Lee Camp (comedian)

Lee Camp (born July 21, 1980) is an American stand-up comedian. He hosts the weekly comedy news show, Redacted Tonight with Lee Camp on RT America.

Lee Camp
Camp on a panel at Politicon 2016
Born (1980-07-21) July 21, 1980
Washington, D.C., U.S.
MediumStand-up, Television, Film, Podcast
NationalityAmerican
EducationUniversity of Virginia
Years active1994–present
GenresBlack comedy, Political satire, Observational comedy
Subject(s)Society
Notable works and rolesThe Green Room with Paul Provenza

Moment of Clarity (on YouTube and podcast)

Redacted Tonight with Lee Camp
Websitewww.leecamp.net

Early life

Camp was born at Walter Reed Army Medical Center to Jewish parents[1] and lived in Bethesda, Maryland, until 1989. His father is a psychoanalyst who served 20 years in the military as a doctor. His mother is a social worker. In 1989 the family moved to Richmond, Virginia, where Camp stayed until he went to college at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Virginia.

He began to write humorous material when he was 12; Camp's humorous columns were printed in the high school literary magazine. Upon arriving at the University of Virginia, he won a competition to become the humor columnist for the school newspaper "The Cavalier Daily". Camp then wrote a weekly humor column for all four years he attended the university. He began performing stand-up comedy on his 19th birthday at an open-mic night at Matt's Pub in Richmond.[2] At Richmond Comedy Club, Camp gained his first paying gigs. He also performed regularly throughout the rest of his time at the University of Virginia, opening for Jimmy Fallon, Darrell Hammond, Lewis Black, and Tracy Morgan when they came to do shows at the school. In his final year of college, Camp self-published a book of his humor columns entitled Neither Sophisticated Nor Intelligent. Upon graduation he moved to New York City.

Career

Stand-up

Camp spent several years performing three shows per night at Ha! Comedy Club, N.Y.C. and performing at between 70 and 100 colleges per year.

In 2008, before the presidential campaign he appeared on Fox News morning show Fox & Friends. They asked him to do left-wing jokes along with a right-wing comedian. Instead he went live on air saying "What is Fox News? It's just a parade of propaganda, isn't it? It's just a...festival of ignorance."[3] The video clip was viewed by millions.

His web series Moment of Clarity started in March 2011. It became a short podcast as well in June 2011. There have been over 240 episodes.

Writing

Camp's first book was Neither Sophisticated Nor Intelligent, a collection of his best humor columns from The Cavalier Daily, the University of Virginia newspaper. Cartoons were supplied by his younger brother Dean, who is also a filmmaker and author. Dean has a hit web video called Marcel The Shell With Shoes On, and the children's book of the same name was a New York Times bestseller.

With Nick Alexander and Alan Lord, Camp co-authored the 2005 BIGfib Book of Bollocks, a collection of stories from the satirical website BIGfib.com. Camp has been a contributor to The Onion since February 2009 and was a staff comedy writer for The Huffington Post for ten months.[4] He wrote and hosted OnDemand's "The Movie Loft" for three months in 2009.

Television

Camp was a staff writer for the TV comedy Inside the Cinema (2009). He also frequently featured on the Showtime show The Green Room with Paul Provenza. He is now the host and head writer of the weekly comedy news show Redacted Tonight with Lee Camp, which airs every Friday at 8pm EST on the Russian-financed RT America. Jason Zinoman wrote in The New York Times that his appearance on the channel: "raises questions about the comedian’s independence."[5][6] He told Rachel Manteuffel of The Washington Post Magazine that the Russian government funds his show, explaining "One of the reasons I'm at RT America is because there’s no advertising. If there were advertising, no channel really wants someone who goes after corporations as much as I do."[7]

Activism

Camp is a supporter of Occupy Wall Street[8] and has collaborated with Peter Joseph, the Zeitgeist movement founder - and his new series Culture in Decline.[9]

In 2017, Camp created the Common Censored podcast along with his girlfriend Eleanor Goldfield[10] which focuses on grass roots activism issues.

Discography

DVD
  • Sometimes Funny Hurts (2007)
  • Lee Camp Live At Comix (2009)
  • We Are Nothing (2014)

CD

Filmography
YearTitleRoleNotes
2005DealbreakerWaiter
2005 Law & Order: Special Victims Unit Bart Episode: "Intoxicated"
2006Exposing the Order of the SerpentineAshamed man

References
  1. Soroken, Lauren. "Chosen Comedy: Lee Camp – Page 2 – Heeb". Retrieved 2019-09-17. Q. Are your Jewish parents disappointed with your non-medical or legal career? A. Oh sure. I think. I mean, they’re not disappointed, I’m sure they would have preferred a medical career, but they’re pretty cool. They would have preferred a smarter path. Well, my older brother is a lawyer and my younger brother is a film editor, and they seem to worry more about him.
  2. "interview on Cara's Basement". Retrieved 16 November 2017.
  3. "The Raw Story - Comedian Lee Camp: Fox News a 'festival of ignorance'". rawstory.com. Retrieved 16 November 2017.
  4. "11 Ways You Know the Gulf Of Mexico Is NOT Oil Free". HuffPost. December 1, 2010.
  5. Simon, Scott (December 16, 2017). "A Look At RT's 'Redacted Tonight'". NPR. Retrieved 26 May 2019. Look at a show called Redacted Tonight on RT America, a Russian network broadcast in the U.S.
  6. Zinoman, Jason (June 7, 2017). "An American Comic on a Russian Channel: What He Avoids Speaks Volumes". The New York Times. Retrieved 26 May 2019. Redacted Tonight airs weekly on RT America, the English-language channel financed by Russia ... which describes itself as the 'Russian view on global news'
  7. Manteuffel, Rachel (July 14, 2016). "Lee Camp of 'Redacted Tonight' on the problems in Washington". The Washington Post Magazine. Retrieved December 30, 2019.
  8. LeeCamp (25 September 2011). ""The Police Are On The Wrong Side At The Occupy Wall Street Protests" - MOC #79". Retrieved 16 November 2017 – via YouTube.
  9. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2013-06-16. Retrieved 2013-01-08.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  10. "Common Censored on Apple Podcasts". Apple Podcasts. Retrieved Aug 4, 2020.
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