A Right-Wing Lenny Bruce

Poor Al Franken. He's foregoing a salary so Air America, the fledgling liberal network that broadcasts his talk show, can stay afloat while it tries to raise cash. The network still broadcasts from one New York station, WLIB, but lost its stations in Chicago and Los Angeles due to financial mismanagement. I don't hold out much hope for Air America because even with comics as hosts, it has no sense of humor. When it comes to politics, conservatives are just funnier than liberals, who take issues much too seriously and political correctness to the nth degree. Still, the idea of conservative standup is a rarity, and when I met Julia Gorin, a conservative comedienne, last month at the Ball for Life, I was intrigued by her choice of profession. What was even more surprising to learn is that there are more where she came from. Ms. Gorin goes on tour with a group of comics called Right Stuff Comedy (seewww.rightstuffcomedy.org). Other members of the group are Chris Warren, who recently entertained the troops in Iraq, Steve Eblin, and Jeff Jena. Eric Peterkovsky, a former writer for "Murphy Brown," formed the group last year. The group deals in all things politically incorrect and is offering John Kerry flip-flops for sale on its Web site. Ms. Gorin's next local appearance will be July 1 at Don't Tell Mama cabaret on West 46th Street. Because New York is not necessarily the breeding ground for conservatives, I first thought that Ms. Gorin was from the Midwest or some other red state. Surprise, surprise, as Gomer Pyle used to say. Ms. Gorin was born in Moscow. Her father, Edward Gorin, a violinist with the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, was expelled as a dissident when she was only a few months old. He had planned to get his family out of the Soviet Union to join him in Israel, but after watching armed guards outside the playgrounds in Jerusalem, he decided that that wasn't how he wanted his children to live. Israel did have not diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union, so he emigrated to America and took a job with the symphony in Baltimore, where Julia spent her childhood. She was 3 when she was reunited with her father, thanks to the intervention of a Democratic Senator, Charles Mathias, who secured their release after meeting with Leonid Brezhnev. Ms. Gorin thinks that if the senator had known how conservative she'd turn out to be, he would have left her in Moscow. She says that about 90% of the original waves of refuseniks in the '70s and '80s were natural Republicans. They had witnessed the results of left-wing policies and rejected them. "The only people who weren't Republican were college professors and welfare recipients," she said. I laughed at this, but Ms. Gorin said, "I'm not kidding." She's also a freelance writer who published a book called "The Buddy Chronicles - Letters from the Left." It's an unedited and uncensored list of the 750 e-mails she received after she wrote an article about the death of the Clintons' Labrador, Buddy, who was run over by a truck in Chappaqua while the Clintons were out of town. The resultant hate e-mails were "beacons of eloquence," she says, tongue firmly in cheek. Her comedy is edgy and thought-provoking and she's been described as a right-wing Lenny Bruce. She usually performs with the group at private corporate functions, and while she usually gets a hearty response from her audience, sometimes they can be programmed to laugh only at safe jokes. She's found that JFK is one of those off-limits targets. There's a thin line between humor and tragedy, and Ms. Gorin pushes that envelope. One joke that usually provokes a laugh is when she notes that the Saudi religious police have determined that the Barbie doll is Jewish. There is now available an Islamic doll Razanne that is modestly dressed in Muslim garb. Ms. Gorin's punchline: "And when she bumps into Jewish Barbie, she explodes." That thigh-slapper was met with loud groans from the corporate executives in McLean,Va., who looked around, nervously paranoid that some reporter might catch them laughing at the joke. We're all very sensitive now, aren't we, not to offend. Mustn't make fun of any particular group. We've forgotten how to laugh and that's a shame because it is humor that distinguishes us from the lesser beasts. Consider what happened when our president had that mountain-bike accident. Senator Kerry was heard to say, "Did the training wheels fall off?" That may have been ill-advised to say in front of reporters, but it was still funny. It showed Mr. Kerry has a sense of humor. But the spinmeisters soon went into gear and said that remark was supposed to be off the record. Mayor Daley of Chicago solemnly scolded Mr. Kerry for his wisecrack. Oh, please! I'll bet even George W. Bush laughed when he heard what Kerry said. Lighten up, Mr. Franken. Your ratings will improve. These are serious times and all the more reason for us to laugh once in a while. So send in the clowns.