Kevin Bleyer, an Emmy-winning writer for “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart,†addressed an appreciative and diverse crowd of casual and devoted fans Sunday afternoon at the Centre for the Arts for day three of Festival of the Arts BOCA. Charming, gracious and effortlessly witty, Bleyer may be a self-described “professional smart-ass,†but his demeanor was that of a fresh-faced gentleman — the kind of nice young man that fathers wouldn’t mind courting their daughters.
Bleyer opened his prepared speech with a few rips on our great state of Florida, with its rich history of electoral
blunders and scandal-prone politicians. “Thank you, Florida, for all the material you’ve provided for us over the years,†he said (Bleyer has family in Delray Beach).
His speech then turned to some good-natured ribbing of last year’s most comedy-friendly failed Senate candidates, from Christine O’Donnell to Alvin Greene. Bleyer also touched on his writing history; his first major gig was for “Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher,†but he and many others lost their jobs when Maher made his infamous comments about the 9-11 hijackers and got the boot from management. He moved from the left-of-center Maher to the right-of-center Dennis Miller for the latter’s short-lived CNBC talk show, a ideological pendulum-swing that left Bleyer to ponder if he is “an intellectual prostitute who will satirize for money.â€
But most of Bleyer’s presentation centered on a running theme throughout his writing career: his unfulfilled desire to be a legitimate war correspondent, a dream that was at least partially fulfilled when he and comedian Rob Riggle recorded some “Daily Show†bits directly from Iraq in 2007. It may not have been the visceral, embedded experience he had hoped for as a younger man, but it also wasn’t, as “The Daily Show†is often dismissed, “fake news.†Whether he intended to or not, Bleyer made a case that his program isn’t just for “stoned slackers,†as Bill O’Reilly has derisively labeled them, but that it is, in fact, a major player in shaping public opinion. The show’s dedicated researchers, writers and commentators have become notorious for holding politicians accountable through humor.
“Our mission is to find laughs in all kinds of Hell,†Bleyer said toward the end of his speech. Bleyer almost became serious and sanctimonious in his conclusion, only to pull back and lay on a punch line; much like “The Daily Show†itself, Bleyer’s humor is the pleasant aftertaste to the bitter pill of the day’s news.
