Photo credit: Matthew Filipowicz
The Accountants Of Homeland Security
Milwaukee comedian Matthew Filipowicz triggers laughter on many platforms. His work has been featured on CNN, NPR, PBS, HBO, BBC, Ain’t It Cool News, the New York Times, the Atlantic, the Nation and even—is this bipartisanship?—the Wall Street Journal, along with Salon, Daily Kos and the Huffington Post.
Here in town Filipowicz has also made a mark as ringleader of Laughing Liberally, a monthly live event featuring stand-up comics and the resident sketch comedy group The Accountants of Homeland Security.
Calculating the high cost of live performance, the Accountant have been posting videos like mad. Filipowicz is “particularly fond of our latest one, The Wisconsin Republican Plan For COVID-19.”
He stood still long enough for a virtual interview:
Tell me about the inspiration behind Laughing Liberally?
Something that a lot of folks are surprised to hear is that are a good amount of comedy clubs do not want comics to do political material. They’re fine with racist material, sexist material, homophobic material, transphobic material. But, politics? No way. Those places generally just want to sell a couple of overpriced Bud Lite Limes to the jerk in the MAGA hat. Laughing Liberally exists as a space for both the comics to political and social comedy and for audiences to enjoy it. Beyond electoral politics, Laughing Liberally is a space where women and trans comics can talk about sex and gender without getting harassed, comics of color can talk about racism and resilience without being shouted down, and the good people of Wisconsin can come enjoy a laugh about the horrible times we're living in.
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When did it start?
So, this is kind of a long answer. Laughing Liberally is part of a larger organization called Living Liberally, which was founded in New York City in 2003. It began as a progressive social club called Drinking Liberally, of which I am also the host of the Milwaukee chapter. So, this is the height of the George W. Bush era. It’s wild to think we can remember that somewhat fondly now. Do you remember when the President was just a war criminal?
Shortly after its founding, other Drinking Liberally chapters were formed all around the country. From that, other progressive social groups came. Reading Liberally, which are progressive book clubs, Eating Liberally, progressive food groups, and Laughing Liberally, which are progressive political comedy shows.
So, around 2007, I was living in Chicago and co-producing a political variety show with my sketch group, The Accountants Of Homeland Security. I was friends with the founder of Living Liberally, Justin Krebs, from when I used to live in New York. He suggested making our variety show a Laughing Liberally show, and we liked that idea, so we did. My wife and I moved to Boston for five years while she got her PhD, and I launched Laughing Liberally Boston there.
When my wife and I moved here in 2016, I started Laughing Liberally Milwaukee. We recently celebrated our three year anniversary of doing monthly shows. The Accountants of Homeland Security have always performed sketches as part of Laughing Liberally shows, so now that we can’t perform in person because of pandemic, we're bringing the funny online.
Do you see yourself as the Steve Colbert of Milwaukee?
I love Steven Colbert, but no. I can only hope to one day be the John Gurda of comedy.
What have been some of the highlights of Laughing Liberally over the years?
There's been a bunch, but the show after we beat Scott Walker is an all-time favorite. The crowd was just giddy and electric. I'm looking forward one day having a show like that about Donald Trump. I also got to interview John Gurda at a different show, which was a lot of fun.
Isn’t the news already absurd enough? How can you top Trump?
That’s a really good question. As satirists, our job consists of seeing something bad, then going to the land of make believe, the land of unicorns and rainbows, and making up something worse to draw attention to the thing that’s bad.
Trump starts out at worse. Or worst. A couple of years ago, I was trying to come up with a punch line to a joke. And what I came up with was, "What is Trump going to do next? Deregulate asbestos?" And the next day, he literally deregulated asbestos! What's next? Rat poison? I'm assuming most people reading this know how bad fracking is. Several months ago, the Trump administration re-branded fracked gas as, and I'm not making this up, "freedom gas." They actually said that they want to spread "freedom gas throughout the world." What's a comedian supposed to do when the President makes their fart jokes for them?
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