Vaxxed & Waxed

Gabe Kea spent the pandemic like a lot of suburban dads: trying to sneak away to smoke weed under the guise of birdwatching. His 2023 set spends plenty of time on the exhausting logistics of parenting, from dealing with tequila-scented hand sanitizer to finding tampons packed in his suitcase by a toddler who mistook them for push pops. Released on YouTube in October 2023 by production company Four by Three, the 38-minute special was filmed at Go Bananas Comedy Club in Cincinnati, Ohio, where Kea is a regular presence. The performance captures a transition point in stand-up, looking back at pandemic anxieties just as they were beginning to fade. Kea, who previously put out his album Dumber Than a Fish, keeps the tone light and conversational, even when joking about putting his vaccinated mother in a nursing home or poking fun at Covid restrictions. He also manages an early-show interruption from a front-row audience member named Juicy, turning what could have been a distraction into an easy running joke.