Prince of Thieves

this shit intense

I realized that a bunch of my favorite vines are ones I haven’t seen in any vine complications and I was afraid of losing them to the void so here you are (plus some classics that I couldn’t leave out)

Part 2 of my vine compilation of vines I hadn’t seen in many (or any) compliations and was afraid to lose forever

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

So I was debating posting this but I think it needs to be said.

So I’m a student teacher and this week, we started at a new school district. Now I won’t presume to begin to pretend that I know what everyone’s political ideologies are in this school district but keep in mind that it’s in rural New York State and rural New York State tends to run red. Not as red as some other places but definitely not blue and not even really purple. 

Anyway yesterday was my first ever professional development day. So I’m all dressed up, introducing myself to other teachers, and I shake hands with the superintendent who seems like a really nice guy.

And about halfway through the day, he goes up to the front of the theater and he starts talking about the best ways to talk to and help transgender/nonbinary students. It’s the basic things we all learn in our education classes. And you can tell that he’s a bit uncomfortable and so are some of the teachers. And at last, he stops and says, “Folks, I have to be honest. My father is rolling in his grave right now.”

And I’m in the back like, “Oh no.”

And so he pauses again and then he starts implying that he was raised to have a very negative opinion on the transgender community. And he continues to say that he had to unlearn a lot in the past few decades and then he admitted that he still doesn’t get it. He outright admitted that he personally doesn’t understand how someone comes to the conclusion that they’re not their assigned gender. And he admits that of course he doesn’t because he’s never had to go through that.

Another pause.

And then he says, “But I don’t have to get it.”

The theater fills with whispers and then he says [and I’m paraphrasing here], “I don’t have to get it. I don’t even have to agree with it. Because it doesn’t matter what I think or what I feel or what my beliefs are. At the end of the day, the only thing that matters is that I respect that student and I respect their choice.”

And then he reminded the teachers of every single policy that the school district follows from letting any student use their bathroom of choice to changing the students’ names per the students’ requests to not telling the parents anything unless the student gives consent to do so.

And at the end, he brought it back by saying, “My father just rolled in his grave again. But it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter what you think, it doesn’t matter what you believe, because it’s not about you. It’s about your kids. And you need to love your kids! Love your kids! Love your kids!”