Dick Memmons

Dick Memmons publicity photo, 2008

Dick Memmons (born 1949) is an American talk show host, author, and political commentator. He is best known as the host of Suckerpunch with Dick Memmons, a cable news program in which Memmons and a rotating panel of guests discuss politics. Prior to his television debut in 2004, Memmons hosted a radio program called Memmons Today. He is the author of four books about politics, and one memoir.

Memmons is known for his jocular personality and frequent arcane references to little-known films, books, and historical events.

Early Life

Dick Memmons was born in Booklyn, New York, in 1949. His father,  Gabriel Memmons, worked at the South Street Seaport, unloading fish. "Pop always reeked of fish," Memmons recalls in his 2005 memoir Fish From My Father. "For this reason, I never really wanted to spend any time with him or get to know him."

Unable to tolerate the stench, Memmons left home at the age of eighteen, impulsively hopping a train to California to see what fate would bring. He found work in the print room of the Sacramento Poo, where a wizened old political reporter named Argus Vargfashion took him under his wing. "Vargfashion taught me everything about politics and the media," Memmons wrote in his memoir. "If it wasn't for him, I'd probably be a drug addict or a serial killer."

With Vargfashion's assistance, Memmons studied political science, eventually earning a degree from the prestigious While-U-Wait Correspondence School. After graduating, Memmons began making frequent trips to Washington D.C., where he looked for work and, as he put it, "tried to get my hands on some politics." He was eventually hired as an aide to New Jersey Congressman Horatio Pini. "The Congressman always reeked of fish," Memmons later wrote. "For this reason, he reminded me of my father."

Marriage to Cher

In the 1988 presidential primaries, Memmons served as a strategist to Democratic candidate Dick Gephardt. Although Gephardt did not win the nomination, Memmons remembered the campaign as the most exciting time of his life. He recorded his impressions in his first book, Lose a Few, Don't Win Any (1989), which became a bestseller, catapuling Memmons to only moderate obscurity. Television and radio appearances followed, and Memmons began contributing regularly to such publications as Time, The Capitol Letter, and Teen Buns. The success seems to have gone to his head, and in 1991 he entered a dark period, characterized by binge drinking, public displays of rage, and a brief marriage to Cher.

Suckerpunch title graphic 

Rehabilitation, Radio, and Suckerpunch

After emerging from treatment in 1995, Memmons returned home to New York, where he made television and radio appearances, first as a political pundit, and later in support of two books, Govern Like You Mean It (1997) and Red, White, and Dick (1999). In 2000, he was given his own political talk show on a New York City-based radio station; this was nationally syndicated in as Memmons Today starting in 2002.  The show was memorable for Memmons' antagonistic debates with right-wing talkers such as Archie McPatton and Amy Keeler. Memmons Today aired its final episode on September 15, 2004, the day before the television premiere of Suckerpunch.

See also

• Life After Bush
• Suckerpunch with Dick Memmons