Stand-up Comedy

A black man doesn't need the government's money?

obama opted out of public campaign financing. mccain & conservatives should be happy! he's one less black man on public assistance

— Baratunde Thurston's comment on Twitter, after the news broke out that Obama is not going to use public assistance for his presidential campaign.

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"Nobody put their hands up your skirt looking for a library card"

Joan Rivers, the irreverent, obscene, politically incorrect misanthrope got lost in the wilderness of plastic surgery, mink coats and diamonds after we went to rule the gossip airwaved from E!TV. I soOoOoOo missed the woman that so inspired me as a teenager back in the 80s. She and Phyllis Diller : OMFG! LOVE THEM. I am so a gay man trapped in the body of a woman.

Thank blog she she got sacked. Best thing that ever happened to her.

The old-school Joan is back with a vengeance in Joan Rivers: Before Melissa Pulls the Plug, part of the Bravo TVs new stand-up comedy series, Bravo's Funny Girls. I haven't laughed this hard in a long time. Geezus friggin crickes, nobody is safe from that woman --not even herself.

"I hate ugly people ... Who I hate more than ugly people? Old people ... Hate them!"

"The Bush daughters, all drunks ... Their desgnated driver. Teddy Kennedy Jr ... I hate them all".

"Monica Lewinski should be our role model ... Seventeen million dollars for going down on the president ... Does my daughter have 17 million dollars? Of course not ... It's all my fault ... I taught her to be good, to believe in God, to get an education... Stupid, stupid, stupid."

Laughing Liberally Comedy Special

A Laughing Liberally special
Laughing with the Enemy! 3 conservative comics versus 3 liberal comics.

Howard Dean & Harry Reid laughed with us, right-wing commentators attacked us...now it's your turn.

Monday, August 28th, 9:30
45th Street Theatre
354 West 45th Street
(Between 8th and 9th Ave)
TICKETS: $10
Call: 1-800-838-3006

From the Left:
Dean Obeidallah is a Palestinian-Italian-American, the co-founder of the New York Arab-American Comedy Festival, a frequent guest on Air America Radio and the winner of the "Spirit of Bill Hicks Award."
Benari Poulten is a former Congressional Aide, a former almost-child-star, and a former field coordinator for the Kerry campaign, and sometimes, he's a Staff Sgt. in the US Army Reserve.
Katie Halper is a walking stereotype: the female comic who jokes about judicial nomination processes and economic stratification. She's also a native Upper West Sider, where 'liberal' is a conservative word.

Submitted by Khalper on 25 August 2006 - 1:52pm.
Comedy | Events | Stand-up Comedy

Franz Fanon explains Dave Chappelle's departure from Comedy Central, posthumously

These new-found tensions which are present at all stages in the real nature of colonialism have their repercussions on the cultural plane. In literature, for example, there is relative over-production. From being a reply on a minor scale to the dominating power, the literature produced by natives becomes differentiated and makes itself into a will to particularism. The intelligentsia, which during the period of repression was essentially a consuming public, now themselves become producers. This literature at first chooses to confine itself to the tragic and poetic style; but later on novels, short stories and essays are attempted. It is as if a kind of internal organisation or law of expression existed which wills that poetic expression become less frequent in proportion as the objectives and the methods of the struggle for liberation become more precise. Themes are completely altered; in fact, we find less and less of bitter, hopeless recrimination and less also of that violent, resounding, florid writing which on the whole serves to reassure the occupying power. The colonialists have in former times encouraged these modes of expression and made their existence possible. Stinging denunciations, the exposing of distressing conditions and passions which find their outlet in expression are in fact assimilated by the occupying power in a cathartic process. To aid such processes is in a certain sense to avoid their dramatisation and to clear the atmosphere. But such a situation can only be transitory. In fact, the progress of national consciousness among the people modifies and gives precision to the literary utterances of the native intellectual. The continued cohesion of the people constitutes for the intellectual an invitation to go farther than his cry of protest. The lament first makes the indictment; then it makes an appeal. In the period that follows, the words of command are heard. The crystallisation of the national consciousness will both disrupt literary styles and themes, and also create a completely new public. While at the beginning the native intellectual used to produce his work to be read exclusively by the oppressor, whether with the intention of charming him or of denouncing him through ethnical or subjectivist means, now the native writer progressively takes on the habit of addressing his own people.

— Frantz Fanon, Reciprocal Bases of National Culture and the Fight for Freedom

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Laughing all the way

On Saturday night, I went to see Kate Clinton at the Somerville Theater on her "It's Come to This! 25th Anniversary Tour." I want you to think about that; while many people know her as a columnist for The Progressive, Kate Clinton has been making a living as a lesbian comic since 1981. Along with people like Marga Gomez and Lea DeLaria, Kate Clinton has been a queer political cultural pioneer. Here's her own diddy from the program notes:

It's come to this: for twenty five years, I have thanked you for coming out--out of the closet, out of your homes, out of your daily routines--to come to my shows. You have shown up through snowstorms, earthquakes, bomb scares, picket lines, transit strkes, orange alerts, breakups, epidemics, recessions, weddings, child care emergencies, juntas, peace time and war time. you have screamed, shouted, cried, cruised, smeared mascara, gotten hoarse, groaned, pounded your friends, gone quiet, been offended, moaned, whooped, lost bodily fluids, talked back.

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By showing up and laughing, we have put our bodies on the line. It has been good practice. It has come to this. We have made community. We have changed history. It has been a blast. Thank you for celebrating with me tonight!