Mark Russell Comedy Special

I don't know the cause and I don't know about you know that I'll let you know. Good evening. On six occasions during this past year I stood in this theater before a live audience and together we counted the ways in which the politicians contributed to our entertainment the events which lightened our lives and lightened our perception of good and evil. So stand by for some of the highlights of 1987 as we have observed them right here. Before we get I know we always tell you that we are live from Buffalo and that isn't exactly true. Literally we are just a little bit outside of Buffalo the State University campus is in the little town of AM Hurst New York and recently Amherst New York received national publicity. The. Yes

this is what happened my spirits were at a Unitarian church you're going to get free condoms on Sunday not long ago I wasn't taking any chances. About a month ago I sent a check to Oral Roberts. I do not want that man's death on my conscience I had it all Robert said that God told him that unless we send money he's going to die. And so far there's been no ransom note. The other day the president in the state of the Union address he said quote I take full responsibility for what happened. Now they're looking for volunteers to tell him what happened to them he said he said we will not yield to terrorist blackmail 2000 anti-tank missiles a Bible and a cake maybe but that's it. I still got to get over the fact that we sent a Bible to the Iranians that

just the perfect gift for your average fanatic Moslem fundamental Bill about a month ago. Front page of The Wall Street Journal Maureen Reagan says that she has seen the ghost of Abraham Lincoln in the Lincoln Bedroom of the White House. In the article she says she's I'm not getting. She's the only get better. I saw the ghost of Lincoln. She said He's a transparent person sounds more to me like she's been in the cabinet room but anyway. We celebrate outdoors you know ladies and gentlemen the first time in our history we have a war on the tranny on our hot jetway get and I got what you wanted and we have our first trillion dollar budget in this the bicentennial year of our Constitution a document originally drawn up to fit a government the size of your average True Value hardware franchise. Some people said we couldn't do it. They said it was beyond all

writing a bill that trillion dollar budget a thousand bandbox and training in Washington on the wrong side of the budget gives them all a left how did they ever had a trend. The answer is easy. Have to thank thinking of Mickey Mouse how benevolent It was of Congress recently to vote overwhelmingly against their own pay raise. You know little flimflam However they voted against her pay raise about they waited until after the deadline when the raise would automatically go into effect. That's Congress vote for the cot. But first get that raise. That way they can say hey raise what me worry. I voted against it. And the capper was that they tacked on this phony disapproval of the pay raise to a bill granting aid to the homeless so they had a classic case of the homeless being exploited by the godless. Other

candidates lining up we have big names like Bruce Babbitt Richard Gephardt Joseph of Biden Chuck Robb. If you haven't heard of. Any of these people. You're either a news junkie or a close relative of one of them was. Now do I think that Babbitt and Gephardt and Biden and Robb can make it individually no. But collectively with as one candidate who knows. Ladies and gentlemen I give you the next president of the United States. Just a bad heart. Biden Rob was like What do you want to discuss first. What topic. Name a pearly gate Iran scam about the FCC ruling no more vulgar language on television and I am for that you know that kind of language we're talking about dirty words filthy words like table

will HBO How about How about the cocaine scandal on Wall Street you think the market has an all time high. You got to see the brokers if you will. President Reagan has advised the youth of America that it's a good idea to practice total abstinence from sex and that is a good suggestion Mr. President. Now tell it to the Marines was that everybody is being very careful these days sexually but there are still several pockets of promiscuity. The Marines and the evangelist's woman meanwhile are Secretary of State George Shultz has gone over there to Moscow to dedicate our new American embassy when I go ahead and I will. That's right they had a they had a diplomatic dinner and think of this. We may have to hire a Russian demolition team to blow up the embassy. The commission came out with

the report. The president read a paragraph and then he decided he was going to have to fire Reagan and Reagan left after finally taking what the Guinness Book of Records will no doubt record as the world's longest. She's got the ability she's a beauty and I remember last year we mentioned a four in one the Democratic candidate bad heart Biden Rob being

Bruce that but Richard Gephardt just of Biden and Chuck Robb. Well Mr. Rod is not a candidate. But Michael Dukakis is to that part by Dukakis like it should have to say Michael Dukakis as governor of Massachusetts. And I travel around all the time and he really has an uphill fight because most people do not know Michael Dukakis's record and his achievements. And I find that to be particularly true in Massachusetts The Biggest Loser going on was yesterday we found out in New York City Bernhard Goetz is in a sense all together now let us resign as the official motto of the city of New York. The biggest Democratic Party of course is that Gary Hart is no longer a candidate and as I said at the time if these sexual allegations about Gary Hart are true he said pull out of the presidential race and get in the TV evangelists are more able. So far we have had six weeks of the Iran Contra hearings.

They're not going on now the hearings are in their All-Star break. And if you haven't seen the hearings at all. Not to worry I will tell you all you need to know about the past six months of hearings and as we always do in stories like this we follow me. OK now follow carefully. There were some United States government officials who received 10 million dollars from the Sultan of Brunei. First thing they did was lose 8 million of it. This was the gang that could not deposit straight so they lost eight million only one million went to the Contras remember. And the other million was spent on insurance which makes you wonder what kind of company would ensure a fiasco like that Lloyds of Grenada anyway. So as we send our ships into the Persian Gulf we have to hope that the Iranians don't fire upon the ships with the very missiles we told them in the first place. Remember we hated Iraq.

So what do we do. So missiles to be used in their war with Iraq. A war in which we were neutral. Now we're siding with Iraq. The very country you remember blew up one of our ships a couple of weeks ago. So with the money we use that to finance our other war in the Iraq war and one of the people involved in that operation took some of the money and bought a new Porsche was his partner Oliver North took some of that money and he bought snow tires. Was I just wish the story would end I really do as America looks at the president and asks him this was a man. Do you

buy that at the Grand Hotel. Carolina jam on top of the $2000 a day hotel suite bathrooms with poverty

where she's baptized. Oh well here we are at the end of the summer of 1987 the Iran-Contra hearings are over with and now we can look back and you know for the past six years many of us said that President Reagan said You're out of touch. She said No I mean jarred now or say Ah ha you're in Jarvis you know I was out of time. Pope John Paul is second on his way over here in a few weeks still under heavy

criticism for the warm welcome he extended recently to Kurt Waldheim. You know all the Paul could take a lesson from Ronald Reagan if you want to do some stupid make it a covert operation. You know all the polls want to know how to clear the air the minute he gets off the plane here. Just bring it right up. Do I Ronald Reagan mistakes were made. You know the lire stops here I mean he should just bring it right out. And the irony is that the poll didn't give Kurt Waldheim so much as a tiny reprimand. And you know he's going to be coming over here scolding American nuns for wearing pantsuits I mean who can we trust. It was. Persian golf right. They have these Kuwaiti tankers flying American flags some people call that re flagging I call it a surrogate Navy. Going into the Persian Gulf with an American flag is like wearing a Nauruans tide of the St. Patrick's Day parade. And a day now the USS Missouri go down and they were flying a Kuwaiti flight that's the way it works. The minute they found mines in the Persian Gulf you remember what happened. The only

American mine sweepers were in Charleston South Carolina and so help me. Lake Geneva Wisconsin was where not warm air rainy and gambolled has been cited was thanks to all of this mind you occurring during this the bicentennial of our Constitution. Every night Bill Moyers live from Independence Hall. 1787. Right. This is Bill Moyers more trouble today. The delegates sent Ben Franklin out for sandwiches he came back four hours later with lipstick on his collar. Was probably. The delegates still can't agree on what kind of chief executive that the fledgling nation should have arguments run from a cannon to an emperor to an actor to a peanut farmer was. You guys are the high point of the summer was the testimony of Oliver North before the Iran-Contra committee and you remember that day there was Oliver North very dramatic scene and he looked at the committee and remember he said I give you The Good

The Bad and The Ugly. By the time he was finished he looked good in Congress look bad and ugly. He is the very model of a good lieutenant colonel he was serving his commander from the AM to nocturnal. He testified for our sipping diet Coca-Cola with his version of a covert op the school. He took the rap for Ronnie who was in and out of touch again sometimes it laid the blame on William Casey who was dead by then he told of the diversion and how proud he was to do it. As a nation watching held in Congress John writes ruin. Your memory in the hearings there they had secret code names for various countries which helped in the age of the Contras country number one country number two country number three and they were many members of that secrecy. But the rest of us of course knew all along what the countries were because every time they went to a break Dan Rather and Tom Brokaw said his time was now.

When last we met you recall that Gary Hart was took himself out of the race because of the issue of adultery. Now don't you think in the case of George Bush adultery could only help. I mean now we have had some more people announcing since our last show Tennessee Senator Albert Gore became the 100 second Democrat to announce for the presidency Ed what encourages these people to ever notice every time some obstacle or figure gets into the race the spouses of all the other odds you're fake Here's what you got to set there. Get out there on. TV if a poll were to be taken at their own family reunions half of these guys would come in third. Dora says that he is the only Southerner in the race well. Yeah but that's high tech yuppie Tennessee where they serve wine cooler and raw veggies in the truck stops I mean there was nothing wrong with that but I mean this is the New South Wales. It looks like every other part of the country where they

think that Huey Long is a Chinese restaurant. It. Was obviously this is the news that has dominated our wake and here we have these New York New York Post and The Daily knows there's a crash and panic. And see the thing about these tabloid newspapers these are three months old as a matter of fact was. That's right well I have never seen anything like it it started on Monday. Monday was Black Monday that was followed by great Tuesday. And that brings us to now as we speak Wednesday. As America. Did. The market is worse than this one in crawling but Ron said it well. It's pretty bad how bad is it. Well IBM is now a head start program that will give you. That and Monday I was talking to my broker and he was very upset he was so upset he put the

wrong color shoe polish on my shoes. That's how they got it and Washington is of course a confirmation of their historic Judge Bork to the Supreme Court. They're voting out as we speak here now and I approach this with an open mind and I listened to everything Mr Bork has said and I just concluded that here is a man whose favorite color is plaid I mean you. Well as I say a sophisticated legal circles this is one complex dude I mean. Will I read the whole book was all the notes I'm sorry but you know what I need seatbelts to follow the hairpin in Mr Bork's thinking it is so that for example for a little. More solution to slavery. Free the owners that's got to be woman. Was all that was going on Senator Joseph Biden you recall had to pull out of the presidential race. He said I'm no longer a candidate and I will

definitely finish high school. Technology will allow. Well with the plagiarism thing with Biden I mean you knew that the speech just sounded kind of familiar in that there was a time months ago when he said that if he got the nomination his running mate would be Lyndon Johnson now I heard that before Jesse Jackson announced the other day I like Jack Jackson probably my favorite cow today so far and I've written some speeches for him and I haven't heard from him but I have. Will all these are poems you know he likes that he's speaks in that very effective rhyming style that has served Mr. Jackson so well for example what Joe Biden pulled out of the race that Jackson could have said to play Joy was another speech I never would condone it in my foot a foot you know it is my own no Yankee were.

Thank God thank you well for example Jack that is not as strident. As he was in 84 as they had been making overtures to business groups in an attempt to recast his image and he might have said that 88 is looking brighter. And I have become a little whiter. Just a thought you want and I have written. A Japanese song it's a very authentic Japanese song and I wrote a couple weeks ago when I read that in Congress they actually are voting voting. Mine do. Whether or not to grant a formal apology to the Japanese-Americans who were interned in detention camps at the outbreak of World War 2. 46 years ago. You know if I was one of the survivors I'd tell them to take their apology and shove it up their caucus. Thank you. My.

Heart says he doesn't believe you said no I don't think anybody cares about my personal life anymore. Only the right Donna Rice and the issues of Playboy and Penthouse I believe I believe Gary Hart when he says that he doesn't have any money and that looks to me like a poverty chastity and they way here we go. Gary quite contrary getting back to what happened last night. Other Democrats moreover that day almost over. Gary Gary quite contrary what purpose does it call it a midlife ambivalence call it let's call it nervous. There are free Martin qualities that Gary is trying to sow patriotism idealism that masochism as well.

Many of us remember how a generation ago when the key to Khrushchev came to the United States and they wouldn't let him go to Disneyland. Well this time around nothing would change. They wouldn't let Gorbachev visit Congress. Well at the state dinner there were very many many many toasts the president quoted Tolstoy and Gorbachev quoted Emerson and if I understood correctly it was Lenin who coined the phrase pursuit of happiness now that's ridiculous. That was either Thomas Jefferson or Joseph Biden. This was the first time that most of us that had a real close look at Gorbachev and his riveting personality I think you could say these He's sort of a smiling zealot. So what you have. Is an atheist Pat Robertson. Now that this is over with a remains to be seen whether or not there will be peace between the superpower Barwell that are they. Why are they going to lose him. I mean.

Thanks.

Thank you I guess you might say that sums it up sort of. For 1987 Happy New Year to you as we wonder what kind of a year 90 in 88 will be. Hey it's an election year. Good night. Thanks. Ha a. YOUNG MAN. Mark Russell comedy special was produced by w ne

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