Public Comment as Performance

Government meetings can become a key performance venue with some clever planning. The bar is already set so low that one can easily say their peace and do it with panache! Get inspired by these fun examples… There are situations where open public comment, response, or testimony is invited; shareholder meetings, city council, Q&As, and …

Amber Ruffin does evaluation

In Late Night comedian Amber Ruffin’s latest “Amber Says What” she asks a lot of valuable evaluation questions of the Trump administration’s latest political spectacle. We may start incorporating these into our work. Some highlights: Why this? What was the desired effect? Why is this happening and what is happening? Did you know this was …

Comedian Roy Wood Jr. on Audiences

Roy Wood Jr. does his own form of audience testing. In this interview for the Good One Podcast, Wood talks about how he developed a hilarious bit called “Black Patriotism?” for his special, Father Figure. In the interview Wood talks about testing his jokes on different kinds of audiences in different parts of the country …

Politics of Humor in an Age of Fools

Notes from Stephen Duncombe’s presentation Politics of Humor in an Age of Fools HEMI Encuentro at UNAM, Mexico City, 10 June 2019 I’ve been thinking a lot about the politics of humor in these very dire and serious times. So what do I think? A great deal of humor points out the absurdity of the normal, …

5: Stand Up Comedy

For our latest expedition we went out for a night of live stand up comedy. Combining local clubs, touring acts, cable networks, netflix, and the White House correspondents dinner, the American art form of stand up is far reaching and growing. We headed to the The Comedy Cellar in New York City with our special …

New York Times Off Color: Kristina Wong uses humor to talk about race

Off Color, a video series, highlights artists of color who use humor to make smart social statements about the sometimes subtle, sometimes obvious ways that race plays out in America today. Dating in Los Angeles is not easy. Just ask Kristina Wong, a Chinese-American performance artist and writer who says she wants reparations for “yellow …

Nonprofit Fights Poverty With Poverty | The Onion

This is from 2006 but somehow stayed relevant. Our crack team of anti-poverty activists is totally devoted to marshalling every resource at our disposal,” Lindstrom said as she stood under a flickering light bulb in the office’s bathroom and added some water to an old toner cartridge to squeeze every last drop of usable ink …

The Joker Always Wins

One of my favorite lessons from the School for Creative Activism is this: fun can be powerful and comedy can be dead serious.  The best activism is effective because it hits people at an emotional level – at that gut-level sweet spot where decisions are made before conscious thought.  But it’s not an easy spot to reach …

Sarah Silverman, Comedy, and the idea of the meta-bigot

This piece from Slate in 2005 introduces the interesting idea of a meta-bigots: Silverman has become an important member of a guerrilla vanguard in the culture wars that we might call the “meta-bigots”…. The meta-bigots work at social problems indirectly; instead of discussing race, rape, abortion, incest, or mass starvation, they parody our discussions of …

The greatest victory comes from culture, not weapons

I’ve been reading Paul Provenza and Dan Dion’s ¡SATIRISTAS! Comedians, Contrarians, Raconteurs & Vulgarians and it’s filled with wonderful moments like the one above. The book is a series of 3-5 page interviews with comedians and satirists from Paul Krassner to Rosanne Barr. Every single one has surprised me with some kind of insight. It’s …

Laughter Against The Machine – Tour Documentary

First, you have to know about W. Kamau Bell. W. KAMAU BELL is one of the fastest-rising socio-political comics in the United States, best known for his critically acclaimed solo show “The W. Kamau Bell Curve: Ending Racism in About an Hour.” Praised by Punchline Magazine as “one of our nation’s most adept racial commentators …

Can Conservative Political Humor Be Funny?

“An Examination of The 1/2 Hour News Hour and An American Carol” on Splitsider today looks at why conservative political humor has failed. The crux of the argument is here: So where Surnow was wrong was in presuming that effective comedy tilts right or left, because the tilt of truly effective comedy, comedy that affects …

God Hates Flags

The infamous westboro baptist church visited San Francisco. WBC’s hate-promoting signs were answered by multiple signs of randomness, nonsensical yelling, and even a unicorn. A portable stereo blared Lady GaGa, while press and people passing by ignored the WBC signs and took pictures and videos of the more entertaining signs. I was also there and …