Area Man’s Comedy Routine
Shows Up on CNN ‘I-Report’
By David L. Steinhardt

It was the morning of the New Hampshire Primary, a day after I'd called Dick Drysdale looking for a job. (He didn't have one.)

One of the advantages of unemployment, however, is that it gives creative folks, such as writers like myself, time to create. And so, lying in bed with no newspaper or magazine to report for on such a historic day, I wrote some comedy.

For the last ten years, since covering the Just for Laughs festival in Montreal for the Herald, I've been performing comedy, starting at the monthly Ripton Coffeehouse and continuing at countless open mics on NYC's Lower East Side.

CNN had asked for jokes of the sort performed by late-night talk-show hosts, so I performed my routine into a little digital camera I bought several years ago, and sent it in to their "I-Report" segment.

This was the routine:

"Bill O'Reilly has said he shoved an Obama staffer because he 'had to', 'to defend the Constitution' and a free press.

"And I have to say I agree with him. Just the other day, I was talking on my cell phone at the library when the most adorable little girl asked me for the time. I stuffed a sock in her mouth. I had to! To defend my Constitutional right to free speech.

"Mitt Romney says he's fine with taking second place in both Iowa and New Hampshire. He looks so very nearly lifelike, doesn't he?

"Just like Hillary, who's been seen tearing up. All I can say is that if I hadn't divorced Bill over Monica and feared I wouldn't win the presidency anyway, I'd be hysterical!

"John Edwards didn't help Hillary any when she tried to enlist his help attacking Obama, and Edwards sided with him. I guess Edwards is going for the world record in running for Vice President.

"Like Bill Richardson, who has shaken over 13,000 hands, which, ironically, is more than the total number of votes he's received.

"And then there's Rudy Giuliani, who said he's happy with his plan of skipping both Iowa and New Hampshire, because after 9/11 . . . and then someone stuck a sock in his mouth. Because somebody had to."

The next day, a CNN producer emailed me and left a phone message. I called her back and she said my routine was the favorite of her staff. She interviewed me, and the next evening my report was on CNN.com. I'll have to do a Nexus search eventually to learn if it was televised as well.

I'm still unemployed, but at least now I can add "CNN I-Reporter" to my resume!