The last time Scott Blakeman flew into SFO for a standup gig, he was met by a limo driver holding up a sign. It had Jerry Seinfeld’s name crossed off and his own scrawled in. No offense taken. In Blakeman’s case, you can kid a kidder. The Brooklyn-based comedian may stress his Jewish roots and leftist politics in his act, but he finds humor in everything.
Blakeman will appear in the lineup of Kung Pao Kosher Comedy’s second annual George Bush Going Away Party on Saturday, Oct. 15, in San Francisco.
At this Bush-basher’s bash, Blakeman will be only too happy to take a few whacks at the commander-in-chief himself. “I hope to show outrage in my own way,” says the comic from his New York City home. “Sometimes you can’t do political humor, but it’s nice when people are coming for that.”
This won’t be Blakeman’s first trip to the Bay Area. In 2001, he was one of the headliners at the perennially popular Kung Pao Kosher Comedy, and he is a veteran of S.F. comedy clubs like the late Punchline and Holy City Zoo.
He was a regular on the national club circuit as well as with corporate, Jewish Community Centers and university audiences. One college he played had dorms named for U.S. presidents. “I wondered if the George W. Bush dorm would attack the other dorms for no reason,” he says.
Obviously Blakeman feels at home with the predominantly liberal Bay Area audience. Recently he’s taken his political humor a step further with a special touring act called “Stand Up For Peace,” which he does in tandem with Palestinian American comic Dean Obiedallah.
“We call it the two-comedian solution,” says Blakeman. “Arab comedy is getting a lot of attention lately. It’s similar to Jewish comedy, in that both are born out of oppression. When we brought up the idea, people were skeptical. But we’ve had a great response. Speaking out against the powerful is a real Jewish tradition.”
The comedian wasn’t always so left wing. Growing up in a liberal Jewish household he recalls a brief period of rebellion. “At 13, I was conservative for about five months, just to be different,” he recalls. “When you grow up in Brooklyn, everyone is a Democrat and you end up thinking all Jews are liberal. That is not the case.”
The comic credits his own bar mitzvah service for putting the idea in his head that a comedy career could be right for him. “It was my first time in front of an audience,” he remembers. “They handed me checks. I said, ‘This is all right.'”
Blakeman launched his career almost two decades ago. He spent time in Los Angeles pursuing television gigs, and he landed a plum gig a few years back as the warm-up comedian on “The Late Show with David Letterman.”
He also teaches the art of standup at Manhattan’s famed New School, counting among his former students no less a figure than Jon Stewart of “The Daily Show.”
“I say on stage that he took my class,” notes Blakeman, adding with tongue firmly in cheek, “I say there’s no greater joy than to have your student’s career far surpass your own.”
Despite his decidedly snarky attitude towards the current occupant of the White House, Blakeman insists he is not a partisan comic. “If you just defend one party,” he says, “you lose your comedic instincts.”
In fact, the ever-charitable wag takes this thread a bit further. “I’m not saying Republicans can’t be funny,” says Blakeman. But even if you support Bush, you gotta have a sense of humor about it.”
Kung Pao Kosher Comedy presents the second annual George Bush Going Away Party: An Evening of Political Comedy. 8 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 15. The Herbst Theatre, 401 Van Ness Ave., S.F. (415) 522-3737 or www.koshercomedy.com.