Weeks of waiting and anticipation came to a head last night.
Kates and I saw Frank Caliendo. Live. In Concert. At the splendid Riverside Theater in Milwaukee.
Any review I write would hardly do the justice of seeing his live show, so I’m going to kill myself putting a lot of thought into this post. I’ve never found it easy to give a full synopsis on a standup routine, because the jokes never come out the way they were told in the first place.
I will tell you Caliendo’s Bush impersonation was impeccable; it was every bit as good as I had hoped it would be. It seemed as though he spent more than half the show doing our fearless -- ?? -- leader. Caliendo poked fun at Bush’s facial expressions, like the constant smirk that he has on his face, or the face he makes when he enters a press conference looking as though he just heard a dirty joke backstage and wants to share it with the audience. Or the way Bush adds “ify” or “ificate” to words in an attempt to sound smarter (“We have to thinkificate hard about our strategy in Iraq”). And when Bush is trying to emphasize a point, he’ll bob his head -- like a turkey. As though he should be adding a “gobble, gobble” at the end of his sentences …
Caliendo touched briefly on vice president Cheney (comparing him to The Penguin) before transitioning into Bill Clinton impressions … “Bill Clinton could be standing up here right now and say anything, and we’d believe him,” Caliendo said. Then, switching into Clinton’s gravely voice and raising the signature thumbs-up, he says, “I am not here right now.”
Caliendo did Yoda. He did Al Pacino (which I didn't think was very good ...). He did Andy Rooney. He did Jeff Goldblum. He did Jay Leno.
But, of course, 99.9 percent of the audience was there to see him do his infamous John Madden impressions.
It seemed as though we’d already been watching him for hours when Caliendo finally said, “Well I’ve decided to not do any more John Madden impressions …” To which the crowd responded with a loud “awwwwwww …” To which Caliendo responded by acting as if his body was being shot up with a shotgun. HA-larious … And out came the Madden impressions.
As usual, Caliendo’s Madden routine was built around Madden’s supposed obsession with Brett Favre -- a notion that was even more entertaining considering Caliendo was performing to a Wisconsin audience -- and Madden’s knack for saying things that either don’t make any sense or are blatantly obvious (“If the quarterback throws the ball, and the receiver catches it in the end zone, it’s going to be a touchdown!”)
And before you know it, Caliendo is weaving all of his impressions together in laugh-til-you-cry conversations between Bush, Clinton, Madden and whoever else enters the room in his mind.
Admittedly, Caliendo did appear to be running out of material toward the end of the show, and the crowd seemed to be getting restless (… At one point, I envisioned a Michael Richards scenario unfolding as some audience members annoyingly yelled out impressions and garbled requests. But to Caliendo’s credit he reacted with patience and wit, at one point responding to a fan -- in his Madden character -- “There’s a guy that needs to let me do the rest of my show!” … ) Whether that was by design or not, we won’t know, but it also made for one of the funniest moments of the night as Caliendo suddenly stopped and sighed, “I’m tired.“ Then he layed down on the stage and, after a few moments of silence and staring at the ceiling, he raised his arm, still lying flat on his back, and began making hand puppets in the spotlights. And moments later he turned it into a Muppets impression, using his hand as Kermit the Frog singing “Rainbow Connection.” Again, HA-larious.
Finally, Caliendo ended with his comical impression of Robin Williams in “The Wizard of Oz.” Kates and I had seen it before on his Letterman gigs, but it didn’t fail in bringing a smile to our face again …
Check out these Frank Caliendo performances ...
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Since we went to an early show, Kates and I caught a dinner afterward at The Chancery (Caesar salad, steak, homemade mashed potatoes, the best vegetable salad I’ve had … mmm, mmm, gooood!)
… And then we settled in for a viewing of “Friday Night Lights,” which I had to watch for a Sunday School Lesson …
Good film ...
But I guess I was expecting more of an exploitative look at Texas high school football … The film, of course, stars Billy Bob Thornton as the coach of the vaunted Permian Panthers High School football team in Odessa, Texas. The film, which is based on the book and true story of the 1988 Permian team, follows the team as the boys face the pressures and hopes of a community that’s expecting them to win the state championship. Most of the boys on the team know little else but football …
I thought the acting was wonderful and the scenes put you right smack in the middle of Odessa as it was in the fall of 1988. And I loved the shaky-camera, documentary feel of the film … I was, however, turned off by the overdramatic, repeated practice and game scenes of players slamming into each other, guys flipping over each other and all of it capped with the sounds of guys groaning. Classic football cliches -- squared.
But, every once in awhile you get a DVD where the extras are truly fun to watch and do their job in enhancing your perspective of the film. So was the case with “Friday Night Lights,” which offered a short documentary featuring actual game footage, photos, and interviews with the players and people that lived the story in 1988. It was great seeing and hearing from the real Boobie Miles, Mike Winchel and Don Billingsley, and the home video footage of their playing days elevated the mystique of their story ...
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