Paul Gilmartin is Representin'
By Danny Gallagher
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When Bill Clinton left the White House after two terms of scandal and controversy, a nation of comics mourned the loss of their muse.

"Clinton was better to comedians than any other President in the 20th century," Conan O'Brien wrote in an essay for Time Magazine just after Clinton's second term ended. "Most Presidents give you one good hook -- Ford fell off airplanes, Reagan made a movie with a chimp, Carter owned a peanut farm. But Clinton was wildly generous to the comedic mind."

Then in the midst of their grief, a new punching bag emerged -- George W. Bush.

"It's shooting fish in a barrel with this administration," said comedian Paul Gilmartin, a Chicago native who performed as a stand-up comic and sketch actor and hosted TBS's Dinner and a Movie. "As soon as I finish writing jokes about one topic, there's something else. For a comedian, it's been five years of Christmas."

But Gilmartin wasn't just satisfied with cracking jokes and performing rants on Bush's fear of gay marriage, love of unborn fetuses and inability to digest pretzels. He wanted to take it to another level.

"I looked around on stage and in 2003, myself and a lot of other comedians were bitching about the Bush administration and I thought I could do something that's a little different and I thought why don't I become the guy?" Gilmartin said. "Not necessarily Bush, but someone who loves the guy and never questions his authority."

Now he performs part of his shows as Richard Martin, a former U.S. Representative from Ohio who puts the "right" in "righteous." He describes Martin as an "Oh, what the heck, 1950s kind of guy" who believes strong, Republican ideals will keep terrorism, economic uncertainty and liberals from destroying America's gated communities.

"I kind of started making fun of that type of person in my act," Gilmartin said. "I would run around on stage like one of those 1950s basketball players, just so stiff-looking with tube socks up their thighs and I'd do one of them sitting at halftime smoking a pipe. That character was very over the top and cartoony, but I've always marveled at the super stiff dorky white guy that doesn't know he's that guy -- and maybe my fear deep down is I'm that guy. I certainly feel that way when I'm around a bunch of cool black guys."

Gilmartin first performed the character less than two years ago at an open mike show on the advice of comedian Lisa Kushell, one of Gilmartin's former Dinner and a Movie co-hosts and a close friend.

"She said that I should do an open mike because I was talking about wanting to do this character, and I'm not the guy at all," he said. "I struggled to come up with this character, but I could picture this guy and I wanted to do something a little more risky."

So Gilmartin wrote up some bits, decked himself out in the appropriate attire (a clean pressed pastel dress shirt, gold cufflinks and khakis) and signed his name on the performance list.

"I'm sitting in this bar waiting for my turn and no one was listening to the comics," Gilmartin said. "I thought, 'What the fuck am I doing?' and I'm getting up to leave and a little voice in my head said, 'Just go up and try it.' So they introduced me, and it just got really quiet, and it must have been because I looked different from the other comedians and people started asking this character questions and clapping and hollering and just getting into it. That was all the proof I needed that I was touching some kind of nerve with the way the country was headed. People were really fucking fed up."

From there, Gilmartin started expanding the character. According to his bio on www.askarepublican.com, Martin served as the CEO of Ohio Petroleum and Synthetics before being elected to the House in 1998. He said he helped bring the stock to record heights until "based on the advice of my wife, my kids and the FBI, I knew it was time to go." Martin admitted to secretly dumping chemicals in the Ohio river during his tenure with the company, but claims he was merely "contributing" to help raise water levels during a drought and at the time, "I didn't want to call attention to my patriotism."

Gilmartin said the character is still evolving with his audiences and in his mind.

"It's changing all the time," Gilmartin said. "He's definitely got a kid, he's got a wife, probably got a drinking problem. He's fucking hookers or has a drinking problem or something because all those guys have some kind of skeleton."

Gilmartin uses Martin to interact with audiences, taking questions on everything from Hillary Clinton to Hurricane Katrina. Some answers are written ahead of time. Others are improvised on the spot.

"Some of the questions I'll plant if I have something written that I want to get to, but some of the material has been created out of improv," Gilmartin said. "I love it when people ask me real questions. I love it when people get upset at my character too. I've had people fucking hate the character, and I don't know if they don't think it's fake or if they're conservatives."

Some of Martin's biggest fans are conservative.

"I know a lot of conservatives like it and get it because the Bush administration is not what true conservatives are about," Gilmartin said. "My Dad was a total fiscal conservative and he voted for (John) Kerry..I have a cousin who's a state attorney in Illinois who's a Republican and he loves it, so Republicans have a good sense of humor."

For the most part, audiences have understood the joke but there is the occasional exception, he said.

"I did a set in Caroline's in New York real early on -- I'd only been doing the character for a month or two -- and somebody said, 'Why do you suck?' and I think I said something about, 'Sir I appreciate your aggression. We ought to get you in a military uniform and take advantage of that,'" Gilmartin said. "Then somebody said, 'You're the worst comedian I've ever seen,' and I think I said something like, 'When you get home and pull out the dictionary, look up the word satire,' and the crowd applauded. There's always that risk when you go to places that aren't guaranteed liberal."

Gilmartin said part of the trick to making the act work is by believing that what he is saying is what he truly believes, even if he is a self-described liberal.

"I try to react in the moment and whatever they give me, I try to give it back to them in the moment," Gilmartin said. "But I definitely don't lose my temper -- and it sounds cheesy, but I believe so much in what I'm saying that I really don't give a shit if they don't get it because 51 percent of them really won't care what I'm doing."

And even though he is lampooning the right-wing mindset, Gilmartin said he uses Martin as a weapon who takes shots at both sides of the political spectrum.

"When somebody's asking about the NSA thing, I'll say, 'When the dirty bomb comes, you can waddle over to the phone and dial the ACLU,'" Gilmartin said. "I'm looking to make fun of both sides of this.

"The joke that gets the biggest laugh -- and probably because there's some truth to it -- is the question, 'Why do we give tax breaks to big oil?,' and I'll say, 'Because my car doesn't run on poor people.' I think it's because at its heart, that is what Republicans are all about. Yeah, there's a meanness there, but there's also an ugly truth to the fact that we live in a world with iPods and Hummers and 17,000 square foot homes. Some of that's possible because the CIA overthrew Chilean President Salvador Allende in 1973 to keep the copper and tin mines open. The CIA overthrew Iran in 1953 to keep oil flowing and keep it out of Russian hands."

Some of that cold, hard truth has changed how Gilmartin chooses his targets and chews over the issues, especially since 9/11. Gilmartin said he used to have a section on his personal website called ‘Tragedy Plus Time’ that tracked how long it took for jokes to surface after certain tragedies occurred, but he said he put it out of commission indefinitely after 9/11.

"When I was younger, I didn't really care about what target I took on, and I think I've kind of been a little more conscious of that nowadays," Gilmartin said. "That's one of the reasons I took 'Tragedy Plus Time' down."

Gilmartin said he's not exactly sure of Martin's future, but he wants to keep playing around with the character on stage by letting him do things other than just answering questions. But he's pretty sure a big Democratic win at the polls won't put him out on the street with Bill Frist and Rick Santorum in November.

"If these Democrats take back control of Congress, I suppose [Martin] will be bitching from the sidelines… and if the country gets back on track and people won't want to hear what he has to say, fine with me," Gilmartin said. "I like the character but he's kind of my picket sign to keep me from going crazy and it's fun to do at the same time."

Danny Gallagher is a freelance writer, humorist and reporter living in Texas where people think "Bob Roberts" is real. His website is www.dannygallagher.net.