During the question and answer session that followed a recent stand-up performance, Jerry Seinfeld was asked by a member of the Cleveland audience if he thought he’d ever do another TV show. His response was typically abrupt: “The thing is: I’m old, I’m rich, and I’m tired. I don’t really need to.”
Had anyone in Saturday’s crowd at Cleveland’s Palace Theater asked Jon Stewart why he still does the occasional stand-up date, the long time host of The Daily Show could be forgiven for questioning himself using the same logic as Seinfeld. As handsomely as he’s paid for his multi-faceted work on the Daily Show and other Comedy Central properties, Stewart certainly doesn’t need the money. At 48, he’s on the fringes of the age when most performers slow down.
Yet, for an hour and forty minutes Saturday night, Stewart showed why he’s willing to make the trip from his home in New York to Midwest outposts like Cleveland, even after a week of taping TDS. Simply, it’s quite clear that the man just enjoys the nature of being on a stage, delivering a live performance. Watching him pace the stage, alternating sides of the room, going off on tangents and actually needing the crowd to remind him where he left off in his material, it becomes easy to wonder how the man ever does a nightly three segment show.
The stage pacing and the broken trains of thought might annoy an audience in some cases. However, Stewart’s relaxed, conversational delivery gives the feeling that he’s addressing a crowd of 10 friends, not 2500 theater patrons. It’s that easy manner that helped him connect with Saturday’s crowd, and hold them throughout the show.
Unsurprisingly, Stewart opened with the type of political banter that has made The Daily Show so successful over the past decade. Even repeating jokes from this week’s shows, where he points out: ‘I’m not a religious man, but I pray, pray that Donald Trump runs for President’, elicits only positive responses from the audience.
From there, he opined on a number of news oriented topics, including religion, gay marriage, and gun violence. He also spent time talking about his children and his experiences with computers, all in a manner that conveyed that aside from his little TV gig, he’s a relatively down to earth guy. At one point in his discussion on computers, he mentions ‘a guy at work’ like you or I would talk about Frank over in accounts payable.
Ultimately, Jon is at his best ruminating on politics and the lunatic fringes on both sides. Using his best Trump voice, which is also, remarkably, every other New York tough guy he impersonates: ‘Ima tell China ‘If you don’t respect the dollar, Ima dip my balls in your mouth. And you will know that they are mine, because they say ‘TRUMP’ on them.’
Throughout the evening, he reminded us that ’80-85% of us are reasonable people who make little compromises throughout the day to get things done. The other 15-20%…run the country.’ His set was reminiscent of last fall’s Rally To Restore Sanity in this way.
As he wrapped up his 100+ minutes, he took time to implore us as Americans and Ohioans to continue to work for reasonable solutions, noting ‘you guys have a sh*tty governor right now, but he’s not bigger than you’.
Before placing the microphone back on the stand one final time, Stewart took a moment to gaze out over the crowd and say ‘I had a good time tonight. Did you guys have fun?’.
Clearly, it’s a rhetorical question. Of course we had fun, Jon, and we should do it again soon.
