- Hi there.

First of all, we're talking about home, and my daughter came all the way from Richmond, so I have to find out where she is.

Raise your hand, Hannah.

There she is over there.

And last time I was here, I did, I actually did one of these courses where I did a standup comedy thing, so I don't even want to read my piece, I just wanna crack jokes.

(crowd laughing) But I will read my piece.

The name of it is, "My Mom, Queens, and the Tire Recycling Plant."

My mom died on January 30th, 2003.

She had pancreatic cancer.

And luckily lived a while before dying and had relatively little pain during her illness.

She was a nurturing and kind woman who loved her children, and we always had funny stories to share in our home.

After my mom died, my oldest sister, Carol, and my younger brother, Howie and I came together to discuss the funeral arrangements, and what to do with the house in which we all grew up.

It was a middle class Jewish neighborhood in Queens, and we all had pretty good memories of our childhood.

Our neighbor, Anita, was a Holocaust survivor and was visiting and commiserating with us, and also laughing with us about some of the stories from our block.

Sitting on my mom's couch, Anita suddenly looks up at us and says, "Whatever you do, don't sell the house to those Russian Jews.

They're not Russians and they're not Jews."

(crowd laughing) You see in Russia, they did not identify as Russians, and now that many had come to Queens to our neighborhood, they had their own religious rituals and did not go to our synagogues.

So not Russians and not Jews.

Never missing a chance to be funny, even with a Holocaust survivor, I quickly looked at her and I said, "Anita, don't worry, we're only gonna sell to criminals."

(crowd laughing) Of course, we were only gonna sell to the person who gave us the most money.

A couple of days later, on July 2nd, it was my brother's birthday.

We decided despite our sadness to celebrate his birthday, so we walked down the street to the Chinese restaurant we had all grown up with.

I went to the school with the son of the owner, who is now the owner, and everything looked familiar, except now they were doing karaoke.

Not to miss a chance of being entertaining, my sister and brother immediately put their names in to get up on stage and sing.

I did not, knowing that I could not carry a tune.

About an hour later, after a lot of karaoke and Chinese food, we decided, I lost my place here.

I suddenly hear my name called as the next singer.

My sister had deceptively put my name in, always playing tricks my siblings were.

I say, "What the hell?"

So I get up and they're playing, 'Time In The Bottle' by Jim Croci.

I start to sing.

I was horrible.

I didn't know what I was singing.

I was making up words about my mom and going on and on.

Finally, I get off the stage, I can't carry a tune, and I'm sitting down and a guy comes over to me and with a stern face, he looks at me and he says, (mumbling).

I said, "What?"

He says, "You abused me."

I said, "What did you say?"

"You abused me, and if you sing again, I'm gonna kill you."

(crowd laughing) Well, he looked like he was from the mob, and I looked at him and I said, "Don't worry, I'm not singing again.

Don't worry about that at all."

A few days later, we're getting things settled in the house, figuring out what to do with the furniture, who gets what from my mom's jewelry and how to settle my mom's accounts.

It was all very congenial.

My sister gets the big ring, my older sister.

My Jewish sister-in-law gets the middle ring, middle-sized ring, and my wife, who's Catholic, well, you know, she gets the smallest ring.

(crowd laughing) My brother then looks at me and says, "Let's take the two tires in the garage and bring 'em to the tire recycling plant."

I thought, that would be kind of fun in a kind of strange way.

So I say, "Sure."

We throw the ties in the trunk and we're off.

My brother's driving and I say, "Where's the tire recycling plant, Howie?"

He looks at me and says, "I don't know, but I'll find it."

Well, Queens is a big place, and we live near Jamaica, actually pretty close to where Trump grew up.

I used to deliver newspapers to his rich neighborhood, and you know what?

Those wealthy neighbors who lived next to my middle class neighborhood were never very good tipper's.

Maybe that's why they're so wealthy.

Anyway, back to the tires.

My brother doesn't know where he's going, and we're driving around and he says, "I think we'll go to downtown Flushing."

Well, downtown Flushing is like five miles from my mom's and a place my brother and I rarely went to, but somehow he's thinking that's where the tire recycling plant is.

It's where Shea Stadium used to be, where the Mets played, and it's where Flushing Meadow Park is, where they have their tennis matches and where the 1964 World's Fair was, which I went to.

Today, mostly Asian people live there.

I think to myself, my brother is Water Commissioner of Philadelphia, that's a pretty big deal, and he must know about things like tire recycling places, but this seems like a stretch.

We're driving around getting close to downtown Flushing, and suddenly he blurts out "That garbage struck over there.

It's done for the day, it's going back home, that's where we'll find the tire recycling plant."

(crowd laughing) Now I'm thinking that my brother's crazy and I say something like, "Really?"

Meanwhile, he starts to follow the garbage truck, which for a big truck, big and heavy truck, it's moving quite fast.

Suddenly we're at the plant and we follow it, and we park.

Well, suddenly we're at the plant and we follow it in and park the car next to a large two story building.

My brother looks at me and says, "Follow me."

I follow him into the plant, and there we see about 25 New York City police officer looking very macho.

I then know to stand up straight, put my chest out, then with the most macho and deep voice I could gather, I say, "Hey guys, where's the tire recycling place?"

(crowd laughing) Lo and behold, one of them looks at me in a deep voice of course, "It's in the back.

Just go around the building."

I'm thinking, I'm in a dream.

This can't be real.

My brother didn't really find the tire recycling place from intuition.

We drive to the back, and there it is, a relatively large bin with a few tires in it.

We take our two tires and throw them in.

Mission accomplished.

Anita, the Holocaust survivor, the Chinese restaurant, and the gangster who was going to kill me after singing karaoke, and me and my brother aimlessly driving around to find the tire recycling place makes me laugh.

There is nothing like New York where there would've been no New York without my mom bringing us up with caring, laughter, warmth, and a bit of intuition, at least enough to find the tire recycling place.

I don't believe in God and I certainly don't believe in heaven, but my mom still lives within me and makes me smile.

Thank you.

(crowd cheering and applauding)