“You should go on the Colbert Report ,” everybody told me. “If you want a younger audience to know about your book , the fake news is where to go.” So I did it. Below is a transcript of my conversation with Stephen Colbert, taped at the show’s New York studio in front of a live audience. A week later, perhaps not in an unrelated decision, the Colbert Report decided to cancel itself. The segment will never be shown.
NOTE TO READERS: THIS BLOG IS SATIRE, NOT REALITY.
| Colbert: | Nation, please welcome Peter Plastrik . He’s the coauthor of a new book about how people can connect with each other—build networks—to change the world . |
| Colbert scampers over to the interview set. Plastrik is already sitting there, in a dark suit and bad tie, a sheen of sweat on his forehead. Colbert shakes Plastrik’s hand and pretends to wipe transferred moisture onto his pants. | |
| Colbert: | Peter Plastrik, thanks so much for coming on the show. Let’s get right into your quite disturbing book. On the first page, you say, and I quote, “ If you started your first job after 1990, then you missed the heyday of the organization.” You go on to say that people are replacing organizations, including business corporations, with networks. Well, in case you missed the point so eloquently stated by that great Man of the People Mitt Romney during the last presidential election: corporations are people too, my friend. So when you kill off corporations, you’re killing off people. Are you anti-people? Are networks a tool for genocide? |
| Plastrik: [Sputters] | Networks are people, too, Stephen. We’re saying that more and more people—especially younger people, like many in your audience—are building networks instead of organizations when they want to make a difference in the world. Instead of building corporate, government, or nonprofit bureaucracies, they start networks of people and organizations to get things done. They like to connect with each other and collaborate and innovate—and networks give them an effective way to do that. |
| Colbert: | I hear you were very nervous about coming on the show. Is it because you’re worried I will unmask your book as part of a left-wing conspiracy? Just look at the list of “issues” you write about: climate change, banning mercury, educating the poor, Jewish-American culture. Need I say more? |
| Plastrik: [Smiles weakly] | Not at all, Stephen. I was nervous because I didn’t think I could keep up with you and I’d look stupid. I told my friends that you only have two types of guests: the quick and the dead—and I’m not quick. But your people said good guests just have to have something they’re passionate about—and leave the jokes to you. |
| Colbert: | Sound advice, my friend, sound advice. But let’s get back to the subject. Isn’t your book just a left-wing manual for world domination? |
| Plastrik: [Raises hands in surrender] | Guilty as charged—but no, seriously, the network way of making social change is being pursued by both the right and the left and everyone in between. And most of them are not run or helped by government—that should appeal to you. Even billionaires and celebrities are doing it. That’s why network building is so interesting to us; it’s becoming a new normal for how to organize change. |
| Colbert: [Tilts head to side, quizzical look on face] | Wait a second. Are you saying that if I want to be a billionaire celebrity—not just the celebrity I already am—that I should start building social-impact networks? That sure would have a social impact… on me! Which chapter covers the billionaire part? [Looking at audience] Nation, what do you think? Who better to take on the burden of becoming a “billionaire celebrity”? |
| The audience starts up a loud rhythmic chant: “Stephen… Stephen… billion… billion.” Colbert basks in the moment, then asks for quiet. | |
| Colbert: [Holds book cover up for audience] | Change, change, change. Wasn’t it our soon-to-be-departed president who said, we are the change we have been waiting for? See—the change is already here! We sure don’t need more of it. Anyway, enough about your political leanings—the networking you write about is really just a way to meet women, isn’t it? Women who fall for the [Colbert makes air quotes] “Oooh, I-care-so-much-about-poverty-education-climate-failing cultures-toxic chemicals” type. Oh, my! [Colbert bats his eye lashes and pretends to swoon] |
| Plastrik: | I’ll admit it: there is some romance involved in building a social-impact network. But it’s the romance of connecting with other people in a great cause. It’s the excitement of being a part of something large and important—in common cause with others. |
| Colbert: | I do have a bone to pick with you, sir. On page 29, you have the nerve to disrespect the Colbert Nation. You write that The Nation is not a social-impact network. How could you say that? |
| Plastrik: | My coauthors and I meant no disrespect. I watch your show and even contributed to your Super PAC. The point we were making is that your audience, which you sometimes turn into a crowd-funding engine—very effectively, I should add—is not a network of people who know each other and work with each other over the years to solve a big social problem like climate change or education reform. |
| Colbert hesitates, an eyebrow arching. His eyes light up. | |
| Colbert: | What if everyone in Colbert Nation held hands and sang Kumbaya , then would we be a social-impact network? Nation, let’s give it a try. |
| From the set wing, a man rolls out a fake campfire and leaves it next to Colbert’s chair. Colbert stands and, facing the audience, raises hands like a symphony conductor. He pauses. | |
| Colbert: | Does anyone know the words? |
| Utter silence. Then, from the back of the audience, a voice sings out: “Someone’s laughing, my Lord, kum bay ya. Someone’s laughing, my Lord, kum bay ya.” | |
| Colbert: | I like that lyric. We’d better quit while we’re ahead. |
| Colbert warms his hands over the fake campfire, then sits down. | |
| Colbert: | A last question before we take a break. I noticed that you opened your book with a quotation from me about challenging the Web to a fight. Was that a ploy to attract legions of readers from Colbert Nation? |
| Plastrik: | Yes. I pored over your Web site to find a suitable quote I could use to signal that this book was really cool. I wasn’t sure why you wanted to fight the Internet, but it sounded really cool. |
| Colbert: [Holds book cover up for audience] | Maybe you are quick and not so dead after all. Thanks for joining us, Peter Plastrik. Nation, the book is called Connecting to Change the World: Harnessing the Power of Networks for Social Impact . It should come with a Warning Label: if you take the first letter of each chapter title, it spells out—you guessed it— k.u.m.b.a.y.a. |
| Live audience applauds wildly. Some start to sing “Kumbaya.” TV viewers see a new Colbert commercial for pistachios with Colbert voice over: “Changing the world, one nut at a time.” | |