Dion Flynn - Deathbed Obama

 

 

Let's see, about six years ago, I got an email. And it said, “Our mother is dying-- It's complete strangers. “Our mother is dying and we need Barack Obama to come to brighten up her deathbed.” I don't know Barack Obama. I don't work for him. But for 10 years, I was a Barack Obama impersonator. [audience laughter and applause]

 

 

So, it made sense that they're writing to me. It wasn't just out of the blue. Anyway, yeah, so I did Obama on the Late Night with Jimmy Fallon and The Tonight Show, a bunch of TV appearances and things. Now, something happens when you portray Barack Obama on national television. Suddenly-- You don't expect this. Suddenly, people want you to come to their live events. So, I've roasted CEOs, I've been to mergers and IPOs. I did two Sheva Brachots. [audience laughter] 

 

I didn't even know what a Sheva Brachot was. I've been to two of them as Obama. I did a birthday party one time for a mafia connected woman with Alzheimer's. [audience laughter] It's a very niche gig. [audience laughter] These guys asked me one time, they wanted me to be in an adult film as Obama. [audience laughter] 

 

We're talking on the phone, and they're revealing to me that it's an adult film. And I'm like, “That is beneath the dignity of the office. How much does it pay?” [audience laughter] Because I got a kid, you know? I got a kid, I got a mortgage, I got a wife, I got to make that money. But I was reluctant. I was always a reluctant Obama. The Washington Post did a profile on 5 Obamas. I was one of them. There was the Bronx Obama, the Asian Obama. I was the reluctant Obama. 

 

I'll tell you why I was the reluctant Obama. When I was young, I would look at the dollar bill. I saw a white president. I looked at Mount Rushmore. I saw white presidents. I looked at that little paper strip above the chalkboard in my classroom. It was all white presidents. And I was like, “You know what?” We're never going to have a black president. I'm never going to be the president. I don't have to worry about it.” 

 

Here's the funny part. I used to do impressions of presidents even when I was young, because I'd see them on TV and I would make the kids laugh, like Ronald Reagan. I'd be like, “Well, let's suppose your mom baked a big blueberry pie,” something like that. [audience applause] 

 

Or, Richard Nixon, everybody can-- “I'd like to make one thing perfectly clear.”? So, Fast forward to 2008. And Obama becomes the president. We have a black president. I'm like, “What?” I'm living in New York City at this time. My comedy partner at the time was a former SNL writer. He comes up to me and he says, “Dude, SNL doesn't have anybody to play Obama. They're putting it out in the comedy community. You know this. Why aren't you auditioning for this? This seems like something you should do.” 

 

I said, “Listen, I'm not going to do it.” He goes, “Why?” I said, “Because-- I took the noble path.” I said, “This is our first black president. My impressions are rooted in mockery. I'm not going to mock this guy before he even steps into the space.” My friend who knew me, said, “Is it that or is it that you can't do the voice?” I was like, “It's a little bit of both.” [audience laughter] Yeah. 

 

A few years later, and I'm doing bits on late night television. I broke in a little bit and was doing weathermen, and magicians and stuff like this. And then, Obama starts to show up. He showed up on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. I saw his appearance and I was like, “This guy's funny.” Like, “He's got a sense of humor. He's not going to mind if I, little me does a little impersonation.” So, permission clicked in my head. And then, soon after, a producer from the show, he starts looking at me. He's got his clipboard. He starts looking at me, like I'm in a museum case or something. He starts looking at my head and my ears. He's like, “Could you play Obama, do you think?” And I was like, “My people need me. The time has come.” [audience laughter]

 

So, I have to figure out, I'm willing to do it. I have to figure out his voice. Now, the way I crack the code on Obama's voice, Obama's voice is like, it’s like a creaky old door and a chicken. [mimics Obama voices] “You know, a lot of people say that my voice is like a creaky old door and a chicken. Buck, buck, buck, buck.” [audience cheers and applause]

 

“I don't hear it. I don't hear it.” [audience laughter] And the cadence of his voice is a lot like-- It's a metaphor for the country. It's like this. Barack Obama's voice, it goes along like this here and then, it just falls. [audience laughter] It's like a sick bird that's flying from the north and all gets as far as Georgia, and then it just dies. So, that's the voice. I get it. I start doing it on television. It becomes popular. I do it like 50 times, and then people start wanting me to come to live events, and it pays. I need to make money. It pays well. 

 

So, I contact this guy who says, our mother is dying. He's out in Chicago. I'm in New York. So, I call him back. First thing he says to me is, “We tried to book the number one Obama, and we're down to you.” [audience laughter] I'm like, “Take it easy, buddy. You're not the only deathbed gig.” No, actually, you are. You are the only deathbed gig. So, I said, “Look, you need me, what, by the end of the week or whatever?” He's like, “I need you tomorrow. Tonight, if you can make it.” I was like, “What?” “I need you right away. She's not going to be here long.” I said, “Okay, okay, okay, okay. I've never done this quickly. So, you got to give me information.” 

 

“Okay, her name is Esther. What else do you need?” I was like, “I'll send forms. Fill those out. Have everybody that she knows, all of her friends, anybody you can get to email me these forms, and I'll come right out now. I'll glean the information. I'll write the jokes.” “Okay. Great.” So, 12 hours later, I'm on a plane. I don't sleep the whole time from hearing of this till getting there. So, the other thing you learn when you play Barack Obama on television and you start to interact with people, people love to tell fake Obama the real truth about stuff. So, I'm on the plane. I'm flipping through the emails, and they're telling the truth about Esther, “She's secretive. She buys way too many shoes. She was with a compulsive gambler for way too long. She's Mexican, but she's lived her life as if she's Italian.” 

 

What? What am I supposed to do with this information? I got to write jokes here. I'm going to tell you something. I want to do well at this deathbed. I want to kill at a deathbed, which is weird. [audience laughter] I know it's weird. I know it's weird to put it that way. Now, I go to the mirror and do the setup for Obama, because I got to put his ears out. I put these little sponges behind my ears, and I glue them with skin safe glue that they taught me to do this at NBC. Put on his mole in the mirror. I put on this stuff called topic. 

 

You just put it on, I spray Aqua Net fill in my hair, and then I have a sandwich baggie full of my own hair, which would be strange in any other job, I guess, other than this one. [audience laughter] Sprinkle those little cuttings onto my hair. More Aqua Net, more cuttings. Aqua Net and cuttings. And I'm like, “All right, there we go. We got it. Ready to go.” And then, I get into the presidential SUV, which they insist I rent. You got to rent a presidential size SUV. She's never going to see this SUV. But it's like being in a Martin Scorsese movie. If it's in the 1800s, you got to wear the underwear from the 1800s.

 

So, we drive over and we're in the suburbs of Chicago. We see a guy in the distance standing outside and he says, “Come on.” We go inside. Open the door. And in the middle of this large room is Esther. She's in a Craftmatic automatic adjustable living bed. And everybody else, her daughters and little children and friends, everybody, they are in the room, but they are as far away from her as you can be and still be in the same room. Nobody wants to be friends with death, but I got to go right in.

 

So, I go in, I got the jokes, I got the guitar. I say, “Esther, you know, the National Security Administration, you know, I have information on everybody. I know everything.” So, just to justify why I know this stuff. “So, why are you buying so many damn shoes?” She starts to giggle a little bit. She knows she's guilty. “You buying so many damn shoes. That's not fiscally responsible. You got more shoes than Imelda Marcos.” And she's laughing. I'm like, “All right.” 

 

And so, then I say, “This guy, this compulsive gambler you lived with for so long, that son of a bitch, why didn't you leave him?” This was before we don't do that to people. Like, we don't blame the victim for not leaving. I didn't know this back then, okay? [audience laughter] Sorry, old school jokes. But she laughed. Every time I called her ex-gambling husband, a worse name, she would laugh even more. So, I just kept going. So, we're having a good time, and she's giggling and then I say, “Come on, Esther, it's obvious you're Mexican. Why are you living like you're Italian? That's just like a lateral move. What are you-- [audience laughter] She is laughing. She is dying laughing. [audience laughter] 

 

She laughs so much that she becomes regurgitative. [audience laughter] She grabs her bucket and I'm holding her hand. We get through it. We get through it together. We're friends by now. And let me tell you something. You've never been in a surreal situation until you are dressed as a former president singing a Leonard Cohen song to a woman who will not be alive tomorrow. I have the guitar out, and I just go for it, singing hallelujah to her. “I heard there was a sacred court that David played and it pleased the Lord, but… you don't really care for music, do you? Is she shaking her head no? I'm like, “Well, what are you shaking your head no for? And you don't care for music?” And she's like, “No, I didn't vote for you.” [cheers and applause] 

 

Everybody starts laughing. I'm like, “What?” She has the best joke of the night. She kills at her own deathbed. “How dare you?” And she did. She had the line of the night. We wrap up and it's time to go. I'm packing up, and backing up and getting on out of there. Her little grandson comes over, as I'm leaving. He comes over, this little red sponge ball, and he wants to show me some up-close magic. When you play Obama as an adult man, you also do up close magic. It's just part of the profile. [audience laughter] 

 

So, we exchange a couple of tricks here. He won't let me leave. I'm like, “[chuckles]” We do it and it's very touching. Then I realized what's going on. Nobody's friends with death. And then, I'm thinking like, “Well, Abraham Lincoln said, ‘Do I not destroy my enemy when I make him my friend?’” In some way, we had all sort of made friends with death or made it a little bit lighter, but they do not want me to leave. And so, I say with a little bit of Obama kind of hope, you know I say, “Esther,” and I'm out the door, I get packed up, “Esther, when you feel better, I'll save a place for you in my cabinet. Now, I got to get back to the White House. Buh-bye.”