I Just Read About That…

[ATTENDED: February 4, 2017] Seth Meyers

I’d always liked Seth Meyers on Weekend Update, but I never thought all that much about him beyond that.  But when he started hosting Late Night, I realized that he was really really funny.  And in the past year or so he has been outstanding.  Whether political or personal, his jokes are usually right on the money.  And, even better, when they fail, he knows how to make fun of himself and his writers perfectly.

So, when I saw that he was going to be doing standup at MPAC, I grabbed tickets pretty quickly.

This event wasn’t on the MPAC main calendar, because it was listed as The Drew Forum Speaker Series.  I had no idea what this was, but I didn’t care, I wanted to see Seth.

When the show started, a woman, presumably from Drew came out and gave a pretty lavish introduction–atypical for a standup.  And she said that other people who have spoken in this series include Jon Oliver and a guy from Fox whose name I won’t mention.  And then I got worried that this was some kind of Q&A panel or something like that.

But it wasn’t.  It was Seth doing standup. But, I have to gripe that his set was really short.  See the end.

But short or not, the set was really funny.  He began by doing a bunch on Trump–and the audience loved it.  I probably could have listened to him do political jokes all night, but he also did some personal jokes as well.

Now, some of the jokes he had told on Late Night–which is kind of a drag since fans of him probably watch his show, right?  But there is something about hearing them live–and his ad libs of course–that made them even funnier.  It was also funny to hear him curse so much–he talks up quite a blue streak when he gets going.

His story of the birth of their child was fun to see live.

And he had a pretty lengthy story about singing take me out to the ball game at a baseball game and how badly that went for him.

He made a funny/bad joke about pedophiles.  The best part of which was at the end when he said, “my wife told me not to tell that joke, and I said, honey I’m, the comedian.”

The end of the set returned to politics, with him repeating the accusation that if it weren’t for him roasting Trump at the 2011 White House Correspondents’ Dinner, that Trump wouldn’t have run.  The whole bit was very funny.  He said that he thought he did so well that he would be the talk of the town on Monday.  But then President Obama caught Osama bin Laden the next day.  And now, Seth knew, he was no longer going to be the main news story.  Pretty funny, but even funnier was what he believes led up to President Obama’s decision to go after Osama bin Laden that night.

I try not to spoil jokes, but this one was so funny I have to reprint.  He was saying how he felt bad for The Chicago Cubs, because their victory was massive and huge and then instantly overshadowed by the unlikely horror show of the election.  But his best joke about this was that Trump’s win was so much bigger than the Cubs because you know that some team is going to win the World Series, but Trump winning the election was like a dolphin winning the Kentucky Derby.

For that joke (and so many more) I can forgive the short set.

I don’t know how long a set from him usually is.  I assume usually 90 minutes for a standup comedian.  Well, the show started at 8 and was over before 9 (and that introduction was pretty long).  So, my guess is we paid about a dollar a minute.

But perhaps that’s the nature of the Drew Forum.  Maybe they are only meant to be an hour.  In which case, I feel the ticket price should be lessened somewhat–I see that other speakers’ ticket prices in the series are cheaper.

On the plus side, the show was over by 9, we’d had a yummy dinner at Inspiration Roll (I would love a franchise closer to us, thank you).  And we were home surprisingly early after having a nice night out with a lot of belly laughs.

Oh and Seth, we need more Burn Zones on your Late Night, they’re our favorite!