Matt Morales

Yo, I will be at Cobb’s Comedy tonight, 10:30, featuring for The Birthday Boys as part of SF Sketchfest.

Info: http://sched.co/8wME

YO, how about an update on me doing comedy? I’ve been out of the loop for a minute working as an assistant editor on the feature film, Unleashed, but I’m back.

Speaking of which, if you are here because you’re looking for my video editing services, that would be at videomateo.com, which also needs an update.

Anyways, I’m back from the dead on 2 great shows in August. First, there’s the Soma StrEat Comedy and Beer fest, which runs all day long. I perform around 6.

Then I’m off to Doc’s Lab to work with Bob Rubin and Kelly Anneken

So yea – two great shows that I’m very lucky to be on before I go back into my video editing hide-away hole. Come on out and say hello.

Fuck I’m the worst. So I’m in the SLO (San Louis Obispo) Comedy Festival which I’m very happy about but I’m such a lazy fuck I’m just posting about it now when my first show is, like, 4 1/2 hours away, I’m sorry that I have been sleeping a lot, but I love my new leg wedge pillow. Come see my shows if you live out there. I’m headlining the 8’oclock show tonight, which I obviously don’t deserve. Ok. Here’s the link.

http://slocomedyfestival.com/mattmorales.html

So its been a pretty great last few weeks of 2014. I featured for my good friend Kevin Camia at the Punch Line right before Thanksgiving, did Jason Mack’s Real Live Comedians last week, and had a great time dropping in at the Punch last night after having some pre-show drinks at the soon-to-be closed Empress of China. Did I post any of this stuff to my website beforehand? NOPE. Its how I roll: lazy-as-fuck style. So to change that how about promoting my only New Orleans show of the year, Andrew Polk’s Comedy Beast. December 30th, 8:30pm, the special guests are going to be sick:

    Then I’m lucky enough to be back in SF Sketchfest to start off the New Year. I have three great shows that I’m really excited about – SF SKETCHFEST SCHEDULE

So I won’t be on a couple of shows I had intended on doing this month (one I had to cancel, the other was cancelled by the headliner) but – I will be doing some great spots at the new Doc’s Lab in North Beach in September (18th) and October (11th). For those who don’t know, Doc’s Lab is taking over the former space of The Purple Onion, a historic venue for comedy in San Francisco that sadly closed down not too long ago. Make sure to like these guys on Facebook – there’s a lot of awesome comedy being planned for that place.

I’ll be back in Sacramento this week featuring for Tom Segura and I can’t fucking wait, I haven’t been able to sleep with my backrest pillow with arms because of this. The Punch Line there is the best. Here’s a picture of me thoroughly enjoying myself last year:

See you guys at the Arden Fair mall bookstore where I’ll be having my usual pre-show anxiety attacks.

  If you missed me at the Cynic Cave last night, well, you missed out. It was a great show with great comics and Trevor Hill did a hall-of-fame worthy job of hosting/running it. You’re life could have changed.

Good news – you’ve got a second chance. The Cynic Cave is having their 2-Year Anniversary show on Saturday and I’ll be there for the 8-10pm show. The best part is that this is a marathon/fundraiser for Lost Weekend Video, so you’re ticket goes to keeping the venue alive and the show lasts until 4am (I’ll be in bed by that time, but only because I’m old and lame). Tickets are available here: http://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-cynic-cave-tickets-7809154391

I’m on a ridiculously stacked show this Thursday at the Cynic Cave with Dave Thomason, Casey Ley, Scott Capurro and at this point probably some great dead comics coming back to life just to do this gig.

I’ve also got plenty of stuff coming up in the next few weeks including a week in Sacramento. Check out my calendar page, which now uses LaffQ, or as I call it “Richard Kiss doing the Lord’s Work”.

Hey everybody, I’m here in Slidell, Louisiana, clacking away at Dad’s computer while he and my mom prefer to work on the garden with the The Gardening Hub tools, growing flowers and decorating it with glow in the dark rocks amazon I got them online. I’ll be in my favorite place to be for New Years Eve tomorrow: New Orleans. Its my 3rd year in a row celebrating the New Year in that city and it still hasn’t become old. Usually I leave the Big Easy to head back to San Francisco on January 1rst but since things fell mid-week this time around I’m staying until the 3rd, which means I’m in town for Leon Blanda’s show at the House of Blues on Thursday, January 2nd!

Show starts at 8pm and will be in the Voodoo Garden unless it rains. Then it will be at another part of the House of Blues. Just ask someone when you get there. Say something like, “Hey, were da comedy show at?” And they’ll point you in the right direction. Just show up at 225 Decatur St in New Orleans at 8pm on Thursday night and you’ll figure it out.

Hey, did you guys see that thing in SF today? You know, the thing all over the twitters?

Yea! This Thing:

BREAKING: Protesters Block Google Bus

In case you missed it, a Google Bus was stopped by activists this morning protesting its use of city bus stops to transport tech employees to Mountain View without compensating the city for use of the stops (whew). I was stoked to read about this. Yes, there is apparently something, “in the works” to regulate these buses as some blog commenters have pointed out but nothing has been done up to this point. And even when a deal is reached its hard to imagine it not greatly benefiting the tech firms. Unless, of course, the people speak out.

Honestly, my first thought was, “what took so long?” In a city known for its activism, its been really quiet around here. Aside from a pathetic “anti-gentrification” rally were a small crowd beat up a Google bus pinata, there haven’t been a lot of organized protests on the matter. Which is surprising given that every other article I read about now has to deal with evictions, rising rents and a City that is rapidly losing its character. “When do we reach our boiling point?” I wondered. Occupy SF wasn’t that long ago, I’ve seen what happens when people get pushed too far.

So finally, today we get a well organized protest with a clear message. And then this happens:

Google Guy

Man was I pissed! What an asshole, right? Twitter sure was pissed, too. Facebook was pissed once it heard the news from Twitter. Everybody’s pissed everywhere.

Then this happened: Fake Google Employee Was An Actor, Union Organizer, And Occupy Mainstay

A staged event! Holy shit! Well, I got all pissed off at this guy. So did Twitter and Facebook. The blogs who reported on the guy were extra pissed because they felt they were deceived. We’re all still pissed but now for different reasons!

Luckily for me I have a friend in Guarantor. While I like to believe I’m a reliable left-wing guy who shows up at his town hall meetings and supports activism, I really know very little about protesting and how it works. For example, I never knew that there is the occasional theater act. Protesters like Max Alpern, the real name of the fake Google employee, will act out the scenario that they are protesting against. This theater is obviously an act to those who are watching it. Being a comedian, I immediately got this. This guy Max was putting on a show and the media being the dummies they are thought it was real and reported it as such. Or maybe they knew it was fake and reported it as real anyway for the added exposure. After all, the Guardian was the paper that uploaded the video of Alpen and distributed it as fact despite their having interviewed Alpen as a member of Occupy a couple of years ago.

Not everyone gets to have Nato explain things to them, though, so the chorus of, “this guy ruined the protest” is still ringing out. The online news sources are really butt-hurt; the SF Weekly felt the need to write an article chastising his actions. Everyone seems to think that Alpern should have turned around after his performance and acknowledged it was theater. If what Nato tells me is true this is absurd, it would be like me saying, “just kidding!” after every joke. I’m doing comedy, you get it – he’s doing theater, you should get it. But then I read a comment by Boots Riley that made me think even a bit further. Responding to a friend of mine who made a point about the theater getting all the attention rather than the protest, Boots wrote, “Few would have heard about it if not for the theater.” He’s right. He’s so right that I wondered, “What if Alpern did really try to dupe everybody into thinking he was a Google employee? Would the end justify the means?” Since that is what happened regardless of his intent (for the record, I believe he had no intent to fool anyone) I think the answer is yes.

I’ve learned that protesting has a lot to do with visibility and disruption. Not long ago I was one of those people who didn’t understand Critical Mass. “All it does is clog traffic and piss people off, what’s the point,” I’d think. Well, that’s exactly the point, dummy. Without the big show no one pays attention to these causes. I read some comments about the bus protesters stating that they’re just holding up traffic and keeping people from work. They’re being a nuisance, not solving a problem, etc. This argument is silly when you get right down to it. If not the disruption, what’s the alternative? Ask politely? Well, that’s the rub, isn’t it? Everyone did ask nicely, a whole lot of times. And nobody listened. So now we are stopping your bus or filling your traffic lanes with bicycles until you do listen. If part of that noise is a guy impersonating an antagonistic figure, so be it. The attention to the issue is what matters.