Re: The Mike O'Meara Show
Posted by:
Gallagher for President
()
Date: March 02, 2018 07:31PM
Sallagher Gash! Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> This article is from 2013. Thank God/Allah/Hubbard
> that not only has Gallagher *not* retired, he's
> still going strong. And remains a comedy force to
> be reckoned with.
>
> $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
>
> Gallagher might die tonight.
>
> Did you know he is still alive?
>
> He is. Pretty much. Surprise.
>
> He's scheduled to make one last appearance in the
> Tampa Bay area, the place he thinks of as home,
> the locale that launched him on a
> three-decade-plus comedy career highlighted by 14
> specials on Showtime. He's back home now, and due
> on stage at the Capitol Theater in Clearwater
> tonight, if he makes it. If.
>
> And there's nothing funny about that. The man is
> 66 and says he feels good, but he felt good every
> time he had a heart attack, and he's had four. One
> was so severe doctors put Gallagher in a medically
> induced coma for several days, and when he came
> out he announced he was retiring, hanging up the
> Sledge-O-Matic after one last swing.
>
> These are difficult times for Gallagher, and not
> exclusively due to his bad heart. He says he
> hasn't talked to his little brother, Ron, in 20
> years, not since Gallagher sued Ron for trademark
> infringement for mimicking his act and billing
> himself as Gallagher II. What's more, the media
> have labeled Gallagher a bigot, a racist, a
> homophobe, a crazy uncle, a tea party panderer.
> Lesser comics have fun at his expense. One of the
> most recognizable comedians of the 1980s told a
> radio audience last year that he was broke and
> living in Super 8 motels and scavenging on
> roadsides.
>
> Difficult times for the sad clown, indeed. Unless
> it's all part of the shtick.
>
> Unless Gallagher is trolling America.
>
> • • •
>
> It's Saturday evening, and Gallagher finishes his
> Camel and unzips his bag in the parking lot of the
> Home Depot on N Dale Mabry Highway, where he has
> come to construct a Sledge-O-Matic for the show.
> He makes a new one in every town he visits.
> Sitting atop some clothes and magazines in his bag
> is a bullwhip. It would be freaky even if it
> wasn't Gallagher.
>
> "I'm doing a sitcom and my costume is a
> ringleader," he explains.
>
> He dips into the bag and comes up with a handful
> of magazines, then a plastic cup shaped like a
> boot. He has an idea for how to use it as a prop.
>
> "I get ideas in all different areas," he says,
> excited. "My new idea is for the models in the
> fashion shows to sing about how the outfit makes
> them feel."
>
> Without being asked, he pulls out an iPad-like
> device and shows some of the poetry and songs he's
> been working on. He has written a number about
> clothes, a poem about breasts and a rap about the
> Ten Commandments.
>
> Why?
>
> "For the world," he says, sounding incensed. "I'm
> making it a better place. I'm Gallagher. What the
> f--- do you think I'm doing?"
>
> • • •
>
> Before he was Gallagher, he was Leo, called
> "Butch," born on July 24, 1946, at Fort Bragg,
> N.C., after his father returned from World War II.
> His first years were spent around Cleveland, Ohio,
> and when his folks realized Butch had asthma, they
> shot south and wound up in Tampa, in Palma Ceia.
>
> His dad built a skating rink on Armenia Avenue,
> where Butch got good enough to place in a national
> skating competition. He went to church at Good
> Shepherd Lutheran on Dale Mabry and went on Boy
> Scout expeditions to Lithia Springs. He graduated
> from H.B. Plant High School in 1964.
>
> He enrolled in night school at the University of
> South Florida so he could work during the day. He
> changed his major occasionally to avoid Vietnam,
> and he signed up for the classes where he thought
> he'd find the best looking co-eds. He got popped
> in the late '60s for smoking pot near his dad's
> skating rink.
>
> He left town with a girl for Los Angeles, one
> credit short of a USF degree, and bounced from
> L.A. to Chicago to West Virginia before he wound
> up back in Tampa, trying to become a writer. He
> worked at Lum's Hot Dog Restaurant on Hillsborough
> Avenue and someone told him he was funny.
>
> He had been developing a routine inspired by a
> television infomercial for the Ronco Veg-O-Matic.
> He began to murder fruits and vegetables and
> started doing gigs around town. He opened for
> Bobby Rydell at a hotel in Tampa and got on The
> Mike Douglas Show and started touring with Jim
> Stafford. In the late '70s, he opened 100 shows
> for Kenny Rogers, and in 1980 he made a television
> special called Gallagher: An Uncensored Evening,
> his big break. It was the first time Americans on
> that scale beheld the crazy bald man wielding his
> Sledge-O-Matic.
>
> And lord, how they laughed.
>
> • • •
>
> A few things stand out about Gallagher's inaugural
> television special. First is that it's in a tiny
> night club and nobody brought a raincoat or
> umbrella or riot helmet to guard against flying
> bits of fruit. That would all come later.
>
> Second is that Gallagher's jokes are racially and
> ethnically insensitive, to say the least. He had
> something to say about Mexicans, Poles, Japanese.
> On and on.
>
> "You know why a polack can't eat pickles? He can't
> get his head in the jar."
>
> The audience ate it up. They laughed so hard they
> spilled their beers. And when it was over, they
> gave him a standing ovation.
>
> Fast forward thirty years, to August of 2010, at
> the annual Gathering of the Juggalos, a meet-up
> for fans of the band Insane Clown Posse. There in
> a side tent, the Juggalos sit around on bales of
> hay, and up on stage, standing barefoot on a short
> table, is a paunchy Gallagher. His hair is lighter
> and more stringy, like hay. And he's still doing
> the bit.
>
> He starts by telling them that he knows the
> problem with America. "The problem is I'm not on
> TV anymore," he says, "because they can't handle
> the truth!"
>
> And the truth, he says, launching into a favorite
> routine, is that we're losing our culture because
> we've become okay with crossbreeds — things like
> the spoon-fork (spork) and Escalades with truck
> beds and people who wear socks with sandals. But
> on this night he starts in immediately on
> President Obama.
>
> "How many black dudes do you know from Hawaii?" he
> asks.
>
> There's a little laughter, but it's
> uncomfortable.
>
> "He's half black and half white. He's a latte.
> There's white milk in there. Could be goat milk,"
> Gallagher says. "He could be an Arab terrorist.
> He's got 'bam' in his name."
>
> "Wow," someone in the audience says.
>
> He's losing them, but he keeps going.
>
> "They said, 'Gallagher you can't be on TV, you're
> not sensitive to the needs of the handicapped,' "
> he says. "I said, 'I am too. That's why I use all
> their parking spaces.
>
> "I don't know why they've got to be so close," he
> says. "It ain't like they gotta walk."
>
> He senses the Juggalos' unease.
>
> "You're backing off on me," he says. "You want to
> be politically correct. Just be correct."
>
> He soon slips into a kind of internal monologue.
> He's speaking into the microphone, but it feels
> like he's talking to himself.
>
> "I need wrong to get laughs," Gallagher says. "I
> need a normal world so that I can be abnormal and
> that's my problem. Comedians need prejudice."
>
> Gallagher, by the end, has stopped being funny and
> has become something else, and it seems pretty
> clear that there's not much difference between the
> Gallagher now and the Gallagher of 30 years ago.
> What's different is us.
>
> • • •
>
> Gallagher needs some help cutting plywood for the
> Sledge-O-Matic, and a Home Depot employee seems to
> recognize him but doesn't say anything.
>
> "Are you going to smash something?" the man
> finally asks.
>
> Gallagher smiles.
>
> A few minutes later, the man looks at Gallagher.
>
> "How you feeling?" he asks.
>
> "I don't know," Gallagher says. "I'm 66, and I ran
> it into the ground. I'm going to have them put
> that on my tombstone."
>
> • • •
>
> So this is how it ends: The Last Smash Tour, with
> a show in Clearwater tonight and a schedule that
> ends in August at the Defiance County Fair in
> Hicksville, Ohio. He has to stop on account of his
> heart, even if Gallagher says he's not scared of
> death.
>
> "When your d--- don't work, death doesn't bother
> you," he says.
>
> The problem with this last hurrah is that
> Gallagher still has a lot to say about what we're
> doing wrong.
>
> "You look in your newspaper," he tells me. "Half
> of the stories are about an inability to define.
> Is it a tax or is it a revenue enhancer? . . . I
> say things completely. And this politically
> correct thing, you always have to modify
> everything you're saying so you wind up not saying
> anything."
>
> "Is this the act?" I ask. "Or is it you?"
>
> "I think that's a good question."
>
> He pauses.
>
> "It must be me," he says finally. "It must be me.
> I observe. I'm a scientist."
>
> He studied chemistry at USF. He observes. He has a
> patent — No. 7,972,210 — for an improved slot
> machine. He's meeting with casino people to
> develop it. He's writing music and pitching
> television shows. He ran for governor of
> California. He's a living legend, he says. He
> doesn't need family because his fans are his
> family. He's done 4,000 shows, 12,000 hours on
> stage. He's probably the most famous person to
> come out of Tampa, he says. He's put 35 years into
> show business, smashing fruit all over America,
> and we ate it up, the whole gooey thing, for $25 a
> ticket. Even now, people come. These jokes still
> work. Don't you get it?
> This article is from 2013. Thank God/Allah/Hubbard
> that not only has Gallagher *not* retired, he's
> still going strong. And remains a comedy force to
> be reckoned with.
>
> $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
>
> Gallagher might die tonight.
>
> Did you know he is still alive?
>
> He is. Pretty much. Surprise.
>
> He's scheduled to make one last appearance in the
> Tampa Bay area, the place he thinks of as home,
> the locale that launched him on a
> three-decade-plus comedy career highlighted by 14
> specials on Showtime. He's back home now, and due
> on stage at the Capitol Theater in Clearwater
> tonight, if he makes it. If.
>
> And there's nothing funny about that. The man is
> 66 and says he feels good, but he felt good every
> time he had a heart attack, and he's had four. One
> was so severe doctors put Gallagher in a medically
> induced coma for several days, and when he came
> out he announced he was retiring, hanging up the
> Sledge-O-Matic after one last swing.
>
> These are difficult times for Gallagher, and not
> exclusively due to his bad heart. He says he
> hasn't talked to his little brother, Ron, in 20
> years, not since Gallagher sued Ron for trademark
> infringement for mimicking his act and billing
> himself as Gallagher II. What's more, the media
> have labeled Gallagher a bigot, a racist, a
> homophobe, a crazy uncle, a tea party panderer.
> Lesser comics have fun at his expense. One of the
> most recognizable comedians of the 1980s told a
> radio audience last year that he was broke and
> living in Super 8 motels and scavenging on
> roadsides.
>
> Difficult times for the sad clown, indeed. Unless
> it's all part of the shtick.
>
> Unless Gallagher is trolling America.
>
> • • •
>
> It's Saturday evening, and Gallagher finishes his
> Camel and unzips his bag in the parking lot of the
> Home Depot on N Dale Mabry Highway, where he has
> come to construct a Sledge-O-Matic for the show.
> He makes a new one in every town he visits.
> Sitting atop some clothes and magazines in his bag
> is a bullwhip. It would be freaky even if it
> wasn't Gallagher.
>
> "I'm doing a sitcom and my costume is a
> ringleader," he explains.
>
> He dips into the bag and comes up with a handful
> of magazines, then a plastic cup shaped like a
> boot. He has an idea for how to use it as a prop.
>
> "I get ideas in all different areas," he says,
> excited. "My new idea is for the models in the
> fashion shows to sing about how the outfit makes
> them feel."
>
> Without being asked, he pulls out an iPad-like
> device and shows some of the poetry and songs he's
> been working on. He has written a number about
> clothes, a poem about breasts and a rap about the
> Ten Commandments.
>
> Why?
>
> "For the world," he says, sounding incensed. "I'm
> making it a better place. I'm Gallagher. What the
> f--- do you think I'm doing?"
>
> • • •
>
> Before he was Gallagher, he was Leo, called
> "Butch," born on July 24, 1946, at Fort Bragg,
> N.C., after his father returned from World War II.
> His first years were spent around Cleveland, Ohio,
> and when his folks realized Butch had asthma, they
> shot south and wound up in Tampa, in Palma Ceia.
>
> His dad built a skating rink on Armenia Avenue,
> where Butch got good enough to place in a national
> skating competition. He went to church at Good
> Shepherd Lutheran on Dale Mabry and went on Boy
> Scout expeditions to Lithia Springs. He graduated
> from H.B. Plant High School in 1964.
>
> He enrolled in night school at the University of
> South Florida so he could work during the day. He
> changed his major occasionally to avoid Vietnam,
> and he signed up for the classes where he thought
> he'd find the best looking co-eds. He got popped
> in the late '60s for smoking pot near his dad's
> skating rink.
>
> He left town with a girl for Los Angeles, one
> credit short of a USF degree, and bounced from
> L.A. to Chicago to West Virginia before he wound
> up back in Tampa, trying to become a writer. He
> worked at Lum's Hot Dog Restaurant on Hillsborough
> Avenue and someone told him he was funny.
>
> He had been developing a routine inspired by a
> television infomercial for the Ronco Veg-O-Matic.
> He began to murder fruits and vegetables and
> started doing gigs around town. He opened for
> Bobby Rydell at a hotel in Tampa and got on The
> Mike Douglas Show and started touring with Jim
> Stafford. In the late '70s, he opened 100 shows
> for Kenny Rogers, and in 1980 he made a television
> special called Gallagher: An Uncensored Evening,
> his big break. It was the first time Americans on
> that scale beheld the crazy bald man wielding his
> Sledge-O-Matic.
>
> And lord, how they laughed.
>
> • • •
>
> A few things stand out about Gallagher's inaugural
> television special. First is that it's in a tiny
> night club and nobody brought a raincoat or
> umbrella or riot helmet to guard against flying
> bits of fruit. That would all come later.
>
> Second is that Gallagher's jokes are racially and
> ethnically insensitive, to say the least. He had
> something to say about Mexicans, Poles, Japanese.
> On and on.
>
> "You know why a polack can't eat pickles? He can't
> get his head in the jar."
>
> The audience ate it up. They laughed so hard they
> spilled their beers. And when it was over, they
> gave him a standing ovation.
>
> Fast forward thirty years, to August of 2010, at
> the annual Gathering of the Juggalos, a meet-up
> for fans of the band Insane Clown Posse. There in
> a side tent, the Juggalos sit around on bales of
> hay, and up on stage, standing barefoot on a short
> table, is a paunchy Gallagher. His hair is lighter
> and more stringy, like hay. And he's still doing
> the bit.
>
> He starts by telling them that he knows the
> problem with America. "The problem is I'm not on
> TV anymore," he says, "because they can't handle
> the truth!"
>
> And the truth, he says, launching into a favorite
> routine, is that we're losing our culture because
> we've become okay with crossbreeds — things like
> the spoon-fork (spork) and Escalades with truck
> beds and people who wear socks with sandals. But
> on this night he starts in immediately on
> President Obama.
>
> "How many black dudes do you know from Hawaii?" he
> asks.
>
> There's a little laughter, but it's
> uncomfortable.
>
> "He's half black and half white. He's a latte.
> There's white milk in there. Could be goat milk,"
> Gallagher says. "He could be an Arab terrorist.
> He's got 'bam' in his name."
>
> "Wow," someone in the audience says.
>
> He's losing them, but he keeps going.
>
> "They said, 'Gallagher you can't be on TV, you're
> not sensitive to the needs of the handicapped,' "
> he says. "I said, 'I am too. That's why I use all
> their parking spaces.
>
> "I don't know why they've got to be so close," he
> says. "It ain't like they gotta walk."
>
> He senses the Juggalos' unease.
>
> "You're backing off on me," he says. "You want to
> be politically correct. Just be correct."
>
> He soon slips into a kind of internal monologue.
> He's speaking into the microphone, but it feels
> like he's talking to himself.
>
> "I need wrong to get laughs," Gallagher says. "I
> need a normal world so that I can be abnormal and
> that's my problem. Comedians need prejudice."
>
> Gallagher, by the end, has stopped being funny and
> has become something else, and it seems pretty
> clear that there's not much difference between the
> Gallagher now and the Gallagher of 30 years ago.
> What's different is us.
>
> • • •
>
> Gallagher needs some help cutting plywood for the
> Sledge-O-Matic, and a Home Depot employee seems to
> recognize him but doesn't say anything.
>
> "Are you going to smash something?" the man
> finally asks.
>
> Gallagher smiles.
>
> A few minutes later, the man looks at Gallagher.
>
> "How you feeling?" he asks.
>
> "I don't know," Gallagher says. "I'm 66, and I ran
> it into the ground. I'm going to have them put
> that on my tombstone."
>
> • • •
>
> So this is how it ends: The Last Smash Tour, with
> a show in Clearwater tonight and a schedule that
> ends in August at the Defiance County Fair in
> Hicksville, Ohio. He has to stop on account of his
> heart, even if Gallagher says he's not scared of
> death.
>
> "When your d--- don't work, death doesn't bother
> you," he says.
>
> The problem with this last hurrah is that
> Gallagher still has a lot to say about what we're
> doing wrong.
>
> "You look in your newspaper," he tells me. "Half
> of the stories are about an inability to define.
> Is it a tax or is it a revenue enhancer? . . . I
> say things completely. And this politically
> correct thing, you always have to modify
> everything you're saying so you wind up not saying
> anything."
>
> "Is this the act?" I ask. "Or is it you?"
>
> "I think that's a good question."
>
> He pauses.
>
> "It must be me," he says finally. "It must be me.
> I observe. I'm a scientist."
>
> He studied chemistry at USF. He observes. He has a
> patent — No. 7,972,210 — for an improved slot
> machine. He's meeting with casino people to
> develop it. He's writing music and pitching
> television shows. He ran for governor of
> California. He's a living legend, he says. He
> doesn't need family because his fans are his
> family. He's done 4,000 shows, 12,000 hours on
> stage. He's probably the most famous person to
> come out of Tampa, he says. He's put 35 years into
> show business, smashing fruit all over America,
> and we ate it up, the whole gooey thing, for $25 a
> ticket. Even now, people come. These jokes still
> work. Don't you get it?
> This article is from 2013. Thank God/Allah/Hubbard
> that not only has Gallagher *not* retired, he's
> still going strong. And remains a comedy force to
> be reckoned with.
>
> $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
>
> Gallagher might die tonight.
>
> Did you know he is still alive?
>
> He is. Pretty much. Surprise.
>
> He's scheduled to make one last appearance in the
> Tampa Bay area, the place he thinks of as home,
> the locale that launched him on a
> three-decade-plus comedy career highlighted by 14
> specials on Showtime. He's back home now, and due
> on stage at the Capitol Theater in Clearwater
> tonight, if he makes it. If.
>
> And there's nothing funny about that. The man is
> 66 and says he feels good, but he felt good every
> time he had a heart attack, and he's had four. One
> was so severe doctors put Gallagher in a medically
> induced coma for several days, and when he came
> out he announced he was retiring, hanging up the
> Sledge-O-Matic after one last swing.
>
> These are difficult times for Gallagher, and not
> exclusively due to his bad heart. He says he
> hasn't talked to his little brother, Ron, in 20
> years, not since Gallagher sued Ron for trademark
> infringement for mimicking his act and billing
> himself as Gallagher II. What's more, the media
> have labeled Gallagher a bigot, a racist, a
> homophobe, a crazy uncle, a tea party panderer.
> Lesser comics have fun at his expense. One of the
> most recognizable comedians of the 1980s told a
> radio audience last year that he was broke and
> living in Super 8 motels and scavenging on
> roadsides.
>
> Difficult times for the sad clown, indeed. Unless
> it's all part of the shtick.
>
> Unless Gallagher is trolling America.
>
> • • •
>
> It's Saturday evening, and Gallagher finishes his
> Camel and unzips his bag in the parking lot of the
> Home Depot on N Dale Mabry Highway, where he has
> come to construct a Sledge-O-Matic for the show.
> He makes a new one in every town he visits.
> Sitting atop some clothes and magazines in his bag
> is a bullwhip. It would be freaky even if it
> wasn't Gallagher.
>
> "I'm doing a sitcom and my costume is a
> ringleader," he explains.
>
> He dips into the bag and comes up with a handful
> of magazines, then a plastic cup shaped like a
> boot. He has an idea for how to use it as a prop.
>
> "I get ideas in all different areas," he says,
> excited. "My new idea is for the models in the
> fashion shows to sing about how the outfit makes
> them feel."
>
> Without being asked, he pulls out an iPad-like
> device and shows some of the poetry and songs he's
> been working on. He has written a number about
> clothes, a poem about breasts and a rap about the
> Ten Commandments.
>
> Why?
>
> "For the world," he says, sounding incensed. "I'm
> making it a better place. I'm Gallagher. What the
> f--- do you think I'm doing?"
>
> • • •
>
> Before he was Gallagher, he was Leo, called
> "Butch," born on July 24, 1946, at Fort Bragg,
> N.C., after his father returned from World War II.
> His first years were spent around Cleveland, Ohio,
> and when his folks realized Butch had asthma, they
> shot south and wound up in Tampa, in Palma Ceia.
>
> His dad built a skating rink on Armenia Avenue,
> where Butch got good enough to place in a national
> skating competition. He went to church at Good
> Shepherd Lutheran on Dale Mabry and went on Boy
> Scout expeditions to Lithia Springs. He graduated
> from H.B. Plant High School in 1964.
>
> He enrolled in night school at the University of
> South Florida so he could work during the day. He
> changed his major occasionally to avoid Vietnam,
> and he signed up for the classes where he thought
> he'd find the best looking co-eds. He got popped
> in the late '60s for smoking pot near his dad's
> skating rink.
>
> He left town with a girl for Los Angeles, one
> credit short of a USF degree, and bounced from
> L.A. to Chicago to West Virginia before he wound
> up back in Tampa, trying to become a writer. He
> worked at Lum's Hot Dog Restaurant on Hillsborough
> Avenue and someone told him he was funny.
>
> He had been developing a routine inspired by a
> television infomercial for the Ronco Veg-O-Matic.
> He began to murder fruits and vegetables and
> started doing gigs around town. He opened for
> Bobby Rydell at a hotel in Tampa and got on The
> Mike Douglas Show and started touring with Jim
> Stafford. In the late '70s, he opened 100 shows
> for Kenny Rogers, and in 1980 he made a television
> special called Gallagher: An Uncensored Evening,
> his big break. It was the first time Americans on
> that scale beheld the crazy bald man wielding his
> Sledge-O-Matic.
>
> And lord, how they laughed.
>
> • • •
>
> A few things stand out about Gallagher's inaugural
> television special. First is that it's in a tiny
> night club and nobody brought a raincoat or
> umbrella or riot helmet to guard against flying
> bits of fruit. That would all come later.
>
> Second is that Gallagher's jokes are racially and
> ethnically insensitive, to say the least. He had
> something to say about Mexicans, Poles, Japanese.
> On and on.
>
> "You know why a polack can't eat pickles? He can't
> get his head in the jar."
>
> The audience ate it up. They laughed so hard they
> spilled their beers. And when it was over, they
> gave him a standing ovation.
>
> Fast forward thirty years, to August of 2010, at
> the annual Gathering of the Juggalos, a meet-up
> for fans of the band Insane Clown Posse. There in
> a side tent, the Juggalos sit around on bales of
> hay, and up on stage, standing barefoot on a short
> table, is a paunchy Gallagher. His hair is lighter
> and more stringy, like hay. And he's still doing
> the bit.
>
> He starts by telling them that he knows the
> problem with America. "The problem is I'm not on
> TV anymore," he says, "because they can't handle
> the truth!"
>
> And the truth, he says, launching into a favorite
> routine, is that we're losing our culture because
> we've become okay with crossbreeds — things like
> the spoon-fork (spork) and Escalades with truck
> beds and people who wear socks with sandals. But
> on this night he starts in immediately on
> President Obama.
>
> "How many black dudes do you know from Hawaii?" he
> asks.
>
> There's a little laughter, but it's
> uncomfortable.
>
> "He's half black and half white. He's a latte.
> There's white milk in there. Could be goat milk,"
> Gallagher says. "He could be an Arab terrorist.
> He's got 'bam' in his name."
>
> "Wow," someone in the audience says.
>
> He's losing them, but he keeps going.
>
> "They said, 'Gallagher you can't be on TV, you're
> not sensitive to the needs of the handicapped,' "
> he says. "I said, 'I am too. That's why I use all
> their parking spaces.
>
> "I don't know why they've got to be so close," he
> says. "It ain't like they gotta walk."
>
> He senses the Juggalos' unease.
>
> "You're backing off on me," he says. "You want to
> be politically correct. Just be correct."
>
> He soon slips into a kind of internal monologue.
> He's speaking into the microphone, but it feels
> like he's talking to himself.
>
> "I need wrong to get laughs," Gallagher says. "I
> need a normal world so that I can be abnormal and
> that's my problem. Comedians need prejudice."
>
> Gallagher, by the end, has stopped being funny and
> has become something else, and it seems pretty
> clear that there's not much difference between the
> Gallagher now and the Gallagher of 30 years ago.
> What's different is us.
>
> • • •
>
> Gallagher needs some help cutting plywood for the
> Sledge-O-Matic, and a Home Depot employee seems to
> recognize him but doesn't say anything.
>
> "Are you going to smash something?" the man
> finally asks.
>
> Gallagher smiles.
>
> A few minutes later, the man looks at Gallagher.
>
> "How you feeling?" he asks.
>
> "I don't know," Gallagher says. "I'm 66, and I ran
> it into the ground. I'm going to have them put
> that on my tombstone."
>
> • • •
>
> So this is how it ends: The Last Smash Tour, with
> a show in Clearwater tonight and a schedule that
> ends in August at the Defiance County Fair in
> Hicksville, Ohio. He has to stop on account of his
> heart, even if Gallagher says he's not scared of
> death.
>
> "When your d--- don't work, death doesn't bother
> you," he says.
>
> The problem with this last hurrah is that
> Gallagher still has a lot to say about what we're
> doing wrong.
>
> "You look in your newspaper," he tells me. "Half
> of the stories are about an inability to define.
> Is it a tax or is it a revenue enhancer? . . . I
> say things completely. And this politically
> correct thing, you always have to modify
> everything you're saying so you wind up not saying
> anything."
>
> "Is this the act?" I ask. "Or is it you?"
>
> "I think that's a good question."
>
> He pauses.
>
> "It must be me," he says finally. "It must be me.
> I observe. I'm a scientist."
>
> He studied chemistry at USF. He observes. He has a
> patent — No. 7,972,210 — for an improved slot
> machine. He's meeting with casino people to
> develop it. He's writing music and pitching
> television shows. He ran for governor of
> California. He's a living legend, he says. He
> doesn't need family because his fans are his
> family. He's done 4,000 shows, 12,000 hours on
> stage. He's probably the most famous person to
> come out of Tampa, he says. He's put 35 years into
> show business, smashing fruit all over America,
> and we ate it up, the whole gooey thing, for $25 a
> ticket. Even now, people come. These jokes still
> work. Don't you get it?
> This article is from 2013. Thank God/Allah/Hubbard
> that not only has Gallagher *not* retired, he's
> still going strong. And remains a comedy force to
> be reckoned with.
>
> $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
>
> Gallagher might die tonight.
>
> Did you know he is still alive?
>
> He is. Pretty much. Surprise.
>
> He's scheduled to make one last appearance in the
> Tampa Bay area, the place he thinks of as home,
> the locale that launched him on a
> three-decade-plus comedy career highlighted by 14
> specials on Showtime. He's back home now, and due
> on stage at the Capitol Theater in Clearwater
> tonight, if he makes it. If.
>
> And there's nothing funny about that. The man is
> 66 and says he feels good, but he felt good every
> time he had a heart attack, and he's had four. One
> was so severe doctors put Gallagher in a medically
> induced coma for several days, and when he came
> out he announced he was retiring, hanging up the
> Sledge-O-Matic after one last swing.
>
> These are difficult times for Gallagher, and not
> exclusively due to his bad heart. He says he
> hasn't talked to his little brother, Ron, in 20
> years, not since Gallagher sued Ron for trademark
> infringement for mimicking his act and billing
> himself as Gallagher II. What's more, the media
> have labeled Gallagher a bigot, a racist, a
> homophobe, a crazy uncle, a tea party panderer.
> Lesser comics have fun at his expense. One of the
> most recognizable comedians of the 1980s told a
> radio audience last year that he was broke and
> living in Super 8 motels and scavenging on
> roadsides.
>
> Difficult times for the sad clown, indeed. Unless
> it's all part of the shtick.
>
> Unless Gallagher is trolling America.
>
> • • •
>
> It's Saturday evening, and Gallagher finishes his
> Camel and unzips his bag in the parking lot of the
> Home Depot on N Dale Mabry Highway, where he has
> come to construct a Sledge-O-Matic for the show.
> He makes a new one in every town he visits.
> Sitting atop some clothes and magazines in his bag
> is a bullwhip. It would be freaky even if it
> wasn't Gallagher.
>
> "I'm doing a sitcom and my costume is a
> ringleader," he explains.
>
> He dips into the bag and comes up with a handful
> of magazines, then a plastic cup shaped like a
> boot. He has an idea for how to use it as a prop.
>
> "I get ideas in all different areas," he says,
> excited. "My new idea is for the models in the
> fashion shows to sing about how the outfit makes
> them feel."
>
> Without being asked, he pulls out an iPad-like
> device and shows some of the poetry and songs he's
> been working on. He has written a number about
> clothes, a poem about breasts and a rap about the
> Ten Commandments.
>
> Why?
>
> "For the world," he says, sounding incensed. "I'm
> making it a better place. I'm Gallagher. What the
> f--- do you think I'm doing?"
>
> • • •
>
> Before he was Gallagher, he was Leo, called
> "Butch," born on July 24, 1946, at Fort Bragg,
> N.C., after his father returned from World War II.
> His first years were spent around Cleveland, Ohio,
> and when his folks realized Butch had asthma, they
> shot south and wound up in Tampa, in Palma Ceia.
>
> His dad built a skating rink on Armenia Avenue,
> where Butch got good enough to place in a national
> skating competition. He went to church at Good
> Shepherd Lutheran on Dale Mabry and went on Boy
> Scout expeditions to Lithia Springs. He graduated
> from H.B. Plant High School in 1964.
>
> He enrolled in night school at the University of
> South Florida so he could work during the day. He
> changed his major occasionally to avoid Vietnam,
> and he signed up for the classes where he thought
> he'd find the best looking co-eds. He got popped
> in the late '60s for smoking pot near his dad's
> skating rink.
>
> He left town with a girl for Los Angeles, one
> credit short of a USF degree, and bounced from
> L.A. to Chicago to West Virginia before he wound
> up back in Tampa, trying to become a writer. He
> worked at Lum's Hot Dog Restaurant on Hillsborough
> Avenue and someone told him he was funny.
>
> He had been developing a routine inspired by a
> television infomercial for the Ronco Veg-O-Matic.
> He began to murder fruits and vegetables and
> started doing gigs around town. He opened for
> Bobby Rydell at a hotel in Tampa and got on The
> Mike Douglas Show and started touring with Jim
> Stafford. In the late '70s, he opened 100 shows
> for Kenny Rogers, and in 1980 he made a television
> special called Gallagher: An Uncensored Evening,
> his big break. It was the first time Americans on
> that scale beheld the crazy bald man wielding his
> Sledge-O-Matic.
>
> And lord, how they laughed.
>
> • • •
>
> A few things stand out about Gallagher's inaugural
> television special. First is that it's in a tiny
> night club and nobody brought a raincoat or
> umbrella or riot helmet to guard against flying
> bits of fruit. That would all come later.
>
> Second is that Gallagher's jokes are racially and
> ethnically insensitive, to say the least. He had
> something to say about Mexicans, Poles, Japanese.
> On and on.
>
> "You know why a polack can't eat pickles? He can't
> get his head in the jar."
>
> The audience ate it up. They laughed so hard they
> spilled their beers. And when it was over, they
> gave him a standing ovation.
>
> Fast forward thirty years, to August of 2010, at
> the annual Gathering of the Juggalos, a meet-up
> for fans of the band Insane Clown Posse. There in
> a side tent, the Juggalos sit around on bales of
> hay, and up on stage, standing barefoot on a short
> table, is a paunchy Gallagher. His hair is lighter
> and more stringy, like hay. And he's still doing
> the bit.
>
> He starts by telling them that he knows the
> problem with America. "The problem is I'm not on
> TV anymore," he says, "because they can't handle
> the truth!"
>
> And the truth, he says, launching into a favorite
> routine, is that we're losing our culture because
> we've become okay with crossbreeds — things like
> the spoon-fork (spork) and Escalades with truck
> beds and people who wear socks with sandals. But
> on this night he starts in immediately on
> President Obama.
>
> "How many black dudes do you know from Hawaii?" he
> asks.
>
> There's a little laughter, but it's
> uncomfortable.
>
> "He's half black and half white. He's a latte.
> There's white milk in there. Could be goat milk,"
> Gallagher says. "He could be an Arab terrorist.
> He's got 'bam' in his name."
>
> "Wow," someone in the audience says.
>
> He's losing them, but he keeps going.
>
> "They said, 'Gallagher you can't be on TV, you're
> not sensitive to the needs of the handicapped,' "
> he says. "I said, 'I am too. That's why I use all
> their parking spaces.
>
> "I don't know why they've got to be so close," he
> says. "It ain't like they gotta walk."
>
> He senses the Juggalos' unease.
>
> "You're backing off on me," he says. "You want to
> be politically correct. Just be correct."
>
> He soon slips into a kind of internal monologue.
> He's speaking into the microphone, but it feels
> like he's talking to himself.
>
> "I need wrong to get laughs," Gallagher says. "I
> need a normal world so that I can be abnormal and
> that's my problem. Comedians need prejudice."
>
> Gallagher, by the end, has stopped being funny and
> has become something else, and it seems pretty
> clear that there's not much difference between the
> Gallagher now and the Gallagher of 30 years ago.
> What's different is us.
>
> • • •
>
> Gallagher needs some help cutting plywood for the
> Sledge-O-Matic, and a Home Depot employee seems to
> recognize him but doesn't say anything.
>
> "Are you going to smash something?" the man
> finally asks.
>
> Gallagher smiles.
>
> A few minutes later, the man looks at Gallagher.
>
> "How you feeling?" he asks.
>
> "I don't know," Gallagher says. "I'm 66, and I ran
> it into the ground. I'm going to have them put
> that on my tombstone."
>
> • • •
>
> So this is how it ends: The Last Smash Tour, with
> a show in Clearwater tonight and a schedule that
> ends in August at the Defiance County Fair in
> Hicksville, Ohio. He has to stop on account of his
> heart, even if Gallagher says he's not scared of
> death.
>
> "When your d--- don't work, death doesn't bother
> you," he says.
>
> The problem with this last hurrah is that
> Gallagher still has a lot to say about what we're
> doing wrong.
>
> "You look in your newspaper," he tells me. "Half
> of the stories are about an inability to define.
> Is it a tax or is it a revenue enhancer? . . . I
> say things completely. And this politically
> correct thing, you always have to modify
> everything you're saying so you wind up not saying
> anything."
>
> "Is this the act?" I ask. "Or is it you?"
>
> "I think that's a good question."
>
> He pauses.
>
> "It must be me," he says finally. "It must be me.
> I observe. I'm a scientist."
>
> He studied chemistry at USF. He observes. He has a
> patent — No. 7,972,210 — for an improved slot
> machine. He's meeting with casino people to
> develop it. He's writing music and pitching
> television shows. He ran for governor of
> California. He's a living legend, he says. He
> doesn't need family because his fans are his
> family. He's done 4,000 shows, 12,000 hours on
> stage. He's probably the most famous person to
> come out of Tampa, he says. He's put 35 years into
> show business, smashing fruit all over America,
> and we ate it up, the whole gooey thing, for $25 a
> ticket. Even now, people come. These jokes still
> work. Don't you get it?
word.