TV INTERVIEW: JAMIE KILSTEIN

Letting the Politics Out in a Sarah Palin World While Trying to Keep the Glee Within

By: Team Buzzine

August 1, 2011

Aptly, for a comic born in Washington, DC, Jamie Kilstein is a man who finds it almost impossible to separate his twin loves of politics and comedy. Since 2008, he has co-hosted (alongside his wife and Huffington Post/The Nation contributor Allison Kilkenny) more than 300 episodes of Citizen Radio – one of the web’s best Internet radio shows/podcasts created “for young people disillusioned with corporate media and a political system that doesn't speak to them." Citizen Radio’s recent guests have ranged from Noam Chomsky and Ralph Nader to Bad Religion and Sarah Silverman, but now (no thanks to the efforts of an East Coast snowstorm), Jamie is himself a guest on the new season of The Green Room with Paul Provenza. Ali MacLean and Buzzine sat down with Jamie at The Vanguard in Hollywood, California to talk pop culture, political empowerment, and parental approval…

Ali MacLean: Welcome. I’m glad you could escape the snow…

JK: I made it out – we were like the last flight that made it in.

AM: What would you have done if you couldn’t have…?

JK: Insta-death. I would have just quit comedy, and it would have been over.

AM: That’s good – to give up that easy. It’s good that you’ve come this far, and then be able to give up because a little bit of snow got in your way.

JK: You work ten years, and what I always tell kids is, once there’s an obstacle: Bail. Just leave. Get an office job, tell your parents they were right… you’d probably have to write your dad several apology letters… and start paying back student loans.

AM: That’s pretty much where I’ll stop trying, when I have to tell my parents they were right …

JK: My dad still thinks comedy is a phase…

AM: …law school is waiting for ya!

JK: That’s adorable that you think I could… He’s written law school off, but he’s like, “Hey, that bookstore is still hiring. Keep it going though, with your hobby. I hope you have good skits.”

AM: That Citizen Radio hobby, which takes up a little bit of your time…

JK: If you thought no one took comedy seriously, try telling them you have a podcast. There are a couple famous ones, but no one thinks that’s a thing. That’s not a real thing. I played the Sydney Opera House and that didn’t impress him. But I’m gonna be like, “But I record a show into my computer, from my apartment. That’s real.”

AM: What’s impressive is that your podcast is mostly about politics, so you have to be pretty dedicated to process and remember all those details…

JK: The show we do, we care about a lot. We’ve built this weird little community of outcasts, where the people who listen to the show… and I think people who like my standup, are just young, ostracized, gay progressives who live in the middle of a really conservative district… they’re in Sarah Palin country, but they are the opposite – the antithetical Sarah Palin base.

AM: More of the Glee crowd maybe?

JK: Yes, a Glee crowd stuck in a Sarah Palin world. And they’re making friends on our message board, and a couple of them are driving here tonight, so we have this really cool community now of kids who were disenfranchised, and now they’re politically active, so that’s been a huge priority.

AM: Where else are they gonna go? From Glee to… what, the next logical jump is politics?

JK: I tell them just to quit and go to law school, or… work at that bookstore.

AM: You’ve become a realist. That’s the next step…

JK: I think that once they find each other - they’re so f***in’ smart and funny – I think that once they know there are other people like them out there, that builds up their confidence and they want to have their voices heard more, and some of them have started their own radio shows or started their own blog, or tried comedy, or want to get into politics or running for local office, and that’s really cool.

AM: There’s often not much of a difference between comedy and politics…

JK: Right, except we’re more honest about our bulls***. That’s what I think it is. You can call a comic on our s***, and we’ll be like, “Yup! We did that, because we’re a**holes,” whereas politicians… their job is to mask the insecurities, and then that comes out in trying to get head in a bathroom stall somewhere in an airport.

AM: Where would Ted Williams fall on the line of masking his bulls***: comedian or politician?

JK: I’d say politician, right?

AM: Because he’s got nine kids but he didn’t ‘fess up until it came out?

JK: Right. That’s usually how it works.

AM: He’s like, “I have a golden voice…oh and a bunch of kids that I didn’t take care of.”

JK: I know. Poor guy. I fell for it. I’m a sucker for a sad story. You put sad music behind any montage, and I’ll just start sobbing uncontrollably. For example, you brought up Glee… I don’t know if that’s a good show, but I cried in every episode because the songs are awesome and they know how to suck me in. It could be terribly written – I have no idea – but I will sob after every… [Laughs] The wedding episode – come on! Come on! When Finn sung to little…

AM: I have no idea what he’s talking about…

JK: She’s lying.

AM: I don’t know. So let’s talk about human rights…

JK: You have actual questions? I can’t talk about Glee?

AM: You can. But I was going to actually ask you a real question about human rights and hamburgers…

JK: Okay, sure. Don’t eat hamburgers.

AM: So, who is going to win the Golden Globes? Is it Natalie…?

JK: Wait, I don’t even know who that is. Can we talk about hamburgers?

AM: I am calling BS. If you watch Glee, you must know what’s going on in the Golden Globes…

JK: You should go vegan, guys. Factory farms contribute to the majority of global warming, and it’s healthier, and you don’t have to kill little animals.

AM: This is so bulls***…

JK: Look how cute they are.

AM: Aren’t you happy for Natalie and her baby?

JK: I don’t know. Go vegan!

AM: Do you think she should wear red or blue on the red carpet?

JK: She should not wear fur because that’s cruel to animals.

AM: You are so full of it. I know you watch TMZ every day…

JK: I don’t know what TMZ stands for.

AM: So full of it…

JK: It stands for… I don’t know. I can’t think of anything clever.

AM: Jamie Kilstein, ladies and gentleman: Closet E! Entertainment-watcher…

JK: [Laughs] You got me on Glee. That’s a lot.

AM: Jamie Kilstein: Regular Glee-watcher…

JK: I love my Glee.

The Second Season of ‘The Green Room with Paul Provenza’ premieres new episodes on Showtime every Thursday night at 11:00 p.m. ET/PT beginning July 14, 2011.