Tara Clancy - Cops and Cuckoo Clocks

 

 

All right, so when I told my father I was gay, he said, “All you need is love, sister.” And then we listened to a couple of Carole King records while making our own yogurt. [audience chuckles] Not a chance. My dad is a retired New York cop. Devout Irish catholic. He keeps a picture of the Pope hung around the rear view of his truck. Okay? And, in fact, becoming a cop was his second choice of career. His first was to be a priest. And he even went into the seminary, really hoping God would call him. Turns out he didn't. No hard feelings. My dad left, and a little while later, he met my mother and he had me. So, in essence, I am his fall from grace [audience chuckles], but I'm also an atheist, lesbian, drop in the ocean. [audience chuckles] 

 

So, while my dad wasn't cut out for bringing God's love to the masses, he was just great at throwing them in jail. [audience chuckles] And I mean that, he was in the warrant squad, which means he was like a bounty hunter for the NYPD for 21 years. After that, he retired, but not before getting his degree at night in accounting, naturally, that being the next logical step. Priest, bounty hunter, accountant. [audience laughter] So, the only reason I thought this might have gone okay is that my dad does have some very good gay friends who he even calls old school gays. He'll brag about them, and he'll say, and they don't make them like that anymore, you know? Meaning his gays, you know? [audience laughter] But that didn't matter.

 

When I told him I was gay, he flipped out. He was living in Atlanta at the time I was here. And so, our phone conversation ended with him insisting I fly down there that weekend to talk in person, click. So, there I am in the passenger seat of the truck, and the only thing he has said to me is, “We're going to a hotel.” That's it. And we drive, he and I, silent, motionless, the Pope swinging left and right. [audience chuckles] 

 

Two hours later, we're on a one lane road in the mountains. And now I'm thinking what you might be thinking. [audience chuckles] Hotel, my ass. Right? We are going to some pray the gay away Jesus camp. But just then, a billboard appears and it has a picture of a woman on it, sort of not unlike the St. Pauli Girl, you know with the braids and the beer and everything. And then it says, “Welcome to Helen, Georgia, a recreated alpine village.” [audience chuckles] And suddenly, here we are in this Disneyland, bad fake German town with windmills, and there are entire families wearing matching green hats with feathers, and this is it. This is a place my father has chosen to have the conversation of a lifetime with me. Okay? This place, where there is also something called Charlemagne's Kingdom that has three guys outside wearing lederhosen and playing glockenspiels. All right?

 

So, we pull into our parking space at the Heidi Motel, no shit, and head in. [audience chuckles] And then after sitting there stone faced, drinking Johnnie Walker out of our complimentary beer steins like idiots, he sets out to discover if how and why I'm gay in a room that has not one, but two cuckoo clocks. [audience laughter]

 

So, first, he blames me. “You're confused and you need therapy” he says, “I need therapy? I say, I need therapy. There is an Oompa band outside, dad.” [audience chuckles] Then he goes from blaming me to blaming himself. “I shouldn't have bought you those GI Joes or the Hot Wheels.” Anyway, this brings us to a little flashback to my childhood. So, my dad and I lived in a tiny studio apartment when I was a kid. Just the two of us pull out couch. And so, he starts thinking on that sort of time in our lives. And he gets a little bit quiet and he goes, “God, what did I know about bringing up a little girl? I did what I could, really, I just did what I could.”

 

And at that, we broke for dinner across the street at Heidelberg Schnitzelhaus. [audience laughter] We didn't say very much, but the anger was fading. And then, somewhere in between the sour broth and the strudel, my dad met his Waterloo. Literally, he just looked up at me, he raised a glass and he went, “Oh, screw it. At least now we got two things in common. Whiskey and women.” Thank you. [audience laughter]