Comedian Amaru brings a new face to Homelessness in 50 states

A friend of mine used to make this state­ment to me all the time; “The same things that’ll make you laugh will make you cry.” In regard to the sub­ject of home­less­ness, while it in itself is no laugh­ing mat­ter, Comedian Amaru or The Real Amaru as he is more widely known is doing just that. Bringing humor to home­less­ness to raise aware­ness to this issue.

This time of year—especially with the cur­rent wave of record low temperatures—people often think of the home­less. Born in Gary, Indiana and raised pri­mar­ily in Kalamazoo, Michigan, Amaru is no stranger to the cold as a for­merly home­less per­son him­self. A come­dian for 10 years Amaru decided to bring atten­tion as well as much needed funds to the cause of Homelessness with his 50 States, 50 Clubs in 50 days Comedy Tour begin­ning October 1^st, 2010.

Here’s my Q&A with Amaru about him­self and the tour:

Q: What moved you to start this tour?

A: It was being home­less myself last year. After find­ing a tem­po­rary home, I still fre­quent the shel­ter because I have friends that I made there. Every time I see them still in that place, espe­cially in win­ter it is heart wrench­ing. Some of them have jobs, but don’t make enough even with the help given to get ahead and get out of there. They need a reset but­ton. This econ­omy makes it no eas­ier.

I am blessed to be a comic. I am blessed to be in the pub­lic eye. For that rea­son I am able to put a new face to home­less­ness. I can rock a crowd of 500 to 1000 peo­ple in a night and none of them will ever know that I am home­less or was home­less. They want my auto­graph and drink with me and party. But what if they knew I was home­less? Would it change their atti­tude towards me? I’m the same per­son that had you leaned over your table with laugh­ter now I’m not good enough because I am or was home­less?

What hap­pens when you tell them at the end of your per­for­mance is a sense of the audi­ence becom­ing uncom­fort­able. That’s good! Cause now you’ve struck a cord that they them­selves have buried under­neath their own prob­lems. Then, when you add humor to the sit­u­a­tion they open up and see that it is okay to laugh at it. You then have the power to bring aware­ness to this ongo­ing mad­ness.

Q: Where can peo­ple who want to come to the show find out the tour dates?

A: The tour will start Oct. 1, 2010 the 1^st 22 dates and States can be found at home​less​com​edy​.blogspot​.com or the​re​ala​maru​.blogspot​.com.

Also, at www​.myspace​.com/​t​h​e​r​e​a​l​a​m​aru (sched­ule and com­edy video). The venues are not listed yet, but are in the works. If you live in one of the 50 states and want the show in your city and you have Twitter hit us up at twit​ter​.com/​h​o​m​e​l​e​s​s​c​o​m​edy and let’s make it hap­pen!

If you want this tour at your local com­edy club that you’ve been sup­port­ing for years, go to them and say: “Hey, bub! When’s the Homeless tour gonna be here?” People make things hap­pen! The peo­ple make change!

Q: What is the sin­gle thing you would like peo­ple to take away from this tour?

A: The sin­gle thing I want folks to take away from this tour is quit sendin’ your money to infomer­cials to peo­ple look­ing and act­ing needy in another coun­try and uti­lize it in your own coun­try for the per­son lying at your doorstep. If we can’t help our­selves how are we going to help another?

Imagine if we cared enough to take major action our­selves? This will make the gov­ern­ment look bad or step in and assist. If we don’t raise enough money to get started on the plans we have, then we will take the monies raised and set up a mil­lion home­less March for 2011 and show the American peo­ple the prob­lem we have first hand and make an infomer­cial out of it to get money.

If we see a mil­lion home­less Americans on our tele­vi­sion screens in Washington it would shock our social con­scious­ness and force us to deal with it. It shocked our social con­scious to see a mil­lion black folks! We some­times get into the ‘out of mind out of site’ mode. When you move to the sub­urbs away from the prob­lem, it just means the prob­lem will be there when ya come back!

While I look for­ward to a time when no one will be home­less I think Amaru’s work to see home­less­ness come to an end are truly a remark­able and wor­thy cause.

Here are other places around the web that you can find out more about Amaru and the tour:

www​.home​less​com​e​dy​tour​.org

www​.face​book​.com/​t​h​e​r​e​a​l​a​m​aru

www​.rooftop​com​edy​.com/​a​m​aru

Thanks for read­ing,