Listen to this full episode of The New Abnormal on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon, and Stitcher.

The Guardian Angels have been meting out vigilante justice on New York City streets since 1979. Last week the red beret-wearing crime fighters appeared on Fox News when their leader, Curtis Sliwa, a recent GOP mayoral candidate, was interviewed by Sean Hannity about the “migrant crisis” in New York. While the interview was in progress, the Angels violently detained a man in Times Square that Sliwa told Hannity was a migrant shoplifter.

“The Guardian Angels spotted him, stopped him,” Sliwa boasted to Hannity on air. “He resisted. And let’s just say we gave him a little pain compliance. His mother back in Venezuela felt the vibrations. He’s sucking concrete. The cops scraped him off the asphalt. He’s on his way to jail, but they’ll cut him loose. We gotta take 42nd Street back, Sean, these illegal[s] saying they own this street. They think they rule the night. This is our country. If they can’t abide by the rules, then we’re gonna kick ‘em back from where they came.”

But as New Abnormal co-host Andy Levy points out, almost none of what Sliwa said was true: “You heard Curtis Sliwa say that the guy had been shoplifting. There is absolutely no evidence of that. Police have not said he was shoplifting.”

Moreover, the alleged “migrant” turned out to be a long-time resident of the Bronx. “Sliwa said he thought he was a migrant because he spoke Spanish,” Levy said.

Podcast producer Jesse Kaden described Sliwa as “a crazy cat man who lives in a 320 square foot studio with 15 cats. And when he’s not there, he wears a stupid-looking comic book vigilante costume while being racist and harassing people.” Sliwa, Kaden points out, has always been more adept at getting attention than making sense. “This is also a guy who throughout the pandemic would go into board of education meetings without a mask at the height of the pandemic just to harass people who were vulnerable to stop doing anything about education.”

“This guy’s been a known menace,” Kaden said, “and I really hope this is the thing that finally gets him locked up.”

Later, Levy talks to Laurie Kilmartin, a stand-up comedian who wrote for Conan O’Brien for 11 years, has written two books, and now has a new comedy special, Cis Woke Grief Slut, available for purchase online.

Levy tries very hard to plug Kilmartin’s special without blowing any of her punchlines, but he can’t help noting, somewhat wincingly, that she (a dog owner!) describes dogs as “replaceable.”

Kilmartin doesn’t back down: “They are. And just so your audience doesn’t think you’re horrific, I’ll say my proof, and this is that my dad over the course of his lifetime had five black labs named Pepsi. And every time a Pepsi died, my dad would go to the pound, he’d pick out the new Pepsi and he'd take the collar off the dead Pepsi and put it on the new Pepsi. And we, our family, had one red dog collar for 55 years with the same tag.”

However, some Pepsis apparently were more equal than others. “My dad left me the ashes of Pepsi four and I still have them,” Kilmartin said. “So all the Pepsis were beloved members of our family, and four was probably the favorite.”

Listen to this full episode of The New Abnormal on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon, and Stitcher.