Roy Zimmerman

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What's funny about war, poverty, ignorance, bigotry, neo-conservatism, homophobia, greed, lust and fear? Ask Roy Zimmerman. He's been writing satirical songs for twenty years. The Los Angeles Times says, "Zimmerman displays a lacerating wit and keen awareness of society's foibles that bring to mind a latter-day Tom Lehrer." Tom Lehrer himself says, "I congratulate Roy Zimmerman on reintroducing literacy to comedy songs. And the rhymes actually rhyme, they don't just 'rhyne.'" Joni Mitchell says, "Roy's lyrics move beyond poetry and achieve perfection." There's a decidedly Lefty slant to his lyrics. "We used to have a name for Right Wing satire," he says. "We called it 'cruelty.'" Zimmerman has played clubs across the country, and shared the stage with George Carlin, Bill Maher, Kate Clinton, Dennis Miller, Sandra Tsing Loh, kd lang, Andy Borowitz and Paul Krassner. He's done several shows with The Pixies' Frank Black, swapping songs in a solo acoustic setting. His up-to-the-moment topical songs are featured on American Public Media's syndicated broadcast "Weekend America" and Sirius Radio's "West Coast Live." He's currently touring a one-man show called "Faulty Intelligence." It's a ninety minute theatrical presentation of Zimmerman's original songs and comic commentary - an inidictment of the Bush administration to accompany Patrick Fitzgerald's. And there's a new album to go with it. "Faulty Intelligence" the CD contains a lesson in Intelligent Design, "Creation Science 101;" an Elvis sounding love song to the government phone tappers called "Hello, NSA" that's featured on the ACLU web site; and the bawk-along "Chickenhawk," already a Zimmerman classic. He says, "I hope this record gets good reviews, but mostly I hope it gets denied under oath by Karl Rove." Zimmerman's fourth CD is a Holiday offering called PeaceNick . It's Lefty, Pacifist, Humanist satire celebrating the birth of the Prince of Peace in a time of pre-emptive war. The disc takes a snipe at militaristic merchandising with "Buy War Toys for Christmas," and thumbs its nose at the War on Christmas - an absurd notion promoted by Bill O'Reilly and his ilk - with the Happy Holidays song "Christma-Hanu-Rama-Ka-Dona-Kwanzaa." The Dylan-esque "Christmas is Pain," another Zimmerman classic in the mold of another Zimmerman, receives wide airplay every Holiday Season. Homeland and Security are a twin pair of CD releases arising in the aftermath of the 9-11 disaster. In 23 scathing originals, Roy dissects the jingoism, belligerence and plain addle-headedness of Bush and Company's response. Homeland takes on domestic threats, among them the "Patriot Act" and "Jerry Falwell's God." This disc also contains Roy's heartfelt love song to his wife, "You." Security widens the satirical bite to include a "Multinational Anthem" and the mock-inspirational "One World, One Bank." Roy's first solo release was Comic Sutra , a mixture of the personal and the political and the personal that is political including the same-sex marriage anthem, "Defenders of Marriage," and "Punish the People," a happy-go-lucky paean to class warfare.

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