Yesterday, Russell promoted his new late-night TV show, Strangely Uplifting.
The Hollywood Reporter chronicled what transpired at the gathering of the Television Critics Association
“TCA: British Comedian Russell Brand Calls U.S. Presidential Election ‘A Meaningless Spectacle’
“I don’t see myself as a malevolent jester attacking people who are already disenfranchised,” said Brand. “All I want is to make people feel better than they do now.”
2:28 PM PST 1/15/2012 by Marisa Guthrie
Russell Brand closed winter TCA with a side-splitting, blasphemous and deliciously crude question-and-answer session to promote his new late-night program, Strangely Uplifting. Set to bow in April on FX, details on the format are still a little vague – it will be part standup, part topical humor with an element of audience participation. FX has ordered an initial six installments of the program. But if Brand’s TCA session is any indication, it has the potential to be a barnburner.
Following are highlights from Brand’s session:
U.S. politics provided copious fodder for the British brand. Asked if his show would examine the 2012 president election, Brand allowed that the current crop of GOP contenders are “an interesting bunch. I don’t know much about them. But that could be a good thing.”
On Mitt Romney’s vast wealth: “Other billionaires must seem like Dickensian street urchins eating gruel with fingerless gloves.”
On the presidential race in general: “We know it’s meaningless who the president is. Don’t we? So I’m not going to be part of the meaningless spectacle. It’s like describing individual termites. The only legitimate distinction in global politics, I think, is: are you rich or poor?”
On former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum’s name: “[His] surname rhymes with sanitarium.”
On former Speaker Newt Gingrich’s name: “ludicrous, amphibious, bizarre.”
On U.S. Marines videotaped urinating on Afghan corpses: “It’s bad to wee on a dead body, but it’s worse to kill someone! A lot of people consider the old golden shower elitist.”
On Gingrich’s TV spot skewering Romney for speaking French: “Like that makes him elitist and a bit of a whoopsy. It’s so extraordinary that someone would be criticized for [speaking another language].”
On whether his show will traffic in the gossip of the moment, even if it involves him: “At the risk of plunging myself into a post-modern, self-referential vortex, I could analyze myself. If I’d done something actually newsworthy, then I’d cover it.”
On his goals as a comedian: “I don’t see myself or my role as a malevolent jester attacking people who are already disenfranchised. All I want is to make people feel better than they do now. All I want is to make people laugh. My goal is to acknowledge that within each of us is a divine and beautiful light.”
On the culture at large: “I consider contemporary culture to be a pink pony trotting through the world shitting glitter. They’re filling our minds with shit glitter!”
Read the original article here
Tags: Strangely Uplifting
i will never look at a my little pony in the same light xx
I just cant wait to see your face on TV again (so it better be shown in UK!) and you should give away tickets to be in the audience, including flights out to USA of course, to your prettiest fans!
Seriously want to fuck you Brand…X
Hi Russ
I don’t know you but for some reason on 31st Dec 2011 when I saw your pic for the first time.. yes.. for the first time.. something happen.. in a really wonderful sense.
I have been looking at videos of your pasted interviews/shows recently and you have been quite funny really.. Maybe someday I will be able to make it to one of your live shows who knows..(no I am not a stalker).
I believed you are doing and you know you on an amazing journey..don’t allow anyone to dim that light..(you know what I mean)..
Our divine Creator is walking with you Russ .. Continue to love.. love.. love.. make people laugh ..
Take Care Precious One..
DONT KNOW WHAT HAPPENED BETWEEN you 2 BUT STOP TORTURING HER!!!!!!!!!!!!
AWESOME!!!!
Youre a good contribution to the world. Keep talking and staying true to yourself. Ha ha, enough with the shit glitter and more of the smart comedy. Life is funny! It’s tragic and awful and unfair and ridiculous. Humor is all we’ve got! You’re fanfuckingtastic! Who doesn’t want to come home from work and sit down to one Of your movies? It’s day medicine for regular people :)
Make a movie in Alaska or come for a visit. It’s 20 below and we could use a laugh. Christ knows we dont need anymore ice cream.
Actually was thinking about spirituality in general . . . and “knowledge is a most peculiar affair!”
It seems the more one adheres to the “mysterious unknown,” “the light,” “God” whateva ones particular version is ~
In return, Worldly desires are plucked away whether one wants them to be or not.
So yes, we continue to embark on behalf of love and light but both be prepared and wary of what your own personal surrender will bring.
Surely, some bliss, understanding, and opportunity to serve, but for me it has come at a cost.
Still wonder whether this *Golden Age* is actually an external transformation of the planet into a utophia or rather the awakening of consciousness internally, an individual process, making a Golden Age within, and then collectively ?
If this process of awakening is indeed internal, will that still leave a planet suffering from war, greed, destruction of the environment, shit, glitter . . . ?
I think its cool that you have the opportunity to mix your innate wisdom with comedy . . . indeed your form of medicine !
Mr Brand . . . Come out to the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show Jan 1-14, 2012, a global event with collectors and suppliers of rocks,crystals, gems from all over the World !
The city is packed with some very far out spiritualist and the energies from the rocks can be far out too.
Look me up if you visit the Sonoran desert : http://www.facebook.com/people/Tracy-Dunbar/1450598946
Russell: I think this show could be really good, and I am looking forward to it. Could you please post the link to the live interview, that would be nice to see. Thanks. Good luck on this.
Hang in there Russell. You make the world laugh! :) I am so looking forward to this new show! Where will you be shooting it? I would make the trip to see you!
The most hottest girls on the internet, Katy would agree :P
http://www.gngmagazine.co.uk/
I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE Russell Brand!!! I can’t wait to see his show on FX. I’m so glad he is going to be on TV. He has such vast wisdon!!! I’d vote for him for President of the United States!
:-)
“a meaningless spectacle”? Now where’s honesty gonna get you?
Of course American Presidential Election also spells ‘Reptile’s indelicate necromania’.
What can I say Russell? Your ability to make people laugh at the sheer absurdity of it all amazes me to no end. I look forward to seeing you happy being you.
Cannot wait until your show airs . . . but I’ll have to : (
Like Rosie O’Donnell, I became “acquainted” with you only via your online videos, etc., etc., which I purposely looked up after stumbling on your hilarious audition tape for Forgetting Sarah Marshall. After picking myself up off the floor … all I could think was ‘comic genius’ … I thoroughly enjoyed your first book because of your almost child-like honesty, self-effacing humor, rapier insight about your own foibles (as well as others’)and the insane lessons of your youth that you shared from such a responsible (not victim) stance.
I have to say, there’s something good at work in you Mr. Brand, and I have a sense that that is why you have a world forum beginning to open up before you. Stay in touch w/ Rosie … I’m sure you can learn from and teach each other. She’s got quite the resources at her new network. ;-)
PS: Love how you’re taking the high road concerning your personal life. (How can you STAND the lying CRAP these assinine tabloids spew — especially US Weekly?! I surmise from your interviews that you have neither the stomach for ego battles nor the disposition to trash someone you’ve loved.) Bottom line is that it’s nobody’s business but yours and Katy’s, and I wish you both well as you part … with as much dignity and kindness that you each can muster.
… Cheers from a New York fan! ;-)