At last night's final Bridgetown show, it felt like my face was melting. You too? Here are some final thoughts, as we look back on four days of sweatily wiping our brows and laughing all along E Burnside.

Weirdest meta moment: When Rachel Bloom's opening monologue was about me? Wait, no, it actually was. While many performers who come to Portland open with something like, "I'm so happy to be in Portland, beards, birds, bicycles, weed, very cute" or whutev, Bloom said she was glad to be in Portland because the only journalist to interview her who used the word "cisgender" was from Portland. Hey wait, that journalist is me! Ugh, so weird. Also thank you?

I also attended the podcast recording for Andrew Ti's show Yo, Is This Racist? featuring Ti himself and a panel of "racism experts"—Rhea Butcher, Sam Jay, and Curtis Cook—taking audience questions and call-ins from the Doug Fir ("a little bit of a murder basement"). Before we even get into this, basically if you have to ask if something's racist, I usually err on the side of it probably is. Still, people asked anyway! One man in the audience asked if it was racist to not be attracted to women who aren't white, and then seemed a little too proud to say he isn't attracted to Beyoncé, which is confusing, because every straight man (person?) I know is attracted to Beyoncé. The panel concluded that you should "at least have some shame" about saying you aren't attracted to Beyoncé.

I was worried Yo, Is This Racist? might be an opportunity for really nervous laughter, or a classic case of White People Being Defensive. To the contrary, it was a very refreshing, frank discussion of racism. Plenty of comics incorporate conversations about all kinds of shitty isms into their sets, but it was a welcome change of pace to see an entire show devoted to actually talking about racism, and helping people identify their problematic behaviors in a deservingly judgmental but ultimately extremely helpful way. When someone tells you you're doing something racist, they're doing you a huge favor! Also discussed: recent eulogies for Prince and Muhammad Ali that take the "they transcended race!" angle ("We never say white people transcend race"), the black elevator operators on Mad Men, and how to fix systemic inequity ("It's a room full of white dudes having to be silent").

At one point, Sam Jay apologized for deviating from her fun comedy persona to soundly criticize ignorant white people, but I could have listened to her talk about race for hours. Yo, Is This Racist? is one of those shows that somehow manages to get some serious points across while also being entertaining—it "delights and instructs" in that old-school way art is supposed to.

I also caught the beginning of the closing show at the Doug Fir, which featured sets from Whitney Streed, Andrew Michaan, and Nick Sahoyah that did not disappoint.

You know what did? Audience members comporting themselves shittily at MANY of this year's shows. There were the people talking OVER the comedians at Sunday evening's Bechdel Test showcase. There was the guy who shoutily whined throughout Rachel Bloom's set because she didn't play a song he wanted to hear. Being a pro, she responded by saying, "Men think they're SO funny," and segued into a story about how women never wanted to join her performance group in college, but unfunny dudes always expected to be let in.

It was a glorious pivot.

It is not a performer's responsibility to talk over rude side-conversations or cater to your arbitrary whims. It's their job to perform. If your conversation is so interesting, why don't you just go have it elsewhere? This is something I've never understood. Walking out of a show is ALWAYS an option. I did it at Moshe Kasher's Hound Tall podcast recording, because 15 minutes in it was still all dick jokes and an exhaustive history of Voodoo Doughnut, and the friend I had dragged to it was not super happy about this fact, so while I like Moshe Kasher, I left the other audience members to enjoy their dick jokes and doughnut history in peace.

But basically, I don't care how hot it is or how drunk you are. Attending a festival like Bridgetown is expensive, and no one is there because they want to listen to loud ass dudes and rude strangers. The point of going to a thing like Bridgetown in the first place is to be transported, to find yourself cruising around on the ceiling in a state of pure unadulterated joy because someone just said something so funny, that just kind of lands in your heart when you least expected it.

I can't do that when loudmouths are verbally harassing Rachel Bloom. Let's do better.