Comedian Kathleen Madigan reflects on Trump, Charlotte, and tiny houses

Comedian Kathleen Madigan is a news junkie who usually has her hotel room television tuned to CNN or SportsCenter, and the current problems in Charlotte hit close to home for her. Madigan grew up two miles away from Ferguson, Mo., where the fatal shooting of Michael Brown set off a firestorm of riots and racial tension in 2014 and was one of the first in a string of high-profile killings of black men by police.

“We were all watching. We also figured this was going to happen. The tension has always been there. It’s like a powder keg,” Madigan says. “You hate to see more people getting hurt, more things getting destroyed. What’s the answer? Selfishly, I was thinking, ‘Please don’t burn down the donut store.’ There’s one closer, but we always go to the one in Ferguson.”

She didn’t reconsider rescheduling her upcoming gig here – she brings The Mermaid Lady tour to McGlohon Theater Thursday.

“I didn’t think twice about it,” she says. “I think I booked myself at one of those hotels I saw on TV. I thought maybe I should call. The news always makes something look 50 times larger.”

The tumultuous election year does make it a good time to be a comedian.

“I don’t think he’ll win,” she said of Trump prior to Monday’s debate. “I think his fan base is louder and more participatory. Even to the last day they were saying Mitt Romney and Obama were neck and neck. No, they weren’t.”

Madigan watches the news religiously and could make political jokes at any given time, but this year “everybody is paying attention.”

“There’s a lot of information in my head that I could write jokes about, but whether you watch the news or not, you know Hillary and Trump. It would be hard not to know,” she says. “This time, it’s gone off the rails. ... To see the old-establishment Republicans like Jeb Bush be literally speechless when Trump’s insulting them. They’re flabbergasted. They think they’re playing chess and he’s playing rugby. I’ve never seen the party divided like this, where the Bushes say, ‘I’m not going to the convention.’ ”

That’s not to say current events are her only interest and her show isn’t singularly political. She takes time off so she’ll have something else to joke about. She’s an avid golfer who plays with fellow career comedian buddies Ron White (who will perform at Ovens Auditorium in Charlotte the night after Madigan is at McGlohon) and BFF Lewis Black, a UNC alumni who has a home in Chapel Hill.

“I call it book jail,” she says of Black’s summer Southern writing retreats. “All he does is call me all day – ‘I really want to go golfing.’ I’m like, ‘You’re supposed to be in book jail.’ ”

Madigan can also dig into the great social equalizer that is reality TV.

“If I’m not watching news, I’m watching ‘House Hunters,’ ” she says. “I scream at ‘Tiny House Hunters.’ They always ask the same question ‘Well, can I pull it?’ Well, where’s your truck. A really decent truck is like 60 grand. Where are you going to park it? They all end up in their mother’s back yard. You’re camping. They’d be better off buying a driveable RV.”

This story was originally published September 30, 2016 at 6:47 AM with the headline "Comedian Kathleen Madigan reflects on Trump, Charlotte, and tiny houses."