Comedy, music show celebrates FOIA request
Curtis Raye first called his live show FOIA Love, after the similar-sounding name of the Yardbirds hit from 1965. But the play on “For Your Love” and reference to the federal Freedom of Information Act never clicked.
Now, he bills the show as A Night of Comedy & Bluegrass About Strange Public Documents. As one summary states: “If you enjoy history, journalism, libraries, banjos, archives or humor discovered in unusual places, then this is the show for you.”
Sounds like the sequel to Nerd Night, which packed the Howland Cultural Center earlier this month. Raye attended, coming up from New Jersey.
He’ll return at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday (Dec. 5) — with ace musicians from Asheville, North Carolina, and Nashville, Tennessee, in tow — to perform his own geek-inspired concept, which pairs a bluegrass soundtrack with six vignettes that lampoon human nature through the lens of government documents.
“Public records are the original reality TV, which people find amusing for the raw, unfiltered emotion and sincerity, the basis for comedy,” Raye says.
One segment centers on longtime FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, who took office in 1924. For some reason, Americans from all over the country wrote directly to Hoover to inquire whether notorious outlaw Jesse James didn’t actually die in 1882.
Rather than ignore them, Hoover responded to each letter individually, Raye says. In the bit, the cast reads a few short letters out loud, revealing Hoover’s growing agitation toward the senders. “Then the band plays a song, either ‘Jesse James’ or ‘Oh Hang Me,’ which is about being in prison,” he says.
Raye also pairs “White House Blues,” a tune that mentions Teddy Roosevelt but really covers the 1901 assassination of President William McKinley with a bit about Franklin Roosevelt.
Hoover’s letters are the kinds of documents he discovered several years ago after filing FOIA requests for a client. Digging through them, he’d come across something strange every thousand documents or so, which made it “electrifying and worth it,” Raye says.
This turned into a hobby, and now he consults records online, finding gems in old wills, FBI profiles and Federal Aviation Administration complaints. A pilot once flew low over his heavily populated neighborhood in Baltimore, rattling the windows to let his wife know he’d be home soon, “so he was behaving in a sweet, although antisocial, way,” he says.
Raye tried standup but pivoted. “A comedian will say, ‘I went on a date and it didn’t go well,’ and then make jokes about it. I’m not good at that type of comedy, but I am good at finding FTC [Federal Trade Commission] complaints about eHarmony and Match.com dates that went south. It’s still about love, but I have a different way of getting there.”
Raye plays bluegrass banjo, but hands off music duties to a rotating band of ace players. When it comes to the genre, Raye says he “can’t write a lost-love song that drags your soul along the ground,” but I can look up complaints about dating services “that can make me feel the same way.”
He also noted that the Howland Cultural Center’s intimate room “brings bluegrass up close.” In a small venue like the Howland, he says, “it’s electric to see how fast the fingers are moving,” compared to a noisy bar or large arena.
And Raye wears the nerd badge with pride. “Many bluegrass songs are about three things: affection for criminals, blaming someone else for their problems and trains,” he says.
“Most public records are similar — FBI files on criminals, complaints that blame others about, say, seeing Janet Jackson’s breast at the Super Bowl, and infrastructure boondoggles; that’s the connection.”
The Howland Cultural Center is located at 477 Main St. in Beacon. Tickets are $20 in advance at bit.ly/foialove_hcc or $25 at the door.
