San Francisco Herald However, performing suited his outgoing show together; though it bothered him personality more than drawing did, so he that he didn’t have a recurring character May 2019 eventually joined the Groundlings, the like Dana Carvey’s Church Lady or Jon revered comedy troupe in Hollywood. Lovitz’s The Liar. SanFranciscoHerald.Net His first break came as a recurring character on Paul “Pee Wee Herman” That changed, kind of, when Bill Clinton “Serving Nob Hill and Beyond” Reuben’s TV show “Pee Wee’s was elected president. Though Phil was a fan of Clinton’s policies, Clinton wasn’t XXXXXXXXXX Playhouse.” Phil also helped Reuben write the movie “Pee Wee’s Big a fan of Phil’s lampoons of him. Adventure.” The Society Page While on “Saturday Night Live,” Phil In the summer of 1986, at age 38, he married his third wife, Brynn Omdahl, By Gene Mahoney auditioned to be a cast member on who had done some modeling and aspired to become an actress. (During Russian Hill Upholstery &Décor is still “Saturday Night Live” (you can view the the opening credits of the show’s 1990 – located in Nob Hill, not Russian Hill. audition on YouTube). He got the job – along with Jon Lovitz, Dennis Miller, 91 season, Phil is talking to a blonde XXXXXXXXXX Kevin Nealon, Dana Carvey, Victoria woman whose back is turned to the Jackson, Jan Hooks, and Nora Dunn. camera – that’s her.) It was a sunny day in May, 1998, when I walked by a newspaper stand on Sutter A friend of Phil told him not to marry and Polk to pick up a copy of the Brynn. Another urged him not to allow Examiner – “San Francisco’s Afternoon her to have access to his gun. He didn’t Paper.” follow their advice, and he had a couple of kids with her. Their personalities On the front page was a picture of a clashed – he was naturally laid-back and smiling Phil Hartman of “Saturday Night smoked marijuana, she was naturally Live” fame with the headline: Comic high-strung and snorted cocaine. Hartman Slain. I won’t go into details of the night Brynn The late, great funnyman is examined in shot Phil and then turned the gun on “You Might Remember Me, The Life herself. and Times of Phil Hartman” by Mike Thomas, a book published in 2014 that I “Saturday Night Live” has had many finally got around to reading. talented cast members, but if you had to choose a best one, I’d pick Phil. Though Phil was from Toronto, the fourth of five the book points out two of his flaws: he didn’t write many skits, and couldn’t ad- children. His family moved to Los The show had gone from being great or lib if a cue-card was dropped or some Angeles, where Phil took to the outdoor good in its first four seasons to being other technical difficulty occurred. And lifestyle there – surfing and boating. He mediocre or bad in its later seven. This his nice guy image apparently was was quiet and serious at home, so his twelfth season cast reinvigorated it as limited to his other cast members, not the parents were surprised when his high many people, including yours truly, backstage crew. school voted him “Class Clown.” think the late 1980s were the show’s finest years. Graduating high school in 1966, he The end of the book is moving, describing the funeral for Phil (and attended some community college Phil was the new Dan Aykroyd – the guy Brynn) and a ceremony for the spreading classes, then took jobs in commercial art. who did impressions of celebrities. His of his (and her) ashes. He had considered going into show biz, fellow cast members gave him the but his brother’s futile attempts to make nickname “glue” as his wide performing XXXXXXXXXX it as an actor soured him on the idea. range and easygoing personality held the I was in Walnut Creek last month and Why do you think that millions of people the government, and resources are picked up a copy of a free magazine from all over the world have emigrated allocated to their respective uses by the there called Alive. There was an to the United States and are still trying market, not government or community interesting, pithy article titled “A to get in? Why do you think that another planning. Socialist Revolution in America?” massive caravan is heading for our written by George Kapus. (Read it at southern border? Because until now, The While it is true that the Scandinavian aliveeastbay.com.) United States has been the land of countries provide things like a generous freedom and opportunity. Our system social safety net and universal health Kapus was born in 1942 in Budapest, may not be perfect, but it’s the best in the care, an extensive welfare state is not the Hungary and writes: “I am one of those world today. Don’t let the goo-goo eyed same thing as socialism. What Sanders lucky people who managed to survive Socialists turn our country into a and his supporters confuse as socialism both National Socialism (Nazism) and Socialist nightmare. We don’t need to try is actually social democracy, a system in Soviet Socialism (communism).” He Socialism to figure out that it doesn’t which the government aims to promote points out that under both systems, the work. Millions have already done it for the public welfare through heavy first thing you lost was your right to own us. taxation and spending, within the a gun, and the second was the right to framework of a capitalist economy. This voice your opinions. At this point some of you may be is what the Scandinavians practice. protesting, claiming that the Nazis were Kapus mentions that life in the Soviet fascists, not socialists, and socialism is In response to Americans frequently Eastern Block nation meant that all what they have in the Scandinavian referring to his country as socialist, the private property (including your home) countries. prime minister of Denmark recently was seized by the government. So were remarked in a lecture at Harvard’s all businesses and banks. Public transit I haven’t got time to go into detail with it Kennedy School of Government, “I know stopped running on time. Mail was this issue, but basically: fascism is a that some people in the US associate the censored. If you criticized the political system, the economic system of Nordic model with some sort of government you were shipped off to a the Nationalist Socialist German socialism. Therefore I would like to prison in Siberia. Workers’ Party was socialism. make one thing clear. Denmark is far from a socialist planned economy. Kapus recounts how his aunt and uncle (This doesn’t mean that if you’re a Denmark is a market economy.” lived in a big house with their three Bernie Sanders supporting millennial children until the town’s mayor kicked who wants to play video games - while I know this must depress a lot of folk them out and moved some party other people work to support your “free” singers and sensitive poets out there, but members there. The members sold all the college education and health insurance - the Scandinavian countries are… valuables in the house. His mother’s that you’re a Nazi.) gasp!… capitalist. They just spend a lot restaurant was taken over by the state, on social programs. And they can spend too. a lot on social programs because they don’t spend much on their militaries. A newspaper reporter his father knew decided not to escape but stay, in the And the reason they don’t spend much interest of journalism, to report on the on their militaries is because we spend a rise of communism. His publisher lot on ours. ### warned him to stop focusing on what wasn’t working and what was. After he The San Francisco Herald is published monthly by Gene Mahoney. All contents wrote a book about what was happening ©2019 by Gene Mahoney (except work not titled “Beyond the Stalin Line,” he was done by Mr. Mahoney as artists retain the arrested by the Soviets, sentenced to copyright to their own work). The characters death, and spent fifteen years in a and situations in Good Clean Fun comics are Siberian forced-labor camp. fictitious; any similarity to persons living, Also, Bernie Sanders and Alexandria dead, or in hiding is purely coincidental. Kapus briefly describes how thousands Ocasio-Cortez may think that Though well-known people and places of Cubans have tried to escape Fidel Scandinavia is socialist, but it’s not. As appear it’s a work of fiction and the usual Castro’s Marxist prison island and, more Corey Iacono points out in “The Myth of rules apply. None of these events ever took recently, Venezuelans have attempted to Scandinavian Socialism” at fee.org: place. The Mr. Fabulous stories are complete flee the socialist regime of Nicolas fiction. Herald logo by James Dylan. Ads do Maduro. In the Scandinavian countries, like all not appear in online version. other developed nations, the means of Contact: Gene Mahoney, P.O. Box 843, Notes Kapus: production are primarily owned by Redwood City, CA 94064 private individuals, not the community or Herald Archives: 2002 about Cobain and his thinking, I fantasy that I wanted to play out. Plus, respect him more, too. He actually had I still had most of my hair back then, so No Apologies: the brains and balls to do what most of the sky was the limit.