What started off as a rush against time, Saturday night turned out to be a great evening – compliments of Artie Lange. “My special lady friend” (a phrase from The Big Lebowski) and I arrived at Foxwoods Casino around 7:30pm. We ended up parking on the complete opposite side of the casino. With a show time of 8pm, we had to hustle through the maze of slot machines, ticket lines to reach the backstage area for a chance to meet the Baby Gorilla himself.
With a security escort to an elevator, we reached the second floor where the entertainer’s suite was located. As we walked into the room, we saw none other than Sal Governale and his wife, Christine, along with comic, Joe Matarese and some other friends of various “connected” people. To my surprise, there really weren’t many people back there before or after the show. We did speak to a very nice guy, my apologies for forgetting your name, the son of Howard’s long time assistant, Laura Lackner.
I walked up to Sal and introduced myself. He complimented me on the old “Leave Artie Alone” video and I took a picture with him. After a few awkward minutes of standing around, Artie came out. Artie was visibly tired. This was his third weekend, in a row, of shows and it clearly had caught up to him. I immediately wondered how the hell was he going to put on a show without collapsing. Scruffy beard and messy hair, Artie looked like the walking dead. He did look liked he lost a couple pounds. We said hello to Artie, shook hands and he went off to talk with other people. Soon after he went back in a private room.
The show had begun and since I wanted to make sure that my friend got a photo with Artie and get her book signed, we decided to stay in the suite. Fortunately, there was a flat-screen television on the wall so we were able to watch the opening acts. Unfortunately, I can’t remember the name of the first comedian and I really couldn’t hear his performance either. Next up was Sal. I wish I had gotten to see his performance from the seats but thankfully the speakers were turned up in the room and we were able to hear him. Sal’s performance was filled with racist jokes, many of which were pretty funny. As Sal finished, Joe Matarese took the stage. I couldn’t tell you how Joe performed because we didn’t get to hear much of Joe’s set. I did see Joe perform at Artie’s show back in 2007 and he was very good.
Finally Artie came back out into the main room. My friend got her picture with him and he was off to the stage to wait for Joe to finish up. We hung around and spoke with Sal for a few minutes. I got to admit, Sal was very nice guy and I am looking forward to seeing him when he returns to Connecticut very soon.
Sal told us that there were some great seats on the side of the stage to watch the show from, so we headed back to the elevator to take us to the stage. Except for the glow of some exit signs and a flat-screen monitor, it was nearly pitch-black back there. I could barely see a damn thing. We saw Artie wandering around with his headphones on. We managed to make our way over to the seats Sal told us about. After tripping over a bag, someone conveniently left on the ground, we realized that these seats really suck. It was cool and all that you are sitting on the side of the stage, but you really can’t take in the entire performance from there. We decided to go to our seats in Row F. As we sat down, the music came on and Artie took the stage.
The crowd roared as Artie came out. Artie quickly jumped right into his set. I realized at that point that Artie clearly is a professional when it comes to the actual show. It wasn’t that long ago that I was questioning Artie’s physical capacity and now here he is completely energized and ready to work the stage. Since I haven’t seen his show since 2007, I would guess the first 20 minutes was “newer” material. The rest of the set was comprised of many old jokes we have heard many times before. There were some new twists on a few of them. Whether the rest of the crowd had realized that or not, they welcomed every line with laughter and cheers. This was quite a change from the show I saw in Poughkeepsie NY, where everyone jerk-off wanted to either randomly heckle or walk down to the stage to give Artie booze or plead for something. The theater at the MGM Grand was really nice and the Stern fans tried to keep it on the up and up. Despite the fans keeping it clean, Artie made sure to bring the raunch. At one point early on in the show, Artie started ripping a few women in the front row, calling them whores and telling them to shut their mouths over and over. It was hilarious. [You can hear the end of that bit in the video I posted] At the end of the show he said that they were friends of his, so I guess it was just an act.
All in all, Artie put on a very entertaining show. Besides the reused material, I thought it was great. As Artie shook some hands in the front row and the crowd still on its feet with applause, we quickly scooted back to the backstage area so we can go up to the suite. We had forgotten earlier to get my picture with Artie and my friend’s book signed so I was intent on doing so.
We hung around for a while upstairs and again, it was kind of awkward. Including us, there were probably on 6 people (?). After ten minutes or so, Artie came out to head to the book signing and we approached him for the autographs and pictures. After that, we followed Artie, JD and a couple other people to the elevator. Realizing that we didn’t know where we were, the only way out was going to just stay with Artie. We all got into the elevator and took it back down to the ground level. We followed Artie through the back hallways and kitchen area of the banquet hallways what seemed like 10 minutes but was probably only 5. [You can watch part of this in my video as well]
We soon came out to the cheers of an eagerly awaiting crowd. Artie went off to his table for the book signing and we took in the moment for a few minutes and left to the casino for food and gambling.
I will get some pictures up in a couple minutes
