As we posted yesterday, I’ll be a guest on the Colbert Report on Monday, July 16th (11:30PM EST, Comedy Central).
I’d love your help getting ready. Please send along suggested subjects, one-liners, and repartee I might use to engage Stephen.
Creative Class
The source on how we live, work and play
July 6th, 2007 at 1:12 pm
Very cool! Congratulations – I’ll make sure to watch that episode!
July 6th, 2007 at 3:15 pm
Stephen was the voice of Ace on SNL’s animated cartoon series “The Ambiguously Gay Duo”. Punchlines aplenty there since it ties in with your study of ‘Gay-friendly’ cities enjoying more economic prosperity. Maybe he lives in one of these cities next door to an ambiguously gay duo.
July 6th, 2007 at 4:54 pm
I’ll be at that episode myself, although from the other side of the stage. My advice is to not try to “outdo” Stephen, because you’ll probably end up looking foolish. He (himself, not the character) probably agrees with your premise, at least to some extent, so he’ll likely go easy on you. He’s not too tough on the non-jerk-ish. As for witty repartée, unless you’re a very talented amateur, I’d say to just be yourself and not try to be funny because next to him you’ll come off looking like you’re trying to compete, and it won’t work. He loves to talk about himself; if you can get him doing that he’ll probably love the whole interview. Sorta kidding
. Have a great time!
July 6th, 2007 at 7:07 pm
This is great news! I enjoyed your work on the cultural creatives, so I look forward to seeing you & your new book on the Report!
Meow House’s comments are on the money. Specifically, here’s Stephen’s own advice to his guests, from an interview he gave at Harvard’s Institute of Politics (it’s available on the Web): “Hold your ideas. Give me resistance. Give me traction I can work against. The friction between reality, or the truly held concerns of the person, and the farcical concerns that I have, or my need to seem important, as opposed to actually understanding what’s true. . . . Where those two things meet is where the comedy happens.”
And have fun! (I hear the Report gives good swag!)
July 6th, 2007 at 9:39 pm
Ask him why he turned down Roadtrip Nation.
July 7th, 2007 at 1:35 pm
Wow! Thanks all. These comments are very helpful.
July 9th, 2007 at 12:34 am
Here’s one more bit of Colbert’s advice to his guests that we just had to pass along: “The best laughs [my guests] can get are through correcting my stupidity….I think it doesn’t work when they have a joke or two that they’re desperate to say on the show, and then they don’t really actually listen to the conversation….They’re waiting to drop the joke in the middle of the interview, and it lands there like conversational plutonium. So you wait for its half-life to pass, and you sweep it off.”
–With best wishes from the research team at Colbert University (colbertuniversity.nofactzone.net)
July 9th, 2007 at 10:10 am
WWG – I am a Report addict. That advice is a gem.
July 10th, 2007 at 6:45 am
Taking a cue from your music posting above:
If you were playing guitar with Hendrix, you wouldn’t try to upstage him. You’d play with him. Same premise.
(This is advice from a couple of Colbert fans/musicians- one learned this lesson by playing with Eddie Kirkland, the other played bass with the Violent Femmes)
July 11th, 2007 at 1:12 am
Maybe you could discuss the subject of global cluster cities and countries for comedy and comedians. Will America’s comedy talent become part of the “flight of the creative class?” On a per capita basis, are most US cities much less well developed in their comedy clusters than say Montreal, Halifax, or certain buroughs of London.
Americans wanting real opportunities in this field, might therefore need to move so they can be surrounded by inspiring cohorts and venues, and where there are more opportunities to make a living in the field.
(Comedians are like biotechnology researchers or software programers — they will head for certain cluster cities for the opportunities).
July 11th, 2007 at 11:13 am
Well, now that you’ve officially joined the “Flight” — Colbert should have some great fodder..
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070710.wflorida10/BNStory/National/
July 11th, 2007 at 6:52 pm
Congratulations on your move to TO! Stephen may flag patriotic about the brain drain sucking northward. He has a thing about Canada. Perhaps the US could use a few more Canuk-yuks on late night television to even the score.
On another note, I hope you will carry on and continue to build on the legacy of late great Jane Jacobs.
July 13th, 2007 at 5:21 pm
Please say something about people in our country taking the power, which has always been ours, back into our own hands. We’ve had enough of letting differences on “divisive issues” overcome our desire to work together toward mutual prosperity. In Duluth it is beginning to feel like we might be part of a “quiet and bloodshed free” revolution in which an awakening is occurring where indidviduals and groups in our own and other communities are looking toward and planning for our future, together, while considering the needs of everyone not just those of the rich and powerful, or movers and shakers.
Please take the opportunity to not only get a few laughs out of everyone who watches in-studio and at home but to drive home the message that there is hope out there and that contempt and disagreement with decisions made on our behalf and in “our best interest” by our leaders can be turned into desire and energy to work toward positive and productive change in the realms that we can influence directly. Many 20-30 somethings close to my own age and even people from my parents’ baby-boomer generation may be spurred to action or at least to conversing about what really matters locally and beyond, which might help to first turn around the direction of things and then redirect the moementum in ways that the majority of American Citizens would agree with and truly get behind. As Rage Against the Machine so apprpriately put it “What better place than here, what better time than now?”
I am a believer that there is some critical amount of conversation that, by taking place, even among “common folks” about what “really matters” to them, can end up spurring along the true majoriy consensus as those ideas, desires, and opinions trickle to the surface first as a whisper and later as an unignorable roar.
Go get ‘em.