INCREDIBLE review in The East Bay Express!

W. Kamau Bell

Face Full of Flour

By Rachel Swan

It's hard to do left-wing political humor without devolving into platitudes and homilies, especially when most of your jokes center on race — and most of your race jokes are black and white. W. Kamau Bell is the rare guy who does it really, really well. So well, in fact, that he manages to sustain a huge fan base with a pretty high median IQ. Most of that owes to his writing. A judicious humorist, Bell is extremely charismatic and has a huge personal cache of pop culture references. (The title of his new album, Face Full of Flour, derives from an old-school Rice Krispies commercial in which a mom puts flour on her face to look like she slaved away on a batch of Rice Krispies treats.) Bell even breaks the fourth wall to analyze his own jokes ("The Russian judges gave me a 'ten' for technical difficulty," he says of a bit called "Barack Is Too Smooth — Throw Some Flour on Your Face"). He knows right away which current events will fit into his purview, and what kind of twist to put on them. A single punch line takes him from Rice Krispies to "whiteface."

Such qualities radiate in Face Full of Flour, which opens with Bell describing his complicated knot of feelings about Barack Obama, and ends with anecdotes about his interracial marriage. The stuff in between is topical and thematically cohesive, but delivered in an offbeat and cavalier way. Telling a joke about the recent Henry Louis Gates flap, Bell philosophizes, George Carlin-style, about why Gates would "flip out" when accused of breaking into his own home. A joke about Michelle Obama touching the queen has him free-associating about the relative importance of both women: Michelle is the first African-American First Lady; the queen is a rich figurehead with a precarious grip on power — and given the no-contact rule, she's probably a Gremlin, Bell surmises. A joke about civil liberties gets increasingly weird when Bell starts comparing "dudes who sleep with dudes" to "dudes who sleep with guns." Most of us will get the point about a gun being a sublimated phallus; what's funny is hearing Bell act it out.

Bell's ability to veer from the banal to the bizarre is one of his big selling points. But he's not really an absurdist in the traditional sense — he's more of a political junky who sees everything through a racial lens. He reads online news voraciously, synthesizes information quickly, and tries to comment on it before the pundits weigh in. His Facebook status updates are always worth reading. He'll tweet from the stage. He'll pause midway through a Tyler Perry joke so that white people in the audience can take out their iPhones and look up "Tyler Perry" on Wikipedia. He's just the sort of comedian who should thrive in the age of social networking: fast, pointed, personal without divulging too much, good at impersonating black celebrities, and even better at impersonating their white hecklers. "When I say 'you white people,' I don't mean you white people," he says, addressing the audience in a bit called "This Is Not My Amurica." "I mean your friends and family." That sounds like a put-on, but it always kills. (Rooftop Comedy Productions)

Face Full of Flour OUT NOW on iTunes!

Click here or go to iTunes and download it until your heart's content... which is probably once. And if you can't make that happen do to the current state of your personal economy, then you can still help by giving it a FIVE STAR rating on iTunes whether you buy it or not. It's time to get grassroots here, peoples!

Thanks! You know I luv you.

SF Weekly endorses My Black History Month Event!!!

Blacktastic Black History Month Blacktacular ... Black!

Date/Time:Daily from Thu., February 25 until Fri., February 26

Price: $20-$50 Contact Info: | Event Website

For Whom ...

By Hiya Swanhuyser

"Comedian" is a small term for a person who does standup, but also directs, teaches, and wields PowerPoint like a light saber. W. Kamau Bell is all that and a political commentator at his new show, Blacktastic Black History Month Blacktacular ... Black! And he must be called comedian, since we have no other word for a professionally funny person other than "funnyperson," and we don't like that one. Bell's the first person to have made a joke about Barack Obama, (according to Comedy Central), the star of several recent long-running shows, and a man we recently had the pleasure to describe as "blowing the fuck up." L.A. has noticed him, suffice to say. He's also a profligate reTweeter. A new CD, Face Full of Flour wonders "why black + white = black," among other things. Bell is known for to-the-instant topicality, so expect him to take the piss out of John Mayer and muse on liveblogging Precious, plus commentary on Black History Month, aka "awkward MacDonald’s commercials about Harriet Tubman."

WTF Podcast with Marc Maron featuring me & Dwayne Kennedy. RACE-Y!

WTF Podcast with Marc Maron So a couple weeks ago when I was in LA taping Marc Maron's TV Pilot for Comedy Central, me and Dwayne Kennedy also taped this episode of Marc Maron's WTF podcast. The interview is pretty much 100% focused on racism in alternative comedy... which makes it seem pretty topical considering all the John Mayer nonsense yesterday. This interview was sort of a surreal experience for me. I've been a big fan of Marc's since before I started doing comedy, and I'm a big fan of his podcast. Marc is credited as one of the founders(?) of Alt Comedy, but I've always appreciated him for his honesty, his blistering point of view, and his... I don't know how to put this... his ADULTHOOD. There are very few comics that feel like adults when they are onstage. Most comedians onstage feel like teenagers or college students on a Friday night, but Marc is part of a class of comedians who feel like adults. (including Greg Proops, Jake Johannsen, Bill Burr... and it goes without saying Bill Cosby and Paul Mooney) I've always respected that quality in a comedian and have aspired to be that myself. It doesn't mean they don't talk about or do silly things but they do these things from an adult perspective. It feels like it is a throwback to the 60's and early 70's era of comedy.

The 2nd reason this episode felt surreal is that I was able to tape it with Dwayne Kennedy. Not only is he is one of my best friends but he is also one of my favorite comics of all-time. No exaggeration. He's a comedy legend amongst the people who know these things (Marc sort of goes into this at the beginning --- if they left that part in.) , and there's not enough evidence online for you to know how good Dwayne is. And DEFINITELY getting Dwayne to open up like he did on Marc's podcast AND ON THE RECORD is rare, so enjoy it while it lasts.

I haven't listened yet to this episode, yet --- possibly because I was there. Check it out and let me know what you think. ENjoy this episode of Two Legends and Kamau.

You can get it on Itunes or just click HERE!

My Episode of KQED's SPARK re-airs THIS WEEK!

My episode of Spark airs again THIS WEEK! Apparently, I'm an artist now. I talk racism, Pumpkin Pie, & you get to meet the elusive White Mike Johnson!

Westerhout, Bell, and Blades

See a preview of this Spark episode.

Spark follows photographer Katherine Westerhout inside a forgotten West Oakland landmark -- the 16th Street Train Station. Once the terminus of the Transcontinental Railroad, this Beaux Arts gem has been off-limits since 1989, but that might be about to change.

Next, comedian W. Kamau Bell shares his wry observations on race and his personal stories about being black in an Obama-era America.

Then, meet Wil Blades, a virtuoso at playing a soulful instrument from a bygone era, the B3 organ.

[Original air date: Wed, Apr 01, 2009]

Upcoming Broadcasts:

Wed, Feb 10, 2010 -- 7:30pm email reminder email reminder Thu, Feb 11, 2010 -- 1:30am email reminder email reminder Fri, Feb 12, 2010 -- 11:30pm email reminder email reminder more airings»

The East Bay Express RAVES about Laughter Against The Machine

The East Bay Express declares of Laughter Against The Machine, "Theirs might be the brainiest, most literate comedy tour to hit the Bay Area this January. It's smart, it's heady, it gets to the very edge of what's tolerable for a left-wing, politically correct audience."

And I got you cheeeeeep tickets, cuz I love you!

See you in Oakland.

Laughter Against The Machine comes to Oakland Jan 7-9!

If you missed us on New Year's Eve in San Francisco, then check us out across the Bay in Oakland THIS, Thursday thru Friday, January 7, 8, & 9. Plus I know a dude and he can get you cheeeeeep tickets HERE! Here's the Facebook invite if you roll that way.

The venue is called The New Parish and it is the Uptown district's newest hotspot. Dave Chappelle did the 1st comedy show there a few months ago. We're #2. In the immortal words of Jim Morrison, "Pretty cool. Pretty neat."

Laughter Against The Machine on New Year's Eve

FROM THE EAST BAY EXPRESS Seldom do homegrown comedians have as much personal magnetism or shrewd observations as W. Kamau Bell, who is best known for his ever-evolving one-man show, The W. Kamau Bell Curve. Bell and Kevin Avery used to have a weekly radio spot on Live 105 called Siskel and Negro, which they mostly dedicated to film reviews — with some pop-culture miscellany mixed in. At this point, though, Bell has busied himself with an ongoing critique of race politics, integration, sanctimoniousness, silent hypocrisy, and glaring inequity in the so-called Obama Age. Bell constantly recobbles his material to stay on top of the news cycle, so it's a different show from month to month. This New Year's Eve he'll revisit the big stories from 2009, and examine pop culture from a racy angle. Aptly titled "Laughter Against the Machine," Bell's night of "guerilla comedy" also features the equally incisive Hari Kondabolu, and local favorite Nato Green.

Buy Tickets HERE!

A Conversation I Had Last Night Before The Show...

Not the actual guy I'm in the greenroom last night, minutes before the show, and I hear someone say, "Kamau's in there." Now since everybody I know is already IN the green room and I know I don't know anyone in Seattle, I immediately get suspicious of someone wanting to see me before the show. In walks an older white guy with the longest dreadlocks I've seen outside of... well pretty much anywhere. Trailing behind him was a black woman.

Older Dreadlocked White Guy: I used to have a friend named Kamau. Did you ever live in Oregon?

Me: No.

ODWG stares at me quizzically : You never lived way out in the country in Oregon?

Me: No.

ODWG: Really?

Me: No.

ODWG: Kamau was big like you.

Me: OK.

(At this point we go back and forth like this at least three more times, before finally...)

ODWG: You sure you never lived in Oregon? Or the big island in Hawaii?

Me: Yes.

ODWG shakes his head wistfully: I thought you were Kamau.

Me: I AM KAMAU!

1) Why couldn't he wait until after the show when he saw me perform where he could have gathered more information. 2) Why don't some people... (I really want to say white people, but I'm trying to be better about that.) Why don't some people have that thing in there head where they go, "Wait... I should probably hang back and collect more information before I make the mistake of ONCE AGAIN implying that all black people look alike." 3) Why did he make is so difficult for me to justify my existence as a separate Kamau? Can't there be two "Kamaus?" Actually, there are probably thousands and thousands... just not in this country. 4) This was the dreadlocked, liberal, crunchy granola white guy. He is supposed to be on my side, and not make me feel marginalized or even worse not seen as an individual at all. I'm not surprised but I am exhausted.

Are YOU or anyone you know from Seattle? If so...

I'll be headlining at The Comedy Underground December 17-19. And the best part is that my good friend, Hari Kondabolu will be on the shows, too. Here's the press release below in case you want to send this around.

Thanks.

“W. Kamau Bell is the most important guy doing comedy right now. Do yourself a favor and go see him. He’s got the most astute, hilarious and completely righteous material going and he’s going to be a legend in his own lifetime like Richard Pryor and Lenny Bruce. Think Bill Hicks but slightly taller.” - Margaret Cho

San Francisco comedian W. Kamau Bell makes his Seattle debut when he headlines at The Comedy Underground, December 17th through 19th. Former local comedian Hari Kondabolu organized the weekend and will be opening for Kamau.

Kamau's politically charged and race-conscious comedy ignites live and TV audiences alike. On TV, he is known for telling the first ever Barrack Obama joke on Comedy Central waaaaaaay back in 2005. He has also appeared on Comics Unleashed, KQED's Spark, G4's Filter and ABC's View from the Bay. He has performed at the prestigious Just For Laughs Festival in Montreal, where he was the only comedian to perform at both the New Faces Show and Best of The Uptown Comics. For the past two years, Kamau has performed his critically acclamimed solo show The W. Kamau Bell Curve: Ending Racism in About an Hour all over the San Francisco Bay Area, in Los Angeles at The Comedy Central Stage, and this past summer at The New York International Fringe Theater Festival. Kamau also co-hosts a regular Rooftop Comedy podcast as half of the team Siskel & Negro. (Kamau is “Negro.”) As a writer, Kamau has been published in The LA Weekly comedy issue and in the book What Would Bill Hicks Say? In 2008, Kamau was honored as San Francisco's Best Comedian by The SF Weekly.

Seattle favorite Hari Kondabolu returns to the city where he started his comedy career and worked from 2005-2007 as an immigrant rights organizer. Hari has appeared on ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live, Comedy Central’s Live at Gotham, and the 2007 HBO U.S. Comedy Arts Festival. He will also be appearing on John Oliver of the Daily Show’s new program on Comedy Central John Oliver’s New York Standup Show in January 2010.

Kamau and Hari met in 2008 while doing shows together in San Francisco as part of the Laugh Out The Vote Tour. And since then they have combined with fellow comedian and HuffPo blogger Nato Green to perform shows under the moniker Laughter Against The Machine: Guerilla Comedy for a New World.

The shows will be take place at the legendary Comedy Underground, located at 109 S. Washington St. in Pioneer’s Square. Tickets range from $6 on Thursday (all ages) to $15 in advance and $20 at the door on Friday and Saturday (Ages 21 and over). Tickets and more information are available at http://www.comedyunderground.com

ON W. KAMAU BELL

“Happily, Bell finds comic gold in the wide range of material he mines, offering provocative insights into an ugly reality. FOUR STARS” - Time Out New York

“Smart, stylish, and very much in the mold of politically outspoken comedians like Dave Chappelle and Margaret Cho.” - S.F. Weekly

For more info on Kamau: http://www.wkamaubell.com/

ON HARI KONDABOLU

"A young man reaching for the hand-scalding torch of confrontational comics like Lenny Bruce and Richard Pryor.” – Seattle Times

“Kondabolu’s work seeks to directly challenge audiences to see their own lives and the world differently.”- India Currents Magazine

“A national comedy treasure.”- The Stranger

For more info on Hari: http://www.harithecomic.com

A forgotten song from The Blindside Soundtrack

Watch this. Revel in it. I can't get enough of it. Send it around. It's from a woman who writes a blog called The Oreo Experience. I wish I knew her. Actually, I wish I knew her when I was in high school. I'd be a different person now.

Boots Riley Retweets Me & warns YOU!

Boots Riley Retweets Me & warns YOU! I did a benefit for my friend and KPFA host Nora Barrows-Friedman a couple weeks ago. And Boots Riley was on it, too. Obviously, he is a legend. This summer I spent a ton of time convincing my hard rock friends to pick up SSSC's album. So it was great to hare the stage with him. Since then he has been cool and supportive and then yesterday, pretty much out of nowhere  --- Well, I kind of butted in on a convo he was having on Twitter about writing.) --- THIS HAPPENED! And this has led to about 30 more Twitter followers so far. And a warm bubbly feeling inside of me. Boots is a hip hop legend and activist. I'm a comic. All I can say is thanks.

Oh yeah, and I can try to keep bringing it... Or start bringing it.. Or... something.

2 Day Workshop w/ Comedy Central Stage & former HBO Workspace Artistic Director Paul Stein

Two days of workshops (Saturday, December 5th & Sunday, December 6Paul Stein phototh --- 10a-1p) on how to take your solo show or solo show idea, and turn it into a piece that best showcases your story and your specific gifts. Taught by Paul Stein, the former Associate Producer of the HBO Workspace and currently Artistic Director of the Comedy Central Stage in Hollywood, this workshop will show you how to create and make decisive choices with your show... not obvious ones. Helpful to the beginner or experienced soloists, these workshops are for everyone from stand-up comedians to performers with more dramatic pieces. Mr. Stein's unique look at solo performance, gained from a dozen years of working with solo shows in Hollywood and at numerous festivals, will provide a perspective that cannot be missed.

Paul is also the director of my solo show, The W. Kamau Bell Curve. I have taken this workshop, and will be there for this one.  This workshop is a great intro to solo performance or a great place to generate new ideas for your already created work.

This workshop is proudly presented by me & The Solo Performance Workshop.

Here's a link with the info: Brown Paper Tickets

My Last Note to Bill. But will it be my LAST note? (cue dramatic music)

Below is my --- once again --- exhaustive response to his previous note to me. For those of you who aren't caught up with ths saga yet. Bill (& previously Jodi) had sent me an E-mail telling me that I "sucked." I responded with logic, grammar, and an anaogy about getting more flies with sugar than vinegar, which he promptly... Well, you'll see. I'm not really trying to change his mind or even piss him off. This has become quite a fun writing project for me. Thanks, Bill (and maybe Jodi)! Enjoy… Well Bill... First of all, I see Jodi isn't cosigning on this with you anymore. I hope this issue doesn't have you divided. I hope you just neglected to include her signature on this E-mail and not that she is having second thoughts about the "convincing Kamau that he sucks" project.

Sugar.. Vinegar... Tomato... Tomato. I know you get my point.

To follow your wine analogy through to it's logical conclusion...

1) You don't complain to the bottle of wine that it sucks. Maybe you complain to the vineyard. MAYBE. Most likely, you complain to the place that you bought the wine (i.e. the restaurant, the bar, the comedy club). To use your analogy, your E-mailing me in order to tell me that I suck is the equivalent of you yelling at your bottle of wine. "DAMN YOU, MERLOT! DAMN YOU!!!" Would you do that? I hope not.

So let's put you on the path to successful complaining, Here is the Punch Line's phone number: 415 397 7573. They would love to hear your complaints about who they booked on their show. In fact, if enough people complain about someone that the Punch Line has booked, The Punch Line will most likely never book that person again. Use you rights and privileges as a citizen to organize and get other people involved here. Learn form Obama's campaign. Things only get changed at the grassroots level if you organize. That is the only way that your voice will be effectively heard. Start a petition, get going on an E-mail campaign. The Punch Line is owned by Live Nation, one of the biggest promoters on the country if not the world. If you get them to turn on me, there are very few venues in the country that I could play. You have the power to stop comedy clubs all over the country from ever booking me again. USE IT! You now must ask yourself how committed you are to this cause. Is it enough to just tell me that I suck? I hope not. Get boots on the ground. In the words of Marcus Garvey, "UP! UP, YOU MIGHTY RACE! YOU CAN ACCOMPLISH WHAT YOU WILL!"

2) When you tell a comedian that he/she sucks you are only throwing gasoline on a fire. We live for this stuff. I'm sorry, but it's just not effective to tell us this. If a comedian isn't told he/she sucks every now and again, he/she starts to think that they really do suck. Ironic, isn't it?

3) I hate to have to repeat myself, but as I said before, comedy --- like all art --- is subjective. Just because you dislike something that doesn't make your feelings true. Your feelings are only true for you and those people who choose to agree with you. There are no absolutes here. So as much as I made you so perturbed that you and your girlfriend had to send me an E-mail, that's not actually a necessary or mature response. You don't need to share your feelings with me. You are only sharing them with me in order to get validation, because you feel like your feelings aren't real otherwise. Now that need is understandable, as we all need human connection, but I would recommend that you search for this particular type of connection from your friends and family and not the actual artist. I'm sure that there are kinds of music that you don't like, but do you contact those artists to tell them that they suck? I hope not. I sincerely hope you have better things to do with your time than to engage continually in nonsense like this.

4) Just like there are several different styles of music; there are several different styles of comedy. Next time before you go to a comedy show, do your research. I'm on YouTube, Crackle.com, Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, several websites I don't remember, etc... There are articles on me in every Bay Area newspaper from The San Francisco Chronicle to The SF Weekly to The East Bay Express to The SF Bay Guardian. Do your research. When you call the club to reserve tickets, ask questions about the comics performing. Or even when you get there the night of the show, ask the people working the door about the comedians. Those people know more about comedy than anybody. I really wish we had had this exchange before you came to the show. You and your girlfriend could have picked another activity for your evening.

5) If you had left the show early, when you realized it was not your cup of tea (I assume that you realized this early on. I assume that you knew you didn't like me well before my last joke.), and then if you had politely complained to the Punch Line that I was not your cup of tea, if you had done those two simple things, The Punch Line would have most likely given you a refund and/or given you free tickets to a different show. The Punch Line likes your business. They need your business, especially during these tough economic times. The fact that you didn't even explore this option is not my fault. It's yours.

Agency

William Morris Endeavor Entertainment

TV & Film
Ben Simone
BSimone@wmeagency.com
212.903.1100

Stand-Up & Speaking
Stacy Mark
SM@wmeagency.com
310.859.4108

Management

Brillstein Entertainment Partners

Tim Sarkes
t.sarkes@bep-la.com
310.205.5123

Alex Murray
a.murray@bep-la.com
310.205.5111