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Kathleen Madigan: Hunting Bigfoot (2023) | Transcript

Recorded at The Paramount Theater in Denver, CO, stand-up comedienne Kathleen Madigan explores topics including aging parents, interactions with millennials, and hunting bigfoot.
Kathleen Madigan: Hunting Bigfoot

[UPBEAT MUSIC PLAYING]

[CROWD CHEERING]

Wow. Hello, hello, hello, everybody. Wow. Thank you so much. Yeah, it’s so fun to be back in Denver. I’ve been coming here for 150,000 years and I’m never bored. There’s always something to do and that is not the case every week on the road. No. Just not long ago, I was in this tiny town in Georgia, me and my friend Vic, and we were looking for something to do and we kept asking the local people. He’s like, “We got eight hours off is there anything fun to do?” And they just… all of them responded with, “Well, you can zip line to another state for $55.” And I asked the one guy, just ’cause I wanted to see if he would know, I go, “What state would I end up in if I chose to do it?” And he literally answered me with a question. He goes, “Alabama?” Yes. That is the state on the other side of you, Jesus, even I know that and I don’t even live here. And I think that’s what you should do with your criminals in Georgia. You should zip line them in the middle of the night to Alabama. You give him an iPhone and $100 and say, “Look, if we see your ass again in Georgia, pow, pow, bang, bang. No jokey-jokey.”

We were so bored. So he goes, “Well, let’s just go take a walk. There’s a creek over there.” So we took a walk and some lady pulled up with a red truck. I don’t know her. He doesn’t know her. She rolled out her window and she goes, “Hey, are y’all walking on purpose?” Wow. I’ve never been asked that in my whole life. I go, “Yeah, we’re walking on purpose.” She goes, “Why?” I said, “‘Cause we don’t want a zip line to Alabama.”

[CROWD LAUGHS]

Do you guys have saved your ticket? Like, this has been rescheduled because of COVID and I felt so bad during COVID, ’cause like I have relatives that are teachers and nurses and they all had to work so, so hard and it was all crazy. And as a comedian, I was told by the government to stay home and watch TV and… I nailed it. I’m just saying, I’m kind of an American hero. So, I followed my instructions. I watched stuff that I didn’t even know really while I was… why I was watching it, while I was watching them, I’m like, “Well, last I checked, I have a year off, so, I’ll finish it. Who cares?”

I watched an hour-long special about Caitlyn Jenner, and I said to my sister, like, I don’t know, halfway through, and I go, “I have no idea what it’s like to want to transition, but the desire must be super powerful because she, Caitlyn, is in her 60s and had to go through all these surgeries and all this craziness to become a woman in her 60s.” I’m in my 50s and I don’t wanna go to LensCrafters, like… I won’t do it anymore. Like these contacts will rot my eyes, or I will drag my ass back down to that mall and have a millennial shoot air in my eye… that I didn’t ask for. [BLOWS RASPBERRY] Stop doing that. Stop doing that. “We have to test for glaucoma.” “No, you don’t. No, you don’t. I’ll give you some 70 bucks and sign a waiver. We’ll call it even.” [BLOWS RASPBERRY] “Oh, your eyes are closed again.” Yeah. That’s what happens when you shoot an F5 tornado into some of these eyeballs. That’s the natural reaction. That’s why Jesus gave us eyelids. That’s why we have those.

God. A year off. I mean, people fantasize about that, right? We’ve all had those conversation. “What if you had a whole year of your life, like, what would you do? Would you, like, write a novel or, like, you know, learn pottery or, like, build a cabin?” [BLOWS RASPBERRY] Nope. Turns out nothing. I did nothing. I am no different unemployed than I am employed. There’s just more of it. Well, “Yeah, I will have a Bloody Mary right now. I don’t have to be at work or another 385 days. Yeah, go ahead. Make it a double.”

Who cares? It really proved the nuns right of my grade school career, because in a Catholic school, they always took that opportunity on a report card to write something snide on the back, and they would always write. “Kathleen does not make productive use of her free time.” Like to shout-out to Sister Sheila, you nailed it. You did.

You are still right. I did not make productive use of that time… a year. I thought about learning stuff, like I thought about learning Spanish, but then I’m like, “Yeah,” but they’re doing so good at English. Like, I’ll never catch up to them. Like, I’ll be dumb in two languages and there’s no reason to put yourself through that.

I did teach myself how to gamble via phone. That was pretty exciting. Yeah. DraftKings, BetMGM, FanDuel, all of them. But here’s a little warning, if you have an addictive personality, just a little recommendation, I would turn the notifications off because that is a hundred percent the devil’s doorbell, okay? Every five seconds, “Bing. Hey, Kathleen. There’s a cricket match starting in Mumbai in four and a half minutes. Do you wanna get a bet in?” “Yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes.” I don’t… I don’t even know how to play cricket, but there’s only two teams. I got a 50/50 chance right out of the gate. Set it down, literally four minutes later, “Bing. Hey, Kathleen, there’s a women’s tennis tournament starting in Eastern Europe. Would you like to bet on individual players?” “Yes. Any lady that ends it ‘ova, ‘ I want $50 on all the ‘ova, ‘ surely one more win.” And then I’ll cover that bet.

The only thing I did learn, which was alarming, is that I’ve been washing my hands wrong for 56 years. Yeah. Sanjay Gupta, the Buzzkill. He was on some show and he said, “In order to wash your hands properly, you have to wash your hands for three minutes.”

[CROWD LAUGHS]

Exactly. I’m like, “Three minutes? Sir, I am involved in a cricket match in Mumbai right now. Like, I’m a busy lady. I don’t know what you got going on.”

I didn’t wanna fight during COVID. I hated all the fighting, so I tried it to avoid any situations, except at one point I had to drive through Kentucky and none of the normal gas stations were open. So I had to go to a back-ass hillbilly gas station, and I walked in and I had a mask on at the time, and the lady… there was only one person and there’s the lady working in there, and she’s smoking a cig. And in this hand, she had a scratch off lottery ticket and I thought, “Oh, wow, she still has hope. I like it.” But when she saw my mask, she went… [GROANS] so I was like, “Whatever.” I went to the bathroom. I got a soda, I got pretzels and sat them down. She looked at me with such disdain. She goes, “I just want you to know… we don’t got Corona here.” I said, “That’s okay because I mostly only drink Bud Light.”

[CROWD LAUGHS]

And she goes, “What?” I go, “I know, right?” And then I ran away. I literally ran. I left the soda. I dropped $20. I made it rain. And then I ran away.

I was so… and I was on a roll before COVID because I’ve been on the road for, like, 185 years and I was like, “You know what? I should start doing some bucket list stuff that I wanna do before I decide to quit the road,” and one of the things I’ve always wanted to do was go ice fishing because it looks fun. And I booked myself at a casino in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. No. Yeah. If you’ve never been there, uh, it is beautiful. It’s probably some of the most beautiful landscapes I’ve ever seen. But the people, um, I would describe them, and I think they would be proud of this, I would describe them as feral. Like… they are not properly socialized. Like… when you’re talking to them, they have long pauses. I’m like, “Are we done or do you have more thoughts? This is not a normal rhythm to a conversation.”

They’re all real nice though. The lady in charge of the gig, I say, “Can you find somebody to take me ice fishing on Saturday? She called me back. She goes, “Okay, Kathleen, I found a guy that’s gonna take you and I promise he’s not a pervert.” What? Why would you say something like that? Like, what are you trying to get out in front of? What’s going on up here in the past? Because, I mean, I’m still going, but now I’m gonna be thinking about that the whole time. I mean, just looking at this strange man going in. I’m either gonna catch some fish or out of nowhere he’s gonna sexually assault me. But then I thought, “Yeah, but I bought so many different pieces of clothing from Bass Pro Shop.” I would almost challenge him like, “If you could get it off, you win it because you won’t… you won’t get it off because I don’t know how I got it on. I’m never getting out of these clothes.”

Be the first #MeToo from what I saw. #MeToo. I wanted to support the women of the Me Too Movement, but like at one point, I turned on CNN and they literally, the people in charge, were chasing Chuck Grassley down… the senator from Iowa down a hallway to speak to him about the Me Too Movement. [BLOWS RASPBERRY] Ladies, Chuck is an 88-year-old farmer from Iowa. He doesn’t even understand why you’re out… like of the house. Like, “It’s a Tuesday. Where are your children, you two bad whores? And if you’re here, who’s making supper for your husband? I don’t understand what’s happening.” He’s 88. He’s not gonna get it. Don’t waste your time on him, like, old guys, it’s… some of it is generational.

My dad doesn’t get it and my dad’s very liberal, but he’s also 80. This is his “Me too” thing. He goes, “This ‘Me Too’ thing, I mean, obviously, I don’t wanna see you girls get attacked at work.” Thanks, Dad. That’s a good thought. I like going to work with that thought. You know what? Today, Dad’s on my side about not getting attacked. He goes, “But seriously, this for ‘Me Too’ thing, are we gonna take it too far? Hmm? Are you not even gonna be able to wink at a gal in your office?” Nobody’s doing that anymore, Dad. I don’t know… I don’t know when it was popular, like, back in the ’60s when Bewitched was on or whatever, and you guys would all go get shitfaced at lunch and then just go back and wink your ass off as nobody you thought was super-hot? Uh-uh.” All right, Dad, if you winked a little at a millennial, they wouldn’t even know what you were doing. They would just be like, “Oh, my God, there’s something wrong with Mr. Madigan’s eye.” Like every time I walk by his office, he’s like… Maybe he has that dry eye Jennifer Aniston talks about in those commercials, right? Like, we should get them those drops, as a secret Santa and just leave them there for him.

In the Me Too Movement, all the men that were accused… what was crazy is the media, it didn’t matter who was accused, another rich, powerful boss guy, they’d go, “Is it this shocking?” No, because the men you’re talking about are in charge and they’re the boss and they have money and power. It’ll be shocking, like, if you told me Jerry from the bowling alley did all that shit. I’m like, “What? Stop it. You’re kidding me.” Jerry can’t do it, because Jerry has no power. Jerry only has power over shoes. That’s Jerry’s area. And nobody cares about your bowling shoes. You take what you’re given and you’re happy.

It’s just that easy, but, like, no matter what guy, Charlie Rose was one of the big ones because they thought he was such an esteemed journalist, Charlie Rose, I’m not saying he did it. I have no idea. But to be accused, not shocking. It would be shocking if you told me Charlie Rose was a furry. I’ll be like, “What? No way. What animal is he? I wanna know. I judge people… on what animal they chose.”

And if you don’t know what a furry is, do not feel stupid. I didn’t know them until three years ago. I was sitting in a San Jose Marriot Bar that was attached to the convention center and it was my day off and all of these people in elaborate animal costumes started coming in and I was like, “Wow, they’re impressive,” right? And I… in my mind, I thought, “Oh, it must be a mascot convention,” right? You know, ’cause they work alone, they probably like to get together and complain about work, like we all do. But then as they kept coming in, I’m like, “You know, I know a lot about sports and I don’t recognize any of these mascots.” So then all on my own, I decided, “Oh, I bet it’s minor league,” you know, because there are so many teams. You can’t keep up. The Savannah Bananas, you know, like, too many.

So the bartender came back and I go, “When… how long are the mascots in town?” He’s like, “What? Lady, those are furries.” I go, “Oh, what’s a furry?” He goes, “Well, I’m not one of them and I don’t wanna answer that question.” I said, “Well, my phone’s dead. Come on, I can’t Google it.” He goes, “Well, they’re like Millennial type age people and they like to dress up like animals. And then they come to these conventions and some of them just wanna be the animal and then others wanna hook up as the animal.” Okay. I said, “Well, can I just ask one follow-up question? Um, if, if you’re gonna hook up, do you have to stay within your species or is that taboo? Like can the beagle get with the iguana if nobody knows, or like…?” he was like, “Yeah.” And then he walked away. I’m like, “Well, I still wanted a beer. I know that you didn’t like that conversation.” I’m like, “Wow. That’s what a lot of the Millennials are doing on weekends.”

And you know what? I am a fan of the Millennials because they’re the first generation that has realized that if you live with your parents long enough, eventually they’ll be glad you’re there. Yes! It’s gonna take a while, but grind it out, Millennials ’cause when your… when your parents are 85 and they see you in the kitchen, they’ll be like, “Hey, can you drive at night? That’s fantastic. We wanna go to bingo on Friday at 8:00. What’s your name again? Matt? Okay, Matt. So, Matt, did you leave ever or did you fail and come back, or did you just… have you been here? We forgot.”

I am frequently shocked though when you’re dealing with Millennials in the general public and I think it’s kind of nice I guess that they truly believe on some level that strangers care about them. Like… I was in Lowe’s and I had all these tiny paint samples and paint brushes, I just… I set ’em down. And then I… the guy was like 30 whatever, and I go, “Hey, how are you doing, man?” He goes, “Uh, not good, lady. Not good.” He said, “I just saw the work schedule and I was supposed to have three days off in a row because I worked three days in a row, and I don’t. And I don’t even know if I wanna work here anymore.” And in my head, I thought, “Oh, my God, he thought I meant that.” I don’t really care how you are, sir. I barely care that I’m here. I… that was just a pleasantry. Those are nice things you say to keep society moving and forward progress so we don’t kill each other with barbecue equipment on weekends, like nobody cares. Yeah.

I… that’s why I think we could use a little bit more to people being nice in public and pleasant because I think everybody forgot to behave, how to behave in the general public, like I went into a Taco Bell… yeah, like, be nice. It’s not that hard. People have just flipped their lids like… I went to a Taco Bell. Now, there’s only two girls, they’re probably in their 20s and there’s only two employees ’cause we’re not employees anymore. One’s trying to fix the drive-thru which is broken, which is why I went in and there’s one girl that’s gonna wait on me and there’s a man ahead of me. He’s about mid-60s. She tells him they’re completely out of mild sauce. And he loses it. He just loses it. And he starts yelling and screaming. And in my mind, I’m like, “Dude, that is the last lady on the Titanic handing out life jackets. Like, don’t piss her off because that’s the 20-somethings, they will quit, sir. I don’t think you understand. They will fucking leave in a minute.” And they all agree on that. It’s like they formed a union without ever having a meeting. It’s… and I think their union should be called “Yeah, no,” ’cause they won’t.

[CROWD CHEERS AND APPLAUSE]

And good for them, you know, ’cause it never occurred to our generation. “Hey, I could just leave here.” Nope. Never even thought about it. “Oh, man, this blows but I’m gonna stay ’cause I thought I’d die.” But I’m looking at him going, he’s still yelling at the girl. I’m like, “If she quits, sir, do you understand we have to do it. Do you know how to make a gordita? I don’t. I want a soft-shelled chalupa, no idea.” Then I went out to the car and my sister goes, “Oh, I saw that guy losing his mind. What was he saying?” I said, “It doesn’t even matter what he was saying. I can tell you this though, I know it was for, uh, certainty. We as a nation are not prepared for war.” That was mild sauce. Not even fire. He went that crazy.

Sometimes I wish the Millennials could be a little more flexible though ’cause I think they’re linear, ’cause they grew up with the computer, they fully trust the computer, um, to the point where sometimes they’re like… I was babysitting my brother’s three kids, and I called to get pizzas to be delivered and the girl goes, “What’s the address?” And I gave it to her. She goes, “Hmm, yeah, that’s not coming up on GPS so we can’t bring your pizza.” Oh. I’m like, “Can we do it the old way or I’ll just tell you how to get here and then you’ll come with pizza and then I’ll just throw a bunch of crumpled dollar bills in your direction with tips and all that?” She goes, “No, because we were taught in training that if you go to a house that has a GPS address that doesn’t come up, that’s exactly how you get lured to your own death.” What? So I said, just to see… I wanted to see if I would get a reaction, I go, “Yeah. ‘Cause I remember like in the ’70s and ’80s all those pizza kids that were murdered, like every weekend we’d lose another 400 and then more signed up. I don’t even know. That was just in the Midwest. I don’t even know the coastal counts.” And she just goes, “Yeah. Bye.”

Like I don’t… she may have believed it, not sure. They’re a trusting bunch, the Millennials, which I appreciate. I like, I think it’s nice. I don’t think my group, not trusting at all. Like during COVID, one of the things that was really weird is like, most of my normal friends and my relatives, they still had to go to work so they had stuff to do so nobody wanted to participate in my world. And, like, one day I called my brother, he worked at a bank and I go, “Hey, Pat, you’re not gonna believe this but there’s a king cobra loose in Grand Prairie, Texas ’cause some asshole forgot to put the lid on his “cobra cage,” and it’s just running around a normal neighborhood. And my brother goes, “Well, you’re not gonna believe this Kathleen, but I have a job.” And he hung up. Boo. Boo, Patrick. So then I texted him, I knew that would make him mad, I’m like, “So I guess you don’t care about the zebras loose in Maryland either then, do you, Pat? You wanna know more? Call me back.”

So I didn’t have anybody to talk to so I thought, well… I started Madigan’s Pubcast ’cause I thought, “Well, there’s gonna be a lot of” yeah, it’s fun, people. Somebody wants to hear these stories, right? ‘Cause they’re true. It’s important there’s a cobra loose for Christ’s sake. But I had a Millennial hit me up on Instagram and she wrote, “I’m coming to see your show in Austin ’cause I love your podcast. I didn’t know you were a comedian.” Okay. Fair enough, you know? She’s young, whatever. Fair enough. But I was very curious. I go, just out of curiosity, ’cause she had bought a ticket, I go, “What did you think I was gonna do when you got there?” And she wrote back, “Well, I didn’t know.” I thought, “Wow, that’s so trusting.” Like I’m 56, I’ve never bought a ticket to a surprise show in my life. I got 37 bucks. Let’s see what’s going on in that building.

I do wish the Millennials though would step it up in this one department. I would like them to run for office. I’d like them to try to be in charge. Yeah, ’cause the people in charge right now, um, we are being governed by a Florida Bridge club and… nobody seems alarmed and nobody wants to say nothing ’cause you’re being mean to Meemaw. No, I don’t… I don’t give a shit anymore. It has gotten… it has gone over the rainbow. Chuck Grassley, the 88-year-old from Iowa, announced on Twitter, and I know he’s doing his own tweets. You know how I know that? Because he signs them. Okay, Papaw, you don’t have to do that. He announced he’s running again. No, Papaw, no. You are 88. You go home now. That’s what you do when you’re 88. And it doesn’t… yeah.

[CHEERS AND APPLAUSE]

It doesn’t mean that you don’t have worth and you don’t have value, but you gotta find something else to do instead of being in charge of 350 million people. Okay, Papaw?

Here’s… like, my dad was a lawyer, my dad retired, and then my dad became a golf marshal. That’s appropriate. If you don’t know what a golf marshal is, it’s an old guy that gets in a cart and then he drives around the course and yells at other old people to hurry their asses up because not everybody has 11 hours to play four holes. And it’s both sides of the aisle. I mean, there’s no difference.

I mean Nancy Pelosi, I don’t really know for sure how old she is, but some days I know for sure her teeth don’t fit right. I know that. I know that. ‘Cause it happens to my mom. It’s a bridge issue. There’s like a clip that goes on that fang tooth and if it slips, it’s not good. Like my mom will be speaking like a totally normal human being and then it’s just full-on Liza Minnelli, [SPEAKING GIBBERISH] Mom, fix it. Clip it back on. You sound like you’re having a stroke and… I don’t know. But Nancy will do it live on TV, just come out for a press conference. “Hi, everybody, it’s me, Nancy Pelosi. And today I’d like you… I’d like to discuss insurance. I’m like, “Ah, fix it.” “Affordable healthcare insurance, that’s what I like to talk about. I don’t know sign language. It looks like I do. Actually, my hands just do this ’cause I’m Italian. We talk with our hands. That’s why I have such good skin ’cause I’m Italian. I’m actually… I’m 64. Nobody knows that.”

No. No. Over 80. Mitch McConnell, the talking turtle from Kentucky. No, I just can’t look at you anymore. It’s over now. The man’s never voted yes for anything, you know? “I vote no on everything. That’s my thing. Sometimes if I haven’t voted no in a while, I’ll write a bill just to vote against myself so I stay in practice.” And I’m not saying the Millennials would be any smarter, I don’t know. But I know for sure they don’t have grudges that go back so far, they’re not repairable because I haven’t had the time to have ’em. When you hear these, these people fighting, and Mitch McConnell, “Well, I remember when Nancy Pelosi voted against the Spanish-American War.” I was like, “You California-salad-eating- pie-nut-loving-fruitcake-piece-of-shit, them boys at the Alamo would be alive if it wasn’t for Nancy Pelosi.” And so the only time I’ve ever voted yes in my life, reinforcements for Mr. David Crockett.”

Stop. It’s crazy. And then who are we presented with? More 80-somethings. Bernie Sanders said he’s probably pretty sure he’s gonna run again. Bernie is like from the Bible old. Like I… if you could bet on DraftKings, one person is still alive from the Bible, I’d throw a hundred on Bernie. I’m like, “Yes.” And I liked Bernie. I had a soft spot for him ’cause to me, every time he showed up somewhere, he always looked like he may have just been involved in a car accident. “I’m sorry I’m late. Let me take off my mittens. The maid in Vermont by a woman named Naomi. If you’d like a pair, go to my website.” I thought Biden was too old. And I don’t know why nobody helps the guy, like I don’t get it. Like when he’s out giving speeches, I would do it for free. I’ll be in charge of… I’ll be in charge of him ’cause here’s what I would say to him, I go, “Joe, here’s the deal. Guess what? We’re not gonna do anymore story times. We’re not… ixnay on the stories, okay? ‘Cause it’s… they’re very dated, stick to the script. And what I’m gonna do for you, Joe, is I’m gonna stay on side stage with a burlap bag full of tennis balls. And any time you start going off-script and telling a story, I’m gonna throw a tennis ball in your direction, not at you, just so you see it and you go, ‘Oh, shit. Right. I’m not supposed to do that.’ Right. Right.” Because at one point he kept repeating the story, no one’s ever stopped him. It’s a story about when he was a teenager and there was another gang somewhere in Delaware and that gang leader was named Corn Pop. And he said, “Remember the night before a gang fight how you’d take that straight razor and you’d put it in a rain barrel to let it get rusty all night?” “Ah-ah, tennis ball, where is the tennis ball?” “What are you talking about?” A straight razor? No, I don’t… sound like we’re in the Westerns where they go like that on their face and then you’re saying you put it in water on purpose to get it rusty to then, I guess when you stabbed people, to give them tetanus? Like, this is sociopathic. No. I thought Trump was too old. But here’s where I knew he was definitely too old because whenever he gives speeches in any state that has any relationship with coal or coal mining, he gets up front, everybody goes, “You know what I’m gonna do? I’m gonna open, like, a bazillion, gillion, trillion new coal mines. And we’re gonna have coal everywhere. And all the young people are gonna be so happy because they could be coal miners and they can stay in their area.” Part of me thought, “You know what? I think he believes that in, in some way but I think you believe that because you’re too old.” Because I have met 50,000 Millennials on the road and I have not yet met one that I think would agree to be a coal miner. And nor should they. I would give everything I have though to see their reaction to the job description of coal mining, just sitting on their phones, half-ass paying attention to me, “So wait. What? So, like, you want me to go into Earth in the daytime, in a rollercoaster to get rocks, like rocks? Well, will my phone work down there because I won’t do it if I can’t TikTok. That’s my thing. So, yeah, no.”

I tried to learn to TikTok over the pandemic. My nieces love it, but they’re 13 and they’re like, “We’ll show you, Aunt Kath.” And they show me their phones and I watch them. If you’ve never seen TikTok, it’s just a barrage of videos. And I put them down and they’re like, “You didn’t like it, did you?” I go, “Well, here’s what I’ll say about it, ‘I feel like I just sat next to someone who did an eight ball.'” [LAUGHTER] “Nope.” I’m a drinker, not a drugger, so nope.” And they go like, “Oh, are you saying it’s, like, too much?” I go, “Yeah, it’s way too much. I can’t… I can’t process it.” They go, “Yeah. But just because our videos are mostly dance, and music, and stuff, like you could build your own and it won’t be as crazy.” I said, “All right.” So I signed up and I don’t know how it decides what your first batch of videos is gonna be. But my first batch, all of my people were in hospice. I was like… [LAUGHTER] “This is horrible. Why would anybody watch this? Why, why is this entertaining?” And they’re like, “Don’t watch it too long or you’ll get a lot more of them.” I was like, “What?” They’re like, “Mm-hmm. Too late. You went past six seconds.” They go, “Did you ever watch one somewhere?” I go, “Okay. On Instagram, I did. I watched a hospice video. Maybe they know that because the girl was so young, she was like 26 years old. She was sadly dying. But she had said it all started with her eye twitching, and at the time, my left eye had been twitching for like two and a half weeks, I just know I was tired running around.” Then I was like, “Shit. I didn’t know it could end like this.” Like, this is…

I’d prefer Instagram because it’s passive. It’s just… yeah. It’s just, “Oh, look, beagle, puppy. Beagle… oh, there’s a cat eating a popsicle.” It’s just pleasant. There’s nothing bad. People are nice on Instagram. Like Twitter, I like it, but it’s aggressive. You better be ready. It’s like walking into a bar at midnight and everybody’s had shots except you. Yeah. “Well, look what the cat dragged in with a little opinion about nothing.” And I’ve tweeted about everything and never really got any backlash, except, it was shocking… sports. Who would think? You’d think it’d be politics or… nope, nope, nope, nope. Just sports. One day, I just tweeted out, because I’m from St. Louis, I tweeted out, “Go Cards.” That’s all I wrote. “Shut your whore, bitch mouth.” Hold on. Hey, hey, hey, hey. That was uncalled for, okay? I didn’t type, “Fuck the Cubs,” did I? No. I typed, “Go Cards.” That’s all I said. So I don’t tweet about sports anymore.

Facebook, I don’t love it. I have it for work. But I don’t like Mark Zuckerberg, yeah, because I feel like he stole all of our information. He sold it 17 times around the globe to Sunday and he never really paid a price for that.

Right.

[APPLAUSE]

And sadly, last summer, we had him in front of a senate committee, but the people asking the questions were so old. I truly think they were just excited to meet him. I do. “Well, hello there, Mr. Zuckerberg. I joined the Facebook on a Sunday morning. Super happy you’re here because, coincidentally, I forgot my password. It used to be 1234 then the wife said that was too easy. And I changed it but I don’t remember. So I was hoping at the break you could help me retrieve the said password. My parents like it, but they’re 80.” They get up in the morning, they drink coffee, and then they troll the entire family, every second cousin, third cousin, people we lived by when I was five. That’s their morning entertainment. That’s what I told my teenage nieces and nephews, I’m like, “Uh, heads up, if I were you guys, I would not friend Grandpa, or Grandma for that matter. They look innocent and they seem nice, but they’re spies. That’s what they are. They’re flat-out spies. They’re gonna go through your whole feed and they’re gonna read everything and then they’re gonna tell your parents who are too busy for that shit and report back.” Well, one nephew goes, “Well, I already friended Grandpa.” I go, “Well, I would unfriend Grandpa.” And he goes, “Well, I think it would hurt his feelings.” I said, “Well, if he were to notice, which he will not, just tell him it broke. There will be no further questions, because they’ll accept that.” “Huh. All right. It broke.” Both of our… both of our parents just turned 80. And I go, “You know what? You’re the age. You’re the exact age, as a matter of fact, of people that are running this country.” I said, “Honestly, do you think you could be the president?” And my dad goes, “Uh, do you mean individually?” I said, “As compared to what?” He goes, “As a couple. Could we do it as a couple?” I go, “What?” “Well, you know, like, some days, I don’t remember anything, but your mom will remember all kinds of stuff. It’s weird. And in other days, she won’t remember shit.” And I’m like, “I got you. I got it.” “Together, we’re probably about 68.” He said. But individually, Christ, no, Kathleen, we can’t. I don’t even know where the car is at.” I think the cutoff should be 70 or 75. That’s fair enough, right? If you have to be a minimum age, there should be a maximum age. Like it… because I’ve seen the difference in my parents between, say, 70 and 80. Like 70, everything was pretty much all right, I’d say. Eighty, oh, now, whenever I see them, they’re completely covered in Band Aids. I’m like… “Wow. What are you guys doing? Are you, like, stabbing each other with pencils for fun?” My dad’s like, “No, no, no. It’s the medication we take, Kathleen. You’re barely banging or something, there’s blood shooting everywhere. It’s a problem. It’s a problem. We can’t even go to your sister’s house because of that cat. We’ll bleed out over there. We will bleed out.” He goes, “Look at these scratch marks. These are three weeks old, Kathleen. They… we don’t heal anymore either. That’s a new thing. We don’t heal.” And I looked and I go, “Oh, my God. Let me go get the new skin.” “It won’t work. We tried it. Here’s the problem with new skin, it turns out your skin, you have to have enough skin to connect with that other skin and we’re running out of skin. I don’t know what comes after this.” [LAUGHTER] At 80, there’s so many health problems that, like, nothing’s alarming anymore. It’s like, oh, okay. I called. They were in Florida and I said, “Hey, what are you guys doing?” My mom goes, “Well, we’re going to the hospital because your dad thinks he might be having another heart attack.” I said, “Oh, shit.” I go, “Well, let me talk to him.” She goes, “Well, no, he’s driving.” [LAUGHTER] I go, “Seriously, Mom?” “I know it’s crazy, Kathleen, but he said if I drive, he sure will have a heart attack. And right now, it could be indigestion. We ate spicy food last night.” I don’t love calling there ’cause he has his hearing aids. And if you call somebody with hearing aids on his cell phone, this is all you’re probably gonna hear on your end… “Eeeeeee…” and they don’t hear you going, “Hello?” They don’t hear it because the stupidest system I’ve ever heard of, the hearing aid company decided that when a hearing aid battery is going even slightly low, they decided the good idea would be to have the hearing aid make a noise to alert the hard-of-hearing person, which they don’t hear. Everyone else hears it. Dogs in the neighborhood are going all… [MIMICS DARK BARKING] What’s that?” [MIMICS DARK BARK] Like, what a dumbass system. Like when the hearing aid is about to go dead, that thing should start vibrating in his ear and then fly around the house like that ball in Harry Potter till he grabs it out of the air.

And then when they get older, there’s less to talk about because they do less, you know. So when I call, that’s fine, but like they golf. They like to golf. So if I ask my dad, how was golf, oh, 45-minute answer. I don’t know if that’s a dude thing. He will go through every hole, every club, every putt, how he was in the woods versus my mom, nope. “Mom, how was golf?” “I saw a fox.” Yes. Thank you. That’s what I’m looking for. Short, concise, interesting, animal-based. Jesus Christ.

She has an iPhone because I bought it and I sincerely wish I hadn’t because now, every time it breaks, she calls me. She’s like, “Kathleen, that iPhone you bought me broke again so I took it to Walmart.” Random. “We didn’t buy it at Walmart, but whatever, Mom. You’re 80. Take all your broken shit into Walmart. Just throw it on the ground. Start crying. Maybe somebody will fix it. Maybe you’ll be arrested, whatever. You got to nothing else going on. Do it.” She said, “No, they won’t. They won’t help you. I went back to that phone counter and there was a young guy working there and he asked me a question. I answered it, and then he started laughing. And then another kid came out, I asked the same question. And this went on through three people, Kathleen.” I said, “Well, what was the question?” She said, “Well, he kept saying, who is your provider? And I kept saying, my daughter.”

[LAUGHTER]

No. I am not… I’m not your provider, but I’m, like, your… your supplier. Like a drug deal, I gave you the supply.” She goes, “Well, who’s our provider as of right now?” I said, “Our provider is Sprint because we don’t care about service.” Sprint is so shilly. But I don’t care because some days, I don’t like getting calls, you know. Let the Lord decide who’s getting through. I’ll… I’m involved in a cricket match in Mumbai. I don’t have that kind of time.

Sprint is so strange, though. I think I’ve… I think I stay because I’m curious because, like, it doesn’t work in places where it should work like here or Chicago, you know, cities, like, it doesn’t really work. But then out of nowhere, it’ll work in some random ass place. That’s why I like if you’re gonna go out drinking, and you think things might get crazy and maybe go off the rails, you should make sure somebody in your group has Sprint because like if we got completely shitfaced tonight and ended up in one of El Chapo’s tunnels, and people were like, “Oh, my God. Well, how can we get out? Our phones won’t work.” Oh, yeah, bitches. Who’s got four bars? Sprint does. That’s right.

[LAUGHS]

It’s never even truly bothered me, except one time I flew to South Dakota and my plan was I’m gonna get off the plane and Uber to this casino deal. Well, when I landed, my phone was just going… [MIMICS ERROR TONE] like a tornado warning or something crazy. And then it started blinking. I’ve never seen anything happen before like that. “You are now internationally roaming.” Oh, Sprint. I’m in South Dakota. There’s another one on top of it. I’m not even near a border, you morons.

But then I was curious to see if they had Uber, and there’s nobody in the airport. It’s small. It’s pretty much empty, but there’s an old lady in a card table that just says “information.” And she’s doing the crossword puzzle and I walked out. But I was very respectful and polite. I go, “Excuse me, ma’am. I was just curious. Do you guys have Uber here?” She’d never stop doing the crossword puzzle. She goes, “I don’t know anyone by the name of Uber. But if you need a ride, I can have Darryl come get you.” No. ‘Cause when she said “get,” I heard “take.” I’m like, “No. I’m not getting in the car with Darryl.” So, then I thought, “Well, I’ll just rent a car. The phone ain’t working anyway.” And I rent from Avis and I love Avis. And here’s why, ’cause if you rent a lot of times from Avis, you get in their frequent renter club. And their frequent renter club is the Wizard Club. So, you become a wizard, right? And they send you a card in the mail, like, mine said Wizard Madigan. And I… you would not think that that would excite me at this age, but it was so awesome. I was so excited. And then the greatest part is, like, if you’re in a bigger city where they have the shuttle, when the Avis shuttle pulls up, a full-grown adult has to look at me, another full-grown adult and without laughing… say, “Are you a wizard?” [BLOWS RASPBERRIES] God damn right I’m a wizard. Come on. Just once before I quit the road, I wanna get dressed up from head to toe as a wizard. And I don’t wanna wait at the Avis shuttle spot and I… I don’t wanna have luggage or nothing. I wanna have one of those scepter sticks with the ball on the end. And then when the driver pulls up, he goes, “Are you a wizard?” I wanna go, “Ahh!” ’cause at best, I’m a crazy lady. At worst, I’m a real wizard and I just did something horrible. My parents go to Florida in the winter ’cause it’s warmer than Missouri. That’s where I’m from, the State of Missouri. Oh, that was such a smattering polite applause. I know people don’t know how to react. It’s okay. It’s in the middle. At least you guys have an idea of where it’s at, in Colorado. But like the Coast? No. I was in California. It’s a bar. The girl says, “I’m gonna need to see your license.” I gave it to her. She goes, “Missouri. Is that by Minnesota?” I said, “It is. In the ’80s, we moved all the M’s together so they could be in the middle for the M, you know. Like, we moved Montana over and then that kicked Iowa even further by the “I’s” like Illinois and Indiana.” And she just went, “Oh.” And walked away. I went, “Oh, my God. I think she believed me.” That’s not true. Don’t tell your friends that. That is not true. I grew up in St. Louis and I grew up a lot in the Ozarks. And lately, there have been a lot of shows about the Ozarks. And my mom is so upset. She’s like, “Have you seen these shows about the Ozarks?” ‘Cause they live their full-time in Florida.” And she’s like, “I just find it awful. They’re making us look like hillbillies. And, Kathleen, we have a Panera now.” [LAUGHTER] It’s getting more modern, but that hillbilly thing is still definitely there. Last Christmas Eve, me and my brother, I said, “Before we go back to Mom and Dad’s, let’s just stop and get a beer.” And we went to some back ass Ozark hillbilly bar and we walked in. We’re the only two people. Great. But a guy comes in, and Missouri is an open-carry state. That used to mean liquor. Now it just means any weapon you can find on the Internet, like a cannon. Bring it. Fuck it. Nobody cares. Bow and arrow, you’re good. No problem. Guns, it doesn’t matter. It’s just a free for all. But this guy walked in with a gun on each hip and he sat down on the barstool and he ordered three Bud Lights and three shots of Fireball. Yeah. He’s alone, right? So, he’s here. I’m here. My brother’s here. So, I moved from this bar stool around to this side, putting my brother in the line of fire in the event that hillbilly hell decides to shoot a gun tonight for fun or some shit. But I knew he’d see me do it and I knew it might cost a thing. And he looked at me and he goes, “You scared of this?” And I knew he meant the guns. Well, I go, “No. I’m not scared of Bud Light. That’s crazy talk.” I said, “I’m not scared of your Fireball either. I love Fireball every now and then. And I’m not even scared of your guns. But altogether…

[CROWD LAUGHS]

…I find it a little concerning.” And then he said, “So, you don’t believe in the Second Amendment? Well, now before you answer that question, you have to think about it ’cause it’s gonna deem how the rest of your night’s gonna go. And I had already ordered nachos, right?”

[CROWD LAUGHS]

So, I said, “I will only discuss the Second Amendment if you could name another amendment.”

[CROWD LAUGHS]

[CROWD CHEERING]

[CHUCKLES] And that’s when my brother got mad at me. He’s like, “Goddammit. Can you ever just keep your mouth shut, Kathleen? We were having a nice time. Is this where you wanna die? Is it? You wanna die at the drunken catfish? ‘Cause this is what’s gonna happen when you mouth off off like that.” I said, “Patrick, you’re getting way too upset. He didn’t even understand my joke. Like, some jokes are just for me. He shot his Fireball and smiled. We’re good. Everything is good. Everything is fine.”

[CROWD LAUGHS]

It gets too cold for my mom and dad there, though. It doesn’t get as cold as when I was a kid. I mean, something’s happening. I don’t know what with the weather. But, like, when I was in fifth grade, that year we had 57 snow days. Yup, 57. And we never made them up.

[CROWD LAUGHS]

Nope. The nun said, “Fuck it. School is over on May 26th. And don’t even think about bringing those little rat bastards back around here because this convent’s got a float trip down the Merrimack scheduled and we’re going.”

[CROWD LAUGHS]

That’s why, like, when my friends with grade school kids or my younger siblings that have grade school kids during COVID, when it was an online homeschooling, they were all just unraveling. One phone call was worse than the next. “This is ridiculous. I don’t even know how to do sixth grade math anymore. Science, I never understood to begin with. I’m drinking margaritas at 9:00 in the morning so I don’t kill people in this house.”

[CROWD LAUGHS]

At one point, I told my younger sister, I go, “Just don’t do it.” She goes, “What?” I go, “Just don’t do it. It doesn’t matter. I missed 57 days of fifth grade. And so far in my life, it’s never come up.”

[CROWD LAUGHS]

I’ve never been in a bar where somebody said something and I was the only one shocked, like, “What?” We had a Civil War? Shut up. I never heard about that. Maybe…”

[CROWD LAUGHS]

My parents like Florida. I don’t really, totally get it. They leave the day after Christmas and then they come back on Easter. Like Jesus, they rise from the State of Florida back to my brother’s backyard in Missouri. They just reappear. I’m like, “Wow, you’re back. And there’s still two of you. Well done. I don’t know what you’re doing down there, but you look wonderful.” There… there’s a lot of drinking going on down there with the old people in the retirement places. Like, my mom goes, “I want you to go to my golf league and meet my friends.” I said, “Okay. What time do we tee-off, 8:00? But I like to get there at 6:00.” What? I said, “No, Mom. 7:00.” I’ll go. “All right. Fine.” So, we go at 7:00. I meet all of her friends. I get in the golf cart at 7:40 AM. I go, “Mom, your friends are a lot of fun, but what exactly is wrong with that lady, Marybeth?” She goes, “Oh, well, she’s hammered.”

[CROWD LAUGHS]

I said, “Dear Mom, it is 7:40 in the morning.” She goes, “Well, we don’t have a relationship with time anymore, Kathleen. We don’t really live within time. We’re like out of time. We’re in a different dimension than you people that are in real time.” She goes, “You know, I mean, some days we wake up at 3:00. Some days 6:00. I mean, today, I’ve already had lasagna.”

[CROWD LAUGHS]

Oh, my God. I’ll tell you what, though, if you ever think you have a drinking problem, go down to Florida and hang out with those old people ’cause they will do stuff for you, like, “Whoa. Hey, Jameson and toast?” Like, I’ve never even thought about that. I’m fine. Like, I’m fine.

[CROWD LAUGHS]

I never truly have ever thought I had a drinking problem till about three years ago. I was in Nash… I flew in Nashville and I rented a car and my friend goes, “Oh, people are coming over. Can you stop and get some wine?” I said, “Sure.” I don’t know the liquor laws in every state. So, I go into a grocery store and I get a bottle of red, a bottle of white, sat them down. The lady looks at me with complete disdain and she goes, “Ma’am, those are not for sale.” I said, “Well, I don’t wanna freak anybody out, but there’s a whole aisle of them.”

[CROWD LAUGHS]

And they have price tags on them. That front door is open and that cash register is on. So, to somebody who ain’t from around here, this whole situation implies that a sale’s going down. And she said, and I quote, “Ma’am, Tennessee is a Christian state.” Now I didn’t say nothing right there ’cause I still wanted the wine. I thought I was in the game, right? I just let that one go. It’s hard, but I let it go. She goes, “And you are not allowed to buy wine on Sundays.” Now, I might have been okay if she just stopped there, but she kept going. She goes, “But you can buy beer.” What? I go, “Can I ask you something? And I’m not… I’m not from here. I’m not trying to be sarcastic.” And she goes, “You may.” I said, “Well, I’m not from here and I’m catholic, so I don’t really know anything about the Bible, but…”

[CROWD LAUGHS]

…too vague, too long, sorry. I don’t have the time. But I do think… I remember a story from the Bible about Jesus turning water into wine. And I don’t think I have ever heard a story about Jesus turning water into beer. So, maybe you can explain to me why the Christians in the state of Tennessee will make Jesus a beer guy when clearly He was a wine guy. Like, that’s documented.

[CROWD LAUGHS]

Now there’s two men behind me. A guy and an older guy with overalls on and he leaves and the old guy in the overalls, he says to me, “Ma’am, it’s just all about the alcohol content.” I go, “Right. But, like, if I drink 20 beers, I’d be way more drunk than if I just had a glass of wine with dinner, right?” He goes, “Yeah. You’re right. I didn’t even know what I meant. I just heard that on the TV when they were talking about it.”

[CROWD LAUGHS]

Wow. I’m like, I’m in a circle of stupid and I started it. And now I can’t get out. Now she’s mad at him, too, the old lady. She said… we’re both in the penalty box. And she goes, “I want you both to know I don’t find any of this humorous.”

[CROWD LAUGHS]

I said, “Me neither.” And I left ’cause I got my wine. And then as I was walking to the car, I was getting madder and madder. And then I thought, “Wait a minute. I’m get… maybe I have a drinking problem. I’m getting way too angry about two shitty bottles of wine.” But then I was like, “No. If I had a drinking problem, I’d have bought the beer ’cause a drink is a drink at some level.”

[CROWD LAUGHS]

I’m on cheat day with alcohol, too. Wine, I don’t care what kind. Boxed wine, fine. Fine, fine, fine, fine, fine. I don’t know who’s doing their marketing but they’re not selling their biggest selling points. The two biggest selling points to me about the boxed wine first and foremost, especially if you have judgey neighbors, it makes no noise in the trash. That’s right.

[CROWD APPLAUDING]

“What’d you do all weekend?” “Nothing. It’s super quiet.”

[CROWD LAUGHS]

The other thing is you can always get into a box of wine. I’ve been given bottles of wine on the road, go back to the hotel. Shit. No wine opener. And then, boom, the cork breaks. Oh, sad times. No wine. That’s never gonna happen with a box of wine. ‘Cause even if that sprout deal breaks off, you can stab it. You can stab the box. You’re getting in if you’re determined. Even with a pair of tweezers, you can get in there. But hold them tight ’cause sometimes if it hits it, it could slide backwards and cut your hand. I’m not gonna tell you why I would know that, but just trust me. I do find… some of my friends know a lot about wine, but sometimes I think they’re situationally unaware. Like, I took my friend Lou to a really shitty lake dive bar in Tennessee. We get in and he goes, “So, Kathleen, did you have a wine list?”

[CROWD LAUGHS]

“Lou, look behind the bar. Look on the wall. You see what we’re looking at?” I go, “That’s a stuffed squirrel playing a tiny banjo, Lou.” Yeah. It’s marvelous. I don’t even know where you find that. Do you Google on Amazon a squirrel tiny banjo? I don’t… and then the person shellacked that and then they nailed that to driftwood and then they hung that as a full piece of art. And you know what? The guy who did that, Lou, does not have a wine list. I guarantee you that guy has a bottle of Jack Daniels and a carton of Marlboro Reds. And this is his idea of art. And I like it.”

[CROWD LAUGHS]

A lot of people, as they get older, they just decide to quit drinking. I’m like, “No, I’m not gonna quit.” I do find, though, the older I get, there’s stuff I won’t start that I might have when I was young. You know, people are… it’s usually physical things. “Hey, do you wanna learn how to snow ski?” “Um, let me Google the deductibles on broken legs.” Oh, no. I’ll be at the bar at $16,000.” No. I did a corporate gig in Hawaii, which never happens and they were such a nice group. They were from Minnesota, this insurance company, and every day, the leader of the group would call my room to see if I wanted to do their activities. It was always going, “Hey, Kathleen, that’s me, Bob from Minnesota.” “I know, Bob, you don’t have to keep saying the Minnesota part. I got you because it’s either you or the My Pillow Guy calling my room. And I don’t know that man.” He goes, “Well, I just wanted to see if you wanted to join us for surf camp.” I said, “Well, I don’t have my glasses on, but I think it’s dark outside right now.” He goes, “Yeah, it’s dark, it’s 5:30, but the sun comes up at 6:00 and we’re gonna start surf camp at dawn.” I thought, “Oh, I didn’t say it.” [INDISTINCT] how fortunate for the sharks that all, all of these white walleyes from Minnesota are just gonna drop through their ceiling right in time for breakfast, be like pizza’s falling in here tonight. We’re like, “Oh, my God, look, a pepperoni. This is crazy.”

[CROWD LAUGHS]

But I didn’t say that because I don’t wanna be rude. And he goes, “Well, you know, just in case you are afraid, I wanna let you know now they have foam surfboards. So, if it does come back and hit you in the face, it doesn’t break all your facial bones.”

[CROWD LAUGHS]

You’re still not selling me all this, Bob, because I’ll tell you this, Bob and I wasn’t gonna bring it up, but since we keep talking about it on the way over here, I did think about snorkeling and I Googled, uh, shark attacks in the water surrounding Maui. And in the last six years or five, there’s been three fatalities. Now, that may not seem like a lot compared to the amount of people that are in the water every day, but it is a lot if you were one of those three because that’s it. The game’s over. That’s it. It’s over. And I can’t tell you how I am gonna die, Bob, but I can tell you how I’m not gonna die.

[CROWD LAUGHS]

And unless there is a great white shark bartending at that tiki hut, [CROWD LAUGHS] it’s not going down like that, Bob.

[CROWD CHEERING]

And then what’s crazy if you put something like that into YouTube or Google, shark attacks in the water, oh, my God, seven million videos come up of horrifying things. And I don’t know what made me click on the one. It was like a 60 Minutes or one of those shows. It was an old guy interviewing this young, cute girl, a surfer girl. But unfortunately, her right arm had been eaten off by a shark. And this was to be a feel-good thing because she’s gonna surf again and she’s sitting there with her parents and the old guy goes, “So you’re gonna to surf again, huh? Are you nervous? Because, well.”

[CROWD LAUGHS]

So inappropriate, right? And the… but the girl goes, “No, because like I told my parents, what are the odds of a shark eating my other arm?” And her parents were just sitting there. I wanted to go, “Tell her, the same, the exact Goddamn same. What’s the matter with you?” And you know why they’re the same? Because sharks don’t have Monday morning meetings about what has occurred and what will be occurring. “This is Tiffany. Somebody ate her right arm off a year and a half ago. She’s getting back in the water. Let’s not eat her left arm off, too, okay? Don’t be a dick, Bill. Everybody knows it’s you. There’s a lot of nice sharks in this room giving us a bad name.”

[CROWD LAUGHS]

And I’ve watched Shark Week my whole life. I’m not getting in ever, ever again. It’s never, ever gonna happen. I like Shark Week and I really love the show. I’m very faithful to the show Snapped on Oxygen. Yeah, it’s, it’s like the only show they have anymore. Like, if you turn on the guide on Oxygen, it just says “Snap, Snap, Snap, Snap, Snap, Snap, Snap, Snap.” And if you’ve never seen it, it’s about women who have tolerated a whole lot of crap in their life. Bad crap. Until one day, they don’t.

[CROWD LAUGHS]

And that’s the snap. And what’s crazy about this show is not only are the crimes usually off the charts crazy, but the women who did them, they’re on the show. It’s not actors. And they seem so extraordinarily normal. Like any lady you’d meet in the suburbs. I know now nobody’s normal. And it’s the way they tell the story. It sounds almost sweet when it starts. “Hi. My name’s Sue. Uh, yeah, me, and, uh, me and Dave got married young. We were young. But a couple of years into the marriage, I found out he was having an affair, and I was just heartbroken. I was so upset. But he apologized and said he was drunk and I was young, so I stayed. Fast forward, a couple kids later, a few more years later, I find out he’s having his second affair. And now I’m angry. I am. I’m angry because we have two little kids and this is their dad and they really like him. And again, I chose to stay. And then fast forward a few more years later, I found out he was having his third affair. And that’s when I set him on fire.

[CROWD LAUGHS]

Yeah, I did. He was just laying there on that couch, passed out, and I thought, you know, I’ve asked him to move the gas cans in the garage at least 87 times. And I thought, you know, dammit, I’ll move them. You watch me. I’ll do it.”

[CROWD LAUGHS]

And this is why when my friends in their 40s and 50s, they get divorced and then they’ll start dating and then they’ll always circle back around and go, “Goddamn, Kathleen, I had no idea how many women out there are crazy.” Well, you know what? That’s your fault, because we have a whole channel devoted to what we are capable when the envelope gets pushed and it’s… you can watch it, too. It’s not just for women, but that’s the problem. You guys aren’t watching it. You know who’s watching it? Other women. We’re just getting ideas. I know prison sentences. I know which states have the death penalty. You don’t even know how much shit I know from that show. And what’s really alarming is my mom loves it, too. I would say we’ve probably both been watching it for seven years and I’ve never seen a repeat. Oh, yeah [INDISTINCT] I like that. And I still watch Tiny House Hunters. Yeah, the other ones I got bored with. But Tiny, I like it because I feel like if you have never seen it, it’s usually a couple. And I feel like they’re suffering some sort of clinical nervous breakdown, but nobody in their family or friends wanna deal with that shit, so everyone just encourages them. “Yeah, you should live in a tiny house. You should leave right now. I don’t even know why you’re still here. Like, get going.”

[CROWD LAUGHS]

The whole concept is that the tiny house is 500 square feet or less and they’ll all want it to be mobile, okay? Because they’re gonna tow this shit show all across North America and bother every single person they’ve ever met on Facebook. “Hi, do you care if we live in a yard for like a year? We’ll be so quiet.” But with this show, what’s alarming is every time they pull up the couple to get their tiny house, they’re like in a 2015 Honda Civic. Well, come on, guys. You can’t pull that with that. You can’t even pull another Honda with that Honda. The tiny house you want is $47,000. The truck you need to pull that tiny house is $62,000. So, why don’t we take your dumbasses truck shopping? And that’s why I will never be the host of Tiny House Hunters because it would turn into truck shopping, a show which I would have no interest in at all anyway, because as an adult, I don’t think there’s anything worse for me. Maybe aside from doing taxes is having to buy a car so much and I don’t care what I drive. Up until last November, my car was a 2007 Mercury Mariner. Hold your applause.

[CROWD LAUGHS]

There’s more than just me. I see them out there. I loved it. But then it started acting weird. I’m like, “Shit, I’m gonna go have to buy a car.” And my sister, who’s my height, important to this story, she drives a GMC Acadia. I’ve driven that. I’m like, “That’ll do. I’ll just go get one of those.” So I called the GMC people. I go, “I’m coming down there and I’m gonna pay cash and I don’t wanna… I don’t wanna spend any more than an hour. I don’t wanna talk about math or math or math. I don’t wanna be in your play where you go talk to some secret person. I don’t… I don’t… I don’t… I’m just gonna pay what you tell me it cost and then I’m going to leave it. This’ll probably be the last car I’ll ever buy for all I know.” “Okay, sure. Come on down.” So I go down and Dave is my guy. I said, “Dave, I truly don’t give a shit. I don’t even care what color it is. All I care about, Dave, one thing, my deal breaker, that seat has to go up electronically because it may not look like it, Dave, but I am actively shrinking in real time, like, it’s a thing, Dave, like in five years, I’m gonna be in a car seat because for four-ten or under is the law.”

[CROWD LAUGHS]

I said, “Other than that, I don’t care.” And he goes, “Well, you know, you did say on the phone that you travel a lot. So I worked up some numbers about leasing.” No, don’t do this, Dave. And he did it. He just started talking about math [SPEAKING GIBBERISH] …la la la. And at some point, he noticed I had drifted out. [LAUGHS] And he goes, “Kathleen, are you still with me?” “No, Dave. I quit listening like eight minutes ago.” He goes, “Well, what are you thinking about? Maybe I can help you.” I go, “Do you really wanna know what I was thinking about, Dave? Honest to God, I’ll tell you what I was thinking about, because maybe you can help me because, um, I haven’t figured it all out yet. Um, I just found out that in, like, the next, um, few months, I’m gonna have… I’m gonna go to do shows in Portland, Oregon, Eugene, Oregon, and Medford, Oregon. And at night, me and the other comedian will drive, uh, to get to the other city and I was thinking about what I would do if we hit a Bigfoot.

[CROWD LAUGHS]

Yeah. [SIGHS] Because think about it, Dave. You know, with COVID, the animals are coming into town more and they’re more comfortable and it’s worth millions and millions of dollars, Dave, that’s why you have to have a plan. Like, you can’t just react emotionally in the moment or you’re gonna lose all your money. So while you were talking, I figured there’s two scenarios, Dave. Scenario A is I’ve hit it and it’s injured. Oh, not good, right? It’s stuck under the wheel well like [SPEAKING GIBBERISH] then how do I explain that, Dave? And so, I mean, I’m a wizard, but I only have so many powers. I can’t be in charge of that. Scenario B, Dave, is I’ve hit it and it’s dead. That’s a lot more of a tame scenario. So, that’s the one I would hope for. But then you have to think, Dave, what are you gonna do? Like, are you gonna call the police?” “I’m not because I don’t trust the po-po. They’ll steal my Bigfoot. I know they will. It’s worth millions and millions of dollars. Am I gonna post a picture on Instagram? No. Because then the millennials will get motivated and they’ll get up and they’ll come out there and beat me up and steal my Bigfoot because I will have forgotten to turn off my location. Am I gonna post it on TikTok? No, because most of my people are in a hospice and they don’t need to be bothered with my horseshit. So that’s as far as I got, Dave. I don’t know what I will do yet, but I know a lot of stuff I won’t do and that’s how you start a good plan for you.” He just looked at me with his eyes, they’re weird and where he goes, “So the only thing you care about is if the seat goes up? “Yes, Dave.”

[LAUGHTER]

All right, you guys. I got to get out of here. Thank you so much, Denver. You’re always the best. Thank you.

[SINGER]

♪ Kathleen ♪
♪ Kathleen ♪

[KATHLEEN] Bye. Bye up there.

[SINGER]

♪ Kathleen ♪
♪ Kathleen ♪
♪ Kathleen ♪
♪ Kathleen ♪
♪ What’s it all about? ♪
♪ Boxed wine ♪
♪ And tiny banjos ♪
♪ Kathleen ♪♪

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Rory Scovel: The Charleston Special (2015)

Rory Scovel: The Charleston Special (2015) | Transcript

Rory Scovel’s first hourlong stand-up special, directed by Scott Moran and filmed at the Woolfe Street Playhouse in Charleston, SC. The special was produced entirely, from building the set to hanging lights, by Rory and a crew of his closest friends.

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