SEE BARRY PERFORM LIVE FRIDAY at 7pm at ArtRage:

ArtRage Gallery presents Barry Crimmins, comedian, political satirist, activist. Crimmins’ life and work in comedy and politics are the subject of a documentary entitled Call Me Lucky (2015) directed by filmmaker and fellow comedian Bobcat Goldthwait. Crimmins and Goldthwait will be in town for the Syracuse International Film Festival where Call Me Lucky will be screened at the Palace Theater. Local comedian Anna Phillips will be opening for Crimmins, who is also author of Never Shake Hands With a War Criminal, former Air America Radio writer and correspondent, and former comedy club owner. Crimmins was featured on the podcast WTF with Marc Maron discussing his personal life and career as a political activist and his role in the Boston comedy scene.

Barry Crimmins’ hellfire brand of comedy has rained verbal lightning bolts on American audiences and politicians for decades, yet you’ve probably never heard of him. But once you’ve experienced Bobcat Goldthwait’s brilliant character portrait of him and heard Crimmins’s secret, you will never forget him. From his unmistakable bullish frame came a scathingly ribald stand-up style that took early audiences by force. Through stark, smart observation and judo-like turns of phrase, Crimmins’s rapid-fire comedy was a war on ignorance and complacency in ’80s America at the height of an ill-considered foreign policy.

SEE THE FILM ~ CALL ME LUCKY ~ SATURDAY, OCTOBER 17, at 9:30pm at THE PALACE THEATRE:

The film bravely tells Crimmins’ incredible story of transformation from a rage-fueled funnyman into an acclaimed proponent of justice who personified the healing power of comedy. Crimmins discusses another side of his character, revealing in detail a dark and painful past that inspired his life-changing campaign of activism in the hope of saving others from a similar experience. Interviews with comics like Margaret Cho and Marc Maron illustrate Crimmins’s love affair with comedy and his role in discovering and supporting the development of many of today’s stars.