"I thought one of the gifts of comedy was supposed to be the ability to tell the fucking truth" (Lee Camp)

"I thought one of the gifts of comedy was supposed to be the ability to tell the fucking truth, but you know what TV's most scared of? The fuckin' truth! . . ."

-- Lee Camp, in Moment of Clarity #103,
"What TRULY Offends The Masses?"

by Ken

Since I last wrote about the great no-holds-barred political essayist-ranter Lee Camp, he's posted some new Moment of Clarities (the official plural form of "Moment of Clarity"), including #103 above, on his website, LeeCamp.net. (There's also #104, "The FINAL Word On 2011: A Year In Review," and #105, "Hydraulic Fracking Causing Fracking Earthquakes!")

In #103, Lee say, "I realize my form of comedy is not for everyone," and eventually comes around to this:

So to some degree I understand why networks say they can't use what I do. But that being said, the comedy du jour seems to be offensive for offense's sake -- jokes glorifying pedophilia, justifying rape, thrashing women, and trashing minorities. That form of comedy seems to get rewarded and broadcast to the masses for their viewing pleasure.

And I understand different people enjoy different brands of comedy. Different strokes for different stroke victims, right? But what's annoying is that this means that to the TV execs, and supposedly the viewing public, hearing about corporate criminals and the ills of the mindless materialistic bubble in which we live is more threatening, offensive, and more grating to the ear canal than racist jokes, mysogyny, kid-diddling, and homophobia. I thought one of the gifts of comedy was supposed to be the ability to tell the fucking truth, but you know what TV's most scared of? The fuckin' truth!

A joke justifying wife-beating will make you a star, but good luck tearing down Walmart or JPMorganChase. Good luck calling out Disney for their child labor, or Nestlé for their Third World privatization and starvation. Middle America can't handle hearing about that stuff, dear God, no, so just be a good comedian and stick to the friendly race joke that seems to make everyone comfortable with their station in life.

Let me say again that one thing I find so awesome about Lee's work is that the writing, despite being written expressly for his distinctive performance mode, reads so brilliantly in written-down form. Each mode of delivery adds dimensions to the other.

Which leads me to a reminder about Lee's advisory at the end of the M.O.C.:

Want to see Moment of Clarity continue and remain advertiser-free? Please become a member at LeeCamp.net. It's cheap, and it really makes a difference. Thanks a lot.

I look at the way Lee and Andy Borowitz -- and no doubt other brilliant comics I'm too preoccupied to keep track of (feel free to throw your favorites into the comments section) -- throw everything they can come up with at the challenge of eking a living out of doing what they do so brilliantly, and I . . . well, I don't have a finish for that sentence. (I'll bet Lee or Andy would.)

In that last post I wrote about Lee, I reproduced some wonderfully holiday tweets from Lee's Twitter feed . . . .

. . . and also the engagingly lucid explanation Lee offers on his Membership page for his plea for membership support. As I mentioned, I wasn't able to afford more than the lowest membership level (with the discount offered for paying for a full year), but I felt heaps better having given -- even after discovering that I missed by only a day or two the offer of a free signed CD. That isn't what it's about.

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