Griffin Gives Great Head In World Tour
I wasn’t originally going to buy a ticket to the Kathy Griffin stand-up show in Houston on August 20, 2018. Not because of any political reason related to her now infamous photo of her holding up a Trump Halloween mask covered in catsup. I just hadn’t really followed her since about 2011 or so. I thought Kathy was funny and was a fan, I just wasn’t interested in going to see yet another comedy show that sounded more like a resuscitated Us Magazine. No shade to Griffin. She earned a lot of my money with that schtick.
I changed my mind though and bought a ticket; two in fact. I had no idea who would take the other one. Perhaps it was her new online advertising, that she has had to revert to since the aforementioned mask caused her and her career to be literally exiled out of the country by a sitting United States President, which caught my eye. To a certain extent I thought that by buying a ticket for her comeback tour was somehow a political statement. It was a middle finger to one of the worst, most terrifying administrations in our history. I will buy a ticket to that every day of the week.
Kathy was different than I remembered. She was as funny as always and yes, some of the material from her three hour act did harken back to her self-described “celebrity run-ins and dick jokes”, but her tone was darker. She is more hardened, almost Cassandra-like in her warnings about what she has seen and experienced in the cross-hairs of a President who would like to silence the press and comedians alike for daring to proclaim that the emperor has on no clothes.
I never thought I would be getting a frightening glimpse into Trump’s America alongside Kardashian jokes delievered by Kathy Griffin, the 5th lead on Suddenly Susan and former reality star from the Emmy winning My Life on the D-List. And yet there we both were, equally suprised at the circumstances that have reunited comedian and fan.
Comedy is changing before our eyes. Griffin’s act is the tip of the iceberg. Specials like Hannah Gadsby’s Nanette, are also giving way to a comedy that allows laughter to sink as well as it floats. It doesn’t shy away from the serious, like when Griffin described the fact that her sister received death threats in the hosiptal while dying from cancer as payment to Griffin who deigned make a political statement with a rubber mask and a condiment. Griffin inserts this detail between jokes about the letter writer’s poor use of grammar. Somehow it works.
My second ticket went to my friend, an immigrant from Venezuela, who had weeks before shared with me stories of the early days of the downfall of his home which was once one of the wealthiest countries in the world. As Griffin described her experience being interrogated by the FBI, threatened by strangers, detained in airports — all while making me cry from laughter — I would have moments of clarity; was this only the beginning? I wondered if my friend understood, like Griffin did, that it is only a matter of time before the great American experiment topples like so many great nations before have.
The house was not completely sold out at the show. I don’t think the full gravity of Griffin’s exile can be felt by many Americans. Which is a shame. Griffin’s Laugh Your Head Off World Tour may be one of the funniest and most frightening things playing live. We would be wise to catch it…while we still can.
