“One More Saturday Night' With Al Franken

[Kanada Kev]

http://www.jambands.com/Features/content_2006_10_23.07.phtml

“One More Saturday Night' With Al Franken

Taylor Hill

2006-10-23

When I interviewed Ann Coulter a few months ago, I knew it would get a lot of readers and shock almost all of them, but I had no idea how big the storm would be. Among the hundreds of e-mails I received: Bob Weir’s tour manager trying to get Bobby in touch with Ann, an old Cornell Deadhead who ran Students for Reagan at Cornell, the guy who listened to Rush Limbaugh and made candles, the guy who runs GDTS who defended Al Franken, a stalker, liberals expressing amazement, conservatives expressing amazement, a nasty letter from a Relix staffer, a bunch of Ann’s old friends from tour, and two fact-checkers from two different newspapers who wanted to make sure the interview was not a joke before running an article about it. It was a joy to watch conservatives coming out of their tie-dyed closets by the dozen, and watch the blogs light up across the aisle. A lot of people asked me “Why? Why did you give her the publicity?â€

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think of publicity for the site, but I wouldn’t have done the interview for that reason alone. I did it because I think it’s awesome that the most famous right-wing pundit and the most famous left-wing pundit are both Deadheads. I wanted to show that being a Deadhead transcended politics – it is the bridge which unites people on opposite sides of any spectrum (be it political, economic, lifestyle, or any other category) and testifies to the power of music to give common ground to opposite people. But now, it’s time for the interview with the most famous left-wing pundit.

It’s a rare treat to interview someone who made your childhood that much brighter, but Stuart Smalley himself, Al Franken, was nice enough to take a break from his radio show to talk about his Grateful Dead experiences. He saw his first show after graduating from Harvard, and his last show while making Stuart Saves His Family in Las Vegas (I don’t care what anyone says. The movie is an American classic.).

“That last show was really special,†Franken said. “I took my daughter backstage and she got to meet Jerry.â€

Franken, unlike the casual Deadhead (and casual Deadhead may be an oxymoron), knew the band, and worked with them, putting on sketches for NYE extravaganzas, getting the band on Saturday Night Live, and even writing a move entitled “One More Saturday Night.†He shared stories about being backstage, in front of the stage, and even in production with, the Grateful Dead.

Franken recalls pranking his co-star of One More Saturday Night, Tom Davis. "There was one time Jerry came in, and we hung out with Jerry, he kind of produced some music we did for One More Saturday Night. Tom (Davis) and I are in a band. At one point, we just had Jerry lay down a solo for Tom. Basically, we played the stuff, because we were going to play it in the movie. We played a bar band. But at one point we had Jerry lay down a solo for Tom. And Tom didn't know it. I think he was in the bathroom. He came in, heard it, he just knew it was Jerry.â€

Franken was a friend of the band, and the band worked to create magical moments for his family. When asked for a favorite experience, Franken cited the bond that the music created with his family, bridging generations.

“You know, I really liked - there was one at Giants Stadium I really, really liked. I took my daughter, and we ended up backstage. I asked them to play ‘Box of Rain’ for the encore, and they did. My daughter and I just love ‘Box of Rain.’ Phil forgot one line, ‘words half-spoken, thoughts unclear.’ There are some songs that are kind of circular.â€

Franken, like Coulter sometimes, uses the Grateful Dead as show introduction music. When asked how he chooses, Franken said “Intro and outro music is always without lyrics, because what it's covering is IDs from other stations, so you don't want any lyrics covering. It's really choice Jerry solos, almost entirely.â€

Sometimes the busy schedule that comes with politics made readjustment to the musical world difficult. “The first time at the Jammys was a little bit of a disaster,†Franken said. “I should have known this - I agreed to do it, but I had a plane leaving ridiculously early the next morning at Kennedy. So I told the organizers 'look, I have to leave at a certain time.' So I was supposed to present an award to the Dead, to Bob, and it just kept getting later and later. Finally, it was like 11 or so, and I said unless this happens soon I'm going to have to go, and just then the Allman Brothers and somebody else got up to jam together, and it was pretty clear that I was going to have to go. So I didn't get to do what I really came to do. But I got to meet Leo Kottke. There's a jammer I liked to meet.â€

At the same time, it was the way to cope with its demands, and the music provided Franken with a four-hour vacation. “I could go to a Dead concert and come back refreshed, mentally,†Franken said.

Franken pulls no punches when asked for one of his favorite Grateful Dead moments from the front of the stage – a moment enhanced by more than music. “My favorite story is going to a concert at Winterland, and this happened sometime pretty early, like in '74, '73,†Franken said. “I took [something], and there was a girl on top of a guy's shoulders. Danced to the whole thing on top of the guy's shoulders. I'm ashamed to say it, but I spent almost the entire concert looking at her breasts. She had a tight, like leotard kind of thing on. I remember just, like, you know how you can look at something for hours? I'm really not sure how long I looked at 'em. It was really, very pleasant listening to the music, and she was dancing on top of the guy's shoulders. He must have been very strong, and it was great. One of the best moments of my life, or one of the best several hours of my life." When asked if the woman was the “Pride of Cucamonga,†Franken laughed and said “Yeah she was.â€

Franken was asked, as Ann was, if the Grateful Dead gave them something to talk about during their debates, but (gasp!) there are even people who are friends with both of them. “More we talked about Tim Downey, who's a mutual friend. He's a conservative, with whom I wrote a lot of the political stuff. We wrote a lot of the Bush (41) debate stuff with him and others. We were really very much deep in politics. We were political junkies (on Saturday Night Live).â€

Considering that I was on the phone with a childhood hero, I couldn’t resist, and asked him what Stuart Smalley would do to get Bob Weir and Phil Lesh onstage together again. After Franken stopped laughing, he gave a candid answer regarding the band’s tumultuous history.

“Well, obviously it would start off with Stuart trying to find out who they are. I don't think Stuart's a Deadhead. So that would be the first part of the lesson, familiarizing himself with the history. Stuart would probably break it down to some kind of codependency issue. The dynamic of the dead, sad goodbyes, addiction, everyone's dependency on each other – Jerry, Brent, Keith dying. People not in denial about these things. Processing it properly, embracing their grief, not talking about it enough.

Considering that almost no fans of improvisational music under 25 have seen a Grateful Dead show, I asked Franken what he would most like them to realize. It is something many of us know and have felt with different bands, and it is refreshing to see the spirit passed on.

“It's how important the music was, and also how important the community of people that came to watch them was. It was a magical, communal experience going to the concert - being wrapped up in the music. The music was paramount to me, and not the lights, and Bobby might play something with a flourish every now and then, but other than that it was all about the music.â€

[timouse]

an coulter was born a man.

confirmed.

[Kanada Kev]

ROFLOL ... that is too damn funny ... i love it!

Did you ever hear the story about Ann giving head at a Dead show??

[timouse]

ROFLOL ... that is too damn funny ... i love it!

Did you ever hear the story about Ann giving head at a Dead show??

gives deadhead a whole new meaning

[Calamity Jane]

ROFLOL

come again?

I mean, please explain!

gawd...I hate getting so uncool as to not know this lingo!

[Kanada Kev]

Rolling On Floor Laughing Out Loud

http://www.angelfire.com/zine/crapshoot/coulter.html

Ann Coulter's 19th Nervous Breakdown

I recently found out that Ann Coulter, reactionary author of the liberal-bashing, McCarthy-worshiping tome Treason, is an avid follower of the Grateful Dead. Depending on the source, Ann Coulter is estimated to have attended between thirty-seven and sixty-seven of the group’s legendary performances. Having seen the Dead several times myself, I was fascinated by this unlikely shared affinity. Since what I got out of the Dead experience was pretty much everything than Coulter rails against, I needed to know what it was she enjoyed about it. It was High Time to take a Long, Strange Trip into the psyche of Ann Coulter.

A preliminary search on Google illuminated little; a Washington Journal article told me that Coulter’s favorite song by the group was “Casey Jones,†a nice enough tune if something of an unimaginative choice—she claimed to admire its theme of “Personal responsibility.†She also claimed never to have taken any drugs other than alcohol and “Second-hand†pot smoke at shows—rather a Clintonian position for one for one of his most histrionic critics to take. When I found out that she had attended a private school in Connecticut things started to click and the direction my research had to go in became clear: Ann Coulter, blissed-out and barefoot in a sundress, grooving to Anthem of the Sun, that was inconceivable; Ann Coulter driving from show to show in a Beemer or a Cadillac with a couple of Trustafarian schoolmates was much easier to envision. If I could find one of those kids, I’d have the story. My research lead me to Scott “Skippy†Winthrop Hunt, President of Hunt Industries of Haverford, CT. Hunt claims to have met Ms. Coulter in high school and to have “Toured†with her during the late seventies on into the eighties. He gave me the following candid interview.

Crapshoot: Mr. Hunt, nice to talk to you. You seem rather laid back for a man of your station.

Hunt: Truth be told, dude, I don’t do shit around here. When my old man died in ’86 I took over and tried to take charge. I instructed the board to divest our South African holdings, to sell our shares in G.E and other military related stocks and invest in a small company I believed in. A shareholder revolt followed. The terms of my Dad’s will—you know, I didn’t agree with his politics, but he was a good man who covered his boy’s ass—the will guaranteed my share of ownership, but they found a court to declare me incompetent to make decisions for the company. So, I still make the money from it, but my family appointed Trustee runs the day-to-day business while I watch from the sidelines.

Crapshoot: Bummer.

Crapshoot: Nah, not really. I got the last laugh. You know that small company I was talking about? It was a little concern called Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream, had just released a product called Cherry Garcia. Shares could still be had for a song. The stock kept going up over the next few years and those same shareholders were all, ‘What’s the next company we should invest in?’ I told them, ‘Hey, don’t you respect the court system of the United States of America? They have ruled that I’m unfit mentally to give that type of advice, and as a loyal American I have to respect their decision.’ (laughs)

Crapshoot: That’s hilarious. But don’t you think that’s a cop-out? I mean, Hunt Industries—you could do a lot with that money.

Hunt: Hey, I still make the sweet profits, and I do a lot with that money. I use it to fund my causes—medical marijuana, the rainforests, all that stuff.

Crapshoot: Right on. So let’s get down to it. Tell me about your old friend Ann Coulter.

Hunt: That crazy bitch! (laughs) Man, I thought she had some potential back in the day, but, shit, she was always a bit nutty.

Crapshoot: Yeah?

Hunt: Yeah, like this one tour somewhere in ‘80s, a spring tour on the East Coast. It was me, Ann and (name withheld), we were doing, like, seven or eight shows. Hartford and Worcester and three days in Philly. Anyway, dude, I thought it was revealing, you know, we were on the road for a long time and we all had books to read to pass the time. I noticed they were all kind of from the same era, you know? Like, I was reading Dharma Bums, (name withheld) was reading None Dare Call It Treason! (laughs)

Crapshoot: (laughs) NO WAY!

Hunt: Yeah, man! She had a highlighter pen and everything, I mean she’s taking notes. We’re driving from Hartford to Worcester, I’m riding shotgun. Ann’s in the back and we’re listening to a bootleg on the car stereo. I’m zoning, checking out Jerry and every so often Ann’s like ‘Yes!’ I’m thinking it’s the music, and I look back and, nope, it’s the book.

Crapshoot: Her path was clear even then.

Hunt: It’s funny. You know that Stones’ tune “19th Nervous Breakdown?†Where Mick’s hanging with this chick that’s kind of twisted and he thinks he can turn her around?

Crapshoot: Yeah, I know that one. Great tune.

Hunt: Right on. That’s how I saw me and Ann, though was oblivious to all that. You know that line (sings) “On our first trip I tried so hard to rearrange your mind….â€

Kane: “...But after awhile I realized you’re disarranging mine?†Yeah, that’s the heart of the tune. But, you know, that songs literally about an LSD trip. I thought Ann was drug-free.

Hunt: (pauses) Well, you know how it is. Ann isn’t exactly lying when she says she never took acid. As far as she or most anyone else knows, she never did. And, really, who’s to say how much, if any, she actually took. Here’s the deal. It was in Philly, me and (name withheld) had snuck off to smoke a bowl--we didn’t dig smoking around Ann. We told her we were going to play Frisbee or something like that, right?

Crapshoot: Yeah?

Hunt: First, I ought to back up a bit. The two of us had this half-gallon bottle of orange juice we used to share, right? Only, you know, it was Electric orange juice. We could dose discretely by drinking this OJ laced with LSD.

Crapshoot: Talk about Orange Sunshine!

Hunt: Yeah, huh? Only, I think it was Gooney Bird on that tour, but same thing. So we get back from our pretend little errand—it was funny, too, because we’d be throwing the Frisbee right there in front of the car and she never took account of the disconnect—but we come back and Ann’s taking a pretty good chug out of our bottle of OJ.

Crapshoot: Oh, shit.

Hunt: Yeah, huh? And I’m flying by then. So I say, ‘Hey, Ann, that’s our juice. I thought you were against Communism.’ You know, trying to keep it light but thinking ‘What the fuck am I going to do when this Young American for Freedom starts losing her ego and shit’ and also kind of thinking, ‘Hmm, maybe this could be cool if I finesse this right.’ So I figure the only thing I can really do is ‘Keep on Keepin’ On’ like Dylan said, and that I’ll just try to monitor the situation with Ann as best as I can, ‘cause she is my friend and her trip is kind of my responsibility on a Karmic level. So, the car next to us is cranking out Aoxomoxoa, a really psychedelic record. You know, “St. Stephen†and “China Cat Sunflower,†all that good stuff. Somewhere in there we get a Frisbee thing going, while Ann’s reading her little Bircher book. Somewhere in the middle of all this she puts the book down and starts watching us. Like, really watching us—intently, like a sporting event. And—I’ll never forget this, like, I’ll be ninety-five years old, won’t know the names of my grandkids, Hell, maybe not even my own name, but I’ll remember this night—Ann says, ‘Weird.’ I think, ‘OK, she’s starting to trip. I’ve got to guide her.’ But I want to sound cool, right? So I say, ‘What’s that, Ann?’ And she says, ‘When you guys throw the Frisbee, I can’t see any trails.’

Crapshoot: Huh? She CAN’T see the trails?

Hunt: Yeah, that’s what I thought. I don’t even know what I told her, dude. I guess I just kind of took note. So, you know, we just ‘Keep On,’ right? Then ‘What’s Become of the Baby’ comes on. Normally Ann hates that tune—well, nobody really likes that one, but Ann really hated it—but she sat there and listened to it. After a couple minutes she goes, you know, ‘Weird’ again. And so I say something about how it’s an experimental tune and that I could ask the guy next to us to put something else on. She just kind of looks at me, almost into me…almost…and she says ‘No, it’s alright. It’s just, usually I can hear exactly what they’re saying here only this time it sounds garbled.’ I explain about, you know, the multi-tracking, but this is where I start to make the connection with Mick Jagger.

Crapshoot: Right. She’s tripping, and her consciousness is actually shrinking.

Hunt: Yeah, there’s actually more to it than that, but that starts to explain it. Anyhow, there wasn’t any further incident until the show. She just kind of hung back most of the day, didn’t say much. To be honest, that was kind of refreshing. Usually she had a lot of negative remarks to make about hippies. One time we passed a Falafel stand and Ann said we should go over there, shave the head of the dude running it and make him sell hotdogs! She was always talking smack and it used to bum me out.

Crapshoot: I would think.

Hunt: So I made a point of sitting right next to her so that I’d be there if anything happened. The Dead opens up with "Promised Land" and we’re dancing with everybody, Then they slow it down a bit, right, and I was never one of those Heads that was going to pretend to dance to some essentially undanceable ballad. So we sit down, you know? And I’m feeling the vibe from the crowd and, for the first time since I’ve known her, I think Ann Coulter is starting to pick up on the cosmic energy of the Grateful Dead. So we’re sitting down, and there’s a tender kind of moment going on—the Dead are playing “Row, Jimmy†and I put my arm around her shoulder, you know?

Kane: I guess; I’d rather pet a bobcat.

Hunt: Yeah, but you don’t know her; maybe I did, maybe I didn’t. I sure thought I did right then.. Um, as a gentleman, I shouldn’t say this, but she’s a public figure and the stink she raised over the whole Lewinsky thing, I think that people should know.

Crapshoot: Go on. I thought she was going to have a coronary, the way she talked about a blow job in the Oval Office, like Monica was Mata Hari or something.

Hunt: Right? Only, she wasn’t always like that. You know, we kind of snuggled up there, and pretty soon we were petting and then, one thing leading to another, she was giving me head right there in the Philadelphia Spectrum.

Crapshoot: NO!

Hunt: Yeah, dude. And, tell you what, it felt good. To this day I can’t hear that song without seeing Ann Coulter’s lips around my cock. (sings) "Row, Jimmy, Row…."

Crapshoot: OK, that's enough. Stop before I get stuck with that image too. Anyway, wow...you’d think that would’ve made her more sympathetic to Monica’s, ah, position, no?

Hunt: Well, you don’t gotta be Freud to figure out that it didn’t and how she must’ve internalized it. Anyway, I thought we’d made a connection. She kept snuggled up to me pretty much up until the drums portion of the gig. As she always did at that time, she went to powder her nose, unironically, of course. When she came back, it was the old Ann. She kept her distance for "Space" and the rest of the concert. They closed the set with "Good Lovin’’ and I swear she made a cross with her hands when I looked at her during that one. It was disturbing.

After we left the arena, it just got weirder. She started going on about how the Dead were really conservatives in liberal’s clothing, talking about the money they made….

Crapshoot: They surely made a lot of money.

Hunt: Yeah, fair enough, but they played "Desolation Row" that night, right?

Crapshoot: The Dylan tune. From Highway 61. Hunt: Yup, that’s the one. She started on this tirade about how the lyrics were pro-capital punishment and anti-immigration?

Crapshoot: Come again?

Hunt: Yeah, she deconstructed the first line: "They’re Selling Postcards of the Hanging…."

Crapshoot: "....They’re Painting the Passports Brown.†That’s a pretty literal interpretation.

Hunt: No one has ever accused her of subtlety. And that was the end of the road for me. I figured, I saw her up, I saw her down. I’m out.

Crapshoot: Right, she was disarranging your mind. You led her to the Promised Land and she’s Poor Ophelia on Desolation Road, Already an Old Maid.

Hunt: Yup. We done?

Crapshoot: Yeah, think so, Skip. Thank you for everything.

So there it was. The sexy image of the Dead—of the counter-culture generally—is of the Summer of Love, young kids questioning their values, expanding their minds and having a damn good time—something like “Girls Gone Wild†meets the Tao Te Ching in Wonderland, with a heavy-duty soundtrack. But by the late ‘70s, the scene seemed less pure and more complicated. The first hippies were fairly unified in their revolt against the Vietnam War and Corporate America, but an entire class of kids had emerged by the Reagan era that evidently saw no cognitive dissonance in aligning themselves politically with the forces that brought us the “War on Drugs†while spending their spare time in the experimental laboratory that was the parking lot at a Dead show. Many of these kids indulged in the sacraments and some even went through life-changing experiences of ethnogenesis. Others, perhaps the majority, were Republicans because they didn’t really think about it one way or the other—it worked for their parents and that was good enough for them. Neither of which explains the phenomenon of Ann Coulter—you can arrive at a place in-between the John Birch Society and the Merry Pranksters if you don’t think too hard about either one, but she seems to be straddling both extremes. Enjoying the fruits of the rebellion of the sixties, while rejecting the cultural forces driving it.

Ultimately, the questions are existential. Is music the absolute reflection of the beliefs and intentions of its authors, and, if so, does the act of listening to it constitute acceptance of the creators’ personal lives and beliefs? There is an essential mystery at the heart of music’s appeal to individual souls. Perhaps Ann’s favorite Dead lyric gives us a clue: “Trouble with You/Is the Trouble With Me/Got Two Good Eyes, But We Still Don’t See.†Or this related note from Simon & Garfunklel: “Still a Man, He Sees What He Wants to See and He Disregards the Rest.â€

[Calamity Jane]

does that last post answer my question???

I'm way too lazy (and ripped) to read it. Can you just give me the Coles Notes version?

[Kanada Kev]

I'm way too lazy (and ripped) to read it. Can you just give me the Coles Notes version?

Coles Notes version:

Rolling On Floor Laughing Out Loud

http://www.angelfire.com/zine/crapshoot/coulte r.ht...

Hunt: Right? Only, she wasn’t always like that. You know, we kind of snuggled up there, and pretty soon we were petting and then, one thing leading to another, she was giving me head right there in the Philadelphia Spectrum.

Crapshoot: NO!

Hunt: Yeah, dude. And, tell you what, it felt good. To this day I can’t hear that song without seeing Ann Coulter’s lips around my cock. (sings) "Row, Jimmy, Row…."

[Calamity Jane]

did I say I was ripped?

now add "disturbed" ...what a yucky, non-horny-inducing image!!!

[zero]

I got a half chubby don't know about you. That woman is a fucking gazelle, no wait, an ANTELOPE.

[zero]

You really should read the Coulter interview before Franken. This whole thing cracks me up because I actually get what she means by this:

But whatever their myriad interests, clothing choices, and interest in illicit drugs, true Deadheads are what liberals claim to be but aren't: unique, free-thinking, open, kind, and interested in different ideas.

Also comparing Jerry's death to the last day of skiing all around the world. Classic.

It was very sad after Jerry died, not because I felt like I had a psychic connection to him or anything, but only because something really fun I liked to do, I couldn't do anymore. It would be as if all ski resorts just shut down one day.

It just gets better and better. New Canaan, Conneticut.

I tend to associate the Dead with lacrosse players and my favorite fraternities, Fiji and Theta Delt.

DUDE, she's right

[color:red]Apart from Al Gore, Al Franken is the most un-Deadhead like person I know of who purports to be a Deadhead.

[Esau.]

Franken is hilarious backstage during the closed circuit broadcast I have of the Radio City Music Hall 1980-10-31 Dead show (DVD 2 of 4). Interviewing the band, gettin thrown around by roadies, pure gold.

[zero]

What's the closed circuit broadcast, oh you mean the feed from inside the venue.

Found this snippet in the coulter interview to. She's actually knowledgeable about the music.

TH: So, I was talking to Kristy Cottrell, my friend and chairman of the Auburn University College Republicans, and she said she had no good advice for me as she really only listens to country. For someone who only listens to country, what is a good point to break into the Grateful Dead?

AC: Oh, there's a lot of overlap: “Mama Triedâ€, “Me and My Uncleâ€, “Dark Hollowâ€, “Cumberland Bluesâ€, “Tennessee Jedâ€. I think a country music lover would like a lot of the Dead. She might not like “Spaceâ€, but no one who was not on drugs did.

[Esau.]

What's the closed circuit broadcast, oh you mean the feed from inside the venue.

Yep, which was only shown in the venue (closed circuit), he interviews folks/the band during set breaks, gives away stupid shit like hams for answering trivia correctly etc.

Radio City Music Hall 1980-10-31