Yeah, that sounds about right. Thank you, Montreal, so much for
coming to the show. Give it up for the band playing
for you tonight. That's a song I'll have stuck in
my head. Never.
Just to put you guys at ease. This is not the worst show I've
ever done. That would have been about six
months ago. I performed at San Quentin State
Penitentiary in America. In America, prisons are
different than they are in Canada and that we have way more
of them and we put everyone in them.
But San Quentin is just for murderers, basically.
You might be wondering, Anthony, how did you get in that
situation? Well, I drink and I'm friends
with a lot of musicians. So I'm doing a show and
afterwards I'm drinking with a band, a band called Queens of
the Stone Age, very famous, yes, one of the best rock bands of
all time. And I'm talking about their tour
and they say, oh, we're almost done.
We just got to do a couple of a couple more shows and then we're
going and doing 1 show at San Quentin State Penitentiary and
I'm just drunk enough to say, do you need an opener?
I'm like, yeah, that would be great.
Please come and do the show with us.
I'm very excited. Couple weeks later, they get
back to me. They say, Anthony, the prison
has approved you to open for us, which I could not believe.
And then I get a list of the rules of what I'm not allowed to
talk about on stage at San Quentin.
And it says no swearing, no religion, no sex, no
controversy, nothing that will rile up the inmates.
Basically, it's my set list with the word no written in front of
everything. So I call the band and I say,
guys, I don't think I can do this.
I can't follow these rules. I literally cannot follow these
rules. And they say it doesn't matter.
Anthony, whatever you do is cool with us.
If you go on stage and they cut your mic immediately, that's
even better. That's even cooler.
We think it's a good story. That's all I need to hear.
So I fly over to the prison with the band.
We drive into the prison, we get out, and again, everyone is a
murderer. And it's not a prison like
everyone's behind bars. It's like a college campus where
murderers just walking around freely, as if they have
somewhere to be. I'm trying not to pay any
attention. I'm just hanging with the band
back in the corner. It's about 10 minutes before
Showtime, and all of a sudden I look up and there's four guys
surrounding me holding shotguns. They work there, but they're
looking at me like I'm about to try to escape.
And then another guy walks up and gets right in front of me
goes Anthony, I'm the warden here at San Quentin State
Penitentiary. And I say, nice to meet you.
He doesn't look like it's nice to meet me.
This is Anthony. Music is one thing, but comedy
with prisoners like this, I don't know.
We just watched some of your stuff on YouTube.
It's offensive, which is what makes it funny.
You're my favorite comedian, but with these guys, I don't know,
it could go sideways. And I realize he's trying to get
me to step down to say I'm not going to perform if it's going
to be a problem, which would have been fine a couple hours
before I got in a fucking flight.
So I say, Warden, listen, I've had things go sideways all the
time. Not a problem for me.
What do you want me to do? You want me to do less time?
What should I not talk about? And he goes, ah, I just don't
know. I don't know that stuff on
YouTube. And I feel like, you know what?
I'm a professional comedian. I can defuse this with my sense
of humor. So I say, Warden, if the problem
is the stuff you saw on YouTube, don't worry.
This is going to be all new material.
They don't laugh at all. One of the guys cocks his
shotgun. So the warden says, all right,
let me take give you a tour. Let me walk you around.
And this beautiful 27 year old redhead girl comes and joins us
on the tour. The warden turns to us proudly
and says, this is my daughter. This place is so safe because of
me. I can bring my daughter to come
watch the show. I'm thinking you can bring your
daughter but I can't tell a joke.
So I pull the warden the side and I say listen, the show
starts in 5 minutes, let me be a part of this evening.
Let me just go on stage and introduce the band and then I'll
leave. The warden shakes my hand and
says thank you, I'd appreciate it.
Keep in mind that is not what I'm going to do.
So the show's about to start. I'm standing in the wings with
the band, and the band's trying to reassure me that, like,
Anthony, don't worry, do whatever you want, We're cool,
OK? This old lady gets on stage.
She works for the prison. And she says, I want to thank
everyone. I want to thank the crew for
putting this together. And now she turns and looks me
right in the eyes, says and now a very nice young man, Anthony.
Now, I don't know if you've ever performed in a prison before,
but that is the worst way you can be introduced.
I walk onto the stage with 200 murderers whistling at me.
I take the microphone and I say, listen, my name is Anthony
Jeselnik. I've been doing this for 17
years. I'm a famous comedian, so if you
haven't heard of me, you must have done something pretty
fucked up. The place goes crazy.
That's exactly the joke they wanted to hear.
My mic gets cut off immediately. I dropped the mic to the ground.
I'm about to introduce the band and then I look out into the
audience and I see the warden standing in the back with his
arms crossed and his daughter standing next to him.
And I can't resist. So I say, and I want to thank
the warden for bringing us his daughter.
At this point, you could hear a pin drop.
Even the prisoners are like, we killed the guy, but we're not
crazy. Thank God he's leaving.
After this, I introduced the band.
The band walks on stage. Like, we should not have told
you to do whatever you want. They go up, they start playing.
They're amazing. Someone taps me in the shoulder,
I turn around, they go. Anthony, the warden wants to
know if you'd like to go watch the show with him.
I'm not falling for that. I say I'm good right here.
The show ends, the band gets off stage, they go, let's get the
hell out of here right now. I agree.
We're going to run into the van and someone grabs my arm.
I turn around and it's the warden.
It's very seriously goes Anthony.
I just want to say the next time you come to town, my wife and I
are going to have to come out and see you.
And I said, Warden, the next time you see me, I'll be
humiliating you on television.