Comedy Night at the Heritage Foundation
I have a certain affection for all fellow comedians, having done some stand-up comedy myself. So I had sympathy for Evan Sayet, a conservative comedian, who spoke at the Heritage Foundation earlier today. His shtick is not what we might call nuanced. Sayet's talk was entitled, "Hating What's Right: How the Modern Liberal 'Thinks' " (He has a book by the same title, he tells me, coming out later this year.) Sayet seems like a nice enough fellow--we have some friends in common-- and it's hard enough to do comedy even with a two-drink minimum let alone at the Lehrman Auditorium of the nation's preeminent conservative think tank.
A one time writer for the Arsenio Hall Show, Sayet describes himself as a "brain-dead liberal" before 9/11. The attacks led to an epiphany, he says. And now he's a full-throated conservative who charges that "modern liberalism" believes in "evil over good, wrong over right." His comedy conflates Jeremiah Wright, the dyspeptic professor Ward Churchill, who characterized 9/11 victims as "little Eichmans" along with mainstream liberals like the Illinois Senator Dick Durbin who gets ribbed, deservedly so I think, for comparing American detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay with the Nazis. Durbin, himself, apologized for the remarks--a point which Sayet didn't note. At other times, he took shots at Brian Williams, Katie Couric, Paul Krugman and Maureen Dowd while I was there but only to sneer at them.
Humor is most funny when it's deeply truthful so bastardizing liberalism into a grotesque parody of itself is neither truthful or funny, to me anyway, although the conservative crowd at Heritage loved it. To be fair, Sayet allowed a few asides about liberals "who don't hate America" and are merely misguided about social programs. But in general his comedy lumps everyone on the left together into an absurdist portrait.
Here's Sayet on liberalism and anti-semitism:
Here he is on being a conservative comedian in Hollywood.
Josh
Matt
Eric
Brian
Sayet seems to have remained consistent in one respect -- both before and after 9/11, he has remained "brain-dead".
Dennis Miller owns this territory already, anyway.
March 4, 2009 12:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
Good comeback. And in general, I don't find conservative "comedians" funny at all. And that's not because I'm a liberal. I laugh loudest at a lot of very non-PC comedians. But somehow conservative "comedians" just come across as more rants against liberals than any real attempt to be funny.
OTOH, I've seen a few conservative politicians who could be funny (Dole, believe it or not).
March 4, 2009 12:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Talk about riding a dead horse; even Cinnamon Stillwell, the SF Chronicle's resident moonbat quietly stopped billing herself as a 'post 9/11 conservative' awhile ago.
I'm guessing that Mr. Sayet's phone never rang after the Arsenio Hall show (what was that, like 20 years ago?), so he's pandering where there's the least competition. And let's face it, the list of (professional/intentional) conservative comedians is a short, short list.
Remember the last great conservative comedian, Dennis Miller? He's currently residing in the 'Where Are They Now?' file.
March 4, 2009 12:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
The guy was never a "liberal" -- he was just brain-dead. And the sort of stuff he says debars him from being "a nice guy" under any circumstances. Just another evil little apparatchik doing his masters' bidding.
March 4, 2009 12:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Greatest rightwing comedian of all time:
Rush Limbaugh.
Boss Limbaugh is getting funnier by the day.
March 4, 2009 12:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
that's soooo funny. i've never heard that liberals are evil and they hate america before. what a refreshing, new insight.
my sides are starting to hurt hurt from laughing so much.
why doesn't this guy have his own tv show?
March 4, 2009 1:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
One time, I was opening a can of sliced black olives for a pizza. Laboring, no doubt, under the universal feline delusion that "can opener" = "tuna," One of my cats watched attentively from the top of the refridgerator. So, when I was done, I pulled an olive out of the can and held it up for her to take a sniff.
To this day, I crack up when I remember the look she gave me. It was this look of total perplexity that said, as clearly as if she could speak, "Okay, a) WTF? and b) and more importantly, what on Earth led you to believe that that was something I would be remotely interested in smelling?"
I think I have that same look on my face right now.
March 4, 2009 1:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
My thoughts precisely, TCFKANCS.
March 4, 2009 3:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hey, this is hilarious! Bashing liberals! While acknowledging that there's, oh, one liberal, maybe, who doesn't hate the country!
This is as fresh and new as "Take my wife, please".
Geez.
The stupid. It burns.
March 4, 2009 1:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
By the way, anyone who compares things done by the neocon Shrub admin to Nazism is doing so correctly as there are historical parallels. There is nothing wrong with it. There are differences but the biggest one of note is that there has been no one deliberately killed in Guantanamo. But that's where the differences end. Both places used incomplete and prejudicial evidence to imprison people improperly. Both tortured. Both were set up while a fascist system was in place in the country (and never kid yourself into believing the Shrub admin wasn't fascist - it fit the definition to a tee).
Durbin should not have apologized and neither should anyone else. I never will.
March 4, 2009 1:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
You know, there are more younger people every day. This supports my argument that time moves forward. Whats-his-name here is right to avoid these people, who are likely to experience new things we don't share with the moribund.
The right is not heard from in comedy, because 'all grouchy all the time' is not funny. If it's serious stuff, it's a lecture. Steve Martin told plumber jokes- that was funny because it was absurd.
This douchebag, Ms. Horseface (I forget her name right now, the Connecticut shrew), Limbaugh, they all work from such a tiny pallet the result distills to a list of phrases long enough for a pamphlet. I'd call it 'Constipation isn't funny, you liberal assholes who poop every day without remorse.'
And the only things missing from that last 'president's' Nazi credentials were Wagner and black & white video.
'We have not taken over Canada.' Wow. Canada is kinda funny, but maybe not any more. I think he just killed the top half of North America as material. Somebody stop this guy!
March 4, 2009 2:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm coming to the conclusion, and this is not a joke, that there really is something slightly mentally off about "conservatives". Their lives are a turmoil of fear and anger and resentment. EVERYTHING is done at a high emotional pitch, because they are constantly under attack by (check one or more): liberals, communists, socialists, gays, welfare mothers, brown people, black people, foreigners, hippies, elite snobs, brie eaters, atheists, terrorists, chardonnay sippers, teen-age gangs, government bureaucrats, the media, and God knows who else. And as bad as that is, I think they really truly believe that if you have enough money you can speak fluent French (not that you would want to).
March 4, 2009 2:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Fear, anger, resentment. You are right-on. I sometimes also include "blame" in that list.
March 4, 2009 2:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
Fluent French? Conservatives? Nah, More like butchered English, the official (patriotic) language.
March 4, 2009 3:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm assuming he has some actual jokes in his act. I watched that first video and the crowd tittered slightly a cuple of times, but that's about it.
Oh, but he uses the pejorative "Democrat" party. What a laff riot.
March 4, 2009 2:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
No kidding. Was he trying to be funny in the clips or was he just giving a lecture? Max Blumenthal's interviews with Hi-Caliber and John Ziegler were the real comedy from CPAC. The Capitol Steps lean somewhat liberal but they make fun of liberals a lot better than any conservatives do.
March 4, 2009 2:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm not conservative and I'm not a comedian but (delivery aside) I feel pretty confidant I could come up with a better routine.
Start with a crack about how the spineless congressional liberals are too interested in not hurting people's feelings to lead (conversation starting with Reid chewing out Lieberman and ending with Lieberman getting majority leader title).
Follow it by stating the Senate Republicans should let Franken have the seat because the Democrats have clearly spent a decade setting up this joke and we should at least wait for the punch line. "Though given their style of humor it might just be 'haha, now we're communist'".
Comment about how Janeane Garofalo is just mad that Ann Coulter is better looking than her.
After a big applause slip in "thanks I'll be here all week ... seriously, Obama seized my house and gave it to a bunch of illegal aliens. Which is a problem because ICE is coming back friday to make sure my help's paperwork is in order. So next week you can catch me at gitmo."
and done.
The guy should either work on being funny and tell simple jokes or work on being smart and give lectures about what's wrong with the left. He's definitely not ready to combine the two.
March 4, 2009 2:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Matt, your career could be in trouble. You think Durbin deserved to get grief for comparing the Bush Admin to the Nazi's? What, being 90% similar isn't close enough?
So, we at TPM are souring on your posts. And, your working here will make it pretty difficult for you to get back into the MSM.
Maybe tomorrow I won't feel so disappointed with your posts. And maybe I'm laying in the weeds to attack just because you came from Time. I'll give you another shot tomorrow, but honestly I'm just losing interest.
March 4, 2009 2:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
I did stand-up comedy for a time after college. It is a brutal, brutal gig. And I learned very early on that I didn't have the talent compared to a number of the men and women who got on that stage and who slogged through shitty club after shitty club clawing their way to what would be--in most cases--a somewhat comfortable but never very enriching career in terms of fame or money as a headliner at a club on Thursday nights. There are only so many spotlights, as a fellow comic used to lament. I saw the light and got the fuck out as quickly as I could, having neither the talent nor the insatiable desire for the audience love that is necessary to make it.
I saw a lot of Evan Sayets in my brief time on the road. Sad people who did not have the talent but who made up for it with that desire for the applause. They had to get that audience love. Everywhere they could, and no matter what it took--although they invariably failed to recognize that what it took was being funny.
These guys would alternately praise and badmouth comics, as if their approval or derision made up for their own failings as humorists. They would go from crappy gig to crappy gig, and they would tell these interminable war stories about this time or that where they had them rollllling in the aisles, as if some open mic night at the Laff Shed or the Ha Ha Hut off some highway in a desolate part of middle Pennsylvania was a two-hour act at Carnegie Hall.
Sayet, like so many comics of his age and talent, is looking for a gig that might--just might--get him that addictive and highly potent audience approval.
They bounce around from job to job. They do so forever, until they die or go back to advertising.
A buddy of mine who actually enjoys a modicum of success on the road calls them "comedy vampires." Because they are these sort of undead characters searching for something they can never really have, and they never go away.
Sayet is, as I'm sure he knows, not funny. But he thinks he's found a niche. Because, hey, how many truly funny conservative comedians are out there? Or have ever been out there.
The guy's fighting a losing battle with time and with talent. He gets my pity to a degree, but he should also recognize that if he is doing a ten minute set at a conservative think tank, he needs to think about getting back into copywriting.
Sad.
March 4, 2009 3:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
"So anytime you see one of these anti-American protests, disguised as anti-war protests, who is there screaming the loudest? The same people who scream loudest about Israel. Because Jew hatred is endemic."
That is some funny, funny, funny stuff right there. Show-your-teeth funny. Hilarious. How is this guy not writing for The Simpsons or According to Jim? Because he's a fucking laff riot.
March 4, 2009 3:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's bizarre that after centuries of persecution of Jews by conservatives, they act like liberals are anti-semitic. Right, Jews lived in fear of liberal pogroms and that dreaded liberal inquisition.
Oh right, those were the conservative Christians who did that. If they ever decide the existence of the state of Israel isn't going to bring back Jesus, they'll go right back to keeping Jews out of their neighborhoods.
March 4, 2009 3:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
The problem with conservative comedians is the anger. Their comedy is mostly anger directed at people they feel are doing them wrong, holding them back, screwing them over, etc... They forget to tell a joke, they just spew anger and fear and expect to be adored for it. Reminds me of Lenny Bruce, beaten down by the cops and the courts, bringing his trial transcripts on stage and reading from them. The anger there was justified (and the injustice heartbreaking) but in his anger he wasn't funny, just very sad.
Look at a political comedian like Will Durst. He gives it to both sides, finding the stupidity in all politics, not just shouting about the liberals and pausing for the laughs that don't come.
Well, at least this guy has found his niche, telling repubs what they already know about the evil liberals, the slanted media, and the terrible socialist administration ruining the country. They applaud his lines, occasionally laugh at some distortion that fits their worldview, and tell him how brave he is to be 'fighting' the Hollywood elite. And for him, this is enough.
March 4, 2009 3:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
I lasted 1 minute 22 seconds. What was that all about? A comedian standing behind a podium? I was kinda embarassed for him.
March 4, 2009 4:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Regarding piling on Durbin, you might want to consider this from Sheldon Whitehouse, member of both Intel and Justice committees.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGt87QKPpHs
March 4, 2009 4:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
This guy just proves Charles Barkley's most memorble line..." I was once a Republican until they all lost thier minds."
March 4, 2009 4:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
The reality of it is that conservative just can't be funny. They just don't have the funny gene. Look at how "The Daily Show" and "Colbert Report" pull off four nights a week of really good material whereas "The 1/2 Hour Newshour," which was billed as the conservative answer to "The Daily Show," tanked after two or three episodes and the folks who were on it went into witness protection from embarrassment. Or look at how funny David Zucker was when he was making movies like "Airplane" and "Naked Gun." Then he became a conservative and made "An American Carol" which tanked at the box office. Come on. I can do a better job of making fun of Michael Moore and I'm a progressive. For that matter, Michael Moore does a better job of making fun of Michael Moore. And have you ever read Glen Beck's "humor" magazine? Yeah, neither has anyone else.
Conservatives can cry foul that they just can't get a fair hearing because of the liberal Hollywood bias, but it's funny how they're all believers in the free market for everything else. And if we are truly a center-right nation as conservative are fond of saying, then where's the market for their "humor"? Let's face it -- one of the prerequisites for becoming a conservative is a humorectomy.
March 4, 2009 5:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Gotta love born-again anythings, running from their former selves, assuming the way they "were" is how everyone else "is".
March 4, 2009 5:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
Guys, for those of you who haven't seen this, brace yourselves. This is the worst of so-called conservative comedy that I've ever seen:
http://video.aol.com/video-detail/the-america-show-episode-1/3129193538
Julia Gorin is about the most unfunny comeidianne I've ever seen.
March 4, 2009 6:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
That was seriously awful! You did give fair warning though.
March 5, 2009 12:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
I watched the first 60 seconds, that was all I could take. How awful! You're right, this is one of the worst. Wooden delivery, stupid effects, wow. They obviously think they are The Daily Show. Obviously, they're not.
March 5, 2009 6:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
Had to go back and watch the first clip again just to get his take on Howard Zinn again, because there was something that seemed a bit off:
"Objective truth, objective facts...Objectivity is undesirable...if you seek to have history support a political agenda...I'm misquoting slightly, but you get the gist."
Yeah, just slightly (my emphasis):
“From the start of my teaching and writing, I had no illusions about “objectivity,” if that meant avoiding a point of view. I knew that a historian (or a journalist, or any one telling a story) was forced to choose, from an infinite number of facts, what to present, what to omit. And that decision inevitably would reflect, whether consciously or not, the interests of the historian.”
“There is an insistence, among certain educators and politicians in the United States, that students must learn facts. I am reminded of the character in Charles Dickens’s book Hard Times, Gradgrind, who admonishes a younger teacher: “Now, what I want is, Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life.”
“But there is no such thing as a pure fact, innocent of interpretation. Behind every fact presented to the world–by a teacher, a writer, anyone–is a judgment. The judgment that has been made is that this fact is important, and that other facts are not important and so they are omitted from the presentation.”
From Voices of a People’s History of the Untied States, Introduction, p.25, edited by Howard Zinn and Anthony Arnove.
March 4, 2009 6:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
Actually this quote is probably what the unfunny comedian was referring to:
"You've made the astounding comment that objectivity and scholarship in the media and elsewhere is not only 'harmful and misleading, it's not desirable'."
"I've said two things about it. One, that it's not possible. Two, it's not desirable. It's not possible because all history is a selection out of an infinite number of facts. As soon as you begin to select, you select according to what you think is important. Therefore it is already not objective. It's already biased in the direction of whatever you, as the selector of this information, think people should know. So it's really not possible. Of course, some people claim to be objective. The worst thing is to claim to be objective. Of course you can't be. Historians should say what their values are, what they care about, what their background is, and let you know what is important to them so that young people and everybody who reads history are warned in advance that they should never count on any one source, but should go to many sources. So it's not possible to be objective, and it's not desirable if it were possible."
http://howardzinn.org/default/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=49&Itemid=
March 4, 2009 7:10 PM | Reply | Permalink