S3 - Ep. 4 - Fortune Feimster

Are you leaving?

I you wanna way back home? Either way, we want to be there. Doesn't matter how much baggage you claim, and give us time and a termino and gay. We want to send you off in style. We wanna welcome you back home.

Tell us all about it.

We scared her? Was it fine? Malborn?

Do you need to ride?

Do you need to ride? Do you need to ride? Do you need to ride? Do you need to ride? Do your need ride?

Ride with Karen and Chris? Welcome to Do you need to ride? This is Chris.

Fairbanks and this is Karen Kilgarriff.

Hello, Karen, Hi Chris, how are you? I'm good, I'm good.

There's been some drama, some pet drama in my neighborhood. Why well, there's a dog that is muscular like a human.

This dog looks like the rock.

And there's two separate occasions where I've I'm pulling up to my place and I didn't see it happened. But that dog just bit a passing dog on a leash. It's happened twice now, so that's just the times I've seen it. And I do feel like a weird pet detective because I heard him say to the woman who was checking her dog, which had blood on its neck, like, this is a big pit combined with another scary dog.

And he said, oh, he never does this.

And I'm like, ah, four or five months ago, I remember fully picking up a dog and like this dog. I don't know how many dogs this dog is bitten, but he jumps over the fence. Oh, and I've pet that this scary dog and he's sweet to humans, but he wants to murder little dogs.

Yeah.

Meanwhile, this cat that is my neighbors that they called the mooch, his collar says the mooch. That's because you don't take care of him. And he's skinny. And now he just waits at my door and I let him in. He wants he's asking me to be his new owner, but he's got a collar on and he's it's just these folks had a baby.

I leave my windows open. You can learn a lot anyway.

I think here's the thing. You can always take a collar off. That cat doesn't know its name is the mooch. It's like suddenly that's Charlie McCarthy. Yeah, and you're done, that's your cat.

I think I should do that, but I did talk to them like, hey, are you guys the Mooch's parents.

They're like, yeah, that's our cat.

And I'm like, you just had a baby, right Because I could see the baby, I could see what's happening.

They don't care about the cat anymore. They have a human baby.

Should I ask them next time I see them, Hey, do you want me to adopt your cat?

I do, like you, No, they don't want you to. They don't want you.

To, so I have to break the lawn steal their cat. I mean, you're giving me permission.

I was doing a joke. Now I feel like I need to say, hey, don't do that.

Okay, I won't do that, but I am gonna let him visit. I don't feed him either.

Here's the thing. Don't feed him because then it'll be at your house all the time. But la cats, when they are left outside, they go and live entire second secret lives.

I guess.

So, I mean, like, that's that's very common things.

And because this cat's name is the Mooch, I think he has a history of befriending neighbors. But he asks for nothing. He just comes in and sits and stares at me. It's actually kind of creepy, but I've grown to like him.

Whatever.

There's a lot of pet drama and I just wanted to get it off my teats.

What if you adopted a big, fat cat and then you got it a tag that and named it the Gooch, and then cat wars, then the drama goes up ten. I'm just saying, jump in there, be a part of it.

Yeah, I should be part of the community.

You know who else should be part of the community.

Our guests today, Oh god, you're so good at these guest.

Jump on this guest, segue with me, and we'll go pick up our guest for today. You've seen her at clubs and colleges all over the country, a lot of colleges. She's also been on this podcast a handful of times.

Yes, I think three, at least I think so three maybe, yeah, two or three.

She's a six name. I'm doing the intro on this podcast three times. You know her, you love her? That's right, it's Fortune, femester Fortune.

Yeah, this is a real honor to be back.

You aren't doing colleges anymore, are you fortunate?

I was about to say no, and I literally have a college next Thursday.

Yeah, I told you, And is it all over the country.

I don't do many because colleges. Your soul hurts after a lot of those gigs.

Yeah, yeah, we've established that for sure.

Ye.

Yeah, there's only a handful of good college gigs. But I don't know why.

I was like, yeah, that sounds good because yours at noon.

It's at like seven pm, and it's been a way too big of a theater. Sometimes you want to tell these colleges like, let's lower the bar a little bit, because no college promotes them the shows.

Yeah, I don't know why they don't promote them.

And then when like fifty people show up, they go, it's fine, we had to spend.

The money anyway.

You go, okay, all.

Right, right, there is a they were breathing down our next to spend this money.

Yeah, so don't worry about it. Can we give you more?

Fine.

I once had a hockey team come to my show in a college in Boston and they told me that they got in trouble with their coach and they were allowed to pick their punishment, and my my show was.

Part of their punishment.

Wait a minute, so I heckled these guys the entire show.

Oh, Okay, did they say we want to be roasted? Sort of?

They were in the back there, but I mean there was like thirty guys, and you know that's not usual, and they were very like Jock Broie guys.

Yeah, And I literally stopped the show.

I said, I just have to I have to ask, like you guys in the back, like you're not my normal crowd, what brings you? And the guy goes, we got in trouble, and we're allowed to pick our punishment, so we picked your show.

That was the I hope that you really let a lot of people think that stand up.

You're just it's part of it.

It's totally normal that you're gonna get roasted by the comedian.

Yeah.

People go, oh, I don't want to sit up front because you're gonna mess with me. Oh my god. In a perfect world, we would never even interact. I would do my material and you'd be quiet like.

You're at a play. Yeah.

I don't normally roast anyone, nor do I do that. But and they were in the very very back, and I just so the whole show, I just kept going back to them, going just just nailing these guys. This was a while ago, but it was a real treat that will always stay with me.

Do you honestly think it was a punishment or do you think that guy was being sassy?

The entire team was there. It was one hundred.

Percent, and like I think he thought like he was complimenting me, like, hey, but we picked you, like it was either you know, fifty suicides.

Or you.

We were either had to do a half hour of cardio.

That's so funny, or sit here through this big old lesbian stand up set.

I was doing some college back east and at the end, I know I've told the story fifteen times on this show, but but we don't care about stuff like that. That's right, So feel free to repeat anything.

Yea, even the T shirt that you wore last time. Yes, now it's what you said, it's.

Probably the same.

No, But in near the end of my set, and this was at the beginning of this run, I think I had maybe twenty five minutes material and then by the end I had kind of worked it out with myself enough so that it was lasting at least forty five oh like legal limit whatever. But near the end of my set, the football team came in from like

And what if she was? Yeah, what if she was?

What if she was? Then she can come fight me.

Yeah, they have cheerleading parents.

Yes, it's a hardcore sporty is yet is?

Yes?

I just yeah, when I do colleges, I just can't believe how young they are. I thought I was such a grown up when I was in school and I their children, Oh, they're.

They're totally babies.

Yeah, it's yeah, it's really weird to I go on stage and I go, what are we going to relate to with each other?

Why am I here?

I do just anyone should do their due diligence as as a host and do some Wikipedia. I was reading about about you fortune some things I didn't know. Oh yeah, but at your graduation there was an actress that spoke because that mine JK.

Simmons spoke. He went to that college that Oh.

Yeah, and then you ended up being her assistant in LA.

Yeah, is that true? It's true. Yeah.

She was the commencement speaker.

She was an actress from North Carolina and she got asked to speak in our graduation.

I was a student speaker, and uh crushed.

Yeah yeah, and uh we hit it off, and so that's what it was.

You crushed And she was like, oh my god, I've never seen a student speaker crush like that.

Will you come work for me?

Well? She just kind of was like, let me know if you ever need anything, And I was just like, what a you know, what am I going to need from an actress in Los Angeles?

Right?

Right?

Well, it's just a testament to your likability because I just read a couple of sentences and I'm like, oh, yeah, I assume that's what happened. But then it went on to say that her neighbor was like a LA Weekly journalist or.

Something, and then you got a job with her neighbor.

Look at that.

I just got a lot of jobs through people, So that's true too.

That's true too. Yeah.

I So I got randomly hired to be assistant. I didn't start till a year later, because long story is short. I moved to Spain for a year and when I got home, the job was still available. So I this was two thousand and three. I moved out to LA not knowing what I was doing. I had no desire to be an actor or comedian. I had never done comedy. I had done theater and I stunk. So I was like, I don't know what I'm doing, but this might be

I didn't know La.

I didn't know where anything was, and I'm trying to flip through Thomas Guides while not hit by their cars.

And I was there maybe a year a little longer.

But her neighbor, yeah, wrote for the La Daily News and was basically that speech. She goes, I heard from your graduation speech that you can write.

Do you want to come killed that speech? That speech?

I mean, it was really good, I guess.

And she said, do you want to cover like movie premieres and events for me like once or twice a week at night? And I was like yeah, because I suck at being an assistant. So I did them both for a while, and then that led to another journalism job that I had for the next like six years.

Oh wow, that's so cool that it's like the first person you met and then the second person you met when you moved here.

So weird because I didn't know anyone else and it was such a scary thing to move to La. I mean, I'm from a town of ten thousand people, so what am I doing?

And it was hard. It was hard to make friends.

I was just like the you know, professionally, it was like cool that I just suddenly it was a journalist. If I wanted to be a journalist, I would have been like, hey, I made it. But I discovered improv doing the groundlenks because I wanted.

To make friends.

Oh yeah, okay, and yeah, so comedy only came because I was lonely and wanted to make friends.

That tracks. That makes perfect sense.

Yeah, and a lot of my friends I still have from those growlings days.

It's oddly not that long ago.

Like I remember when we both were in the waiting room at the improv for Last Comic Standing while you kept advancing.

That was what two thousand and five or six, Like.

Uh, that was twenty ten.

Okay, yeah, well all right, that tracks then.

Yeah, okay, thought was broke.

That journalism job actually came to an end right around that same time because all these newspapers were folding and they had to let me go. And so that was kind of like I only did Last Comic Extending because I was like, I don't know how I'm gonna pay my bills. Nobody wants to hire me for any comedy related anything. And uh it was just like, you know, one last grasp of straws and.

That turned it around. I was there for that member.

I know.

Yeah, Karen.

I was calling Karen because I had met Karen through an act bart shows, and I was like, beg Karen to help me write jokes because I only had like ten fifteen or fifteen.

Minutes and material. I'm like yeah, it. She was like my savior. But also, you know, I wrote on that season of Last Comic Standing because Page was my savior. Yeah, giving me jobs when I just had no jobs. I'd the hugest mortgage, and so I with Hugh Moore, was writing patter for Craig Robinson. I did that season. Yeah, that's right. I watched all of you guys do that and go through the heartbreak of being on Last Comic Standing.

I think the first year I did it, I enjoyed it, But after that, yeah, nothing but sadness. And then as a comic, you don't really get to watch anyone else. You're just waiting in a room a holding area. Yeah, but yeah, I remember fortune you coming in and clearly it had just gone well, and all these cameras came in like they didn't follow everyone else into the green room, and so that's how I knew you did great.

I didn't see a moment of it.

But we all they were the other camera people just started following me a bunch of places. Yeah, and people were very mystified because no one really knew who I was. I didn't know any of the I knew a handful of the LA comics, but there were all these New York comics that I had no idea who they were. Like that was when Nicki Glazer and Rachel Feinstein and Michelle Buteaux they were all there.

I didn't know anyone was. I knew Michelle briefly.

Tommy Johnigan, Yeah, I didn't know him. Yeah, I knew like Taylor Williamson and that was like it. So he and I would walk to the Galleria together in Glendale during filming.

So this is pre Americana this yeah, long ago.

That was.

A whole mall, wasn't there.

Yeah, insane, And it is funny how you get wrapped up like you definitely get wrapped up in the experience, because if I had kept going, I truly would have had no material. And I remember just I remember like getting eliminated and being like sad, Like the camera starts coming in closer, trying to see if they'll catch a tear rolling down your face and they make you like really invested in it and you're like, I.

Didn't move on.

But then like afterwards Page was like, yeah, but you didn't have any more material, and I'm like, I know, but.

Still I love those those early days. I remember walking in on one of those shows, one of those like, uh, you know, I think it was down to eight people or something, and walking in, I think it's the Arrow, not the Arrow Theater, that theater in Glendale. Oh, the the Alex, the Alex theator right where they like the

I was just like yeah, ooh behind the camera, yeah, I was so great. I get I'd get eliminated way before the theater.

Portion like I'm gonna just the Hollywood improv. Let's let's leave it there.

I don't want to go Yeah.

Yeah, as far as I took it, it's like I feel comfortable here. And Page has always been the sweetest and I in an interview, a post interview, they said what are you going to do now? And I'm like, just put on a disguise and come audition again tomorrow. And then she's like will you actually do that? And I'm like okay, So I came the.

Next day with a mustache so funny. Hi, I'm Christian Fairchild. I'm a New york Man.

And it was kind of an inside joke, and then I made it to the semi finals as a character. But they didn't want to go into that whole story. They just showed my original crappy set. Yeah, so it didn't even make sense whatever, but I didn't that was fun at least.

I love the page. Let me do that.

Just that is funny. He's like, yeah, whatever, it's always great when the people in charge are actually very funny themselves and know how, they know funny people and they know good ideas.

Yeah, even if the audience hated me, she liked me.

That's all that matters, because she's a tough critic, so that's high praise.

She hates everybody, She hates everyone.

Yeah, yeah, I can safely say a page doesn't hate Yeah.

Yeah, well I still do this day.

Get nervous anytime I tape any form of stand up. Yeah, it's nerve wracking because in a live show, you're like, yeah, famous a word, who cares. You'll make stuff up as you go, you'll piece things together. You might forget one thing, but it doesn't really you know, whatever the order is. But when you're filming it's I do still get those butterflies.

Maybe it's because I'm not religious, but were you nervous shooting your special in church? I don't know why that would make it be just an extra voice.

Like, uh, you should have been religious.

I did feel the Lord was judging me the whole time.

Yeah, well we had actually I had been asked to do shows for this Charlotte Comedy Festival, and that's where they booked me, was in that theater. And then when we sold my special, we go, oh, well, actually I'm doing shows in this theater and you know, in the fall.

And I had never seen it, so I had no idea about it.

I just saw pictures of it and it looked really cool and it was a pretty theater. And it wasn't until we finalized everything that I started looking up information on it and they go, this is also a church, and I was like, what.

Just stained glass window? Yeah, I don't know, I don't know.

It just seemed like But then, like when I started looking at my materials, like this is actually pretty perfect because I talk about, you know, growing up in the church and and how that was like my early childhood and then obviously veered off from that at some point, but so it seemed kind of like this weird full circle moment of like, now I'm in a church, this out gay comedian, and I tricked all of you into thinking you were in a theater, but you're actually.

In a church.

Oh I thought that was like your childhood Methodist church.

I didn't know it was a theater. It's clearly a church.

My childhood Methodist church is just red carpet everywhere, so much red carpet.

That must have been like the cheaper carpet or something, because it doesn't seem I'm wait, were you really Methodists or you're just saying that I really was. Yeah, that's hilarious because I feel like in Catholic churches, red and burgundy is usually what the carpet color is too. Yeah.

Well yeah, try to get a runner in any other color. They're always red because of Hollywood.

I think red is part of the Methodist like emblem or like it's all always red stuff.

So yeah, yeah, that logo is across with like a little red sash on it or its flames, I can't remember.

And so somebody was just like, let's go all red, go with it, and it's so much red it's very jarring. When you walk in there, you're like, whoa, it's really red in here at Christmas is nice?

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's it's gotta be. That's all I think of when I think of churches, I think Christmas.

What church did? What church did you go to?

Oh? It was in a river runs through it? It was like famously the church that the dad was the preacher at, and it's in the movie and everything Tom's scart.

That was a good movie for Brad Pitt. Looks wise. He was very handsome in that movie. Other times, eh.

Other times he's hard to look at.

At that time, real fugly. He was very handsome in that movie.

He looks good. Fly fishing that Brad pep does something about.

Yeah that long those long locks and fly fishing.

Yeah, growing up on that in where exactly they shot a river runs through it, where there are three rivers that go through town.

There's so much pressure to be a fisherman.

Were you a fisherman? A beautiful fisherman?

I never, I've never once even tried it. Never. I maybe once.

I've been fly fishing.

It's pretty fun, but it was I went in Alaska where like you throw out a line and you're gonna get catch like twenty salmon.

Yeah.

I think the time that you're supposed to, like have the fly just hover over the water, you whip it and it comes back, and you're supposed to the fish is supposed to jump out of the water to get your fly. But every time I did it, That's why I said, I've never really done it, because I've just lazily let it float on the surface of the water and then a fish gets it, and it's like, oh, look.

At me, look at me. I did it, and everyone around you was frustrated, like, well, you did it wrong.

You did You didn't let it hover.

Yeah, you gotta let it hover.

That's why you don't fish crisis because it sounds really competitive and like there's a bunch of fishermen ready to criticize. Yeah, it is.

It's very competitive in the small group you go with these judging.

Fisherman you Tom Scarett, Brad Pitt, just on your back, at your throat.

We're wearing the same pair of dumb waiters.

That's totally different.

Just reg regular fortune on Elise, our producer did some research for us. Oh, have we talked about the fact that you went to a debutante ball when you were a teen. I don't know if you and I've talked about it.

I mentioned it in my Netflix special, but we just like, I kind of skimmed over it because Page, speaking of Page Heroo's made me talk about it, yes, because not many people knew that I am infected debutante. And she goes, you have to tell people this, I go, why it's embarrassed.

Wait, it's a caliber that you achieved, like at a pageant level.

There's no achievement to it.

It's like your mom, Like if your mom was one, they'll oftentimes like ask the daughter of the mom to be one.

But it's this hoity toity thing.

And Page thought it was interesting because I grew up not having money, and she just thought poor debutante was hilarious. And long story short, my mom's family had a lot of money back in the day. Her dad was a very successful contractor who built like schools and churches and houses all over North Carolina. And then he died when she was like seventeen, unexpectedly, and my grandmother, through a series of bad like business decisions and other family drama,

And my mom, trying to relive her glory days, was like.

You will do this.

I was like held hostage. I was like, I begrudgingly had to go through her.

Yeah, what are the the one like this is a dinner fork, this is a salad fork.

Yeah. Yeah, opera length gloves, That's what I'm picturing.

Yeah.

Well, so this summer before your senior of high school, Well, it's a lot of luncheons. It's a lot of manners, like here's how you you know, play settings, here's what you do. It's a lot of like little sandwiches and you're just chatting with like women of a certain age, just who have money, and you're just like.

Thank you for the luncheon. You know, it's all very like mindus being.

Nice, being nice to old people who have a lot of money. Yeah, getting ready to socialize with those old people. You know, this is what you're marrying into. Yeah, that's right after you graduate high school.

Then Christmas of your freshman year of college, you have to come home and do the debutante ball where you wear a large gown that looks like a wedding dress and the yah the big white gloves. Your brother or your father walks you down and presents.

You to society. It's so it's so like not me.

But my mom was just being like oh, you know, like she was so in her l And when I was trying to figure out the jokes for the special, like I didn't know how we were going to pay for it, and I was like, we can't do this. How are we going to pay for it? And I would come home and the couch would be missing because I'm also sold it to pay.

For the luncheon.

You're kidding, you have to It's like an investment.

Yeah, you have to pay for that dumb stuff.

Can you win?

Do you win? At the end? No one was there a winner.

It's you know the South like oh anxiety, like like you know, the keeping up with the Joneses kind of vibe. It's you know, it's even more antiquated now. I don't know. I think they still have it. I have no idea.

I think it's a Southern thing, that kind of thing. It's not. It's Montana.

Yeah, it's started like Paris. I think it's national. It's just it's for rich people. That's why most of us don't know anything about it, because it's essentially like you don't win, but you are socializing the mothers of the men that hope you will date and then marry because they want money to marry money, so that it all stays at the top. Essentially. I didn't meet anyone.

No husbands, I'm sorry, I know, no husbands.

So it was a real of bust.

You didn't land a man, so you had to go to LA and become a journalist instead. What's that?

Oh? The painters coming in?

Painters are is that it?

Are you coming back?

Or thank you?

I really I want him to come in and say the house. Well, they told us that.

They're like, this is the last day. We're not coming back. But that's why I was like, are you coming back?

And he's like, we'd love to come back, thank you.

Because he didn't finish everything.

AnyWho, I'm telling you, I've been watching this old House. I always knew about this old house. Yeah, and I didn't know it was such a regional like Boston thing. And they show like time lapsed footage of them actually building houses.

It's fascinating. I like all the interviews. I like even when they're talking about plumbing fixtures. So I'd love it if you could call that guy in. I'll just say what he was doing today.

He was poking his head through the door like bye bye. I was like, well, we still have several rooms left. He's like, bye bye, see a.

Friend, see us in.

We've been doing through like three months of renovations and this was supposed to be the final day. But I guess Mondays is the final day.

That's right. Yeah, it always lasts so much longer than anyone expects.

Yeah, is it an old house that you're modernizing.

I've had this house for like eight years and just have barely touched it and all the time I've had it.

And we just started looking around like everybody going.

Oh, we like, you know, the walls are dingy, and we got our floor.

Our floors are old.

This is the house like nineteen forty seven, so the floors needed some love.

We got them stained and sanded and uh.

And our furniture, like our couch was so bad that we tried to like donate it and they were like, no, thank you, and we're like, oh it was it was that bad.

You know, you should sell it and get into another debutante patch.

So yeah, I don't live my life very fancy, as you can see. But we we just did the some of the basic stuff. But these these painters, it's been a journey. We're like, is that supposed to be a giant bubble in the hallway? They're like, I don't know.

I can say say.

You're like, is that how the wall is supposed to be patched?

It's like six holes are jabbed into the wall with like somebuddy over it.

You're like, I don't think it's supposed to look like that. I don't know.

So yeah, you know, especially when there's two ladies involved, they just everybody looks at you, like what do you want, and you're like, we just want pretty walls.

When I was early in college, I painted my mom's house because she asked me to, and I didn't really know what I was doing, but I had some friends show me some stuff.

But I went and looked at.

It recently, totally just trespassing because I don't know who lives there now, but I want to see. I really think I did a good job. Like all the lines are straight. I didn't use any tape. It's all done. I mean it was outside. It's kind of you can get away with more with outside than indoors.

But yeah, there should be no bubbling.

Well, if it's bubbling, it means the lesbian part of me.

Is troubling this.

If it's bubbling, it's troubling. I should have told him that. It means it wasn't sanded properly. Oh right, well, yeah, I never did. I didn't that was That's the least fun is scraping everything on. Well, the prep work is the worst part of painting, for sure. That's why everybody skimps on that part. Yeah, but that's what makes it suck. If you didn't prep it right.

That's right, and they of course don't want to go back. Yeah, it's just like no. I just wanted to be over during quarantine, which was actually kind of fun because then I had people at my house all the time because I had some shelves put in. And then the one time it rained in twenty twenty, after like three days of rain, I looked and I was like, oh, there was bubbling on this one, you know, window frame. And I was like, oh, that's not good. I'm going to

Yo.

It's nice in quarantine.

I don't know why it affected me so much when I was a kid in that movie The Money Pit where Tom Hanks, it's so hilarious, long movie and everything's full. I remember it's stressing me out. It's like, because you get so excited they buy this fancy house and it literally topples over on them.

It was fucking horrifying.

That's so funny. The part where he falls through the floor. We lost our minds because that movie and Long and.

The carpet is keeping so his body. Yeah, like a.

Little carpet pocket in the floor and quick, Kelly Long is like get out of there or whatever. It's so funny. And we were I was probably like twelve or something and it was on cable and we watched The Money Pit probably fifteen times because we were just like on again. Everyone gathered around, they.

Need to make movies like that again. How am I bring back those silly comedies for real?

Yeah?

Or make Yeah, Tom Hanks do slapstick again. He was so like the Man with One Red Show. I remember him making me laugh so hard without even saying anything, just by falling over. And you think that he just became this oscar full on serious actor.

He's an oscar guy.

We're like we love big Yeah to your Rooks.

Yeah, eat your tiny corn.

Come on, you son of a bitch. Got that guy.

I would if I saw Tom Hanks, I'd call him son of a bit, right, I love it, he would love it.

Eat that tiny corn, you son of a bit.

Tom Hanks went to Sack State, which is the college I dropped, was kicked out, attended for your ragger, right. He was in the drama department. So, and that's most of my classes that I didn't fail were in the drama department. And they talked about him all the time. It was it was just like I mean, rightfully so, but it was like everybody worshiped that guy, and they all talked about what a natural, what an obvious talent, and what a natural talent he was from the beginning, Yeah, yeah,

My drama teacher did not care for me. He was just like, here's the broom, go sweep, go sweep backstage.

My older sister was like, the drama teacher loved her. And then six years passed and then I was in there. So I just wasn't taking the craft seriously and she could tell, Yeah, she could tell there's a real disappointment to that drama department.

Yeah, but guess who's out here doing it. Guys, we are.

Guess who's killing it in show business. I was wearing my glasses on my head like this almost all day yesterday, and then I was like, oh, this is a very drama teacher of me. And I finally caught myself on like one of the zooms that I was on. I was like, glasses as a headband is very like kooky middle aged drama teacher.

For sure.

I think that might be my new the phase I'm going into.

You're like, everyone closed your eyes picture a box.

Now you're stuck in the box. How are you getting out of his box. Take that box, put it in a river. It's flowing. That was a ship.

I was like, what wasn't acting?

Oh yeah, That's that's why I didn't ever want a taking acting class, is because I felt like they're going to make you crinkle into a ball and pretend to be a flower growing yes, or then act out things like that and I'm like, I can't because they want you to play yeah, and I didn't want I'm like, can we just go straight to the sarcastic dialogue?

Yeah? For real? I still remember there was a day in one class where they were like, everybody walk around the room like you're moving through honey. I was just like, this would never happen, Like, even in the craziest play in the world, I'm not going to need to know or practice walking through honey. It's just it's not relevant here.

Yeah.

Yeah, ours was a lot of like everyone would cry, just.

Cry, and that's before the teacher got there.

I'd look around, like, what why is everyone crying? Everyone?

Okay, just a bunch of angsty nineteen year old girls yep, feeling things.

Yeah, that was the other I was always scared to take a class because I thought the first thing they're going to ask you do is point and say cry cry right now on command. Yeah, and as I don't know if I could do that.

For us, we found our place. We found comedy. Yeah yeah, yeah, So that's all that mattered.

I just do comedy on the road and then cry in my hotel just kidding while.

You're watching Law and Order by yourself in old hotel room.

I cry at Applebee's in between jigs.

Oh there's always an apple Bee's.

The last time I was home, my friend Adrian and I went to Applebee's and I swear to God, that place is just it's rock solid. I mean you can always get something you want there, something like have you ever had their pub cheese? They have like pretzel sticks with pub cheese. That's good, it is. I mean I have had that.

You're like, it's cheese, baby.

It's probably seven thousand calories, no joke. It's like the worst thing you could be eating, but it's so awesome. How do you like a tub of cheese? Yes? I'm a fan.

They also have like their low calmet.

I went there with my sister in Spokane, the whole family, and they she got some I'm on a diet plate and it was in the middle of it. This is so gross. It was not just a hair. It's like someone took one of those old brushes and just took the hair from a brush and put it yes, and it was in the sauce. And she's like, there's not just a hair, but it looked like a malicious fuck this job. And I'm so tired of working on this

That's so gross.

And I haven't been the no offense to Apple because you're right, they are usually solid as a rock. But man, this time it was just some renegade that was working in the kitchen.

Who knows what happened.

It happen he was on the lamb, he ran from the law and he threw a hair ball in a plate and we just happened to be a wrong place, wrong time.

Oh wait, we've gone far too long without asking fortune you were married a year ago, but you just celebrated your wedding Yeah a couple weeknds. Oh okay, I did let it go. What will you tell us about it? I sure will. Yeah.

We got married a year ago in October, you know, very quickly. We planned it in like three weeks, got an airbnb and had like five friends that were in our bubble come and we zoomed our family. So it was really it's not how we planned it, but it

Like, no, we really are.

So it was always our plan that like we basically like our reception part of the wedding would be a year later.

So we yeah, we.

Rented out a place in Palm Springs, this restaurant, and had the reception part of the wedding a couple of weeks ago, and it was super fun. We had a Nina West, who's a dragon queen from RuPaul's Drag Race, Oh yeah yeah, came and did this like a lesbian medley, lip syncing medley, like it was like closer to Fine and Sarah McGlaughlin songs and like Melissa Ether like come

Yeah yeah.

And our families came and I think it really was special to them. They felt like, you know, finally they were kind of a part of our celebration and are a little bit more of our part of our marriage, and it was really awesome. We even had uh, we're friends with Natalie Mains from The Chicks formerly the Dixie Chicks. She sang the last couple of songs with Jackson and

That's amazing, Okay, Natalie Maines has one of the best singing voices of all time.

Oh my god, that's incredible.

Yeah.

We I've made friends with her like four or five years ago, and you know, La is a weird place where you never really think that you'll stay in touch with anyone, or that anyone famous is.

You're like, they're probably flaky.

I don't.

I don't really have like famous friends per se. And she's just been like a solid person in our life who would, like, every like a couple of months, we'd go to her house and she makes dinner and we talk and play like put puzzles together.

It's a very lovely friendship, you know.

Yeah, beautiful, very normal and it's so it was so cool that she she came and she actually doesn't. She's not like you always assume that singers just want to sing all the time, and.

Do you I knew.

I was like, if I could sing like her, you wouldn't give me to shut up?

Yeah for real?

And she she's a little she's not like, she's kind of like so I didn't I didn't want to like pressure her, but I was like at the end, I was like, you have to sing the last song, come on, and she was like, such a good sport about it.

That's so awesome.

I guess it is like someone expecting us to be funny.

I guess it would be like, you know, having assuming a comedian is gonna get up and tell ten minutes of jokes.

Yeah, you're kind of like, I'm not working.

But but like with her voice, it is that was a gift she gave you because it's like, yeah, I would say the average comments a comic. It's like, yeah, that's fun, you know, jokes, that's cool, you can save it. But it's something like that that's like a performance that would like, oh, the room going sane.

I think everybody was like, couldn't believe it. They were like, what, like because you know they're bands, like world world famous for being you know, ostracized and all the stuff that went down with them, and so like who doesn't know who they are? So and she's such a formidable person. So I think everybody was just blown away, like, oh my god, this is the coolest thing ever.

That's awesome.

And but you know she showed up as a friend, as our friend. It was like really special, that's so cool.

Yeah, so you had already been married, did you have like a wedding planned? And then COVID happened and then you're like, let's just legally do it.

We had been engaged at that point for like three years, two and a half or something like that, and so we always were like, oh, we're gonna get married in like late twenty twenty. We didn't have like a day, said we and we had just started to look at venues and stuff.

But we knew we never wanted a traditional wedding.

We never wanted like to walk down an aisle and to do any of that stuff. We kind of always thought we'd just have a party. So we weren't like sweating the details of it because We're like, we'll just runt a space and have a party. So in my early March, that's when we were like looking for spaces and then the pandemic hit.

And then we were like, well, I.

Guess we're not getting married anytime soon.

Yeah, and then we just kind of chalked it up to like, I guess we're not getting married this year, and but it was like bumm and Jack's out And because we were reaching a certain age, I think she thought we would both be married by.

Totally and I understood that.

And so I think what kicked us into gear was and this it sounds silly, but at the time we really didn't know what was gonna happ happened. But Ruth Bader Ginsburg died, yeah, and as soon as she died, I think every gay person felt this like oh shit kind of feeling.

Because we you know, the election.

Was looming and it wasn't looking good at the time, and we were.

Like, what if we can't get married next year?

Like so we just really honestly we were like, I think we got to get married legally because we know we want to get married, but like we don't want to have missed the boat if something happens.

Yeah, our other guests. I did that.

I love the idea of having two weddings, the wedding for the two of you, yeah, and then the party for everyone else and family and everything.

M hmm.

Actually I highly recommend it, Yeah, I really do. We never set out to do that, but the vows part got to be totally about us, and you know, we had a couple friends there and there was no family drama.

It was just like.

Everybody just had this beautiful afternoon in the middle of this dark year, and you know, we got to just like enjoy the day.

And then once we had the.

Party, we weren't as worried about the we weren't sweating the small stuff because we're like, we're already married, you know, like yeah, so it just got to be a true celebration. We still kept it small because of COVID times, so we didn't like go all out like we might have normally, but it was what we had was perfect for us.

Love that. Yeah. Also, I hate so much that that people's rights are threatened because one, you know, liberal justice dies. It's just these times we're in are so fucked and on top of it, like mid pandemic. You guys have to worry about something like that. Oh, I'm glad you did it, you know, like I'm glad you got it done.

Where everyone's like, you know, people are like, oh, you don't have to worry about that game.

Marriage isn't in Jeopardy.

But there are a lot of things that I mean, there are things that you thought aren't in Jeopardy that come up and you're like, wait, wait are we revisiting roversus?

Way? Like what's happening? There's a lot of shitt in Jeopardy. That's way people need to stop being shocked about it and start going we got to do something about it. Yeah.

No, you know with those six y three or whatever it was was that the Supreme Court, I don't know, it's very much not in our favor the Supreme Court. So you know they just nominated Amy what's her face? Yeah, and you well that doesn't bode well for us. And you got these other ones over here that you don't know what you know, you know, where two of them stand. The other guys You're like, I don't know what you're

So we were like, let's not take the chance.

And luckily, you know, there was a huge silver lining once uh the election hit.

But also we're so happy that we did it.

How we did it. Yeah, yeah, so it was.

Good, and you know, you you feel bad, like picking the guest list is like the biggest nightmare. You're like, because we had to. We knew we had to keep it small on the venue. You know, we can only have so many people with COVID times and you're just like, oh my god. And now I'm like thinking of people.

I'm like, oh my god, I.

Forgot about that person. But I forgot about that person. But it's just part of it.

I think you should do a third one. Yeah, I just have multiple people do it with their birthdays all day. It's my birthday month for everybody. A wedding decade.

Somebody said on my Instagram, They're like, I feel like you've gotten married five times.

I'm like, I get it. There's a lot of celebrations.

Yeah, each run just has a different theme. No, we never did have a traditional Halloween costume wedding.

Well, because with Instagram.

You're always like, this is the anniversary when Jackson I met, This is the anniversary of wedding, this is the anniversary of a year after wedding.

You know.

It was always like because you just need content, baby, Yeah, you.

Gotta celebrate something. Now you get a dog throw that up there.

Yeah, it's either multiple weddings or start inviting your friends and family to each year's Hontingmoon, or like the anniversary.

Yeah, we need that Instagram content.

Let's celebrate. Yeah, it's Hong Con Con, Palm Springs, spun Con. Did you go to any of those casinos in Palm Springs while you were there?

I've been to them before, but not this time.

H Yeah.

It was.

It was a whirlwind, the whole thing.

Even our families were like, WHOA like he because we did like the U for our families.

We did like the rehearsal.

Dinner even though there was nothing to rear We took our families to dinner and stuff like that. A friend page had a little brunch for us on Sunday. It was very cute, so there was like some people were not bored.

There was something to do. It every second.

It was an event destination wedding reception. That's right, you did it, and were you in Town and Country magazine? No wutant fortune celebrated her. All your debutant friends show up. It is a surprise.

They did put our wedding pictures in People magazine a year ago, and a friend of ours for a wedding gift, had that People Magazine picture with the big People's stamp printed onto a pillow, and funny, it was.

A body pillow for you.

Can hug your own relationship.

We just have this pillow of us with the People magazine stamp, and then on the other side is a pit. We have these pictures that we post of a wave crashing into us on our wedding day.

Oh that happened to you, Yeah it was.

Uh so after we got married, we took a bunch of really beautiful photos and our wedding photographer, this photographer was like killed it.

She killed it.

And the very last shot of the day, we go, let's go by the water and do like there's these stairs to the water.

We're like, let's get this stair picture by the water.

We got like this gorgeous photo and our wedding photographer popped up onto like a rock, and so she's like on a rock and we're like posing on these these stairs, and all of a sudden, Jackson and I feel something.

Like a shadow.

We both go like this like and then all of a sudden we get pummeled by a wave. This giant wave came out of nowhere, humbled us, and it missed our wedding photographer, like she had our entire day's photos on her camera.

Somehow just missed her.

But she caught the entire series of us posing, seeing it coming near us. It's smacking us, it engulfing us, it leaving us soaking well, it was so funny.

It's like hard not to have mixed feelings. It's like, you just took pictures. Well that was happening. I'm glad you captured it. And it's it's a sequence on the isn't a bot? Please let it be a body pillar?

I posted it.

I posted on Instagram the series of photos and the friend picked one of the photos.

Oh, that's so great because that happened in my sister's wedding too.

It was the same thing.

They weren't fully bombarded by a wave, but got married on the beach in Carmel and then a wave came and all of a sudden, we're all in waste keep water and the like the arch and the chairs and everything started floating out to the ocean.

We're like, oh, we're littering chairs now, and ever went in to grab.

But it was right at the end, but they got It was truly the last shot of the day. Our friends were upstairs and we come upstairs just drenched, and they're like.

What happened? What?

We're like, we got wet.

Yeah, you don't all have water balloon fights at your weddings.

What if that photographer put you there on purpose? She's like, this is going to be amazing.

This works every time she might have she was that good.

She would know she was a true pro.

She was one of those people that like, I don't like a lot of photos of myself, and every photo of hers I.

Was like, oh my god, I'm gorgeous. Yes, so yeah, I love that.

It's always a good idea to get married at the ocean. Yeah, it's just so, you know, symbolically, and then it's beautiful.

But of course something's gonna go wrong.

We got baptized, we got baptized, We got baptize ers need to be cleansed.

If your lips being love, it's like a baptism.

It's baptism.

That was the Lord saying that this is not right. Well, he wants to sweep y'all out to see so.

You can start again.

But yeah, I want to get him printed out and put in some sort of frame.

But with all of them like in a series next.

To each other, line the hallway that can go over all the bubbling and the poor work.

Yeah, we might, we might need that.

That guy's never coming back here, I'm sure of it.

There's no way.

He's like, see you Monday or never.

Do you want to plug anything else? Fortune, Well we have you here.

Yeah, all these theater dates coming up.

Oh yeah, we'll plug two things.

If you haven't see my Netflix special Sweet and Salty, it seems all that platform. But I'm on Yeah, I'm on a huge stand up tour right now. I'm going all over the country. Uh and it's a whole new hour. So I have tickets at Fortune femester dot com. But I probably am coming to your city, so check it out. It's been really awesome. I'm doing these really beautiful theaters and people are so just ready to laugh. So every show is like the energy is like nothing I've ever

Yeah, yay, Yeah, So come to a show, y'all. See Fortune Femester live. It's a true experience. I've seen her Dakbar and if it's anything like that, it's amazing.

It's amazing. It's a whole hour of that. Yeah.

And I assume you're doing some more churches turned into theaters.

Yeah, I'm hitting up as many theater churches as possible.

Perfect. Okay, thanks for being unfortunate. It's good to see you again.

Thank you, guys, it's always fun talking to you.

Congrats on your anniversary and also wedding.

I appreciate it. Thank you, congratulations. I owe you a gift. Oh actually, I'm going to get your address after this, because I have one to send you.

Oh yes, idea, we don't. We didn't even register. We were like, we don't. Won't be worried about us.

If you send me the skills of that the Wave of Crashing, I'll make you an animated gift because I think it'd be really funny to just be able to replay it. I like that.

Karen looks like a head right now.

I was gonna say, I look like a stock photo of someone looking at porn on there on computer. I just heard any lights on. It's now like pitch black at night, so fun, and I didn't turn any lights on, but when we started it was fully light. It was fully Yeah, it's getting dark early.

I just liked the idea that there are stock photos of people looking at porn. Now we all have to look that up on corpus or getty.

Do you know what your children are doing at night in one of those photos?

Yeah?

Yeah, for news news package.

My express would be oh, oh but surprise, Yeah, but winking at your own computer.

Thank you so much for being unfortunately.

Yeah you guys, thanks for having me. You're to your friend. Bye, guys, great to see you. Good to see you. You've been listening to Do you Need a Ride? D yn air.

This has been an Exactly.

Right production produced by Analise Nelson.

Engineered by Stephen Ray Morris, mixed by Ryo Boun Theme song by Karen Kilgareth, artwork by Chris Fairbanks. Follow the show on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook at dinar podcast That's d yn ar podcast.

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Thank you, and you're welcome.

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