Richard Stockton
In 1982 he became the morning talk show host of WKDA/KDF in Nashville, Tennessee which was the number one hot-talk show in the mid south for two years, primarily because it was the only hot-talk show in the mid south. In 1986 he became a full time touring comedian, based in San Francisco. In his twenty-nine years as a standup comedian he has appeared on dozens of national TV shows, performed in 1999 and 2000 as a sketch comedy player on Live From LA on BET, headlined A List comedy clubs from coast to coast – Improv, Punchline, Comedy Underground, Comedy Works, and more – growing an audience of devotees to his unique take on the human potential movement.
His first book, “Fondle The Fear,” is now in it’s third printing. He also creates short stories of transformation for NPR stations KQED, KUSP and KAZU in Northern California. He produced a KUSP radio show called True Fiction Radio that is podcast at www.truefictionradio.net. In 2014 he wrote and performed Are We There Yet? in Santa Cruz, Los Angeles and San Francisco.
Richard is currently touring with his one man show, Planet of the Boomers. He also produces and hosts Planet Cruz Comedy with Richard Stockton, a live comedy/variety show performed report writing at the Rio Theatre in Santa Cruz.
Richard produces Fried Comedy News, 90 second comedy rants that lampoon news stories on the Left Coast on KPIG Radio 107.5 FM, Monday through Friday at 6:30 am and 8:30 am.
Also M – F on KSRO “The Drive” in Santa Rosa, KVMR in Nevada City and www.RudmaniaRadio.com.
Television
NBC Friday Night Featured Comic NBC
BET Live From LA (2 seasons) Sketch Comedy Cast Member BET
BET Love Da Money, feature film
Fondle The Fear Host Comcast TV West
Radio
KPIG 107.5 FM, frequent guest host for Sleepy John Sandidge on Please Stand By, from 2013 to the present. Sunday Mornings 10AM – 12 N live music and comedy
True Fiction Radio is podcast at www.truefictionradio.net, broadcast at www.kusp.org.
NPR “Snap Judgment” reading his story “Haircut Hooligan” 10/1/11
Planet Cruz Comedy Hour with Richard Stockton, broadcast on KUSP 88.9FM in Santa Cruz, CA, pod cast at www.kusp.org
All Comedy Radio Standup in regular rotation ACR
Playboy Channel Featured Comic XM Radio
Perspectives Featured Comic – KQED
First Person Singular Featured Storyteller – KUSP
Clubs
Improv Comedy Underground
Comedy Store Harvey’s
Carolines Comedy Works
Comic Strip Punchline
Funnybones Comedy Zone
Laff Stop Zanies
Testimonials for comedian Richard Stockton
“Boys, now there is a funny one.”
Ringo Starr, after Richard’s opening set for Ringo Starr and The All-Star Band
“Hilarious!”
Janice Russell, “Rocky Mountain News”
“Richard Stockton is off the hook. He is one of the sharpest comics working today.”
Michael Colyar, host of “Live From LA” on Black Entertainment Television
“…very clever and extremely funny.”
Al Gore, former politician from Tennessee
Boom with a View by Richard Stockton was published March 11, 2015 in the Good Times Weekly Santa Cruz Senior Project
Boom with a View
A boomer comic reflects on how his generation has changed the way we get old
By Richard Stockton
I perform mostly in theaters these days but I did a comedy club recently and as I walked to the microphone I heard a twenty-something whisper, “Fossil!”
The definition of fossil is “an impression of life in the past, a marker of evolutionary relationships among organisms.” It also means, “A cranky, stubbornly unchanging person.”
I hereby take both definitions as my own. It is my mission to present my baby boomer generation with impressions of our moments of evolutionary change to remind ourselves how dynamic we are and all the things we went through to get this way. And I do get cranky. I’ve gone from “born to be wild” to “born to be riled.”
I am Fossil. I am a three dimensional impression of moments imbedded in the evolutionary layers of baby boomer history.
We’ve gone from Hi-Fi to Wi-Fi.
… from Minnie Mouse to mini skirts to mini vans.
… from hippy to hip replacement.
… from free love to free background checks.
… from “Hell no, we won’t go,” to “Where the hell did my gingko biloba go?”
I am Fossil.
The Vietnam War divided my generation and we leading edge baby boomers continue to split apart. Even now the two halves of my generation come together like a hospital gown. One half of my generation focuses on protecting their wealth, making sure the younger folks keep the SS payments coming to pay for their golf green fees. But the other half of my generation is looking at the final third of their lives as a chance to get it right this time, to make a difference, to make their Aquarian dreams of the 60s live. And one place that is gearing up for this Silver Tsunami is the adult activity center.
The Silver Tsunami
Linda Minton, First Vice-President of the Mid County Senior Center, says, “We’re not putting flat screen TVs and couches in here for boomers to lay around and complain. This center will be active!” Boomers do not want to go out with a heart attack because their favorite TV show didn’t come on. They want to go out making a TV show that could change people’s minds.
“Senior centers are being renamed Adult Activity Communities,” says Janet Sumpter, Director of the Los Altos Recreation Center in Los Gatos. “The idea is that everyone brings their talents, their skills to teach the others.” Changing the name to “Adult Activity Center” fits the new breed coming in. They are becoming meeting centers for boomers to start a rock band, organize community service projects, practice yoga and martial arts, even to produce baby boomer comedy shows.
In the sixties the four baby boomer elements of the universe were fire, water, air, and vinyl. We communicated our values through the music on that vinyl. When Jimi Hendrix performed the Star Spangled Banner at Woodstock, complete with the guitar sounds of the military industrial complex bombs exploding, we could step away from all the patriotic posturing. We internalized this fossil of musical art and it has become part of how we look at the Vietnam War. When the Beatles sang, “It’s getting better all the time,” that was not something we hoped for, we expected it. We required it. We were the first generation that had the audacity to want our work to be fun.
At the beginning of the sixties, we saw women kept in the shadows. In 1961 Marvel Comics introduced the first female super-heroine… Invisible Girl. Her superpowers were that she could not be seen and not be heard. Boomer women have never lived in the shadows and they are not going to start now.
My life partner and Planet Cruz Comedy co-producer Julie Zito Flannery writes, “do not underestimate boomer women in society. We have given birth, buried our parents, laid to rest our girlhood dreams, witnessed the heartache and disillusion of our generation. We have taken on the job of rebirthing hope and meaning to the lives of our aging peers, and inspiring our grandchildren with our undying optimism.”
Bob Dylan was not kidding when he wished us to be “forever young.” We have no intention of giving up sex, drugs and rock and roll. We invented the drugs that let us keep having sex, drugs and rock and roll.
People refer to my “decline.” I think “change” is more accurate. It is true that on the baseball field my foot speed is gone. There are a lot of places for a fly ball to land around me. My son said, “Dad, you look like a man playing baseball under water.” Even hitting the gym five days a week, I have maybe 80% of the strength of when I was 28. But my emotional growth, my ability to turn fear into excitement has grown ten fold. Except when I’m cranky.
I’m bringing my boomer comedy show to boomers in theaters and senior centers because I am one with my baby boomer audience, hungry to laugh at the fossilized moments of evolutionary change we lived. I’m frequently told “to act my age.” I’m going to act my age and effect more change than I ever have. I’m going to act my age and stay strong. I’m going to act my age and learn to dance like MC Hammer and call myself MC Fossil. It’s Fossil Time!
