Me and Maddow

Comedy and politics in South Tulsa

I am sitting on a laminated crate that holds audio equipment, on the side of the stage at the Union Multipurpose Activity Center (UMAC), watching the crowd file in. It’s about an hour before showtime. The Lorazepam has kicked in. I should have first checked with my doctor, who will be in the crowd tonight, to see if this was a good idea—especially before a show. I am counting back from 100 by seven, then up from one to 100 by six. It’s something I do from time to time to take my mind away from the moment. 

65 … 58 … 51 … 44 … 37…

“Excuse me, sir …”  

42 … 48 … 54 … 60 …

“Excuse me.”
A man, a technician from the facility, is standing over me. 

“Sorry.”

“I think you knocked the cord out,” he says, pointing to the amplifier behind me. “Stage mic isn’t working. They made need it later.”

“I may need it later.”

I get up. 

He plugs the cord back in. 

I have been a comedian for 30 years and I’m only doing 10 minutes tonight—in my hometown. Why can’t I calm down? What’s the big deal? 

Rachel Maddow is the big deal. 

There will be 3,500 people here tonight—not to see me, obviously, but they’ll see me whether they want to or not. Comedy clubs, which I usually work, hold about 200. This will be my biggest crowd ever. Once, at Dangerfield’s in NYC, on Rosh Hashanah, I performed in front of three people at one table. Another time, in Dewey, Oklahoma, at a bar with a message board out front that read Comedian and Beer.

There were seven in the crowd.

My mind wanders.
 

Maddow will be so impressed by me tonight, she’ll invite me on the show. I put that out in the universe, because that always works.
She—and everyone refers to her as Rachel, as if she were a friend—is in Tulsa tonight to talk about Blowout, her latest book about the politics of oil and gas and its war against the rest of us. She is not here to talk about, though I’m sure it will come up, Trump or which Democrat she prefers in 2020. 

I remember Bill Maher telling me a few years back that he loves coming to red states. The crowds, he told me, his crowds, are starving for a voice. You can feel it tonight. Here we are, in the reddest state in America, in the wilderness, and Rachel is coming to see us.

When it was first announced, I asked Jeff Martin—if not for him, there’s no Booksmart Tulsa, no Magic City Books, no Rachel, for that matter—if I could introduce her.

He had a better idea. 

“Why don’t you do some comedy beforehand? Fracking can be a pretty dry topic.” 

“Standup? They’ll never go for it,” I say, thinking of Maddow’s people. 

They went for it—or didn’t care one way or the other. 

I write about politics, but I’m also a comedian. The two don’t always align. Writing is a monologue; comedy a dialogue. Preaching to the choir is easier than making it laugh.

I went to Michaels earlier in the week and bought a Styrofoam ball so I could recreate the moment Senator Jim Inhofe brought a snowball on to the senate floor to disprove global warming. I show Jeff the “snowball.” He laughs. He introduces me to Rachel’s literary agent and asks me to show it to her. She laughs, too, but not as hard.

I was going to open with it, but this morning, Trump called Senator Mitt Romney a “pompous ass”—I have to mention that first.

George Kaiser just walked to the VIP seats with a small party. They are now being led back stage.

Maddow is undoubtedly in the Green Room.

I take a walk, circling the venue. It’s filling up. 

“Start in about 10 minutes?” Jeff asks, as I return to the side of the stage.

“Sure.”

A friend sends me a message that she’s excited to see Rachel. 

I text her back that she’s going to see me, too.

NO WAY! She texts back.

“Ready?” Jeff asks.

“Yeah.”

He walks to the stage and gets a nice ovation. He talks of upcoming events and how excited he is, and then mentions how I’m a local political pundit. Local is an awful modifier. 

“Please welcome Barry Friedman,” he says.

As I climb the stairs, I remember the two greatest pieces of advice I ever received: Tell some truth. Don’t suck. 

Jeff and I shake hands. I put down my index cards, fake snowball, and look out at the crowd. I thank Jeff for setting this up, for Jeff for being Jeff, and then thank everyone for coming, especially those from midtown who have never been south of 51st Street.

I look at the snowball.

Not yet, I tell myself.

“Did you read that Donald Trump called Mitt Romney a pompous ass today? Astonishing, isn’t it, for how often do you find yourself in agreement with Donald Trump?”

I think I hear the crowd roar.

This is not going to suck tonight.

Now!

I pick up the snowball and show it to the crowd.

“Oh, yeah, I brought this. Just in case any of you were wondering how early in the show I was going to do an obligatory Jim Inhofe reference.”

The crowd responds more like Jeff did than the agent. 

“I got this at Hobby Lobby. Four ninety-five it cost me. I was like, ‘Jesus!’ which I have to tell you is not what you want to be yelling out at Hobby Lobby. People dropping to their knees, waiting for the rapture, while I’m waiting for an assistant manager to do a price check.”

Some truth. The only part of that that’s true is that was $4.95.

The joke wasn’t written until I said it.

Something tells me the sound in the arena is not good, for I see people straining to hear. Nothing I can do about it. If I stop and address it, ask about, commiserate with them about it, I kill my own energy. I am a guest here.

I do a joke about not going to the State Fair because I forgot to get a tetanus shot, and then one about Oktoberfest and how, for Jews, groups of Germans under a tent drinking beer is a tough sell.

Then this: 

“A guy came up to me once at a show and said, ‘You Jews killed our Lord.’ Look, we didn’t. And even if we did, he came back, so, in my book, no foul.” 

None of this is sucking.

The crowd is with me but I need to stop talking about religion. Just then I see George Kaiser walk through the curtains from backstage and to his seat.  

“Ladies and gentlemen, there’s Oklahoma’s oil man George Kaiser, who just went back to see Rachel.”

I want to do a kidnapping joke at that moment, but what if Kaiser has no sense of humor? Wait … what do I care if he has a sense of humor?

“Actually the last anyone saw of Rachel, George was having her bound and gagged and thrown into the back of a waiting van.”

I can’t see if he’s laughing, but everyone else is.

It feels like I’ve been on 10 minutes. Two more quick jokes: 

The first one about Oklahoman Ayn Robbins, who co-wrote (I make sure to emphasize co-) “Gonna Fly Now,” the theme from Rocky, which has like three words; the second about Carrie Underwood, Oklahoma’s American Idol winner, who received hundreds of thousands of votes the last night of the competition because Oklahoman had plenty of free time to call in while the meth was cooking.

I think I got every joke in I wanted. I glance backstage. No sign of Rachel, which means she hasn’t seen or heard any of this. 

I’m not getting on the show.

The universe is an ass.

I close with this:

“Pete Seeger once said, ‘I’m not sure my participation in a benefit cause, march, or demonstration has been effective, but I can tell you one thing: being involved in these kinds of issues means that you’re involved with the good people with live hearts, live eyes and live heads.’”

Applause.

“So, if this all goes to shit next November—and it probably will—we’ll have each other. Well, we’ll have each other north of 51st. Good night. Enjoy Rachel.”

Jeff comes to the stage to thank me. Still no sign of Rachel. I go sit in the front row in a seat reserved for me. After more announcements, Jeff brings out Rachel, who is on crutches, due to a broken ankle. She comes to the stage. Standing ovation. She talks about the book and Russian oligarchs. Thirty minutes or so in, she and Jeff move to the chairs set on stage, where he does a masterful job of interviewing her. She talks about how Oklahoma democracy stopped the excesses of fracking and how motivated and touched she is by how our democracy worked. She asks us all to meet one another, make connection with each other. 

She gets up, hugs Jeff, and carefully makes her way down the steps. The crowd erupts, as it should. She was mesmerizing. I wait a moment before heading to the Green Room. No Rachel. I walk the hallways. No Rachel. 

I see Jeff.

“She’s gone.”

“Gone?” 

“Left right after the show.”

Perfect.

I head back to my seat and see Kaiser, who has his hand outstretched, in the row behind me.

“Great show, Barry. Very funny. Even though a lot of it wasn’t funny funny. Biting. But it was funny.”

This makes me smile. Aside from everything else, it hits me at this moment: I had a better seat than George Kaiser.