Al Franken in Asheville

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http://www.citizen-times.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051201/NEWS01/51130062/1001

Talk show host wows big crowd

by Paul Clark, STAFF WRITER
published December 1, 2005 6:00 am

ASHEVILLE — Al Franken should have felt right at home Wednesday at Thomas Wolfe Auditorium.

Doing his popular “The Al Franken Show” national radio show live in Asheville, Franken entertained an adoring crowd with shots at President Bush, his advisers and his administration’s policy toward the war in Iraq.

Franken, author of the book “Rush Limbaugh Is A Big Fat Idiot and Other Observations” and a former writer for the TV show “Saturday Night Live,” sat at a makeshift desk onstage. The audience, which seats about 2,300 people, was about two-thirds full when the show began at noon.

After the second commercial break, in which a recording of Neil Young’s “Rockin’ in the Free World” was played to the Asheville audience, Franken brought out his first guest — mayor-elect Terry Bellamy. After greeting her with a hug, Franken sat her down at the table. A large, dim screen beside them televised their motions to audience members in the back of the house.

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