The other day, Rep. Don Beyer posted a tweet that included the cryptic comment, "There's a horse in the hospital." I'm sure that most people were scratching their heads at such a strange thing to write -- and to put in quotation marks, as if he was quoting someone with that oddity. Me, I gave a shout of joy, because not only did I get the cryptic reference -- but it's to something I've not only been yammering to people about for the past year, but even did so here on these pages. As people here have figured out by now, although I'm not a big fan of stand-up comedy, I absolutely love the work of John Mulanely. And the odd line in question is from his quite-wonderful, highly recommended Netflix special, Kid Gorgeous at Radio City. More specifically, it's from a rare political bit in the show -- Mulanely almost never does political humor -- that's one of my favorite com political routines, period. Indeed, though I couldn't find a clip of it from the special, he did a very short version of it on a talk show (I believe with Stephen Colbert), and I posted it here. So, I gave Rep. Beyer a lot of cred for not only using a John Mulaney reference, but one of my favorites, and with quotation marks, so he didn't take credit for it as his own. And did so without explaining what it meant. He just let, "There's a horse in the hospital" stand on its own. (In full disclosure, the actual line is -- "There's a horse loose in a hospital," though a suspect the character limitation of Twitter may have caused him to drop five precious characters.) Rep. Beyer also gets bonus points because he represents the Virginia 8th district...and it turns out that my oft-mentioned friend Nell Minow lives there. And she speaks very highly of him. And to her credit, she also loves John Mulaney and knows well "There's a horse loose in a hospital." And we have good news. Netflix has actually posted the "Horse in the hospital" routine on You Tube! O huzzah! That's how good it is. They pulled the routine out of the special and highlighted it. By the way, I'm not sure if it's the full routine -- my recollection is that it runs about six minutes, and this video is four minutes -- but that's plenty good enough compare to not having it. Funny aside, what I most admire about the routine is that as political and pointed as it is, and is clearly about Trump...not once does he mention the name "Trump" in it. That's good writing. By the way, if you have Netflix streaming, the full special, Kid Gorgeous at Radio City, remains recommended. But if all you watch from it is this, you're still ahead of the game...
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AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. Feedspot Badge of Honor
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