Mark Russell Show Segment
Mark Russel Political Humorist Seen on PBS Press Conference from Denver, Colorado 1996 AARP Convention
Can you give us a little insight into the current candidates.
A: Well the, we know who the nominees are, we know one of them is going to win and if that depresses you, we know the other one is going to lose. I don't think there's enough time for the Republicans to turn that ship around. It's like a huge aircraft carrier that you can move about a foot an hour and to do that between now and November is going to be tough. It isn't, Clinton's not going to win by that 30 point lead but it'll, it'll be, it'll be tough. The Republicans have a dream. They really, the Republicans dream is a vision of Bill and Hillary being led away in chains. I mean that, that's it. The, Clinton this week as we're speaking went, joined the Republicans on three things, China, cozying up to China, drug testing, I'm a little spacey after, cozying up to China, drug testing welfare recipients, and, and same sex marriages so what that tells us, remember that in November that a vote for Clinton is a vote for Dole. The AARP is not, it's not something you can depend on. The senior vote is not something they can take for granted. We saw this today. It was almost even, Clinton and Dole, Clinton had an edge cause, you know, they're always upset with whoever's in charge or I mean whoever is trying to take their Medicare away and, and so, in other words, and I've seen this all along. The senior citizen vote is not Dole's automatically cause he's going to be 73. Older women want to know more about a man than can he drive at night.
Q: Do you think political has gotten too personal with people like ......
A: When you use political humor in the sentence as G. Gordon Liddy and Rush Limbaugh, that's a bit of a stretch right there but yeah, everybody's in show biz and it is, it's, it's personal, it's too personal but I'm not a prude and I, there's nothing anybody can do about it. It's all open season, it's open, it's free. I'm against any censorship and some people have lower thresh, pain thresholds than others but I heard a guy last night, comedian last night on TV and he said that Bob Dole had his airplane it was called "Leader", after his dog Leader, but now that he's left the Senate he's going to call his plane the "Old Fart". See every, let the record show everyone here laughed except for the older gentleman here. Oh he's from New York. He's, he's heard that. But anyway, yeah, it's more course and that's the way it is.
Q: What political characters your audience never get tired of hearing about.....
A: Well, nobody laughs longer than they're in office. I mean, Quayle is gone and Nixon is gone and all those overused individuals and they come and they go. Right now it's the whole concept of Newt Gingrich, you know, going on the Larry King Show with a live snake coiled around his neck which happened and the caller to the show asked, "Is he poisonous?" and the snake said, "I hope not." Things like that and so I don't, I don't miss anybody. When they go they go. They're gone.
Q: How do you come up with the ideas for your routine.
A: Well you just stare at a blank piece of paper. It's a muse. Coming up with an idea, if you concentrate too hard, you know, nothing's going to happen. Gotta write, I gotta be funny by 8:00. It just pops in. Comes from the ether in the air.
Q: I write a weekly column called the Senior Report, observations, opinions....I don't get paid for it but it in published......Nasa County New York. I'd like to just, and this is my first convention.....I'd like to ask you two questions if I may. I'd like to get your reaction as to what you feel the effect on the presidential campaign is going to be with the involvement of Buchannan, Perot, and Kemp who spoke here this week and I thought he gave....political. Very informative, challenging presentation and you might want to get a copy of it and I'm not selling tapes. Number two, I'd like to get your reaction to the I Miss In The Morning presentation before the Broadcasters Association in Washington DC when he spoke in front of the President and his wife. I've seen typic reactions in the paper. Some blasting him and in one of the weekly's I write for, the Editor wrote an editorial to the extent that she said that she's no longer 30 years old. Didn't they know what they were getting when they invited him down?
A: OK. As far as Kemp, Buchannan and Perot you said. Perot, as of right now, is really not a factor. He doesn't know now if he's going to have his convention after the regular conventions or before. The man is really a joke in the minds of people so it's not, his affect on the campaign is nil. Kemp, you're right, he, he gives a great speech, I've heard it. I don't know why he didn't figure. When you remember, he walked out of that convention in 1992, the Republicans were in Houston, he had the nomination in his pocket. He got a standing ovation then. He's a great speaker. He deserves a nomination, I don't know what happened. The, his fans in the media turned against him because he, he, there's some litless test that Bob Novak and these people have and they turned against him and he criticized Bush at the wrong time. It's nasty, it's a dirty game so Kemp is out of it. Kemp has no impact at all. Buchannan will, for about a day, it's all about a speech in prime time. It's, the head of the Christian Coalition, all he did, he just changed a semicolon, he wanted to change a half a syllable in that platform and they went out for his head and so Buchannan, it's just a personal quest between him and his creator. That's what it's about. It's about his conscience and the Buchannan people. His conscience, there's a higher power. It's a higher law and again the effect, negligible unless they have a squabble in front of the people because the Republicans are at a disadvantage. The Republicans convention is first. It's first. The last thing the voters are going to remember is the second one. They're very close together this time. They're both in August. The Democrats get the last word. Clinton's a better speaker. He's a better communicator. He's got that Reagan and Kennedy dash, you know, he has it so that any hint of a squabble, they're going to blow it again like they blew it in, in Houston. Honestly I've done that dinner more times than, I'm the only one who's done that dinner more than once. I used to do it every year because they always had it at the hotel where I did a show and I'd just run downstairs and do it. When somebody does great you never hear about them. Al Frankin came back, there's three of those you see. Armis did the radio and television, then there's the print, and then there's the photographers. Al Frankin came along and scored, he delighted them. Everybody loved him and everything and he did great, it was funny, and you don't hear a peep about it. All, you're still hearing about Armis. Armis bombed and I would say to him, "Hey, Arm man, you bomb, we all bomb. It happens." But he kept, to this day, if you listen, he's doing his own, he's still explaining his side of the story and did they know what they were getting, yeah, that audience is pretty phony. When the President is there, nobody behaves the way they would if he's not there and they would shock at things that they would have laughed at if the President wasn't there. But Armis is, he over, he over explains it. He over analyzes it. It's finished. He bombed. So what. Move on. But this gentleman's question, it's in evidence, you can say more on, at 7:00 in the morning now than you can at prime time. It's crazy.
Q: I did want to ask you, doing a study of political humor over the great number of years....and I don't know where it begins but there definitely seems to be a flux with the audience of interest. Not a constant steady scream of wanting more political humor and I was wondering just like we have noticed that hemlines have gone up and down and there's some kind of relationship with what's going on in politics. Does the audience cry for more recognition and understanding of political humor also reflect something that's going on?
A: It's, if your ox is being gored, you're going to perk up and listen. The only time we're really on one wave length as a nation, you can't, as far as, political humor is very obscure. It really is. Just these, it's on cable now and for years until cable, even though I only do just a few shows a year, I was the only one doing it in prime time and it's not mainstream. It isn't supposed to be mainstream. That's the fun of it. It's the same thing as behind the iron curtain going to some underground gathering with a guard on the door while this rebel sings his, his, his songs and so you just, people are not political, they're not political just for no reason at all. A few years ago waiters and waitresses and bartenders all of a sudden got very political because, because their tips were going to be taxed and so they got to be great experts on taxes and tax law and which member of Congress was perceived to be for them or against them and that's the way it is. It's a syndrome of the citizen legislature who leaves his plow and he'd go to the, he'd go to the state capitol for a couple of weeks or he'd go to Washington for just a few months and then he'd go back to his, his farm or his job or his factory. That's the way it is and so we're not always focused. The only time we're focused on any one thing, just a few nights, few days a year, Superbowl game, Academy Awards, a few other things, that's really about it. You know, the final episode of Dallas or something like that. The rest of the time we're off on our own and that's the way it's supposed to be.
Q: Do you think the hype of political humor is a market stability in the nation as opposed to....
A: No, it could be, no, it could be the mark of totalitarianism. It's the same reason that when the voters first were, when they first voted in the Philippines and they voted for Keno, there was a 90% vote and when Haiti voted it was 90% and that means that they're frightened and they're voting for their own survival. Here it's under 50 because people, they're really not that upset. They scream and yell but I don't think it's all because of apathy. I just think that it's always like that. It's less than half of the eligible voters so the degree of interest, there is nobody more political than the Russians. For years from the, from the womans, with her broom in Red Square to a member of the ....Bureau, or a waiter, they all knew every little nuance of how they were getting screwed and so that's what the, that's what the barometer is is how much you really have, how much pain you're in, then you're very political. And it really isn't any great interest unless there are times your job, your Medicare. It's all, it's all focused on, it's issue oriented.
Q: We notice living on the border to Canada that Canadian radio including CBC has more weekly political humor than, than we do....
A: Yeah well the whole country's the size of Denver. I mean, exaggerating but it's like England you know, in England there, it's like a town. There's no, there's no local television in England. It's just London and that's it. There's no local, there might be some little station but Canada is like that. It's easy. There's just fewer of them. And they're more homogenous.
Q: So everyone knows which Premiere is...
A: Yeah. Well that gets complicated with the, with the bilingualism. I mean when they have a constitutional crisis, they had a thing, I just happened to be up there when they had one of those and I really had to bone up on it because he was, I couldn't get away with ignoring this thing. They were rewriting their, referendum, this big referendum. Fortunately I got there about two days ahead of time and just, just gorged on this and I was able to come up with a couple of jokes. But it was their Watergate. I mean, they were as, it's funny, we go across the border and all of a sudden you see they're obsessed with something that we don't know a thing about. They have a legitimate gripe against us and we don't know a thing about it. All we know, and they always tell us, first thing, well all you care, all you know about us is the fishing, you know, and yeah that, we don't know anything about Canada. Nothing. If you live out of order a little bit, you know....
