Kevin Camia: Kindness

by John Delery

Hate to agree with Grouchy Old Pinheads Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin, but it really is time to “take back America” — from them and the rest of their oilier-than-the-Gulf-Coast ilk.

Apparently Kevin Camia agrees, because he amusingly pierces the pompous and ostentatious, the humorless and clueless, the cloyingly cute and annoyingly hip on Kindness (Rooftop Comedy Productions).

Laughing as he minces his myriad victims doesn’t make Camia callous; his chuckling merely means he’s enjoying his incisive, caustic comedy as much as the audience at The Punchline in San Francisco.

That natural joviality, though, merely camouflages Camia’s gleefully diabolical onstage demeanor. “I’m nice,” he announces early. “I’m all Asian-y and shit,” he continues, cleverly ingratiating himself before slyly and most times hilariously mocking racial stereotypes (“We almost have enough Filipinos here to make one of those [prison] dance videos”) and ambushing an array of reactionaries and yokels with his original brand of, well, snarkasm.

The main targets of his comical contempt appear to be anyone born in the shallow end of the gene pool: dim teens and dumb racists (the subjects of the spotlight track (listen above) “Working With Kids and Celebrating Diversity”), Pretenti-us Prius drivers, and really anybody ass-holier than thou.

To buy Kevin Camia’s album Kindness, just click the image below!