Dispatch from the road

Well I knew when I started this little project that the cadence of these posts would be irregular and without reason. But here I am sitting on my delta flight, on my way home after a five day stint touring across Trump’s newly minted America. And I gotta tell ya, the vibes are weird.

It’s a strange thing, being back here again. I remember so distinctly in 2016 rushing any stage I could find to get behind a microphone to speak truth to power in the funniest way I could manage, making all my wry observations about Trump as a person and a phenomenon. Back then I was headlining clubs to audiences that largely had no fucking clue who I was, so the response was decidedly mixed. There were confrontations and walk outs and shouts from the crowd when I would talk about the election, fascism or the fact that Trump looked like his own wax statue melting in the sun.

But a lot has changed in 8 years and my approach this time around has been largely apolitical. Not out of fear, necessarily. My audiences are now largely populated by people who like me from something or another, and mostly align with me on politics and share that same little knot in my stomach that you can only vaguely identify as a trauma response, your body saying “wait what the fuck?” But knowing this, it doesn’t seem as important to try and righteously take on our new Republican establishment with any sort of fervor in the context of a stand up comedy show. It used to feel powerful and important and now it feels so impotent.

For one, no one really wants to hear it right now. We blew our collective loads the last go around, is there honestly anything new to be said about this man or the people who voted for him? More importantly I am the last person who should be a vessel for such things anymore. I am the dick and balls Guy who covers ketamine and horse fucking and my dead dad. I have plenty of answers, mind you. I have lots of ideas about what went wrong. But so does everyone. None of it’s funny.

That sounds a little defeatist but that’s not how I feel. I can’t say I feel hopeful either. America right now feels like a failed experiment and no one knows quite what to do next. The only thing I’ve landed on is narrowing my focus to the community around me, the victories we can find locally and trying not to sleep through it.

In DC on Sunday a man yelled at me on the street. I didn’t register what he was saying at first, though it didn’t matter because I knew it was aggressive and toxic, and a result, I was convinced, of hate mongers in this country feeling emboldened by a Trump win to yell whatever was on their minds and unsuspecting gay guys just trying to find their uber. But as I got closer I could hear what he was actually saying: “Yo Kim Possible, where you going?” I looked down at what I was wearing, a pair of baggy cargo pants, paired with a tight crop top and I had to give it up. He nailed me. That is how gay guys decided to dress right now after all. It was the second part of his heckle that sent me spinning. Where was I going? Where are we going? To the hotel. To the show. Back home. In my bed. Next to my partner. Holding his hand. Deep breaths. Squeeze a little bit. Repeat until it’s all over.