Entries tagged "truth"

Mike Daisey told the truth and lied to This American Life

Mike is the only other solo performer I know who didn’t “lock” his scripts besides me. Back when he first toured his first big hit Doing Time At Amazon he told me it was difficult to get theatres to allow this. It’s something I do because my shows are interactive and they’re designed to shift every time in part based on who is there. The Agony And The Ecstasy of Steve Jobs is the first script that Mike Daisey locked. He also gives it away for royalty-free performances Creative Commons style.

Locked. As in sure. Air tight. Even in his playbill asserting it is non-fiction. This is perhaps one of the reasons I didn’t go to see the show. But it is now the biggest story in solo performance / performance art (whatever handle it is people like to use to describe telling a story on a stage.) This is what I do ( although I spend a lot of time creating the space for others’ stories and participation). I have not stopped thinking about this revelation of Mike’s lying since I heard about it. And I imagine it will inform my own thinking about my own work for quite some time. The This American Life Retraction Episode in which he is grilled and dissembles and I would say performs, is absolutely riveting. And it is unscripted and all about Mike Daisey. Even when he does his best to say it’s not.

I perform with Margaret Cho on Wed. subvert's list: most subversive comics of all time.

Larry Charles made a list of 28 at Entertainment Weekly.He’s got some greats but every single one is a white dude (except Sarah Palin), so he’s missed some of the best. So subvert is making a list of our own.

I’m thrilled to be be performing on Wednesday the 15th to fight Prop 8 with one of these people in San Francisco: Margaret Cho. Buy your tix now.

Here is subvert.com’s list of the top subversive comics of all time.  Most of these people are not on the EW list. The number one thing that makes these folks subversive, that Larry Charles misses completely, is that for most of them just taking up public space as themselves unapologetically and truth talking in their own hilarious way was a subversive act. The most upending comic moments come when the comic has emotional skin in the game.

1. Richard Pryor  

2. Charlie Chaplin
3. Ernst Lubtisch  
4. Paul Mooney 
5. Chris Rock
6. Gilda Radner
7. Sandra Benhard
8. Lenny Bruce
9. Bill Hicks
10. Sarah Silverman in the Aristocrats
11. Margaret Cho
12. Oscar Wilde
13. Fran Lebowitz
14. Andy Kaufman
15. Belle Barth
16. Dave Chappelle
17. Danitra Vance
18. Dave Allen
19. Monty Python
20. Roseanne Barr
21. Amy Sedaris
22. George Carlin
23. Giulietta Masina
24. Mel Brooks


Who else would you add? Send me a link to a clip.

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