Search

By R.T. St. Claire
Special to The Lookout

August 13 -- McCabe’s has got to be the place to see a solo musical performer of any kind on the west side, and for San Francisco political satirist Roy Zimmerman, Sunday night was something like The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart doing a solo hootenanny: A little old-time folky with a lot of biting modern cool.

Zimmerman was in prime form on McCabe’s modest, sparse, black stage. From his neatly pressed white shirt and sensible tie, down to his sharp slacks, and yes, his sensible sandals, you’d think you were looking at some new presidential candidate slinging an acoustic guitar.

Roy served up his unique and tasty brand of liberal observations (and skewerings) of the neo-cons and their Machiavellian ways and means with infectious originals like “Dick Cheney” (“…the briefcase, the trench-coat, the super-spy stylin!”), to “Chickenhawk” espousing the slippery way that Bush and his cronies all managed to get out of doing their respective stints in the armed forces (“…but I just had other priorities, like feeling more at ease”), and “I’ll Pull Out” sung as if W was having a pre-coital drink, trying to seduce the entire country of Iraq (“…I’ll pull out! I promise!”). Photo by Samantha Knapton

But Zimmerman saves some of his best barbs for the religious right, with foot-stompers like “Creation Science 101” (“…because when this semester's through, it's straight A's for students who shun Evolution”), the thoughtful (and painful) “Abstain With Me” (“…the abstinence-only doctrine is kinda’ like the just-hold-it potty training method.”), and show-stopper “Ted Haggard Is Completely Heterosexual” (“… he put the men back in Amen.”).

If Roy draws the audience in with his clever, fun lyrics and between-song banter (“When I heard that Dick Cheney shot some guy in the face, I just figured he was exercising his 2nd Amendment Right to Free Speech.”), he brings you right back to the un-funny real world with his haunting and serious pro-troop number “Thanks For The Support,” imagining how soldiers in the field must feel, sent to fight an unjust and immoral war that doesn’t even have any clear goal.

If any of this sounds a bit bleak, Roy’s set wound-down with a surprisingly visual and uplifting song (“America”) about the amazing diversity of this melting pot country of ours (“America is a Japanese fiddler in Branson Missouri doing Louie Armstrong… it just might work”).

The end of the nearly sold-out night culminated in an encore featuring Zimmerman’s lone non-political tune: “What If The Beatles Were Irish?” -- a rip-roaring medley of Beatles tunes, done hard and fast, ala The Irish Rovers by way of The Pogues.

Dick Cheney, Ted Haggard, and The Beatles? Now that’s entertainment!