CHANNEL THE CHANGE: BARACK OBArmisen

If a Kenyan-Kansan-American president is groundbreaking, a Japanese Venezuelan-German-American impersonator speaks to how thorough a change Obama reflects. A local NY paper sardonically mentions Armisen’s multi-ethnicity as exempting Lorne Michaels from having to hire an African-American guy to play Obama.

To date, Armisen’s Obama is a work-in-progress, often a hit-or-miss affair. Armisen says he “wasn’t thinking about his race. I know it’s a sensitive subject and I do take it seriously, but you know, things move so fast at Saturday Night Live.”

What did you have to work on that was hard? What came naturally?
“What was difficult was the timbre of his voice, that deep baritone which I don’t have, so I have to fake it, and that’s hard. The things that came naturally were just little things, like the word “look” which he says a lot, so I just concentrate on the words I could do. But you know, I’m still working on it. I by no means think I’ve got it down. “The purpose of anything on the show is to make a sketch better; it’s about propelling it forward and being respectful to the writers. I write not one word of the Obama piece…not one word! It’s all them, so I have to honor that and deliver.”

PUNK’S NOT DEAD, PT. 2

Do you find any thresholds in being an effective vessel of other people’s words? Do you ever disagree, or are you just a tabula rasa?
“It’s perfunctory. I really do think of it as work”

So you subjugate your personal will?
“Yes, Yes! Because no one wants any of that injected into it. It’s just like: get through the words, hit your mark get through the sketch.”

But do you think that for someone for whom punk is such a very personal and important philosophy, that you’re capable of divorcing yourself from the from the moral overtones?
“Yeah. Because I try to come from a good place. I’m not making fun of anybody; if anything—and this is gonna sound really corny—I celebrate people. I just wanna do the best versions of people that I can…[he stops midthought]… I could be wrong about that.”

But how do you feel in your off-line self? Do you ever look back at tape and say, “Wow, I really got that person?”
“I can’t look at tapes. I can’t look back at any of that stuff; it really is like water, it’s like a newspaper, and it should be, it should be disposable.”

Newspapers should be disposable?
“Yeah. Dispose of them move on. I can’t watch myself.”

So it ends with the camera.
“Yeah, yeah, done, done. Someone once told me it’s not about what you did, it’s about what you do.”

Yeah, but how do you reckon that with a punk philosophy where you are “the weapon” as it were?
“Because when Devo had their new costumes, they moved on, and when The Clash had a new record they moved on as well—and punk ethics? I don’t believe that punk ethics are specifically DIY.”

Well, the idea is that you are the weapon, no one informs your message other than yourself, and that’s different than being a vessel for writers.
“But you look at any punk band, there was so much going around every band. The Sex Pistols had Malcolm McLaren. The Clash had Bernie..fucken…”

Bernie Rhodes… but what about Fugazi? And The Clash ceased to be standard bearers and The Police have admitted to being punk opportunists who were there at the right time.
“I sill consider that punk. The Police? Totally a punk band; Because of the music they decided to do. I think it’s punk to go against punk. They were like, ‘I know the Damned are out right now doing these really fast songs; were gonna do these tight little reggae songs’ (his hands impersonating Stewart Copeland’s cymbal-finessing) That, to me, is more punk than anything. That to me is like—not wearing the uniform. I consider The Police, full-on, a punk band.

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