i'd fight for you i never knew that i could feel this way i'm right for you this kinda love don't happen everyday my name is brenda churchill and i'm here with what's your name kendall farrell kendall farrell and we're doing the comedy of state this afternoon as an interactive a little bit of an interactive talk show hey now when the title of the program is everyone has a first time and i would say that this is my first time doing a taped show but i've actually done a couple shows already one was for here channel seventeen my friends on the t also did a show with me and we love nikki and emoji oh nikki and emoji are hot stuff and all things lgbtq out of work in media down in montpelier also did a nice interview for me and i'm just excited to have the opportunity to get my message out and bring in some queer comics and have fun with the have fun with my friend kendall thanks for having me brenda you're welcome i'm gonna throw in a little disclaimer that anything that's said here today is actually my opinion and does not represent anybody from the folks that i represent as the excuse me what is it i am i am the liaison for the lgbtqia alliance of vermont and as such we'll probably talk a little bit about that as well but i wanna get to my guest kendall farrell kendall's from burlington right now and he's a standup comedian and this is your i think this was your bio yeah i think we pulled it from my facebook page whose wry slash style and dry wit has made him a favorite in his home state he won the annual vermont funniest comedian contest in two thousand and fifteen profiled seven days regular at the comedy club he's opened for headliners all over new england performed on night train and how was that was that a big club night train it's at a place called little field in park slope and why it's snack hosts and it's the lineups they get there are just like insane that was a lot of fun and why it was super nice nice locally we got a of course at the vermont comedy club comedy and crepes the skinny pancake brews and bros and foam brewers barn party at the zen barn and something that ties in with our theme today which is the united we stand up yeah that was political that was such a fun show danny russell and i host that some vermonters and i know annie russell from vpr yeah where she's i think now the deputy news director she i was glad to see her it was a lot of fun that show was a riot and also very funny oh she was she was keeping with the both the political theme and the first time thing i could relate a little bit about my first time with the pride parade and this was about three years ago i got to pull my or i got to drive my big red jeep up church street it was a panic i had people waving screaming shouting i was just hopeful i wasn't running over anybody and behind me was a trailer full of my gay young friends bouncing spouts into rupaul and so i was also honored this year with my friend craig mitchell to be comarshal oh craig i asked him to change it to marshmallow but they didn't quite get the marshmallow but craig and i got to go up i'm surprised you got resistance on that craig and i got to go up church street together we were laughing and joking all the way up through and then i got beautiful roses from my friend meg and it was just a really wonderful day i had a blast were you in this year's pride parade i yeah they did it in battery park this year which was super fun i missed the parade part of it but i was there for the big party afterwards i had to come i had to leave work early and then go back to work afterwards oh my goodness but it was a lot of fun it was the whole park was packed now you and annie do a routine or have done a routine yeah and it the one i saw i happened to be down in our state's capitol but you've been all over the state doing this routine yeah yeah we took it so the show is called united we stand up and it's like a politically themed comedy shows so what we do is we bring a bunch of standup comedians in some from vermont some from out of state sort of a mix of people and just people who have sort of politically relevant material and then at the end of the show there's an interview with a local politician or political figure in general so we've had david zuckerman on this show he was our guest at the vermont comedy club city counselor max tracy from burlington the newest city councilor ali jang we had him right after he was elected and yeah so it's a lot of fun and annie and i love doing it annie is moving to i heard that so the series is on a hiatus for a while and you're moving as long as you mentioned that we'll just talk about it your taking off and going to the big apple for a brighter and bigger things to do the big apple yeah i a lot of vermont comedians have former vermont comedians are living there now so i'm excited to join my fellow expatriates you think you'll be able to find a political venue to bring new york politics to the forefront yeah i don't it has been kind of on my mind because i have no journalism skills so annie was like really important to the show because she knows about like journalistic ethics and all you know she's very talented interviewer so she kind of would like book all the political guests and she spearheaded that part and i would kind of book the comedians sure and manage that part of the show but i've been thinking a lot about ways that we could keep it going or annie's gonna be in chicago maybe i would go visit her or maybe she could come visit me annie i'm pitching this to you i hope you're watching it sounds like a road trip yeah in any case what would you like to do with today on the show what have you you got in mind oh i guess if we're talking about first first times yeah that's good i have a funny story about the first time i went to a pride parade the first time i ever went to a pride parade i was there for probably like a half an hour before i heard some like this poor like disenfranchised straight bro he was like walking by and he was like man well why don't we have a straight pride parade i just remember thinking like i don't know man but if i had to guess i would say there are probably just aren't enough straight parade planners out there i don't know who he thinks is like stopping him though like go nuts are you kidding me i don't know about you but i would love nothing more than to see that nothing would delight me more oh my i don't know what it's gonna look like i keep like imagining it's just gonna be like a bunch of really drunk people in the parking lot of like a home depot just like barbecuing and listening to like kid rock straight pride there you go we'll put it in the bin to check on where and see what we can do there that is just a joke of course of course it is yeah straight people will never take home depot away from lesbians i think we all know that no that is a great place to shop yeah i've been told yeah there's another local community and has a really funny joke i won't give it away in case you have a run but about how the hottest place to meet single lesbians in burlington is at pet food warehouse wow i'll have to make a note of that yeah right then keeping you private then but then i gotta get a pet yeah i don't think sues has a pet i think she just hangs out there she's just like trolling for a pussy at the pet food warehouse it can be done it can be done i think she has done it i hope sues is watching too yeah we'll have to get her on the show to refute or substantiate those claims sues would be a great guest i think she would too she just wound up her first year up in st alban's last night i think you guys did the show at the what's the venue that twigs twigs yeah yeah that's always a fun show lot of local entertainment up there and she's been doing that show now for a year and i've been to a couple of those shows and they're great they're always great yeah she's got a rapport with the audience and she can warm you up and get anybody laughing i'm just curious when you're doing a comedy routine are you able to discern the differences between a gay crowd like with your lol comedy series and a straight crowd and how do you change that up how do you do that different yeah well i think like it depends on maybe not if they're like straight or gay but just like where you are okay like i think the further away from the cities you got like they're a little progressive enclaves and stuff but like you go like you know there used to be shows we were just talking about out in morrisville moogs place yeah used to be shows at moogs place and like you go out there and people like they have no it's not that they don't like gay people but they just have no idea what grindr is or you know like they don't know about like i think they're just illinformed about gay sex so it was pretty shocking for that for this whole lot of info's yeah that might be a tough venue i will tell you that my friend christine showed her documentary denial at the library in montpelier this past week and it was predominantly gay crowd and they all got the jokes the innuendo all the overlays that were in there and all the things i was asking her at first where has that happened before she says spain i said what she says well they had subtitles and they laughed at everything that was that's so funny it was spot on so i said well that must mean that the written word is stronger than the spoken word but only in spanish i suppose so i was gonna take a few minutes to review what i do within the lgbtq alliance yes and i'm gonna kinda read what is our mission and purpose statement and the lgbtqia alliance of vermont comprised of representatives from a range of lgbtqia organizations and individuals from the broader vermont community our mission is to anticipate and collaboratively respond to proposed and enacted laws policies action and community level crisis that impact lgbtqia vermonters the alliance provides expert advice to elected officials political activists state indices communitybased and professional organizations and other interested parties representing and protecting the interests and rights of the lg of lgbtqia vermonters the group seeks to fairly represent the collective voice of the lgbtqia vermonters through advocacy community building education and representation now within the context of the alliance there's five organizations that are our cornerstone or original groupings and i don't know if you know them all can you guess i think green mountain crossroads is probably one of them they are outright vermont outright vermont is yeah the pride center yeah god i'm trying not to cheat and look at my sheet here they could provide answers to the quiz yeah i got three of them okay so can i cheat yeah you can cheat oh vermont cares oh those guys are great i thought they were part of the pride center no peter jacobson's executive director there and actually i'm gonna review some of the fundraisers he's got coming up there's an aids walk in the city hall park on october 1st at one thousand am i would go right to their website for information on that to register and by all means contribute to that that's important rainbow umbrella of central vermont actually put on the first pride solidarity march that coincided with the official pride date this past year and it was very successful we had people represented from all communities there cool and we had speakers afterwards that is anticipated to be again next year oh great the pride center just completed the pride celebration two weeks ago and i mentioned that greg and i that was fun were cogrand marshmallows were gonna adopt that cogrand marshmallows yeah i think you guys should push for that i think we should green mountain crossroads which is down in brattleboro vermont i was just down there a couple of days ago hb lozito is sponsoring again a very successful twoday seminar out in the country it's october 27th and again go to green mountain crossroads to register and find out more information i'm one of the presenters for that as well oh very cool yeah so and lastly we have outright vermont not leastly though dana kaplan new executive director there he is having a firetruck poll fundraiser on church street september 30th oh i think they've done this before haven't they they have done it before have you participated or watched it yeah i think the comedy club put together a team to be part of it last year and i was out of town i think but it looked i was really sad to miss it big fundraiser for our friends at outright and one of the things that you can do is you can go on their website you can look at their information there and there are interestingly one of the unique things that they've come up with for fundraising is that they've found individuals that will post their fundraiser on their website so if you're interested in doing that follow some of the guidelines there and post that and you too can earn funds for the firetruck poll or better yet sponsor a team be on a team just come out and have fun i guarantee the weather that day is gonna be beautiful and crisp and cool i promise it will be you promise yeah tom messner and i have been talking oh yeah so you know again these are the organizations that i represent from the state house and as nonprofits they're always working very hard to generate funds to keep their staff they're partially grant funded but contributions go a long a long long way a couple of the things that i also wanna mention are what we've identified as challenges that are currently being confronted by vermont's lgbtqia communities we're doing that through some interesting things that i've uncovered this summer one of the things that i'm working on is the changing your driver's licenses to add the letter x to it we've been working with folks at several different levels to see if we can make that happen and that i remember i think we chatted about that a little bit and it sounds like there's we're not gonna have to do that through the legislature yeah we're actually looking to do it administratively which is really a huge cost savings because you don't have to run it through the legislative process it is part of the dmvs upgrade to their systems so we're asking that we we're working to ask if we can get that inserted in there and that actually follows what canada's doing with their passports now oh i didn't even know that they're actually they're adding x to that new york is working on similar legislation it's already been adopted in oregon in california so states that are much larger than us including a whole country are working towards this and i think it'll be great for young folks who are coming up and have to put their first legal document in yeah and they don't have to lie and say well i'm not m and not f x works x will work for lots of folks yeah that is one of the things we also have coming up in the senate this session is h333 this bill proposes to require that any single use toilet in any public building or place of public accommodations be identified as gender free i mean my gosh who wouldn't wanna have the opportunity to use one or the other when there's a line at one and you can go in the other yeah i can there's probably a joke there somewhere yeah i don't know i feel like i mean you're not gonna get in trouble for going in the other i've never gotten in trouble for using a women's room before and i use it all the time because they're always nicer and also they're like there's usually there's always some old man like cleaning the men's room i don't know i've run into that everywhere i go it happens i know there's a joke there i think you're right and i think they have both of the there's always some sort of like mess that's being cleaned up in the men's room so it always says like an out of order sign i'm hopeful that this will go right through it did get through the house i did testify there and i believe we'll have a good result with that i've been also getting out to meet folks which has been really interesting i've got a literal laundry list of folks that i've been able to have time with and you know just from a educational standpoint anybody who's listening to this anybody who's a citizen you don't even have to have been legally able to vote but these folks will talk to you they'll definitely spend some time with you and they wanna hear what your concerns are and i would really suggest that you look up your local representative and speak with them most recently i've been i've talked to phil scott tj donovan beca balant tristan toleno celine colburn brian chia sina who is also a really talented dj here in the area yes barbara rachelson deanna gonzalez jill kruinsky connor casey who's the executive director of the vermont democrats oh my goodness mark hughes had me on his radio program a couple of weeks ago how was that it was interesting he wanted me to come down and cohost with him at goddard college at seven hundred am and i said probably not not only the drive would be fun but just getting down there in one piece would be interesting yeah but we're gonna do that again cindy weed and dan connor up in my neck of the woods have been always open to conversations with me also spoken with senate leader pro temp tim ashe speaker of the house mitzi johnson and it's really been great to have the ear of the lieutenant governor as well like you said david zuckerman yes that came and sat down with you so yes that's pretty enjoyable taylor what are you doing over there sorry you're wrecking the place but we've all of these folks have been identified as folks that we can go and speak with and they're very open to conversation we're really lucky to have worked with this'll be just a little bit of prop for my coliaison keith goslant who has been around a long time was on the freedom to marry caucus for the men and he has been both my trainer my teacher my mentor and a friend and it's been a blessing to have somebody to bring me through this process like i said i always tell people i wished that i'd had pay more attention to civics in high school to know what's going on yeah yeah and that's kind of that so let's see where are we what have i left out what do we wanna cover oh my gosh i was kind of curious about what your experience has been like working with governor scott and his new administration well it's kind of interesting because we had early on identified that we'd like to get in and speak with the governor everybody knows he's got a twoyear term and he's about a third of the way through the two both the terms and we had the opportunity to sit down and speak with him last week it was really good we had about an hour of his time and he asked a lot of questions and keith goslant and myself were able to provide a lot of information and things that he was genuinely interested in and i feel good having a governor that will take the time to sit down and listen and folks within his office also are remarkable we had a great conversation afterwards with rachel feldman and we spent some time discussing some of the nuances of the conversation that we had with governor scott tj donovan very much the same way very open and asking questions and if you ever thought law enforcement wasn't on your side you need to spend some time with the man because as the enforcer of all of our laws he is definitely watching out for us i now have his personal phone number i don't know if he wants you to know that on tv but if you can we put it on the screen there no no i don't think that'd be appropriate but what i would like to say is that if anybody has a just gonna text every night like you up that's somebody else you're thinking one of the things that we did cover was how to report an incident and he advocates that if anybody in the community has incidents of bias any type of hate speech anything that maybe we're observing in other states and it filters into vermont if you let me know i will let them know and it may be part of a larger case study or they may already have information or complaints about the individual or group so nothing is too blunt this is public service you mean yeah they do have a chain between the state and the state's attorney general the fbi local law enforcement as much as they have bad press they also have some good press and they have good people that work there and tj is one of them so i'm really glad to have him on our side that's good he marched in the pride parade with us oh no way which was really cool really cool so we had him in several people from his office that were in there with us cool you know being able to talk to folks or call them up or send them an email really is one of the strengths that i think i have in the position that i'm doing because if i say can we get a meeting nobody's declined time with me yeah no one has for united we stand up the only people who have said no to the show are republicans been very hard to book a conservative which is too bad because annie and i are nice people but we've had yeah everybody has been that's the nice thing about living in a small state is that your public officials are all very accessible and we've had great luck booking people for the show and the thing is about vermont politicians almost every single politician we've interviewed has either had to leave early or get there late because they have some sort of animal that they're taking care of everybody david is a farmer yes yeah david i think if i'm remembering correctly he could only do annie and my show if his horse didn't give birth that day which is a weird booking that's a show stopper i had to book around that speaking of republicans i have not had the opportunity yet to reach out to republicans but i will tell you that the well governor scott well governor scott is the top republican but you know with that said he should be accessible to everybody and i think that all the electorate should my own county of franklin i have the senate minority leader dustin degree and he's on my list actually in the next couple of weeks to reach out so i anticipate reaching across the aisle so to speak well that's good and i don't identify as either democrat or republican and i know that many people have very strong feelings within the lgbtq community but keep an open mind and i will when we sit down yeah yeah i think it's certainly important to just talk to people as individuals but i wonder how governor scott it seems like he was interested in what you were saying and was responsive to the issues you were bringing up i wonder how he feels about his party's hard line on those same issues if you've noticed any of the press that's come out of the governor's office lately he has denounced the rescission of daca he has also come out with ten other governors for the current health care program not to repeal and replace that the current federal republicans wanna do he understands the people of vermont and while the nuances of taxes and teachers and things might've gotten into a different category with some folks i think sincerely he thinks about our community and really does i know that republicans will be republicans and democrats will be democrats but with that said i think it's a pretty good state for some partisan work and passing of the first part through h333 through the house had very little objection as well as some of the other things that we're doing so i'm looking forward to working with everybody and the governor and the legislature is where we're headed yes you've got any more comedy for us cause i'm really dying to hear some jokes oh yes should we end on a joke well we're good yeah well i don't know if are you on any dating apps brenda did i admit to none that you admit to yeah i'd have to say one or two one or two do you mind if i ask which ones if i could remember them that's how often that i go in there okay cupid is a common one a lot of people on okay cupid is one of the ones and that seems fairly lgbtq friendly so oh really i haven't tried it well mostly l so that's mostly mostly yeah that's why it could be it could be there's not much for me there yeah i don't know i am on grindr and tinder look me up self promotion and i okay grindr and yeah being on grindr is fun but it also makes me like terrified of getting murdered tell me about that you're really in the green mountain state you might feel like you're getting murdered it makes me nervous about getting murdered because if you get murdered you just lose any sense of privacy you once had they just the cops go through all your stuff i just feel like i don't need that kind of hassle in my death you know what do they go through what are they well i would they if i got murdered they would have to go through my grindr account and that is absolutely my worst nightmare is that on your pc or cell phone it's on my phone oh boy which is yeah that's pretty damning these poor cops are not even gonna know what this guy's face looks like they're just gonna have to work backwards like a picture of his leg headless torso there's no registry for that headless torso pictures no it's just going to i'm so afraid it's gonna be all over the evening news like splashed across like have you seen this faceless torso contact the burlington pd oh my goodness and beware that he could have shaved by now i know my worst nightmare don't know if everybody will get that but i know all of the folks who are gay will probably yeah yes you don't have to be gay to be on grindr i think that's you can use it you can use it to find people gay people in your area you could also use it to avoid gay people in your area how you use it as your business okay i'm gonna start to wrap up a little bit i got the thirty minute notice so better than stretch this into forty five minutes i wanna let you know that my coliaison on keith goslant and myself are planning a road trip actually to four different locations this fall we wanna talk to the lgbtqia community without any filters we need to know what's going on in there and we wanna be able to have a very firm commitment to you guys as well as my organization that we're representing you not ourselves and not our own ideas so we need to hear from you and we'll announce that pretty broadly i am gonna take a moment to introduce my next guest taylor radke she's a young queer comedian and a friend and also i read here this can't be right you're recovering from a near fatal accident plane crash something like that okay were you're trying to fly or was it oh it was a skateboard oh i must've misread that cool yeah and you can find her at zero gravity pouring your favorite so hopefully soon and i wanna also give a shout out to zero gravity for their great contribution during the pride celebration they did a promotion with beer which is okay with me and donated back to the pride center and i wanna really thank kendall for being here with us today in my show debut and being the beautiful cohost that you are well thanks for having me brenda i know you're gonna be successful going down to new york city and we'll see you again when you come up to vermont you certainly will be invited i'm sure anywhere everywhere i hope so okay and this is brenda churchill for the comedy of state some news and some queer comics and hopefully a fresh perspective on for you guys and we'll see you soon i wanna thank you very much for watching have a great evening or day or night yeah