-In 2009, I was hooking up with a girl when she stopped me and said, “I need to tell you something.” Ten minutes later I was on the ground with a dislocated shoulder. A year later I was on the operating table while Tom Brady’s orthopedic surgeon attempted to repair my mangled rotator cuff. That story – including what the girl actually said to me – makes up the title track of my new stand-up album, I Need to Tell You Something, which comes out today. Pillow talk is a ritual with many manifestations and consequences. In my experience it can draw two lovers closer together – or send one to the hospital.

-I used to sleep with a girl who, although attractive, frequently mentioned that she had gained ten pounds over the course of the previous year. Why tell me that? I was like, I didn’t even know that you minus ten was as an option! Now I want that. She’d add, “Yeah if I just like watch what I eat and go to the gym regularly, I can lose that weight in a second.” I was like, are you bragging or taunting me? Less talky, more pilate.

-After I injured my shoulder but before I had surgery, it would just pop out of its socket in the middle of sex and I’d have to pop it back in. That made for some interesting pillow talk. When I told a friend about it, he said, “Wow, Karo, you pop your own shoulder back into place? You’re like Mel Gibson in Lethal Weapon!” Yup, just like Mel Gibson in Lethal Weapon. Except I’m naked, crying, and crushing a poor girl with my lifeless body.

-When you start dating someone, pillow talk is a great mechanism for getting to know each other. One effective technique is the Facebook Game. While in bed, you exchange phones, scroll through the other person’s friends list, pick someone at random, and ask about him or her. It’s a great conversation starter. There are some caveats, though. For instance, if I pick a hot guy from her list and she says, “Oh that’s no one,” that means she fucked him. If she picks a hot girl from my list and I say, “Oh that’s no one,” that means I haven’t fucked her, barely know her, and only keep her around for decorative purposes.

-The advanced version of this game is “Ask me anything.” Pretty self-explanatory, though girls and guys often use this approach for different purposes. Questions I have been asked include, “Are you close with your mom?” and “Do you want to have kids?” Questions I have asked include, “Would you ever consider getting a boob job?”

-Pillow talk is of course closely related to and often intertwined with dirty talk. Occasionally, though, dirty talk crosses the line and just becomes strange. Like the girl I slept with who would respond to all of my descriptions of her arousal by whispering, “You did that.” Finally I was just like, “I know I did that! I’m the only one here.”

-Although my stand-up album climaxes (pun intended) with a tale of pillow talk gone horribly wrong, the stories in I Need to Tell You Something run the gamut of the contemporary twentysomething and thirtysomething experience. From online dating to officiating friends’ weddings, and from tweeting sexual conquests to telling girls their bangs look terrible, I have tried to tap into the zeitgeist of a generation with short attention spans, big dreams, and very little clue what the word “zeitgeist” means. I truly hope you’ll buy the album, find it hilarious, and share your favorite bits with someone you love – or, at the very least, with the total rando lying next to you.

-As always, here are some random things I’ve been ruminating about lately…

-After I have a meeting, I write down as much information as I can about the participants and what we discussed. In order to help me remember who’s who, I often note which celebrity a person looks like. It’s very helpful to go back into my calendar and see that “Guy who looks like Jason Sudeikis liked the project. Woman who looks like that forty-year-old Olympic swimmer was lukewarm. Asian Jon Hamm loved it.”

-If you’re really “very passionate” about the fundraiser you’re organizing, perhaps the email inviting me should have come from you instead of your assistant.

-It’s weird that politicians are addressed by their highest title no matter how long ago it was – like calling Newt Gingrich “Mr. Speaker.” Using that logic, I should be known as “Captain Karo” because of my leadership of the junior varsity soccer team in 1994.

-Dear only couple dancing at the bar: everyone fucking hates you.

-My buddy Shermdog was supposed to get married last October, but the wedding was postponed when Hurricane Rina threatened Playa del Carmen. Unfortunately, I couldn’t attend the rescheduled ceremony months later, but I had already prepared a speech, so I had Triplet #2 deliver it on my behalf. It killed, of course, and the bride and groom were touched, but honestly I’m pissed that I’ll never get full credit for it. I did all the legwork and Trip 2 got to swoop in for the glory. I just hope Shermdog and his wife know I wrote that speech not to honor their everlasting love, but to impress the single bridesmaids, none of whom I ever got to meet. It should have been called Hurricane Cockblock.

-And while we’re on this topic, the wedding was at an all-inclusive resort in Mexico. When I booked a room for the original wedding date, the price included all food, gourmet and otherwise, and all liquor, including top shelf, for the entire weekend. Which begs the question: if your wedding is at an all-inclusive resort, and I pay for the all-inclusiveness…aren’t I just paying for your wedding?

-When you take a girl out for the first time, you need to have a plan. You can’t just pick her up and say, “So, what do you wanna do?” Chicks hate that! In her head she’s thinking, “How is he gonna pick out a pre-school for our kids?” She expects you to know her likes and dislikes even though your only interactions have been drunken and hazy at the bar, awkward and sweaty on the phone, and totally not getting laid right now.

-And, finally, in I Need to Tell You Something I discuss some pitfalls of dating online. Admittedly I haven’t done it myself in many years, but one thing I don’t mention on the album is that when I was active, I rocked the best username ever: MyMomMadeMeJoin. It’s perfect for a dating site because it’s kinda cute and it says, “I don’t actually need to be on this site with the rest of you losers, but my mom – whom I respect and love – wants me to.” In other words, the kind of username a girl looks for in a guy she can date, sleep with, and then discover during a game of “Ask me anything” is totally full of shit. Fuck me!

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