WEBVTT - S1: Ep Bonus - Kelli 0:00:01.320 --> 0:00:04.680 I would like to bring out onto the stage America's 0:00:04.760 --> 0:00:11.080 favorite x non skateboard riding house about dwelling, nurturing, sweets, adorable, thoughtful, 0:00:11.880 --> 0:00:22.040 thought provoking, anti racist comic, Miss Kelly Dunham from a 0:00:22.079 --> 0:00:24.439 Cocoa Punch and I Heeart Radio. This is the Turning 0:00:24.640 --> 0:00:27.920 America Lands. There are still four episodes left this season, 0:00:28.200 --> 0:00:30.760 but today we have a bonus for you. It's a 0:00:30.760 --> 0:00:35.000 little different. So like most of you, I used to 0:00:35.040 --> 0:00:40.880 be a nun. Uh, very relatable. That's very relatable in 0:00:40.920 --> 0:00:42.440 stand up comedy to get up and starts to talk 0:00:42.479 --> 0:00:44.920 about how you used to be a nun and people 0:00:45.400 --> 0:00:47.400 you know like and sometimes in straight clubs people will 0:00:47.400 --> 0:00:50.440 be like, oh yeah, whatever, sister Mary bull dyke Uh 0:00:51.720 --> 0:00:53.960 but um, I used to being on with the outfit 0:00:54.000 --> 0:00:58.200 and everything. Uh. You know Kelly Dunham from previous episodes, 0:00:58.600 --> 0:01:00.640 she's a former sister who's missed. Has told her she 0:01:00.720 --> 0:01:03.600 walked like her shoulders were angry. But there's so much 0:01:03.600 --> 0:01:07.280 more to Kelly's story. All these twists and turns. Of 0:01:07.400 --> 0:01:13.520 my happiest childhood memories were learning words. I remember asking 0:01:13.520 --> 0:01:15.959 my mom, what what does that bill? I mean? She goes, well, 0:01:16.280 --> 0:01:18.959 what do you feel like you both love something and 0:01:19.040 --> 0:01:21.679 Nanny don't love it so much? All I want? And 0:01:21.680 --> 0:01:24.600 I was like, oh my god, that's exactly how I 0:01:24.640 --> 0:01:35.080 feel about you. What my mom had plants in here. Yes. 0:01:38.360 --> 0:01:41.399 One of our producers, Emily Foreman, talked with Kelly about 0:01:41.400 --> 0:01:44.880 her life before the Missionaries of Charity and after about 0:01:44.880 --> 0:01:49.000 her faith about her comedy. So, um, I just want 0:01:49.000 --> 0:01:53.520 to go back, back, back, back, back back. Uh, what's 0:01:53.600 --> 0:01:57.960 the first joke you ever told? But mostly about her 0:01:58.000 --> 0:02:02.760 complicated relationship with her mom. So I'm the youngest of seven. Um, 0:02:02.800 --> 0:02:06.400 my mom had had six other kids with as many 0:02:06.480 --> 0:02:09.120 alcoholic husbands, which I think is really impressive to find 0:02:09.120 --> 0:02:13.799 that one or two but another alcoholics. Um, sometimes you 0:02:13.919 --> 0:02:17.600 just have our types, which, uh, you know when you 0:02:17.639 --> 0:02:20.760 think about like, okay, so what the thought process like? 0:02:21.200 --> 0:02:24.720 You know, my last five merriages alcoholics ended in financial ruin. 0:02:24.840 --> 0:02:29.760 But I've got the right alcoholic. So I appreciate my 0:02:29.840 --> 0:02:33.519 mom's level of hope. So that's a rural Wisconsin accent. 0:02:33.480 --> 0:02:35.880 And you hear in Kelly's voice she grew up there 0:02:36.560 --> 0:02:39.480 hard work and not talking about feelings with the family code. 0:02:39.840 --> 0:02:42.280 So is Dale Carnegie, the author of how to win 0:02:42.360 --> 0:02:45.760 friends and influence people. It was an incredibly popular book, 0:02:46.160 --> 0:02:48.640 and Kelly's dad made the books philosophy part of life 0:02:48.639 --> 0:02:53.920 at home. Well, first, my dad would frequently um mornings. 0:02:53.960 --> 0:02:55.360 He would come down. We had to be sitting at 0:02:55.360 --> 0:02:58.000 the table at sixam, and he would slap his hand 0:02:58.040 --> 0:03:00.240 on the table and say, act him through the second 0:03:00.240 --> 0:03:03.000 you'll be enthusiastic, and most people are just about as 0:03:03.000 --> 0:03:04.680 happy as they make up their mind they're going to be, 0:03:05.160 --> 0:03:08.280 which she would attribute to Dale Carnegie and sometimes to 0:03:08.320 --> 0:03:11.320 Abraham Lincoln, although I've since heard that it was Dale 0:03:11.320 --> 0:03:14.080 Carnegie quoting Abraham Lincoln, but doesn't sound like Abraham Lincoln 0:03:14.080 --> 0:03:16.600 because Abraham Lincoln a clinical depression. I bet he did 0:03:16.639 --> 0:03:18.480 not say that most people are just about as happy 0:03:18.480 --> 0:03:19.959 as they make up their minds are gonna be in 0:03:20.040 --> 0:03:22.040 the middle of the Civil War. You know, I have 0:03:22.080 --> 0:03:25.160 a feeling that's not true, but it's a good story anyway, 0:03:26.360 --> 0:03:31.240 I can imagine. Kelly says her dad would run Dale 0:03:31.280 --> 0:03:34.720 Carnegie days and if you weren't following the b positive ethos, 0:03:35.000 --> 0:03:36.960 you'd have to go to bed early. She says, there 0:03:36.960 --> 0:03:38.960 are a lot of rules like that. He was strict, 0:03:39.640 --> 0:03:42.040 but the first time Kelly made her dad laugh, she 0:03:42.120 --> 0:03:45.080 knew she'd found an important tool. You could say her 0:03:45.080 --> 0:03:48.520 comedy career started in that moment. Being funny was like 0:03:48.640 --> 0:03:52.040 both a way to deflect things and a way to 0:03:52.160 --> 0:03:55.680 have positive attention. So whose attention were you hoping to capture? 0:03:56.480 --> 0:03:59.400 I mean maybe my mom's. Like hearing my mom laugh 0:03:59.560 --> 0:04:02.000 was really a nice, nice thing, you know. I mean 0:04:02.040 --> 0:04:03.960 also because my mom had a hard life. She had 0:04:04.000 --> 0:04:06.840 all these kids, she had like these useless husbands of 0:04:06.920 --> 0:04:09.440 varying degrees. You know, she had a hard life. So 0:04:09.480 --> 0:04:12.200 I wanted her to I don't know, I wanted her 0:04:12.240 --> 0:04:14.560 to be able to laugh. You know when you were 0:04:14.600 --> 0:04:18.800 a kid, were you aware of life being hard for her? Then? 0:04:22.800 --> 0:04:28.280 Only glimpses of it, especially when I was younger. Um, 0:04:28.320 --> 0:04:31.360 I think her marriage to my dad also deteriorated as 0:04:31.400 --> 0:04:37.320 a as time passed, But she was I really don't 0:04:37.320 --> 0:04:39.080 think I saw her without her makeup till I was 0:04:39.120 --> 0:04:41.120 like in third or fourth grade. Like, she was always 0:04:41.160 --> 0:04:43.640 perfectly made up and perfectly put together. You know, she 0:04:43.720 --> 0:04:46.200 was a person who that was important to her, and 0:04:46.240 --> 0:04:50.760 she really maintained. Um, I don't know if it's a facade. 0:04:50.839 --> 0:04:52.720 She also didn't want us to be like frightened, and 0:04:52.920 --> 0:04:55.159 you know, she wanted us to feel secure. I think so, 0:04:55.839 --> 0:05:00.360 I think that I didn't necessarily know it, I maybe 0:05:00.360 --> 0:05:04.919 felt it somewhere because I was a very sensitive kid. Um. 0:05:05.040 --> 0:05:07.479 So what my parents needed at that time, they needed 0:05:07.640 --> 0:05:11.719 like a cheerful, very midwestern kid, right, what they got 0:05:11.839 --> 0:05:15.279 was me. And I came into the world screaming as 0:05:15.320 --> 0:05:23.040 a fully formed, winding, coastal sensitive queer. I was the 0:05:23.120 --> 0:05:26.320 kind of kid that, um, when it rains, do you 0:05:26.320 --> 0:05:28.040 know what when I was missed the bus when it rained, 0:05:28.680 --> 0:05:30.640 because I would be picking up the worms off the 0:05:30.640 --> 0:05:33.159 pig and putting them back on the grass so they 0:05:33.160 --> 0:05:38.160 wouldn't get running like in a city. Did you believe 0:05:38.200 --> 0:05:41.200 in God as a little kid, Yeah, very much so. 0:05:41.279 --> 0:05:45.680 In fact, I can remember there's this Bill gaitheror song 0:05:46.080 --> 0:05:48.159 It's God Loves to talk to a little boys while 0:05:48.160 --> 0:05:50.920 they're fishing. It's a very sweet song, and I remember 0:05:51.000 --> 0:05:52.400 my mom used to play it, and I was, you know, 0:05:52.480 --> 0:05:54.479 thought more myself more as a little boy than a 0:05:54.480 --> 0:05:56.960 little girl. But I would go to like one of 0:05:57.000 --> 0:06:00.560 the ponds, you know, and uh like just take a 0:06:00.600 --> 0:06:02.240 stick with a string on it, and like throw it 0:06:02.279 --> 0:06:03.599 in there. And I was like, Okay, now guy's going 0:06:03.680 --> 0:06:08.760 to talk to me. Well, I guess not out loud, okay, 0:06:09.960 --> 0:06:15.120 but um. I have this um memory of my grandmother 0:06:15.120 --> 0:06:18.000 when we were staying with her. She and my grandpa 0:06:18.040 --> 0:06:21.480 built a cottage on towards Lake. This is beautiful lake 0:06:21.520 --> 0:06:25.520 in northern Michigan, has like this crystal blue water. It's 0:06:25.560 --> 0:06:28.040 spring fed anyway. So we'd go and stay with them 0:06:28.120 --> 0:06:33.359 during parts of the summer. And one time I was 0:06:33.400 --> 0:06:35.200 sleeping in the room where my grandma's because you know, 0:06:35.200 --> 0:06:36.599 there's a lot of kids there, so we're all like 0:06:36.680 --> 0:06:38.400 kind of doubled up. And I was sleeping in the 0:06:38.440 --> 0:06:41.359 room my grandma, and I guess she couldn't sleep, and 0:06:41.440 --> 0:06:44.039 so she was praying aloud about all of us. And 0:06:44.080 --> 0:06:45.760 then I remember she came to me and I was like, oh, 0:06:45.800 --> 0:06:49.240 I gotta lay really still, and you know, she was 0:06:49.279 --> 0:06:52.719 praying for me, like, oh, you know, helped Kelly to 0:06:52.760 --> 0:06:55.839 know how much Kelly Sue my family calls me, helped 0:06:55.920 --> 0:06:57.600 Kelly Sue, do you know how much you love her? 0:06:58.000 --> 0:07:00.560 And some other stuff too. I don't remember this, but 0:07:00.560 --> 0:07:04.160 I was like, whatever happens my grandmother's really praying for me, 0:07:04.240 --> 0:07:07.159 so maybe I'll be okay. You know. I was like 0:07:07.200 --> 0:07:11.360 probably when I was intern, Um, were you worried you 0:07:11.400 --> 0:07:13.560 weren't going to be okay? Well, I think there was, 0:07:13.640 --> 0:07:15.960 like obviously I didn't fit in with my family, right. 0:07:16.000 --> 0:07:18.320 I was like my parents really tried hard with the 0:07:18.400 --> 0:07:21.360 gender stuff, like I was so clearly like a little 0:07:21.360 --> 0:07:24.840 boy growing up, you know. Um, and they tried really hard. 0:07:24.880 --> 0:07:27.120 But also like the world was against that. You know, 0:07:27.600 --> 0:07:30.400 even now the world is against that. So doing better? 0:07:30.480 --> 0:07:35.360 But yeah, and also they were worried for me, Like 0:07:35.400 --> 0:07:36.760 I think they thought that the world was going to 0:07:36.840 --> 0:07:40.240 crush me, you know, but they just didn't know what 0:07:40.280 --> 0:07:41.920 to do. It was like who gave it? You know? 0:07:41.920 --> 0:07:44.760 It was like somebody gave them a wolverine too, you know, 0:07:44.960 --> 0:07:47.840 to raise What do we need a wolverine? We don't know? 0:07:49.960 --> 0:07:53.120 And so, um, so you moved from Wisconsin to Florida. 0:07:53.760 --> 0:07:57.440 Um and at this time, what's what's your faith situation? 0:07:57.880 --> 0:08:01.360 So my mom um wasn't you know, when we were little, 0:08:01.520 --> 0:08:04.440 was not a Christian, but she became a born again Christian. 0:08:05.880 --> 0:08:09.240 And then when we moved to Florida, I went to 0:08:09.480 --> 0:08:13.520 my mom sent us to a Christian school um, and 0:08:13.920 --> 0:08:16.160 everyone was like, oh, okay, like this is a queer 0:08:16.240 --> 0:08:18.000 kid in the making, Let's see what we can do. 0:08:18.640 --> 0:08:21.040 And I got actually really involved in my church, and 0:08:22.200 --> 0:08:26.440 you know, I would say that I was interested in 0:08:26.600 --> 0:08:29.200 what God wanted for me in my life. And I 0:08:29.240 --> 0:08:31.600 felt like, oh, well, there there's a God. There must 0:08:31.640 --> 0:08:34.319 be some reason for me. You know, I don't really 0:08:34.360 --> 0:08:36.280 know what it is, but there must be, like some 0:08:36.440 --> 0:08:39.040 reason that I exist, and there's something I'm supposed to do. 0:08:40.800 --> 0:08:42.280 When I was in high school and most of my 0:08:42.360 --> 0:08:46.839 peers were drinking seema it was eight and giving each 0:08:46.880 --> 0:08:50.320 other when I now know to be was horrible blow jobs, 0:08:51.920 --> 0:08:55.520 I was attending church three times a week, wearing a 0:08:55.679 --> 0:09:02.520 no Surfing in Hell t shirt and asking complete strangers, 0:09:02.520 --> 0:09:05.280 excuse me, have you accepted Jesus Christ as your personal savior. 0:09:06.960 --> 0:09:10.320 I was a big bananas born again Christian and my 0:09:10.400 --> 0:09:14.320 mom was a big bananas born again Christians, so that 0:09:14.440 --> 0:09:18.880 made her really happy, except for I was also a big, huge, 0:09:19.000 --> 0:09:24.160 lifelong tomboy, and that made her very sad. One day, 0:09:24.480 --> 0:09:26.960 Kelly came home and found a note from her mom. 0:09:27.000 --> 0:09:29.920 It said, this sounds like something you would love and 0:09:29.920 --> 0:09:32.839 there was a Glassie brochure for a missionary training program, 0:09:33.000 --> 0:09:35.959 the Lord's boot Camp. Kelly looked at all the pictures 0:09:35.960 --> 0:09:38.840 of smiling teenagers and thought, oh my god, this looks 0:09:38.880 --> 0:09:42.599 like something I would love. When I arrived at the 0:09:42.600 --> 0:09:46.600 Lord's boot Camp, it was essentially an unimproved Florida wetlands 0:09:51.360 --> 0:09:55.400 and there was we washed our clothes by hand in 0:09:55.520 --> 0:10:01.440 sulfur water we pumped. And also the place that we 0:10:01.440 --> 0:10:05.640 were supposed to like wash up, they called it God's Bathtub, 0:10:07.320 --> 0:10:10.839 was just this little area of the swamp that was 0:10:10.880 --> 0:10:14.240 attached to another area of the swamp with this tiny 0:10:14.240 --> 0:10:16.880 little drainage ditch, and in the other area of the 0:10:16.880 --> 0:10:22.120 swamp were two alligators. When we questioned our leaders about it, 0:10:22.120 --> 0:10:25.000 they were like, now, do you really think that an alligator? 0:10:25.000 --> 0:10:28.079 Those alligators are gonna eat five hundred teenagers? And I 0:10:28.120 --> 0:10:29.640 don't really think any of us thought they were gonna 0:10:29.679 --> 0:10:37.160 eat five hundred teenagers, But doesn't even one seem like 0:10:37.200 --> 0:10:42.600 a lot. One of the main features of the camp 0:10:42.679 --> 0:10:46.040 was an obstacle course. They'd run it at five am 0:10:46.080 --> 0:10:49.520 every morning. There is a series of physical challenges based 0:10:49.559 --> 0:10:53.480 on biblical themes, all designed to help them become better disciples. 0:10:54.480 --> 0:10:56.959 The last obstacle in the obstacle course was just called 0:10:57.000 --> 0:10:59.480 the wall, and it was a series of walls, uh, 0:10:59.480 --> 0:11:02.080 and they each were painted with something we would have 0:11:02.160 --> 0:11:06.040 to get over in order to effectively serve Jesus. It 0:11:06.200 --> 0:11:11.920 started with lust, and then pride, and then gluttony, and 0:11:12.000 --> 0:11:16.800 the last wall with sexual confusion. When they weren't running 0:11:16.800 --> 0:11:19.960 an obstacle course, they took classes in how to tie steel, 0:11:20.440 --> 0:11:24.480 lay bricks, run power tools, even mixed concrete by hand, 0:11:25.120 --> 0:11:28.559 all in the service of learning how to build God's kingdom. 0:11:28.600 --> 0:11:40.120 I was having a fantastic time. It was an entire 0:11:40.160 --> 0:11:43.280 summer of being a tomboy, and I returned home with 0:11:43.360 --> 0:11:47.080 this newfound zeal, also with a new haircut. I had 0:11:47.160 --> 0:11:50.000 a spiral perm and I had also attempted to bleach 0:11:50.120 --> 0:11:54.440 my hair surfer blonde with actual bleach, which meant by 0:11:54.440 --> 0:11:56.040 the end of the summer I couldn't even get a 0:11:56.080 --> 0:11:58.600 comb through it. So one of my fault team members 0:11:58.800 --> 0:12:01.280 took a razor and himed off almost all the hair 0:12:01.320 --> 0:12:03.320 on the sides and a lot of the hair on top, 0:12:03.400 --> 0:12:06.040 which of course leaving me a rat tail and back. 0:12:06.640 --> 0:12:13.760 And I looked fantastic. When I walked onto my mom's 0:12:13.800 --> 0:12:18.160 front porch dragging my stinky backpack, I said, Mom, don't 0:12:18.160 --> 0:12:21.920 I look like a new person in Christ And she said, 0:12:22.520 --> 0:12:26.559 you look a lot the same. So the teen missions 0:12:26.559 --> 0:12:29.880 thing is like a general evangelical thing, but it was 0:12:29.920 --> 0:12:32.480 being used as like a de facto conversion camp, like 0:12:32.520 --> 0:12:36.120 my mom had hoped that I would come home, you know, changed. 0:12:36.480 --> 0:12:39.480 I mean, they had these classes on uh, like from 0:12:39.480 --> 0:12:42.480 Grubby to Grace and God's Gentlemen, which now I realized 0:12:42.520 --> 0:12:46.800 were like gender appropriateness classes. It was like, you know, 0:12:46.920 --> 0:12:49.000 just like the world's toughest summer camp. It was like 0:12:49.200 --> 0:12:50.920 it was like if the missionaries of charity around a 0:12:50.960 --> 0:12:53.680 fucking summer camp. That's what it was like. So who 0:12:53.679 --> 0:12:55.920 did she want you to be? I don't know, maybe her, 0:12:56.160 --> 0:12:59.920 you know, I think he was worried. She never thought 0:12:59.920 --> 0:13:01.840 of me as like a maskline female. She thought of 0:13:01.880 --> 0:13:04.160 me as like an ugly female, right. And my mom 0:13:04.240 --> 0:13:07.040 was a very beautiful person. She was a very attractive person, 0:13:07.240 --> 0:13:10.839 and that helped her in life. She knew how to 0:13:10.960 --> 0:13:13.800 use it. She knew how to use that attractiveness, and 0:13:13.840 --> 0:13:15.560 it was the kind of also her kind of her stick. 0:13:15.679 --> 0:13:19.920 You know. See, I can remember watching my mom put 0:13:19.920 --> 0:13:22.320 on her makeup her whole life. Like I've watched her 0:13:22.320 --> 0:13:23.880 put on her makeup and talked to her while she 0:13:23.920 --> 0:13:25.720 put on her makeup. I mean, even the smell of 0:13:25.760 --> 0:13:28.679 makeup makes me think of my mom, you know. And 0:13:28.720 --> 0:13:31.520 so what were you searching for then joining the MCS? 0:13:32.200 --> 0:13:34.360 Like you know, I was looking for a life that 0:13:34.440 --> 0:13:38.960 made sense. And what did your mom think of you joining? Um? 0:13:39.000 --> 0:13:40.880 I think you know, she wanted me to have health insurance, 0:13:40.960 --> 0:13:43.880 you know, Like, so she was a little bit like, okay, 0:13:44.080 --> 0:13:49.120 you know, so you already know Kelly joined the m 0:13:49.160 --> 0:13:51.920 CS and it didn't work out, But what did her 0:13:51.960 --> 0:14:18.760 life look like after she left? Kelly was incredibly impressed 0:14:18.760 --> 0:14:21.520 by the Missionaries of Charity when she first encountered them. 0:14:21.560 --> 0:14:23.920 She admired their hard work, and she thought she'd found 0:14:23.920 --> 0:14:28.080 her community. She converted to Catholicism, joined the Order, but 0:14:28.120 --> 0:14:31.040 found she wasn't welcomed like other sisters. Maybe some of 0:14:31.080 --> 0:14:33.160 it was her sense of humor, maybe it was her 0:14:33.200 --> 0:14:37.080 appearance or her angry shoulders. Once sister described her as 0:14:37.120 --> 0:14:39.880 scary and in the end, not fitting in took a 0:14:39.920 --> 0:14:43.160 toll on her physically. She left flunked out, as she 0:14:43.200 --> 0:14:45.960 puts it, Yeah, I was so sad when I left, 0:14:46.840 --> 0:14:49.360 you know, because I was like, all right, well, do 0:14:49.400 --> 0:14:51.040 you guys think this is working out? And they're like, 0:14:51.120 --> 0:14:53.800 let us think about it. No. I mean like everyone 0:14:53.840 --> 0:14:56.800 else that left, they were like begging them to stay. 0:14:56.880 --> 0:15:00.240 Not me, They're like by and um, I remember where 0:15:00.280 --> 0:15:02.560 my mom was with my sister. When she took me up, 0:15:02.640 --> 0:15:04.520 she was like, you seem like you're grieving, like that 0:15:04.560 --> 0:15:06.360 was the word she used. And I was like, well, 0:15:06.400 --> 0:15:08.240 first of all, it's like this big germanic goodbye. I'm 0:15:08.240 --> 0:15:10.880 off to marry Jesus. Goodbye. Oh hi, I'm back now, 0:15:10.960 --> 0:15:13.440 you know what I mean. Like, um, so first it 0:15:13.480 --> 0:15:15.960 was like kind of anticlimactic, but it wasn't even just that. 0:15:16.040 --> 0:15:19.360 It was just like it just felt like it just 0:15:19.400 --> 0:15:22.280 felt like you're here, oh here, Jesus, here is my life. 0:15:22.280 --> 0:15:24.000 I give it to you, and Jesus is like smack. 0:15:24.120 --> 0:15:26.440 Everybody wants your dumb gift of your dumb life, you know. 0:15:27.440 --> 0:15:30.080 After she left the m c S. She started nursing school, 0:15:30.440 --> 0:15:33.160 joined a softball team, and spent time with the Catholic 0:15:33.160 --> 0:15:36.840 Worker Movement, a progressive faith based group, and she was 0:15:36.880 --> 0:15:40.240 talking to a friend there one day and she was like, Kelly, like, 0:15:40.560 --> 0:15:46.600 I know people who are um trying to suppress their 0:15:46.640 --> 0:15:49.000 sexual orientation, and I watched them not be able to 0:15:49.040 --> 0:15:51.080 love the people around them the way they should because 0:15:51.360 --> 0:15:53.920 that's where all their energies going. And I was like, 0:15:54.240 --> 0:15:56.240 you know what, that's true, and I've seen that a lot, 0:15:56.240 --> 0:15:58.920 and that's not what I want. Like, if I really 0:15:58.920 --> 0:16:01.040 believe in love, if I really think that love is 0:16:01.080 --> 0:16:04.480 something that changes lives and helps people, then I just 0:16:04.520 --> 0:16:08.760 have to be myself. Oh yeah. So I was raised 0:16:08.840 --> 0:16:13.040 a strict evangelical Christian and when I came out to 0:16:13.120 --> 0:16:16.400 my mom, she ripped up my birth certificate and sent 0:16:16.480 --> 0:16:20.560 it to me. Yeah, and I was complaining about it 0:16:20.600 --> 0:16:22.040 to my therapist. So I'm like, oh, that was so 0:16:22.080 --> 0:16:25.800 past aggressive, and she's like, no, Kelly, that was aggressive. 0:16:26.720 --> 0:16:29.040 So I take it to the countercler's office and he 0:16:29.080 --> 0:16:30.680 looked at me and then looked at the pieces and 0:16:30.720 --> 0:16:32.720 looked at me and then looked at the pieces and 0:16:32.760 --> 0:16:35.960 he thought for a minute. He said, we get a 0:16:36.000 --> 0:16:41.160 lot of this from people who looked like you, which 0:16:41.160 --> 0:16:43.680 tells you my mom was not as original as she thought. 0:16:43.720 --> 0:16:47.960 She was my mom would say that that is not 0:16:48.080 --> 0:16:55.320 what happened. Uh, different narrative. Um, my mom was a 0:16:55.400 --> 0:16:58.520 dramatic person. It was a very dramatic reaction, like okay. 0:16:58.880 --> 0:17:00.920 Also even when she sent it to me, so I 0:17:00.960 --> 0:17:02.920 was like, this doesn't you can send me my birth 0:17:03.000 --> 0:17:05.280 certificate all you want. It doesn't make me not your kid, 0:17:06.280 --> 0:17:09.240 you know what I mean? Like, that's not how that works. Uh, 0:17:09.280 --> 0:17:11.080 you know. And we didn't really have a relationship for 0:17:11.080 --> 0:17:13.280 a long time, Like I went long periods of time 0:17:13.320 --> 0:17:17.360 without seeing her. Um. I think it didn't really even 0:17:17.359 --> 0:17:22.800 become comedy early in my comedy career because it was 0:17:22.800 --> 0:17:27.080 still so unresolved. I think it was still to raw 0:17:27.119 --> 0:17:33.960 and me for other people to laugh at it. Kelly 0:17:34.000 --> 0:17:37.520 met Heather at the Newark Airport Hotel during a queer conference. 0:17:38.359 --> 0:17:40.880 They both went to Christian High school. They both knew 0:17:40.880 --> 0:17:42.600 all of the words to the chorus of the Trumpet 0:17:42.600 --> 0:17:46.280 of Jesus, and that was that. They started dating long distance. 0:17:48.720 --> 0:17:52.720 At the time, Heather wasn't remissioned from ovarian cancer. Within 0:17:52.800 --> 0:17:55.080 the first six months of their dating, it came back. 0:17:56.119 --> 0:17:58.520 Heather would call Kelly to get through the night to 0:17:58.600 --> 0:18:01.040 keep her distracted with stories and jokes until she could 0:18:01.080 --> 0:18:04.600 take her next dose of a heavy painkiller. It became 0:18:04.600 --> 0:18:06.680 clear that she was going to die, you know, maybe 0:18:06.680 --> 0:18:08.960 not right away, but eventually. Like this wasn't a long 0:18:09.040 --> 0:18:12.400 term relationship, you know. And Heather struggle at first, like 0:18:13.200 --> 0:18:15.240 she was like, well, who starts a relationship when they're 0:18:15.240 --> 0:18:18.720 so late in life? You know, Um, it just doesn't 0:18:18.720 --> 0:18:23.240 seem like it follows the rule book, like she you know, 0:18:23.600 --> 0:18:25.080 I think she didn't know if I was going to 0:18:25.119 --> 0:18:26.760 be able to stick it into the end. I knew 0:18:26.800 --> 0:18:28.359 I was going to be able to stick into the end. 0:18:28.400 --> 0:18:32.879 I knew what I've been through, you know. Um, but 0:18:33.000 --> 0:18:35.600 there was something really beautiful about being able to be 0:18:35.640 --> 0:18:40.119 the right person at the right time. That was in 0:18:40.160 --> 0:18:41.840 the same way that like the mission and the charity 0:18:41.920 --> 0:18:43.239 just felt like, oh, I'm like, oh, this is what 0:18:43.240 --> 0:18:45.800 I'm supposed to be doing, this is this is I'm 0:18:45.880 --> 0:18:48.960 answering this call. I felt like I was answering the call. 0:18:49.920 --> 0:18:51.720 We kind of try to have sense of humor about 0:18:51.720 --> 0:18:53.800 it or in the house. I mean, I'm a stand 0:18:53.840 --> 0:18:57.200 of comic. And she was a total smartass, so able 0:18:57.240 --> 0:18:59.480 to the two of us. For example, one day when 0:18:59.480 --> 0:19:00.840 she was really she had been on keyboard for a 0:19:00.840 --> 0:19:03.320 one time. She wasn't feeling that well, and I called 0:19:03.359 --> 0:19:06.199 her from the supermarket. I said, um, is there anything 0:19:07.040 --> 0:19:09.080 I can bring you? And there is a long silence 0:19:09.200 --> 0:19:14.080 and she said, yeah, how about a quarter pounds of 0:19:14.119 --> 0:19:27.320 a Will to Live? Oh God fine. So I was like, 0:19:27.359 --> 0:19:29.199 well she's going there. I'm gonna go there too. And 0:19:29.200 --> 0:19:30.960 I was like, oh, honey, you know how it isn't 0:19:31.000 --> 0:19:34.720 a trigger. Jose and Billy had organic and now I 0:19:34.720 --> 0:19:39.720 don't get it all out, so just already that she 0:19:39.800 --> 0:19:48.280 came back, She's like, huh damn. Kelly calls the day 0:19:48.280 --> 0:19:51.239 how they died, Pudding Day, how they chose to end 0:19:51.240 --> 0:19:54.480 her life surrounded by chosen family with a lethal dose 0:19:54.520 --> 0:19:59.040 of medication mixed into a pudding cup. All this time 0:19:59.520 --> 0:20:03.879 through the real relationship Head There's Illness Nursing School comedy sets, 0:20:04.560 --> 0:20:09.240 Kelly's relationship with her mom remainstreamed until her stepfather's dementia 0:20:09.280 --> 0:20:12.720 became worse and she flew home to help. He was 0:20:12.760 --> 0:20:15.879 a retired army colonel and everyone still called him the colonel, 0:20:17.000 --> 0:20:20.239 and so lost of people when they developed dementia, they 0:20:20.280 --> 0:20:22.240 forget the names of their kids or where they live, 0:20:22.440 --> 0:20:25.480 or you know, they're most fond childhood memories. That is 0:20:25.560 --> 0:20:27.600 not what happened to the colonel. The colonel forgot. He 0:20:27.640 --> 0:20:31.159 was a jerk, I think, because he forgot where the 0:20:31.160 --> 0:20:36.000 scotch was. So I went to my mom's home and 0:20:36.160 --> 0:20:39.200 helped her set up hospice. And the colonel was lovely 0:20:39.240 --> 0:20:41.199 to me, was like, oh color, and I just I 0:20:41.320 --> 0:20:43.720 love your I love your haircutt Soldier. I love the 0:20:43.800 --> 0:20:48.600 ultimate compliment, I love your haircuts Soldier. That's oh Ron, 0:20:48.720 --> 0:20:52.119 That's fantastic all. And we thought that he might not 0:20:52.200 --> 0:20:55.439 make it until Christmas. And he was really so you know, 0:20:55.680 --> 0:20:58.560 cognitively impaired at that point that he couldn't even follow sitcom. 0:20:58.640 --> 0:21:00.960 So my mom loved the christ his tree, and he 0:21:01.000 --> 0:21:02.359 asked her just to turn off the lights and he 0:21:02.440 --> 0:21:04.960 just watched the tree, and every so often he would say, 0:21:05.000 --> 0:21:06.560 that's a heck of a tree, and ants, that's a 0:21:06.640 --> 0:21:09.399 heck of a tree. And so I would sit with 0:21:09.400 --> 0:21:12.639 my mom, watch her as she would put on makeup, 0:21:12.680 --> 0:21:14.959 and I wanted to tell her it was gonna be okay, 0:21:15.760 --> 0:21:19.080 but I knew it wasn't that, so I just sat 0:21:19.119 --> 0:21:23.680 with her. I don't know. Something really changed that year. 0:21:24.640 --> 0:21:26.640 We just talked about our lives and you know, kind 0:21:26.640 --> 0:21:28.520 of what was important in life and what wasn't and 0:21:29.480 --> 0:21:32.359 not having any regrets and um, and it healed in 0:21:32.359 --> 0:21:35.399 a way that I had never thought was possible. So 0:21:35.480 --> 0:21:39.080 the colonel died a few days before Christmas. And when 0:21:39.119 --> 0:21:42.439 people came to drop off food and UM saying, you know, 0:21:42.880 --> 0:21:46.000 send their condolen says. My Mom's response was, this is 0:21:46.040 --> 0:21:49.480 my daughter, Kelly. She's also a widow. She lost her 0:21:49.520 --> 0:22:02.320 spouse as well. What's a moment that happened that you 0:22:02.359 --> 0:22:08.639 would have never expected to came? Um, she came to 0:22:08.680 --> 0:22:15.159 watch me perform at the Stonewall Inn in June. The 0:22:15.200 --> 0:22:18.240 story of Kelly's mom at the historic Stonewall Inn in 0:22:18.280 --> 0:22:41.719 a moment. All right, so my mom. Nine years I've 0:22:41.760 --> 0:22:43.919 been performing, she has never seen me perform. You know 0:22:43.920 --> 0:22:46.240 where My mom wanted to come see me perform in 0:22:46.320 --> 0:22:49.840 the middle of June on the anniversary of Stonewall at 0:22:49.840 --> 0:22:53.760 the Stonewall Inn. The gayest thing ever, Right, it's the 0:22:53.800 --> 0:22:56.000 gayest thing I've ever done. Guess who I was opening for? 0:22:56.440 --> 0:23:03.880 Lenny Breedlove. Who Lenny Breed Love Performance Artists queer performance artist. Now, 0:23:03.920 --> 0:23:06.359 you remember Lenny's last show where Lenny like had a 0:23:06.359 --> 0:23:08.960 little stuffed animals like Hi, I identify as an elephant. 0:23:09.160 --> 0:23:12.240 HI identifies a teddy bear, right, very cute, very tame. 0:23:12.920 --> 0:23:15.800 I thought that that's the show that Lenny would be doing. No, 0:23:16.440 --> 0:23:19.119 oh no, in the show, my mom came to Lenny 0:23:19.200 --> 0:23:27.800 walked on the stage wearing nothing but a dick, and also, 0:23:28.520 --> 0:23:31.680 for no apparent reason that I could figure out, there 0:23:31.760 --> 0:23:35.800 was twenty minutes of Lenny peeing into a bucket on stage. Now, 0:23:35.880 --> 0:23:37.919 if you've ever been upstairs at the Stone Wall, you 0:23:38.000 --> 0:23:41.080 know that the stage is maybe two or three feet 0:23:41.160 --> 0:23:45.280 from the front row where my mom was sitting. So 0:23:45.320 --> 0:23:47.960 I'm sitting in the audience thinking my mom and Lindy 0:23:48.000 --> 0:23:54.880