Posted on 06/15/2005 12:42:49 AM PDT by neverdem
MINNEAPOLIS, June 13 - The swells who showed up before Al Franken's speech at a Democratic fund-raiser to down finger food and punch were thrilled to see him, all the more so because he continues to make threatening noises about running for the Senate here in 2008.
A former writer and performer for "Saturday Night Live" and more recently a radio host on Air America, Mr. Franken has used his outsider status to hurl humor-based invective and indignation at the powers that be, but he is considering becoming part of what he so frequently assails.
On Saturday evening he worked the crowd as if being accosted by strangers in a sweltering tent redolent of meatballs was his idea of a good time.
It can get mighty personal mighty fast for a native son whom everyone seems to know.
"I jumped ya twice in Thief River Falls," said a middle-age woman in greeting at the pre-speech party in a tent next to the Ted Mann Concert Hall at the University of Minnesota here. The seeming inference of long-ago sexual congress would cause deep blushing elsewhere, but it actually meant that Faith Rud and Mr. Franken had bonded in a far more profoundly Minnesotan way: she had used jumper cables to revive his Volkswagen bus on a cold night long ago after a college gig.
Mr. Franken, who left Minnesota at age 22 but has made a habit of coming back frequently, has suggested he may move his radio show to the state sometime next year. His delivery manages to be caustic and laconic, an unhurried savaging of all that is conservative and Republican, all wrapped up to a trumpeted call to arms.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Classy bunch.
Believe me, I'm probably one of the more, uh, open-minded people about pre-marital sex on this site, but man the dems just never shut up about it. I guess they need to talk about SOMEthing...but sex with that shell-less turtle Franken? BLECH!!!
RUN AL RUN !!!
>>Comedian for Senator? Don't Laugh (Al Franken)
Most people who hear Franken do comedy don't laugh either.
Where'd they get the idea he's a comedian?
He's one of those smart comics that came out of the Lampoon.
To be smart, you have to be funny, he's neither.
Actually, I believe he was more of a hanger on at the Lampoon. Conan, for what it's worth, was a staff member.
As for him being smart, now that is funny ... :-)
I'm in the masses who never have laughed at him. He's pathetic; and if he had any taste, he would be embarrassed.
Yeah. Franken is simply not even funny.
I've seen Franken do ONE funny routine on Saturday Night Live, circa 1977 or so (the one in which he claimed that he and Davis were homosexual lovers; his 'son', a miniature Franken lookalike with glasses, ran out of the audience shrieking, 'I hate you, Daddy! I HATE YOU!')
Do you know what IS funny about Franken? His wife's name is Franny. Franny Franken.
I'll take your word for it, I don't know his routine.
If you'd ever been to Thief River Falls in the winter, then you'd understand that when someone says "jumped ya" , sex is not the first thing to come to mind.:)
My point is the use of the phrase, which even this article points out is not a sexual reference (though the joke is obviously a double entendre)--yet they have to get that in there somehow. Of all the comments made at this event, they quote that one?
Jesse Ventura won. I suppose this guy could if doesn't shoot himself in the foot.
Jesse was a surprise. Even Republican conservatives abandoned their party choice and voted Ventura.
I'd be surprised if Franken won. Ventura was at least a popular figure as a wrestler, and had success as a mayor in Brooklyn Park. Franken has little popularity for his SNL work and just turns people away.
Totally agree !!
He needed a partner to be funny...someone normal, for the contrast.
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