There are a few things Jerry Seinfeld can't live without. From his Patagonia backpack and a Mets hat to a pair of Nike Shox and a Bialetti moka pot, here are Jerry's essentials.
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00:00Do you think of yourself in this way?
00:01No.
00:02As a style icon?
00:03Are you kidding?
00:05I just want to be comfortable
00:06and get out of the goddamn house.
00:08Hello, I'm Jerry Seinfeld,
00:10and these are my essentials.
00:12♪♪
00:23This is the Swiss Army Knife Executive
00:28discontinued model.
00:30You know how you're always trying to get into things
00:32and fix things, and there's strings,
00:34and someone's got a tag?
00:36This, a very close friend of mine, Ronnie Shakes,
00:40one night we were eating at the Green Kitchen
00:43on First Avenue, and there was no knife,
00:46and he took out his Swiss Army Knife,
00:48and he opened it and ate his pie
00:50with the Swiss Army Knife.
00:51And he said to me,
00:52never, ever go anywhere without a Swiss Army Knife.
00:56And from that day, I haven't.
00:58I'd never go anywhere without one.
01:00I love things that embody a word
01:05that I learned many years ago, quintessence.
01:08Quintessence is something that is perfectly itself.
01:12There was a book about that in the 70s,
01:14and it was filled with all these objects.
01:16I learned from that book that that's what I want.
01:20That is the thing that I want in my objects, quintessence.
01:25I love Patagonia.
01:26I have loved Patagonia since the 80s in Seattle.
01:29When I found the company, I love their colors,
01:32I love their functionality.
01:34I've had this backpack probably 15 years.
01:37It's got a little Superman key chain.
01:39You know, when you get this going,
01:41you get this, there's like a move,
01:45and you're just gone, and I'm out the door.
01:47When I went to buy this, I had to go to the store,
01:51and I had to go to the store,
01:52and when I went to buy this,
01:54I had another backpack that I had used of theirs,
01:57and I said, I have this backpack, but I want a new one,
02:00and they said, why?
02:02And what's wrong with the one you have?
02:03I go, nothing.
02:05Don't you want to sell me a new one?
02:06They go, if you want.
02:08They don't want you to ever want another one.
02:12That's my kind of company.
02:17I've always written on yellow pads.
02:19I wrote the entire Seinfeld TV series,
02:23every single episode, like this.
02:25I like to write more than Larry did,
02:27so I would keep the notes, and I always use these.
02:31Even if you're writing comedy,
02:33a legal pad, it says, I'm taking this seriously.
02:37I love pens.
02:38I think pens are a very important creative tool.
02:42Keyboards really crush your freedom,
02:46and it's too corporate.
02:48To be creative, you want to feel
02:49like you're getting away with something.
02:50I'm like the only person you know.
02:53I finish them.
02:55I don't lose them.
02:56I don't lose anything, and I will take this pen
03:00and that ink all the way down to the bottom,
03:04and then it runs out of ink.
03:06Can you imagine how satisfying that is
03:09to finish a big pen?
03:11I've done it thousands of times.
03:13There's a hole in the top of the cap
03:16because someone, a kid swallowed a cap and died,
03:19so these idiot lawyers said,
03:20well, we'll put a hole in the cap,
03:22which really disturbed me aesthetically,
03:25and I called the president of Bic.
03:27This is the reason why you get your own TV series.
03:30I called the president of Bic, Bruno Bic,
03:32and he took the call because I had my own TV series,
03:35and I said, why did you put a hole in there?
03:38Why did you change it?
03:40And he explained to me this story with the lawyers,
03:43and they said to keep kids from choking on the cap,
03:47we'll put a hole in it,
03:48and they can breathe through the hole.
03:49I think this is happening a lot.
03:50You want to talk about quintessence, this thing has it.
03:56I have been wearing the Nike Shox for many, many years.
03:59I'll tell you right now, I don't have great feet,
04:03so I always like the Shox,
04:05because if you live in Manhattan
04:07and you walk around Manhattan a lot,
04:08Manhattan is, it's a hard pavement,
04:11so these obviously are little shock absorbers,
04:15and I think they're cool looking,
04:17because if you look at them in plan,
04:19as we say in architecture,
04:21they kind of coke bottle in the middle,
04:23which is like a track flat.
04:25All other sneakers, they don't pinch in the middle,
04:28which is the coolest look for a sneaker.
04:31Coolest sneaker in the world is a track flat.
04:35Nobody wears them anymore,
04:37and people do make fun of me for wearing them,
04:40and that only makes me like them more,
04:42and they're tough as hell.
04:44They're car-like.
04:45You know, I have shock absorbers.
04:47It's car-y, so I feel like they're little cars.
04:54Breitling Cosmonaut 24-hour watch
04:58that was designed by Breitling for Scott Carpenter
05:03to orbit the Earth.
05:05Astronauts cannot tell if it's a.m. or p.m.,
05:09because they're orbiting the Earth like every few minutes,
05:14so they don't know.
05:15Obviously, there's no day or night in space,
05:18so he wanted a watch that only goes around once,
05:22so you know if it's a.m. or p.m.
05:24You don't have to wonder.
05:26It's hard to tell what time it is with this watch,
05:30and I like that,
05:32because I get to stare at this fantastic face longer.
05:38It's got a slide rule, bezel,
05:40obviously a chronograph function.
05:43I would never go anywhere without a stopwatch.
05:47I time everything.
05:50I go into a restaurant, and the table's not ready,
05:53and the maitre d' says,
05:56we'll have it for you in five minutes.
05:58I go, great.
06:05When I'm home or in my office,
06:07and I'm making coffee,
06:08I use this pot.
06:09It's quite complex.
06:14You gotta know what you're doing.
06:16It is time-consuming.
06:17It's a great thing to waste time.
06:20The secret of life is to waste time
06:25in ways that you like.
06:27You spend all your life trying to save time,
06:29but when you get to the end of your life,
06:31there's no time left,
06:33and you'll go to heaven, and you go,
06:34but wait, I had Velcro sneakers.
06:37No, I ain't sure.
06:37Clip-on tie.
06:38What about all that time?
06:40It's gone.
06:41It's fun to make.
06:42I'm not gonna explain it.
06:43It's a whole procedure.
06:44You gotta learn it.
06:47So then you put it on your stove,
06:49and then you wait.
06:51You open the top, and then you wait.
06:52You gotta wait.
06:53And again, use your stopwatch to see how long it takes,
06:57but once it starts to bubble out of there,
07:00you gotta close that right away,
07:01because otherwise it'll go all over.
07:04It's a giant mess.
07:05This thing was invented in 1938, by the way,
07:09and it's flawless.
07:10Every home in Italy has one,
07:13and they still somehow figured out how to go bankrupt.
07:16That's Italy.
07:17That's what I love about Italy.
07:19Make the greatest thing in the world,
07:20and still screw it up.
07:25It's called Meditations.
07:27It's by Marcus Aurelius.
07:29So this guy, emperor of Rome,
07:31leader of the entire world at the time, 150 AD,
07:36every night he would write his thoughts about his life
07:40and how to do things in life.
07:43It's really about perspective,
07:45how to look at things in life,
07:47especially things that bother you.
07:49It's not a real book.
07:51It's just a series of thoughts that he has.
07:54So, you know, you pick it up,
07:56and you read like two pages is all you gotta read.
07:59When you're reading it,
08:00just imagine the absolute peak of the Roman Empire.
08:05Think of this guy's life.
08:07Try and envision his bedroom with,
08:10what did he write with?
08:11Not a Bic pen.
08:13He wrote how annoying people are.
08:15Don't be surprised by all, how difficult things are.
08:20He says, what in ourselves should we prize?
08:23An audience clapping, no.
08:26How funny is that for me as a comedian to read that?
08:30No more than the clacking of their tongues,
08:33which is all that public praise amounts to,
08:36a clacking of tongues.
08:37So he tells you, do not pursue other people's recognition
08:43as an end goal in itself.
08:45What you pursue is the quality of the work that you're doing
08:49not the result of people liking it, hating it.
08:53The hell with that.
08:54Likes, what are likes?
08:56Other people liked it.
08:57If you're pursuing that, your train's off the track.
09:00Two sentences I read, genius.
09:03So I've got this movie coming out, unfrosted.
09:06I'm going to seek the most vicious, negative, hostile,
09:11cheap, backstabbing reviews I can find.
09:14You know why?
09:15I got this guy.
09:16I'm gonna just laugh my ass off.
09:19Because whatever your opinion is of the movie,
09:22that's your opinion.
09:24This is my team.
09:25When I look at this logo, when I look at these colors,
09:27I'm five years old.
09:29I'm in my den and I'm watching baseball on TV
09:34and I'm eating a Pop-Tart.
09:36The Mets, I'm never not watchable.
09:38All these teams have no idea what they're doing.
09:41No one really succeeds according to plan.
09:45It's all random.
09:46It's all meaningless.
09:48That's the joy of it.
09:49It's all meaningless.
09:51That's the joy of it.
09:52If you don't embrace randomness and meaninglessness,
09:56forget watching baseball.
09:57I like the dad hat because you can make it tighter
10:01if you're in a convertible and you can hang it on things.
10:05There's some use for this hole.
10:07You know, you can hold it, spin it.
10:12These two things, this thing and this thing,
10:16this is cinnamon, this is peanut butter,
10:18clinically proven to make you happier.
10:21I recently discovered this brand, Woodstock.
10:23Very simple peanut butter.
10:25This is gonna gross you out a little bit.
10:27I will put peanut butter on a hard-boiled egg.
10:30Sorry.
10:31God, try it, I dare you.
10:33Why is almond just forcing its way into everything?
10:35Almond milk, almond butter, eh, peanut butter.
10:38George Washington Carver.
10:39This is a jar of honey.
10:41I'm the guy who made a movie about bees
10:44because I love bees.
10:45The bees are the most elegant societal structure
10:49ever created.
10:50Bee society works perfectly.
10:52No bee looks at any other bee and goes,
10:55how did he get that job?
10:56Why aren't I doing that?
10:57How much does that bee make?
11:01Levi's made and crafted.
11:03They try and make them a little more quality to it, maybe.
11:07Why does every pair of Levi's fit differently?
11:10I don't know.
11:11I don't really know about the quality control
11:14of this company, I really don't.
11:15This is called arcuate stitching.
11:18That's the little V of Levi's.
11:21Brilliant graphic.
11:22When jeans don't have it, it just like,
11:25it disturbs you, right?
11:26It's like, just a plain pocket jean looks so weird to me.
11:29That book, Quintessence, Levi's 501s were in that book
11:33because they're considered one of the most perfect objects
11:36ever made by men.
11:37You can't add or subtract anything to it
11:40without ruining it.
11:41I bought a bunch of them.
11:42I don't know if I'll ever make them again.
11:445-1-1.
11:45I'm not gonna tell you the waist or the length.
11:49Remember that episode?
11:52I found out about this guy Brunello Cucinelli recently.
11:56He seems to be out of his mind.
11:58He lives in Solameo, Italy, where he grew up
12:02and he transformed this town into this insane brand
12:07where they charge prices that make no sense at all,
12:11but the quality, the quality is there.
12:14I would say quality is the word that pulls me through life
12:18by the nose.
12:20I just look for it, I seek it.
12:22If I see it all to go up or down in any way, with anything,
12:26I'm very attentive to that.
12:28I don't really care about much else.
12:31So this guy is very good quality
12:33and I don't think men wear enough sport jackets, women too.
12:37It just pulls anything you're wearing together.
12:40The scarf is the greatest garment of all clothing
12:45because of how it enables you to adjust
12:48to a range of temperatures.
12:50I live in New York, I would never live any place
12:54that does not have four seasons.
12:55I find that to be a pathetic way of life.
12:59If you don't have four seasons,
13:01it's like you don't have all the colors.
13:03I like freezing, I like sweating, I like,
13:06oh my God, this season's over, we're gonna get a new one.
13:09If you're wearing a T-shirt and jeans
13:10and you throw on a blazer and a scarf,
13:12people think you look nice, but you don't.
13:15And then the last item is your Star of David necklace, Jerry.
13:19Oh, well, I'm not gonna show you that,
13:21but I can talk about it.
13:24Yes, I wear a Star of David necklace
13:27because it makes me feel closer to the people of Israel
13:31that I feel close to.
13:33And that's why I wear it.
13:39Thanks for checking out my essentials.
13:42Make your life more essential and more quintessent
13:46and you'll be happier.