Some aspiring politicians find Jesus, but Al
Franken would have you believe he's had a
conversion of his own, from Saturday Night
Live goofball to Deadly Serious Issues Guy.
He swears as much in a long, rambling video
posted to his U.S. Senate campaign's web site.
"I want you to know that nothing means more
to me than making government work better for the
working families of this state," says the wannabe
senator, speaking before a bookshelf crammed full
of undoubtedly important tomes. "And over the
next 20 months, I look forward to proving to you
that I take these issues seriously."
Jay Bevenour
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In his down time, however, Franken is
apparently still quite the class clown. At least that's
according to several of his neighbors in a
downtown Minneapolis luxury high-rise. They say
the Stuart Saves His Family star
exhibits endlessly zany behavior on the treadmill in
the communal workout room.
"He yells, 'Go Al!' and then puts his sweaty
towel in his mouth, shakes his head back and forth,
and growls like a dog," says Lauren Zeller, a 28-
year-old risk consultant. "The cycle repeats: 'Go
Al!,' towel, shake head, growl."
Hilary Cheeley, a health care technology
project manager, says she recently caught him
yelling at the television during a Twins game.
"When someone would strike out or whatnot he
would say, 'Oooh!' or 'C'mon, hit it!'" says Cheeley,
who is 32 and lives in the Grant Park condo
building with her husband. "He was just kind of
chatting up the TV while he was walking on the
treadmill. I swear he was doing it just to get a rise
out of me."
He later put his towel in his mouth, "maybe to
curb his yips and yells," she speculates.
Cheeley had previously introduced herself to
the chubby, ever-smiling Franken. She recognized
him from Saturday Night Live and had
listened to him on his erstwhile Air America Radio
show. Months later, she says, he was extremely
friendly when she "accosted" him in the lobby while
he was walking his black lab, Kirby.
But on a recent Sunday afternoon, Franken
seemed to regress back to his days as an
entertainer.
"He had his earphones on and was singing out
loud," Cheeley says, adding that the two were alone
in the workout room. "I couldn't recognize the
song. It put a big smile on my face and made me
laugh, and I think that was intentional."
Zeller wasn't quite so amused. She
encountered Franken in the workout room once in
April and once in late May or June, she says, and
both times he was decked out in a white t-shirt,
white socks pulled halfway up his calves, and white
tennis shoes. Also on both of those occasions, he
asked her to help him find C-SPAN on one of the
televisions. "He said he watches a lot of C-SPAN
because it's important to stay politically informed,
or something along those lines," Zeller says. He
then began what she describes as a "politician's
run"—a light jog with a whole lot of swinging
elbows—before commencing the "Go Al!"
towel-biting routine.
"It's clear that his activities in the gym are a
performance, like a Saturday Night Live</
em> skit gone wrong or something," she says. "I
think I felt mostly annoyed. When you're the only
other person in the gym, it's hard to ignore. I
actually left early so that I wouldn't have to see the
growling and cheering himself on!"
Over at Al Franken for Senate, communications
director Andy Barr fretted that these reports didn't
sound like the kind of thing that would "make
people take the campaign seriously." Although
allowing that "Al's really into everything he does,
including rooting for the Twins," Barr insisted that
the rest of the behavior wasn't what he expected
from the author of Lies and the Lying Liars
Who Tell Them.
"That doesn't sound like him," Barr said, adding
that he would discuss the matter with Franken and
get back to us. But, he warned, "This is sounding
less and less like the kind of thing we're going to
have anything to say about." Two days later, after
the collapse of I-35W, Barr said, "We've got nothing
for you." Franken had been informed of what the
Grant Park residents had to say, but, "I don't really
think that it's the appropriate time for him to be
commenting on what, with no disrespect intended,
seems like kind of a light-hearted story," Barr
said.
In any case, Franken's oddball behavior seems
well known around the building. Cheeley and Zeller
report that two other residents have also had
strange encounters of the Franken kind, although
neither responded to City Pages' request for
comment. "My friend said a half a year ago or so
that he was down there lifting weights, kind of pep
talking himself, like 'C'mon Al, you can do one
more rep!'" says Cheeley.
Apparently, the odd behavior hasn't bothered
anyone enough to tell the landlord. Building
manager Hamlet Vazquez says he has received no
complaints about Franken's weird workout
behavior. "I've never seen him in [the gym], but that
doesn't mean anything, because I'm in my office
most of the day," Vazquez says.
