Laughter Against The Machine promises to stretch your socio-political mind and tickle your funny bone.

On February 8 &9, W. Kamau Bell, Hari Kondabolu, and Nato Green will bring their sold out comedy tour to the New Parish in Oakland. Janine Brito will host. The doors open at 7, the show starts at 8. Tickets are $12 in advance, $16 at the door.

About the comics:

HARI KONDABOLU started his comedy career in Seattle while working as an immigrant rights organizer during the day. The Seattle Times wrote that he is “a young man reaching for the hand-scalding torch of confrontational comics like Lenny Bruce and Richard Pryor.” (Like his comedic heroes, he wants to speak truth to power with confrontational and personal material. Unlike them, he does not want to die of a morphine overdose or set himself on fire.) The Stranger has called him “a national comedy treasure.” Hari has performed on Jimmy Kimmel Live, Comedy Central’s Live at Gotham and was featured in the 2007 HBO U.S. Comedy Arts Festival. He was most recently seen on John Oliver’s New York Stand-Up Show on Comedy Central, and is looking forward to the premier of "Comedy Central Presents Hari Kondabolu" on February 11.
 
W. KAMAU BELL told the very first joke about Barack Obama on Comedy Central’s Premium Blend way back in 2005. Unfortunately, the joke predicted that Barack would never be President. (Oops!) In addition to performing stand-up comedy, Kamau is best known for  his critically acclaimed solo show, The W. Kamau Bell Curve: Ending Racism in About an Hour. Kamau has also released two stand-up comedy CD’s, ONE NIGht ONLY & the critically-acclaimed Face Full of Flour, which made both iTunes and Punchline Magazine Top 10 Best Comedy albums of 2010. He has been named BEST COMEDIAN by The San Francisco Weekly (2008), The San Francisco Bay Guardian (2010), & 7×7 Magazine (2010). He co-hosts The Field Negro Guide to Art & Culture Podcast with Living Colour guitarist Vernon Reid. According to Margaret Cho, “W. Kamau Bell is the most important guy doing comedy right now. Do yourself a favor and go see him. He’s got the most astute, hilarious and completely righteous material going and he’s going to be a legend in his own lifetime like Richard Pryor and Lenny Bruce. Think Bill Hicks but slightly taller.”

NATO GREEN, San Francisco native and erratic Huffington Post blogger, was recently named the SF Weekly’s Best Comedian of 2010 for putting on “legendary” shows that keep audiences “doubled over.” He's been described as "half Lenny Bruce, half Eugene Debs." Nato is the creator of Iron Comic, the Iron Chef-spoofing hit comedy game show that packed houses at SF Sketchfest three years running and the Bridgetown Comedy Festival 2010. The East Bay Express reported that onstage Nato “has a knack for pushing boundaries,” the San Francisco Chronicle wrote that Nato “had the hordes howling,” while his comedy was called “edgy” and “innovative” by the San Francisco Examiner and the Northern California Jewish Weekly. He co-hosts The Rumpus Radio Podcast with author Stephen Elliott. His website is

JANINE BRITO is a sarcastic, snarky smart bomb of comedy funk straight from the 80’s. She’s been told, on occasion, that she is relentlessly intelligent, cute, and above all screamingly funny. Janine started doing standup comedy in St. Louis and has performed at clubs and theaters throughout the US and Hong Kong. Now a rising star on the San Francisco scene, she is a regular at the Punch Line, winner of the 2009 SF Women’s Comedy Competition and recipient of Rooftop Comedy’s 2010 Silver Nail Award.