November 11:
I went to go see Samantha Bee doing a Q&A at the same venue that I saw Hillary at this year. Same moderator guy too, Scott...something. She previously came here in 2003 for the Daily Show to report on a Professor Yamamoto who made his own porn...don’t go looking that up!
* When asked (more or less) what people at the White House probably think of her, she said, “I think they would think that I’m a bitch.”
* Gorka follows her on Twitter.
* She doesn’t know anyone in the administration. “We have tried to make people be our leaker. Please, leak on us. Not every fluid...”
* When asked, “Take us back to Election Night 2016,” her response was “Nooooooo!” Okay, fine, so she talked about the post election show that might have been. Lizzo (the singer brought in) was weeping on the floor. They donated their balloons for the balloon drop to Harry Connick Jr.
* This has been “so much worse!” than she imagined.
* People sent photos of her hanging herself from a tree and that was happening all night--and it’s never stopped since.
* “Pandora’s box was quite full but it was locked.”
* The news came at us like a firehose.
* Where we’re gonna be in 20 years is far different now.
* “Every day is just another dump. Every day is literally dump day.”
* On Hillary: “She sat in this chair! Why won’t she come on my show?” (This disappoints me, Hillary. GO ON HER SHOW. SUPPORT FEMALE LATE NIGHT HOSTING.) Why did Hillary lose: Deep vein of misogyny. “As soon as she won, there would be a huge backlash” and it would have been hard for her to do anything.
* She’s amazed that so many are surprised at all the sexual harassment. Scott pointed out, “Give us a break,” we didn’t know about people jacking off in in a potted plant.” Samantha was all, “You guys have gotten enough breaks.” “People whip it out all the time.” She first saw a strange penis at age six. Don’t hit on your coworkers! “There are so many versions of masturbating into a potted plant...” They could talk about this until the end of time. “Please keep it in your pants at all times. That’s a great starting point.” As an “hilarious experiment at work,” she posited how people would feel if she started rubbing a dude’s shoulders during a meeting and she said people said it made them nauseous.
* “Let’s go back to politics.” -Scott.
* She snarked that ten revelations just rolled out while they were sitting here right now (at 8:25 p.m.) I have thought about looking up how much news came out between 8 and 8:25, but I can’t stomach the idea.
* She can’t believe the whole Roy Moore thing is happening. “He was such a shit candidate before this....”
* She does feel positive about the future, thanks to the West Virginia elections. “Everything comes back to we have to vote. So boring!”
* How did you get so unfettered, Scott asks. “I don’t give a shit about what anyone thinks any more. TBS has almost no restrictions, she doesn’t care if she gets another TV show after this, this is perfect for her and as long as she has the show she’ll do the max that she can with it. The stakes are so low she doesn’t care, and she’s not afraid of missing out on a Harvey Weinstein movie either. “Who am I trying to impressed.”
* On being Canadian--she says it’s helpful to be an outsider looking in. She had a bunch of anchor babies, wanted to be “in it” and got citizenship. She didn’t grow up in the system so she’s not automatically reverent of the president, and her kids aren’t either. When asked what Canadians think of Trump, she said they’re shocked and they don’t have all the answers either. They feel smug about health care but feel for us. Her family in Canada calls daily asking if they’re safe.
* How do you pick what to focus on for the show? They have Slack channels for each story for everyone to put stuff in and see what they are interested in. It’s always hard to find the funny, such as Puerto Rico.
* She says she has her calm on all the time, but also has a sense of injustice.
* Scott thought it would be “fun” to ask who outrages her most in the administration. Hard to pick!
** Bannon: “OMG JC.” and “You’re making me throw up?”
** Sarah Huckabee Sanders? “Who is she? She’s a liar. Could be a very bad person.”
** Ted Cruz. “The Worst.” But her favorite worst. “Swamp Reagan.”
** Omarosa: WTF?
** Kellyanne: She was on the Daily Show years ago when they need someone to give an outrageous POV and she was all, “Just tell me what to say, I’ll say whatever, I don’t care.” “No fucking moral compass whatsoever.” Terrible, I don’t agree with her life choices, but “I do applaud her business acumen.”
* “That White House is a snake pit and they need to smoke it out.” Release the mongoose!
* I can’t read in my notes about who she said was “He’s terrible! He’s a nightmare! Turns out he’s a little bit racist,” but could be anyone, amirite?
* Who would be a good female candidate for 2020--she doesn’t know (see below).
* Who inspires you today? Attorney General Eric Schneiderman gives her hope (see most recent episode of the show) that we might survive this thing. There’s a lot of individuals that make her feel like that, like that Boy Scout she had on a few weeks ago being “a quality human being at such a young age.”
* She supports the right to hunt, but why don’t reasonable gun owners want more laws? Where are they? NRA’s fare is violence, they’re tone deaf, immersed in industry garbage.
* “People are so afraid of being primaried.”
* “I think we need another Ice Age.”
* The question of who will be the first female president makes her want to cry. Who? Will it happen in her lifetime?
* Does she get different treatment from critics for being a woman? She says she doesn’t know, but it got attention. Most notably that Vanity Fair photo shoot of all the men of late night, which led her to insert herself in there as a centaur with laser eyes. “It was a very gentleman’s landscape.”
* How do you maintain a sense of hope? We see the needle move every week. There’s going to be an episode with a Mexico City feminist brigade that will air in a few weeks--things like that. Ultimately, people are good even though there are some Nazis.
* On leadership (and how Trump sucks at it): leadership is being emotional, being an actual person. She compared Trump to Trudeau’s response on Gordon Howe’s death. A leader should be careful, try to be real. Guess who can’t.
* “Are you the male Oprah?” she said to Scott. “I’ll take it,” he said. She said, “You made me go misty.”
Then came the public Q&A.
* There was some discussion of how it was important to TBS to put people of color on the show. Sam said that social media gave you a sense of people’s writing and they’d reach out and ask if people would do television.
* When asked what her real name is, she said “Long John Silver.” (Samantha Bee is her actual name. “I come from a long line of distinguished bees.”)
* Sacramento has the most refugees.
* Sam: “Why would I ever perform anything I wouldn’t believe?”
* A girl asked if Sam would get drunk with her afterwards and she said yes.
* Regarding the Iraq episode, they didn’t show anything they filmed in a refugee camp because you can’t make it funny and it’s just sad. They wanted to focus on stories where women kept things running (most shows seem to just have women hiding). They tell a real story but slightly through a comedy ledge.
* She noted that women who were taking over hospitals from ISIS made sure they got cleaned. (Note: now this is actually online by the time I got around to posting this:
* Why aren’t there conservative satire comedians? “They are so unfunny.” It gives her so much joy when they fail. Keep trying, she welcomes it!

While seeing Sam Bee, I also got to see my most recent ex-boss, who is now retired and theater ushering there. I briefly tracked her down to say hi when I got in and then we met up for a bit after the show to chat about how things were going. It was lovely. She wanted to know what I did for Halloween (Princess Leia, ceremonial dress at the end of Star Wars version). Heh. Hopefully we’ll see each other at the next show I’m going to, John Cleese, if she can sign up for it. I let her know ahead of time when I’m going to something for that reason!

November 12:
I have to write a paper on character analysis in a play for drama class. We are “supposed” to go see The Seagull, which I do not want to do after I read the play synopsis online. 2017 is depressing enough without throwing in seeing sad things “voluntarily” and knowing that ahead of time, thanks. However, since the teacher technically said we didn’t “have” to see both campus plays (admittedly, I think he was saying that because Beauty and the Beast was only running for one more weekend once class started), I decided instead to see Kings of America, a homegrown play from around these parts. It features an African-American teenage history nerd named Noah Garrison whose dad, Arthur, was fascinated with presidents and raised his son to be the same way. The play starts after Obama just won the first presidential election, and while Noah’s happy and hopeful about the results, he’s also not a happy guy ever since he lost his dad. The play is vague as to how Arthur was lost for about 3/4 of it, let’s just say the script implies something different before you find out exactly what happened and why Noah is mad at his mom regarding it. Anyway, Noah’s been mouthing off in class and falling asleep a lot, during which he has thematic dreams about presidents. Two a night will join him in his dreams, watching Twilight with him or otherwise mouthing off in a duel of wits and politics. Eventually Noah creeps closer mentally to the president he really has the issues with (take a wild guess who), and he gets closer to the point of actually being able to talk to his mom again.

Before the election, I was becoming a presidential history nerd myself (thanks for ruining that, Trump!), so I enjoyed seeing all the duelling presidents and the comedy and the arguments that were going on. They have three guys switching back and forth playing...12 presidents, something like that, and they’re pretty excellent. I normally hate “dream sequences,” but this play made them work and have a plot and not just be pointless wheel spinning. Noah may be a bit obnoxious, but you feel for him. It is a shame more people won’t see this, I thought it was very good.

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