Oscar Fingal
O'Flahertie Wills Wilde has long been one of my favorite Victorian-era writers
and Brit wits. For years, I’ve enjoyed his plays, appreciated his poetry, and
truly adored his social critique. As I sat down to write a review of Tom
Simmons, it was the following quote from Wilde that jumped into my head.
While you’re still
here with me, though, let me share just a small sampling of what Tom Simmons
brings to the game. Here’s a full day’s lesson on money, a sore subject in America these
days. Pardon my paraphrasing:
See what he did
there? He made a human connection with this cute story about his son, and then
reeled us in to drop some knowledge.
Three minutes into a
bit and we’ve had a father/son fuzzy moment, a history and an economics lesson.
Now for some sociology.
And how about some
theology?
To show you just how
smart this guy is, he even uses the money theme to make some dick jokes.
For me, this was one
wonderful comedy weekend. Just as straight-forward and thought-provoking
off-stage, I enjoyed real-people conversation with Tom. I know I’m looking at
20 years of master crafting, something that can have the feel of exposure
without ever baring so much as an ankle. Still, he’s the kind of person for
whom I would join a bowling league – although I’d rather it be a writer’s group
– just to hang out every week and hear what’s on his mind. Without that option,
I must be content listening to his most recent CD, Keep Up (available at Amazon
and iTunes), checking out his Bully the Bullies Podcast (also available for
free on iTunes) and waiting patiently for his return to upstate New York . You should
check out all the above mentioned opportunities, and go to www.tomsimmonscomedy.com for access
to videos, his blog and upcoming tour info.
Next weekend, Tom
will be performing with another of my close comedy friends, Kris Shaw. I am
excitedly anticipating just how these two smart, unique men will perceive one
another. Tacoma , Washington , I’m counting on you to treat
them both with love and laughter. You’re in for a few nights of truth you’ll
never want to forget.
“If you’re going to
tell people the truth, you better make them laugh; otherwise, they will kill
you.”
Tom Simmons tells a
lot of truth during his time onstage. Since that truth is not all easy to
digest, it is rather fortuitous that Tom is one of the funniest comedians I
know. I am simply in awe of his ability to weave seamlessly between the
political and the personal in a way that doesn’t give the audience time to cool
off or pull back. The level of skill needed to recognize the point of
disconnect as it is happening and ease into something warm and fuzzy is a
testament to his nearly twenty years onstage.
The set opened with Tom
sharing that he worries a lot about the world: the fact that no one reads
anymore, that people are shooting their coworkers or shooting their families
and then shooting themselves (why can’t they start by shooting themselves?
There should be some kind of suicide assistance hotline, 1-800-go ahead).
People tell him not to worry about the things he can’t control. (Who worries
about things you can control?)
The bits fly by quickly
as this master teacher stealthily slips knowledge into unsuspecting minds, much
the way my mother used to serve my brother “spice cake” and smile to herself
while throwing away the zucchini peels. There’s so much essential truth packed
into a Tom Simmons show that I feel a little disappointed to know I can’t
possibly catch it all with one viewing. Thank God there are five shows this
weekend, a cd for sale and a bonus set available on iTunes. I need time with
this guy.
My son came with me to do radio one day. I asked him why he wanted to go;
he said famous people go do radio. I said no, famous people call in. He said if
you are famous, then you get rich and everybody is happy. It kinda broke my
heart. I said to him, no son, money is not what makes people happy in this
world. He looked at me as if to say, are you NEW here?
Money is just made up, it’s an illusion. There are rich people out there
who have money, but they don’t own it. It’s owned by the Federal Reserve Bank.
It’s deceptively named to sound like it’s part of the government, but actually
it’s a for-profit private company that owns our money. They make it up out of
nothing and then sell it to us at interest. Even Sam Walmart is like, what a
great business model you have there…. And the people on our money were against
the Federal Reserve; Lincoln, Jefferson, Franklin, Jackson , they all thought it was a bad idea,
and then we put their faces on the money. That’s like putting Mother Teresa’s
face on condoms and then passing them out at Planned Parenthood.
Money is our God, it’s what we worship, what we work 40 or 50 hours a week
for, what we think will make us happy. We have altars built all over the
country in the form of banks that we bail out. Then, we stand in front of the
ATMs and pray there’s $100 in there.
Need some pop
culture?
Gold will hold its value. I used to think rappers were idiots for what they
did to their mouths. Turns out those guys are monster investors.
Jesus. Jesus was a pretty chill dude. The only time he used violence in his
entire ministry was on the money changers in the temple. Know how evil you have
to be to piss off Jesus?
We give it different names, right? It’s the dollar here, it’s the looney in
Canada , it’s the euro in Europe . The weirdest name by far that I’ve found is in Vietnam where
they call their dollar the dong. Like, sorry, baby, I’m a little short on dong
tonight.
It’s true that I love
rant comedy. I love a committed performer sharing a wealth of information using
an intelligent vocabulary executed with exquisite comedic timing. I’ve seen it
done well, I’ve seen it done poorly. The difference, for me, is usually one of
precision. It’s easy to be too heavily weighted on one of those elements and
throw the experience out of whack. I started out being a Dennis Miller fan,
loving the word choices and semi-obscure references that seemed to always serve
the joke. Somewhere, though, it changed, it began to spin away from sharing
thought and lean toward spitting invective. What once felt like collective
snark, a mutual laughing at the world, has since morphed into a constant
scolding by someone who just seems content to get off on feeling superior. Tom
sometimes feels like gentle rant, moving the physical aggression into something
more searching, with momentary floor gazing and the occasional shrugging of
shoulders. I have seen very few live performers cover so many potentially
controversial topics with so many punch lines.
His Bully the Bullies
podcast takes a stand against militant religious types who use the pulpit to
bully congregants, who then go out and bully others with their supposed moral
supremacy. Please check it out on iTunes and make a contribution, if you can.
So many people out there don’t have the words so easily at their disposal,
can’t always articulate on their own behalf, and so are victimized by the gift
of gab. One more reason I admire this guy is that he puts his gift to use for
the underdog.
Tom Simmons is a bit
of a revelation: his material can be racial, without being racist, religious
without being proselytizing or denigrating. He finds the balance, being
simultaneously challenging and supportive in what he wants to say. I get the
feeling he cares about what you take away from his shows. It’s great that you
laugh, it’s even better that you think. It’s not always easy for a comic to
accept that he will sometimes have to forfeit a guffaw while some new piece of
information is absorbed. And when you speak as rapidly as Tom does, you lose a
few chuckles along the way because the listener’s brain has to let one line go
to catch the next. There are so many great lines in this show, in fact, that
I’ve taken weeks to write this review. I simply could not decide how to move
forward, what to share and what to set aside. I want you to leave this page
with the absolute understanding that this is one amazingly talented comic who
pushes all my personal humor buttons.
So, here are a few
more of my favorites, arranged more haphazardly, but no less loved.
“I was working in Tacoma , Washington ,
and on my way to the club every night, I saw this big red neon sign says ‘Jesus
cares about you.’ Which is fine, but when I left the South, Jesus fuckin’ loved
me. I don’t know why we have all the drop-off all of a sudden. In his defense,
I have been seeing other people lately, like Buddha and science.”
“To the rest of the
world we are like a really boring hot chick that won’t quit talking about
herself…. We’re number one. Wow, really? Check your stats.”
“I try to be nice, I
try to love everyone, but…have you met everyone?”
“Jesus did some
interesting things. He turned water into wine and they said he was God. My Uncle Stan did that in the shed and they
gave him 7 to 10. There are no ‘What would Stan do?’ bracelets.”
“I see your Bible and
raise you a Declaration of Independence and a Constitution.”
I had the pleasure of opening for Tom one weekend. You have described very well the reasons I enjoyed every one of the six shows we did.
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