Make a Way to Estonia

John McCombs pairs the disciplined absurdity of his military background with the domestic helplessness of a civilian who needs a YouTube tutorial to fix a door. On stage in Tallinn, Estonia, he treats the crowd to an hour of cultural friction, contrasting life in Chicago with the challenges of traveling abroad and dating a foreign woman with an inexplicable obsession with Taco Bell. He leans into the contrast between his aggressive Marine Corps training and his actual, everyday capability, finding humor in the gap between who he was trained to be and who he actually is.

Filmed at the Odeon Bar in Tallinn on December 4, 2021, and released digitally in 2023, the special represents a milestone for McCombs after years of pandemic-era sets in public parks. He works the room with the easy authority of a seasoned club comic, using his fish-out-of-water status in Eastern Europe to frame stories about back-home rednecks, dodging violence during brunch in Chicago, and encountering a terrifying Serbian child in an alley.