ROY ZIMMERMAN SINGS “REAL AMERICAN” SONGS
How do you fight recession, war, ignorance, greed and the scourge of Right Wing punditry? Why, with satire, of course.
Satirical songwriter Roy Zimmerman brings his one-man show "Roy Zimmerman: Real American" to Urbana Saturday, April 10 at 8 pm for a performance at the Urbana-Champaign Independent Media Center, 202 S Broadway. The IMC will be hosting the convention of the Illinois Coalition for Justice, Peace and the Environment (ICJPE). Admission for the show is $15, $12 for ICJPE members.
Roy's YouTube videos have garnered over four million views and tens of thousands of comments, many of them coherent. His songs are heard on NPR and Air America and he's a featured blogger for the Huffington Post.
“Real American” is 90 minutes of Zimmerman’s funny songs and comic commentary, a tuneful examination of the American political landscape in the era of Hope and Change. Health care, the economy, same-sex marriage, climate change, Creationism, guns, taxes, abstinence and, yes, Obama all come under satirical scrutiny.
There’s a limbo-like song about Rush Limbaugh. “How low can you go?” Zimmerman sings. There’s a song about the Orange County Rolling Acres Senior Center Cannabis Club.” There’s even a “Sing-along Second Amendment.” ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BuNEq7gHqF8 )
There's a decidedly Lefty slant to Roy's lyrics. "We used to have a name for Right Wing satire," he says. "We called it 'cruelty.'"
The HBO documentary “The Trials of Ted Haggard,” directed by Alexandra Pelosi features Roy’s song, “Ted Haggard is Completely Heterosexual.” And his tune “Buddy, Can You Spare a Trillion Dollars?” landed him a mention on the front page of the Wall Street Journal, an unaccustomed honor for a folkie. ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjoshMpYfmg&feature=channel_page )