Satirist Al Franken hits left side of road in Bay Area
Satirist Al Franken hits left side of road in Bay Area
By Rich Freedman, VALLEJO TIMES-HERALD
Inside Bay Area, 8/22/2006 05:27 AM
MEL GIBSON’S recent anti-Semitic tirade wasn’t lost on Al Franken, though the satirist, talk-show host and author isn’t joining those who would drop Gibson into a vat of boiling chicken soup.
“Everybody was all excited, that he should be drummed out of the business and never work again,” Franken says, over the phone from his home in Minnesota. “I thought a more sensible thing would be that he would be allowed to work in the business, but he’d have to go back to starting out as a busboy in a Matthew McConaughey comedy.”
Franken, who hosts the radio show “Air America,” is considering a run as a state senator. Meanwhile, he’s hitting the road with his comedy, bringing his Stand Up 4 Change tour to San Francisco on Friday and Santa Rosa on Saturday.
Taking his left-leaning humor on the road has been “sporadic,” Franken says, thrilled to be home for most of August.
“It’s a nice luxury to sleep in my own bed with my wife and my dog,” says Franken, happily married for 30 years.
Oh sure, he managed to sneak a smooch with actress Traylor Howard (“Monk”) during a USO tour in Baghdad last December, but hey, he says, “It’s show business.”
Franken’s life is a pinball machine (remember pinball?) of comedy and drama, moving from writing “Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot” to “Lies and the Liars Who Tell Them” and “The Truth (with Jokes).”
Rarely is there a dull moment for one of the original writers of “Saturday Night Live,” who, in an undocumented claim, says he was the first on the set to use a computer.
“Back in 1975, the way you’d write sketches is that most people would write on a legal pad in pencil, then leave it for the PAs (production assistants) to type overnight. Then it was mimeographed, not even
Xeroxed, and it looked beautiful.”
It was around 1987 and Franken walked in with a laptop.
“Nobody else had one,” he says. “You could actually italicize stuff on a computer.” He elaborates, “I don’t want to sound like Al Gore, but it’s true. I was the first to have one.”
Among Franken’s lesser-known credits is “Baggage Handler No. 2” in “Trading Places,” a 1983 comedy with Eddie Murphy and Dan Aykroyd.
A scene featuring Franken smoking a joint was deleted in the final movie, reducing him to looking like, he says, “an incredibly stupid, mentally deficient baggage handler. I would like to have a sequel where it can be explained in a flashback: ‘Remember when we looked like real morons.’”
It certainly would appeal to his followers who are Grateful Dead fans; he’s one, too. In fact, the bespectacled 55-year-old says he wouldn’t be surprised if ex-Dead member Mickey Hart shows up at his Bay Area performances. Back in 1980, Franken actually did a Warfield show with the Grateful Dead. As he remembers, it was a fundraiser for Jerry’s Kids, as in Jerry Garcia: “We helped the Deadheads who traveled around and fell out of balconies or didn’t get into shows after traveling halfway around the world.”
With an eye on his diet habits, daily walks to work and a regularly scheduled racquetball dates, Franken appears physically primed for a run as Minnesota senator. But he’s not about to commit.
“I don’t know yet,” Franken says. “I’ll decide after this (election) cycle.”
As for turning 55, “It wasn’t such a big deal. Every day’s a big day when you’re doing what I’m doing.”
And that’s promoting the liberal way, which means feasting on any foibles of the Bush administration.
Bush vs. Franken in 2008?
“It would be close,” Franken said laughing, adding that he wants to modify the 22nd Amendment and allow presidents a third term — so the Republicans would have to be for it or against it — “if doing so would allow Bush to run again.”
While the former high-school wrestler ponders his political future, he’ll continue to raise funds for the Midwest Values political action committee, which he started in 2005.
The organization’s goal is to provide financial and organizational support to progressive candidates, activists and causes.
Franken reunited with comedy duo partner Tom Davis in a June fundraiser for MVP in Minnesota with guitarist Leo Kottke.
“It worked out great,” Franken says.
He hopes the same for his regular impromptu wresting matches with his 21-year-old son.
“I like to roughhouse with him,” Franken said. “He’s my height, but not as heavy as I am. Thank God.”
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