If the past two weeks have proven anything, it’s that the best stories, those that remind us that people are inherently good, rarely come from Washington. This story came from Tuscon:
Sometimes circumstances are so strange, so upsetting, and so truly bizarre that if you don’t laugh at them, you might just cry.
Perhaps that was the mindset Alex Kack, the man seen wearing a green shirt and laughing uncontrollably at a Tucson, Arizona, City Council meeting on Tuesday.
Mid-meeting, a man and a woman (both wearing Trump hats) protested the recent decision to put a “Sanctuary City” measure on the November ballot, which could potentially make Tucson the state’s first official immigrant-friendly city.
As the woman spouted her anti-immigration rhetoric and held up a protest sign, Kack was spotted laughing his ass off.
The two protesters were met with loud booing from fellow meeting attendees, and after the woman yelled, “You’re in direct violation of the oath you took to the United States constitution,” someone replied, “You’re in direct violation of being a jackass.”
Many people began to leave during the woman’s speech, and eventually a police officer escorted her and the man outside. But all the while Kack, now known online as “Green Shirt Guy,” remained seated in the front row and literally bobbed up and down from laughing so hard.
After Tucson reporter Nick VinZant shared the clip on Twitter, #GreenShirtGuy started to trend, and it wasn’t long before Kack revealed himself as the beloved City Council meeting hero.
Turns out Kack is a 28-year-old field organizer for Peoples Defense Initiative. He works specifically with Tucson Families Free and Together on the sanctuary city measure, so he was at the meeting with colleagues from the campaign to support it.
“I think it’s a bold statement of morality that our community needs to make, given our history with the larger sanctuary movement and the community that lives here it’s something that we need to pass,” Kack told Mashable in an email. “Families deserve to be together and all people deserve the right to feel safe.”
As for Kack’s seemingly endless cackle, he explained he was laughing at “Just how absurd it really all was.”
“Who has the time in their day to come into a public space just to spread hatred and negativity? Like honestly what happened that made them so ridiculous and hateful?” Kack said.
Since the footage of his laughter went viral, Kack described the online response as “absolutely surreal.”
Patton Oswalt tweeted about it. “#GreenShirtGuy is @Alex_Kack. And I love him,” Oswalt wrote. “I love you @Alex_Kack. Please promise me you will befriend Banjo Man, walk the earth together, and get into adventures.”
It should be noted that Kack has reportedly participated in several Arizona political campaigns before, and also taken part in political comedy shows, like this one called “Laughing Liberally.” You have to consider the possibility that his very liberal laughter at the meeting could have been for show, but Twitter users were in the mood for a hero, and Kack delivered.
Now that we have the #GreenShirtGuy mystery solved, perhaps Kack can team up with this similarly iconic Banjo Dude next meeting.
I have no idea who Banjo Dude is. Or Banjo Man. Mashable apparently doesn’t know the definition of “iconic.” But if he can play the way Kack can laugh at the absurd, I’d pay to see both on tour.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNM_AJapiyM
