Art activism, and an edibles story.
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Shot on 4 April 2026.
Two acts back to back at the Channel 5 Carnival talent show in Denver: a comedian from Atlanta with a story about eating edibles past curfew in a Christian household, and then Matter, of the art collective Chiba Kills, who came to sing and ended up explaining eighteen years of activism first.
The comedian knows the room is against him and plays it. “I’m from Atlanta, Georgia, okay? I grew up in the Bible.” The crowd-work is Colorado’s: any pot smokers here? “It’s Colorado! We don’t smoke weed!” The story is the walk home, high, past curfew, to a mother he describes with affection: “she’s a good Christian lady And you know, she’s kind of a little bit ditzy, let’s be honest.”
Then a different register entirely. “My name doesn’t matter. I represent Chiba Kills. We’ve got an art project that has been doing activism for the last 18 years.” What they do is make experiences, like a canvas set up in a park that kids were told they could destroy, to show “that you can change a space within a period of time without having to be afraid of a police officer or a government official.” The next piece is about shade structures and skateparks, and the line the release page quotes: “We don’t need the government to do that. The people can come together and we can do it ourselves.”
He had meant to bring a guitar, could not, and sings anyway, after a dedication to an aunt who used heroin and was the only one who never mocked his long hair: “people can look like they’re total trash and be the most beautiful people on the planet.”
Transcribed from loud stage audio without the voice filter the rest of the archive uses, so the song and the crowd are only partly on the page. Filmed from the floor at the Paramount Theatre.
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