God spoke to me

I have to admit, I have always been a little scared of Al Franken. After all, this is a man who my hero Bill O'Reilly diagnosed as having "serious emotional problems." So when we started talking about having Laughing Liberally, Screening Liberally, and Drinking Liberally host a post-screening happy hour, I was understandably nervous. But then, God-- the only man I trust more than Bill O'Reilly-- spoke and told me that the collaboration seemed a good fit-- that the film and our organizations had similar missions. The tagline of the film, Taking back America one laugh at a time, kinda sorta has something in common with Laughing Liberally's motto, "Saving democracy one laugh at a time." God also told me he had my back in case Franken tried to smote me or anything.

So, On Friday September 15th, with fear in my heart, I attended a sold out screening followed by a Q & A. I was too frightened to go alone, so I was flanked by my body guards, Drinking Liberally's Matt O'Neill, and Screening Liberally's Wendy Cohen and Leigh Wollinsky.


The film was fun and inspiring, and Al seemed pretty emotionally stable. I thought his deranged behavior must have been edited out of the film, but he was equally normal during the Q&A, which was great, although I wish Bill O'Reilly, Anne Coulter, and Sean Hannity had attended to provide some fairness and balance. (Obvi, Staurt Smalley would have been there to moderate if things got ugle.)


Audience members were obviously moved by the film: One woman described her "visceral reactions" to certain characters on the screen. My entire row shook in anguish as scenes brought back the repressed memory of thinking we were really going redefeat Bush in 2004. An American citizen of Iraqi descent told a story about being locked in a plane bathroom because he wasn't blond-haired and blue-eyed enough for the flight. (He was let out of the bathroom when he proved his patriotism by cursing in fluent American English.)

Asked "what can we do?" Al urged the audience to check out Tim Walz, who is running for congress. During a touching moment of bipartisanship and empathy, Al explained Bush's stance on the treatment of detainees: "We just gotta be able to torture people."



After the Q&A, we moseyed over to the IFC bar for the happy hour. It was a typical liberal shindig, where we plotted to overthrow the state, burned flags, married gays, drank soy organic lattes, ate sushi and read the New York Times. Audience members, people from Drinking, Laughing, and Screening Liberally, and people from organizations like The College Democrats of New York enjoyed chatting with each other and talking with Al, Nick Doob, Chris Hegedes and Frazer Pennebaker. They all "got pinned" with Drinking Liberally buttons. (We don't have Screening or Laughing Liberally buttons yet, but we know we're in their hearts.)

Even in person, Al seemed really normal and down to earth and I finally began to doubt O'Reilly's medical diagnosis (he's usually so on target!)


Let's keep our fingers crossed that Al runs for the Senate so that we can take back America one seat at a time. And so we can see Bill O'Reilly spontaneously combust.