Political Song and Dance – and Humor – with The Capitol Steps

Amy and I enjoyed a hilarious political revue by The Capitol Steps comedy song and dance troupe ("We put the ‘mock’ in Democracy’") at The Paramount Theatre in Seattle last night with our friends Dave and Lisa. Among the entertaining songs – and insightful (and inciteful) prologues – included in last night’s show were:

• Ebony and Ivory [Ebony and Ivory (Stevie Wonder & Paul McCartney)], envisioning a Democratic "dream team" of Senators and U.S. Democratic presidential candidates Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton
• Superdelegates [Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious (Mary Poppins)], a satirical look at the Democratic superdelegates (and the party’s more ordinary delegates)
• Leader like Barack [Leader of the Pack (The Shangri-Las)], a glowing affirmation – one even might say "devotional" – sung by an [impersonated] Obama fan … not entirely unlike my own affirmation of inspiration from Obama’s speech on transracialism
• When I’m 84 [sung to the tune of When I’m 64 (The Beatles)], a riff on Senator and presumptive Republican presidential candidate John McCain‘s age
• Relying on 9/11 [Stairway to Heaven (Led Zeppelin)], a retrospective revue – accompanied by a "generic rock star" – of the single issue platform of former mayor and Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani
• Huckabee [Let it Be (The Beatles)], a religiously righteous tongue-in-cheek proposal for the Republican vice presidential nomination of former governor and presidential candidate Mike Huckabee
• Tap Three Times [Knock Three Times (Tony Orlando and Dawn)], about Senator Larry Craig‘s indiscretion in the men’s room at the Minneapolis – St. Paul International airport (BTW, Keith Olbermann – one of my heroes – revealed a humorous streak I had not seen before in a Dragnet-style re-enactment of Senator Craig’s bathroom scene)
• How Do You Solve a Problem Like Korea? [How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria? (Sound of Music)], a funny look of some of the not-so-funny issues revolving around Korean President Kim Il-Sung and his country’s recent emergence as a nuclear power
• Keep Us Alive [Stayin’ Alive (Bee Gees)], a humorous reminder of the ages of the four remaining liberal members of the U.S. Supreme Court (Stephens, 88, Souter, 68, Ginsberg, 75, and Breyer, 69) … and of an important, though rarely discussed, issue at stake in the current presidential election

There is a Capitol Steps YouTube channel
where videos of some of their performances can be watched as well as
listened to. They even have a MySpace page with some additional songs. And, of course, one can buy Capitol Steps CDs.

One of the actors did a fabulous parody of U.S. President George W. Bush; my favorite quote was the president’s purported motto: "uncertain times call for uncertain leadership". I laughed the hardest and longest during the "Lirty Dies":

Lirty Dies are what you get when you mix your basic national scandal with word-initialization-rejuxtaposition closely following the underlying precepts of harmony, alliteration and innuendo.

Lirty Dies follows a great political tradition:
We’re not quite sure what we’re saying; you’re
not quite sure what you’re
hearing.

Some might say they are merely
spoonerisms taken to ludicrous heights.

We think this is sad.
Something comes over people when they learn

Whip their
Flurds..or..
Spew
up their
Screech….

These are people who can:

Flo with the
Go…with
Mealthy
Hinds
and
Lappy
Hives…

People who….umm….

Follow their
Hearts
(We’ll let you do that one)

The lirty dies targets in last night’s show included Haris Pilton, Gush vs. Bore and Cloger Remens.

Another segment I enjoyed was during Juan Nation, a satirical piece on U.S.-Mexico immigration and border issues that initially made me uncomfortable. An actor impersonating Mexican President Felipe Calderon spoke of how he would do as U.S. president, "As you know, I would do twice the work for half the pay; the downside is that I’d have 19 of my cousins living in the Oval Office, but on the upside, the rose garden would look immaculate". My discomfort yielded to loud laughter when another actor, playing a redneck, came out on stage with one of my favorite lines: "I’m with the insane border patrol group better known as The Minutemen, and my dirt-poor ancestors did not flee Europe so we could let in a bunch of immigrants!"

I think I was uncomfortable because when I looked around the theater just before the show started, I saw only one African-American – and no Mexican-Americans – in the audience of several hundred. I was reminded of the discomfort I felt when I noticed that all but one family of 3 among the 700 people attending a Christopher Paolini talk on his Eragon book tour on Mercer Island in September 2005 were white (though the age demographics was very different than the audience at The Capitol Steps’ performance). All but one of the 39 members of The Capitol Steps – and all of the 5 members (3 men, 2 women) who performed in Seattle last night – are white. Although they did seem to focus more of their satire on Hilary Clinton than Barack Obama, they were willing to raise the race issue in the lyrics for Leader like Barack (sung to the tune of the Shangri-Las’ Leader of the Pack), with a lead singer and two background singers (whose lyrics are in italics below).

I’m glad I’ve found someone to embrace (brace, brace)
My friends say he cannot win the race (I can’t believe your friends would talk about his race)
Is Barack black? Not very. He’s not like Whoopi Goldberg, more like Halle Berry.
I hope some day, it’s President Barack.

In any case, I suppose it should not come as a surprise that there is a racial divide in media (books, music, comedy). I know that the few times I’ve channel surfed to television stations geared towards people of other races (e.g., Black Entertainment Television), I don’t find it very entertaining. But, of course, I don’t find the vast majority of mass media – especially on television – very entertaining or engaging.

I did, however, find The Capitol Steps very entertaining – I don’t think I’ve laughed so hard since the last time I saw them, 8 years ago, at The Northshore Center for the Performing Arts (in Skokie, Illinois), with our friends Andy and Rebecca. That was during another U.S. presidential election – one in which the outcome proved to be disastrous – so it was nice to inject some much-needed humor into the process … and I hope I won’t need quite so much comedy salve to compensate for the outcome of the current election. Recent stories about a misguided "gas tax holiday" proposal (and its reflection of a "global warming holiday" for erstwhile environmentalists) and an older story from 1995 about Senator McCain claiming that cable networks are less biased than PBS and "superior in some cases" (!) have heightened my concerns that the ongoing and increasingly bitter fight between the two Democratic presidential candidates will lead to a situation in which much humor will be required during the next four years.