On the mic
| AP |
On top of an already busy summer — “The Simpsons Movie,” in which he does several voices, was just released, and he appeared at Live Earth with his old Spinal Tap bandmates — actor/comedian Harry Shearer found time to lampoon Vice President Dick Cheney in a new video.
In “No Cooler for the Scooter,” posted Tuesday on the video content site MyDamnChannel, Shearer’s version of Cheney gives a torch-song tribute to Scooter Libby in a dimly lit lounge, the “Club Secure Undisclosed.”
Sample lyric: “He was the soul of loyalty / Wouldn’t look at a drink / Now it’s the reward of royalty / Scooter’s skating past the clink.”
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Shearer told Yeas & Nays that the site’s founder, Rob Barnett, told him to “do what you want.”
So the actor put Cheney in a smoky lounge. “Cheney’s not a guy who shows his feelings a lot, so he needs a place to do that,” he said.
To sell the impression, he endured 3 1/2 hours of prosthetic makeup and donned a fat suit.
Which must have made it difficult for Shearer … er, Cheney … to recline on the piano at the end of the song.
Shearer said the song came about as he was writing music for his upcoming CD, “Songs Pointed and Pointless.” The disc, which features guest spots from Christopher Guest and Michael McKean, also lampoons Michael Jackson (in “Looking for a Sugar Daddy”), torture (“Waterboardin’ USA”) and energy policy (“Addicted to Oil”).
When we asked, however, he told us that Cheney wasn’t as evil as his voice-over character on “The Simpsons,” Montgomery Burns.
“He embodies qualities of a Cheney and a Bush and a Rumsfeld,” Shearer said. “He’s a composite.”
