The Zen and the Damaged

It is just past 2 AM, and the cheery little WI-FI HOTSPOT! signs around Logan Airport are mocking the fact that I have no laptop with me. (I chose not to bring it, and my bag is so heavy anyway that I am grudgingly glad of my decision. But still.)

From the top...

Jon did a live show at the Wang Center. Its full name is the Wang Center for Cultural Somethingorother. He just opened by saying "...here at the..." Small voice: "...Wang Center." Then, "Seriously, guys, that was the best you could come up with?" Because, as he observed, this is a gorgeous building. Sculptures, paintings, red velvet curtains, flowers and vines and angels and all of it gilded six ways to Sunday. "It's like being in Martha Stewart's vagina."

Show was sold out — due to start at ten — they finally got through seating people at 10:15. (I was in row F, on the first floor, at the very edge. That's like six rows away from Jon. Guh.)

Point is, two people in the first row didn't show. And Jon says, "Why didn't they show up? These are like the best seats in the house, and they couldn't be bothered to show up?" Then he points to a guy sitting slightly farther back — "Take that seat."

The people with the seats do show up, a few minutes later. Jon: "Where were you? We've been worried sick! I didn't wanna start, saying, where's...that man, and that lady?"

Shortly after that, one guy up front leaves, and Jon ad-libs masterfully: "Worst five minutes ever — I thought this was a Styx concert, who's this guy?"

But he's doing his routine throughout all this too. Let me back up.

He opens with, "You know, our pages..." (We're laughing already. But he goes on.) "Our pages, when we hire them, we make it clear — they're going to be sodomized right at the interview. None of this wishy-washy instant messaging about 'being horny together.' No, at the interview, it's, 'You know you're going to be sodomized right now, right? Right in the ear.'"

A couple of latecomers showed up after that. Jon berated them for missing the whole "dick-in-the-page's-ear" bit.

We were treated to live Cheney and Bush impressions. ("My job is to make decisions. I'm a decision-maker. Like we're all sitting there going, 'Make decisions...so you're a what now?'...The President is like the little kid in the back seat pointing out everything he knows. Red car!...Blue car. Blue car!...Sign....Bus!)

My personal favorite insight: "People are always like, 'Oh, the President's so stupid...' No. No — he talks to us like we're stupid."

And if you've heard that before — well, about a third of the material was recycled or reworked from stuff I had seen, either on TDS or in other standup or in that commencement speech he gave or somewhere on the Internets. I'm trying to write down the best of the bits that I haven't heard before. You can find the rest.

Like the gay jokes. Some of the gay stuff is oft-repeated truism: for instance, that gay marriage doesn't make enough difference to deserve being a 'wedge issue'. This was new to me: "The only way I can think of that gay marriage would be a wedge issue is if it were madatory."

And this, new and brilliant: "You know what I think the Army's really afraid of? Four thousand guys with AK-47s going, 'Who'd you just call a faggot?'"

The Stewart '08 campaign was dealt an indirect blow when Jon explained that he didn't want a Jewish president: "People blame the Jews for enough stuff already — they don't need another excuse. First time the stock market goes down, you know what they're gonna say..."

I don't remember how this next topic came up, but apparently a guy was caught in a piñata factory getting it on with a piñata. Jon brings this up — mild ripples through the audience — he stops. "You people took that so well. I say, 'this guy got caught on tape f___ing a piñata,' you go, 'Yeah, and...? When does it start getting weird?'"

I think he'd brought up moderation and rational dialog, because somebody in the audience yells around this point, "Shut up!"

Jon stops. "Was that...Did someone just tell me to shut up?" Nearer audience members confirm it. "I realize I have been kind of monopolizing the conversation here...'I didn't pay money to listen to you yap all night!' Why don't you guys get out your microphones, you talk for a while."

At this point he'd completely lost his original train of thought. A helpful audience member reminded him about the piñatas. "Yeah, I don't know where I was going with that."

New topic: Violence in schools. His plan: teach 15-year-olds that high school ends. "We need to take them on field trips — not to museums and to planetariums...but to 25-year high school reunions."

There was a thread that he kept coming back to about science versus faith, hitting several topics. Saving the earth: "It's not the Earth I'm worried about, it's us. As far as the Earth's concerned, we're a minor case of eczema." Cloning: "We spent billions of dollars to make a sheep that looks like another sheep...Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that the point of sheep?" Intelligent design: "Then what's up with the scrotum? 'Let's take the most sensitive nerve endings and hang them in a little sack outside the body'...That doesn't sound like intelligent design to me. That sounds like a party game."

And then he got into the topic of oppression, and why there are so many minorities in show business: "It's because we don't want to leave...I don't know if you know this, but Jews always have a bag packed. Whenever something goes wrong, people go, '...Did you put black death in the drinking water?' So it's good to have someone to point to who can do this—" And he launches into this little vaudeville dance. So charming.

And the minority that the Jews should team up with ("and...kill Whitey." Silence. "Wrong crowd?"): blacks. "I mean," he says, "look at the situation, look at the history..." Then he caught himself. "Nah, it's not February."

But he went on with it anyway, including advice to white boys: "Don't try to talk black. You have no connection, no reason...you might as well talk like a pirate." Cheering. We were then treated to Jon's pirate impression. Arr, 'twas a fine thing to see.

The topic shifted to technology. "I've been on the Internet," Jon asserts. "It's good for some information and jerking off, and that's pretty much it."

Turns out he has a Mac. (Some cheers from the audience. "Always a few graphic designers in the crowd.") And we got a fairly predictable bit about technology, fast obselescence, freezing computers.

The highlight, though, was an aside: "By the way, is your computer ever happier than when you put a new disc in?" And he illustrated this with his impression of a computer's disc drive spinning up, a tense, vibrating hmmmmmmm! that rose in intensity until breaking off with a gasp. It was a display of sexually-charged electronic anthropomorphism that would've done the Get A Mac 'shippers proud.

His next impression was that of his son, who constantly amazes with his lack of cynicism, with his genuine earnestness. "He sees something he likes — he's gotta dance! We have this book about a tiger at home, and he sees a tiger in a shop window, and he literally goes—" And Jon walks along, mimes noticing something, backs up, and breaks into this adorable little full-body dance.

When he stops and the cheering fades, he confesses, "That winded me." He doesn't do live shows much anymore, so he has less of a sense of his limits. "On TV, they have the makeup, and the lights...People will stop me on the street and say, 'Hey, you're Jon Ste...are you okay?'"

Tracey, we learn, is a veterinary technician; she brings home sick animals ("to keep, although she doesn't tell me they're to keep"), which leads to a long story about a sick dog. Turns out Jon can burp on cue. (He's so talented.)

Something gets him back, for the final time, on the topic of Jews-as-minority: "Look, if the city council has a Christmas tree in the city square, let it go. Don't storm down there and demand they put up a menorah. They're celebrating the birth of their savior. You had some oil last longer than you thought it would. Let it go."

He said good night. There was a standing ovation. He came back on, airplaned a bit (arms out), banked, got back to the mic, and talked a bit more, this time about 9/11.

"After 9/11, I felt...like the world was never going to be in color again. Like we were going to spend the rest of our lives in a French existentialist movie, and every once in a while a little kid with a red balloon would go by..."

But he ended on "we're gonna be okay". And he left, and the lights came on, and we filed out, and I ended up joining a small crowd (about a dozen people) lurking outside the stage door.

We had a couple of false starts — people coming out who were demonstrably not Jon, by virtue of being black or female. We waited. Twenty minutes passed. It was cold.

Then we hear a yell, and realize Jon left through a different door, and so this crowd of people dashes down the block and around the corner. (The Wang Center takes up the whole block. It's a big building. Write your own joke about that.)

So there's Jon, in his charcoal V-neck shirt over something pale blue and khakis, and someone produces a Sharpie, so he signs ticket stubs and a printed copy of a TV Guide cover.

There was much calling of "I love you!" as people left with their autographs, and lots of flashing of cameras and cellphones. I don't think the pictures will turn out well; Jon was too cold/tired to do more than look in the direction of the flashes. (Of course, had I brought my camera, I would've been snapping away with the rest of 'em.)

A spokesman hurried us along, reminding us that it was cold (and Jon without a coat — I had a thick coat and I was cold). I think I was the last one to get an autograph. I'm kicking myself for forgetting a camera, but I'm not-kicking myself because I remembered my brand-new America: The Book (Teacher's Edition).

Also not kicking self because I managed not to lose all control and spout fangirl gibberish (which was a distinct possibility). I: "You're an inspiration. If there's going to be a Moderate Revolution [which he'd mentioned during the routine — "there won't be one, because moderates have s___ to do"] — you're in the best position to lead it."

He: "Why not." Sounded resigned. Or tired. Or cold.

He got into the car; the fans dispersed into the night; I flagged a taxi to Logan, bought a Mountain Dew, and started killing time until my six AM flight. First, by this writing. Now, as it's done — I haven't yet finished America: The Book.

Afterthoughts:

Jon-cornered-after-standup is different from Jon-on-TV-during-TDS. He's less "ethereal spirit of satire" and more "just this guy, y'know?" (The suit makes a difference.) With, in this case, a dash of "I'm far too polite to say so, but I'm tired and cold" thrown in.

We should've given him hugs. For, ah, warmth. Yes, that's right.

He also needs to lose a little weight. But mainly he needed some warmth. And I hope he got a good night's sleep.

Referring to the above-mentioned people who stop him on the street and then ask if he's okay, though, he said: "You can see them talking themselves through it — 'Yeah, you probably didn't get any sleep, and then someone dumped a bucket of mop water on you, and then you didn't dry off at all and came straight out here...'"

And that's kind of what I'm doing. My point is, regardless, it was freakin' freezing out, and Jon Stewart deserves many, many hugs.

That is all.