Micah Philbrook is a comedian who teaches at Second City and performs as one-half of The Tim and Micah Project. He’s also an Occupy Chicago participant, who has been on Eight-Forty-Eight discussing his thoughts on the movement in a more serious manner than you’ll find here. An excerpt of Philbrook’s performance as a character of his own creation, 1920’s robber baron Chester Q. Goodsbe, is below. As usual, if you can hear us, this magazine is LIVE.

Political uprisings. Popular uprisings. A talk by Chester… We’ll start with a logical truth: this is the best country to ever exist on earth ever.

We got here because of our past actions. Therefore, our past actions were not only correct, but perfect, and should be examples to live by.

So. Christopher brought up the UC Davis pepper sprayings and other places — I will get to that. But I wanted to start with some previous uprisings.

The slave rebellions. Before we actually had to pay labor. (Audible sigh)…

This Saturday at the Horseshoe, Chicago author Stuart Dybek will be reading a Christmas short story, burlesque artist Plucky Rosenthal will be performing Hanukkah music from the 19th Century New York Yiddish theater, and Christopher Piatt and Amy Verdon read a radio play by the late Arch Oboler. With Maggie Anderson of the Gift Theatre; Josh Zagoren and Chad the Bird; comedian Nicky Margolis; comedian Katie Rich; and University of Chicago scholar Neil Verma. And eclectic orchestral pop music from Canasta.

The Paper Machete is a weekly live magazine at the Horseshoe in North Center. It’s always at 3 pm, it’s always on Saturday, and it’s always free. Get all your The Paper Machete Radio Magazine needs filled here, or download the podcast from iTunes here.