My love letter to cosplay

There's this fact that I love
that I read somewhere once

that's one of the things

that's contributed to homosapiens'
success as a species

is our lack of body hair --

that our hairlessness --

our nakedness combined
with our invention of clothing

gives us the ability to modulate
our body temperature

and thus be able to survive
in any climate we choose.

And now we've evolved to the point
where we can survive without clothing.

And it's more than just utility,

now it's a communication.

Everything that we choose
to put on is a narrative,

a story about where we've been,

what we're doing,

who we want to be.

I was a lonely kid.

I didn't have an easy time
finding friends to play with

and I ended up making
a lot of my own play.

I made a lot of my own toys.

And it began with ice cream.

There was a Baskin-Robbins in my hometown,

and they served ice cream
from behind the counter

in these giant, five-gallon,
cardboard tubs.

And someone told me --

I was eight years old --

someone told me that when they
were done with those tubs

they washed them out
and they kept them in the back,

and if you asked they would give you one.

It took me a couple of weeks
to work up the courage,

but I did,

and they did--

they gave me one.

I went home with this beautiful
cardboard tub.

And I was trying to figure out what
I could do with this exotic material--

metal ring, top and bottom --

and I started turning it over in my head,

and I realized,

"Wait a minute,

my head actually fits inside this thing--"

(Laughter)

Yeah, I cut a hole out,

I put some acetate in there

and I made myself a space helmet.

(Laughter)

I needed a place to wear the space helmet,

so I found a refrigerator box
a couple blocks from home.

I pushed it home,

and in my parent's guest room closet,

I turned it into a spaceship.

I started with a control panel
out of cardboard;

I cut a hole for a radar screen

and put a flashlight
underneath it to light it;

I put a view screen up which I offset
off the back wall --

and this is where I thought
I was being really clever --

without permission,

I painted the back wall
of the closet black

and put a star field

which I lit up with some Christmas
lights I found in the attic,

and I went on some space missions.

A couple years later,

the movie "Jaws" came out.

And I was way too young to see it,

but I was caught up in "Jaws" fever like
everyone else in America at the time.

And there was a store in my town
that had a "Jaws" costume in their window,

and my mom must have overheard
me talking to someone

about how awesome I thought
this costume was

because a couple days before Halloween,

she blew my freaking mind
by giving me this "Jaws" costume.

Now, I recognize it's a bit of a trope

for people of a certain age to complain

that kids these days have no idea
how good they have it,

but let me just show you a random sampling

of entry-level kids' costumes
you can buy online right now --

and this is the "Jaws" costume
my mom bought for me.

(Laughter)

This is a paper-thing shark face

and a vinyl bib with the poster
of "Jaws" on it.

(Laughter)

And I loved it.

A couple years later,

my dad took me to a film
called "Excalibur."

I actually got him to take me to it twice,

which is no small thing

because it is a hard, R-rated film.

But it wasn't the blood
and guts of the boobs

that made me want to go see it again --

they helped --

(Laughter)

It was the armor.

The armor in "Excalibur" was
intoxicatingly beautiful to me.

These were literally knights in shining,
mirror-polished armor,

and moreover,

the knights in "Excalibur" wear
their armor everywhere.

All the time.

They wear it at dinner,

they wear it to bed.

(Laughter)

I was like, "are they reading my mind?

I want to wear armor all the time!"

And so I went back
to my favorite material--

the gateway drug for making:

corrugated cardboard.

And I made myself a suit of armor,

replete with the neck shields
and a white horse.

Now that I've over-sold it,

here's a picture of the armor that I made.

(Laughter)

(Applause)

Now this is only the first
suit of armor I made

inspired by "Excalibur."

A couple of years later,

I convinced my dad to embark on making me
a proper suit of armor.

Over about a month,

he graduated me from cardboard
to roofing aluminum called flashing

and still, one of my all time favorite
attachement materials,

pop rivets.

We carefully over that month,

constructed an articulated suit
of aluminum armor

with compound curves.

We drilled holes in the helmet
so that I could breathe

and I finished just in time
for Halloween and wore it school.

Now this is the one thing in this talk
that I don't have a slide to show you,

because no photo exists of this armor.

I did wear it to school,

there was a yearbook photographer
patrolling the halls

but he never found me

for reasons that are
about to become clear.

There were things I didn't anticipate

about wearing a complete suit
of aluminum armor to school.

(Laughter)

In third period math,

I'm was standing in the back of class,

and I'm standing at the back of class

because the armor did not
allow me to sit down.

(Laughter)

This is the first thing
I didn't anticipate.

And then my teacher looks at me
sort of concerned

about half way through the class

and says, "Are you feeling OK?"

And I'm thinking, "Are you kidding?

Am I feeling OK?

I'm wearing a suit of armor!

I am having the time of my --"

And I'm just about to tell her
how great I feel

when the classroom
starts to list to the left

and disappear down this long tunnel,

and then I woke up in the nurse's office.

(Laughter)

I had passed out from heat
exhaustion wearing the armor.

And when I woke up,

I wasn't embarrassed about having
passed out in front of my class,

I was wondering,

"Who took my armor?!

Where's my armor?!"

OK, fast-forward a whole bunch of years,

some colleagues and I get hired

to make a show for Discovery Channel
called "Mythbusters."

And over 14 years,

I learn on the job how to build
experimental methodologies

and how to tell stories
about them for television.