Watch or listen to the stand-up comedy special 'Shrimpin' Ain't Easy' (2017) by Al Madrigal on Comedy Buff. Transcript available. Tracks include: Mexican Hulk, Yelp, Sea Bass Revenge, and Allergies & Chipotle.

Al Madrigal

Shrimpin' Ain't Easy

i flip out when provoked and poked i lose my mind i'm trying not to my dad it was not successful little five foot five mexican hulk loses constantly i'm not sure if anybody grew up with an intense father treated every life decision like it was the last play of the super bowl all right i want you to go inside i want you to look the guy in the eyes shake his hand and say i would like to buy this gum and you're like okay we'd mess with him constantly me and my brothers because we knew we could get him to overreact until i stopped at the age of 25 when this happened i had this little irish girlfriend i'm dating for two and a half years that everybody in my family hated my brothers hated her mom hated her dad hated her i hated her but it was my first girlfriend so i didn't know if another one was coming so you held on a little bit longer so i called my dad up april fools perfect time to with them and i said uh hey dad do we have a family jeweler and you could just hear teeth grinding through the phone and then he goes yeah we do why he said well i was gonna buy nicole an engagement ring and i was hoping you could help me buy that that's what he said he goes i got an idea how about we buy you a shotgun and you can put it in your mouth and blow your face off that's what a father said to his son when he thought he was going to propose to his girlfriend of two and a half years a legitimate amount of time to pass prior to engagement he didn't stop there by the way he said hey and for what it's worth i wouldn't piss in that little leprechaun's mouth if she was lying in the desert dying of thirst and what do you say to that certainly not april fools gotcha no you don't with that guy again you hope you don't turn out like him My wife only does a couple of things that get the machete out and get me riled up.
Love her to death, but a couple of things bug the shit out of me and she continues to do. She divulges information about me to other people, so we'll be at like a dinner party and somebody will put out some edamame. She'll go, "Al can't. Al can't have any of the edamame. 'Cause it makes 'em gassy." Gotta have one of those pitcher's mound mumble fights with your wife in the corner. It's like, "You're just fucking mouth gassy?"
"I'm gonna eat that edamame and they're gonna find out it makes me gassy." "Fuck, shut the fuck up." She did this. We were at my son's basketball game. And we sent our kids to school with all normal parents, non-Hollywood people. And there's this macho dad who trains cops. He's a cop who trains other cops how to fight. That's his job. And he's standing there and he has these really cool boots on. And I go, "Hey man, those are really cool boots.
Who makes those?" And before this guy can reply at all, my wife leans in and she goes, "Al's really into boots right now." That's when I look at her and I go, "Shut the fuck up." "Al's really into boots right now. It's true, I love jeans too." It's the worst. The other thing she does is a lot of Yelp. My wife uses Yelp way too much, which I don't understand at all. I really don't. We were in Kauai and I snapped because she's got fucking Yelp out nonstop.
Like it's a divining rod walking around going, "All right, there's a burger place and Jason from Poipu gets the Luhui burger." And I fucking lost my shit. So in this Kauai strip mall, I go, "I don't want to follow the lead of people who have burger review time on their hands. Put it away." Because I don't. Not once have I had a club sandwich and thought to fucking log it in afterwards. I don't understand the mentality of anyone who would do this.
Unreliable narrator. We don't know who any of these people are and what they think is fancy. Like it's a hotel review. You don't know this guy could be used to sleeping on a cot in a barn in Cedar Rapids. He goes to the big city and everything's great. "Oh, their towels are only slightly crunchy. Five stars." "Only a couple drops of blood on the carpet. Five stars. All the stars." Five star review of a new restaurant?
I'm not going to go there. Because you know that a mass email went out. That's what I would do. "Hey, everybody. I just opened up a wood-fired pizza place. Unless you want me sleeping on your couch again, better get yelping." And here come the fucking five stars. One star review, that's your revenge. That's what you're going to do. You're going to take the place down, like wasting your own time. If you had a bad experience, just walk up to the manager at the end and go, "Hey, this place fucking sucks."
"Waitress is an asshole." "That's it. You're done. Five seconds." And also, if it's food, you're going to eat again in four hours, dickhead. Like, suck it up. Try harder next time. If you walk away with anything, remember this. Any three-star review you see, at any point in your life, know it's written by a crazy person, who doesn't have their life in perspective at all. Because think about it, somebody went somewhere, did something, used something, ate something, went home, remembers one of their 40 passwords, and they log in, write an unsolicited five-paragraph essay, ultimately to arrive at.
The only thing worth reading on Yelp: strip club reviews, all fantastic. Every single one of them. Any city in America, you go to Yelp, you type in "gentleman's club," and any city, and they're all fantastic, every single one. It really is true. No one ever went there on their own accord, everyone's like, "My co-workers decided to take me to the landing strip by the airport in Austin, Texas." My favorite one is the men's club, Houston, Texas, and it's about six down the last time I checked, and this is how it starts.
It says, "First of all, let me be clear. I only went there for the breakfast buffet." - Yeah. - I was telling this story and it was down in San Diego. People come up to me after the shows and sometimes they volunteer their own seafood revenge stories. I'm not the only person to do this. So this kid comes up and he goes, "Hey dude, your fucking shrimp story, bro? Listen to this, dude. I used to work at a Vons, bro?
And me and my buddy, we hated the manager. He was a total dick. So one day a forklift, it rammed into the back wall by the loading dock in the store. So we got like a sea bass from the seafood department and then we got a broom and we pushed it into the hole, bro? And then the next day, dude, they fixed the fucking hole, dude. And then like two days went by and then it started smelling and then it started smelling more and then customers started to complain.
And then the manager put a fucking cone out for some reason. And then two weeks later, bro, they closed the fucking Vons, dude, for good. They shut down the whole fucking Vons. They shut down the whole fucking Vons. They shut down the whole fucking Vons. They shut down the whole fucking Vons. They shut down the whole fucking Vons. They shut down the whole fucking Vons. They shut down the whole fucking Vons.
They shut down the whole fucking Vons. They shut down the whole fucking Vons. Thank you. - Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Al Madrigal! - Thank you, appreciate it. My name's Al, thanks for coming out, appreciate it. Let's see, let's get started. I, um... See, I just went to my first black barber shop in Philadelphia. It was not by choice. Just saw the barber pole out in front of this place, and I needed a haircut.
And I walked in, you saw his old black eyes. At that point, you can't just go, "Oh, sorry, uh... "didn't know it was one of these ones." No, I stayed in there. Hey, guys, and I signed up for the straight razor shave. You guys know what I'm talking about, the old-timey shave with the hot towel on your face? No, I'm highly allergic. I take a Claritin almost every day. I have an inhaler. Use an Al May deodorant.
It's hypoallergenic. I'm not sure if it's for women, but I use it. If anybody wants to fuck with me, no need to heckle. All you gotta do is throw a fabric softener up here. No, I'm not sure if I'm going to fuck with you. No, I'm not sure if I'm going to fuck with you. No, I'm not sure if I'm going to fuck with you. No, I'm not sure if I'm going to fuck with you. No, I'm not sure if I'm going to fuck with you.
No, I'm not sure if I'm going to fuck with you. No, I'm not sure if I'm going to fuck with you. No, I'm not sure if I'm going to fuck with you. No, I'm not sure if I'm going to fuck with you. No, I'm not sure if I'm going to fuck with you. No, I'm not sure if I'm going to fuck with you. No, I'm not sure if I'm going to fuck with you. No, I'm not sure if I'm going to fuck with you. No, I'm not sure if I'm going to fuck with you.
No, I'm not sure if I'm going to fuck with you. No, I'm not sure if I'm going to fuck with you. No, I'm not sure if I'm going to fuck with you. No, I'm not sure if I'm going to fuck with you. No, I'm not sure if I'm going to fuck with you. No, I'm not sure if I'm going to fuck with you. No, I'm not sure if I'm going to fuck with you. No, I'm not sure if I'm going to fuck with you. No, I'm not sure if I'm going to fuck with you.
No, I'm not sure if I'm going to fuck with you. What am I going to say? Excuse me, extremely cool black guys who all look like most deaf. What type of aftershave do you have there? Because I'm highly allergic. I take a Claritin almost every day and I got an inhaler. God forbid I use a fabric softener. No, I didn't say shit. Those guys could have rubbed a cat, some pollen, and their dicks on my face.
Oh, the old cat and dick shave. Thanks a lot, fellas. Doing pretty good on my New Year's resolution so far. I'm probably going to make it all year. I'm going to make it my whole life. I picked an easy one. No Chipotle. Never going back to Chipotle. It's too nice. It's too well-lit. Everybody knows if you want good Mexican food, it's got to be a little scary. You got to go to a roach coach, park down in front of a mechanic shop.
Midnight, that's how you get the good shit. You got to walk up, order fast, order scared. All right. Hola, como estas? Can I have three Al Pastor tacos, por favor? Get the fuck away from me! Check out some of your other items while your order's coming up. Can't do that at Chipotle. Yes. Canto Cuesto, the Deadpool DVD, and the socks. How much are these socks? I also brush up on my Spanish. A lot of phrases you're not going to find in a Rosetta Stone.
Right? Yes. Como se dice, can your pit bull please stop licking me? How do you say that? This guy's going to town. I'm going to the next one. I'm going to the next one. I'm going to the next one. I'm going to the next one. By the way, if you aren't an undocumented worker and you want to stay in this country, not get caught, thrown out, one of the three million they're gonna deport, very simple, one word, remember this, Lacoste.
No one's ever been thrown out of the United States wearing a fuckin' alligator shirt. And you just go, "I'm sorry, there must be some mistake, officer." My Lacoste. I'm sorry. This is the dream. This is it. This is what they want to happen. When you're sneaking across the border into this country, when you're working shit jobs that no one else will do, this is what you're hoping for. It's all right.
I mean, it's not that great. I like to think it's specifically this, like a husband and wife hunched over in some Salinas strawberry field, right? This is all that keeps her going. Don't worry, Maria. Everything's gonna be okay. Because one day... This is all in Spanish. Because one day... We're gonna have a grandchild, and that grandchild's gonna be allergic to dairy. His arms are gonna be defined, not from lifting full buckets of water, but from lifting kettlebells made to simulate buckets of water.
And this boy will work out while wearing the finest Lululemon outfit money can buy him. He will pick lemons? No. He will pick out Lululemon. The exact opposite of picking anything. And he will have a stigmatism so severe... that he will never be eligible for LASIK surgery no matter how afforda