Transcript
Greg Fitzsimmons (0:00)
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St. Patrick's Day before that was, was a very, very big day in my existence. It started out, I guess, when I was a kid, we would go to the St. Patrick's Day parade every year. My grandfather would march with the Ancient Order of Hibernians from the Bronx, and people were throwing up and pissing and fighting in the streets. It was crazy. And my parents would bring me down. And then when I got older, I started going down to the parade myself with my buddies when we were teenagers. And I honestly, honestly think that was the first time I did stand up comedy was when I would take the train. The train from the city to my house was about 20 minutes. And I, I remember getting on the train like two years in a row and obnoxiously drunk. And you know, we're getting on the train at like 6:30 at night. So it's all these commuters from Wall street are going back to the suburbs. They got their suits and ties and they got their New York Times opened up and, and then, and then about a dozen of us get on and we're, you know, all my friends were, you know, killer in and McGovern and Bucci and all these, all these micks. And we, and I used to walk up and down the aisles and I would roast the people on the train and my friends would be sitting there howling. And I just pictured today if I saw a 14 year old or a 15 year old that drunk, I would smack the shit out of this kid. I was the kid you wanted to smack the Shit out of. But I was killing. I would destroy. And then we'd roll off the train at Tarrytown and walk home and, you know, chew a bunch of Bubble Yum and put Visine in our eyes and pretend we weren't shit faced. Luckily, our parents were also shit faced, so nobody knew the difference. And then my father, every year on St Patrick's Day, it would start off with a party he would have at the Friars Club where he was a member. It was all Jewish members. And then my father was the token Irishman. Did I say. I said Jewish? Yeah, they're all Jewish. My dad's a token Irish guy and he would have a St. Patrick's Day show. It was a party and there was step dancers and fifes and bagpipes and singers, and people would get up and tell Irish jokes and everybody wore green. And there was an open bar and all the Jews from the club would come down and they would hang out and they loved it. They'd never seen anything like this before. And it was all my dad's Irish friends. And Don Buchwald was there every year and Maureen Langan and all the great New Yorkers. And me and my mom would sing this old Clancy Brothers song called Four Green Fields. And it's an old Irish fighting song about the four green fields with the four counties in Ireland and trying to reunite them after the English tore us apart. And I'm telling you, there is nothing. Two worst singing voices in the history of the Americas as Pat Fitzsimmons and Greg Fitzsimmons. We were awful, but we would do it acapello, no music. We would stand there in front of 150 people and people would die laughing. And we played it perfectly straight, like tears in our eyes, emotional. And people thought it was the funniest thing in the world. I started doing it when I was probably like 9 years old. And I did it until my dad died. So I was probably fucking 2023 when I sang it the last time with my mom. Anyway, so I say that only to say that the tradition continues. And as you mostly all know, I throw a St. Patrick's Day party at the Improv for like the last 15 years. I do it every year. It's not always on St Patrick's Day. We did it on March 15, two days early this year, because it was a Saturday night. Felt like a more fun night for people. And we had a crazy good lineup. The improv took such good care of us. Me and my friend Laureen have a contest. Who makes the Best Irish soda bread. Which sounds like an oxymoron. Best Irish soda bread. But we both have a recipe that's gone down through the ages. And we bring in loaves and loaves of bread and the cooks at the improv are nice enough to slice it up and they butter it and they toast it and they serve it to the entire crowd. 200 people all get Irish soda bread. And then we bring a few people on stage and they're the judges and they have a contest. And my bread won two out of three years now. And so it's very proud. More proud though, that the mu. We had live music for the first time this year. And it was my daughter Jojo and my buddy Mikey Fitzgibbon and me. I was really mostly them. I played a little bit of harmonica, but she was. They were both on guitar and they play. Started out with U2 Sunday, Bloody Sunday. Whole crowd was pumping their fists and singing along. And then we segued into the Pogues. There's a Pogue song called Dirty Old Town. And my daughter sang it like a angel. It's the most heartbreaking, sad, working class song. And she sang it and Mikey played. And then we brought it home with a little shout out to the Californians in the crowd. They sang California Dreaming. The place was singing along, they were clapping their hands. And then the flute solo comes and my daughter whips out the flute and fucking nails the solo. The place went berserk. Screaming. It was crazy. And she was so self composed and confident. And I'm telling you, she's got like perfect pitch. Nobody in our family knew she could sing. And she's only been taking guitar lessons for like six months. Playing perfect, strong chords. It was. Anyway, I could not. You know, you think you're proud of your kids, but there's no times when you're more proud of them. She was so nervous for the last week and yet she fucking did it. That's when you're proud of your kids, is when they. They are thinking about quitting. They want to quit. And she showed up and she was brave and she was nervous throughout the whole performance. Did not miss a single beat. Nailed it. And she was so happy with herself. And then Annie Letterman, who was supposed to go to Alaska, went to Alaska on Friday morning, did a show and then wanted to be on my show so much that she then got on a red eye the same night back to LA for the Saturday night show. And she was a doll. She got there early, hung out with my family, went to the after party. Like, schmoozed everybody from the crowd, all my friends. Tim Dillon stopped in, closed it out, destroyed, had a great hang backstage with him and Annie and Saul Trujillo, who's a great new comic that you should know about. And check out. He destroyed. Eric Griffin was great. Dennis Gubbins did a nice job, and the whole night was a blast. So much fun. So thanks if you guys came out. If you didn't, definitely come out next year. And Bobby Lee, unfortunately, did not perform. He showed up. He was supposed to be the headliner, and he saw a singing and he walked out. He said, I don't want to go on this show. So I don't know what that is, but that's what happened. If you were disappointed he wasn't there, take it up with him, not me. But luckily, Tim Dillon was on a plane heading to Columbus, Ohio, which was turned back to LAX when some lunatic lost his shit on the flight. So if it wasn't for that, Tim would not have been at my show. He just came down to hang out, and then he was nice enough to close it out, so that was very cool. And he's Irish, not Korean, so that was good. What else? Oh, yeah, big shout out for my friend Big J Hollingsworth. Big Irish J. He's got a new album out called Green Monster that John Tobin, our buddy, produced out of Boston. I think they recorded at Laugh Boston. It's on itunes. It premieres today. Very funny dude. Great guy. Such. Such a great sense of humor. So check that out. And I got some dates coming up. I'll be in Hamilton, Ontario, at levity on March 26th. Toronto at the Comedy Bar, March 27th. Pittsburgh at the Improv, March 28th to the 30th. Then I will be in Boston on April 4th and 5th. Torrance, Huntington, Escondido, Dayton. Dayton. That's a new date. Tampa, Florida. Austin, La Jolla. All tickets@fitzdog.com come out. Check out the new hour. It's great new material. Speaking of great material, my guest today is a fantastic comedian who's from the south originally.