[upbeat music plays]
[audience cheering]
[announcer] Please welcome Fortune Feimster!
♪ I’m a powerful woman ♪
♪ Always get what I want ♪
♪ So don’t you get in my way now That’s not what I want ♪
♪ ‘Cause I’m a powerful woman ♪
♪ Always get what I want ♪
♪ So don’t you get in my way now That’s not what I want ♪
♪ ‘Cause I’m a powerful woman ♪
♪ Always get what I want ♪
♪ So don’t you get in my way now That’s not what I want ♪
♪ ‘Cause I’m a powerful woman ♪
♪ Always get what I ♪
♪ Powerful woman, oh, yeah ♪
[cheering]
Oh man! Stop!
[cheering continues]
Stop! Chicago, what’s going on?
[cheering]
Oh man! Thank you for being here at the beautiful Chicago Shakespeare Theater.
[cheering]
A lot has transpired in the last couple of years, right? The world has dealt with some crazy stuff. It felt like the end of times, and I thought lesbians would be built for that, you know?
[laughter]
Put us in a bunker with some canned hams, we’re good.
[laughter]
But things went south, and I learned a lot about myself. I found out I have zero survival skills. None. All I had to do was stay home. I got nothing accomplished. No sourdough was started in my house. I didn’t learn how to make cold brew. Nothing. It was my partner, Jax, who surprised me. She was the one outside painting our fence, rewired our electricity, fixed our plumbing. I was the one on the couch every night, just watching documentaries about old people in love.
[sighs]
Just crying in my Ugg boots.
[laughter]
I found out, y’all. I’m not butch.
[laughter]
Yeah.
[cheering and applause]
I am not butch, which is shocking, I know, ’cause I have these broad shoulders and my favorite color is plaid.
[laughter]
But this is a preview to a whole different movie than what you think you’re about to watch. As they say, the carpet does not match the drapes. Two things that I do not know how to install.
[laughter]
[cheering and applause]
I look very handy, though. I do. I look handy. If you saw me and your car was broken down, you might assume I could fix your car. I got that look about me, ’cause that is what a butch lady can do. She can literally put your car on her back…
[laughter]
…and walk it to a service station.
[laughter]
She can actually just spit in your gas tank… [imitates spitting] …and your car will start.
[laughter]
[sighs] Magical. But that is not me. And men are the most mystified by this information. They come up to me constantly at, like, a Home Depot because they assume I work there.
[laughter]
They’re like, “Uh, what’s up, dude? Um…”
“Where are the nails?”
I’m like, “Ooh, I’m here for a potted plant.”
[laughter]
“I do know they sell M&M’s at the checkout.”
[laughter and applause]
We got bored at one point, and we drove out to the desert in California, out to Joshua Tree, and I noticed up ahead on the freeway, there was this car broken down, and this guy whose car it was, he was really tall. He was ripped, shirtless, he had a man bun. Straight ladies, are we still into man buns?
[woman] No!
Oh, hard no right there. Wow. This guy had on black-and-white striped pants. Looked like a gorgeous prisoner that had escaped. Now his car is broken down on the side of the road. I’m driving past him, I look over my shoulder, I realize it’s Jason Momoa. Yeah. Oh, you like man buns now, don’t you? Yeah. That’s what I thought.
[applause]
It was Aquaman, miles from the ocean, just stranded in the desert without his superpowers. Beautiful, shirtless. I kept driving.
[laughter]
We’ve been over this. I can’t fix his car. I can’t give him a BJ while he waits for somebody else to fix his car. I got nothing for this man.
[laughter]
I did the next best thing. When I had to get gas, I went to his Instagram page. “Let me just double-check to see if it was him.” To me, all dudes look alike.
[laughter]
Went on his page, he had posted a picture of him in the black-and-white striped pants, side of the road. I went, “Oh my God, that was Jason Momoa.” And I gave his picture a like.
[laughter and applause]
I did my part. But I’m a lot different than what meets the eye. I am a dainty lady. I am a delicate flower. I like a massage every now and then. This girl likes to be pampered, y’all. I got a butt massage for the first time recently. Have y’all had one of those? Oh man! I’m not talking about an elbow to the glute. I’m talking full-on butt, booty massage. I mean, I was at this very respectable spa, on my stomach, and this guy just started going in on my ass.
[laughter]
Making noises too.
[exhaling loudly]
I went… [gasps]
[laughter]
I clutched my invisible pearls.
[laughter]
I had never been touched by a man like this before.
[laughter]
He just kept digging into my butt, and he unlocked some sort of treasure.
[laughter]
I had never felt anything that good before. I went home that night light as a feather. A whole new woman. I cooked a three-course meal. I don’t even know how to cook.
[laughter]
I called a few days later. I had to book another appointment. This guy was booked solid for a month. I was like, “Oh, this is, like, his thing. He’s the butt massage guy, and everybody knows about it.” So I finally got back in there a month later, same thing. Went in on my ass.
[exhales loudly]
This time for, like, 30 minutes. He spent more time on my butt than I have ever spent taking care of my face.
[laughter]
He wouldn’t touch anything else. Like, my feet, “Ugh, gross! Ugh.” Just all butt. Went home. Called a couple of days later to make another appointment.
[laughter]
He had gotten fired.
[laughter]
Yeah, somebody ruined it for all of us. Freaking butt narc.
[laughter]
[groans] Turns out he unlocked too many treasures.
[laughter]
But the one person I did not want to find out that I’m not as tough as I appear is my partner, Jax. I did not want her to know this information, because before me, she dated nothing but butch women, and I’m talking butch. I’m talking cops, truckers, and bouncers. Oh my!
[laughter]
Butch. I’m a whole different vibe. I’m like, “Who wants a hug?” Like, so different. But we were going to this fancy Hollywood event, and I was trying to play the part, so I had on my Men’s Wearhouse suit.
[laughter]
Jax had on her dress and heels, and we got a phone call from the alarm company. They said our home alarm was going off, and did we want them to send security out to check? I said, “Absolutely.” We turn back around. We get home, and nobody’s there yet. Jax shifts. She goes, “Well, we got to go in and assess the situation.” I’m like, “No, we don’t.”
[laughter]
She said, “Well, my ex, Darlene, who was a cop, said that home alarms are the lowest of the priority.” I was like, “Wait.” “I thought that ex’s name was Pam.” She’s like, “There is a Darlene and a Pam. Maybe you’re thinking about Sheila.” I’m like, “How many cops?”
[laughter]
[groans] She dated, like, the whole lady force of Chicago.
[laughter]
She said, “You’re really not gonna go inside and check the house?” I said, “No!” So she grabbed the high heel off of her foot like this and held it up like a weapon, and she charged in there with one shoe off.
[laughter]
Just going room to room, like she was gonna Jimmy Choo someone’s face if they jumped out. I stayed in the doorway ’cause I had on flats.
[laughter]
I’m like, “How am I gonna protect myself? I don’t have a kitten heel on, nothing.”
[laughter]
I heard a noise at one point, so I held the key fob up higher.
[laughter]
I was like, “I will press this button, I swear to God. It says ‘Panic, ‘ and I’m panicked.”
[laughter]
The alarm company called, they said it was a false alarm. A battery had died in one of the sensors. They said, “We are so sorry. We hope we did not cause you any inconvenience.” I said, “My partner now knows I am useless. This is very inconvenient.”
[laughter]
Jax came hobbling out. She said, “You could have at least gone in there with me.” I was like, “Oh my God, that did not even occur to me.”
[laughter]
So I am not the protector of my family. And I know why Jax is so strong. I do. She is a kindergarten teacher, and they are tough. They have to be.
[cheering]
Yeah. That’s a hard job.
[applause]
But I think about when I was in kindergarten in the ’80s, and, oh boy, they just let you do whatever. I have a picture of me at five years old in kindergarten class, and I am holding a hammer…
[laughter]
…and nails. I mean, first off, somebody should have taught me how to use ’em.
[laughter]
But I’m like, “Why am I holding a hammer and nails?” Were we practicing hammering? Was the teacher like, “All right, class, we’re gonna build shelves for the classroom, and then afterwards, maybe a nice bench for my garage”? That’s bonkers. Imagine your five-year-old right now. They cannot color inside of a giant circle, but you’re gonna hand them a large, heavy hammer and hope that they can hit this itty-bitty, tiny nail. No! But that’s the kind of stuff that they would do in the ’80s. I mean, recess alone was like, “Godspeed.” You were on your own. I mean, think about it. Our favorite game, dodgeball. You were taking a large, heavy ball and you were pummeling each other in the face as hard as you can. That’s where we had to learn to Matrix.
[laughter]
To keep from getting our teeth knocked in. That game did come in handy for me a little bit later on in high school. I dodged a couple of balls. Not many. Um…
[laughter]
Never caught one. It was actually Red Rover that would get the most intense. You guys remember Red Rover?
[cheering]
You get in a line with your friends and you lock arms. Your other friends would get in a line across from you and they’d lock arms. And then you yell, “Hold the line! Hold the line!” Like we’re Braveheart.
[laughter]
You’re staring your friends down from across the field. Your only objective is to run as hard as you can right towards that line, and they just wanna break your arm.
[laughter]
Then all you wanna do is when they’re running towards you, you wanna grab your neighbor’s arm, you wanna pull your arms up, and then you just wanna crush their clavicle.
[laughter]
And then you start taunting each other. You go, “Red Rover, Red Rover, you send that little bitch Timmy…”
[laughter]
“…right on over.”
[cheering and applause]
Timmy gets that look in his eye. He starts running as hard as he can. We’re like, “Hold the line!” Here he comes. We grab each other’s arm. We pull our line up. Now Timmy’s crashed through our line. Now our arm’s dangling from the socket.
[laughter]
We’re like, “Did we win? Did we hold the line?” Your teacher’s not doing anything. She’s over there on the blacktop, just smoking a Virginia Slim.
[laughter]
Having some sort of midlife crisis.
[laughter]
She’s like, “They don’t pay me enough to care about that.”
[laughter]
The PE equipment was insane. We had merry-go-rounds. They’re metal death traps. They were only fun if you would spin ’em 60 miles an hour, and then we would try to run and jump on ’em while they’re moving.
[laughter]
It’s like trying to jump on the hood of a moving vehicle. But there was nowhere to land. There was already 20 friends in a nook just going around.
[laughter]
Couldn’t touch anything ’cause it’s 135 degrees in the sun. Inevitably one friend would fall off and get trapped. “Agh!” Bleeding from the kneecap now, we’re trying to get our teacher’s attention. She’s like, “20 more minutes!”
[laughter]
“This is me time.”
[laughter]
And because I’m from North Carolina, we used to play with tires. Yeah, I’m talking about tires that fell off of a Mack truck, rolled into the elementary school parking lot. Our administrators are like, “Well, we don’t got much of a budget, so we’ll figure out something to do with these old things.” These were large tires. You stand them up, they’re this tall, like 75 pounds, hollow in the middle. We had a hill in the back of our elementary school, so it was our teachers who had to push these tires up that hill, [grunts] Just so angry, just pushing them up there. They’re like, “I have a master’s in education.”
[laughter]
We ran up there, we took our little five-year-old bodies, and we would… We got into the middle of these tires. Our friend would take their five-year-old body, get in the other one. Then it was our teachers who would get behind each tire, and get momentum.
[laughter]
“All right, you little fuckers.”
[laughter]
“Get ready for the ride of your life.” And then they pushed us down a hill. We got speeds of, like, 20 miles an hour, 40 miles an hour, 60 miles an hour. There’s no handle. You’re just like… [yells] We crashed into a brick wall, flew out of the tire, vomited.
[laughter]
Your teacher came down the hill, put her cigarette out on your forehead. She’d be like, “Recess is dismissed. In fact, school’s dismissed. I got to go meet my man friend who I connected with via the newspaper.”
[laughter]
And that was recess in the ’80s.
[cheering and applause]
It was a different time, y’all. It was when you could take a large calculator and write the word “boobs.” Ah. My favorite number, 80085.
[cheering]
[Fortune chuckles] I mean, yeah, kids can get their phone out right now and see as many boobs as they want, but who got to write it out in numbers? We did.
[cheering and applause]
Good times, y’all. But I’m glad to be in a relationship. I like it. It suits me. Dating is hard. It’s really hard. I don’t know. You got to go on apps and swipe and do the things. Like, if I were single, my favorite dating app would be Grubhub.
[laughter]
For sure. I think swingers have it figured out. I do. It had to be tough for them dating in the pandemic, uh, but they have ways to let each other know that they are swingers. Did you guys know this? I’m gonna teach you. All right. I found out that if you want to let people know that you are a swinger, you can put flamingos in your front yard. Yeah. It gets very confusing in Florida and at my mom’s house.
[laughter]
Maybe that’s why she’s been busy on the weekends. I don’t know.
[laughter]
I don’t quite understand it. Do people just drive around the neighborhoods looking for a flock of flamingos? They see it, they ring your doorbell and tell you they’re down to clown. I don’t know. But I like it.
There’s also, uh, an upside-down pineapple. You can put an upside-down pineapple on your front porch. Don’t put it right side up. That is just a pineapple.
[laughter]
I always assumed that an upside-down pineapple was letting people know that you like cake.
[laughter]
I would stop and ring a stranger’s doorbell for cake.
[laughter]
But I actually got approached by a swinger couple after a show. Uh, they came up to me. Yeah, it was very exciting. And I am not an ageist, I am just telling you a fact. This is just a fact of the story. They both had canes.
[laughter]
So this was not their first rodeo.
[laughter]
And the wife informed me that her husband really enjoyed the show, which I very much appreciated, and she said that he had told her by the end of the show that she was allowed to get with me.
[laughter]
[snickers]
Sexually? I don’t know.
[laughter]
I didn’t know what to say. So I curtsied.
[laughter]
[cheering and applause]
Which is not a no.
[laughter]
But it is polite.
[laughter]
But you got to put yourself out there, date different people. I went out with different people. I went out with a nurse at one point. And God bless nurses. They have gotten us through this crazy time.
[cheering and applause]
Yeah. I thought it would be different. I thought she’d come home in a sexy nurse outfit and be like, “Who’s got an owie?” And I’d be like, “Me.”
[laughter]
But it didn’t work like that. She’d come home in her dirty-ass scrubs. She brought her work home with her. She was always following me around with a clipboard, asking me about my bowel movements. She thought I should lose weight, which, touché.
[laughter]
I’m just saying it wasn’t fun to eat nachos with her, ’cause she’d look at me and then look at the nachos and be like, “Okay.”
[laughter]
“All right. Well, someone made a choice.”
“Mm-hm.”
“Three kinds of cheeses, sour cream, and liquid cheese?”
[laughter]
I’m like, “It’s called queso.”
[laughter]
“And it’s Spanish for heart disease.”
[laughter]
“And it’s delicious.”
I knew it wasn’t gonna work out right then and there. I was trying to find, like, a legitimate excuse to break things off. She’s doing the Lord’s work, and I didn’t wanna just be like, “Hey, you bum me out when I eat nachos.”
[laughter]
Then I eventually met Jax right here in Chicago.
[cheering and applause]
At Gay Pride. Yeah.
[cheering]
There’s hope. We met in a parking lot. [chuckles] We met in a parking lot. That’s how few lesbian bars are left in the United States. The lesbians are just relegated to a parking lot where you can either party or valet cars. It’s up to you.
[laughter]
But we dated for a bit, but I knew pretty early on that, uh, Jax was the one. And it got to the point where I knew it was time to propose, and I’m not known for romance, so I called my friend. I said, “Where should I propose to Jax?” And she said, “Oh, you got to go to Big Sur.” And no, that was not my nickname in high school.
[laughter]
It’s a town in California out by the coast, really beautiful bridges and cliffs. She said, “There’s this hotel, very romantic, call there.”
I called the hotel, and whoever was on the phone was upselling everything. I just wanted a standard cabin. She goes, “Whoa! You’re gonna propose? Don’t you be cheap, okay? Don’t be cheap. You better upgrade to that ocean view, I’m telling you. It’s worth it. It’s gonna knock her tits off.”
[laughter]
I don’t know if she actually said that, but that was the energy she was bringing to the conversation. I’m like, “Fine.” I paid a bunch of extra money, got this ocean view that’s supposed to be great, and off we went. We get up there to this cabin, I walk in. A very old cabin, very expensive cabin. I said, “But wait till you see this view.” And I’m about to open that back door, and I say to her, “Hold on to your titties.”
[laughter]
And I open that back door, we walk outside, and it is just fog, fog, fog. Just a hateful fog. I’m like, “What is this? An 1800s lesbian period piece? Why is there so much fog? Is Kate Winslet down there searching for fossils?”
[laughter]
[groans] Not how I wanted things to start, but I was like, “It’s fine.”
My plan was I was gonna take her to their fancy restaurant for dinner, and then I would go back to the room, and that is where I would propose. So I, uh… I called ahead to the hotel and I say, “Can you guys help me make our room look like it does in The Bachelor?” I don’t know, ladies seem to like that. “Can we get some candles and rose petals, uh, how about some champagne? How about some strawberries? But let’s dip them in chocolate. Otherwise it’s fruit.”
[laughter]
They said absolutely, charged me a bunch of money. Happy to pay, happy to have the help. So off we went. We go to dinner. I go find the waiter ’cause I need his help. I tell him what’s going on. So I walk up to him and I see that his name is Craig. And Craig is very dramatic. I think that he does local theater up there.
[laughter]
So I walk up to him. I go, “Hi, Craig,” and he goes, “Hi.”
[laughter]
I said, “Craig, I am going to be proposing to my girlfriend tonight,” and he goes, “Oh… my… God!”
[laughter]
He reminded me of the candlestick in Beauty and the Beast. Just a lot of, like, “You will propose, and the curse will be broken!”
[laughter]
I was like, “Thank you. I’m very excited, but I’m nervous. I don’t want dinner to drag on. This ring is burning a hole in my pocket. So they’re doing stuff to our room. Do you mind near the end of dinner, calling the front desk, finding out if our room is ready, then giving me some sort of signal, and that’s when I’ll know to wrap it up?” He goes, “Absolutely. You got it.”
[laughter]
I said, “You don’t need to offer dessert, I’m taking care of that in the room.” He goes, “Okay.” And then he turns around like this…
[laughter]
…and leaves.
[laughter]
I’m like, “I like Craig.”
So we start eating this meal, and every course that comes out just ends up being weirder than the next. It’s too fancy for us. It’s too fancy. It’s a lot of foams and tentacles and shells. A lot of stuff from that “ocean” I keep hearing about.
[laughter]
So everything is just a hair off, but we finally finish dinner, and, uh, I’m ready to get the night going, and Craig goes, “Hi, ladies. Who wants dessert?” I’m like, “Not us, Craig.” He goes, “Oops!”
[laughter]
I was like, “Craig! You had two jobs, bud.”
[laughter]
How could someone be so excited and incompetent all in one body?
[laughter]
So now Jax is very confused, ’cause she’s never not seen me order dessert.
[laughter]
And I’m staring at her and I don’t know what to say. I’m thinking about getting this right, I want it to be perfect. It’s the one story that everybody asks you about. They want every detail. And Craig’s not coming, he’s not coming. It is the least romantic dinner of our life. And then finally, after what felt like a lifetime, Craig sneaks up behind Jax.
[laughter]
And he’s now hovering over her shoulder. She has no idea that he is behind her, and he is just staring at me so… intensely.
[laughter]
I have been with Jax for seven years. We have never looked at each other in the eye for as long as Craig is staring at me. [exhales] Then finally, he goes… “Mm!”
[laughter]
So proud of himself. Turns around. Into the fog, never to be seen of again.
[cheering and applause]
We’re heading to the room. I’m trying to think of all the things I want to say to Jax. I just want it to be perfect, I want it to be romantic. We’re getting up to the door, I’m starting to sweat. I’m getting nervous, and when I get nervous, I start doing finger guns.
[laughter]
So I look at Jax and start going…
[laughter]
And then I am ready to open that door to romance. We walk in there, and it just looks like a crime scene.
[laughter]
Our eyes are adjusting ’cause it’s weirdly lit. You know what a room looks like when just the bathroom light’s been left on? I’m looking around, there’s, like, 50 tea light candles, but they’re all battery-operated. And half of them are just dead. They’re just dead. Ten are flickering, like, “We’re trying!”
[laughter]
My OCD brain is like, “Who made this call?” But I can’t even focus on it because I’m standing on a mound of something. There are rose petals everywhere. Everywhere! Not in any way that makes sense. There’s no heart shape or initials. It’s just chaos. It looks like someone opened that back door, a bunch of shit flew in the room, then they grabbed a leaf blower… [imitates leaf blower buzzing] …and called it a night. I’m like, “Did I order the ‘It’ll Do’ package?”
[laughter]
“What is this?” And when you guys think of roses and romance, what color do you think of?
[audience] Red!
Red? Interesting.
[laughter]
Well, these were white rose petals, half-dead. I googled later, “What do white roses stand for?” It’s chastity. Yeah. This is, in fact, an 1800s lesbian period piece.
[laughter]
So even though they did not apparently allow real candles in this cabin, they did light a roaring fireplace, and that was exactly where they decided to place the chocolate-covered strawberries and the bucket of ice with champagne. Both are just profusely dripping onto the floor. Nothing about this scenario makes Jax think that she is about to get proposed to.
[laughter]
I have a split second to decide which direction I am going with this night. Do I call the front desk and be like, “Somebody broke into our room and destroyed it”?
[laughter]
Or do I lean into this and pretend that every single thing that is happening in that room is exactly how I planned it? So now I’m staring at Jax like a deer in headlights. I can’t think of any of the romantic things I was gonna say to her. I’m sweating again. I’m getting nervous. Oh man, here come the finger guns.
[laughter]
I forget to get on my knee. I can’t think of anything. I’m panicked, so I just go…
[laughter]
And I yelled, “You wanna?”
[laughter]
Jax curtsied.
[laughter and applause]
And then, thank goodness, she said yes.
[cheering and applause]
Phew. So, um… So now that we were engaged, we had to start planning our wedding. And we were engaged for a while, ’cause truth be told, Jax and I are not big planners. And then my mom, Ginger, started offering up her wedding planning services. And I was like, “Oh boy.” Because my mom got remarried later on in life, and I was at that wedding, and, um, my mom had a circus theme.
[laughter]
Yeah. She was marrying this old-school Southern guy who sounded like Foghorn Leghorn.
[laughter]
He was not part of the planning. Uh, I don’t know if my mom thought she was planning a 12-year-old’s birthday party or her wedding, but that’s what happened. It was a circus theme. She invited 300 people. That’s right, 300 people. To come to the Methodist church for this big party. And she rented a red-and-white striped circus tent and had them put it inside the fellowship hall. Not outside where tents go. Inside.
[laughter]
She rented a cotton candy maker. She said,” I’m gonna serve nachos with ‘jalapee-nos, ‘” as she called them. There was a juggler. I guess I was the clown.
[laughter]
She had just 12 gallons of ice cream. The main entrée was a hot dog cart. She just found some guy on the side of the road the week before, and was like, “What are you doing on Saturday?” And this guy got there. I don’t think he’d sold more than 20 hot dogs in a day. And now he has 300 starving people wrapped around the church, just desperate for one of his wieners.
[laughter]
He was just like, “Agh!” Panic. In the middle of this party, there were two round, plastic baby pools. I was like, “Are we bobbing for apples now?” No. My mom had put ice in both of these plastic baby pools and then put canned soft drinks in both of these pools and announced to the party that these were our coolers.
[laughter]
I walked in there and I saw two plastic baby pools being used as coolers, and I thought, “Here I am working so hard in Los Angeles, trying to make a name for myself, and we are trash.”
[laughter]
“We are trash.”
My mom’s man friend walked in there in his penny loafers, not knowing what was going on. He about fainted. Like, “I do declare!”
[laughter]
But the best part was the entertainment. They had a woman from the church choir singing, and this was her big solo moment, and she took center stage so confidently, and she started singing.
♪ Go tell it on the mountain ♪
♪ Over the hill and everywhere ♪
♪ Go tell it on the mountain ♪
♪ That Ginger ♪
♪ Got married ♪
[cheering and applause]
Oh, there was more. She started singing…
♪ Oh when the saints go marching in ♪
♪ Oh when the saints go marching in ♪
♪ How I want to be in that number ♪
♪ When the saints go marching ♪
♪ In ♪
[cheering]
[Fortune laughs]
That marriage lasted three months.
[laughter]
That circus tent was up longer than my mom’s marriage lasted. So… [laughs] We started planning our wedding and, uh, did not involve my mom. The pandemic hit, and we thought, “Well, I guess we’re not gonna be able to get married.” Uh, but then the fall came, it was October, and we’re like, “Actually, this is the perfect time to get married. We can do it how we want and we don’t have to worry about anybody else.”
So yeah, it was great.
[applause]
We planned it in two weeks, rented an Airbnb out by the ocean, had a stranger in a mask be our officiant. We Zoomed our families. I think my mom is still on that Zoom call.
[laughter]
And it’s not how either of us ever thought that we would get married, but it ended up being perfect ’cause it was just about us and just about our day, and, uh, we even got baptized that day. Not on purpose.
[laughter]
But… But we were taking these, uh, these photographs, and we saw the sun was setting, and there was these stairs down to the ocean. We were like, “Oh my gosh, we got to get a picture here.” So we stand over there, and our amazing photographer got a series of pictures. And in our first picture, we look beautiful. We look like, uh, two lesbians at prom together.
[laughter]
Gorgeous picture. Our second picture, we’re kind of doing this ’cause something is looming over us. Like the principal who’s angry that two lesbians went to prom together.
[laughter]
Then in the third picture, we’re doing this because the ocean is now crashing into our earholes. Fourth picture, we’re completely covered by water. Fifth picture, the ocean’s been sucked back out to sea, and we’re dripping wet like…
[laughter]
“So glad we decided to take this picture in the sunset.”
[laughter]
We have all these pictures, and I think it means it’s good luck. That’s what I’ve been told. It’s good luck. We’re gonna go with that. But, uh, a few days after we got married, they announced online that we had gotten married, and we got a lot of love and a lot of support, which I really appreciate.
[cheering and applause]
I try to put out positivity, so when it comes back to me, it means so much. I try not to focus on negative stuff. I try to surround myself, uh, with positive things. I try not to read negative comments, but in a job like mine, you do hear from a lot of people. And I don’t see everything, but occasionally a turd will get through.
[laughter]
And I happened to see this message on that day that was sent to me directly. And, uh, I wanted to read that message to you guys, if that’s okay.
[woman] Yes!
Yes! All right. It’s from a guy named Gary, and, uh, I will preface it with you are not going to like this message, but we are going to unpack it together.
[laughter]
So here’s what Gary wrote to me on the day it was announced that I got married. He said, “How long have you and your wife been mentally ill, taco-licking lesbians who should be put in Alcatraz?”
I was like, “Wow, that is very specific.”
[laughter]
There was no grammar in that message, by the way. He was like, “Mentally ill taco licking…”
I’m like, “I think he means ‘mentally ill, ‘ comma, ‘taco, ‘ hyphen…” You guys get it. Already I’m doing him favors.
[laughter]
And I guess I was bored on this particular day, because I was like, “I just got to see what this person looks like. Who sends a message like this to a complete stranger?”
So I went on his page, and he did not have a picture of himself. It was a picture of an American flag, and written across of it, it said, “We need God in America again.”
That is what Gary leads with on Instagram, and then that was the message that he sent me. I was like, “I don’t know that God would be into the phrase ‘taco-licking.'”
[laughter]
Call me crazy, which he did…
[laughter]
…but that did not sound very Christ-like to me.
[laughter]
By the way, there is nowhere in the Bible where it says what you can or cannot do with your Mexican food. Just so you know.
[cheering and applause]
That is up to you, my friends. So then Gary said that we should be put in Alcatraz. Now, I don’t know if he doesn’t have Google…
[laughter]
…but Alcatraz has not been a prison for a while. If that’s what he intended, it’s not a prison. It’s actually a museum, and it’s a museum in San Francisco, which is one of the gayest cities in the whole world.
[cheering and applause]
I’m like, “Is Gary telling me I should be in a gay museum?”
“Gary, stop. Am I a trailblazer? Stop, Gary.”
At the top of the message, it said that he and I did not follow each other, which was not a surprise. But it did say that we followed one person in common. I’m like, “Who in the world could Gary and I possibly agree on? We seem like very different people.” And it said, “You both follow Oprah.”
[laughter]
What? I have to say, I did not take Gary as an Oprah kind of guy. But that is how famous Oprah is. She builds bridges.
[laughter]
So I read the message again. “How long have you and your wife been mentally ill, taco-licking lesbians who should be put in Alcatraz?”
And I was like, “Why have I not moved on from this message?”
[laughter]
And I’m looking at it. “What is it?” Then it hit me. I was like, “Oh my God. Gary just recognized my marriage.” He said, “Your wife,” and that is called progress.
[cheering and applause]
Granted, he spelled “wife” with a Y, but I know what he meant.
[laughter]
And listen, there are a lot of people who fought many, many years for someone like me to be able to say “wife.” Gary said it in 2.2 seconds without even thinking. His head would explode if he knew how progressive that message was. So that is, in fact, progress, my friends.
[cheering and applause]
So we got married, we stayed at home for the next year like everybody else. I couldn’t go on the road and do my job, which was really weird. And now that I’m back on the road, I do not take it for granted anymore. It is such a beautiful thing to come out and make people laugh, and to add some sort of levity to the world. I love Chicago, I love coming here. It’s one of my favorite cities.
[cheering and applause]
There was only one city on this tour I was nervous to go back to, and that was Des Moines.
[laughter]
Last time I was there, it was in the middle of winter, and I forgot that in the Midwest, when it is wintertime, and people are freezing, they get hammered. Hammered. It is too cold to go outside, there is nothing else to do.
So I get to the venue, and girls are coming out of the bathroom like this. There is toilet paper on the bottom of their shoes. It is 7 p.m. That is where we are starting this night. So I get out on stage, and they are just wanting to party. They’re sending shot after shot, and I like drinks, but my vice is milkshakes, so I’m good. And they keep wanting me to drink Fireball Whisky. They love Fireball Whisky. I think it tastes like a bottle of gasoline with a stick of Big Red chewing gum plopped in the middle.
[pretends to retch]
I’m like, “I’m good.” They’re like, “What?”
“She doesn’t like Fireball!”
“She doesn’t like Fireball. Shit!”
They cannot fathom this information. So now as an audience, they only care about trying to figure out what drink to send me next.
“All right, okay, she doesn’t like Fireball.”
“All right. Oh, vodka!”
“Yeah, send it, send it!”
All these vodka and cranberries start coming to the stage.
“I’m not really a vodka person.”
They’re like, “What?!”
“Uh, she doesn’t like vodka. Shit, she doesn’t like vodka.”
“All right. Oh, beer! Yeah, send it.”
All these beers start coming to the stage.
I’m like, “I never acquired a taste for it.”
They’re like, “Well, that’s surprising.”
[laughter]
I know I look like somebody that would pound a beer, take the can and crush it on my forehead, and still recycle.
[laughter]
[cheering and applause]
I’m now taking these drinks they’ve passed up. I’m passing it back out to them. I am only making them drunker.
They go, “Please, for the love of God, tell us what you drink. You cannot leave Iowa without having a drink with us.”
I’m like, “That’s a weird rule, but all right.”
[laughter]
I’m trying to think of a drink that’s gonna take a while to make ’cause then I can do my job, tell some jokes. I go, “A sangria.”
[laughter]
I forgot where I was.
[laughter]
I was like, “All right, an old-fashioned.” I assume they got to find a mixologist with a little mustache. He’s gotta freeze a large ice cube, bitters, slice an orange… It’ll take a while. Two minutes later, these gorgeous old-fashioneds show up.
“All right, fine. Is this gonna make you happy?”
I grab this drink that’s meant to be sipped, and I just… Down the gullet. [sighs] They are so pumped. You would think I had just competed in a decathlon.
[laughter]
So they’re having a good time. We get back into the show, we’re laughing, the show’s great. Later, they start getting restless again. I’m like, “What now?” I look back, and there’s this older woman trying to make her way through the crowd. She’s got short, spiky, gray hair, she’s got this worn face like she has seen some shit.
[laughter]
She’s got a leather vest on. I assume she’s got a dreamcatcher in her car.
[laughter]
She’s walking very confidently towards the stage, and she lands right there at the end of the stage, and I look and I see that she is holding a Smirnoff Ice.
[audience member] Oh!
And she looks at me and she goes, “Hey. My name’s Linda…”
[laughter]
“…and you are about to get iced.”
[laughter]
I grabbed the Smirnoff Ice and I said, “What time capsule did you dig this out of?”
[laughter]
Thinking the whole crowd would agree. They start chanting, “Iced, iced, iced, iced, iced!” They are relentless. I’m like, “What is iced?” I have no idea what they are talking about. This very sweet Midwestern woman stands up. She goes, “Getting iced is when you get down on your knees, you take that bottle of Smirnoff Ice, you drink that whole bottle all in one gulp, and that is getting iced.”
[laughter and applause]
I’m not getting on my knees and drinking a Smirnoff Ice. The whole room yells, “Those are the rules!”
I’m like, “I am a grown woman, professional comedian.”
Linda yells, “Get on your knees!”
[laughter]
“You are getting iced!”
[laughter]
[laughter continues]
[cheering]
So I got on my knee. This would have come in handy during my proposal.
[laughter]
And I start chugging this God-awful Smirnoff Ice. Like… [groans] This malt liquor bullshit’s falling down my face. It’s all sticky and gross, it’s ruining my perfectly good cardigan. They’re just going nuts. The audience is going nuts. I’m like… [groans] I finally finish this drink. Mm. [exhales] And I stand up. And something about that old-fashioned…
[laughter]
…and that Smirnoff Ice… and that low gravity…
[laughter]
…did not mix. I am immediately seeing double. I don’t finish my set. I don’t say goodnight. I just look at the crowd and I said, “You did this.”
[laughter]
And I left.
[applause]
Passed out backstage. I come to, like, two hours later in the promoter’s car. I’m waking up, I’m like, “How did I get here?” She said, “Well, three very large security guards had to carry you outside.”
[laughter]
I’m like, “I did not ask that.”
[laughter]
“And it could have been done with two.”
[laughter]
I said, “No, what happened?”
She said, “Well, you got iced. I don’t know if it was that, if it was the mix of the two alcohols.”
I said, “Get me out of Des Moines!”
[laughter]
She goes to start the car, and it will not start. I’m like, “Oh my gosh, I am not getting stuck in Des Moines!” It’s freezing cold, it’s late at night, there’s no Ubers, my plane’s leaving soon, people are icing me.
[laughter]
I’m just ready to leave, and I hear the doors burst open to the club. I look over. Here comes Linda.
[laughter]
She saddles up to the car. “What’s up, ladies?”
[laughter]
I’m like, “Hey, Linda.”
[laughter]
I’m trying not to make eye contact with her, ’cause I don’t know what kind of powers that dreamcatcher has.
[laughter]
I said, “Hey, Linda, uh, our car won’t start, but we’re good. We got it. Thank you for coming. Good night.”
She took a look at me, she goes… [clicks tongue] Gives me a wink. Walks to the back of the car, opens up that gas tank. [pretends to spit] Spit in the gas tank, and I got the heck out of Des Moines.
[cheering and applause]
Oh, Linda.
[Fortune chuckles]
So I have now been married for two years.
[cheering and applause]
And it’s great. I love it. And, uh, we get that next question that you always get when you’re newly married. Everybody wants to know if we’re having kids. And I’ll tell you parents, you are not making it look fun.
[laughter]
You guys all have a glaze in your eyes. So we’re dog moms right now. That’s what we’re doing. And, uh, we’ll see what happens. But we have this little Pomeranian named Biggie.
[cheering]
So cute. He’s a little guy, eight pounds, and a very happy, healthy guy, but he came down with something called HGE. Now it’s this thing that dogs can get where they go from being totally healthy and fine to being super, super sick, and it can be deadly. It comes on fast, like 48 hours, and vets don’t know how dogs get this. They say it could be from something they ate, it could be from stress. I was like, “The Humane Society found Biggie eating out of a dumpster, and now he is walking around Beverly Hills in my wife’s Gucci purse.”
[laughter]
“He ain’t got no stress.”
[laughter]
His food is more expensive than mine. He ain’t got no stress. So we have no idea where this came from or how he got it, but the signs of it start to show up at the beginning of our flight from LA to New York City, five and a half hours, and every hour, he got significantly worse. We couldn’t do anything. We landed, it took us an hour to drive into New York City. We went straight to an animal hospital. Jax took him in the examination room, and I was filling out tons of paperwork. It’s so different than when I grew up with pets. I mean, back in the day, your dog slept inside, outside, your neighbor’s house. It’d roll up after two days, you’d be like, “Sparky, where’ve you been?”
[laughter]
Your dog ate whatever leftovers your grandma threw over the fence from the Sizzler. And if suddenly your dog required a large medical procedure, your parents were straight up just like, “It’s been fun, Sparky.”
[laughter]
And that was it. But now I am the adult. I have to be the one that makes these decisions. So I filled out everything, and I hadn’t seen Biggie in 45 minutes, so I don’t know how he’s doing at this point, but I do know this. It is time for me to step it up and be that protector of my family. It is time for me to be butch.
[laughter]
I have my Rocky moment, I’m, like, hitting myself in the face. I would do a push-up, but I can’t.
[laughter]
I’m all bowed up, ready to walk in that room, all tough. I walk in that door, and Biggie’s laid on the floor. There’s blood everywhere, he is way worse, and I lose it. I just start going…
[screams]
“No!”
And Jax goes, “Get out of here! You’re bumming us out.”
[laughter]
I got kicked out of the room!
[laughter]
I was forced to stand behind the glass door.
[laughter]
I’m just staring at my family. And I’d finally calmed down ’cause the nurse gave me a lollipop.
[laughter]
And I was so frustrated, I was so disappointed in myself that I couldn’t just pull it together for three freaking minutes, but it’s not who I am. I’m a Cancer, I’m sensitive, and I cannot change that about myself. So I go wait in the lobby till four in the morning. Jax joins me, they go take Biggie back and hook him up to all these machines. Finally, the vet comes out and he talks to us.
He says, “Listen, it is bad. He is at, like, 5%. And we will do whatever we can to try and save him, but for us to do that, he will have to be here for three to four days, round-the-clock care. He’s gonna have to have transfusions, plasma. We can’t even guarantee that it will work. But for us to try, it is going to cost a minimum of $10,000. What do you two want to do?”
[laughter]
[laughter continues]
Jax is like, “$10,000? I’m a teacher. That’s like a whole year’s salary.”
[laughter]
I’m like, “$10,000? He’s eight pounds. How much plasma could he possibly need? He can’t just share a crate with a squirrel?”
[laughter]
The vet’s like, “I need an answer.”
I’m like… [groans] Jax isn’t saying anything, so it’s clear I’ve got to make this decision. I’m like… [groans] I’m like, “What would my parents do? No, no, don’t think that.”
[laughter]
Jax is starting to get more upset. I’m like… [groans]
[exhales]
[sighs] So I pulled out my man wallet…
[laughter]
…and I grabbed my credit card and slammed it on the table. I said, “Charge it.” And then I looked Jax dead in the eye, and I said, “You think Darlene could have done that?”
[cheering and applause]
“No!”
[cheering]
“Pam is broke. Sheila has shitty-ass credit.”
[laughter]
Who’s butch? I’m butch!
[cheering and applause]
And the best part is, you guys, they did, in fact, save Biggie’s life.
[cheering]
Who’s that?
[loud cheering]
This is Biggie, everybody!
[cheering]
Worth every single penny right here, you guys.
[cheering]
And give it up, everybody, for my wife, Jax!
[cheering and applause]
That’s it from me, everybody. Thank you so much.
[cheering and applause]
Aw, thank you, guys. Thank you, Chicago!
[cheering continues]
[upbeat music plays]
Look at that. Goodnight, you guys. Thank you.
[cheering continues]
[upbeat music continues]
♪ You know we like to keep it lowkey ♪
♪ Windows down, feel the breeze ♪
♪ No cares, no worries ♪
♪ Just you and me ♪
♪ You and I, we don’t have to try ♪
♪ We just work, can’t deny ♪
♪ I know you’ll stay by my side Ride or die ♪
♪ It’s feeling good ♪
♪ It’s feeling good ♪
♪ it’s feeling good, good, good ♪
♪ Good, good, good, good ♪
♪ It’s feeling good, good, good ♪
♪ Good, good, good, good ♪
♪ It’s feeling good ♪
