Here's a piece I wrote and read at the first Manifesto! -- a weekly stand-up show (Tuesdays, 8 pm) that I co-host at the People's Republic of Brooklyn. I post it here for anyone who missed it, and so that history will remember these words:
A new movement is sweeping Brooklyn—the movement of Comedism (a word I just made up, out of Comedy and Communism). The time has come for an alliance of radical comedians, audience members, and a bar on Smith Street—a.k.a. the joketariate—to rise up against the bourgeoisie of the Comedy-Industrial-Complex. First, we call for the abolition the 2-Drink Minimum! Second, we must no longer be enslaved by the oppressive cover charge, a holdover from feudalism, and begin a new era of Free Comedy for the Masses! Henceforth, Comedist leaders, such as those assembled today, will speak their views and aims freely into a microphone, without fear of censure or imprisonment. Furthermore, the hegemony of the celebrity-dominant Twitterocracy will be uprooted and cast out. The name “Miley Cyrus” will never be uttered in this show! (Oh, shit, except once.) We will also throw out the wage system, since, as Marx said, wage-labor only creates “capital, i.e., that kind of property which exploits wage-labor, and which cannot increase except upon condition of begetting a new supply of wage-labor for fresh exploitation…” (What this means to the comics is…you’re getting paid in drinks.) Comrades, the joketariat must own the means of amplification—but until then, we’ll just use this mic that was already here at the bar. Comedians and audiences of Carroll Gardens, unite! Stand-up for the People!