Al Madrigal: Why is the Rabbit Crying?

[FisherGreen's Sisters Brothers plays]

II

Ladies and gentlemen,

please give a warm welcome

to Mr. Al Madrigal.

II

- What is happening? How you guys doing?

Thanks for coming out. I really appreciate it.

Hey.

My name's Al. I'll tell you guys about myself.

I live in Los Angeles,

and near my house in Los Angeles

is a waterfall that I love to take the wife and the kids-

and we got some dogs. We take them up there.

But it's also

near a sketchy neighborhood, so there's a lot

of gang members that hang out at the waterfall.

It's like somebody took an Ansel Adams photo

and then put a Cypress Hill video inside it.

And at first, I got to tell ya,

it's scary 'cause you don't really-

you don't expect to see gang members at the waterfall.

And we actually witnessed this.

This is a conversation that we overheard

right when we got up there for the first time.

We saw a gang member run up

to another gang member with something in his hand.

I was like, "Oh, my God.

"My family is gonna watch somebody

get stabbed creek-side."

The guy runs up and goes, "Hey. Check it out.

It's a tree frog, homes."

Happened.

Then the other guy says, "How you know it's a tree frog, bro?"

"I found it by a tree, stupid."

And everyone in my family at the same moment went,

"Best waterfall ever."

It's nature-loving cholos.

This is fantastic. And it is fantastic.

I find myself watching

the gang members appreciate nature

more than I'm appreciating the nature.

I like to imagine that they're all up there

on an organized retreat

to get away from gang life,

like a field trip that they signed up for

to come together as a unit.

They're up there doing trust exercises.

Like, "I'm gonna fall back. You gonna catch me, bro?"

"I always catch you. I always catch you."

I also like to imagine that they're up there

to take care of the forest.

This brown beret, conservation corps.

A Smokey the Cholo, if you will.

They graffitied the waterfall, which sucks.

And it's not nice graffiti either,

because there's good graffiti and then there's bad graffiti.

Like, it's not some tasteful mural that's been done

to remember one of their fallen homeboys

that died of Lyme disease.

Airbrushed, "R.l.P. Carlos. There's no ticks in heaven."

Just says, "Chucho."

And you're giving me a funny look.

They didn't graffiti the actual waterfall.

It's like the dumbest gang members ever.

"It's not working."

No.

So it just sort of proves

that anytime you take a gang member

out of their element and you put them anywhere,

it's automatically going to be funny.

Cholos in space. Hilarious.

"Hey, Houston. You got a problem, bro."

Sorry.

Which leads me to my favorite character

that I've met of all time.

Cholo soccer dad.

They're everywhere. I didn't-l had no idea.

So we're down in Los Angeles, and we take my son

to his first practice

of Mighty Mites football,

five- and six-year-olds playing flag football.

It's adorable.

When out of the corner of my eye-

I'm there with the whole family-

I see a Cholo coming straight for us.

Everybody close your eyes

and imagine your scariest Mexican gang member.

That guy's walking right for us.

Now I'm using "cholo" a lot,

and I'm not sure if anyone's traveling or from out of town.

A cholo is a Latino gentleman that you may have seen

with white socks pulled all the way up,

plaid shorts to meet the white socks,

white T-shirt oversized, very similar

to a Catholic schoolgirls uniform.

It's a lot scarier.

I'm not sure if you've seen

the movie Training Day with Denzel Washington.

That's cholo-heavy, all right?

If you ever watch the Prison Channel, AKA Nat-Geo,

there's a lot of cholos in that.

Think you're going to tune in and see some pygmy titty.

No, it's MS-13 shanking people by the handball court.

Maybe some neck tattoos, gold chain.

I'm not sure if anybody wants

to stand up and make this easier.

Shaved head, mustache. See yourself a cholo.

You're not cholo-y. You're, like, cholo adjacent.

You're like-

I'm sure you're friends with some cholos,

but with a V-neck T-shirt like that, I'm not too worried.

So...

He's got a Caesar.

I'm sure you know some, but I'm not-l don't feel threatened.

Anyway, guy's coming

right at us.

Now, me and my wife have been together

for about 12 years at this point,

married almost about that long.

Oh, yeah. Please, don't clap.

Don't clap for her ass.

Me and my wife are in synch.

I know everything about this woman.

I know her favorite everything.

When we go to Target, we don't shop.

We run plays. Right?

She knows exactly

what I'm thinking, and she is right.

I do think everyone in her family lacks ambition

and will be a drain on us financially at some point.

We have eye signals for stuff,

hand signals for stuff.

It's incredible.

For example, if my wife has too much to drink at a party,

I don't have to say anything.

She starts yapping too much, I get to just go like this.

Doo, doo, doo.

Three little, discreet leg squeezes under the table.

She knows that means, "Put a sock in it, drunkie.

"Time for you to wrap it up.

"Somebody didn't have

"dinner like I suggested.

"Now you're spouting off at the mouth,

"divulging all the family secrets.

You need to pipe down, or we got to go."

And she's cool with it. That's the best part.

She's like, "Was I talking too much?

Thank you." And it works for me.

So I rub the back of my wife's thumb.

She knows that means, "Cholo, 3:00. Look alive."

He's coming right at us, like I said.

Lot of neck tattoos.

I'm trying to decipher 'em on the fly.

But I didn't watch Prison Break or Oz.

They all mean something, right?

So I'm going, "Why is the rabbit crying?

"What does that mean?

He did something to a rabbit."

Me and my wife held each other for a little bit, thinking,

"Okay, we had a good run, baby. Now we're going to die."

The guy comes up.

Turns out he's our son's coach.

No shit. He goes,

"Hey, everybody. My name's Coach Frankie.

But you can call me Rascal."

"See, honey? We're not going to die.

Coach Rascals here. It's gonna be fine."

He then presents us with a snack list.

When your child is in any sport,

the team mom, or in this case,

a very scary Mexican gang member,

has prepared a document to determine

what family is responsible

for snack on any given game day.

He's laid his out perfectly in Microsoft Word tables.

He left-justified all of his text.

He didn't go with a gothic-y cholo font

like you'd expect him to.

He used Arial,

like we all should.

He centered his header, he imported some clip art,

and he was very proud of it, so we found ourselves-he-

"I wrote a snack list."

"Check it out,

my snack list."

So me and my wife found ourselves

in that great couple moment

where you're holding hands trying not to laugh

at somebody right in front of you,

doing the Morse code hand squeeze,

going, "Cholo made a snack list. Cholo made a snack list.

"Don't laugh at the cholo. Don't laugh at the cholo.

"Oh, my God. Cholo made a snack list.

So proud of it."

Now, if you're a young couple doing this for the first time,

this snack thing, and you have kids in any sport,

you want to go at the beginning of the season

when expectations are low.

You bring some Teddy Grahams,