so i make an account on some garbage website. i dont wanna name an actual website so lets just make one up, lets call it tumblr dot com. and i open up the website, and i say “can i check my activity now please?” and they go “NO. IT CRASHES THE APP IF YOU TRY.” (spits) and i go “O-KAAAAY” and then i go to the bathroom. and i go “ANY UPDATES?” and they say “YEAH. WE DELETED YOUR BLOG WHILE YOU WERE IN THE BATHROOM. BECAUSE WE HATE YOU. NOW TAKE THIS VIDEO STREAMING SERVICE THAT NO ONE USES. GO, FETCH!” and i go OOOOOKAAAAAAAY and then i go to email tumblr support which is an oxymoron and i say “can i please make posts on the website” and they go “NO! IN FACT WERE GONNA FRAME YOU FOR MURDER! AND YOURE GONNA GO TO JAIL FOR THIRTY YEARS!” and i go “WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS!” and they say “BECAUSE WERE TUMBLR DOT COM AND LIFE IS A FUCKING NIGHTMARE!”
ok SO john mulaney has a new live show on the netflicks (the comeback kid) and i was lucky enough to see him do this act live in milwaukee this summer!!! but the recorded show is missing something special
so summer in milwaukee is known for being like. comically humid. disgustingly, oppressively humid. ‘can’t tell the difference between being downtown and being literally submerged in lake michigan’ humid
and poor john mulaney was wearing a nice-looking but also very warm suit. so once about every 10-20 minutes he would pause whatever spiel he was on, wipe his forehead, flutter his jacket about, regret his fashion choices and ask what was wrong with us that we don’t properly air condition our venues
about halfway through the show, a woman in one of the front rows stood up and started to walk out so in classic mulaney fashion he razzed her that she couldn’t take the heat either and asked her to bring him a pepsi – she didn’t break stride (i would try to play it cool too if over a thousand people were suddenly watching me get razzed by mulaney)
as soon as she was out of the theatre, he turned his mic off and started yelling to those of us who were still in there
“okay guys, we’re going to play a little prank on her! can everyone hear me? WE’RE GOING TO PLAY A PRANK! at some point later in the show i’m going to say ‘you know what they say in milwaukee!!’ and you’re all going to wave your arm around like this’ – he jauntily waved his arm with his first finger outstretched, like an 80 year old man doing the charleston – ‘and you will all shout ‘gimme some PANcakes!!!’’
we did a few rehearsals of this until he was satisfied, and he turned his mic back on and continued with his act
a few minutes later the woman walked back through the theatre but passed her row, walked all the way up to the stage, and set a can of pepsi at mulaney’s feet. he stopped, mouth agape for a moment and touched his chest. ‘is this really for me?’ he asked. ‘did i ask you for pepsi? i have no idea why i would do that, i hate pepsi.’ he thanked her sincerely several times, and when she turned his back to him to return to her seat, he made frantic ‘kill’ motions across his throat to signal to us that the prank was off
he continued to lament the heat for the rest of his act, eventually lost the jacket and drank the gifted pepsi, grimacing cartoonishly every time. at the very end of the night he thanked us for being a great audience, thanked the woman in particular for her kindness, and triumphantly said ‘BECAUSE YOU KNOW WHAT THEY SAY IN MILWAUKEE!!!’ and 1 very generous women was hopelessly confused when 1299 people shouted ‘GIMME SOME PANCAKES!!!!!’
One of the funniest things I ever experienced was when I went to go see John Mulaney live, and halfway through a bit about how expensive college in the States is, he looked down at the sleeve of his suit jacket and just. stopped. dead halt, mid sentence.
And after like three seconds, where we’re all trying to figure out the punchline because the story clearly hadn’t ended, and John Mulaney quietly says, “Has there been tinfoil on my buttons the whole goddamn show?”
He’d taken his suit to the drycleaner, and they’d wrapped the buttons on the sleeves and the coat with tinfoil to protect them, and John Mulaney didn’t notice until half-way through his set, and was SO FLABBERGASTED that he never did finish the story about college and instead did five minutes on how stupid it was that his buttons were reflecting the light and he just didn’t notice, and in that moment I understood more about John Mulaney as a person than I ever have.
during one of his portland shows, he noticed this like 7 year old girl in the front row and asked her (and her parents) if she ‘is aware that she is physically here right now’ or if she was just brought along. turns out her favorite john mulaney bit is the “and I’m new in town” bit and that she’s seen all his stuff. He was so shocked and discomforted by the fact a SEVEN YEAR OLD has seen his shows, that he couldn’t get through a bit about donating to charity without interrupting himself at least three times to import good life lessons on this small child, as if that makes up for all the horrible things he’s said that she heard
When I saw him in Ft. Lauderdale, there was a bar in the lobby that people kept leaving to go to. At one point, a guy in the front row just got up and BOOKED IT to get drinks. John Mulaney looked over at a woman who was next to the empty seat and asked, “Are you with him? What’s his name?”
She was, in fact, with him, and she did tell him her date’s name. John Mulaney considered this, looked around, and unplugged his microphone. Leaning in to us, he told us that we were going to trick this guy so fuckin hard. He said, “At some point during the show, I am going to stop and say, ‘Well, you guys know what they say here in Ft. Lauderdale,’ and then you guys are all going to scream back ‘WE LOVE MILKSHAKES!’ He’ll be so confused.”
He then continued on with the show as normal, the drinks guy returned to his seat, and that was that for quite a long time. We thought he had forgotten about it until, at some point during what I believe was his McDonald’s drive-thru bit, he shrugged his shoulders and said, “You guys know what they say here in Ft. Lauderdale…”
Naturally, we erupted with “WE LOVE MILKSHAKES” and John Mulaney SWUNG around to face the drinks guy and said, “I bet you’re real confused now, huh, JASON?!”
veronica: you have the moral backbone of a chocolate eclair
jd: anyone who’s seen my dick and met my parents needs to die
chandler: sometimes babies will point at me, and i don’t care for that shit at all
duke: i’m sorry about last night, it’s just that i’m mean and loud
mcnamara: why do people shush animals? they’ve never spoken
martha: 13 year olds are the meanest people in the world, they scare me to this day
kurt: and i had that thought…that only blackout drunks…and steve urkel can have…”did i do that?”
ram: for years, scientists have wondered, “can you make grown men and women weep tears of joy by playing tom jones’ ‘it’s not unusual’?”, and the answer is YES YOU CAN
ms. fleming: i look like i was just sitting in a room in a chair eating saltines for like 28 years
ok don’t get me wrong the ‘salt and pepper diner’ bit is hysterical, but john mulaney has so many more hilarious stories that no one seems to talk about:
•the party at the house of the teacher that everyone hated
•the dog trainer
•meeting bill clinton
•“hUSH!”
•“-too old to be a duckling, quack, quack!”
•“eat ass, suck a dick, and sell drugs.”
•literally any story involving his parents (especially the black coffee one)
just please, do yourselves a favor, don’t just stop at ‘salt and pepper diner’, listen to all this guy’s stories because they are gold
ruby-dear archive 