Visiting the Fox Hole

When Bill O'Reilly invited me to appear as a guest on his show to weigh in about their premise that the late night comedians were going easy on Obama my first reaction was to decline and I told the producer that I was not a fan. He replied saying: "We get that all the time". I decided to follow the advice of ancient Chinese General Sun-Tzu to "Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer" and possibly catapult my career as a high paid monologue writer out of obscurity. They didn't contact me through my agent, they found me on Facebook.
I now had five days to figure out how not to avoid making a complete fool of myself on national television defending the Late Night Monologue Masters for the way they choose to go light on lampooning our current president. I opened up a blank page in Word on my Macbook Pro, which is having trouble with the "Y" key after I spilled a bottle of Kambucha on the keyboard, and began to formulate my ideas.

At this point I have never met O'Reilly but since I see FOX as a main conspirator in creating the propaganda that lead to the Iraq War I wanted to be sure that the viewers knew right away that I was not brainwashed into their ideology like the brilliant Dennis Miller, who without Fox would have trouble finding a mainstream forum for his obscure referenced rightwing diatribes and would be lucky to even host Monday Night FOOS ball.

I kept in mind that I was going to be a guest on Bill's show and I promised myself I would try to be civil as well as appreciative that he was generous enough to share his popular pulpit with me after he read the recent article in the LA Times about the same topic in which I was quoted as saying: "You have to remember that most comedy writers on these shows are more liberal than conservative, it was much easier to write comedy when the enemy was the target."

What Bill did not know was that the reason I believed there were more liberal writers on the show was because conservatives are interested in inflicting the wounds and creating a custom made target for their jokes whereas most liberal late night writers just hop on the wave of political public opinion and milk the mania. Late night shows are primarily about entertainment and are more apt to hire scribes that are interested in getting laughs than attracting lackeys. Conservative writers are also big on religious references and after the Bush Regime I now think there should be a Separation of Church and stage.

The limo driver arrived at my home in Santa Barbara hours before the show was due to tape because they anticipated gridlock due to the current fires which have directly affected so many of my friends that I felt a sense of guilt that this day was going to be fun and exciting for me. Between the smoke, the helicopters, and my O'Reilly anticipation I got very little sleep the night before. There was no traffic and we arrived at the studio with hours to spare.

True to the image I had of Fox, the studio was still in construction looking like a set on 24 where they would drag someone for interrogation. When I peeked into the room where I would tape the show it became suddenly apparent that I would be sitting in a standard director's chair speaking my lines right into a camera with no image of Bill O'Reilly to react to. Although Bill is expecting a liberal I actually label myself as an "eccentric", one of those crazy people that believe in humanity and I relate much better when there is eye contact. That concern was instantly dispelled when I saw that the chroma-key green screen made the hair on the top of my head seem to vanish on the monitor and there is no way I was going to agree to go on this show pre-scalped. It would have been easy to start creating conspiracy theories about how this was Fox's way of making me off-kilter so Bill could appear fair and balanced but there was no way I was going to take the bait and started to finally worry instead about holding my own against a seasoned curmudgeon.

With minutes to go a producer from the O'Reilly show in New York chimed into my plastic earpiece asking me to straighten my tie. When I explained that I was not wearing one and it was my artsy Robert Graham collar he confirmed and a sexy sounding woman came on telling me that Bill would be on in a second to welcome me. True to their word; "Hi Buddy Winston, this is Bill O'Reilly. How are you?" I told him I was fine and ready to have fun. He laughed, agreed, and the show began.

I was suddenly shot out of a canon. When the segment was over I felt like I survived a tsunami. I never got to the part about everyone giving too much credence to talk show hosts citing that Arlen Specter didn't leave the Republican Party because he couldn't stand the Late Night Monologue Militia. And that Bill was acting like the Republicans are trying to stop Al Franken from taking his seat in the senate not because it will give the Democrats a potentially filibuster proof majority but because he's a comedian.

I didn't get to point out the irony that Obama is black but the Republicans are acting like they're the oppressed minority. There is a growing philosophy in conservative circles that late night comedians are afraid to make fun of Obama because he's black. I wanted to point out that black humor is fine when it's not stereotypical giving as an example: The other night Bill, Ann Coulter appeared on your show and in reference to Colin Powell claimed that the hardest thing in the world was being a black Republican. Like there's some guy in a small hut in Darfur thinking thank God I didn't have that fate.

I also wanted to point out to those that think that Obama may be getting special treatment because he is a President during a national crisis: George Bush was given another term for that reason and then turned his administration into a national crisis.

And to the myriad of conservatives who sent me hate mail after the show claiming that I and Obama are imbeciles and included a list of every stupid thing our President has ever done I assure you that his day in monologue sun will come and all the whining in the world won't make the public ridicule him any sooner. It will probably have the adverse effect. Maybe you'll get lucky and this technology president will look for a female Supreme Court replacement on Match.com.

Thank you Bill O'reilly for actually treating me like a guest and not to be ungrateful but did you ever consider that the O in O'Reilly may stand for Olbermann?

http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/b67edf67c8/words-of-winston

Comments

[JAFO1984]

I found your interview at FOD: http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/b67edf67c8/words-of-winston

[rasputin999]

Seems to me that this guy was taken in by the charm of O'Reilly and brain washed.
Keep away from the bogey man under the stairs.

[TXnative]

what a great article.

[TXnative]

It was a good venture to the other side.

[Raco]

I watched the interview and thought you both came off well. Good interview. Now, if only Olbermann had the balls to interview Dennis Miller on Countdown.

[The Ghost]

Why would he want to BORE his audience to death?

[jordan3189]

He already does that, check the rating's buddy.

[oncethere]

Sounds like you were civil and fair. Unfortunately, there is no good way of dealing with the likes of O'Reilly. The only thing one can do is make himself secure enough to not value in any way the things that O'Reilly says.

[Chalkeater]

The primary point that needs to be made to O'Reilly is that he's in no moral position to lecture anyone about bias because his network is an organ of the Republican Party. Of course once you've said that you've got to be ready to have a Barney Frank style screaming match.

[NewsCorpse]

I saw your segment on O'Reilly yesterday and I couldn't help but notice that he was trying awfully hard to tell you, a professional comedy writer, how to write comedy. Coming from a man whose sense of humor has not progressed from drawing Hitler mustaches on pictures of Janeane Garafalo, I don't think he qualifies as an expert on funny.

Check out this bit of comedy featuring O'Reilly's pal Hannity taking on Garafalo:
http://www.newscorpse.com/ncWP/?p=1263

Should you appear on his show in the future (which I strongly recommend not doing ), you must remember one thing: Never engage in HIS conversation. Get your points across even if they are not responsive to his questions. He will try to dominate the debate and make you look foolish. Don't let him. Just look at all of the great lines you didn't get to deliver because you allowed him to manipulate you.

[oregonbird]

Yeah, we've got the author telling us he's a professional com writer... and no proof that he is. Although appearing on Bill's show would suggest the possibility, especially if he was there to speak up for Jon Stewart, who is actually capable of speaking up for himself.

Then, we get spam. Thanks, And I think it's just great that while you don't think O'Reilly had the background to tell the comedic guest (who was there to supply one half of the commentary on a serious subject... okay) you feel quite competent to tell the author how to handle being a guest on a conservative talk show.

And your qualifications would be... ?? That's what I thought.

You know, the downside quality on this site is just picking up speed. We don't even get the quality of trolls we used to get.