(dramatic music)
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- We provide the citizens and visitors of Boulder County
with efficient and effective public safety services.
And then we deliver those services
with character, competence and open communication.
The other part about it is like the rules I have
for people that I'm responsible for,
like my three commander expectations for night shift is
one is the old Patrick Swayze "Road House" rules,
be nice,
be nice until it's time to not be nice.
If you have to use force or something like that,
it's not a, there's not gonna be a question.
You'll know when it's appropriate to flip the switch.
Rule number two, take care of the men and women
to your left and right.
I mean, and that's not just the officers
who were on the shift, deputies working with you.
That's everybody.
That could be my mom, my dad, my brother, my sister,
just like it could be yours.
So we need to take care of those people.
What's the right thing to do in the situation
we're dealing with?
And rule number three is don't get yourself so far in
that I can't get you out.
And all that means is if you don't know what you're doing,
stop and ask a question.
There's no dumb question.
And I've been doing this for a long time,
but I still don't know everything
and things are constantly changing
and I'm not on the road all the time,
so there's things I have to teach myself to relearn again.
When I went to the academy,
nobody told me, like when you come outta the academy,
you're excited.
You know, new cop coming outta the wrapper.
I call 'em when they graduate the academy,
I call 'em coming outta the wrapper.
They're new, they're brand-new and shiny, they're excited.
Some kids drinking underage, they take off running.
You're like, woo.
Yeah, baby, woo.
(audience laughs)
But when you've been on the department as long as I've been,
you gotta weigh the risk versus the reward.
(audience laughs)
If you ever see me running after somebody,
hit that son of a bitch with your car.
(audience laughs)
That's a homicide suspect.
(audience laughs)
(energetic music)
(police radio chatters indistinctly)
I hate drunk women, man.
They're always lying to me like,
"Officer, you're so good looking."
I'm like, really?
No.
Are you a dirty officer?
(audience laughs)
My mother, you may not understand, man.
She is the Mexican Wolverine.
(Vinnie vocalizes like a siren)
Oh, here, bear, bear, bear, bear.
You think I'm sweating now?
You should have seen me 45 minutes into hot power yoga.
(Vinnie inhales loudly)
(audience laughs)
More importantly, I didn't realize is
if I get a contact high,
I become Mexican Tickle Me Elmo.
He'd be like, "Ma'am, why don't you do me a favor?
Shut your freaking yapper."
He's like, "Mijo, you need some backup?"
(energetic music continues)
(audience laughs)
When people find out that I'm not only a cop
but a standup comedian,
I think their first reaction is probably what I usually get
when I come off stage.
They ask me, "Are you really a cop?"
And a lot of 'em will say,
"You know, I've never met a funny cop."
And if you think about that, that's true
because who really thinks of a cop being funny
when you get pulled over on the side of the road,
or when we go to calls?
Nobody calls 911 because something is going great.
It's only when chaos has erupted
that the cops get called.
Kinda units respond to a vehicle on fire.
What do I hear right after they dispatch that?
(Vinnie crackles like radio)
Dispatch, can you advise a description on the vehicle?
(audience laughs)
It's the one that's on fire.
You don't think about that until you watch
a police officer on stage doing standup comedy
and they see you in an entirely different light.
(jaunty music)
I was an Explorer for seven years, 14 to 21.
I was a National Youth Rep in '94 and '96.
I wanna thank all the advisors for being advisors
because when I was an Explorer,
I tested my advisor's patience.
Did I have a propensity to do things as an Explorer
that I probably shouldn't have?
Yes.
These types of Explorers that I'm gonna talk about right now
exist in every post.
If you don't recognize them, it's probably you.
(audience laughs)
I just wanted to be involved.
I wanted to be a cop more than anything.
I was inspired by "CHiPs",
Ponch and Jon.
So you know, when I got into the role,
we were allowed to carry handcuffs.
You know, I took the opportunity
and of course it got me in trouble.
The first time I met Vinnie, Vincenzo,
the Vince man.
Well,
I am happy to tell you
the greatest little secret in the world.
The millisecond that Vinnie started his career
in law enforcement was at the back door
of the Lafayette Police Department
where he showed up for his very first law enforcement
Police Explorer meeting.
Vinnie knew everything before it had been taught.
And he was extremely energetic.
He wanted to do everything.
He wanted to be right in the mix from the get-go.
And had a hard time persuading him
that maybe he didn't know everything.
This is one of my favorite Explorers,
and he's at every single post,
Inspector Gadget Explorer.
(audience laughs)
You're like, what is that Explorer, what is that Explorer?
He's got like 16 keepers on his belts.
(audience laughs)
Three flashlights, 16 tactical knives.
(audience laughs)
12 tourniquets, he looks like Batman,
you know what I'm saying?
(audience laughs)
If you asked him, "You got shark spray?"
You got shark spray.
(audience laughs)
Of course I got shark spray.
He carried more equipment than I would have.
He filled up my whole back seat.
He had a full first aid kit, you know,
it was, you know, it was a complete set first aid kit.
Then he had all his personal equipment in another big bag
and it would fill up the whole back seat
when we got started.
As an Explorer, he made sure
that his uniform was proper,
his equipment was proper,
and that he was there on time
and he was going to be a part of things and learn.
But he wanted to be involved, right?
Which means sometimes he'd push the envelope a little bit.
They gave me a nickname, Captain V.
Now I wasn't an actual captain, right?
I just thought that I was more than I was, all right?
I was the cap, I was the Explorer
that would show up and be like,
"Captain V on scene, no problem too big,
no problem too small."
(audience laughs)
You're parking cars at the fairgrounds.
(audience laughs)
We'd be driving around, it was pretty slow,
very little radio traffic.
And I'd look over and I'd start seeing, you know,
his eyes were starting to get heavy
and you can start seeing him kind of drift.
And pretty soon he'd just kind of fall asleep
and his head was,
and I could hear him breathing deep.
And then what I always do is I'd slam on the brakes
and I'd go, "Ah", and put my arm out.
And he'd go, "Ah, what, what, what?"
Whenever he rode along, you could always, you know,
trace his menu because he would leave
the residue stuffed underneath the passenger seat
in the car.
And a couple days later you'd find Taco Bell wrappers
and a cup and a pop can,
he's like marking his territory.
See the difference between you and I though is
when you go to Taco Bell,
you order like one thing, right?
You order like one order.
What, I mean, you pick one of the numbers one through 10
or one through 12, whatever it is, right?
Not me.
I pull in, especially when I'm a uniform, I'm embarrassed.
I'm like, "We would like 12 tacos."
(audience laughs)
"Some of the guys back at the office
would like a couple Crunchwraps."
(audience laughs)
Sir, how many drinks can we get for your order?
One diet Pepsi.
(audience laughs)
People that know Vinnie, he's hefty
and he loved his Taco Bell.
And you know, before two o'clock,
I think it was two o'clock on Graves,
Taco Bell would close down,
we'd have to make our run to Taco Bell.
Yes, when I was in my teenage years,
I liked Taco Bell, okay?
You tell me a kid today that doesn't like Taco Bell.
All right, it's not gonna happen.
So the day that I went to hot power yoga,
I stopped at Taco Bell and got my usual.
(audience laughs)
And I sat in the parking lot crushing tacos
and sucking down Fire packet after Fire packet.
(audience laughs)
- We'd do the drive-through and we'd go to Taco Bell.
And it was one of those things that normal people got
you know, the little bag like that.
Well, they had a big bag.
I don't know, it was like a catering bag or whatever.
75 minutes into the class,
yet again, I'm coming out of downward dog
and everybody in the room hears.
(Vinnie gurgles)
(audience laughs)
(Vinnie gurgles)
(audience laughs)
When I ride with Rick though,
the Taco Bell Boulder at Baseline Broadway
would always close at about two o'clock in the morning.
So at some point, riding the graveyards with him,
we'd have to go through and get a six pack
or a 12 pack of tacos.
Do you all know what a Jake brake sounds like
when it lets loose?
(audience laughs)
(Vinnie gurgles)
(Vinnie hisses)
(audience laughs)
Everybody was running for the room.
(Vinnie screams)
But yeah, I have to have, make a Taco Bell run
and I love the hot sauce and yeah, what about it?
That's who I am.
That's who I was.
Thank you.
(audience laughs)
I come from a non-traditional Mexican family.
There are only four of us in this family.
(audience laughs)
Family has always been the most important thing to me.
My immediate family is paramount
in that I live, breathe and eat my family.
It's just important.
It's the way I was raised.
It was what was beat into my head as a kid.
Family first, above all else.
It was a wonderful feeling for me
to be married and have my,
I think the biggest thrill is when I knew she was pregnant
and having my children.
That was a big thrill because I knew I was gonna have kids.
You know, I didn't wanna leave all my millions
to somebody else, you know?
(Rudy laughs)
My father passed away in January of 1999
after a long battle of cancer.
I remember being in middle school
or junior high is what they called it back then
and my dad was going through lymphoma.
My father is everything who I am today.
The ability to talk to people,
to relate to people, to build rapport,
that was all established as a young kid with him
because he was such a hustler.
My dad wasn't afforded the education,
nor was my mom that I was able to receive.
My brother and I were the first two to graduate high school
and that to them was the pinnacle for them.
My life, what I've did,
I like to see my kids really come by
and do what I've did.
You know, be good boys and good to their kids
and good to their wives
and show a good life and be hustlers, though.
Always make money and try to bring money in.
My dad and mom always said, "Don't be stealing.
Don't be doing, you know, bad stuff."
My brother, he never did any of that
and I never did any of that.
They just kept us straight
and they were all the way through high school
and everything.
My mom is a huge influence, but my father,
I never talk about him on stage.
I just don't know that I'm ready there yet.
But one day that's gonna happen
'cause he was so powerful in my life.
And I think the hardest thing for Vinnie Montez,
if I'm being completely honest,
is you ascend through things.
You reach accomplishments in your life
and there's nothing better than sharing that
with your family or your, or people you're close to.
Oh yeah, I had a lot of thrill with my kids
and I remember Vince at a young age,
he wanted to go out and play the drums, you know?
And when my kids were small
they always went up to sing with me
when I sang with a band
because it just give them such a thrill.
But they both have a lot of music in 'em, you know?
And my dad was always hustling and striving
and I think he would be very happy to see
where I ended up in my career professionally,
in law enforcement,
but even just as much how this comedy has worked out for me.
'Cause I think he was a natural-born entertainer.
He was a singer and he performed with bands
and he just always made people feel good about themselves.
Cooking, eating,
traveling whenever we can get away
and taking care of our two sons,
which is all that we can
give of ourselves to
because we love them very much.
- In the Mexican culture, the mom is very well respected
and my mom, you know,
I poke fun at her on stage
because I call her the Mexican Wolverine
only because she was so tough growing up.
My mother, you may not understand, man,
she is the Mexican Wolverine.
When I grew up, man, she is the toughest woman
I have ever met in my entire life, right?
(Silvia laughs)
I was very firm, always.
- My 69-year-old mother is the ringleader of the family.
(audience laughs and cheers)
Five foot tall, less than 100 pounds,
just pure lightning in her veins, right?
(audience laughs)
When I was a kid I could come home
from a compound fracture, right, with a compound fracture.
She'd immediately revert back to the last time
(indistinct).
See mijo, and God punishes without a belt.
(audience laughs)
My mom is a lot more laid back today,
but she still has the attributes that I know in her.
She's, you know, she wants to be right,
which, same me with me, I like to be right,
but I portray her in the way I see her
when I was growing up much younger, you know?
Like when I would get outta line
and you know, there'd be a slipper or a chancla coming,
flying across the room at us 'cause we were fighting.
My mom would check us down,
my brother would be breaking left, she'd wait for me,
I'd dive down behind the coffee table,
she'd pump fake,
wait till I come back up, right upside the head.
(audience laughs)
My parents brought me that way.
They brought me up very strict.
My father was a minister
and he always taught us right from wrong
and he always did and tried to be the best to us.
Her impact on my life is huge,
I think 'cause of the structure I was given
and watching her, I've even said on stage,
I think sometimes she wanted to be a cop.
I find myself in that role in my real life job
where I am, you know, sometimes correcting people
or holding people accountable or you know,
stopping them from doing something bad.
I love when he talks about his mom
being on scene when he talks about his ride-alongs.
And mom shows up and he goes up on a car
and a guy starts cursing at him or whatever
and mom kind of sees us from the back
and she grabs the PA and she goes.
(Craig crackles like radio)
Mijo, you need some backup?
And all of a sudden he hears from back behind him.
(Jamey crackles like radio)
"Mijo, you need backup?"
The last time she rode along,
she got way too involved in the situation.
(audience laughs)
Drunk guy was pushing around
a bunch of kids at the park, right?
I get there, I'm like,
"Look dude, no ticket, no jail.
Let's go to De Dutch, what do you say?"
He says, "Let me tell you something, fat boy."
(audience laughs)
"I'll kick your butt, fat boy."
My mother hears this from the patrol car.
(audience laughs)
Grabs the PA, "Mijo, you need some backup?"
Growing up at, in this elementary school
at Foothill Elementary in Boulder,
we were at a recess and this kid was kind of picking on me
and pushed me
and literally my mom came out of the van
where she was watching the recess to see her kid,
if her kid was okay,
came onto the playground and actually pushed this kid down.
In this world today, my mom would've got in trouble.
But like that was my mom.
Like, she had our back no matter what.
And then this guy loses his mind.
He's like, "Hey, you tell that old Mexican hag
to shut her mouth."
(audience gasps)
(audience laughs)
I know, I got out of the way.
I got out of the way.
(audience laughs)
I stepped to the side.
(audience laughs)
Because I knew what was coming down.
My mom was like, "(speaks foreign language)
what the fuck?"
(audience laughs)
But she called for her own backup.
She didn't need me, she did not need me.
She was like.
(Vinnie yells)
Mexicans from all over Colorado
were headed to the scene.
(audience laughs and applauds)
I was probably 16 years old
and I was with one of our lieutenants
and we were going, we were following a canine track.
There's a
very modest, you know, like four foot, five foot fence.
The dog clears the fence, following the track.
Scott clears the fence, following the track.
I hopped the fence, following the track
expecting that Vinnie was going to be behind me.
And for some reason I couldn't get over this wall.
(audience laughs)
So I thought I'd get a running start,
but like I really don't have a vertical.
I always say, you know, my vertical's like 40.
And people are like, you have a 40 inch vertical?
I'm like, no centimeters.
And then I hear, thump, thump, thump, boom.
It's like, it's like Vinnie?
All they could see was the top of my head
running at this wall, da, da, da, da, boom.
(audience laughs)
Da, da, da, da, boom.
And all I hear from the other side is
ah, ah,
ah, ah.
And then there's just some random person
that sounds like Count Chocula
in the middle of the neighborhood.
Ah,
ah, ah.
And he can just hear me laughing, ha, ha, ha.
And alls he can hear is this noise going ha, ha, ha, ha.
And he looks over and it's Phil.
At that moment, I was like,
there's no way in hell that I'm Mexican
because if it was any kind of wall
I should be able to go over it.
(audience laughs)
One night I was riding along with a deputy
by the name of Dan Johnson
and Dan always had the wherewithal to, you know,
tap me in the chest, punch me in the chest
just to make sure I was wearing that vest.
And one night he punched me in the chest
and he felt something underneath it.
And what I had done is taken a boot knife
and put it on the inside of my vest.
He gave me an option.
He's like, "Look, you don't",
if you don't do this again,
like it's not gonna be that big of a deal.
Just don't ever do it again.
Or you could tell your advisor what happened
"and take the consequences that come with it."
And so I chose the latter.
This is the Explorer that I was.
Every post has one of these,
the know-it-all Explorer.
(audience laughs)
I remember trying to call Phil to see what was gonna happen
over the weekend and he was like,
"I'll see you and talk to you when I'm back in the office."
And Phil talks very deep and very matter of fact,
the rules are the rules.
- So I confronted Vinnie about it and he acknowledged it.
You know, he was wrong.
He knew he was wrong,
he was not supposed to be carrying the knife.
I said, "Well, this is a policy violation,
I'll give you an option."
Said, "One, you can either resign from the program
or two, I'll cite you for carrying a concealed weapon
and you deal with the consequences."
And I didn't hesitate for a second.
I was like, "I will stay. I will get charged."
Because I wanted to be a cop more than anything else.
And this was a very hard lesson to learn
at a young age.
He's just devastated that I was going to arrest him.
I said, "I'll just issue you a misdemeanor summons
and you'll have to deal with
the District Attorney's office."
Well, without Vinnie's knowledge,
of course I contacted the Deputy DA that was in charge
and kind of smoothed the waters.
The Deputy DA, I'll never forget, was Amy Okubo
and there was all these other people around
and I've never been so embarrassed in my entire life
'cause she is reading me the riot act,
which I didn't realize Phil was facilitating
and pulling the puppet strings behind the scenes.
I believe he was given like a deferred prosecution
or something.
And he ultimately completed that
and was returned to the good graces of the program.
But I don't think he's ever quite forgiven me
for having arrested him.
I did learn a lesson in accountability
and it made me who I am today.
But a lot of people, I just wanna say for the record,
Phil, a lot of people didn't agree
with necessarily how you handled that.
I've told you that.
But being the stocky, chubby kid
and coming from the background that I came from,
I just, I think I just put myself out there more.
(spooky music)
(crowd screams)
And I said, "You know, we could do a haunted house."
He proposed this Halloween haunted house
several months in advance
and Vinnie was always great with big ideas,
sometimes a little short on execution.
I said, "I'm not too sure about this."
And he said, "No, no, I'll take care of everything.
I'll get all the volunteers,
I'll get all the materials solicited and donated
and it'll be a great event."
We just started building the foundation.
I started getting people together
and organizing volunteers to act.
And we built the haunted house around a DUI theme
so that it was a learning lesson for people.
(crowd chatters indistinctly)
He got probably well over 100 volunteers
among his friends, associates,
campus contacts at the university.
He arranged for entertainment.
He got area businesses to step in
and provide kind of a trick or treat street
where kids could come and safely collect treats
and still enjoy the haunted house.
It turned out to be really great.
And one of the things Phil,
being the steadfast,
like he is that data guy.
Like he's like, "Let's check out the data
because we need data.
You know we wanna make sure everything's in the square box."
I'm not that guy.
I'm the visionary.
You say, "Hey, this can't be done."
I'll be like, "No, it can be done."
Over the two nights, I think we netted over $2,800
that he was subsequently able to donate
to the children's hospital in Denver.
I really admire Phil
showing the grit to trust me enough
to let us complete the project.
And everybody had a good time
and it was great for the community.
My name is Vinnie Montez.
I have mad love and respect
for everybody that's in this room,
the advisors and the Explorers.
I started as one of you.
I wish each and every one of you success
and a great, healthy career.
(pensive music)
If you know anything about me
or you've ever been around me as a cop,
if something's gonna go wrong
or if there's going to be trouble,
I'm gonna be right in the middle of it.
And they affectionately refer to me at work
as the shit magnet.
(audience laughs)
I'm that person in law enforcement.
Like, if it's gonna happen,
I will be on duty or I will be the one that runs into it.
You'll hear what cops say, "Put on the blinders."
You know you're going to or from work, whatever,
you're done for the day.
And I am not that guy.
If there's something that's happening in front of me,
I'll deal with it.
I also don't have to go look for it.
It's common where I've gone out to lunch,
we're clearing, walking outta the restaurant
and there is a guy picking up a lady
trying to take her away with him
in a domestic violence situation.
Next thing you know, we're running after these people.
What's made me successful on the job I think is
my ability to communicate with people.
I think I get that from my dad
and I've just honed that crafted art
over the last 25 years.
I could talk to anybody.
I was a negotiator for our agency at one point in time.
And I believe the ability to relate to people,
establish rapport quickly and find a commonality,
what am I gonna be able to communicate with somebody
that's gonna make them feel at ease and comfortable?
And so I think that's one of the things
I can quickly, readily identify in people.
And it's made me successful throughout my career.
Vinnie's energy is very enthusiastic.
Everything that he does,
he wants to accomplish in a very big way.
He knows what he wants
and then he goes all the way in,
feet first into the deep end,
and he'll just keep charging until he is successful.
He's just that guy.
When you call and you need something, he's there.
Vinnie is an absolute ball of energy.
If you think Energizer Bunny,
I guess he'd be kinda like the Energizer Kodiak bear.
He's very serious.
He is the consummate professional cop.
His generosity
continually amazes me and surprises me and pleases me.
As a person, great friend,
trust him with my life on calls, right?
But he will do anything for you.
Don't ever be afraid of failure.
Don't ever be afraid of you making a mistake
'cause I'm telling you right now,
this guy in front of you has made
so many over the course of his life.
But yet here I am still today
and the only reason I think I am still here today is
because every time I took a step back,
I just push harder to get past that mistake,
learn from it,
take everything I possibly could learn from it
and just keep moving forward.
(pensive music continues)
Millennial cops man, they're trying to put on everything.
They got 36 pairs of handcuffs.
(audience laughs)
They got ear pieces,
they got like all kinds of extra tactical gear
that they might need to deal with the scene.
We would use
micro cassette recorders to dictate
the narratives of our reports.
Vinnie took a different vent
and making the most efficient use of his time,
he took his recorder with him into the bathroom.
You son of a bitch.
And while he was contemplating other things,
he would tape the narrative to his report.
Well, when he submitted the tape to the typing pool,
they quickly determined
that he wasn't sitting at his desk
based upon all the other ambient sounds.
Listen up, Millennials.
Let me just tell you this.
The day you start to sneak in emojis into your reports.
(audience laughs)
That's when I'm gonna drive away.
I'm gonna be reading reports.
I'm like, what in the hell is this?
What are you talking about Sarge?
It's a drunk emoji, drunk emoji,
vomit emoji.
(audience laughs)
Made it to the jail, poop emoji, poop emoji.
- Overnight his fellow detectives took his office cubicle
and turned it into a bathroom.
They brought in a commode,
they brought in toilet brushes,
they brought in toilet paper, towels, the works
and decorated his office for him
so that he would feel more at home
the next time that he was going to have to tape a report.
Ah, ah,
ah, ah.
Yeah, thanks Phil.
(Phil laughs)
(upbeat Latin music)
Mm.
Food is a really big deal to me.
And the reason it's a big deal is
'cause it's part of my family and my heritage.
Growing up with chili verde and a pork green chili
and just the things that I grew up loving
that my family would make.
I like to eat a lot of good food, right?
My mom's always like, "Mijo, you like to eat too much,
you need to eat a little bit less."
But in the very next breath she's like,
"Come over tonight,
we're gonna have enchiladas, sopaipillas."
(audience laughs)
Growing up in Boulder, it was very unique for me.
I remember going to one of my very first friend's houses
and I think the thing that I found was really weird is
I was introduced to the concept of the actual vegetable
in its raw form.
Like, 'cause people in Boulder, Colorado,
they eat really healthy.
For me to see a lot of vegetables on the plate
and not have like the normal beans
and rice and tortillas,
that was unique to me.
Vinnie can pack away food,
all these activities, crime prevention, community events,
which puts us in front of food all the time.
I knew when I ordered from Sonic,
Vinnie would require two, everybody else would get one.
And this was a pattern that went on reputationally
for years and decades.
Nothing's changed.
I like ice cream,
especially in an ice cream cone.
When you're in full uniform,
you're a big guy like me,
weigh about 200 hundred and.
(Vinnie mumbles)
Pounds.
(audience laughs)
It's rough, you can't walk into your local ice cream parlor
and be like, "Hey, gimme a triple decker cone."
(audience laughs)
He'd order one meal and then he'd be done
and he'd order another meal.
2:00 or 3:00 in the morning
and he's ordering pizza and chicken wings.
But what you can do if you're Vinnie Montez is
you could go to your local McDonald's
and go through the drive-through.
(audience laughs)
So I snuck to the McDonald's
and I went through the drive-through
and I paid for my ice cream cone.
And I pulled up to the window
and as I looked through the window
there was a dude inside making my ice cream cone,
you know, swirly,
swirly,
swirly.
And I'm outside the car,
higher,
higher.
And he looked at me and he's like, "Yeah,
yeah."
Go out to dinner with Vinnie at a restaurant,
you'd, we'd all order, we'd all have a great time.
You'd feel like things were wrapping up
and all of a sudden Vinnie would call the waiter
or the waitress over and order an entire additional meal.
You just kind of played along with it
and Vinnie would have a second meal.
So eventually I kind of teased Vinnie and I said,
"Hey Vinnie, I've got the perfect diet plan for you.
It's one meal per meal."
We got this going on and I look ahead,
the entrance to McDonald's,
and I see a guy collapse to the ground
and my heart sunk.
Because I was like, no.
(audience laughs)
But I pulled forward and I did my job
and I got out and I started rendering,
hey, what I haven't told you is where I work.
I'm not just a supervisor, I'm a commander.
And when a commander calls out with a situation like this,
everybody's gotta come and see what's going on.
So some of my younger deputies with their recruit showed up,
the city heard what was going on and showed up.
The university heard what was going on and showed up.
(audience laughs)
A fire truck with like 75 guys showed up.
(audience laughs)
I've got a couple dozen people huddled around one dude
for a very minor medical issue.
And as I look across the huddle,
I'll be damned if I didn't see the dude
that was making my ice cream cone.
And he holds it up in the air and he is like.
(audience laughs)
The funny story is going to Taco Bell's dinner time,
which I think it was 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning.
We pull through Taco Bell and you know,
going back to the food stories and he would order,
I mean, he would order for a family at Taco Bell.
♪ Some people want Taco John's ♪
♪ And other people want Del Taco ♪
♪ But everything means nothing ♪
♪ If I ain't got Taco Bell ♪
♪ Yeah ♪
Has some interaction with the teller.
Oh no, I like a stronger coffee, espresso.
You have a espresso?
Oh yes, we can get you an Americano.
Oh yes, I like Americano for like big strong bear.
It's never just ordering.
He always has to be messing with somebody
or making somebody's day.
Citizens had their phones out.
(audience laughs)
Body cameras were rolling.
(audience laughs)
And I felt like the world was closing in on me.
(audience laughs)
So I took that ice cream cone and I was like.
(Vinnie moans)
(audience laughs)
Best ice cream cone I've ever had.
(audience laughs)
- Vinnie calls us cake-eating civilians, actually.
I think in a sense we're kind of the naive,
non-police officers in his life in a lot of ways.
He doesn't have all cop friends,
but like we are very much like, you know,
in his inner circle role
and he's constantly like telling us what we're unaware of.
I hate the Subaru driver.
Why?
Because you're always blocking the fast lane, that's it.
It was one of those things
that maybe living vicariously through him,
called him this law enforcement nerd.
We actually had this situation
that it was a riotous situation where I worked
and people were getting all like crazy,
you know, and yelling and screaming and blah, blah, blah.
I push his buttons as, you know, up to a certain level
and then I know when to back off
because he still has that training still.
Although he might be shorter than me,
I know he has still got moves and stuff like that.
And they're like, "We're gonna call out the riot team,
we're gonna get the riot team out here.
We're gonna shoot 'em with a bunch of pepper balls."
I'm like what the heck are you gonna shoot 'em
with pepper balls for?
Just a bunch of Subaru drivers, why are you gonna do that?
(audience laughs)
It's a good waste of pepper balls.
Shoot 'em with gluten balls,
that'll take care of the problem.
(audience laughs and applauds)
(Vinnie pops mouth)
(audience laughs)
He is funny, he's a good person to be around.
He is very relaxed and just very genuine,
I guess I would say.
Like, you know who you're gonna get.
And then he reciprocates that
in terms of he just is who he is
and then he's just fine with whoever the person
that he's with is.
And he respects that and gives people their individuality
and their freedom to be whoever they wanna be.
So I really appreciate that about him
and I think that that's the thing
that kind of attracts me to him the most.
Catrina and I are like night and day.
I'm very outgoing, I love to be around people.
He can come up to anybody and start talking to them
and have a conversation with them
and I think he really enjoys
engaging with the community in that way.
She would like to be in a room
potentially most of the time by herself,
reading a book for hours
and she is very happy doing that.
I'm like the stereotypical girl in the relationship
because
I don't know why I'm just telling you,
like I'm the one that likes to ask
a lot of questions and stuff.
Like, we'll be watching "Law & Order"
and I'm the typical cop where I'm like,
"This is crazy, you can't do that without a warrant."
Catrina does not find my brand of comedy
to be funny whatsoever.
So Vinnie and I don't like the same kind of comedy,
for sure.
I mean I think he's funny
and I think that he does a really good job at what he does,
but at the same time,
like that's not the kind of comedy that I like.
And I'll ask her questions like, "What are they doing?
Why are they doing that?
What's going on?"
She's like, "I don't know.
How about we both watch."
(audience laughs)
"And we'll figure it out together.
What do you say?"
I know when I could actually make her laugh that
that is gonna be solid gold.
Because if it bridges the gap
of what I find funny and then what she finds funny,
then it's gonna have a universal appeal.
I was raised in a very traditional Mexican family.
There was a lot of affection and love there
and, but my better half, man,
she doesn't like to say that back to me
when she's at work because she's very professional.
She's a lawyer.
And so I get her on the phone and I'm like, "I love you."
(audience laughs)
And she's like, "Uh-huh".
(audience laughs)
And I'm like, "Do you have somebody
in your office right now?"
And she's like, "Uh-huh".
And so like as loud as I could be
so I hope that people in the office building,
all they hear is, "I love you."
And she's like, "I'm going now."
(audience laughs)
One Halloween night I'm driving down the Boulevard
and I see a lady dressed up like a white cotton ball
on the corner.
And I was like, "What the hell is this?"
So I rolled up on her like I do.
(Vinnie whoops like siren)
(audience laughs)
You guys like the siren noise or what?
(audience laughs)
Right next to my driver's window,
like three feet away from me is this girl,
nice looking girl, takes care of herself.
She looks like she's wearing a cotton ball
'cause it's just like, you know,
from the neck to the upper thigh.
And I'm like, my window's down 'cause it was nice out.
And I look at her and I go, "What is this costume?"
And she's like, "I'm a loofah and you're a dirty cop."
What would that interaction look like
with a police officer who starts talking to this person?
So I rolled up on her, I'm like.
(Vinnie whoops like siren)
And I'm like, "What are you?"
And she's like, "Me?"
And I'm like, "Yeah you, what are you?"
She's like, "I am a loofah."
(audience laughs)
"Are you a dirty officer?"
(audience laughs)
Maybe.
(audience laughs)
She starts rubbing her costume
all over the side of my car.
She goes around to the front of the car
and I was like, "What the fuck?"
So I turn on my spotlight and I'm like trying to do like a,
like a strobe light with it,
like flashing it around and I turned on my overheads
and everybody that's in the crosswalk
and on either side of the street, they're like "Ah."
And she's up in the front of my car
just rubbing all over the front bumper
and she starts dancing.
So I grabbed the PA,
I turned on all the strobe lights in my cop car
and I'm all.
(Vinnie beatboxes)
(audience laughs)
It's like, ah, shit, gonna make some money.
I told Vinnie that story
and he turns it into one of his comedy jokes.
But he was telling it so often,
he started to believe that it was about him
'cause we were talking about it and he's like,
"Yeah when I saw her and this, that,"
and I'm like, wait, you think this happened to you?
I, that was a story that happened to me.
I told you about it.
And he's like, "What?"
That is an example of just taking all these things
that you see here
and your friends' experiences,
Sam in particular,
and then morphing just that original experience
that you had with the contact with a loofah
and morphing it into an entire bit
that brings the audience into it
and culminates in a very nice reveal at the end to you know,
release that built-up energy.
(somber music)
You know as police officers,
probably the one thing that you may not know is
coming up in law enforcement,
talking about your mental health was taboo.
I allowed the job to consume me 100%.
From the time that I first became a deputy until 2010-ish,
I was Vinnie Montez the cop.
My sole identity was my job.
I had spent my entire adolescence learning about the craft,
wanting to be in the craft
of being a law enforcement officer
and then doing it.
I'd see him pace around at night
'cause the job in his mind,
he living it in his mind, like what he sees.
It can't be healthy.
- Now the trade-offs are
you can absolutely be wonderful in doing that job,
but if there's no balance in your life,
you're gonna end up experiencing
the negative outcomes from that.
I'm very proud to tell you
that I don't care what people say
when I say I've got mental health problems.
I cope with those things.
It doesn't mean I'm any worse than I was before.
It's just an acknowledgment of the struggles
that I've dealt with during my career.
I don't know that at the time I would've recognized it.
It was probably more now in hindsight as he talks about it.
So I think it was probably just as he started
to talk about it.
Sorry.
Some of the incidents he's talked about,
you could tell that we're really having an impact on him.
I'm so proud of him for like finding that niche,
like realizing in his self
like what is going on and being open about it.
- There's always been a stigma about mental health, period.
What I probably didn't realize is
as much until recently is
there's even more a stigma and a reluctance
to open up about it when you're a police officer.
Yeah, just as he started to talk about it,
then I noticed it.
I think when you see stuff like that,
you have to have an outlet
and if you don't have an outlet,
that stuff will chew you up.
All of that stacked up on all of us
and we all have different things that we use
to kind of deal with that.
He landed on comedy.
- Eventually, you know, I just started slowly sharing things
and felt comfortable where I didn't care
if people knew I was going to counseling.
And now today, fast forward to 2023
and especially over the last, I don't know,
five, six, seven years,
I don't care who knows.
If you're struggling, there's people to your left
and to your right who want to help you.
And if I can spend just a couple seconds on a stage
sharing that during my show,
well then that's the way it's gonna be, family, all right?
(audience applauds and cheers)
People really enjoy his message.
People really enjoy his comedy in a very big way.
And then at the same time,
he's addressing this elephant in the room
in the law enforcement industry around mental health.
You don't want to be this superman, superwoman crap
and trying to keep everything in.
So he makes people realize,
hey, it's okay to have some hard times
and needing help to discuss these things
because it's about your own personal health too.
I don't think I ever really had
one acute instance where I felt like wow,
this one really affected my mental health.
But I saw a lot of things
when I was a very young person
that nobody was ever checking on me about.
Several years ago when I was a field training officer,
my recruit and I were dispatched up to the mountains
where a guy pulled over on the side of the road,
got out of his car,
sat in the passenger seat,
put a double barrel shotgun to his chin
and pulled the trigger.
You start seeing things and hearing things
and you're actually the one in the call
dealing with the circumstances.
And like we've talked about earlier, I'm a shit magnet.
So I mean, everything comes to me.
Nothing was left from here up.
So the detective gets there
because we have to identify the decedent,
the person who passed away,
it's what we have to do.
He starts to root around his pockets,
finds the gentleman's wallet,
pulls it out,
reaches in, grabs his driver's license, pulls that out,
puts his thumb over the guy's head and says,
"Do you think this is our guy right here?"
(audience laughs)
That dark humor
comes from a lot of pain
and not just me,
but all the men and women
who've ever served in this uniform.
That's how we survive.
And humor is our way of coping with things.
♪ He woke up the same way ♪
♪ He done a million times ♪
♪ Grabbed a cup of coffee, hugged his kids ♪
♪ And he kissed his wife goodbye ♪
And we finally write this song
and it talks about a cop going to work,
leaving his family behind,
making the ultimate sacrifice.
We had no idea where we were going.
I started finally just playing some chords
and he's like, "Okay."
You know, he liked that and I'd figured a few things out
after a couple of sessions
and started getting the idea of the song,
the story that we are writing
about this officer that basically doesn't come home one day
and then kind of the big fanfare that happens after that.
Just the struggles that officers go through
and then how family feels
and how communities feel it.
♪ No hesitation ♪
♪ He knew what he had to do ♪
♪ Lord, keep my family safe ♪
♪ This, I pray to you ♪
♪ He chose a life that others don't understand ♪
♪ A heart of a warrior but a simple man ♪
"The Blue Line" to me is just means
this sliver of society being law enforcement is
what stands between good and evil.
We are the buffer between the good guys and the bad guys.
It was more about the message in the song
that Vinnie and I worked on with those lyrics,
just to try to say how can we,
how do we put something out there
for guys that do this every day
that it's gonna hit.
They're gonna understand.
They're gonna know that.
♪ They came to say their goodbyes ♪
♪ A brotherhood, a family ♪
♪ Doing their best trying not to cry ♪
♪ Preacher said a few words ♪
♪ Life doesn't always seem fair ♪
♪ They handed her a folded flag ♪
♪ And they bowed their heads in prayer ♪
It stands as a tribute to the men and women
who've made the ultimate sacrifice
and their families who miss them
and
are saddened by their loss.
♪ Saying, "Daddy don't worry" ♪
♪ "Everything'll be fine" ♪
♪ "Know that I'll always love you" ♪
♪ "And I'm gonna hold that blue line" ♪
Vinnie actually reached out to me through email
I believe late 2017.
He said, "I think you and I have a common goal
on humanizing the badge"
and that portrayal of a, you know,
a human being on social media.
'Cause a lot of times there's a lot of interactions
with cops and people kind of forget
that there's a heart and you know,
feelings behind that uniform in that badge.
Dude, I gotta pass the time, dude, I'm gonna fall asleep.
Three
two, one.
(Officer Daniels laughs)
You almost broke the window.
We had difficulty getting
the streaker under control Downtown.
We had a lot of units move in.
That dude was packing, I'll tell you that.
(indistinct).
This guy over here, what's this guy doing?
(Vinnie groans)
We wanted to raise money for a little girl
who had Diamond-Blackfan anemia
and while she was searching for her, a donor,
she ended up finding donors for other kids like her.
And it blossomed into a nonprofit called Hallie's Heroes.
Officer Daniels befriended her
and he met me and he's like,
"You wanna do a standup comedy show?"
And then we got involved with this larger than life lady
by the name of Chelsea Lynn
who goes by the stage name of Trailer Trash Tammy.
A couple comedians, Vinnie and I included,
decided to host a comedy show
out at Texas Motor Speedway.
But the night before,
one of Hallie's Heroes board members hosted
a barbecue for us
and they had a swimming pool.
Listen, you want some excitement in your life,
donate three damn dollars to see Daniels put this on.
Let me help demonstrate.
- Mm-hmm, that's what it's gonna look like right there.
And I had plans
to raise some money on a Facebook fundraiser
the night before to make some extra money
for Hallie's nonprofit.
And so I got a women's one-piece swimming suit
and we went live from this barbecue and I said,
"Hey, if we raise $5,000,
I'll wear this one-piece swimming suit on stage
tomorrow at the show."
Officer Daniels says if we're able to raise
on the livestream X amount of money,
he will wear this onesie bathing suit
which has pictures of him and Trailer Trash Tammy on it
and he will jump into the pool.
And so we hit that right away.
[Tammy] Oh my God.
(group laughs)
We're gonna go do that.
(group laughs)
We got 12.6, 12,600 people watching.
Guys, keep donating 'cause if we get to 10 K,
he's going on stage tomorrow like this.
(group cheers)
- We're at 6,000? - And listen,
I would love to make fun of his bulge on stage,
so let's make this happen.
We kept getting donations in the comments
on this livestream.
There was about 10,000 people watching this livestream.
They said if we raise 10,000,
you gotta put it on right now and jump in the pool.
I'm like all right, no problem.
So we hit 10 K,
I throw it on, I jump in the pool.
Well, while I'm swimming out of the pool,
the comments are like,
"We're gonna go for 15 K
and we want Vinnie to put it on,"
the same swimsuit that I just had on.
Somebody comes up with the idea of like,
hey, let's see if Vinnie will put on the onesie bathing suit
and if we hit this mark,
we will have him jump in the pool as well.
You want some Latino heat?
(group laughs)
I ain't afraid, man.
- Bald guy in the suit. - You want me?
You want to see me in a (indistinct) suit?
Go put one on, take it off.
I ain't afraid, man, I'll put on a suit.
You get to 10,000, I'll put on the suit.
Well I'm, I don't have the body
for a one-piece female bathing suit, okay?
That's just not my thing.
And, but I'm also not gonna be like,
"Oh no, I'm not gonna do it,"
'cause we're trying to help out for a good cause.
(group chatters indistinctly)
(group screams)
They're like, "Go put it on."
So I go into the bathroom
and I put on this one-piece bathing suit
and I am embarrassed because like my package is showing
and I didn't want to be like looked at
as a small package or anything.
So I take this decorative hand towel off of,
I take this decorative hand towel
and I roll it up and I stick it in the crotch area
of this bathing suit
and I come walking out and everybody's like,
what in,
because I got this giant junk package going now.
(indistinct)
this package right here.
I'm going in the pool.
It's the most beautiful bulge I've ever seen in my life.
It's the most beautiful thing
I've ever seen in my life.
(indistinct)
He's gonna get in the pool.
We got 10 K.
(water splashes)
And he came out
with a very large
bulge in the swimsuit,
but it was not,
it was not what you'd think it was.
We didn't know what it was
until the next day
when we found out it was a decorative hand towel
from the host bathroom
and that he decided to stuff down his pants
so nobody could see his private parts, I guess.
But I guess he wrung it out
and hung it back up where he found it.
So the homeowner found it and let us all know
that she found the towel.
I was gonna wring it out.
(Vinnie laughs)
And I put it back on the rack.
(group laughs)
I swear.
So I get out and now I'm soaking wet
and I gotta go towel off and dry.
I take this drenched towel for my crotch area
and I wring it out in the sink.
Now here's the dilemma, right?
I'm drying myself,
this has now been touching my junk
and I'm like what do I do with this towel?
I hadn't planned this far ahead,
I had not planned this far ahead.
So the very next night is the show
at Texas Motor Speedway
and the lady who owns this hand towel
later finds the hand towel in the bathroom
is stiff as a board.
And she sits next to me and she's like,
"Vinnie, do you know what I found?"
And I'm sitting there for a second like,
"What did you find?"
And she's like, "Hand towel."
And I'm like hand,
oh the hand towel.
(funky music)
Everybody that starts in standup
starts at open mics.
Here at Comedy Works, they literally start
on their first time with two minutes
and within our New Talent program,
they grow to three, four or five minute sets.
It can be a slow ascension depending on who they are,
but we have a system
that they can plug into and they can grow.
So when you first get into Comedy Works New Talent,
you sign up forever, get two minutes,
then you, if they think you're doing well,
they move you to three minutes, four minutes
and one day you hope you get to the Almost Famous list,
which means you get to open up
for all the great comic acts
that come through the Comedy Works,
and eventually you hope to make the Final Roster,
which actually means you're a headliner at Comedy Works.
We have 500 or more people
working our New Talent system.
We have almost 200 people every week signing up.
So there's a lot of people in there
and
not many make it far.
My first open mic was absolutely disastrous
from my point of view.
Looking back on it, you know,
almost 15 years ago I watched recently
the video of me performing with the hairbrush,
which I never probably want to ever see that again.
He was trying things out.
So I mean this was, what, 2007?
And yeah, just recording on a cell phone or a camera
or something like that.
He would come in and he'd have his hairbrush,
like very stereotypical, practicing in on it.
Growing up was difficult with my mom in Boulder, man,
she, different outlook on life
than most other people there.
Growing up, you know, if my little friend Billy Buttawipo
would scrape his knee,
go running home to his mom,
she'd be like, "Oh Billy, it's okay.
Let me kiss that for you."
He just was trying to work on his stage presence
and how he was gonna speak and tell his jokes.
- I could come home with a compound fracture in my left eye
and she'd immediately revert back to last time
I mouthed off,
"Mijo, see what happens
and God punishes without a belt."
You know, that mindset that this is what I'm gonna do,
this is what I want.
You have to have some talent to be in the NBA, shall we say.
And this looks like maybe, oh well I can do that.
I think a lot of people think that.
What's up, (indistinct) in the house today?
(audience cheers)
I'm from the North Side, North Boulder.
(audience laughs)
Anybody here from North Boulder?
(audience cheers)
Growing up in Boulder, man,
there's a lot of cultural differences.
You know, growing up little,
my friend, little Billy Buttawipo got a scrape on his knee.
He'd run home to his mom and he'd be like,
"Oh, mom," and his mom be like, "Oh Billy, it's okay,
your knee, blah, blah blah.
"Let me help you out."
I go home to my mom with a compound fracture to my left eye.
She'd be like remembering the last time
I mouthed off to her.
She'd be like, "Mijo, and God punishes without a belt, see?"
(audience laughs)
I listened to what actually happened on stage
and there was some similarities to what I had practiced,
but then I kind of like totally derailed
and it was only two minutes.
You know, they only give you two minutes to show your stuff.
And he said, "I just did what you said."
And I don't give that much advice.
It's just this is the system, you need to work the system.
Be here, sign up, bring your best.
When you work this stage,
you need to bring your A game, always.
Please welcome to the stage
a large and loud Latino,
Vinnie Montez.
(audience applauds and cheers)
What's up?
(audience cheers)
(indistinct).
All right, without people, what's up, kitchen?
(audience laughs)
Always got back-up, baby.
He did all those biker bars and all those other gigs.
Anything that he could,
that he could work and do his schedule,
he did that and that makes all the difference.
He just had the mindset.
I don't have a traditional Latino job.
I'm a police officer, sincerely.
As you can tell.
(audience laughs)
He kind of has mass appeal
and the fact that he is so likable
and that he's so approachable
and he's very approachable off stage as well.
And he's just got that
I like to hang with that guy.
So I'm in Target and I hear,
"Code yellow to electronics, code yellow to electronics."
So I go up to the dude with the microphone like,
"Hey bro, what's the code yellow?"
He's like, "We got a Mexican in electronics."
(audience laughs)
What?
(audience laughs)
I think what stuck out about Vinnie
as opposed to some of those other comedians is
that he has an amazing stage presence.
And so he could say something that's maybe funny
or not so funny,
but his stage presence just really makes the joke
and all of his act-outs and his facial expressions.
I met Vinnie Montez
at Comedy Works, it had to be.
I love going on Spirit.
Spirit, it's like the Medicaid of the sky,
you know what I mean?
Like, I'm surprised they don't take food stamps
for snacks on Spirit.
(audience laughs)
You know how fun that would be?
You board a Spirit flight
and there's just a sign on the outside of the plane,
it's like we accept EBT, you're like.
(audience laughs)
Oh shit, rules.
You know, back then we're doing new talent nights
and we're doing open mics and stuff like that.
And so I met him just like I met
everybody else in the scene.
He was driving down from Boulder.
I was driving down from Boulder.
The thing about the Comedy Works is
like on New Talent night,
there's like 15 or 20 comics
and so it takes a while to get to know everybody.
I did a show here last night
and some lady asked if my hair was natural.
And I'm like, "Where the hell would you go
to get your hair done like this, you know?"
(audience laughs)
She said, "PetSmart".
(audience laughs)
That stung a little bit.
I remember seeing Vinnie
and he talked about being a sheriff and stuff,
and the thing about it is, I'm a comic first.
Like I wasn't like,
what the hell is this cop trying to do, do comedy?
I mean I just,
I always think there's room for everybody
in the business.
The people I came up with who were really close to me
in comedy, John Novosad, a.k.a. Hippie Man back in the day,
Brent Gill was one of the guys that I came up with
using my New Talent class,
coming up through Comedy Works.
These guys were really instrumental
in a group that I bonded with.
You just gotta do it.
You're gonna fail,
you're gonna get knocked down
and you're gonna have some of the highest nights
of your life of just, I smashed tonight
and this is the greatest feeling I've ever had.
Lots of times, Vinnie would gimme a ride
to and from these shows.
So we became friends then and he would pick my brain,
but I would also pick his brain.
Like just today in the car he goes,
"You know, I don't know if I should be giving you advice."
And I'm like, "Of course you should.
You know, why not?"
Because if I knew the answers to this business,
we'd be doing this interview
in my beach house in Malibu.
But fast forward now these later years,
we now have these big 420 events
and they needed some extra police officers
to work the 420 event.
And I felt like I was qualified to work the event
because I like Doritos just like they do.
You know what I'm saying?
(audience laughs)
One of the ones I like to talk about that process,
'cause it just took forever,
was finding the right way to get into
420 Tickle Me Elmo.
So I get there to work the event,
it's three o'clock in the afternoon,
there's already 10,000 people on the field
and it is just a cloud of smoke.
How you say a word in comedy
or how you phrase something
is just as equally as important as what you say.
So now when I do that bit, I'm like,
when I realize I get a contact high,
I become Mexican Tickle Me Elmo.
That Mexican Tickle Me Elmo, that cadence right there is
so important
to let the audience take in everything that I'm saying.
What I didn't realize is if I get a contact high,
I become Mexican Tickle Me Elmo.
(audience laughs)
Even before 420, the hour of 4:20 hit,
I mean everybody was blazing, right?
And I mean, some of these blunts were like this big.
I can see that Vinnie, you know,
being a foot and a half, you know, below everybody
'cause he's so short,
just getting shotgunned with weed smoke
as he is going in and you know,
that Tickle Me Elmo reference is just so funny.
- You're breathing the same air everybody else is breathing.
And I'm like, there is no way
that I am not breathing this in at some point
or the rest of the officers that are working here.
Apparently, I was in the crowd for too long.
(audience laughs)
And dispatch start calling me on the radio
"Vinnie, can we get a status on you in there?"
(audience laughs)
(Vinnie laughs)
But that inspired me to think like how could I take
this experience from my perspective as a cop
and relay that to an audience
so that they can enjoy what I'm envisioning
being crazy from my perspective.
Vinnie, can we get a status on you in there?
(audience laughs)
How do I show that I'm this high cop, you know?
'Cause the facial expression's not gonna work by itself,
like it does at the beginning of the act out.
But like you need more.
(indistinct).
(audience laughs)
Dispatch go home.
(Vinnie and audience laugh)
Woo.
(Vinnie and audience laugh)
Anybody here know who Chris Farley is?
(audience cheers)
I wanna bring that guy back to life,
he's one of my inspirations,
but take him out on patrol with me.
We got a lot of Karens in this country right now.
Karens, you know what I'm saying?
And I can't stand it when people are mean
to servers or customer service personnel.
And I saw this lady outta control one time on this call.
She was yelling at the Costco customer service.
She's like, "You're gonna take this back
and I don't care what you have to do.
I'm important."
You know, I'm like, oh my God.
I think when people find out I'm a police officer,
depending on the setting,
they are skeptical
because especially when I'm first coming out on stage
and I reveal I'm a police officer,
I think people are right away like, okay,
what does he have to say?
I'd love to walk in with Chris Farley and be like,
"You want to take this one Chris?"
He'd be like, "I got it."
(audience laughs)
He'd walk up and he'd be like,
"Ma'am, I need your attention."
She'd turn around, what is your name?
I know who your supervisor is.
Gimme your number, are you detaining me?
He'd be like, "Ma'am, I need you, do me a favor.
Shut your freaking yapper."
(audience applauds and laughs)
And then after I tell some of the stories
and I make it kind of personal and I make people laugh,
it's hard to be mad at somebody
when you're laughing at them,
and or with them.
So I think that breaks down a barrier right away
and establishes rapport and communication.
Failure to comply will result in the failure of you
that understanding that by the end of the night
you're gonna be living in a van down by the river.
(group laughs and cheers)
Yeah, I think that these stories he has from his job
are so
novel to a bunch of audiences.
I think that they hear cop and they think,
all right, I don't, like,
I don't know if I like this guy.
And then you hear these stories,
you're like, oh, this is actually,
this is kind of funny.
Standup comedy has been an absolute blessing to me.
I think it's not only balanced me out,
but it lets me and reminds me all the people
that I get to interact with,
like the comedians that I see on a regular basis
who are not cops.
It keeps me grounded in who's actually out there
in the world.
When I heard he was a cop, I was like, well,
I gotta steer clear of him.
I don't wanna be around him.
You know, I don't wanna get in trouble.
If you, I don't mean to laugh,
but if you get a good look at me,
I'm not necessarily anti-police,
but you know, when, a guy who looks like me,
when I see a police officer,
I'm a little nervous.
We used to smoke weed at the creek by Comedy Works
and it prior to the shows,
not me and Vinnie, but the comics.
And I would be like, "Vinnie, we're going to the creek.
You wanna come?"
And just because it's,
it was always fun to hear how he would say no this time.
As I got to know Vinnie,
and again, I wasn't like,
oh this guy's a cop doing comedy.
I just was like, hey, this guy's funny
and he's a police officer
and like I say, I'm a comic.
So then I was like, man, this is a good niche for him.
And so then you know, Vinnie, as he started to work
around the country,
booked me to go with him.
And what it did for me was really show
the human aspect of police officers.
And it really did humanize it for me to go
you know, these are people.
I guess the easiest way I could put it
in relation to my comedy is
just letting people know when they see me up there
as a standup comedian
and they lose sight of the fact
that I'm actually a police officer on the street
and I'm not enforcing laws,
but I'm out there making people laugh,
they get to see that human side of me.
(audience laughs)
I don't know if you guys saw this online,
but a lady called 911
because her boyfriend refused to load the dishwasher.
(audience laughs)
Dude, I would've loved to get that call.
But under the auspices I show up,
your ass is singing a song.
I'd have rolled up and I'd be like,
"What's going on?"
She's like, "This son of a bitch, he doesn't even know
how to take a single dish outta the sink
and put it in the dishwasher."
(audience laughs)
They get to see what I have to offer
that's not just Vinnie the cop.
They get to see what I offer as Vinnie the standup comedian
and Vinnie as the human being.
And if I could just shed some light on that
and let people see that human side of me,
then I think it gives 'em the opportunity
to want to see
the other side of other law enforcement officers
around the country.
She'd be like, "I'm sick of this shit, I'm outta here."
She go out the door and I'd be like,
"Dude, you gotta bring her back,
but you gotta sing it out."
He'd be like, "What?"
I'd be like, "Hit it."
He'd have to be like
♪ I know you want leave me ♪
♪ But I refuse to let you go ♪
♪ If I have to beg ♪
♪ Plead for your sympathy ♪
♪ I don't mind ♪
♪ 'Cause you mean that much to me ♪
♪ Ain't too proud to beg ♪
(audience cheers and applauds)
But you know, the ladies are not gonna be outdone.
She's gonna come right back through the door.
♪ Tell me what you want ♪
♪ What you really, really want ♪
(audience laughs)
(emotive music)
I told my wife, you know, am I asleep or am I alive,
you better pinch me 'cause I can't believe
that Vince is doing all this.
And I seen that.
That's something that I've seen
that nobody will ever take away from me.
The stuff that my boy has been able to do.
And I know he got that from my genes
and I know that 'cause I had the drive.
So he has a drive
and that's why he's gonna be successful in what he does.
- My father is probably the inspiration for giving back.
My dad would always help people out.
And I think that's what created a lot of loyalty
from his friends to him,
is because in any situation where his friends needed help,
he was there for them.
And so I aspire to do the same thing
because like I said earlier
in other times,
you can't do anything in life
without relationships and people.
My mom would always say,
"If you ever do something for somebody else,
never remember it.
But if somebody else does something for you,
never forget it."
When you've done something for somebody,
let it be water under the bridge.
Don't expect anything back in return.
I look at all the things that I've been able to do
in my life.
Phil West didn't have to take the time
to read all my college essays for the most part and help me,
but he did.
Wendy Curtis didn't have to take a chance on me
and promote me to the Almost Famous list
and then make me a club comic on the rotation there.
People didn't have to take those opportunities
to give me breaks in my life.
Talent can only get you so far.
But generosity, people giving you opportunity,
I believe that you are no better than what you give.
So I think that
it comes from my father, for sure, my mother.
It's just something that makes me feel really good
as a human being inside
to be able to help other people.
And that's as simply as I can say it.
(dramatic music)
But if you would, Las Vegas,
let's have a good time tonight
and let's give a very warm Vegas welcome
to the very funny Vinnie Montez,
everybody here he is, Vinnie.
(audience applauds and cheers)
Vinnie has tough ladies in his life.
Those stories, I mean they're very funny.
The story about him and Catrina
and what they suspected was an intruder in their house.
I don't even know what to say
because I just don't believe that it actually happened.
She says this never happened,
which I want to throw the flag up on that
and say that's a complete lie.
Three o'clock in the morning one night, we're sleeping.
I get up to go to the bathroom
and I head down to the bathroom
and I don't turn on a single light in the house.
Why?
Because I'm a professional.
They hear something, they hear a noise downstairs
and he knows that criminality is afoot.
And I handle my business in the bathroom
and I start making my way back to bed
when from downstairs, I hear a crash.
Kaboom.
So I stop and I listen
because there is criminal activity afoot.
(audience laughs)
The cop in him is, you know, ready to kick some ass.
And his girlfriend asks him,
"You know, did you hear that noise?"
Did you just shush me?
Because I think any woman would react similarly.
And from the bed I hear,
"Babe,"
babe,
didn't you hear that?
Babe?
"Did you hear that?"
To which I replied, "Shh."
(audience laughs)
And about 10 seconds of silence went by.
And then I heard,
"Did you just shush me?"
(audience laughs)
She acknowledges that by asking me if I heard that.
And in response, you know, I did.
I was like, shh, I did shush her.
And that did create some contention.
Is that something I would say?
Probably.
And that's when she came out of her shell.
And I couldn't see her face.
But she's like, "Let me tell you something,
you son of bitch, my father didn't raise no woman to be."
(Vinnie shushes)
And I was like, oh my God, what is going on right now?
And I backed up and I shut the door to the bedroom
and I went downstairs 'cause I had business to take care of.
And I was looking for the burglar
and I was searching the house.
And I'm gonna be honest with you, family,
if I would've found that burglar,
I'd have been like, "Excuse me, sir."
Yes,
"upstairs, first door on the left."
(audience laughs)
There was no burglar in the house.
But the thing about it is I find it odd
that she says that this didn't happen
because this was completely inspired by that interaction.
I just don't remember the exact specific instance
that he is referring to.
And I'm sure that he exaggerated.
I probably just said something
and then it turned into like this big joke.
Maybe she was half asleep.
I don't know, Catrina, what was going on.
But that absolutely happened.
I'll take a polygraph if I need to.
- Whatever it has turned into, people find it hilarious.
People in my family think it's hilarious.
They're like, that is totally you.
So I deny that it happened,
but I guess history will tell.
What do they say about SWAT people?
Either you're SWAT.
[Audience] Or you're not.
(Vinnie laughs)
No, I saw you fuckers in here.
(audience laughs)
I know.
You're not gonna make me break my toughness tonight.
(audience laughs)
Certainly the bear in the house story is
one of my favorites.
Sam, Captain America is like, "I got this",
and he's already got the shotgun.
He's running in there and it's like, "Here, bear, bear."
How the SWAT operator is going, "Here, bear, bear, bear."
Here, bear, bear, bear.
I'm not gonna do impressions, that's for sure.
Sam is the quintessential SWAT guy.
He is, he did 20 years and then he was done.
You know,
and I start going to an act out right away
'cause I think about how I see him
when I portray him on stage.
One of my favorite calls I've ever had in my entire life,
not because of the call wasn't serious and dangerous,
but because who got to go on the call with me.
This lady called 911 one night.
She's like, "There's a bear in my kitchen,
there's a bear in my kitchen."
(audience laughs)
We were on night shift together
and he was my sergeant
and I was a district deputy at the time.
And we get this call
because a bear went into somebody's house.
To make matters worse,
that night I was riding doubles
and I was paired up with one of the SWAT guys,
and his name is Sam.
He comes outta the station.
He's like, "Yeah, bro."
(audience laughs)
"Let's go get the bear, bro, let's go get the bear."
You know the SWATers, they can't talk without doing this.
Hey bro, we're gonna go in on the side.
(audience laughs)
And the lady is, you know, letting dispatch know
that she's freaking out in the house
and we get up there and I was honestly like,
that's my fucking problem?
(audience laughs)
I mean, if it was a brown bear,
at least I could communicate, you know what I'm saying?
(audience laughs)
(speaks foreign language)
(Vinnie whistles)
(audience laughs)
Well, sometimes I think it's kind of cool, you know?
'Cause at one point in his version of the story,
he calls, you know, the SWAT guy
that likes to work out with the blonde hair
and the blue eyes.
And I don't have either.
Well, I got blue eyes, but I don't have any hair anymore.
And he refers to me as Captain America.
And I'm like, yeah, that's right, I'm Captain America.
- So Captain America and I are gonna get this fucking bear.
(audience laughs)
And we're driving up the canyon and I'm driving,
I'm the one, 10 and two, baby, 10 and two,
and I leave him in charge of the siren.
And this dumbass plays one siren the entire run, one.
And it's the one that I hate the most.
The one that goes.
(Vinnie hums like siren)
(audience laughs)
I hate that siren, why?
Because all I can think about every time
I hear that siren is dumbass, dumbass.
And we go in and we go out into the hallway.
Close the door, I hear click, click.
And then I realized, oh shit,
we just locked ourself in a hallway
at the end of the hallway, you know,
which is about this wide.
So we're essentially in a kill box,
and we're in a bear kill box.
And I'm armed with a beanbag shotgun.
He goes running into the house,
and this is the next thing that I hear.
I am not making this up.
This is the very next thing I hear coming from the house.
"Hear bear, bear, bear, bear, bear."
(audience laughs)
"Hey, bear where you at, bear?"
(audience laughs)
"Who's a good little bear?"
(audience laughs)
And Sam, of all the times that we're supposed to be serious.
If the bear's got a way to get out,
as long as we're not between the path where he came in
and where he is,
he'll run away.
So I started going
"Here, bear, hear, bear bear,
who's a good bear?"
This pendejo's in there like Elmer Fudd.
(Vinnie laughs)
(audience laughs)
I wanna find a bear.
He, I'm like, what is he doing in there?
Searching the house all tactically,
pieing the corners around the kitchen.
He sees the bear.
He's gonna come face to face with a bear
and be like.
(Vinnie slurps)
"Hey, Boo Boo, got a picnic basket?"
(audience laughs)
But then when he gets to the part
where we're in the hallway
and I'm like trying to let the bear know we're coming,
he does an Elmer Fudd version of me where he is like.
(Sam laughs)
"Here bear."
And you know, like, what do you,
what is he gonna do?
Have a, when he, if he finds the bear,
hey, you got a pick-a-nick basket?
And I'm like fuck, you know?
Well, I don't like that caricature of me
where I'm Elmer Fudd with a stupid hat.
Well, thank God the bear wasn't in the house
when we cleared it.
Well, I should say when Sam cleared it all by himself.
(audience laughs)
I was outside with my body camera rolling
thinking I was about to make $10,000.
I didn't have to shoot any beanbags at it.
We didn't get tore up.
Her kitchen did.
- So you're probably wondering what happened to the bear.
After the scene was safe,
that's when I went inside
and I went into the kitchen area
and I started searching
and I started using my deductive reasoning skills
to deduce what had transpired.
And along the cabinetry area,
I saw there were tufts of fur scattered about.
And what I deduced was
the bear got into the chip cabinet,
ate an entire bag of kale chips
shit himself,
and ran out the back door.
(audience laughs)
And so later on when I started doing standup comedy,
I'm like, there has to be a bit about this,
how I could portray it.
So I always portray it like he's, you know,
Captain America and I talk about him running the siren.
And I just take that whole story and morph it.
I'm honored to be in the room
because there's a lot of people here who have lived through
some hardships through the things that we do, see,
taste, smell and have to experience.
Cops are just like everybody else.
They're human beings first.
And they do a job and a function within society
that puts 'em in bad situations.
Thank you very much for what you do.
Thank you very much for what you've done.
And thank you for being part of this profession.
If I could have my storybook ending,
we would come to peace with understanding
abroad, around the world and in this country
that being a police officer is not easy.
It's a especially difficult task
that we ask people to do in this world today.
The reason I got into comedy in 2007,
because I wanted to help my mental health, right?
We are police officers.
That's the career you guys are going for.
Take care of your mental health.
The outreach that I've already started
through my comedy to reduce the stigma
surrounding mental health and law enforcement,
but not just only law enforcement,
all first responders,
so that people are not afraid to say
when they're struggling.
512, code two.
I'd like to leave the sheriff's office in good standing.
I want to transition into a full-time career
of standup comedy.
It is where it's at for me.
I want to have a Netflix special
and I will accomplish that goal, God willing.
I have a goal for myself in the next couple years here,
is to get back into that fighting weight condition.
It's always adding something else.
But I think if I want to have a longevity
in standup comedy,
I think I'm gonna need to really address that part of it.
And maybe my time at Taco Bell is gonna come to an end.
Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Vinnie Montez.
It's been a pleasure to be here with you tonight.
(audience applauds)
Vinnie Montez, it's been a pleasure to be here tonight.
(audience applauds and cheers)
So my thanks to all of you guys, have a good night.
Arvada, Colorado, I'm Vinnie Montez.
Las Vegas, Nevada, thank you guys very much.
God bless each and every one of you.
♪ Well, I am white ♪
♪ And I'm from ♪
♪ I'm from the country ♪
♪ And I'm from Downtown ♪
♪ I eat bacon ♪
♪ And I eat beans ♪
♪ I drink whiskey ♪
♪ And I drink tea ♪
(group laughs)
♪ I like his shoes ♪
That was a part of it too.
- What? - God.
♪ I called my tractor Juan ♪
Not John Deere?
Tequila.
I drink tequila, okay, go ahead.
♪ I'm white ♪
♪ And I'm brown ♪
♪ I'm from the country ♪
♪ And I'm from Downtown ♪
♪ I eat bacon ♪
♪ And I eat beans ♪
Oh, you know what it was, dude, it was the opposite.
You singing beets or beans?
No beans.
And we were singing the opposite.
♪ I drive a low rider ♪
♪ I drive four by four ♪
That's still not Ford.
I drive.
(group laughs)
Well, a low rider's not a make of a car.
Oh, okay, well, oh that's right.
Oh, that's right, okay.
Hit it.
♪ I drive a Chevy ♪
♪ I drive a Ford ♪
♪ I like low riders ♪
♪ I love four by fours ♪
That's it.
Was that it?
♪ Well, I'm white ♪
♪ And I'm brown ♪
♪ I'm from the country ♪
♪ And I'm from downtown ♪
♪ I eat bacon ♪
♪ I eat beans ♪
♪ You like tortillas ♪
♪ You love cheese ♪
(Vinnie laughs)
(dramatic orchestral music)