TCB Infomercial: Kathleen Madigan

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She's retired.

I said out of nowhere, while we're pushing a cart,

God, I have a splitting sinus headache.

She goes, oh, here, and roots through a giant purse and goes,

take this, and I took it.

And about a second later, I hear, what was that all about?

She goes, did you swallow that?

Yep.

Sure did.

Swallow it.

What color was it?

I don't know, Mom. I don't know.
I didn't look at what color it was. Kathleen, why didn't you look at what color the pill was? Why? Why? Because you're not somebody I met at a party.
You were my mom. You were a nurse for 30 years.
I bought the whole story. I did.
I trusted you. I ate it blind.
I just ate it blind. On this episode of the Commercial Break.
There's these, you know, thousands of people that are watching you, and it's just you with a microphone. That's it.
That's got to be a strange sensation. If you think about it too hard, you will run away.
Yeah. You would just go, this is crazy.
What do we do? You know, I started at a funny bone in a mall. Did you? Maybe 50 people on a Monday night.

You know, not like, this is crazy.

You can't overthink it.

Me and Ron White always talk about that.

He's like, you can't think about it.

Just act like it's the funny bone.

Just walk out and do what you do.

And I'm like, yeah, I mean, I've never freaked out enough to actually think about running away.

But if you've thought about it too long, you might.

The next episode of The commercial break starts now oh yeah cas and kittens welcome back to the commercial break i'm brian green this is my dear friend and the co-host of this show chris and joy hoadley best to you chris and best to you out there in the podcast universe thanks for joining us here we are and yet another yet another Tuesday morning or Tuesday afternoon or whenever you're listening to this. It's a TCB infomercial Tuesday with noted storied comedian Kathleen Madigan coming in.
This one is years in the making, actually. It is.
We've been trying to get Kathleen on the show for a very long time, and we're super excited that our schedules collided in the universe, and we're finally now getting Kathleen in here. Kathleen has been around for a very long time.
I don't want to date her. She's a young lady, but I still want to share that she's grown up with some of the best.
Oh, God. The Jerry Seinfelds of the world.
Louis Black, Mitch Hedberg, Jerry Seinfeld. Did I already say Jerry Seinfeld? I'll say it twice.
Jerry Seinfeld because, you know, he's a big deal. Chris Rock, she's been around for a very long time.
Tons of specials, tons of touring. Yeah, she grew, I think she kind of hit her stride during the Comedy Central boom when Comedy Central actually had comedians on.
Yeah, that's how it started. Yeah, that's how it started.
That's how Comedy Central started. Comedy Central used to be three to five minute clips.
Like MTV was videos, three to five minutes. Comedy Central, 24 hours a day, would do nothing but play little sets from stand-up comedians.
They would go in, they would record a set, they would cut it up, they would put it on in rotation. And I will always remember when Comedy Central came on the television watching that endlessly.
Like just watching comedian after comedian after comedian. I think at first they didn't even have commercials.
It was just them doing comedians, which was really cool. But oh, how things have changed.
I mean, Comedy Central is still a good channel. Whatever.
They still have good comedy shows. But Kathleen is here and I can't wait to dig into some of her.
Me too. Whenever somebody comes out like Louis Black or Margaret Cho or Kathleen Madigan, when you have someone who's been around for a long time, you get to dig into some of the dirt.
Like figure out, you've only been around long enough to see some things happen. And so I get curious about what was it like when, who was your favorite? What did you do? Where did you go? How things changed.
Yeah, how are things changed? Yeah, and, you know, listen, when you're an old codger like me, when you're old coot like Brian, and you want to reminisce about the old days yeah it's like just two people sitting around the retirement home remembering remembering when you know when i go to my mom's retirement home and they're always playing that old music and i every time i go there like i went there the other day you think about pearl jam i think about pearl jam being played yeah pearl jam is now classic rock it is i'm not kidding. I heard a live on a classic rock radio station.

This was a couple of months ago. We went down to Florida to have my surgery.
And so they didn't

have Sirius in the car. So I just...
Not Daniel Beach. Not Daniel.
Not Daniel Beach. Not Daniel

Beach. Daniel Point.
Daniel Point. Oh my God.
There's still people asking about that. Did I

miss the Daniel Point shows? Yes, you did. But good news, so did we.
We also additionally missed the Daniel Point shows. No, there's no Daniel Point.
Not on the calendar yet. But we're getting there.
First, we're going to do a Netflix show. And then...
To Daniel Point. You might be waiting a while.
I was laughing so hard. We got a group text going the other night.
I was laughing so hard thinking about Daniel Point. I was like, oh, Astro.
I was like, your family. Paul Bontig.
I know. They still...
I think they're still waiting. Here's the funny part.
I mean, it's just kind of adjacent, I guess, to Kathleen Madigan's. And she's like, that's what she does.
She's just stand up. The funny thing is, we were going to go to Daniel Point, and it's close to where a lot of Astrid's family live.
So they bought a bunch of tickets, and God bless them. And they have no fucking clue what the commercial break is all about.
They have no idea. They think it's just some fun project.
Brian's got going on on the side. They still think I'm in real estate.
And so, and I'll keep it that way as long as possible. Yeah.
Keep that perception. Yeah, that's right.
So we canceled those Dania Point shows because I was not feeling well, but we still managed to make it to Spain a couple weeks before my surgery to go to a wedding that I talked about. Everybody, and I mean everybody, is like, oh, I got tickets to your show.
When are you changing the show for? And I'm like, oh, hold on tight. Keep those same in a drawer.
That that's right i'm not even sure cell phones will be a thing anymore by the time we get to daniel point take a screenshot we'll get to it i promise uh so i'm anyway i'm really interested to talk to kathleen because i know she's been around the block and she's seen a few things and i like to dig in i like to dig into that stuff you know we lot of new comics that come on. I say new comics.
They've been doing it for a long time. But they're just kind of hitting their stride.
And Kathleen's been doing this for a long time. One thing I've noticed about Kathleen, following her on social media, is that she sells out theaters.
I mean, she's doing theaters. And to be a comic.
She's got a big fan base. Yeah.
And to be a comic for that long and still be selling out theaters is, you know, there's got to be a real sense of accomplishment about that. You've hit it.
You've done it. Yeah.
You're moving into your, you know, the later stage of your life and you're still selling out theaters. I wonder if you ever, like, when you're a stand-up comic like that, do you think about retirement? Or do you, you know, like here with the commercial break and this is not a joke i've actually thought about this like how long can we actually do this i thought about it too yeah do we go to we're 55 do we go to we're 60 i mean i guess that largely depends on how little money we make over the next couple of years but it's like how long do we do this before we just say okay i think we're too old to be doing a comedy podcast that's at all relevant? You know.
Well, we'll see. It might be next year.
Right. We'll let the market dictate.
Well, the market has already spoken, Chrissy. The market has already spoken.
We're just not listening. So KathleenMadigan.com is where you can get tickets to her tour.
She's on the never-ending tour. This is not like Kathleen is doing a tour.
It's not Ari Shafir. She's not going away next year to go on a long.
Yeah, it's not a farewell tour. She is doing this all the time.
So it's likely she's going to be somewhere near you. Kathleen is really funny.
If you go check out. I think tickets are on sale this week, right? Tickets are on sale this week for her fall tour.
She is currently on her spring tour, spring and summer tour. And I was just looking, there's like 26 more dates still available for the spring summer tour.
I'm sure she takes a little bit of a break and then she'll do the fall tour and that's going to be extensive. Also, she has many specials available.
You can go to KathleenMadigan.com she's got Netflix specials Amazon specials Comedy Central specials YouTube specials she's got all kind of material out there and she's really funny she's got that Midwestern charm and politeness uh with a very witty and edgy sense you have to be good at what you're doing to do it for 30 plus years this isn't like what you're doing i think oh yeah for sure and you can tell yeah i mean like some other folks we've had here or some comedians who have been doing this for a long time chris rock you know jerry seinfeld you have to be really good and you have to really enjoy the art and craft of stand-up and that is not easy because like we've talked about with so many comedians on this show, this is not Led Zeppelin. You don't get to go and play your greatest hits.
You have to keep coming up with new material. If Kathleen wants to sell out some shows in Chicago in 2025 and then do it again in 2026, you just can't do the same act over and over again.
You have to constantly be coming up with fresh new material. Yeah, evolve.
But the thing about Kathleen is she kind of reminds me of a lot of my aunts. Yeah.
Yeah. She's got that same sense of humor.
It's dry. It's witty.
It's funny. She makes up words, you know, like she makes up words for things.
She calls people by little like terms of endearment, but it's really not a term of endearment. You know, oh, little chicken.
Like, bless your heart. Bless your heart, little chicken.
And it's just not, it's not in a term of endearment. It's a term of biting and cunning.
And she is just like my aunts in that way. It reminds me so much.
She actually reminds me of one specifically, my Aunt Sandy, who has since passed. It was one of the funniest ladies ever.
Aunt Sandy had the entire family convinced but not talking about the lady she lived with for 47 years of her life was just her best friend. Oh, yeah.
It was just her best friend. Yeah.
It was such a Catholic thing to do. Totally.
Yeah, it was so Catholic. I mean, short hair, both of them, short hair, they would work out together.
They had naked statues of women everywhere around their house. They both drove a Jaguar.
I have never seen a more lesbian couple in my entire life, but no one ever said it out loud. And everyone pretended like they were just best friends living together.
And that's what they told the kids. Oh, they're best friends.
They live together. Now, I also lived with lived with my best friend too who was a guy but that lasted for about six months until the apartment got too smelly too full of beer cans too much too much biohazard material around and then we until we forgot to pay rent and then we got kicked out i mean this was not that these two were definitely married essentially for so many years and it was a loving relationship but the and i'm not saying that's kathleen that's not what i'm not saying she's trying to hide the fact of anything but she but aunt sandy was so funny because i think she had this different perspective on life and her comedy was sly biting under it was just quiet it was quiet comedy and if you didn't if you weren quiet.
It was quiet comedy. And if you didn't,

if you weren't picked, she was so smart too. And if you weren't picking up on it,

then you may not have known that Aunt Sandy was actually making fun of you.

But I quickly caught on to it and I loved it. Everything about Aunt Sandy was awesome to me.

I really enjoyed it, including the statues of the naked ladies all around her house.

That's true.

It was my favorite house to go to. And I don't think my mom brought us over there very often because of all the naked ladies hanging around her.
All the pictures and portraits of nude women all around the house. Anyway, you get what I'm saying.
Okay, KathleenMadigan.com links in the show notes. Chrissy, let's do this.
Why do we not take a break and then when we get back through the magic of this awkward transition phase and telepodcasting, we'll bring Kathleen Madigan on from wherever in the world she is. I think Nashville.
We'll grab her. We'll talk to her.
We'll keep her here as long as we can. Like a hostage situation.
We'll keep her here just as long as we can. Yes, let's do it.
Let's do it. All right.
We'll be back with Kathleen. Hey, it's Rachel, your new voice of God here on TCB.
And just like you, I'm wondering just how much longer this podcast can continue. Let's all rejoice that another episode has made it to your ears, and I'll rejoice that my check is in the mail.
Speaking of mail, get your free TCB sticker in the mail by going to tcbpodcast.com and visiting the Contact Us page. You can also find the entire commercial break library, audio and video, just in case you want to look at Chrissy, at TCBpodcast.com.
Want your voice to be on an episode of the show? Leave us a message at 212-433-3TCB. That's 212-433-3822.
Tell us how much you love us, and we'll be sure to let the world know on a future episode. Or you can make fun of us.
That'd be fine too. We might not air that, but maybe.
Oh, and if you're shy, that's okay. Just send a text.
We'll respond. Now I'm going to go check the mailbox for payment while you check out our sponsors.
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It's these people who often change the lives of the people around them

in the world at large.

And while in the moment it may be hard to see the forest through the trees,

those rule breakers often define what it means to be a success.

Each week, former wrestling superstar Soraya sits down with the boldest voices

in sports, entertainment, and beyond to talk about breaking barriers,

defying expectations, and rewriting the rules. They're talking about it all, the fights, the failures, and the moments that changed everything.
We'll be right back. Bienvenidos a Peloton, donde puedes convertirte en una nueva versión de ti.
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Peloton. And thank you, Kathleen, for joining us.
We really appreciate it. How are you? Hello.
I'm good. I'm good.
I'm trying to figure out where I'm going to hide from a tornado tonight with my bottle of Jameson and a hockey. There you go, the important things.
Because I don't have a basement in Tennessee because they said it would cost too much money to blow up all that rock. Yeah, you can't dig in the rock.
No, when they call it Rocky Top, that song's not kidding. That's real.
What do you got under you? What's under there? That's granite under there or what's going on down there? Hard white rock, that's all I know. To build a basement would be like an extra 200 grand because of the dynamite.
Yeah, don't do it. It's not worth it.
Do you think 95-5 rule? 5% I might die? Yeah. 95% chance I won't? Yeah, you could get struck by a bus tomorrow though.
So you take your chances. $200,000, that's a lot of money.
That could go good news somewhere else yeah right you get a pool i mean you get a pool for 200 you got a pool over there in nashville yeah i got a pool that wasn't cheap either that was a big dynamite that was a big blast uh you'll be fine from the tornado do you live in the city of uh nashville are you like city proper well davidson county but i'm not like i'm downtown. I'm out by the airport, which is even better.
It's only eight minutes door to door from the airport, but it's on a lake, which is really a river. I've come to figure out Tennessee.
We all have different definitions of lake. This is a working river, like barges come through and stuff.
Yeah, and i was fishing like three coves over and there were actually cows in it so you know they came down to get a drink and they went all the way in but i just wouldn't wear your best swimming suit here probably not a white one not a white one yeah i mean i'll still get in and i i'll still eat the fish although i probably There should. There's a DuPont Chemical Factory, not too down.
Oh, God. Yeah, I know.
But I ate a bass out of here like two years ago. I'm fine.
Yeah, you're still alive, and you're looking great. Yeah, it's fine.
Chattahoochee River is very much the same way. We've talked about this on the show.
The Chattahoochee, which runs through Atlanta, the Chattahoochee Coochee all the way down there, they find cows floating in there, like upside down cows floating in there. You just don't want to eat anything that comes out of the river.
And the people who tube down those rivers, they're young and they have immune systems that can deal with it. Not us.
Yeah, snakes. The good thing, though, if you're on a river, the snakes are less likely than a man-made lake where they get very comfortable in those coves.
They sit there for years growing. Yeah, for years and years.
And the water of Aca's sins, they're violent, they're aggressive. And here, the river part at least keeps everything moving.
Yeah. Keeps flowing.
You have been doing stand-up comedy for a lot of years. And I wanted to ask you a question.
Okay. Has there ever been a a time or a gig like a specific thing you could think about where you were just like holy shit i'm gonna this is the worst i'm quitting i'm done with this this sucks i've had the worst night of my life or run of my life and this is it i'm wondering because you know some of the comics that we talk to are are fresh faced comics right right? And they don't have the experience behind them, I think, maybe to experience those ups and downs.
But has there been a moment when you could think of where you're like, holy shit, I'm done with this? No, I would never go beyond the night I'm in. But that's just kind of how I live my entire life.
There have been nights or a corporate gig that's just terrible. Like, I did one in Miami, and half of them didn't speak English.
I'm like, really? I think it was Deutsche Bank. I'm like, did we have to ask this on the questionnaire? Do you speak English? I thought that was a given.
There have been nights that have been very frustrating, but that's the great thing about stand-up to me is that tomorrow's a brand new day. This is where I was saying to my brother after the Super Bowl if you're Patrick Mahomes you have to wait all the way till next September to be able to correct that.
You have to sit with a bad show for months and months and months and months versus stand-up okay say i suck tonight oh i'll go tomorrow yeah that's a whole new day it's a it's a very lucky position to be in because a lot of people whether it's sports or uh just other entertainment it's it's for you don't get that chance the next night yeah no it's sports or just other entertainment,

you don't get that chance the next night.

Yeah, no, it's true. And also, you depend only on yourself at the end of the day, right?

So it's like Patrick Mahomes, he depends on however many other people

to make sure that he wins from season to season.

For you, you can just kind of throw some cold water on your face and say, okay, Kathleen, you know how to do this. Go up and get him tomorrow night.
Yeah, I like being solo because I feel like it's all on me, whether it's good or bad. That's why I hate improv.
I just don't want to rely on other people. If we're going gonna win I'm winning yeah if I lose I lose but this whole um you know there's six of us and let's see what happens you know I used to do a joke a long time ago about the figure skaters that are the pairs and like you know when the other person falls the other person's always very nice about it and I just don't know that I could control my temper like that.
Like I might skate around just to chop off one of his fingers while he's down there and go, yeah. So this is why we're not on the cereal box because you couldn't keep your shit together.
And now I don't get a medal. Like I don't know that I could be that forgiving when all you've done for 10 years is work on one thing.
Right. And then you fuck it up.
Yeah. You also say at the end of the joke, you say, I'm skating up to those judges and goes, I don't know who that fucking guy is.
I don't know why we're wearing the same thing. That guy threw me way too far.
We practiced that a million million times that was complete bullshit and um i think i deserve another chance that would be my argument um i just don't i like that stand-ups all by ourselves the only time i feel weird about it is like in the chicago theater or something very large yeah i feel like god i don't don't have any dancers. I'm only five foot tall.
I just don't feel like I'm enough for a stage that large. It seems like we're missing people.
You feel like your actual physical presence. You're like, I need something to fill the stage out.
That's got to be a kind of strange feeling is when you're in those, you know, wherever you are. I don't know where you're playing.
And it's just you sitting on the stage. And there's these, you know, thousands of people that are watching you.
And it's just you with a microphone. That's it.
That's got to be a strange sensation. If you think about it too hard, you will run away.
You would just go, this is crazy. What do we do? I started at a funny bone in a mall.
Maybe 50 people on a Monday night. Not like, this is crazy.
You can't overthink it. Me and Ron White always talk about that.
He's like, you can't think about it. Just act like it's the funny bone.
Just walk out and do what you do.

And I'm like, yeah, I mean, I've never freaked out enough to actually think about running away. But if you thought about it too long, you might, I think.
If you're a normal person and not some crazy malignant narcissist, I mean, you're going to go, whoa. Of course.
Do you still get nerves? Only at corporate gigs, and I try not to do them anymore. because that people don't understand that a corporate gig,

not everybody there wanted to see comedy they're not my fans they're whoever they are it's playing russian roulette yeah there's gonna be four shows that went fine but two are gonna be bullets to your soul yeah and they will kill you yeah and it's awful but otherwise no i don't get nervous so it's good money but it's not it's good money but you just don't know what you're getting too many x factors there's too much yeah that's ill-defined and at this point thankfully i make enough money i don't need that money so i can just pass you which is great yeah you have such a a long andied career, and you're still doing it very successfully.

Over all of these years, you've seen

comedy. When did you get started,

Kathleen? When was your first gig

at The Bone?

Yeah, The Bone.

But I was lucky because I was in St. Louis

and that was their headquarters back then.

Oh, okay.

As soon as I got good enough to be an opening act, they booked me in all the funny bones twice a year. So boom, that's a 30-week.
Yeah. I started in 88, like going to open bike nights and stuff.
And then in August of 89, I went on the road, like forever. Like I never came back.
Yeah, you just travel constantly, I'm sure. That's why when people go, how long is the tour? I'm like, well, so far, 35 years.
I'll let you know. I'll let you know when I put my suitcase away for real and the cat doesn't get mad at me.
I'll let you know right now. Yeah, we were talking about this before you came on, and I was telling the people here in the studio, I was like, I don't think Kathleen ever stops touring.
I think every time I look, she's doing another, you know, there's another reel, there's another post. She's got another set of shows coming on.
But I think that's, I guess after 35 years, that feels very normal to you. And, you know, do you enjoy that part of it, like being out and traveling? Or would you rather spend more time kind of sitting and doing what you want to do? And do you have any true pet peeves when you're out on the road like that? I still love the road.
I don't care where it's at. I'll go anywhere.
I like to see what's going on. I like to know.
I don't care if it's Cedar Falls or Chicago or Minneapolis, wherever. I don't care if it's cold.
I don't like the airport part. Yeah, that sucks.
That part, even if you have all the fancy stuff. Yeah.
You know, I have clear, and I have TSA pre-check. Doesn't matter.
No, the old, flying first class now is really privately. I mean, come on.
Yeah, they put you in a room, essentially. Right, right, right.
So that part absolutely sucks, and it keeps getting worse every year, every year, every year year that's why when i see the older flight attendants i know they're going to be crabby they're my they're my age and they've been doing this forever and the situation gets colossally worse every year people are crabby it the planes there's doors flying off for christ's sake i know it's crazy like i don't necessarily i never thought about well if i'm in the exit row if that door flies off i used to always go for that not anymore i'm gonna sit where there's no door um so i hate that part but i like when i get there i have so much fun to see what's going on so i but i never wanted to do anything else either. I know a lot of people like acting.

No.

Zero interest.

I went one time,

Louis Black's one of my best friends,

and he was doing an episode of The Big Bang Theory,

and he made me go.

I did not want to go.

I'm like,

Lou, I'll watch it when it's on.

I don't want to.

Seven hours.

We were there from 4 to 11.

Me and his assistant drank a bottle of wine.

I memorized his lines. I memorized the whole script by 11 o'clock at night.
I love this. And I'm like, was this fun for you, Lou? Because you're not making good money.
Yeah. Like, you'd have made a lot more money going on the road this week.
Like, did you enjoy that? Now, he does. He likes acting.
Lou's been in a bunch of movies. Yeah.
He likes the craft of it or whatever. We had him on there.
I don't know. Yeah, we had Louis on.
He's one of my favorite guests. He's so good at what he does.
He's a ton of fun, and he's got a lot of interest. He writes plays, and I always make fun of him.
I'm like, you majored in playwriting? What year was that? That's like saying you're a cobbler. Who does that, Luke? And he's like, oh, they just didn't reach the Midwest, Kathleen.
You don't know. There's things going on.
There are things going on. He's right.
In New York, it's a thing. Yeah, he was a playwright.
His origin story is rather weird. Yeah, he had a rather strange origin story.
It was like writing one-act plays down in some basement in New York or something. And people didn't like it.
No, he was the weirdest person I think I ever initially met. We were at Catch a Rising Star in Chicago.
It was in a Hyatt. And he went up, and I'm like, who is this guy? What is he doing? He is not doing traditional stand-up.
I mean, I'd only been doing it maybe four years, so I hadn't seen everything, but I'd seen a lot. And I'd seen the ones, you know, everybody, the Jeff Fox, the Seinfelds in the clubs, Rich Jenny, all those guys.
And then Lou comes, I'm like, oh, he doesn't understand this format at all. But I love it.
Yeah. It, it was crazy.
It was a crazy person. Yeah.
But I liked it. Yeah, that was when he was on Comedy Central, when he was on The Daily Show, which is, I think, where a lot of people got exposed to Lewis Black and in mass.
It's just, he's so cantankerous and so smart and so sharp at what he does. It's hard to ignore the brilliance in all that screaming, right? And I think for me, that was a really attractive form of comedy to me is the way that he was doing it.
And he said, I used to take headlines up on stage, and that's what I would do. I'd read the newspaper.
I'd circle headlines, and that's how I got started. I'd just yell and scream, and people liked it.
And he said, okay, why not? I had to teach him, though, like in the Midwest. I remember we did Omaha one time, and I guess we were co-headlining maybe.
I said, I'll go first. You go second.
I'm always, I'll go first, first one to the bar. As soon as I'm done, I'm first one to the bar.
That's true. I don't have an ego thing about being the headliner or going last.
But he was going on stage, and he's always very political, and we're in Omaha, Nebraska, and he's like, I don't think it's going as well here. I said, here's the thing, Lou.
It's the Midwest. We're a little polite, and we'd like to, maybe you could open your act with, like, something about the weather.
Yeah. Just a little tiny thing that's not hard.
Yeah. Like, yeah, you don't need to come out screaming that George W.
Bush is an asshole. Let's just maybe start with your impression on Nebraska.
And he was like, yeah, you're right. I'm probably, I'm a little, I go, you're a lot for the Midwest.
You're a lot. You're a big barking dog.
And they don't know if you're friendly or not friendly. So come out a little friendly.
He got it. That's a smart observation.
As a guy who grew up in Chicago, you have a very familiar sense of humor, way of talking. That flavor of Midwest comes out in you.
And I think that feels very familiar to me. It's like what I grew up around with the voices that I heard and the kind of sharp-witted but quiet and polite comedy that you do is very good.
Is there a place where you feel, where your comedy feels, I guess, people respond to it better? Like when you go to the Midwest, do you feel like you get a warmer reception than you do in certain places in the country or does your comedy have you been doing this for so long your comedy kind of resonates wherever you well that was the weird thing i was terrified being from the midwest like my first road week was the philadelphia funny bone and philly philly to this day is it and they know it yeah they're a hard it's a hard city they are hardcore they hardcore. And I mean, I got it now.
But initially I was like, are they going to laugh at the same stuff? And they did. I mean, I think always my act will be more, it will resonate more with the Midwest or South than, like I'm not very woke.
But I don't like the term woke either because it implies the other side's asleep. I'm like, no.
I'm like a dog on an old dog with one eye open on the couch. I'm kind of awake.
You're a blue dog. I'm not woke.
I'm never going to be the one like trying to, I don't know, make new waves or convince people of anything. It's complete nonsense.
I view my act like the movie Arthur, which I love. Oh, I love that movie too.
It's an hour escape. You're not going to probably, well, you might learn a few things, but they won't be valuable.
They'll just be inane facts. That's the new tagline for our podcast.
You might learn some things, but nothing valuable. But it's not valuable.
No. I mean, it'll help you.
It may be in a fun bar conversation. And there are a couple of legal advice things I throw in there from my dad that might help you if you're, like, get a DUI.
Just keep your mouth shut. But, you know, like, I'm never going to be known for, like, a lot of comics are like, oh, that's so groundbreaking or edgy or I'm edgy in my own Midwest polite way.
Yes. But you have to be looking for you have to know exact.
I'm tricking people sometimes. I see what you're saying.
And I agree with you. So here the funny thing is, is the the bit about the ice skating, the ice skaters, right? And and practicing all your life to do this one thing with somebody else who might fuck up.
That comes from one of your Comedy Central specials that was way back when. And I just watched that last night.
It popped up on my YouTube. And I'm like, oh, let me watch this.
Really funny. But you are edgy in your own way.
But it is kind of this polite Midwestern way. You're kind of sneaking in the back door, right? It's edgy, and there's some commentary there, but you have to know where to find it, and you have to know how to listen to it in that own Midwestern way.
You have worked with probably a lot of the greats, Seinfeld, Louis Black, and I always wanted to ask a question. Do you ever get advice from one of those people, like one of those huge success stories that you were like, I don't think that's great advice.
They gave you advice and then you were like, I actually don't think that's great advice. You don't have to tell me who.
No, yeah, but no, I can't even remember who. It's somebody who paced a lot.
Chris Rock? It might have been like Chris or something we're like Madigan you gotta move it a little bit more I'm like no I don't yeah the job the job says stand up comedy I'm standing up yeah it doesn't say walk around it doesn't say uh me and Ron White who's one of my best friends we are of the opinion for us if you can stand still for an hour and keep everyone's attention your material is great true fair enough i the like it used to and i became friends with robin williams because we did all those iraq tours he's a very sweet man but the running around and the sweating and the jumping i i want to grab him and go, just stand still for two jokes. Yes.
Just to humor me. Just stand there.
But, you know, everybody's got their own little style, their own little whatever. Robin was one of the best, in my opinion.
But he was frenetic. And I think watching some of his old stuff, like back in the 80s, sometimes it's a little bit disconcerting how much he's moving around.
And obviously, I think he's powered by something besides Wheaties. Do you know what I'm saying? Well, yeah.
He said, I mean, he admitted what was going on. You also shouldn't be sweating that perfume.
Right. I'm like, in a theater, they'll go, do you need any towels? I'm like, if I need a towel, you need to take me to a hospital.
Yeah. I'm going out there talking.
There shouldn't be any sweating involved. The lights aren't that hot.
Like, come on, you guys. They're not.
Do you want to know where I found the most touching Robin Williams, like, documentary film footage? Was not on a Robin Williams documentary. It was on that Christopher Reeves documentary.
Because I had no idea the two of them were like best friends.

And then when they got to the part where they started talking about how when after Chris had his accident, Robin was there, but they never talked about the accident or his disability.

And one of his children was saying, I think that Robin gave Chris some sense of normalcy back because he never mentioned anything about the accident or anything about um being in a wheelchair anything like that and i found i don't know there was something very touching and sweet about that he's like they both kind of uh confided in each other robin was amazing it's it how sad were you guys when how many shows did you guys do together how many tours did you go like oh? Well, we went on two, but they were long. They were like all of December.
And here was the craziest thing I've ever seen. I'd never been around a global star.
I'd been around comedians, Gary Shanling, people that were stars here. Even Roseanne.
She really wasn't a movie global star like Robin. So everybody knows Robin everybody and we were in a hospital and they said there's this how not paying attention I was they're like oh there's some soldiers from Georgia and I was like what like from Atlanta yeah they meant the country right right I forgot there was a country in Georgia.
But they kind of speak Russian. And Robin went in there to this kid, like 18-year-old guy, and just started speaking Russian.
Really? It was the craziest shit I've ever seen. I'm like, is that from Moscow on the Hudson? Did you really learn all that? He's like, yeah, I just became interested.
It was crazy. It was like watching, don't know like a magic trick a magician yeah i was gonna say yeah um he was very sweet and soft-spoken i actually preferred his serious work over the comedy because the comedy was too frenetic for me but i mean he know he knew that i told him that i'm like i wish you would just settle down I don't disagree with you.
I think some of the stuff that he did on film that was more serious just felt more earnest to me. And sometimes I think he could be more funny when he was delivering a Rye line rather than something, you know, jumping out of a box and, you know, with suspenders and trying to make everybody laugh.
Yeah, like Awakenings was a great movie. Yeah.
Like there's where he, that to me was the real Robin. And then the standup, like he's an, he went to Juilliard.
He's an actor. I felt like sometimes he was an actor acting as a comedian.
Ah, that's a very interesting observation. And you know, no harm, no foul.
Sure. People can do whatever they want on stage.
But I just preferred the regular guy that I sat on a bus with for hours riding around Afghanistan. That guy.
Yeah, I preferred his awakenings to his Mork and Mindy years. Yeah.
Although as a kid, I really did look forward to Mork and Mindy at 7.30 on Tuesday nights. I don't remember when it was on.
It was very interesting. So you are a storyteller by nature.
I would share that you're a storyteller. Do you ever tell stories about people in your personal life where they're like, hey, I prefer that you don't share that story.
Right. No, I think I'm a pretty good editor in my mind of what my family will tolerate.
Although I did post a joke from a while back about me, quote, ruining Christmas. My sister, my sister goes, this was recently.
She goes, Hey, all these people are from Facebook. All my friends are calling.
I never said you ruined Christmas. I said, you absolutely did.
How do you think I, I didn't write that as a whole situation happened. She goes, Oh, well, maybe I did.
I said, I have never said anything on stage. it did not happen or was not the truth now like let's say a sibling gets divorced and is terrible i'm not gonna of course yeah yeah um and there's seven of us and you know my my dad passed away but my mom's alive so i have eight people so i'll just move off you if your life is Yeah, move on to somebody else.
I'll just focus on somebody else for a while. Yeah.
Exactly. Yeah.
We do a lot of content here. We do.
I mean, we're on 700 plus episodes at this point. 1,000 hours of content.
So we pull from everything. Yeah, we pull from everything.
But I have learned, and I learned very quickly, people aren't volunteering to be on your show. This wasn't their life choice.
And you have to be careful about what you say. But it's easy to edit and change names and flip things around.
When you tell the story, the faces and the names just get changed to protect the innocent. Chrissy, that's how you do it.
But still, some people know. Like, if I tell a story about my brother, I'll change some of the details.
But sometimes he's like, dude, I really didn't want that share. And I'm like, I didn't even say.
You know, you know if i tell a story about my brother i'll change some of the details but sometimes he's like dude i really didn't want that share that's and i'm like i didn't even say you know you know how no one would ever piece that together but they know and he gets up you know sometimes he's gotten upset and i'm like okay i'll well meanwhile i wanted to be on the show yeah i will run it by him if i think i'm on the edge that's okay that's a fair policy yeah like I'm like, do you care if I say Matt, that's one of my sister's husbands, that when you met Matt, he didn't know what religion he was? Is that going to make him seem stupid? And she goes, oh, I don't think he'd care at all. I'm like, great.
Okay, great. Because I'm already doing it on stage.
I just wanted permission to do it on film on April 26th. Wait, can we follow this down the rabbit hole just for a second? What? Your brother-in-law did not know what religion he was? Not really, no.
So my sister, we're all Catholic, and if I married you, I don't really care if you become Catholic. But my sister did, because they're going to have kids, and she and she wants this cohesive and i think on some level my sister still thinks you might not make it into heaven if you didn't sign up like i i don't agree with that but this is where we part ways she's got catholic and matt's like well i'm christian he's he's like a rule guy at will rule to us i go right but what kind of christian he goes well kathleen i don't i don't really know i go okay matt when you drove up to the building what did it say united methodist or lutheran he goes well i don't think it really said anything just a white building it was a cross i'm like well this is some little house on the prairie shit like wow it's just a white country building yeah i go so you were obviously some form of protestant he goes no no we weren't protesting nothing i'm like okay all right man i'm just telling you don't agree to her terms because if you have it's like six weeks of classes it's not like joining a mega church where you just walk right in no no no no no it's six weeks of, no, no, no.
It's six weeks of classes, and then you've got a whole Lent situation you've got to deal with every year. You've got to give up smoking, drinking.
Yes. But here was the greatest part, though, about making fun of people in your own personal life.
So the last Amazon special I did, or it might have been a Netflix, one of them, I don't know, it doesn't matter. They were like they were like oh you have all these jokes about your parents and do you think you could get them to sign a uh like a disclosure saying it's okay i go not yeah yeah yeah i go no i didn't i go i've been making fun of my parents for 35 years and i go you know what's going to be great if you want to get that they go, well, we email you the disclosure and then they could print it out and scan it.
I go, you know what? I'm going to give you their cell phone number. And if they answer, which they won't, because the cell phones are never charged, and I'm going to give you their email, they'll probably open it in 2027.
I'm not doing that. I'm not going through that with my mom and dad.
So you're just going to have to take the risk that I've made a lot of fun of Jack and Vicky. And I just, that's the first time anybody ever said.
That's a ridiculous amount of ass covering right there. Isn't it? Well, you really think my own family is going to sue you for employing me? Yes.
Like, I was just like, this is is really i guess it's cover your ass but i mean jack and vicky at age 78 really i mean he was a lawyer but he's not even licensed anymore he can't do anything that expired years ago he's a shark who's lost his teeth he's not gonna do anything he's not gonna worry about it don't get all get all fussy about something. If that's the level of ass covering that Amazon is doing with all of those specials, I can only imagine.
Right, but then on Baby Reindeer, you didn't check anything. Right.
I'm like, oh, my God. You're telling me that I need to get all this clearance to make fun of my mom and dad at Home Depot or something.
Meanwhile, you have a lady's life that you said is a true story, and that's not the lady.

Yeah, that's true.

It's true.

Oh, my God.

I'm like, where were your lawyers then?

I don't get that.

I never did get that one.

That is selective lawyering.

Are you the wrong woman?

Well, they didn't do one thing to change her identity,

but they matched it identically.

She was a little overweight, Scottish, a lawyer.

Those were her jobs.

So all you would have had to do is make her American,

or why can't a crazy person be skinny?

Yeah. Make it a skinny lady.

That's right.

Or make her British.

They just copied.

Exactly.

And then the internet immediately knew. Exactly who she was.
It's Fiona. Uh-oh.
And you presented it as a true story. And then when you go look at it all, she didn't go to prison.
There's all kinds of stuff in it that's not true. Well, he presented it as a true story to Netflix.
Netflix took it on verbatim. They didn't do anything.
They didn't check. They didn't check.

And now the judge went, so she sued them for like $150 million. She's going to win.
She's going to win. Yes, because they did nothing to protect her identity.
And Kathleen's right. All they had to do was skinny African-American church secretary.
secretary and then yeah they have you could you could have made the case that oh this was a fictional story that we made up whole cloth even though it was very similar to something that happened to me so while this guy got all these props and it was a true story that makes that it makes it interesting but it would have been interesting even without the true story part right you didn't have to do it or there's just one word missing based on yeah that's it they thought that were two words they just said this is a true story part, right? Or there's just one word missing, based on. Yeah.
That's it. Two words.
They just said, this is a true story. Yes.
I mean, I'm not the first one to bring that up. I'm not saying I'm a genius, but that's it.
Based on. Based on.
Is different. And then they could have just said, well, kind of.
Yeah, loosely based on. Loosely based on you, but it wasn't you.
Yeah. Do you remember, every time I think about based on true story, do you remember when Fargo came out, the movie Fargo, and the beginning of the movie it said, you know, the events in this movie are all true, right? And everybody was like, when did this happen? Where did this happen? Well, the thing that the Coen brothers didn't mention is, yeah, all the events are true, but they didn't happen in one story.
That's like a hundred stories they took the pieces from. Those guys are so genius.
I know. I know.
One of my favorite movies. That is quintessential Midwestern, Fargo.
And I know that it's exaggerated, you know, accents and, you know, kind of tropes. But when you see that movie, if you grew up in the Midwest, if you've ever been up there, then that really hits home to you.
Like, oh yeah, that's how they talk. Oh yeah, that's how they act.
Oh yeah, that's how polite they are in the face of murder. Do you have a...
Over the years that you've been doing comedy, has there been like trends that you've seen in comedy? Have you changed your comedy? I know your comedy has evolved over the years, but is there a trend and you're like, I'm not jumping on that bat in a wagon? No, thanks. Now I feel like comedy is some comedians, they're not really comedians.
They're clickbait, so to speak, right? They are going for shock value. the louder we can be, the more edgy things we can say, the more people we can offend, then the better off I'll be because I'm doing it for the algorithm and not for comedy purposes.
Now, some people, I'm sure, like that. But that's how some comedy feels to me right now.
Have you seen trends where you're like, oh, no, no, no, this is just not great? Well, this wasn't really a trend that would have affected me, but I never stopped laughing for a two-year period. Every guy sounded like Mitch Hedberg.
Like, oh, my God. Oh, my God.
I would just sit in the back of the room and go, no, no, no. There was only one Mitch.
He's not here anymore. We're moving on.
The trends that I always see, and they come and they go, is dirty comedy, clean comedy. And this whole not cussing thing, I'm going on stage and being who I am.
Absolutely. You can take it or leave it.
I'm clean at a corporate event because I am paid specifically not to cuss. But in real life, I cuss.
It's just to prove that to me, like the cussing debate, words don't matter. It's the person receiving the words.
It's on you. Because I had this homeless lady come down the street in Oklahoma City, and she was dragging a blue tarp.
And she clearly was clearly um she was smoking like an unlit cig and I had a lighter so I thought well I'll let you see if she wants a light but she already came up yelling at me in Spanish just screaming and I was like I don't know lady yeah I don't know what she said she could have called me a hundred cuss words it doesn't matter because I didn't understand it right it's your interpretation

of that that so the clean dirty thing i've just always well i've never been like dirty like i'm not gonna get up and do the the the yeah you're not doing jokes yeah no i'm not i'm not i just wouldn't ever don't we have anything else to talk about i mean my god like i just always thought that was low-hanging fruit.

I'm not doing it.

And clean, define clean. I don't even like the labels of all that.
I mean, people are making money off of it. Good for you guys.
But I just don't. What does that mean? So it's not offensive to an 8-year-old? But I mean, that's fine if that's what you want to do.
But in comedy, I'm 38, I'm 48, I'm 50, I'm not eight. It's true.
Yeah, it's true. And I think that there are comedians who do that to great effect.
I think Nate Bargatze is an example of this, right? His comedy is slow, it's plodding, but it's funny. And there's not a cuss word in there, right? And I think there are other comedians who I won't name, I don't want to offend anybody, who just don't do it to great.
I think they're just, I agree with you. Why are you not saying the words that you could say? You could punctuate these things with something a little bit more.
If it's your normal way of talking. Yeah, conversation.
I mean, my parents, it was always breaking news to me that in in the South specifically, God damn is more offensive than other words that you would think would be more offensive. But like when my mom, I mean, that was said every week at home in my house.
But like when my mom would say, God damn it, I really thought she was asking God to damn it. I mean, it wasn't just a throwaway word.
She was pissed. Like the crock pot didn't broke or something.
And then it would be like, God damn it. And I thought, okay.
And they never seemed to care if we said it. I mean, as a woman, we're like 18.
Not when we're eight. You're sure.
Eight to 18. So I don't have the same relationship.
Like cursing was going on in my house all the time. They wouldn't go, say, fucker.
They wouldn't go that far. But shit and goddammit and all that.
So to me, that's just the way you talk. I couldn't agree with you more.
I don't shy away from cussing around the kids. Again, there are some words that I just choose.
Like I'm not going to teach them at their young, tender age. But then I let them know that this may not be a word you want to say in public because other people might be offended by it, right? But words are just words.
It's not, you know, it's not going to slice anybody open. Their eyeball's not going to come out because you said shit.
It's not going to happen. And I think the general attitude toward cussing has got much more loose since the 80s.
I mean, if you heard the word shit on broadcast television... Oh, yeah, on TV.
That was a big deal. Now there's a shit every 15 seconds on NBC at 7 o'clock at night.
You can't even watch Jeopardy without hearing the word shit. Yeah, they keep expanding the...
And not that everybody needs to talk. It's the clean, dirty...
And then there's specifically a lot of women comics that

i think go dirty er to try to be one of the guys yeah and i can see that you can i can feel it when it's happening i'm like oh man and i know they're smarter than that yes like that's the frustrating part like there are some really dumb uh road comics out there they get up and do dick jokes but you go drinking with it and I'm like,

oh, sweet little rabbit's not smart.

Yeah. road comics out there that get up and do dick jokes but you go drinking with it i'm like oh sweet sweet little sweet little rabbit's not smart sweet little rabbit can't think of nothing and then i don't hate him then i'm like okay oh tiny dancer you just can't you know this is all he's got so okay yeah i that those people never never um make me frustrated because they're doing what they can do.
That's the best they can do. I bet off air we could name three of them.
I bet we'd be thinking about the same people. There's at least 10 throughout the years I could put on a vision board that I remember from the day.
And they make their money, they get their free drinks, and they're happy. So, you know.
It's a nice little job, if you don't mind being gone. We got a dumb rabbit with a dumb act, but hey.
It was five bucks to get in, and it's a Tuesday. Yeah, exactly.
They got three drink tickets and a shitty cheeseburger,

and they're going to stay the night at the Howard Johnson at the Hojo.

What are you going to do?

It's Schaumburg, Illinois.

What are you going to do?

Right, right.

You have got to have seen and done a lot of sets with very successful,

famous comedians.

Ron White, you've been mentioning, is one of your friends.

You guys hang out a lot, you and Ron? Oh, yeah. He came up here during COVID.
He had nowhere to go. Oh, you guys just hung out during COVID? Yeah.
I go, well, last I heard, you have a bus and a plane. Yeah.
And like the golf course, we like to golf and he loves to fish. I'm like, yeah, come on up.
So he was here for a while. Oh week a few weeks at least and he was like after a week of it he goes Maddie isn't it just amazing how seamlessly we've slipped into retirement you love it I go I love it I love it I don't miss the road I don't need to be on stage I mean I love the road but this is awesome I might get cat.
This is crazy. I've never been home for more than two weeks in a row since I was 23 years old.
We had a blast. We got up, we went fishing, then we'd go golfing, then we'd come back and go fishing again.
That's fun. Anything we wanted to do was still open.
You can go on the lake, you can go golfing even the the golf course up by my house has like outdoor outdoor bar and all that so we could still drink and oh my god like like lewis was trapped in an apartment in new york yeah couldn't go and he started going crazier and crazier like week by week like this cooped up crazy person and i'm like dude you need to get out of there. Yeah.
So then he came here and I'm like, you're going to have to, he was screaming at this. Yeah.
Dude, I am already in realization fun mode. Yeah.
And you're going to need to catch up. Yes.
Or you're going back to New York to your little chicken. Put you back there.
Cause I can't live like this. I know, I know, I know.
It's just so maddening. And then Roger's like, let's go get a 12 pack and make a little ultra and fireball shots in case we get a birdie.
I'm like, right. Yes.
That's what I want to do. To be the bartender at the outdoor bar where Louis Black, Kathleen Madigan, and Ron White show up.
Yes. It's like a life's achievement.
I could die happy if I'm the bartender at the outdoor bar where Lewis Black, Kathleen Madigan, and Ron White show up. It's like a life's achievement.
I could die happy if I'm the bartender at the golf course. And for a few weeks, that's all what I've got at my bar is those three just entertaining me.
And I felt so bad saying like, well, I'm having a blast during COVID because like I have relatives that are nurses and teachers and it was brutal. My one sister's a teacher, and the Zooms, and the kids aren't showing up, and people are yelling and hollering.
I was like, oh, yeah, I don't know. I caught three crappies.
Right. Too bad.
And had a margarita. And a Ron White.
Yeah. And me and Ron saw two snakes.
That's my day. That's my day.
You know, that was when COVID happened. Our first episode was released like the same week that all of the lockdowns started happening.
So April 15th, 2020. And this podcast may have saved my life because at least I had something to come do.
Like I had some outlet, some way, and we just didn't talk about any of it. I mean, of course, we mentioned masks or whatever on occasion, but we just didn't talk about any of it.

That's why the show is named The Commercial Break.

So we would just kind of shut it out.

And I got to be honest, that hour and a half or two hours at that time, once a week.

Yeah, once a week.

Now it's four times a week.

That really allowed me to decompress in a way that I think saved me from just going absolutely fucking stir crazy. Were you guys in Atlanta then? Yeah, we were in Atlanta.
Okay, because the South was a lot more loosey-goosey with the rules. If you remember, our governor opened up the bowling alleys and the nail salons.
That's right. And I thought to myself, I mean, at the time, now in in hindsight i think it was a good idea that he was saying hey we can't just shut down everything forever right um but at the time it was the funniest thing ever to know that our governor had made some decision somewhere at the highest powers of local government he said nail salons bowling his wife that's what we need I think that's's it and he liked bowling or something the nail one makes more sense to me than the bowling well i mean i'm not against bowling i've i've done it when i bartended like it for fun and all that but that's a very odd yes especially if you're not a professional bowler like i'm touching strange bowling balls right That's it.
Strange shoes. Everything's borrowed.
Yeah, you're touching everything everybody else does. I would think there'd be an indoor sport that would be less kind of gross.
Like, you know, I'm wearing someone else's gross shoes. At the time, no one would have accused Brian Kemp of being the sharpest tool in the shed.
Now he's proven to be somewhat smart on occasion. But at the time, you would have gone, well, that makes a lot of sense for Brian Kemp.
But we were doing video. We were doing it over video for like the first month and a half.
And then we're like, okay, let's just test and get together. And that just kind of saved us.
And I can only imagine that only imagine that for you like your entire life changes no more shows out you know we're not doing any more shows we're not doing any more traveling a complete disruption but then you've got lewis black and ron white to come over and keep you company that must be yeah and then there's uh like brian who owns zanies here in nashville little little dwarf he's out there golfing every day like all my friends nate was here all my good golf buddies are here and friends are here and we all still nothing really changed except we're outside i mean but we're out there anyway like i don't really turns out i don't do much inside so yeah i mean you could still go on these awesome then i got every hike that was available in tenn That was what I wanted to do. I could drive up to Missouri and hang out in the Ozarks.
We went viral in the Ozarks. Oh, yeah.
I remember saying that. Yeah, no, I did not partake in that.
But that's just because I know everyone's pissing in those pools. They're drinking it.
I'm not good. That's not about COVID.
Yeah. That's too many young people, not for me anymore.
But yeah, I just feel like the South and the Midwest was a little more unleashed than- New York. Oh my God, New York.
Yeah, yeah. And how long did it take you to actually go back on the road after? Well, as soon as they let us, I wasn't going to do that.
Like, let's do a comedy show on Zoom. I know younger people need the money, so they took the gigs.
I get it, but I didn't have to do any of that. Thank God.
But as soon as they said, okay, we're back up and rolling, and then I was like, huh. I'm going to get my ass down to Zanies and remember my act, because that's the problem with me.
You can't tell me I'm off for a year and expect me to do anything.

Yeah.

Until that 11th month, I'll go, okay, I got to get serious. Now I got to get the muscle.
I'm not going to do anything in those other months except have fun. Right.
Just fuck off. Yeah.
Yeah. There's an old saying, never give an Irish person enough money, and it's very true.
Like, I have enough. You're Irish't i don't need i'll never understand the the people the elons the dick cheneys like how much money do you have to have yeah well when is it enough when is enough enough for me i know it's enough when all the bills are paid yep and then there's a retirement savings and my brother says i'm good yeah then i'm that's.
My grandfather put out, and I've said this a couple times on the show, he was in a nursing home, and he was unable to walk because he had so many broken hips, colon cancer for the second time. He was like 98 years old, and he was taking his resume and giving it to the nurses in the nursing home and telling them to please fax it to this phone number.
He tried to find work until the day that he died because he had a very, he was Irish too, I mean, of Irish descent, and he had a very similar way of thinking. It's that you work or you die, right? Number one.
Number two, never give me too much money because, you know, what do they say? They say an addict's worst enemy is time and money. I really think that's an Irish person's worst enemy is time and money.
You don't want either of those things. Time, it was always the devil's workshop, according to my grandma.
You've got too much free time. It's the devil's workshop.
The devil's workshop. Yeah.
Kathleen is on the never-ending tour. One of your dates, the tickets go on sale this week, so the tickets are either now available or will be available over the next couple of days for your fall dates.
Yes. And then there'll be the winter dates and then the spring dates and then the summer dates until, you know, Ron comes back over and kills another three or four weeks with you.
That's right. Until he retired and then he unretired.
So I lost my retirement, but he's got to retire again.

Yeah.

Then listen, I know we aren't great friends,

but next time you, Ron, Lewis, and Nate

get together up there to play a round of golf,

I'll carry your bag.

It's an easy drive from Atlanta.

There's really, there's no rules in our golf course.

We could go out as a five-some.

It's no problem.

They don't care.

There's no rules.

I love it.

I love golf, and I'll be happy to play a round with you. I'll even, I'll pay for the fireball.
Uh, I'll put a link to all of Kathleen's stuff inside of the show notes. I could talk to you for another hour and a half.
Kathleen. I hope that you come back because I, I enjoy your comedy and I think you're a great person to talk to.
This is a ton of fun. Thanks guys..
I had a good time, too. I watched some of your other ones, too, so I'm just here to say as a viewer person, you should go watch their other ones.
The one with Fortune I liked a lot. Oh, we love Fortune.
I love Fortune. And I watched a lot of Lewis's, but I just feel like he's just in my living room.
So I'm like, okay. He's, yeah.
I feel the same way about my own voice. It's a good podcast.
Oh, thank you. Congratulations.
Your podcast is great too. Pubcast, which, and can I just share one thing with you, Kathleen? Please don't take any offense to this.
I will not. Put a microphone on your producer.
No. No.
No. Okay.
All right that she says no i have to respect that oh she says no yeah she doesn't want it i can't but i want to hear what she has to say and i can't hear her she doesn't want it she wants no part of uh like so i'll i do the comic trick i repeat what she says yeah yeah but but i can't make another adult and and that was my tech guru during um when covid when i started the podcast so i can't can't can't fire paddles yeah well no don't fire her i just i was listening to or watching it actually on youtube this morning and i was like i can't hear what she's saying but you do repeat a lot of the stuff that she says i try to repeat it i take no offense to the believe me i believe me, I've heard it before through the team email and stuff. And they're like, give her a microphone.
I'm like, I can't make adults do what they don't want to do. Well.
And then I just say, it's free, man. Yeah.
If you hate it. Yeah, exactly.
Exactly. That's what we've said too.
That's what we've said too. Sorry we've offended you.
It's not for everyone. We've had a million taglines.
And we'll have a new one

after this, too. So, Kathleen

Madigan, you're fantastic.

Thanks, and you're welcome back anytime.

And we hope you do come back. Bye.
See you soon.

I'll see you in Atlanta. Bye.

Bye.

Let me do something

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Okay, Kathleen Madigan. What a delight she was.
That was just fun. Yeah, I mean, we say this a lot, but it is true.
I mean, I don't want to just sound repetitive, but it is fun talking to these people because, you know, they're human beings, but they don't have to be interesting and fun to talk to. You know what I'm saying? If I went to a bar tomorrow and I talked to 20 people, I think probably 10 of them at least, I would be like, yeah, okay, all right, whatever.
I don't wish to have another conversation with them. And then five of them would be kind of interesting.
And then five of them you would want to follow up with. You'd be like, those are cool people.
I want to hang out with them. I think 90% of the guests that we've had on the commercial break are people you want to hang out with again.
Now, they probably aren't saying the same thing about us, but at least we have a good impression. At least from our perspective, it was a lot of fun.
And Kathleen was. And I swear to God, that is like my dream date.
Get Nate Bargatze, Louis Black, Ron White, Kathleen Madigan, and a bottle of Fireball, and let's go play 18. Yeah, that's awesome.
And fish. Yeah.
Yeah. And go see fish.
Let's all go see fish. That's what it is.
Well, we also have a new tagline. I mean, that's it.
You're going to hear a lot of stuff. You're going to hear a lot of stuff.
Most of it's not valuable. Not anything of real value.
No value in this. Yeah, there's no value.
Fun stuff you can throw out of a bar. We're not informing you about how Doge is saving your money.
That's not our lot in life. Ah, good old Joe.
I wanted to really ask her about her thoughts. Well, never mind.
I'm not going to get into it. I wanted to ask her her thoughts on something, but I reframed.
Maybe conversation number two. I'll ask her about.
I hope she comes back. Yeah.
Some of the quote unquote comedians that are out there right now doing their thing. Anyway, she's got Pubcast, which is her, I think it's weekly podcast.
You can find that wherever you're listening to this. You can go on the free Odyssey app.
Of course, all of the podcasts are free. You can download that.
You can also get the commercial break there and a lot of other great podcasts where that's our home. But Kathleen's podcast is available everywhere you're listening to this podcast, Apple, Spotify, Google.
And then, of course, tickets to her fall tour are now on sale at KathleenMadigan.com.

I will put that link in the show notes for you.

Link in bio, link in bio.

Link in bio, link in bio.

And yeah, of course, there's a special right around the corner, but we can't talk about it.

Keep an eye out for Kathleen's new special sometime later on this year, I would imagine.

She's working on it.

She's working on it, as are we. We're working on it, too.
All right. Well, what else is there to say? She's great.
It was so easy and so just relatable. Yeah.
She's my Aunt Sandy. Well, without the gay part.
I mean, I don't know if she's gay and who gives a shit anyway. It doesn't really matter.
Anyway, it doesn't really matter. But I'm saying Aunt Sandy is Kathleen.
Kathleen is Aunt Sandy. They both have the exact same sense of humor.
It's so familiar and relatable to me. That's so good.
Yeah. I wish Aunt Sandy was still here.
I know. I wish she could come on the phone and talk because you would be like, she's a laugh a minute.
Yeah. She made and lost hundreds of millions of dollars in her life.

Hundreds of millions of dollars.

Not as much as the cat lady.

Not as much as the cat lady who lost billions of dollars.

Well, Aunt Sandy lost it for a different reason.

But I won't get into all the family drama.

But I will just share this.

That Aunt Sandy, for one of our birthdays, came to our house in Chicago,

picked Kevin and I up, took us to Toys R Us, gave us each a cart and said, go for it. Can you imagine? Of course.
Best day of my life. Oh, God.
A G.I. Joe's left and right, a Teddy Ruxpin.
That's crazy. I think I got a speak and spell.
I think I even got a Cabbage Patch doll, which my mom went to war over to get us for Christmas, and then Aunt Sandy comes and we just throw it in the basket. Swooped in.
Mom got us one Cabbage Patch doll. I want to be that aunt.
I think I'm going to be that aunt. You should be that aunt.
You're going to need a different job, but you can be that aunt. Right.
You're going to need a different line of work, or at least not this podcast. Anyway, all right.
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Okay, Chrissy, I guess that's all I can do for now.

I think so.

But I'll tell you that I love you.

I love you.

Best to you.

And best to you.

And best to you out there in the podcast universe.

Until next time, Chrissy and I will say, we do say, and we must say, goodbye. At the Hyundai Getaway Sales Event, get deals so right, it almost feels wrong.
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