2017 offers comic feast for Lizz Winstead's annual show: Franken, Louis CK

There is always a lot of laughter when I hang with my friend Lizz Winstead, the satirist.

Years before she became co-creator of Comedy Central's "The Daily Show," I got a good taste of Winstead's humor. She was in an HBO special called "Women of the Night," which also introduced me to the biting humor of Joy Behar.

So while I savor how pointed Winstead is, I also know her satire isn't gloomy.

The same apparently cannot be said of questions I sent via e-mail ahead of her annual hometown year-in-review shows at the Cedar Cultural Center. There are three performances of "Lizz Winstead in 2017: The Greatest Sh*t Show On Earth" — Saturday at 2 and 7:30 p.m. and Sunday at 7:30 p.m.

Winstead informed me that my first batch of questions were "really dark," so that got fixed. You'll notice she managed to give some hysterical answers to the "dark" questions, too.

Q: Was Louis CK's behavior an open secret in the satirical circles in which you hang in NYC?

A: Yep. And in other circles. You could say he was a jerk in circles ...

A: How unoriginal.

Q: If soon-to-be-former Sen. Al Franken's tongue came out of his mouth while rehearsing with Leeann Tweeden, before he was elected, that's just wrong. But that photo of Franken pretending to put his hands on her breasts just struck me as a comedian being silly. What was your reaction?

A: First off, I really like Al. I, like so many who know and like him, have complex feelings about this. My reaction comes from a little different place, as a woman in comedy who is continuously called a buzzkill or an angry feminist when I speak up about a joke in a writers' room if I think it might not fly. When I looked at that picture I said to myself, "I'll bet there was not a woman in that room to say, 'Whoa, that is a creepy idea. Tell me why you think simulating touching a woman without her permission is funny?' " If more women were in comedy writers' rooms, boardrooms, and oh, every other room where decisions are made, and when in those rooms, our opinions were valued and considered, maybe a lot of these bad ideas that come up could be talked about and organic teaching moments could happen.

Q: Do you believe all the women?

A: Yep. Unless you are including Sarah Huckabee Sanders' press conferences. Then no.

A: Roy Moore's honesty showcased what white supremacy looks like, and worse, that it is acceptable behavior for many Americans, and worse, for many so-called Christians. Black women kept his ass out of office. Black women should be running everything. In fact, making that happen would be a very good resolution for 2018.

Q: Feminism was the word of the year. How do you feel about that?

A: I feel like we should all use it as much as possible until it gets banned.

Q: On Fox 9 I recently proposed the idea of Oprah arranging for Charlie Rose and Matt Lauer to do hard-hitting multipart interviews with each other on OWN. What would you like to learn if such monumental interviews occurred?

A: I would never watch that. In fact, we should quit getting hawt [read "hot"] takes from sexual predators about other sexual predators. We don't need to talk to the Gilbert Gropes of the world, THEY need to listen to women who experience this and learn why their behavior is so disgusting. Everyone does.

A: The pope revealed he saw a shrink for a few years. The pope! Once I heard that, it made my daddy issues seem like nothing!

Q: What do you expect to find out when/if results of Trump's presidential medical exam are fully revealed?

A: He has a decomposing Big Mac where his heart should be.