Harry Shearer lends his voice to characters and causes
By LEVI PULKKINEN
P-I REPORTER

You might know Harry Shearer as the zucchini-smuggling bassist from "This Is Spinal Tap."

COMING UP
HARRY SHEARER

WHAT: Renaissance comedian

WHERE: The Moore Theatre

WHEN: 8 p.m. Friday

TICKETS: $25-$50 through Ticketmaster, 206-628-0888

ADDITIONAL APPEARANCE: The Elliott Bay Book Co., 101 S. Main St., Saturday at 7:30 pm, reading from his novel "Not Enough Indians"
Maybe you caught him in "For Your Consideration" or "A Mighty Wind" -- a pair of mockumentaries written by Christopher Guest and Eugene Levy.

Or there's the "Saturday Night Live" skits (he played an uncanny President Reagan), his supporting turns in blockbusters such as "The Right Stuff" and "The Truman Show," or his childhood appearances on "The Jack Benny Program." Hell, he even showed up on "Wayne's World 2."

These are the roles that helped make Shearer's career. But, for many of you, there's a single word that's made Shearer famous -- "excellent."

Are your fingers tented? Eyes menacing? Shoulders riding a little high?

Did you hold on to that "x," hissing your way into the rest of the word?

That's Shearer you're imitating. He's the man behind C. Montgomery Burns, the scoundrel of Springfield and Homer Simpson's boss.

In the 18 years since "The Simpsons" began, Shearer has given voice to at least 41 denizens of Springfield. He's Principal Skinner and Rev. Lovejoy. He's Otto the bus driver, Ned Flanders and Bill Cosby-esque Dr. Hibbert.

"It's fun. Basically, long before 'The Simpsons' was a hit, it was satisfying for me because it was an opportunity to do multiple voices," Shearer said. "And that's what I like to do."

Shearer's larger longing, though, is to entertain, and he does so with rare range.

The animated work hides his physicality, which is one of his great gifts. He can effortlessly slide into whacked-out roles using his affable eyes and elastic face to transform himself. Where wig and wardrobe would turn "Spinal Tap's" Derek Smalls or "A Mighty Wind's" Mark Shubb into half-alive caricatures, Shearer's earnestness grounds the characters and keeps them endearingly human. He has made his mark playing pathetic personae and filling them with sadly comic warmth -- recall his turn in "Wayne's World 2" as Handsome Dan, the skinny, badly balding radioman.

This spring at a London theater, Shearer plans to train his talents on one of the 20th century's great tragic figures, J. Edgar Hoover.

The production -- "J. Edgar! The Musical" -- has been an off-and-on project for Shearer and writing partner Tom Leopold for nearly a decade. Shearer said he has been intrigued by the challenge of finding humor in the story of the hard-boiled cross-dresser who headed the FBI.

"He's a funny character -- a homophobic homosexual," Shearer said. "He was the center of an awful lot of the craziness that was 20th-century America."

Shearer, 63, will be at the Moore Theatre on Friday showcasing his varied talents. The evening starts at 8 with Shearer offering his take on politics and pop culture. He rounds out the performance with what he calls a "show business flourish."

For Shearer, the show is a chance to connect with his fans.

"I love the immediacy of talking with an audience," he said. "Every time you do that, you're sort of calibrating your performance based on how they respond."


From Hitchcock to Harvard

Born in Los Angeles, Shearer got an early start in Hollywood. After the Jack Benny show, he appeared on "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" as a teen, then became an editor at a college humor magazine while completing a political science degree at UCLA.

After an abortive stint at Harvard, he was hired to cover the Watts riots as a freelancer for Newsweek. Shearer later joined a satirical news team at an L.A. radio station.

Shearer already had joined the cast of "Saturday Night Live" when, in 1984, the faux rock documentary "This Is Spinal Tap" cemented his place in popular culture.

Recently, Shearer has sought other outlets for his satirical silliness.

In 2006, he released his first novel, "Not Enough Indians," the tongue-in-cheek tale of residents of a bankrupt small town who decide to form a tribe. Writing the novel, he said, fulfilled a dream -- one shared by anyone who has considered himself a writer.

Shearer followed the book this year with the album "Songs Pointed & Pointless," his third collection of music. Many of the songs -- which are sometimes witty, sometimes biting -- had their genesis on his syndicated National Public Radio program, "Le Show" (which plays at 3 p.m. Sundays on KXOT-FM 91.7 in Tacoma. His work also appears online at mydamnchannel.com.).

"The songs all sort of have their first life on my radio show, which was sort of a demo version of them," he said. "It's something that's kind of fallen out of fashion, which is comedy songs that aren't parody."

One song -- "Waterboardin' U.S.A." -- pushes satire, setting lyrics about the infamous torture technique to a Beach Boys-style tune.

"It's a pleasure so rare, seeing captives gulp air," sings Shearer, sporting a leathery tan and a floral-print shirt for the song's video (available at mydamnchannel.com). "Let's go waterboardin' U.S.A."

Shearer said he wrote the song after hearing bland denials from the U.S. government about the treatment of Guantanamo prisoners.

"Spinal Tap" alums Guest and Michael McKean join Shearer on the album, as does his wife, Welsh singer Judith Owen, and several musicians from New Orleans, the couple's adopted home.


Big Easy before and after

For 11 years, Shearer has been splitting his time between Los Angeles and New Orleans. He said he's still struggling to find the humor in Hurricane Katrina.

He's written about it, and he's talked about it in his shows. But, he said, most Americans don't know enough about the disaster to get the joke.

Asked about the hurricane, Shearer is quick to point out that failures of preparation and engineering -- particularly the ill-designed floodways and levees -- caused the city to flood. Rebuilding, he said, is happening, but it's painful work.

"I love that city deeply," Shearer said. "Anybody who has any kind of resources is working their ass off. It's a city of bootstraps wherever you look."


THE MANY FACESOF HARRY SHEARER

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/lifestyle/335882_shearer18.html


MORE ON J EDGAR HOOVER IS AVAILABLE HERE
http://www.transgenderzone.com/features/jedgarhoover.htm

_________________
Man [...] must count no one but himself; that he is alone, abandoned on earth in the midst of his infinite responsibilities, without help, with no other aim than the one he sets himself, with no other destiny than the one he forges for himself on this earth." (Jean Paul Sartre, 1943)