Lee Camp (comedian)

Lee Camp
2016 Politicon at the Pasadena Convention Center in Pasadena, California.
Bornc. 1980
Washington, D.C
Alma materUniversity of Virginia
Occupations
Websiteleecamp.net

Lee Camp (born c. 1980)[1][2] is an American comedian, writer, podcaster, news journalist and news commentator. As a television host he presented the show Redacted Tonight for several years on the Russian state-funded network RT America until it was shut down after Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.[3] In July 2022, he started a new show, Most Censored News with Lee Camp with MintPress News. On YouTube Lee Camp has a news show called Dangerous Ideas with Lee Camp.

Early life

Camp was born at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C.[4][5] His father was a military doctor.[5]

Camp is of Jewish heritage and has two brothers.[6] His family lived in Bethesda, Maryland, then moved to Richmond, Virginia when he was 8 years of age.[7] He attended the University of Virginia where he wrote for The Cavalier Daily.[8] He majored in English and psychology and graduated in 2002.[6][8]

He began performing stand-up comedy on his 19th birthday at an open-mic night at Matt's Pub in Richmond.[9]

Career

After graduating from UVA, Camp moved to New York City where he performed regularly at the Ha! Comedy Club.[10] He went on to perform regularly at colleges and it was during this time that he started to include political material in his stand up act, which lead to performances at political events such as Netroots Nation conventions and Rock the Vote events.[7] In the 2000s he also opened for such comedians as Jimmy Fallon, Darrell Hammond, Kevin Nealon, Tracy Morgan, Lewis Black and Dick Gregory.[11][12]

In 2002, Camp published his first book Neither Sophisticated Nor Intelligent, a collection of his best humor columns from The Cavalier Daily.[13] 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.[14] Camp has been a contributor to The Onion and The Huffington Post.[10]

In 2017, Camp and his partner Eleanor Goldfield created the Common Censored podcast, which focuses on grassroots activism issues.[15]

Camp was the host and head writer of the weekly comedy news show Redacted Tonight with Lee Camp, which aired on RT America for eight years.[3] He told Rachel Manteuffel of The Washington Post Magazine that the Russian government funds the network that ran his show.[16] When asked about advertising, he said, "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."[17]

After RT America shut down in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Camp blamed the "U.S. government war machine" for the end of the network.[3] He also claimed that he had lost his job due to the Great Reset conspiracy theory, as well as promoting the Ukraine bioweapons conspiracy theory on Twitter.[18]

Discography

DVD

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

CD

Filmography

Year Title Role Notes
2005 Dealbreaker Waiter
2005 Law & Order: Special Victims Unit Bart Episode: "Intoxicated"
2006 Exposing the Order of the Serpentine Ashamed man

Bibliography

  • Neither Sophisticated Nor Intelligent: A College Humorist's Take on Life, Xlibris, 2002. ISBN 978-1-40104-266-0[13]
  • The BIGfib Book of Bollocks: The BIGfib.com Annual, the Best Of 2005, BIGfib Books, 2005. ISBN 978-2-95248-993-5[14]
  • Bullet Points and Punch Lines: The Most Important Commentary Ever Written on the Epic American Tragicomedy, PM Press, 2020. ISBN 978-1-62963-785-3[19]

References

  1. ^ Manteuffel, Rachel (July 13, 2016). "Lee Camp of 'Redacted Tonight' on the problems in Washington: Lee Camp on the problems in Washington -- and Russian funding". The Washington Post (Online). Retrieved 4 August 2023 – via ProQuest. Lee Camp, 35, is the host and creator of "Redacted Tonight"...
  2. ^ Somerville, Colin (August 15, 2011). "Lee Camp Is: Yet Another American Mistake, The Stand: Sam Simmons - Meanwhile, Gilded Balloon Wine Bar Margaret Cho - Cho Dependent, Assembly George Square". the Herald. Glasgow, Scotland. p. 20. Retrieved 4 August 2023 – via ProQuest. The 31-year-old is exactly what the US needs as the Tea Party's reborn reactionary gospel is preached far and wide.
  3. ^ a b c Kang, Cecilia (March 12, 2022). "What It Was Like to Work for Russian State Television". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved March 13, 2022.
  4. ^ Kettle, James (March 24, 2012). "The Guide: Comedy: Lee Camp Is Yet Another American Mistake Glasgow". The Guardian. p. 31. Retrieved 4 August 2023 – via ProQuest. For those comedy fans still in mourning for Bill Hicks 18 years on, you'll find plenty to enjoy in the work of DC-born stand-up Lee Camp.
  5. ^ a b Scheer, Robert (November 2, 2018). "Lee Camp: 'We're in a New Age of McCarthyism'". Truthdig. Retrieved 4 August 2023.
  6. ^ a b Soroken, Lauren (May 7, 2010). "Chosen Comedy: Lee Camp". Heeb. Retrieved 4 August 2023.
  7. ^ a b Schere, Daniel (October 27, 2016). "This joker is wild". Washington Jewish Week. p. 26. Retrieved 4 August 2023 – via ProQuest. His family lived in Bethesda until he was 8, when they moved to Richmond, Va., where they were members of Congregation Beth Ahabah. He says he knew he wanted to write jokes starting around the age of 12, but it wasn't until his early 20s that Camp began dabbling in political comedy.
  8. ^ a b Camp, Lee. "It's so hard to say goodbye". The Cavalier Daily. Retrieved 4 August 2023.
  9. ^ "interview on Cara's Basement". Archived from the original on August 11, 2011. Retrieved 16 November 2017.
  10. ^ a b "Lee Camp an example for aspiring activists". University Wire. September 18, 2012. Retrieved 4 August 2023 – via ProQuest.
  11. ^ "Recitals, comedian, reading scheduled at Waldorf". Globe Gazette. November 9, 2006. p. C10. Retrieved 4 August 2023 – via Newspapers.com.
  12. ^ Dow Campbell, Alexis (March 17, 2009). "Comedian camps it up". The Patriot-News. Retrieved 4 August 2023.
  13. ^ a b Camp, Lee (2002). Neither Sophisticated Nor Intelligent: A College Humorist's Take on Life. Xlibris. ISBN 9781401042660. Retrieved August 11, 2023.
  14. ^ a b Alexander, Nick; Camp, Lee; Lord, Alan (2005). The BIGfib Book of Bollocks: The BIGfib.com Annual, the Best Of 2005. BIGfib Books. ISBN 9782952489935. Retrieved August 11, 2023.
  15. ^ "Common Censored on Apple Podcasts". Apple Podcasts. Retrieved Aug 4, 2020.
  16. ^ Manteuffel, Rachel (14 July 2016). "Lee Camp of 'Redacted Tonight' on the problems in Washington". The Washington Post. Retrieved 15 February 2022.
  17. ^ Manteuffel, Rachel (July 14, 2016). "Lee Camp of 'Redacted Tonight' on the problems in Washington". The Washington Post Magazine. Retrieved December 30, 2019.
  18. ^ "Meet the Sneakiest Defenders of Vladimir Putin's Ukraine Invasion and China's Xinjiang Repression". The Daily Beast. 2022-04-29. Retrieved 2024-12-09.
  19. ^ Camp, Lee (2020). Bullet points and punch lines (Ebook ed.). Oakland, CA: PM Press. ISBN 9781629638027. Retrieved May 31, 2021.
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