There’s an interview with Gallagher posted last week at the Onion’s AV Club. Maybe you’ve read it already. It’s astonishing. Look, I know Gallagher’s an easy target. I know the watermelon-smashing thing is easy to make fun of. But this interview… it’s just… I’m speechless. The rainbow-suspendered standup comedian comes across as the most bitter, grouchy old man on the planet. The AV Club even posted some audio clips, which include the hapless interviewer nervously mumbling “mm-hms” throughout the exchange. Here, I’ll provide a couple quotes for you (out of context, because it’s fun):
Gallagher hates water:
You can actually take a drink now during your show! You know, George Burns performed smoking a cigar, and never needed a drink of water on a stool. But now this has become a tradition in America. They more or less have a stool ready for you and ask, “What water ya want?” To me, as a visual artist, everything that’s in the picture should have meaning—what does a stool and a bottle of water mean?… I can’t get through the show without hydrating? How is that funny?
Gallagher hates insurance:
My insurance was actually canceled at one point because someone sued me saying that they had been hurt seriously by a candy bar in the balcony. Somehow a candy bar I hit with a tennis racket so the people on the balcony could have candy? Said that she was injured in her eye, and the insurance company decided not to fight her case and pay it off and canceled me! She was 130 feet away.
Gallagher hates dogs? WTF?
Dogs are given to the pound, and the pound kills them. So if, I forget his name, if [Michael Vick] had worked for the pound, he wouldn’t have been put in jail.
Read the whole unhinged rant here. Gallagher is coming to Oregon twice in the coming months (January 22 Grants Pass and March 12 at Kah-Nee-Ta High Desert Resort Casino in Warm Springs). In the meantime, if this interview is too depressing for you, here is an actual funny comedian to make you feel better.
LISTEN:
Eugene Mirman – “Vancouver, Detroit, and Bears!” (from God Is a Twelve-Year-Old Boy with Asperger’s)
Don’t forget that Gallagher performed on 11/28/09 at The Aladdin. Dude must love him some Oregon.
Yeah that was a fun interview to read. Who knew, eh?
I’m a little ashamed to admit that I was hoping to see a question about Gallagher selling his act to look-a-likes since the early 1980’s. When I didn’t, I wondered where I got that idea from. I’ve since figured out that was the concept for a Chapelle’s Show skit (“Black Gallagher”), and that it apparently doesn’t have any basis in reality. I’m not ordinarily prone to mistaking a setup from a comedy show for reality, so that was a little surprising.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chapp…
UPDATE: I am apparently NOT stupid:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Gallagher…
Glad to have both of those things cleared up. Never mind, internet! Carry on, Graham-Bo.
Some friends of mine saw him in Astoria a couple months ago. They summed him up as, “racist.” He also yelled at “hecklers” (crowd members who yelled out… with words of encouragement) a couple times, which made everyone in the crowd sorta uncomfortable.
THIS JUST IN: GALLAGHER – GENIUS?
He’s a pretty canny operator to establish for himself a whole new level to be mocked upon.
Is this Carrot Top?
So, how many performers have been enticed by the regular work in Vegas, only to turn into this?
And we’re so proud of their urban development and planning, that we’ve made their Senate rep our Senate leader.