about it."
Am I the only one at fault here? The man is attacking like, "Leave him to me!"
So, if you become angry at this, you are labelled a homophobic.
That's not right. Don't be unfair.
Elton John. I'd let him ride on my head.
And he'd like it,
but if he played the piano in front of my house all the time,
then things change. Think about it, you walk out of the house,
he plays "Candle in the Wind" all the time.
"When will Cem be back?" He's always there, even when it's raining.
Once... Twice... Then you'd say, "Elton, fuck off."
So if you're caught saying that, would that make you homophobic?
That's an absurd issue. Anyway, let's close this chapter.
I don't like the male body.
But that doesn't mean I don't like my own body.
My body is fine. There's just a little bit of water weight, that's it.
This city we live in is not a great one.
You can't go out in your neighborhood for a jog, or walk,
to get your blood pumping. The Anatolian side is better, isn't it?
Kadıköy area, right?
People living there would know. They have a bike lane.
On this side, some places don't even have sidewalks.
How can the sidewalk end in a city, a metropolis?
You're walking and then... "Fuck."
No more sidewalk.
You can't walk from one neighborhood to another.
Is this a metropolis?
I wanted to go jogging in my neighborhood with my headphones on.
I've been living in the same place for over 30 years. Since I was in high school.
Somebody yanked my arm.
I got baffled. And I had the headphones on.
I was like, "What the fuck is happening?"
He says, "Don't get scared. I just want a photo."
Don't get scared.
Then I got it, it must be the same in all the civilized cities.
For example, Keanu Reeves is running in Central Park.
You trip him up,
saying, "Fuck you."
And Matrix falls, and you take a photo with him.
Or an older actor like Al Pacino. "You motherfucker..."
When you knock them down, they stay still.
Stupid, isn't it?
Going to the gym is another problem.
But you need to move a little.
Being fat is not good. Let's be honest. Isn't it right?
You'd register there... Do you know that feeling?
You pay the first payment.
You lose some weight right there.
You pay and you say, "Dude, I lost some already."
Kind of. But the gym is difficult for me too.
Being in the changing room... Working out...
And everybody says, "Come to his gym, you'll feel right at home."
I went to one. What's that thing called? Treadmill.
So I get on it. To break a sweat a little.
I'm not telling you this to show off.
Like everyone else. For 20 minutes.
Instead of spending it with your kid, or doing work, you're there
just to work out.
Some weirdo shows up next to you. "Hello."
"What's up with your mouth?"
"I'm just being a prick."
He asked, "Do you come here?"
Do you come here?
Is this a question you'd ask someone who's on the treadmill next to you?
"Do you come here?"
Yes, motherfucker, I come here like this. I'm trying to.
"You'll feel right at home here," he said.
"Let me tell you this
before my mouth returns to its normal state."
"Beyazıt Öztürk also comes here."
As if I were a student in Avcılar Vocational High School,
I got very excited.
"Yay!"
"Okay," I said, "very nice."
"This is a really nice club," he said. "In the other gyms,
they'd disturb you."
So in the other gyms, I guess they shove a dumbbell up your ass.
A gym is already a restless place.
I mean, there are parts of it where private things happen.
Places where you get naked.
And I'm not much of a laid-back person.
Don't be fooled by the looks.
There are those people in hammams. Regardless of gender.
Especially the older people.
Being all careless...
"I've done my exercise..."
Walking around naked after a shower.
"Where is the hairdryer?" Is that the only problem, motherfucker?
Is the hairdryer the problem?
As you're tying your shoes, to slip away,
you have one foot on the bench, a naked man pops up
and begins making small talk.
"Hey, what did you do with that apartment in Levent?"
What gives? Are you looking for a place to stick your head in?
Bastard, you're naked.
Are we in heaven?
We were banished from heaven, came to Earth...
The Industrial Revolution happened...
There's a thing called a loincloth. You can put on something cottony.
Put something on. Naked like this... "How's it going?"
Who am I supposed to answer to?
And he expects you to take it naturally. "He has really grown up."
Gyms are difficult places, but I see no harm in getting in shape.
That camp of big asses...
It's always thought that fat people are mocked the most.
The majority thinks this way.
"People make fun of fat people. They make jokes about them."
No, that's a very reversible thing.
Fat people are an important community.
They'd never want you to lose weight.
Try this with your group of friends. Tell them that
you no longer eat bread, and see what happens.
"I stopped eating bread." "No, you can't do it. No way."
"Fuck off. You can't cut down on bread, jerk."
"Asshole."
"You cut down on bread, I'll fuck you up."
Lose some weight, join a gym... Or try to quit smoking.
"I quit smoking." "No, you didn't."
"I did." "No, you didn't, dude. You can't."
"Trust me, you can't quit. I'm telling you. No way."
"Did you really quit? Dude, you can't."
"I stopped eating bread." "No, I'll fuck you up."
They exist.
Right?
That's a serious bunch.
They unite to stop people from being fit just because their asses are big.
You don't have to be fat to be mocked.
An athletic girl can be mocked too.
And they are mocked.
She'd go to the gym and all those big-ass ones would say,
"She's not going there to work out, but to find a husband."
He says, "That's true."
No, what's true is this statement.
Maybe the girl is really there to exercise. You crazy?
Big asses... It sounds like a district name.
Just like Vefa.
Right. Kind of like Kartal Big Ass.
There is Başıbüyük, right? Head or ass, it's all the same.
Doesn't this district have an exit?
You yelled, "True." Which one is true?
The thing you called true is right.
You'd say it that way, but this is not right. They always say,
"They go there to find a husband." And what's your excuse?
Because you're looking for a husband in the Beyazıt Library.
You're always at NASA, looking for an astronaut worthy of your ass.
"Isn't there a scientist who would appreciate this ass?"
"At least tell me its pi value."
Yeah. What did that girl do to deserve it?
You need to be a little... fit.
The summer is coming. Instead of planning it in January
and getting in shape by summer, we postpone it.
This is early June, isn't it?
Look, it's still here. Nope, we didn't.
Because people realize that the summer is here only a week before it's summer.
Brings out the bikini and wonders, "How am I gonna fit in this?"
"Well, I hope it fits me."
Okay, but it was known in January that the summer was gonna come.
You knew that.
Unbelievable. Really.
There's no such problems for winter tourism. That's a weirder case.
Do you know about winter tourism?
Rich people?
I love rich people's hobbies. There are really stupid things.
Oh, the rich... Like golf.
A wide field.
"Let's go."
Are you stupid?
Give this to a poor person, and I bet he'd hit a hole in one.
Look, like this.
"Sit down, damn it."
"Put the wings on the grill."
I turn over the chicken...
Isn't it stupid to hit it with this 19 times? You gotta be insane.
Or the winter tourism. Skiing and such.
The year is almost 2022.
How far can you go by skiing? How stupid are you?
Why would you go 3,000 feet up to eat a hot dog?
At minus 20 degrees...
"But we never come here. We should."
"You go ski, I'll catch up."
Go eat your sausage.
Does anyone do winter tourism?
Do you snowboard, bro?
Dude, very cool things, that's true. Go abroad too?
Courchevel, St. Moritz...
Where?
In England.
Yes.
He gave me an idea about the world map.
"Hey, look, it's closer to those..."
"Motherfucking ignorant pleb..." Dude!
I know that, bro.
I pretend that I don't, so that I can joke about it.
Winter tourism is cool.
You put your ski coats on...
What is summer? Summer makes people equal.
You put your trunks on, doesn't matter if you're royalty.
Look at Rahmi Koç in Baltalimanı at the beach.
If I asked for 5,000 dollars, he'd say "Cem, I have my shorts on."
It's an equalizer.
Summer makes people equal.
When I see people swimming in their underwear in Baltalimanı,
I feel proud of them. The sea is for everyone. And you know the state it's in.
And people think,
"Oh, they are in their underwear." What should they do? Take them off?
Is underwear the only problem here?
Winter tourism, coats, jackets, ski goggles, all the gadgets.
"Where did you go?" "We were in Austria."
"What happened to your mouth?"
"You know."
"Where were you?" "Courchevel."
"Where were you?"
In America, in the other continent there's Aspen, is that right, bro?
Have you been to Aspen?
Gotcha.
And it's closer to Alaska.
He tells me that it's closer to England.
In the beginning, I said I had two shows at the Apollo Theatre.
And he tells me, England is...
My God, the audience is not that bright.
"Fuck you."
Dude, skiing and all that...
So weird, it's a cool thing.
Winter tourism gives you a socio-economic picture.
It has outfits, equipment, it's troublesome with all those things.
And those people never suffer from a terrible accident.
They go there really cool, get injured, and come back even cooler.
"What happened?"
"Carpal tunnel."
"They put a splint there."
But if a poor man falls on the ice, he breaks his ass.
If you or I fell, a vein would pop.
If he falls, he'd go, "Oh, my Achilles tendon..."
"We were in Courchevel..."
Have you ever heard that Cem Hakko broke his ass?
It only happens to poor people like us. "His neck got twisted."
They would only get carpal tunnel.
They get splints... All kinds of fancy shit happens.
But whatever happens, it's always something cool.
It's never something that would heal with yogurt soup.
They return home cooler even though they're hurt.
"I'm cooler now." It's always like that.
"A vein popped." Nope, never.
"My chest is burning." These are all poor people's problems.
"My lungs are on fire, Doctor."
Have you heard of it? When you're rich, it's called "psychosomatic reflux."
So...
He goes up to 6,000 meters elevation.
"Look, I was there, now I'm here."
So? So what?
"Shall I go there again?"
"Go." "Okay, I'm going."
It's insane.
And they always complain about this.
"Where were you?"
"We were in St. Moritz."
"How was it?"
"There were so many Turks."
"Fuck this, it's full of Turks."
I don't know any other community who get this bothered by their own kind.
Have you ever heard of a penguin that is tired of other penguins?
"Come on, guys!"
"Just go away, damn it." Ever heard of this?
Is there a problem like running into a Turk during vacation?
"We were in Rome, weren't we, Nuran?"
"It was full of Turks. We were about to lose it."
"My mouth is getting better. Better."
So...
Dude...
Haven't you heard of this?
They themselves go there. How many Turks do you need?
Why does it bother you?
"We were in Austria, everywhere... Paris, full of Turks."
What about you?
"Don't count us."
People used to be happy when nobody could tell they were Turkish.
"Sometimes, I tell them I'm a Turk and they get surprised."
Maybe they don't see those traits and think, "Who the fuck is that jerk?"
Why would you be proud of this? "They always ask me if I'm French or..."
"Oh, my."
"Well, they don't. They never think that I'm a Turk."
"We were in Rome, it was full of Turks."
If I was the passport officer, I wouldn't let them in the country.
So they come back from winter vacation. "What happened?"
"We're back..."
"Fuck off."
"What happened?" "Too many Turks in here."
"Move along."
That's it.
We should travel, and see our country.
Either summer or winter, four seasons,
seven climates, we should travel all around our country.
But we never do.
We really don't.
There is a lot to see in our country, really.
Honestly. I joke about Ata...
Ata is from Bursa, you know, Ata Demirer.
But look, how nice he knows the Aegean and Thrace regions.
He has traveled a lot in the Aegean, spent time there.
I haven't travelled like that. I can't travel much.
There is a limit to how much I can observe from home.
You can only do so much at home. But if I had traveled...
Some friends of mine were shooting a movie in the highlands of Ordu.
I was born and bred in Istanbul.
What's the highest hill here? Çamlıca Hill. It's 280 meters high.
The highest hill I know is Devebağırtan.
Go down from Barbaros, go up from there.
"Bebek Hill, oh, it's so steep."
Man, there were houses, towns, villages 1,600 meters high.
I felt like I was in Avatar. It was my first time in highlands.
The car was vertical like this, look. Like this.
And he says... You ask where we're headed, and he says,
"You see that village up there, see that mosque?"
That's basically heaven.
God will be able to see you up there, right?
Man, it was crazy high.
He says there is another village past that village.
We reared up.
"A river flows here, something happens there..." So...
This shows you how geography shapes people's character,
their stories, legends, folk tales, written literature. For real.
Why are there so many struggles in Black Sea folk songs?
Giving directions all the time? Because the region is like that.
You hop on a cable car in the air. You take a raft downriver.
Rivers are flowing, the village is behind the hill.
Haven't you noticed? For example, Central Anatolian folk songs are flat.
I walked to the fountain...
You walk, all flat, the fountain is here. The mosque is there.
The great mountains are there. But they're only pointed at from afar.
The Black Sea region's topography, it's like...
It always starts with giving directions.
From here to there.
Down the river.
From there to here, and then there.
Like, so that you don't get lost...
So that you don't get lost in the song...
Rivers are flowing, it comes from there.
Falcon, bird flight, shot...
It's all like, "Wow!"
Look, how is this a song?
"Shall Ordu's rivers flow upwards."
Can you grasp the size of the project?
Have you ever heard of such a thing in Anatolia, or the Aegean?
If this happens then this happens.
The region is weird... "Man, those rivers..."
Like the Lavoisier Law. If that applies pressure from here,
then that moves up over that, it'd be fucking crazy.
In Central Anatolia, "I got to her room, walked through her iwan..."
All flat, I mean.
I'd jump from roof to roof...
Like Southeast Anatolia.
It's all about breaking and entering. In Central Anatolia...
There's such a thing in Anatolia.
I walked through her iwan Went into her room...
Why are you going into the room?
There's only one ethical issue. And their problem is this...
We're doomed If others hear about us, darling!
Don't do this stuff then.
Is the only problem others hearing about you?
Look, observe this as a genetic code, I beg of you.
There are so many weird things there.
If in so many songs, people are this worried about getting caught,
then it means there is a serious problem.
Why is this the only problem, dude? If something is bad, it's bad.
If others hear about it...
And if they don't? "Fuck it, we'll do it." What?
Does this make sense?
If people don't hear about it, go on. Oh, yeah?
Moreover, it's crazy that such a record even exists.
How can there be such a record?
Would a person walk into the studio and sing...
We're doomed if people hear about us?
They're gonna hear, you're making a fucking record.
Aren't you even aware that it's being recorded?
Who knows what would happen If people hear about it...
You'll see when the record is out.
There's a thing called "attention deficit syndrome," right?
Which means lack of focus.
Right? Englishman?
So there is a disorder called "attention deficit."
Does "deficiency" mean lacking? Yes.
Lack of focus, let's call it that.
Lack of focus. Black Sea songs contain a lack of focus.
Have you ever noticed that?
So the song has an "attention deficit."
Let me give you examples from the classics. Like...
Open the white cloth
Let me see your face Let me see your face
Let me see your...
So what happened?
Look, in a second, it went "poof..." Fell into a blackhole.
I wonder what happens then.
I mean, think about the song.
The ropes of my basket...
Right?
The ropes of my basket are Cutting into my shoulder
Cutting into my...
My... Cutting into my...
"Furkan." "One second."
What might have happened? I mean...
Let me see your...
What was the composer thinking?
Let me see your face
Let me see your...
Your face...
"No, that would be the same."
Let me see your...
"I'll think about it."
Strange, isn't it?
Who'd even think about trivial stuff like this? Just me.
Heaven, heaven.
But we never travel.
We have so many treasures. Karacaoğlans, Yunus', this land's...
I don't want to sound like a bank commercial, but you know how they say,
"People of this land..."
In Haluk Bilginer's voice.
"The best pepper of Turkey..."
And Haluk's voice is like...
Haluk Bilginer has such a voice.
It has a bus line inside, a small one.
For internal trips.
Haluk Bilginer. Haluk Bilginer. Haluk Bilginer.
When you say Yunus, young people reach for their IDs...
Don't worry, there is no traffic stop.
I mean Yunus Emre.
Nobody has any clue.
To present our values in greater magnitudes,
they are sometimes referred to in the plural form.
"Karacaoğlans."
Who are they? As if there are several Karacaoğlans in a police van.
"Yunus'."
Yunus Emre. Karacaoğlan.
I had this in a previous show, Dadaloğlu.
These are our values, okay, but...
What is left for us? Just us?
Our people have something like this...
Look, nothing.
You couldn't remember it either.
Our people have something, we do.
We do, but...
it's not common. It's a little personal.
For example, there's no such thing like Nasreddin Hodjas. There's Nasreddin Hodja.
Yunus', no, it's not Yunus'. There's only one Yunus. Poor thing.
What do we have to show for ourselves?
Nobody talks about that much.
For example, Nasreddin Hodja is the father of my profession.
Isn't he? Humor, tolerance, looking at things from a different angle.
Nasreddin Hodja is the father of this art.
He would say, "You are right."
"But Hodja, it's..." "You are right, too."
"How can that be?" "You're also right, motherfucker."
Let's go now.
Now he is there as the manifestation
of human dilemma and weirdness.
I mean, as a point of view, and from the 13th century, dude.
The father of this art.
When I first went on the stage as a kid, I played Nasreddin Hodja in a school play.
I started at the top. 42 years ago,
I started as Nasreddin Hodja, then I stooped all the way down here.
But I'm not saying that I carry his traces,
but compared to people who say the following, I can't say I don't.
The person who hasn't made a single person laugh in his life says,
"We are the descendants of Nasreddin Hodja."
Never made anyone laugh.
Never showed appreciation for anyone's jokes.
Never thought about a criticism and said, "Yes, that might be true."
Who are you to say something like,
"We are the descendants of Nasreddin Hodja"?
So? "It means we don't need to do much."
How can you say you're Nasreddin Hodja's descendant?
Who are the people asking the stupid questions in Nasreddin Hodja's anecdotes?
"Hodja, you're cutting the branch you're on."
What if we're his descendants?
"Hodja, why would you ferment the lake?"
They're all from the same village.
Isn't it possible that we're their descendants? Nobody claims them.
Everybody just wants to put Hodja's turban on.
Not so fast. Is it that easy?
Is it easy to be remembered for 800 years?
That's Nasreddin Hodja for you.
How long have I been doing this? 25 years.
How can you compare 25 to 800? You're all waiting for me to finish.
"Yilmaz, will this fucking end? Come on."
Can 800 years end? 800.
But having lived in the 13th century also has an effect on this.
It's not easy right now.
Nasreddin Hodja's anecdotes have been told for 800 years, okay,
but that's the 13th century.
If one of those stories were to happen now,
the poor man would be destroyed in a week.
For real. Isn't that so? So he goes to the bazaar,
the kids gather around, say, "Hodja, can you get us whistles?"
"Hey, mister, could you buy us whistles?"
This kid is dubbed. He must be Mongolian.
He says...
All the kids... You all know the story.
They gather around him, "Hodja, get us whistles."
Only one of them gives him money and says,
"Can you buy me a whistle with this money?"
He goes to the bazaar and only brings a whistle to the kid who gave him money,
and he says "Here, take it, whoever gives the money plays the whistle."
What is this?
Had I run a social experiment like this,
next week they would swear at my whole family on social media, on Twitter...
"Son of a bitch, you made the kids cry."
"You could have gotten whistles for all of them."
"I hope you go bankrupt." "Tarkan, Athena Gökhan, God damn you all!"
Right?
That's the truth.
The hardship of our era. There are also advantages.
Nasreddin Hodja's wife was a little weird.
I was lucky in that department.
Hodja's wife was so ugly, after they get married, she asks him,
"Hodja, who shall I show my face to, and who should I not?"
And he says, "Show it to anyone but me."
Never had a problem like that. Thank God, I was lucky.
But this century has other issues.
I'm not that ambitious, I don't want to be talked about for 800 years.
But the young people have to learn this.
Like, you tell them a Nasreddin Hodja anecdote,
they go, "What's so funny?"
Not everything has to be funny.
It's the idea. The idea is important, that point of view.
"He was fermenting the lake, he says, 'What if it works?'"
Is this the moral of the story?
"He says, 'What if it works?' I don't get it."
"So did it work?"
Result-oriented generation. Fuck this generation. What a waste.
"So what did Hodja try to teach?" He didn't want to teach anything.
We're talking about something that happened in the year 1278.
You don't even remember what you ate last week.
A story of a man sitting by the lake in 1275 with yogurt in his hand.
Maybe that's not how it transpired, who cares?
Maybe he was smoking a cigarette.
Holding his yogurt.
When his blood pressure dropped, he ate some yogurt.
Villagers came, he hid his cigarette, left with the yogurt. We don't know.
Is it possible? Yes.
Villagers asked, "What are you doing?"
"Go back to the village, go."
"Go to the village, dude."
"Hodja, what are you doing?"
"Are we going to have descendants too?"
"I'm not doing anything."
"You head back to the village, I'll come riding my donkey backwards."
"Hodja, what are you doing with that yogurt?"
"I'm not doing anything. Well..."
"I'm fermenting the lake, let's say."
"I mean, let's say that."
"Hodja, can a lake be fermented?"
"What if it can?"
He said.
Then he thought, "This moron'll go tell everyone about it now."
Maybe this is what happened, we don't know.
What Nasreddin Hodja taught us is not like,
this is funny, that is weird, this is cheeky.
Maybe it's like this. Maybe it's like that.
His message is, "Are you ready for these possibilities?"
This little show.
You must have heard many rumors about it. Look. It's finished.
I mean, "It's gonna be like this, it's gonna be like that..."
"Will our asses burst?"
That had never been my goal.
I wanted to share something,
wanted to laugh together, more than we ever laughed before.
What do you think people will talk about in a week?
"Have you been to Cem Yilmaz's show?"
"Oh, we have, it was a little weird,
during the pandemic. It was being recorded."
"What does he talk about, for God's sake?"
"I mean..."
"Not what it used to be. I mean, things we know,
but it doesn't taste the same. He'd also put on a little water weight."
"So what? What does he talk about?"
"I don't know, like..."
"He farted when he was a kid."
"I mean, I don't know."
"He has a yacht, his nipples aren't the same. This."
"But what happened to your mouth?"
"I'm just being a prick."