Neil Hamburger’s absurd reading of Richard Nixon’s resignation speech
Richard Nixon resigned from office 50 years ago. Many of your pundits, eggheads, critics, and other nosebreathers have never tired of kicking Nixon around. But on Independence Day 2002, one citizen had the guts to meet Dick on his own terms, in the arena: America’s $1 Funnyman, Neil Hamburger.
In the Neil Hamburger catalogue, perhaps only his tribute to Princess Diana so touches the heart, and I’m not just talking about the stirring, patriotic strings in the background of ‘Hamburger Remembers Nixon’. No, as few others could, Neil captures the warmth of Nixon’s straight-talking 1952 speech about the joys of dog ownership; the magnanimity of his gracious concession of the 1962 California gubernatorial race to Jerry Brown’s father; the bold vision of his remarks at the ’68 victory party on the relative friendliness of handheld signs.
Hamburger—and the lumpy, sweaty anti-comedian alter ego of Gregg Turkington—is perhaps the least likely candidate to channel Nixon with any dignity. And yet, somehow, that’s exactly what he does. Not through mimicry or satire in the usual sense, but through a kind of low-fidelity séance where cringe-inducing awkwardness becomes a form of tragic realism. Hamburger doesn’t lampoon Nixon so much as exhume him, reading those infamous speeches with a nasal whine and phlegmy cough that feels closer to the internal monologue of a haunted wax statue than any traditional impression.
The effect is somewhere between Andy Kaufman’s lounge-singer stunts and a warped high school civics class gone terribly wrong. It’s funny, yes, but not in the usual way. It’s the kind of bleak absurdity that creeps up on you—why is Neil Hamburger doing this? Who asked for this? And why, despite everything, does it sort of work?
Listening to Hamburger flatly deliver Nixon’s infamous “Checkers” speech or his slurry Watergate farewell is like watching a man try to pull a tuxedo out of a septic tank: filthy, impossible, yet grimly fascinating.
Hamburger also pays tribute to the April 1970 “pitiful helpless giant” TV address, the November 1973 “I’m not a crook” press conference, and the August 1974 “we don’t have a good word for it in English” farewell speech.
Below, courtesy of WFMU’s archives, discover how the ‘Hamburger Remembers Nixon’ seven-inch earned Discogs’ coveted one-star rating, and a place of pride on every American mantel.