[COBOL2Java]

I'm an interpreter for the deaf, and I thought this guy was terrific! I wish my expressive abilities were half as good as his!

For those who don't know, in sign language you need to communicate with signs, expressions, and body language - which he did in spades.

[lee martell]

You just answered my question before I asked it.
I was going to ask if this guy was being a bit of a ‘showboat’ here, or at very least, an inappropriate distraction. Maybe that’s all a part of communicating via ASL.

[Nifster]

Must have learned from the phony was it Russian sign language guy

[Falcon4.0]

Yea I noticed that too,
The Officials doing the talking have serious and somber faces,
and the clown doing the sign language is acting like he's doing stand-up at a comedy club.
It reminded me of an episode of "Spin City" with Michael J Fox where he hired a "Signer" who didn't know signing and was riffing during a press conference and MJF ran out and tackled him on set. It was a funny bit.

[BenLurkin]

They all look goofy.

[Larry Lucido]

I've heard that those 3-D pictures are mesmerizing.

[gaijin]

I thought he was fantastic..!

A little like that New Zealand HAKA recitation:

Verrrrry expressive.

[GnuThere]

Trump tweeted if he ever needed a “sign guy”, this guy would be it.

[avenir]

[gaijin]

It was Donald Trump Jr. who originally focused on this guy:

After he tweeted a link to the vid clip, EVERYONE started watching it.

And was right; the guy is awesome.

Jim Carrey doing the NZ Haka Dance

[The Duke]

I saw this press conference, and he did indeed “steal the show”. I suspect he did what he was trained to do, but in this context the training probably should be altered a bit.

[Pride in the USA]

I thought you might enjoy this.

[BobL]

Can’t they just close-caption it? Do we REALLY need something this distracting for 99.9% of the viewers, so that the 0.1% don’t need to read? It was so annoying here in Houston that I wasn’t even able to listen to the people speak during Harvey - I had to shut it off.

Or am I missing something?

[DesertRhino]

Stupid politically correct drama. Subtitles are much more effective.

[dforest]

I think they canned him. Didn’t see him at later Scott pressers today!

[Bigg Red]

I’m sorry, but I find the sign language interpreters annoying and distracting. How many deaf people are there really? And can’t closed captioning fill in the gap for them?

BTW, I am a senior who is now hard of hearing, and I sometimes rely on closed captions.

[RushIsMyTeddyBear]

Heh! Love it.

[Excellence]

It’s just that this guy’s got more of an actor’s face than most. He’s very talented.

[Bratch]

Considering the situation, it wouldn’t be surprising to find out a lot of hearing-impaired folks were watching in a crowd.

As such, even hearing aids wouldn’t be of much use; the noise tends to blend together. And as someone said, close-captioning, especially at live events, can sometimes be wildly inaccurate.

The sign interpreters are providing a valuable service, IMO.

[Republican Red]

Honest question - why is this needed today? TVs all have closed captioning. Wouldn’t it be easier for the hearing impairec to just read what the Governor was saying?

[The Toll]

Maybe he was just mocking the Governor’s “we’re all going to die” message like everyone else with hurricane experience was.