Friday, April 6, 2012

In Charlotte, Seinfeld riffs and rips on NASCAR, golf

I went to Jerry Seinfeld's live show Thursday night at Ovens Auditorium, and it was fantastic. The Observer's Theoden Janes does a fine job with an overall review of the 85-minute show here, but I thought I'd point out a couple of sports-related jokes Seinfeld made in this blog.

First of all, Seinfeld is no big fan of either golf or NASCAR. He had a funny bit on golf where he said it was the ultimate "avoidance" act by a father, that "golf" should really stand for "Get Out, Leave Family." (Seinfeld claims that fathers have only two real instincts compared to the many a mother has -- one is to shout "Daddy's home" and expect much bowing when they arrive home each day, and the other is to figure out ways to avoid the family shortly after getting back).

Seinfeld said his friends keep telling him he should play golf because it's a "challenging" game, which Seinfeld said wasn't a good enough reason to play anything.

"Challenging?" he said. "It would also be challenging to try to throw a Tic Tac from 100 yards into a shoebox. But that doesn't mean I want to do it, or that I want to stand around with the Tic Tac pro and discuss whether I should throw an orange or a wintergreen."

As for NASCAR, the sport wasn't part of Seinfeld's regular routine. But for his encore, Seinfeld took a few questions from the audience. (On one, a man asked the comedian if his three children were all from the "same woman" -- his wife for 12 years. "Yes," Seinfeld said. "Is that not the tradition around here?")

The racing question, screamed from the audience, was: "Do you like NASCAR?"

Seinfeld heard it and paused. "Hmm," he said. "A little bit." Another long pause. "I like it more when I'm here [in Charlotte]."

You could almost see Seinfeld trying to think of something nice to say about the sport without being dishonest. He finally came up with: "I like the guy who does the backflips after he wins a race [Carl Edwards]. I like the burnouts they do when the race is over. And... well.... that's about it."

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Probably should've asked Seinfeld about ALMS, SCCA or other types of racing. He's a huge Porsche fanatic, so I'd imagine there must be a racing series that he does love.

Anonymous said...

It was a GREAT show. He does not look 57 and looked really slim compared to recent years. "Not that there's anything wrong with that." He was spot on fantastic and I will see him each and every time he's in or near Charlotte. He's a legend, worth the money.

Anonymous said...

Producer writer Larry David made Seinfeld who he is or was and thats not much since Seinfeld Show ended in 1999. That show should still be running so the idiot Elaine wouldnt be having so many flukie shows of herself. Davids "Curb" is only so so like Seinfeld today.

Anonymous said...

Scott, your deduction that Jerry Seinfeld "rips" on Nascar is hyped.

When I first moved to Charlotte, I didn't know anything about NASCAR compared to any other racing car activity, the people or story/drama.

Seinfeld didn't call nascar followers inbreeds or anything; his silence after the question is what made it funny, as well as the "gee, I couldn't really care less" implication is hardly a "riff, rip or insult."

I guess when you have a crappy newspaper job, you have to clutch to anything on an assignment to make a "readable" article, eh?

Anonymous said...

Not a fan of Seinfeld-- never watched his show, and don't anticipate watching anything with him in the future. His comments about golf are interesting, but more telling are his comments about men in general. Wonder if he has "daddy issues."

Anonymous said...

He doesn't write the headlines, fool...