Great Night in New York

RUSH: We had a great time last night at the Lion King theater, the New Amsterdam Theater down on Broadway. “Rush on Broadway” is our first such appearance in New York, and I’ll tell you, I fed off the audience last night. The audience was just fabulous last night. I did over two hours of stand-up. A lot of people yesterday were saying, “Hey, Rush, are you going to make a video of this available and give the proceeds to charity?” And I said, “Only if it’s any good.” And a lot of people said, “Well, how can it not be any good?” How can I explain — folks, nothing is automatic. I mean, I don’t just assume that all I gotta do is walk out there and start flapping my gums and it’s going to be good. I mean, I know what my expectations are and what the audience’s expectations are, and, frankly, I’ve been doing this for 18 years and some of them are better than others and there’s been some of them over the course of the years where I said, “Damn it, I could have done better than that,” and I’ve worried about it for two days and tried to get it right the next time. And I don’t prep these things. I’ve tried that over the course of my career. I’ve tried writing them, I’ve try scripting them, I’ve tried outlining them, it’s just too confining. So it just is a matter of whether my fertile brain is fertile, you know, and it really is the luck of the draw.
I can’t predict how I’m going to be on a given day. None of us can. Yes, professionalism, like cream, rises to the top and so forth, and they’re generally good, and this one turned out to be fabulous, and so we are going to make it available on DVD. I gave the go signal last night on my way out of the theater. It was a long day, I had the Hannity interview. I didn’t mind, it’s much better being busy leading up to it rather than sitting back there for an hour or two worrying about it and wondering about it, “Okay what am I going to lead with? What am I going to start with?” I didn’t have time to think about any of that, and the Hannity interview was a good warmup for it. We’ve got audio sound bites from the Hannity interview on the Fox News Channel last night. It was good, enjoyed that. Got to see the commie babe makeup artist from the old television show days. Deborah was there. She hasn’t changed, she’s just beautiful and gorgeous as she always was. And she’s just the same commie babe. I said, “Are you still a commie babe?”
She said, “Yes.”
And I said, “What is it now?”
“The war. Just bring the boys home, Rush, just the war.”
So that gave me an idea for something to talk about, and I was just feeding off practically everything in there. The audience was just fabulous last night and I tell you, I got there early. I had to do a sound check and I walked through the theater and I wanted to see what the stage looked like from the seats, and those Broadway theaters, those seats are sardine small. And I gotta tell you, you people that were there and sat in those seats for two and a half hours — because there was about 20 minutes in front of me — two and a half hours, you are troopers. I mean, they’re small seats for small people. Small seats, people get crammed in there. But it was just a wonderful evening. (interruption) No, there was no press there, no protesters showed up. They knew they would be in hostile territory if they showed up.

Would you show up with 2,000 dittoheads in one place trying to protest it? It didn’t happen. They weren’t outside, they weren’t inside. Nothing like that occurred. The press didn’t show up, either, so it remains the best kept secret in the city last night, but it doesn’t matter. We don’t do these things for the press. We don’t do these things for the critics. I gave the go order on the way out the door. I said to Kraig and Brian, “Okay, let’s go ahead and do the DVD.” Now, I may be speaking out of turn. I mean, we videotaped it and we got it ready to go, but I haven’t gotten the official word we’re going to do it. I gave the official word. Since I’m the head honcho, it ought to be enough. But experience tells me there can always be a little surprise. “Rush, we forgot the videotape. It looked good in the monitors, but we forgot the videotape,” or some piece of equipment didn’t work. So until I get the official word, don’t count on it yet, but it’s as close as it can be. Dawn even liked the Hannity interview. Dawn said, “You know what, your makeup looked good. With that lighting your makeup looked good.” See, that is the trick to doing well on TV, getting good makeup and looking good in the lighting. (interruption) No, she hasn’t yet commented on what I said. Snerdley was telling me how good the interview was, what I said, and Dawn said, “Yeah, and the lighting was really good and your makeup looked good.” So, you know, you always get the truth from people who know how to look at TV and what’s important on TV, and that’s how the makeup is under the lights. I got a lot of e-mail from people who were there last night, and I’d love to share it all with you, but you’d think I lost my head and it’s gotten too big to fit in the studio here. So I’m not going to share, but you people who sent these nice e-mails know who you are, and I appreciate it. But I got this e-mail, and I wanted to share this one with you.
Rush,
I know of no way to distinguish this email from the countless others you must receive daily so that it stands out and receives a full read. I just saw your two hour monologue at the Lion King Theater. It was exactly what I took my son, my wife, and myself to see, but I’m writing this to tell you about a very brave lady that I saw there. She was seated two rows ahead and a little to the left of me, by the seating chart it looks like mezzanine, row dd, seat 114. She was pretty, looked to be about mid – late 20’s, and it showed that she wanted to look good for the show. She was alone. Soon after the show started it became obvious to my wife and myself that she had Tourette’s Syndrome. You may have heard someone from the mezzanine applauding at inappropriate times, that was her. I didn’t. I even gave an in-depth explanation of how a cochlear implant works last night. I even took it off to show people and explain it to people, but I wasn’t aware of any inappropriate applause. There’s no inappropriate applause when I’m on stage. I hear applause and I think it’s quite natural. It didn’t seem inappropriate to me, but let me continue.
A lot of the people around her did not know what was going on, and as the night went on they became increasingly annoyed at her ticks. The annoyance went from shushing, to angry requests to be quiet, to some even chuckling to themselves at her. I knew of no way to let all the people around her know what was going on without causing more of a scene. I noticed that she was sitting trying to control her ticks, holding her hands together tightly. Sometimes it worked, sometimes not. Toward the end of the show the couple next to her got up to leave, one of them made a finger gesture of shooting her as he left. She soon got up to move toward the end of the aisle into the newly empty seats, she must have wanted to give the couple on the other side of her some relief from her distractions. When she got up someone behind her, who thought she was leaving, started clapping, both to say ‘good-riddance’ and to mock her. She sat and stayed to the end of your show. I know that the people around her were frustrated and did not understand the situation, but I’m sure that these could not have been very reaffirming moments for her. I was hoping to catch up with her afterward to ask her how she enjoyed the show and just make small talk to possibly counterbalance some of the other reactions she received. I could not find her after the applause died down. On the way home I thought about her a lot. Here was a lady who truly believes the conservative ideals that we all preach. Here she was with a handicap that would debilitate and dishearten most, and she said: “World be damned, I’m going out tonight.” I only hope that when the time comes to have my body fail on me that I will be able to show such courage and grace. When you came out and someone from the floor threw flowers on the stage you might have heard some yahoo from the mezzanine shout, “Thank you, Rush!” That was me. When you answered the Connecticut question you may have heard another yahoo from the mezzanine shout “Come back to Connecticut!” That was my wife. Neither one of us was the biggest fan you had there that night and we’re huge. I don’t know if it would be appropriate or even ethical to find out who this woman was, but if it were possible to give her some affirmation I would say she earned it. BTW: I was planning on joining 24/7 at Christmas, but joined today so I could send you this. Just another yahoo in the mezzanine.
Rick Poach sent me this. I guess Rick and his wife live in Connecticut. I don’t know who the woman is, and this is the best I can do to acknowledge her and to thank her and to also thank Rick and his wife for understanding what her problem was. So whoever this woman is, if you’re in the audience, understand that some people there understood what was going on and had a great deal of respect and appreciation for the fact that you were even there.
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