Welcome to The Bell Curve Project! Much like nobody saw his solo show coming, nobody will see this coming (unless you're reading this). And this time instead of just taking on Race, Kamau is taking on everything... one show at a time. "When I initially began doing The Bell Curve, I immediately realized that I enjoyed the idea behind it of taking one subject and attacking it from different angles and trying to find unique approaches to something that we all as a society had spend lots of time thinking about. I knew it didn't always have to be about race. I even did a few shows at Stage Werx where I focused on things like Black History Month and frustration. That is where I really feel like my comedic itch gets scratched."
The major difference with The Bell Curve Project is that this time Kamau is not doing it alone. He has recruited a gang of his favorite comedians, writers, producers, and even a rockstar rapper to help him out. It's like a murders' row of talent from The Bay Area and yes, even from LA and New York. They include Alex Koll (Just For Laughs Festival, Bay Area Air Guitar Champion), Kevin Camia (iTunes Top Ten Comedy CD of 2010), Kevin Kataoka (Lopez Tonight, MadTV), Chuck Sklar (Lopez Tonight & HBO's Chris Rock Show) and regular Kamau cohorts, Janine Brito (laughter Against The Machine), Nato Green (Laughter Against The Machine), and Kevin Avery (Siskel & Negro), and the original director of The W. Kamau Bell Curve, Martha Rynberg. And the rockstar rapper / activist / Bay Area legend himself, founder of The Coup and co-founder of Street Sweeper Social Club, Boots Riley. The Bell Curve Project will be a hybrid of a diatribe, video clips and segments, talk show elements, sketch comedy, and a good old-fashioned Kamau show. Special guests TBA.
So Kamau is going back to Stage Werx, the theater where he performed The Bell Curve for the first time, and this time he and his LA, New York, and Bay Area friends are taking on the subject of... Apologies. Why do we make so many of them? Do they mean anything anymore? What makes a good one? What makes a bad one? What are the most famous ones? Who still owes us one? How can we all get better at them?
"I know nobody is expecting me to take on apologies after four years of taking on racism, but apologies are as embedded and loaded in society as racism is. Literally everyday they are in the news, either because somebody makes one or somebody needs to make one: politicians, actors, actors who are politicians."
“The other reason I’m doing this show is because over the last few years, one thing I have learned is that the entertainment industry is run the exact same way as a high school geometry class. Neither one of them care if you have the answer. They both want you to show your work. So I’m going to do these shows, film them to show my work, and then sell it back to them. The same way I did in high school.”
In the tradition of epic filmmaking & epic story telling, Kamau has one doozy of story to tell about his last three weeks. And in classic FNGTAC fashion, Vernon takes the conversation waaaaaaaaay off road in a beautiful way. This episode features several epic battles of Good vs. Evil: Kamau vs. Sacramento, Kevin Avery vs. Hollywood, Vernon vs. Hip Hop, Vernon vs. Quentin Tarantino, and even Vernon vs. Apollo Creed(?). And during this epic tale Vernon & Kamau finally have the N Word conversation, and we're not talking about Zen meditation. It took seven episodes for these two black guys to have that conversation. WOW! Maybe instead, they are actually "Far Afield Negroes". This one also features a surprise ending which portends good things to come, and also we finally get to find out exactly what percentage of Vernon that Kamau is. May the force be with them!
