Last night, I went to see Conan O’Brien’s “Legally Prohibited From Being Funny On Television” tour at McCaw Hall with Tristan. I wasn’t entirely sure what sort of show I was in for, given the opening act Reggie Watts and his utter lack of anything even slightly resembling humor. From Wikipedia: His shows are mostly improvised and consist of stream of consciousness standup in various shifting personas, mixed with loop pedal-based a cappella compositions. Aka: Wesley Willis Lite, except it’s affectated mental illness, ala Amanda Palmer and her latest ploy for attention, Evelyn Evelyn, and what have we learned about playing false disability for effect? It’s tacky, offensive, and it sucks.
Conan was a welcome funny counterpoint, being introduced onstage by a video showcasing his life after The Tonight Show–overweight with a beard ala ZZ Top, hovering over the phone waiting for a potential job to call, stuffing his face, laying in abject grief on a trampoline, and smearing peanut butter on his toes to encourage the dog to come over. After the video was over, Conan took the stage, and explained the eight stages of grief he went through after losing the show, only ever referred to as ‘the incident you may have heard about’, most notably anger–anger that people like Kim Kardashian, The Ace of Cakes, Snookie, and Criss Angel still have TV shows and he does not. Also notable: the ‘blame everyone else around me’ stage, and ‘buy everything that Amazon thinks I would also like’ stage, though in my opinion, it could have used a ninth stage, the ‘hunt network executives for sport’ stage.
He also spoke warmly of Seattle, referring to it as his home away from home since he swept in like a Viking and stole one of our women, marrying her clad in gore-tex and fleece at St. James Cathedral.
Some old favorites were brought out, changed slightly given that they may now be the intellectual property of NBC–Masturbating Bear turned into Self-Pleasuring Panda (“Endangered–and now we know why!”), Triumph the Insult Comic Dog went unintroduced, and the Walker Texas Ranger Lever was the Chuck Norris Rural Policeman Handle.
Some of Conan’s musical numbers really fell flat, but were saved by Meatloaf’s giant inflatable bat from the ‘Bat Out Of Hell’ tour, Andy Richter’s clever radio-style commercials for local establishments Dicks and the Fremont Troll, and brilliant Tonight Show writer Deon Cole. Oh, and one special guest, you might have heard of him, maybe, even though he’s a local guy–Eddie Vedder. Eddie freaking Vedder. He came onstage with a mandolin and sang a sweet version of “Rise Up”, then switched the mandolin out for a ukelele, cracking that tiny instruments make him appear larger, though Conan the giant shatters that illusion. He then sang what he referred to as his birthday card for Conan, and asked everyone to sing along as it would be “like signing the card”. The song? “Oh Yoko”, with ‘Coco’ substituted for ‘Yoko’. Then Mike McCready came out and he, Eddie, and the Legally Prohibited Band played a thunderous, powerful version of “Baba O’Riley”, Eddie flinging tambourines into the audience, getting them replenished from backstage, and flinging more out. It was AMAZING.
To close, Conan played his version of “I will survive” and “40 days”, ran out into the audience with his guitar, and kept playing standing up on a seat about three rows in front of us. I could have reached out and touched him if the act wouldn’t have been creepy even for me.
All in all, a good show and worth paying to see the man that NBC paid to go away.
NBC can diaf.
Agreed. So can Leno, actually.
Totes. Leno annoys the hell out of me.
“Here, Conan – you can take my show when I leave. ….WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAT? NOOOOOOO my shoowwwwwwwwwwwww [insert whining here]”
Suck it, Leno.
“You can do whatever you want to do when you grow up…unless Jay Leno wants to do it, too.”
hahahahaha – exactly.
I kind of enjoyed Reggie Watts. He was pretty funny in Vancouver.
I’m a bit miffed that we were denied a celebrity guest on his first show here since apparently Seth Rogen showed up for the show the next night.
He wasn’t funny at all last night. It was nonsequitors and cursing. I like swearing as much as the next person, maybe more, probably more, but just swearing does not a joke make.
I enjoyed his music moreso than the comedy bits, but I’m easily impressed by looping technology.
Totally
I didn’t think I was funny at all either. I had to pay a 1000 plus people in the audience to laugh and sing along throughout my show. I’m not making any money because of that!:(
I’m definitely canceling my Comedy Central DVD because of your insight! Yay yay yay:)
Thank you
Love,
Reggie
Watts
Re: Totally
I’m sorry your panties are so tight that you need to personally refute every negative opinion of you on the internet, but good for you for doing what you want and making money at it. You ought to know by this level that you can’t and won’t win over every single person in an enormous audience, and that the Comedy Central seal of approval for you means nothing if Carlos Mencia also gets it. Furthermore, you ought to know that you’re never going to change anyone’s opinion on the internet, and it’s roundly better to ignore your critics than be butthurt by them–you don’t see Jim Carrey coming in here to refute my statement that he’s a dangerous idiot who went to Vagina University and is killing children by encouraging their parents not to vaccinate. You don’t see James Cameron coming in here to refute that Avatar is Blue Titanic in Space. You don’t see Michael Bay coming in here to comment that I’m wrong for thinking he’s an enormous douchebag for remaking Nightmare On Elm Street. Or Billy Corgan. Or Paris Hilton. Or any number of people I’ve taken shots at over the years. The only people who ever, ever say “Hey lady, you’re wrong about me and here is a list of reasons why”, perhaps substituted with “You are Hitler, you cuntbaggy cunty cunthole” are comedians. I wonder why that is?
Re: Totally
I’m also sorry I got suckered into responding, because I don’t honestly believe it’s you; if you’re touring with Conan, your IP shouldn’t be resolving to Seattle right now.
Re: Totally
You are a selfish hateful cunt who is easily fooled. You’re right Sherlock it wasn’t Reggie Watts. I just wanted to see how much passion you have for being a tasteless angry douche bag!
It amazes me how shitty your sense off humor is. It’s like you have a mental illness and this page is a form therapy so that you don’t spiral down into the depression you are trying to escape.
You know nothing of the “internet” and it’s culture so stop trying to speak on its behalf. You are only holding back it’s evolution. Try taking your head out of your ass and contributing something constructive to the world or yourself.
Well I’m off to SF !
Have defending your inadequacies:)
Love,
Conan
Re: Totally
It’s pretty sad that someone has to sign a fake name not once, but twice. Way to be a man, buddy. oooooooooooooooh anonymous commenter, pwease don’t hurt my feeeewings!
And that he’d sign Conan, like he’s funny
I’m sad that he thinks Conan doesn’t know the difference between ‘off’ and ‘of’.
Or the difference between “its” vs. “it’s”, as well as proper usage of commas.
Egad.
I bet it’s Mr. Daddy Like.
There were a couple people who immediately sprung to mind for this bit of idiocy, but neither Mr. Daddy Like nor Mr. Ex Douchebag live in this state, and neither one of them are smart enough to use proxy servers, either. As it turns out, my blog is quite a magnet for idiots as well as freaks.
I wonder if the fact they called you “selfish” is a clue …
Mr. Ex Douchebag is the only person I can think of who has ever bothered to call me selfish to my face, but again, not local. I honestly have no idea. It’s kind of fun, having a secret hater, much more exciting than a secret admirer!
Exciting! Titillating!
I can’t wait until I start getting hate notes stuck to my front door with knives!
…Maybe it’s the delicate emo flower boy I chased off of a date a few years ago who flounced off the internet and said it was allllll my fault. In which case, delicate emo flower boy, you will need to buff up a little as I don’t know that I could be intimidated by your bony girl arms.
Oh, that I could aspire to inspire such slavish devotion and sentiment!
Truly, I am blessed.
Also, I can’t stop laughing that the person (male, presumably) who started calling names pretending to be TWO different people is telling ME to go be constructive with my time. Alanis, is that you?
I am so jealous you guys got Eddie Vedder because we got Dave Matthews and I’m just…not a fan. Also, I couldn’t get fuck shit stack out of my head from Reggie Watts. I don’t know if Deon Cole was using his note cards like the night before when he was “testing jokes” which wasn’t too funny. Also, did Conan do the joke in the beginning comparing the Trailblazers to the Supersonics? That was pretty funny that he didn’t know our basketball team had gone away. I really enjoyed it the most when Conan was on stage.
Yeah, I’m not a fan of Dave Matthews and his donkey-singing, either. Deon Cole brought out the note cards but threw in some good improv when things were shouted at him from the audience–I also found his ‘how to tell when a comic’s joke isn’t working’ bit to be hilarious, just because I have been to sooooo many comedy shows and seen those recoveries used over and over and over again.
There were no Supersonics references last night, I guess he learned from his mistake!
HA HA dave matthews and donkey singing. love it.
It’s true, the man brays!
i’m writing a tool for twitter, and it just told me that conan is getting more new followers than lady gaga.
That’s pretty cool! If this whole tonight show debacle had happened to Conan in years past (pre-internet), fans wouldn’t really have had a way to gather and show support and the end result would have been much more sad, I think.