Reporter's Notebook: Inside An Al Franken Interview

Interviewing Al Franken is funny. Actually, interviewing Al Franken is funny in a lot of ways.

It's funny because, well, obviously he's a comedian and he says a lot of funny things, you know, tells jokes. In fact, early in my interview with him, Franken asks if I'm taping our conversation. When I tell him I am, he says, "Good. I like to be taped. I'm a comedian. Sometimes when people interview me, they try to write down the jokes and it doesn't work."

It's also funny, in a surreal kind of way, because Franken is someone that I grew up watching on Saturday Night Live. I mean, here's this guy that used to do skits with a satellite dish strapped to his head and now I'm interviewing him about his work on a national radio network.

I have to admit that when I was waiting for Franken to call for our interview, I half-wondered if he'd use one of his signature lines from that era when I answered the phone, "It's me, Al Franken." (He didn't.)

After we exchanged greetings and I explained the purpose for the interview, I asked him my first question, "Are you sitting down?" When he said yes, I quickly said, "Great, because I'd like to be able to write that Al Franken recently sat down with Billboard Radio Monitor's Ken Tucker to talk about blah, blah, blah." After a brief pause, Franken laughed. He got the joke.

Of course, I never actually used that technique when I wrote the story. After all, Franken makes it his mission to seek out inaccuracies in the media. I didn't want him calling my editor to point out that I hadn't actually sat down with him.

Interviewing Franken is funny because he laughs a lot when he's talking. Not an all out belly laugh, but a laugh all the same. After I transcribed our interview, I looked back at it and realized that after most of his answers, Franken laughed. Or chuckled. Or chortled. "Was he really that amused?" I thought. "Or was he laughing at my questions?" While he seemed to be genuinely interested, I took out a few of the 'he chuckles' just to be safe.

It's funny because I've talked to midday jocks in Mississippi that were less approachable than Franken.

When Franken tells me why his engineering student son was a guest on a recent show, that the senior Franken has a theory about why NASA should consider building ladders to satellites that are in geosynchronous orbit so that it's easier to service them, I begin to think he's funny strange, not funny ha-ha. It's an ongoing debate that he and his son are having, he explains, and since I'm not quite sure where to go with that one, I punt. I think he was kidding, but given his dry wit, it's hard to tell.

It's also funny that when I tell my wife I'm interviewing Al Franken, she says, "Was he on Monday Night Football?" I came very close to asking him why she might have thought that.

During the course of my interview with the Air America host, I noticed that he was eating something. After I finished my questions, I asked him what it was. "Popcorn," he answered. "And Pepsi ? Diet Pepsi." "Great." I said, "I can use that in the story," suggesting that I was still entertaining the idea of the faux face-to-face encounter. Another laugh.

As we wrapped up, I thanked Franken for his time. He remembered our opening exchange. "Ken, it was nice to sit down and talk to you," he said. A funny guy, that Al Franken.