Jen Kirkman
I’m Gonna Die Alone (And I Feel Fine)
(Netflix)
B
Jen Kirkman’s work spans stints on Drunk History — retelling some of the world’s greatest stories while completely sloshed — and as a roundtable regular on Chelsea Lately. She also wrote a best-selling book, I Can Barely Take Care of Myself: Tales from a Happy Life without Kids, as well as few episodes of the Disney animated series Phineas and Ferb.
Kirkman’s first Netflix comedy special, I’m Gonna Die Alone (And I Feel Fine), was filmed in Austin earlier this year, and it’s a monster. Clocking in at nearly an hour and a half, it takes some serious commitment to delve into. She touches on turning 40 (which she absolutely does not look), getting divorced, being single with married friends, and the insanity of modern parenting methods.
Her first segment about a man who doesn’t seem embarrassed by his apparent inability to differentiate between citrus fruits falls a little short, ending with her suggesting he should be killed and thrown into the ocean. The audience likes the idea of a world with “one less dumbass,” applauding at the suggestion, but the moment is saved one step further by Jen’s immediate sigh: “Oh, Texas.”
Kirkman is clearly influenced by Sam Kinison. It shows when she vents about people insisting she have kids and when she’s pretending to be a young, drunk version of herself. Her vigor adds organic highs and lows to her material, and her rough voice is as endearing as it is accessible. It offers the perfect touch when she croaks, “I’ve seen some shit.” Some of her best jokes are understated and nearly done as asides, with a dry but appropriately crisp delivery. She speaks to what she believes is true with the acknowledgment that she is middle-aged and thus not planning to change her career anytime soon.
I’m Gonna Die Alone is deeply personal, and Kirkman is at her best when she’s spinning these kinds of stories. In two of the most memorable bits, she hilariously lays out her brief stint as a cougar and her friend’s new parenting techniques, which include standing in the darkened corner of her toddler’s room so the child can feel “empowered” while he’s sleeping.
She rightly calls out the ludicrousness of weddings and questions why we all feel obligated to buy each other the snack nut bowls that are on so many registries. Her segment on everyone’s insistence that their wedding was “fun” and “like a big party” rings true in an age when you have to take seven sets of pictures for every step of your relationship just to keep blood flowing to your Facebook page. Of course, everyone insists their wedding was great — they literally can’t afford for it not to be! — and Jen Kirkman knows they make us crazy from her own personal experience.
Kirkman spends quite a bit of time on the ideological difference between married and single people. Well, more like married people thinking they are more mature, put together, and further ahead in life than their single friends. She does, however, provide a unique perspective on the subject: She is both recently married and recently divorced, even recounting the awkwardness of being uninvited to her friends’ couples dinner.
The special covers an impressive amount of subjects, and you truly feel close to Kirkman when it’s over. Specials like these are often trimmed down to their absolute funniest parts, with natural lulls and moments of recuperation left on the cutting room floor. Yet I’m Gonna Die Alone (And I Feel Fine) is given room to breathe and thus feels closer to sitting in front of a live comic. That being said, Jen Kirkman isn’t for everyone. And she’s just fine with that.
