Happy 45th Birthday to One of America's True Funny Guys, Jon Stewart

by Robert Wilkinson

In the spirit of the writer's strike crippling America's access to fake news, irony and satire, today we do a rewritten rerun of a birthday look at the horoscope of "the most trusted name in fake news," host of The Daily Show, Mr. Jon Stewart. This comedic genius was born on November 28, 1962, in New York City. Many bios list him as born in New Jersey, "the Garden State," also known as the toxic dump capital of the US. While he did live there when young, he never grew up there, and now that I think of it, nowhere else either.

Originally born as Jonathan Stuart Leibowitz, he dropped his last name for all kinds of reasons, though it reverberates to this day through the "Leibo," an award given by his college soccer team to the person who provides the team with the most laughs. And he has actually changed his last name to Stewart, so no, it's not a spelling error.

His chart shows he has both Sun and Moon in Sagittarius, as well as Mercury. This is an instinctive joker whose mind is all over the place usually at the same time, friendly and quick and sharply aware of the absurdities and ironies of life. These usually indicate a master wit and a man who can giggle at opportune as well as inopportune moments. He's not merely of two minds about things - he's of many minds about everything, all at once, whose initial insights mean more than his final ones, despite all the lingering vagueness he has to contend with due to knowing more than he can ever put into words.

He should always hold to his conception of things, except perhaps when he gets insecure around his likes and dislikes. To Jon, all of life is a series of grand experiments in an improvised lab, with explosions and breakthroughs always just around the bend. He's very clever in outwitting his opponents, and is a genuine benefactor of humanity, despite the ongoing circus of perceptual absurdities that parade across his radar screen.

With Venus retrograde in Scorpio conjunct Neptune he can be possessive, insecure, and even secretive, even though he covers it up fairly well with his Mars in flamboyant Leo and his deeply compassionate and intuitive Jupiter in Pisces. This is a man who was once a puppeteer for children with disabilities, a talent he has transferred to the Daily Show, where he continues to be the perfect puppeteer for learning challenged childish politicians who need someone to help them move their hands, feet, and mouths in ways that are healthy for the populace at large. He also has a genius for showing us how puppet-like they are, and hosting those who know that we ARE supposed to "pay attention to the man behind the curtain."

He feels more deeply than he lets on, and wonders why people do or don't like whatever they seem to. Or not. He also knows things he doesn't know how he knows, and has had to master discouragement through the interchanges of spirit and understanding that brought him to a greater sense of himself within whatever groups are lucky enough to get his wry, self-effacing humor.

Saturn in Aquarius shows his detachment will come forth as he attains power and position, and with it in favorable sextile to his Sun and Mercury, his life will get better as he gets older. His challenge is to keep the momentum in his own hands as he continues to find a dramatic form of self-exhibition that enables him to be himself while living his higher purpose. He certainly has found this more through The Daily Show than he ever did as an actor. If you've ever caught his show, you know he knows that. An actor who doesn't take himself seriously is a rare bird indeed!

With Sun square Uranus he's a genius who occasionally explodes sideways, and needs to learn how to allow more cooperation between parts of his life that don't fit well together. Grant Lewi commented about this aspect that "You tend to think you're right and the rest of the world is crazy, which may be right but doesn't make much of a hit with the world." Good that he turned his genius to humor rather than acting, which reminds me of something another genius named Wavy Gravy once said, that "If you don't have a sense of humor it's not funny."

A true progressive, he's had his share of ups and downs and developed his edge at a very young age. He also has never been fooled by the authorities around him, and is like the kid who pointed out that "the emperor has no clothes," which probably made the adults of his life more than a little uncomfortable as they fired him from the mundane world. Humorless political lizards still get bent by his "fake news," (think his interview with John Bolton!) usually closer to the truth than the "real news," which is looking more and more like a surrealistic theater of the absurd, except the stagehands can't strike but the bombs can.

Sometimes Jon gets lost in daydreaming when he should be actively accomplishing something, and procrastinates until he leaps before he looks. He's like a tightrope walker who upon finding himself in the middle of the highwire, applauds the crowd for being brave. There is not much Earth element in his chart, showing he gets ungrounded, but he has a powerful drive that can accomplish great things once he gets oriented. It's all about not exploding sideways or in circles, as I mentioned before.

With a powerful Jupiter opposed to Uranus and Pluto, all T-squared by the Sun and Mercury, he has had to learn good juggling skills so that he doesn't fumble the great truths he glimpses as he finds his way to a greater self assurance in the midst of the turmoil constantly surrounding him. It clearly indicates he needs to move from anticipating things to actual accomplishments, and ignore other people's sense of limitation while he pushes through to his conception of what could be, despite the confusion around him. Sometime he gets lost in side issues and irrelevant controversies, but he has a great talent for persuading others to his conception of things by seeing it through their eyes and then working them back to his view.

He has a powerful creative streak, but the intensity of his feelings have led him down some strange pathways in life. When young, he played some hunches about people based in first impressions which turned out "woefully wrong," due to his attraction to unusual and odd traits in others. Thank heaven he's obviously outgrown that, and now just interviews unusual and odd creatures on his show, as well as lets them do standup commentary on the unusual and odd creatures inhabiting our nation's capitol.

Family issues predominated in 2005, and he went through a major shift in his values, resources, relationships, and ways of being with others in 2006. 2007 has been a "mutant" year for him, with things emerging out of "the great unrealized." In 2006 he cut loose from the known and familiar, and went from introvert to extrovert, from insecure and protective to dramatically out there, taking a new look at his duties and responsibilities, and walked on into a new world of experience.

Saturn opposed his Saturn marked a point of major shift, where he left some things behind and accepted what evolved as a result of the choices he made in 1991-1992. His life has been in a peculiar revolutionary phase, with some things blowing up forever even as he becomes more efficient in moving into new, unknown areas.

Aquarius has been an important sign for him in the past year, and he's found a grand sweetness in the midst of swirling, shifting tides in his outer life. Money and communications have predominated this year, as has the need to feel like he has others close at hand. In 2006 through the first part of 2007 he also rewrote his address book and ended relationships that were more trouble than they're worth, or outlived their time and purpose in his life.

Jupiter on his Venus in 2006 opened him to a deeper and wider reality induced by the women in his life, and he no doubt found some great opportunities with and through women. Overall, 2006-2007 have brought forth things he's never dreamed of before, and while some of it will be intensely difficult, it challenged him to assert the deeper, more subtle aspects of his personality so he could learn to take advantage of chances to mutate and not get jockeyed out of perfectly good opportunities to bounce all over the map.

His progressed Mercury is going retrograde conjunct his natal Saturn, which will bring forth his ability to take advantage of useful but overlooked details to complete others' understanding. He'll begin to develop more non-verbal communication skills, and may wind up hopscotching all over the place before he leads us to where he didn't know he was going to begin with, or where he knew he was going but didn't know how he was going to get there.

Welcome to Mercury retrograde, Jon! We all get to live there sometime in our lives unless we're on Mars, in which case nothing gets done while implosions from the past echo our data in an endless loop of aggravation. 2005 was the beginning, 2006 showed you the rules of the game, and 2007 brought you a ride on a 100 foot tsunami into a greater adventure than you've ever known, thanks to Jupiter on your Sun and Mercury.

2008 is a turning point year that will bring you lots of work and money. Children will be very important to you. If you're going to do theater, call Mel Brooks. Eliminate what is outmoded and renew that which you've neglected. Play with endings, open to the next step of your 12 year process, and take the power while giggling all the way! Happy birthday, Jon. We love you!

© Copyright 2007 Robert Wilkinson

Comments

[dcu]

We sure do miss you Jon. Happy Birthday and please get back on the air soon. I am having withdrawals from not getting my REAL news from you. dcu

[Shelley]

You can say that again, dcu! My husband and I loved to watch Jon at night and get a good chuckle and often a belly laugh at the end of a workday. We miss you, too.

Blessings,
Shelley

[kathy]

Jon (and his writers) is the bomb. I hope he's enjoying his time off, but the whole campaign IS such a joke that we need to have someone engineer the laugh track!

[Robert]

Hi all - Having withdrawal symptoms myself. Not laughing as much, occasionally forgetting the absurdity of the candidates, and watching reruns of The Daily Show and The Addams Family. Not bad, but I need fewer old interviews and more laughs from commentary about Repub (and Dem) windbaggery!