The Ageless Guide to the primaries: Choose your comedians, Part 2: Senate

In Part One of our series we noted Abdon M. Pallasch and Dave McKinney wrote excellent Sun Times profiles for the candidates for governor in the Tuesday, February 2, election. Included in the profiles were the candidates’ favorite comedians. Now we will take up the favorite comedian question in the Senate race, where the race is on for Barack Obama’s and funnily enough, Roland Burris’s senate seat.

DEMOCRATS:

This seems to be shaping up as a three person race. Alexi Giannoulias (Tina Fey; Rush Limbaugh — Limbaugh counts as a comedian, doesn’t he?), David Hoffman (Larry David), and Cheryle Robinson Jackson (Redd Foxx and Chris Rock).

Tina Fey

I am concerned about Alexi Giannoulias’s answer to this question. If he had just said, Tina Fey, I would have been impressed because: 1) she is a very funny writer and performer; 2) amongst the major candidates’ favorite comedians, Fey is the only woman named; 3) Tina Fey looks a little like my daughter, so we’re big fans.

But then Giannoulias goes a bridge too far; he overreaches in naming Rush Limbaugh. Limbaugh can be funny if you accept his premise that non-conservatives are unpatriotic socialists who are more dangerous to America than terrorists. But I don’t think Giannoulias is going there. Giannoulias is the only the candidate who tries to score political points with this question. Thus he lacks the guile and deceit necessary to be an effective U.S. Senator.

Rush Limbaugh: Radio Personality, Comedian or Satan?

In selecting Larry David, David Hoffman reveals a very edgy personality. Larry David is famously left wing and blogs for the Huffington Post. Notwithstanding the somewhat bland 2009 “Curb Your Enthusiasm” Seinfeld reunion series, the Larry David’s HBO program often sets my teeth on edge with discomfort and anxiety. If Hoffman can handle the emotional twists and turns of Larry David’s comedy, he should have no trouble with the comedy series that is the U.S. Senate (airing on CSPAN).

Has anyone seen Redd Foxx in Sanford and Son lately? It airs on WWME-TV, like all the time. I watched it back in the 70′s and have tuned in to a few episodes lately. While the writing has not exactly stood the test of time (and they use the n-word and the q-word with some regularity), Redd Foxx created a comic everyman who is emblematic of the Ageless spirit. Foxx does not go gently into any old good night. He’s feisty, suspicious, and always ready to “put ‘em up” (if only his health would allow).

I commend Cheryle Robinson Jackson’s choices of Foxx and very spot-on contemporary comedian Chris Rock. Neither of these gents allow(ed) political correctness, skin color, or social conditions to get in the way of good comedy. Whether Jackson could pull off that feat in Washington is another matter.
REPUBLICANS:

Out of another crowded field, I’ve selected three candidates; Patrick Hughes (Bill Cosby, Eddie Murphy), Andy Martin (Jay Leno) and Mark Kirk (Sam Kinison).

Are Bill Cosby and Eddie Murphy funny anymore? I think not. And is that a fair question? Both Cosby and Murphy were among my favorites, Cosby in the 60′s when there were comedy albums on large vinyl discs and Murphy in the 80′s on Saturday Night Live and the films Coming to America and Eddie Murphy Raw.

Cosby may be a positive voice for social change but he doesn’t make me laugh. And Eddie Murphy set the bar so high that even he can’t top it. Although he is funny as the voice of the donkey in Shrek.

Which brings me back to Patrick Hughes, who is the unofficial candidate of the Tea Party. Does Hughes believe there really was once a golden age of limited government, self reliance, and family values? Does he think the Cosby Show was real life? Has he ever heard “Raw?” This choice is suspicious.

And what of Andy Martin? If you’ve heard of him at all, I’ll bet it is due to his “accusation” that Mark Kirk is gay. Martin is quoted as saying, Kirk “lives in some kind of ‘Animal House’ in Washington with another gay congressman.” Martin is clearly a nut-job and his choice of Jay Leno makes it clear that Martin is on the wrong side of history.

Sam Kinison for Laughtrack Magazine

That brings us to Mark Kirk himself. My former representative from the 10th district selects the late comedian Sam Kinison. Kirk’s choice must be from the heart because Kinison had one of the most abrasive, obscene, and irreligious acts ever.

Among his targets were victims of drought and starvation: Kinison screamed, “why don’t you move where the food is?”

Married life: “Talking about married life: “Can you do me a favor? If you see me working on the yard next week and around the house? Kill me. Kill me!”

The AIDS epidemic: “a few bored fags” who “had to go in the jungle, grab some monkey,” have sex, “and bring us back the black plague of the 80’s.”

Also, Kinison complained about drunk driving laws, ““Child killer? Attempted manslaughter? We don’t want to drink and drive, but there’s no other way to get home!”

Kinison died in a head on collision in 1992. The driver of the pick up truck with whom he collided has been drinking. There were traces of cocaine, prescription tranquilizers, and codeine in Kinison’s bloodstream.

Maybe that was a punch line from The Big Comedian!

The candidates have picked their favorite comedians. Now it’s our turn – don’t forget to vote on Tuesday, February 2, 2010.