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Speaker: Al Franken '69
Satirist, author, and U.S. Senatorial candidate
Thursday, January 17, 2008
7:30-8:30 a.m.
Upper School • Library, 2nd floor
Northrop Campus • 511 Kenwood Parkway, Minneapolis
Space is limited. Please RSVP to Heather at hfalsani@blakeschool.org or (952) 988-3445 by January 10.
 Al was born on May 21, 1951. His family moved from New Jersey to Albert Lea, Minnesota when Al was four so that his father, Joe, could open a quilting factory there. When the factory failed two years later, Al, his parents, and his brother Owen moved to St. Louis Park.
Growing up in a middle-class family in a two-bedroom, one-bath house in the second alphabet in St. Louis Park, Al felt like the luckiest kid in the world. And he was lucky enough to get into Harvard, where, after four years at a world-class university, he informed his parents that he wanted to be a comedian. (His brother Owen, after four years at MIT, had decided to become a photojournalist.)
During his freshman year, he met Franni Bryson at a Simmons mixer. They've been married for 32 years, "many of them happy," as Al likes to joke. They have two kids: daughter Thomasin, 26, graduated from Harvard and became a public school teacher in the Bronx; son Joe, 22, graduated from Princeton this spring with a degree in mechanical engineering.
Al's first big break in comedy was landing a spot as one of the original writers for "Saturday Night Live." He went on to win five Emmy Awards for his work on the show. He has also written five New York Times best-sellers, including three #1 best-sellers: Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot and Other Observations, Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right, and The Truth (with jokes). He has also won two Grammy Awards, and has written movies including Stuart Saves His Family and (with co-writer Ron Bass) When A Man Loves A Woman, both of which are recognized as influential films about the family disease of addiction.
In 2004, Al agreed to do a daily radio show on the fledgling Air America Radio network, and for three years, broadcast live for three hours a day, five days a week, on its flagship program, "The Al Franken Show." The show mixed Al's trademark wit with passionate advocacy for progressive causes and a variety of experts on every issue, from Iraq to health care to Social Security.
In late 2005, Al founded a new political committee, Midwest Values PAC, which raised over $1.1 million for Democratic candidates in the last cycle. He and Franni moved back to Minnesota, and during 2006, Al made over 50 appearances in Minnesota on behalf of DFL candidates and local party units.
Al has also taken part in seven USO tours, visiting our troops overseas everywhere from Germany to Bosnia and Kosovo to Uzbekistan. He has visited Iraq, Afghanistan, and Kuwait four times.
Al announced his candidacy for the United States Senate seat currently held by Norm Coleman on his last Air America Radio show on February 14, 2007.
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