Al Franken

Fire Alarms And Dirty Disses In My Horrible Club Night

On Friday night, I took some friends to Marie's Crisis piano bar (59-Grove Street) to show off how popular I am there. The coat check/door guy always plucks me off the line and gives me a big welcome right out of Hello, Dolly! But there was some new schmo in his place. I waited my turn and as I fina ... More >>

Schools Ignore Gay Bullying at Their Own Peril

An Education in Abuse

Tea Party Princess

Victoria Jackson went from the big leagues of comedy to the rabid right of modern politics

Live: Megafaun Keep The Lower East Side Weird

​Megafaun Mercury Lounge Saturday, September 24 Better than: More than a few '90s Dead shows I could mention. Set openers don't get much more inviting than "Real Slow," a slyly seductive scene setter wherein "people come from miles just to take a seat and watch the show." Better yet, North C ... More >>

Matt Drudge, David Axelrod, and Tina Brown All Still Use AOL Email Addresses

~*xoMattDrudgexo*~@aol.com​You know who still uses an antique AOL email account, apart from your mom? A lot of really famous and important people. Politico's Ben Smith argues today that the outdated email service has actually gone from uncool and dated all the way back around to being a "status sy ... More >>

Your iPhone Records Where You've Been; What Are You Going To Do About It, Chump?

​The tech world is having itself a little freak-out over the news that iPhones using iOS4 (the latest operating system) have been saving users' location data whenever they make a cell call. Alasdair Allan and Pete Warden discovered a hidden file in the phone's operating system that keeps track ... More >>

Barack Obama Kicks Don't Ask, Don't Tell to the Curb

​We've been following Don't Ask, Don't Tell since Senator Barack Obama was campaigning on its repeal. After all these years, watching the ceremony in which he kicked it to the curb, in person, was a special kind of early Christmas gift. The event was not held at the White House, but in an aud ... More >>

Mike Bloomberg's Girlfriend Diana Taylor Said (By Bored Press) to Consider Senate Run

​We thought the age of celebrity candidates ended with Jesse Ventura. Then, with Arnold Schwarzenegger. Then, with Al Franken. Then, with Caroline Kennedy, Mort Zuckerman, Larry Kudlow... Oh, who are we kidding, it never ends. Now we hear "multiple sources confirm" that Mike Bloomberg's girlf ... More >>

John Mellencamp Proposed to Replace Evan Bayh in Senate Race

​Now that Indiana Senator Evan Bayh is out of the picture, some people are pushing for John Mellencamp, aka John Cougar, aka John Camp Cougarmellen, to run on the Democratic line for his seat. Mellencamp is from Indiana, where he was born in a small town, and lives in Bloomington, which he a ... More >>

5 Things Conan O'Brien Can Do Besides Fight/Accept the Jay Leno Putsch

​The Jay Leno-Conan O'Brien thing is all over the place, with Leno being invited to move his underwatched show from 10 to 11 p.m. and Tonight Show host O'Brien, facing a later start and feeling the squeeze, reportedly in talks with Fox. Should O'Brien jump ship? Or sit tight, and pick up whate ... More >>

Which Celebrity Do You Most Resemble?

​For me it's Ashton Kutcher, I mean Danny DeVito. And through the years I've also gotten mistaken for icons like Richard Benjamin, Al Franken, and Linda Hunt.

Sotomayor Approved by Judiciary Committee

Sonia Sotomayor's appointment to the Supreme Court has just been approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee en banc. All the Democrats (Herb Kohl, Dianne Feinstein, Russell Feingold, Chuck Schumer, Benjamin Cardin, Dick Durbin, Al Franken, Sheldon Whitehouse, Amy Klobuchar, Ed Kaufman, Arlen Specter ... More >>

Sotomayor Hearings, Expected Confirmation a Conservative Triumph, Say Rightbloggers

Seen from a normal perspective, the Sotomayor hearings had to be a disappointment to rightbloggers. She appears on course to be confirmed (Conservative Crusader saw the writing on the wall even by Monday: "RACIST ANTI-CONSTITUTION SOTOMAYOR TO BE CONFIRMED TO SCOTUS"). And despite some hard quest ... More >>

Update on the Damn Sotomayor Hearings

Yesterday Al Franken reminisced with Sonia Sotomayor about Perry Mason. Today Arlen Specter asks if she'd like TV cameras in the Supreme Court. Sotomayor tells John Cornyn she won't use foreign law to interpret the constitution. Tom Coburn asks her if she's worried that gun control would take t ... More >>

Cheek, in Review: 7 Days of Runnin' Scared

Dance troupe, Governor's Island. Boy, what a week. Gay Pride was effulgent as ever with three D.A. candidates voguing for the cameras, but marred by a gay-bashing on the Upper East Side. The authorities got involved and the cops went to work, and now it looks like there have been more such incide ... More >>

Down With Al Franken!

I'm beyond horrified that Al Franken will be sworn in as a Minnesota senator. Not because of his liberal politics, mind you--I adore them-- but because people sometimes mistake me for the comic-turned-politico, and I was secretly hoping he'd go away so this wouldn't happen anymore. I am not making ... More >>

Al Franken Ruled Winner in 2008 Senate Race by MN Supremes; Next Stop SCOTUS? (Update: Coleman Concedes)

Look, at least we're not the only state where democracy is a thing of the past: the Norm Coleman-Al Franken Senate election has been in the courts since freaking November 2008. Today the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled 5-0 that Franken had in fact won the thing, using the old and generally disregarde ... More >>

Coleman Concedes, Franken is Minnesota Senator

After telling us that his wife had been praying the rosary in Rome (?), Norm Coleman congratulated Al Franken on becoming the next Senator from Minnesota. Then he said a bunch of other stuff about voters' rights and the people of Minnesota, but who cares? This fucking thing is done. Hooray for the c ... More >>

Arlen Specter Turns Into a Democrat

They're having a hard time getting Al Franken to take a seat in the Senate, so in the meantime Democrats will have to make do with a new seat in Pennsylvania: Senator Arlen Specter is switching parties. "I have been a Republican since 1966," says the rightwing's bete noir in a statement. "Last year ... More >>

Interview: Janeane Garofalo on 24, Henry Rollins, and Her Inevitable Run for Junior Senator of Minnesota

"When Rush Limbaugh visited the set, and when Lynne Cheney visited the set, I refused to have my picture taken with them or meet them or anything." Janeane Garofalo is known for biting standup, stints on SNL, The Larry Sanders Show and The West Wing, and her pioneering contributions to Air Americ ... More >>

After NY-20 Election, Spin War Begins

We'll have to wait a few weeks for the absentee ballots and inevitable court challenges to tell us who won last night's Tedisco-Murphy special election in New York's 20th Congressional District. But with national attention focused on the race, operatives are struggling to paint the tie in a good li ... More >>

LET'S BE FRANKEN

No separation between comic and state

DOJ Sues to Make Sure Overseas Votes Count in NY-20

The USDOJ is suing the State of New York in regard to the upcoming special election in the 20th Congressional District between Scott Murphy and Jim Tedisco. Already the jackboot heel of Obama presses on Liberty's neck! Get out the shootin' ahrns! Just kidding. Justice is suing on behalf of the Defe ... More >>

Out There In The Dark: Rightbloggers Go Hollywood!

As we get closer to the actual transition, rightbloggers are shifting gears. They're losing interest in the remaining pre-inaugural Obama business. We probably won't see anything like the Hillary Clinton Constitutional crisis again. Leon Panetta's CIA appointment drew some criticism on the grounds ... More >>

Burris Turned Away, Franken Stays Away

Blagojevich Senate appointee Roland Burris went to the Capitol this morning for the opening of the 111th Congress and was sent away, as promised, by Secretary of the Senate Nancy Erickson. Burris left after a 20-minute conversation, details of which are regrettably unavailable. Burris says he is loo ... More >>

Al Franken Certified; Fraud at Polls!

After a long series of recounts, challenges, etc., the Minnesota Board of Canvassers has certified the election of comedian Al Franken to the U.S. Senate from Minnesota. Stuart Smalley is in! Anticipating this result, the Wall Street Journal tells its readers that it's all a fix: "Strange things kee ... More >>

Mopping Up: Local Election Results Mostly Expected

Free Will Astrology: November 5 through 11

Midday Politics: Coleman Sues, Queens Candidates "Battle Down to the Wire"

Who I'm Most Often Mistaken For

Air America's Green Revolution

New York City's most famous gadfly tries to rescue the liberal radio network

Al Franken vs. Bill O'Reilly

'Al Franken: God Spoke'

NY Mirror

Best in Show

The Top 40 Picks of the Tribeca Film Festival

Remote Patrol

Like No Other Night

A traditional gathering for the city's hip Jewish arts family

Conspiracy Leery

How to remake a classic paranoid thriller without stepping on any toes

Democratic Convention, Celebrity Heaven

Big stars and immigrant delivery people in Kerry's paradise

Veep as Vamp

Bush surrogates sissify John Edwards. But will it backfire? Plus: What did Whoopi say?

NY Mirror

Over It!

Politicking With Michael Stipe; Hanging With The Hansons; Slash In Soho

Party Politics

We Want to Get Sued Like Al Franken (but Fox Keeps Ignoring Us)!

Reading From Left to Right

Conservative Books! At a Store Near You!

New Kinds of Monsters

Metal's Diverse Underground Leaves Metallica in the Dust

Listings

Hell-Raising in Philly

An Activist’s Guide to Protests Outside the Republican Convention

NY Mirror

On the Academy Awards, I loved the quick cut to Warren and Annette after Whoopi's crack about older men and younger women.

Shtick & Soul

Al Franken Mainstreams the L-Word