Jamie Kilstein: No War, No God, No Nickelback
Filed Under Just For Laughs, Stand-Up Comedy
I caught Jamie Kilstein’s show on Thursday. And wish I hadn’t. I wish I had waited ‘til tonight. I’ll explain in a bit.
KIlstein has a point of view politically and is just not built in a way that he can’t express it. And he does, punctuating points of his rants with a stamp of his foot, emphasizing things like the insanity of religious doctrine where a Fundamentalist Christian sect can demonize something as wonderful and human as hugs. They’re amazingly delivered seemingly without pause - Kilstein’s lung power must be incredible - and often end with audience applause, not just from the physical feat but from agreement of a political view that seems rarely heard when media cameras appear to unfailingly air the dissents finding right-wing organizations.
And yet…
Kilstein is preachy. And there’s no reason why he shouldn’t be. He believes in something, a trait still too rare in comedians, and he should do what he feels like to get heard. But he said something late in his show that made we wonder. At one point, he stated (paraphrasing) “I realize if I pause, you laugh. And you don’t hate me.” It made me think that perhaps a slow roll of a rant would allow him to hit those jokes more (which are there already), that he could sneak more of his ideas in minds behind the cover of funny. That could be wrong. Maybe they’d cover the points too much.
The best part of the show for me was near the end, when Kilstein talked about the relationship with his father and his realization that he was probably the instigator of most of the distance between the two. It was a look at Kilstein as a person more, as someone questioning himself - in somewhat of an opposition that came before, which is full on angry young man at times. Not righteous but certain of the “wrongeous” of other groups. His coincidentally disastrous attempt to fix that relationship is a hilarious story where he ends up accidentally doing the things he wanted to apologize for is amazingly human and real.
Early in the show, Kilstein revealed his father was coming to the show on Saturday night, driving up from New York after hearing how important it was. The questioning that come from his realization about his dad might tinge the whole show. It’ll likely be an amazingly awkward evening for Kilstein, perhaps coloring the rants early in the show. It’ll be an interesting night. Sorry I’m gonna miss it.
Jamie Kilstein is a Bill Hicks wanna be. Only Bill had amazing talent & Jamie just steps on stage to hear himself talk. He’s a half ass comic at best, I’m not sure even sure why Dead-Frog wasted a post to talk about him when there are SO MANY TALENTED comedians who deserve to be discussed in a comedy blog.