To the rabid fans of Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show,” Jon Stewart is an agent of catharsis for roiling anti-Bush rage.
To Rolling Stone, he’s America’s Anchor (or at least one of America’s Anchors, the guy who’s not Stephen Colbert). To readers, he’s the best-selling author of “America: The Book.” To movie buffs, as he is fond of reminding his snickering audience, he is the fourth male lead in the unfortunately titled “Death to Smoochy,” which falls somewhere between “Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls” and “Ishtar” in the great scope of international cinema.
But Stewart sees himself as a comedian, which explains why he can’t step away from stand-up.
“It’s what I consider my job,” says Stewart. “In some respects, I am on a very fortunate side assignment. I’m studying abroad right now and quite enjoying it. But ultimately I will always go back to my job.”
Jersey boy Stewart, 44, started out doing stand-up but doesn’t provide the expected horror stories. “I was not treated like a honky-tonk performer at a biker bar before,” he admits. “When you’re in stand-up mode in clubs it’s different than working at 2 a.m. in front of the wait staff and a group of Dutch sailors on leave. I think that maybe what the show buys is the audience’s good will of wanting you to be good. One thing about stand-up is you really don’t talk to them after it’s over. You have to have your own internal barometer about how you feel about this stuff. That’s all you can go on.
“I don’t ride the pony as hard as I used to. On good nights in the old days, you’d think `I’m Pryor!’ If you had a bad night you’d think, ‘You have to fill out those applications for grad school now.’ But when you’ve been doing it for a long time, you can be forgiving even if you don’t give a peak performance.”
This information will come as no surprise: About comedy, Stewart, 44, is hilarious, as swiftly sardonic as he is on “The Daily Show,” which he has hosted since 1999.
On the phone from the show’s New York office, he discusses getting his eye gouged out in the horror film “The Faculty.” “I hope you appreciate that the substance that made my eye foam was quite caustic. The guys who did the special effects said, `It’s gonna be a little vinegar, a little powder, a little acid, and it reacts when it hits the back of your eye, but don’t worry.”’
He reports that it’s harder hosting the president of Pakistan than the Oscars. “You realize no matter what that guy does he is risking his life, and because of that you feel like, `Wow, I should read his book.’ As opposed to the Oscars, which was fun, but you have the sense that no matter what happened, Charlize Theron was going to be OK the next day.”
Stewart estimates that he does stand-up once a month and says that his material runs along the same lines as the withering satire on “The Daily Show.” “I’ve got what you’d imagine would be in a New York comedian’s trunk,” he says. “Nobody in the audience will say, `My God! He’s talking about particle physics! What is he doing?”’
He’ll almost certainly touch on politicians near and far, the clueless in general and the skyrocketing idiocy of TV media (“MSNBC’s new slogan: We’re insane. We’re absurd. We’re ridiculous”).
It’s this last development that has perhaps defined “The Daily Show’s” rise as pop-culture barometer and as a spot to find not only news but also barbed commentary on the increasingly ludicrous ways in which it is being packaged. Stewart and the show’s writers poke relentless fun at fatuous talking heads, ridiculing embarrassing lightweight reports almost as often as they deconstruct the more baffling policies of the Bush administration.
A fiery Stewart even appeared on “Crossfire” with Tucker Carlson in 2004 and said the show indulged in partisan hack jobs instead of honest debate. When Carlson accused him of lobbing softball questions at presidential hopeful John Kerry, Stewart famously shot back: “You’re on CNN! The show that leads into me is puppets making prank phone calls!”
In a recent Rolling Stone interview, Stewart told Maureen Dowd, “I’m proud of what we do,” but “I don’t view us as people who lead social movements.” He doesn’t buy into the repeated, completely unsubstantiated reports that viewers, especially those under 30, get their news via his show. “My feeling is audiences today are incredibly savvy and sophisticated in terms of how they process material. I’d be shocked if 22 minutes of a comedy show provided the main course of their information meal of the day.”
The Bush White House has provided rich fodder, but Stewart won’t much miss it, even though he’s hardly running out of jokes about George W. and Friends. “As a human person with a sentient mind, I will not be unhappy if there is perhaps an administration with a slightly more competent outlook, ... and I have great faith in the office of the president in terms of providing truly absurd moments.”
Besides, he finds humor beyond politics. What really makes him laugh is “stupid (stuff). I wish I could sound erudite and highfalutin, but I laugh at very, very silly things. You just never know where the funny is coming from. That’s the beauty of the funny.”
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Congresswoman Sherri Davis, R-CA, Urges President Bush to Include Bi-Partisan ‘Family Pak’ of Legislative Proposals in Upcoming State of the Union Address
2007-01-20 20:07:17 - Project SATYR, BRA, YMCA, INCA, “Sexy Fridays” legislation will address key family-oriented issues in a bipartisan way, says Davis
New York, NY (PRINSIDE) January 20, 2007—California Congresswoman Sherri Davis, R-CA, known as the “Ann Coulter of Anaheim” for her fierce opposition to flag-burners and illegal immigrants and her unyielding support for the American family, issued a statement today urging President George Bush and the Bush Administration to include her new ‘Family Pak’ of six legislative proposals in President Bush’s upcoming State of the Union address, scheduled to be presented to the nation this Tuesday.
“My ‘Family Pak’ of six legislative proposals is the result of extensive bipartisan think- tank style discussions held with bipartisans from coast to coast,” says Davis. “Many of the proposals would cost the federal government virtually nothing, but reap jackpot rewards. It’s truly a ‘Three Cherries’ approach to the problems of the American family And what American doesn’t like a nice six-pack every now and then.”
Davis, a rising star of the Republican Party, has received substantial media attention as a result of a nationwide brainstorming campaign that her admirers in the media have dubbed “Sherri’s War of Ideas.” “‘Sherri’s War of Ideas’ is a pure war of ideas over the next two years, with myself and other Republicans picking at Democratic initiatives as pro-tax, pro-spending, or unworkable,” says Congresswomen Davis, who chairs the House Entertainment Committee and has become known as the “Voice of Hollywood” in Congress. Davis’ signature legislative proposals are discussed weekly in her exclusive “Internet-Only” talk show, “Talking on Thursdays,” produced by Myron Kempelstein Productions, Ltd.
Congresswoman Davis’ “Family Pak” includes these six key Pro-Family legislative proposals:
1.) The Yoga Mat Cleanliness Act. (YMCA). “Now I know I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating: Studies show that over 1.2 million work days are lost each year in America to yoga-mat borne diseases, including jock itch and strep,” says Davis. “These previously overlooked yoga-mat borne ‘fungal illnesses’ are taking $300 million out of American paychecks each year, money that could be going to Baby. And we can save Americans much pain and financial sorrow merely by establishing and then enforcing standard levels of communal yoga mat cleanliness in the yoga industry,” says Davis. “Join with me and Sarah Jessica Parker to help stomp out jock itch in our lifetime through mandatory cleanliness standards for communal yoga mats.” http://youtube.com/watch?v=QvpvuAI2uuE
2.) Project SATYR (“Scrapbooking Accelerates Terrific Youth Reading”), is a program designed to capitalize on America’s current “scrapbooking craze” to increase youth reading levels and literacy rates through individual vouchers, middle- and high-school scrapbooking curriculum requirements, and major tax-breaks to the American scrapbooking industry. “One of my favorite new singers, Kelis, sings about how her ‘milkshakes’ bring all the boys to her yard, and it is this exact same proposition we are seeing take place in regards to scrapbooking and teen literacy,” says Davis. “We view teen scrapbooks as the ‘milkshakes of teen literacy’ that will bring underperforming teen readers to the ‘yard’ of teen literacy. Let’s face it—if teens won’t read about themselves, in their own scrapbooks, then what will they read about? What’s wrong with capitalizing on our youth culture’s own narcissism to ‘trick’ underperforming teens right into literacy?” http://youtube.com/watch?v=1vPbHD3GaJI
3.) The “Bible Repatriation Act,” (BRA), a legislative act to bring control of the Bible back into the hands of America by requiring that—for national security purposes—all Bibles be printed in the United States of America. “Just yesterday, a favorite constituent of mine sent me a copy of a Bible he had acquired that was printed in a foreign country—and I can’t tell you which country because of National Security reasons, but it does begin with an I, which I don’t think will surprise anyone,” says Davis. “While reading this particular Bible, my constituent discovered that in Kings and then again in Deuteronomy, the sections of the Bible that talk about ‘approved entrances’ to the human body had been altered somehow during the printing process to include new, unapproved entrances to the human body that the Lord in his wisdom never intended to open up for business. And it is safe to say that this is obviously the work of America’s foreign enemies—enemies who are not only anti-American, but also anti-family. Hence my support of BRA. Bring our Bibles home. Bring them home.” http://youtube.com/watch?v=Qg5AoOGYmwY
4.) The ‘Sexy Fridays Act,” (SFA), an act to bring sexy, flirtatious fun back into America’s workplaces every Friday. “As plummeting American marriage statistics demonstrate, political correctness has just gone way too far, and bipartisan women nationwide feel it’s time to reel it back in, to in effect, ‘get real’ once again,” says Davis. ‘Whose idea was ‘dress down Fridays’ anyways—Al Gore’s? Walter Mondale’s? One of the two I’m sure.”
According to Davis, modern women want an opportunity to show what they’ve got and that they know how to use it—but in a safe environment like the workplace. “If my legislation passes—and I have great hopes that it will—American women from coast to coast will put on our boas and our Pashminas and once again strut our stuff in the workplace every Friday—and receive substantial tax breaks for doing so!” Davis notes that a startling new study shows 51% of all women in our country are currently living without a man. “Among other things, this contributes to our nation’s continued dependence on foreign energy sources,” notes Davis. “Because cuddling can generate a tremendous amount of heat.” Davis says the SFA will also earmark funds to create a national interactive database on the Internet giving tips on “roleplaying.”
5.) The Mandatory Portion Control Act (MPCA): “America is facing a growing health epidemic: obesity,” says Davis. “And with the MPCA, the plan is to stop this epidemic right at its source: the refrigerator door.” Under the bipartisan MPCA, refrigerator manufacturers would be required to include automatic-locking controls on all new models by the year 2012, so that food consumption can be controlled long distance by parents or—in a situation where an entire “problem family” has been deemed by authorities to be “non-compliant”—by federal, state or local authorities. According to Davis, Health and Human Resources Dept. officials are also looking into authorizing the home-use of tasers, if deemed necessary. “But that’s down the road a ways,” says Davis. “Let’s see if this works first. It’s definitely a brave new world out there, but through the MPCA, I’m hoping we can cut billions from Medicare and Medicaid—and pass the savings on to you!” http://youtube.com/watch?v=0KcHkLtqry0
6.) The Interest Normalization Cap Act (INCA): “Our American troops are on the front line in Iraq and Afghanistan fighting to keep the terrorists there from invading to America,” says Davis. “And many of them have young families that they have left behind. And so it makes my blood boil to hear that many of these troops and their families are being victimized by the so-called Pay Day Loan industry, which in states such as Oregon, allow members of the military to be charged interest rates as high as 521% a year. Now usually I am in favor of letting the marketplace do its job—call me Keynesian!—but since this involves our troops, as a Republican and a bipartisan I say, let’s see if we join hands in a bipartisan fashion to cap this interest rate at a more reasonable 421% per year.”
Says Davis: ‘Look to see a joint announcement shortly from Jim Carrey, Warren Buffett and I as we join hands with Sarah Jessica Parker to fight what Warren calls ‘encroaching economic serfdom’ in America.”
In other news, Congresswoman Davis recently released details of Project D-LETE, a legislative proposal to increase penetration and consumption of American D-List celebrities in Third World nations worldwide, to an enthusiastic crowd at the recent “Golden Globes Awards” in Hollywood. Davis has also been involved recently in a heated intellectual property dispute with actress Amy Sedaris over a nude drawing on Page 139 of Sedaris’ New York Times best-selling cookbook, “I Like You.” http://youtube.com/watch?v=s7gOtF2Ct68
Prior to responding to the call of democracy, Congresswoman Davis was a star of stage and screen, appearing with show business luminaries such as Helen Hunt, Amy Sedaris, Nathan Lane, Bette Midler, Kristin Davis, Leslie Kritzer, Kirsten Johnson, Adam Shankman, Frank Rich, Woody Allen, Kristin Chenoweth, Jane Krakowski, Megan Mullally, Paul Dinello, Martin Short and Susan Sarandon. Davis, known widely as the “face behind the Pashmina” for her role in successfully launching that foreign garment into closets of Middle America, skyrocketed to fame in the 1990’s with her lively rock-anthem “Baby Dance,” which reached No. 4 on the Billboard pop charts. Davis was appointed to her Congressional seat late last year after the tragic death of her husband and was re-elected this November by a “slim but substantial majority.” Prior to leaving show business to represent her Congressional district, Davis also played the role of Penny Pingleton in numerous regional performances of “Hairspray.”
Comment by Jake Barnes from Paris — January 21, 2007 @ 9:03 am