48 Hours

[Flack]

Monday: Flack buys 2 tickets to see Gallagher live in OKC this Saturday.

Wednesday: Gallagher suffers another heart attack, cancels all upcoming shows including the one in Oklahoma.

Somewhere nearby, a nervous watermelon sighs in relief.

[Tdarcos]

Monday: Flack buys 2 tickets to see Gallagher live in OKC this Saturday.

Wednesday: Gallagher suffers another heart attack, cancels all upcoming shows including the one in Oklahoma.

I am amazed he's still performing. I remember seeing him do his 'sledge-o-matic' gig back in California during the 1970s on one of the pay cable networks like Showtime or HBO.

Somewhere nearby, a nervous watermelon sighs in relief.

It can't relax for too long, there's always R. Lee Earmey's Lock and Load on The History Channel, where he targets the enemy with demonstrations of various weapons ranging from flintlocks all the way to rocket propelled grenades. Who or what the 'enemy' is, on his show, is an exercise for the reader.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

Did you all get your money back, or is that his last practical joke?

[Flack]

Did you all get your money back, or is that his last practical joke?

The website says that refunds will be available after the show has been rescheduled. Gallagher's PR firm said that his recovery "could be a long one," so I'm not sure what the deal is. I'm sure at some point I could call the credit card company and get our cash back but ... I'll let it play out for now.

Also Saturday night, (a) "Finding Bigfoot" will be filming right down the street from us, (b) Roller Derby is taking place, and (c) the Grasscar Racing Lawn Mower League is set to kick off. Gallagher was just one of many Saturday night entertainment options here in Oklahoma.

[AArdvark]

I thought his brother also did his performances.

[Flack]

I thought his brother also did his performances.

I could summarize the story from Wikipedia but I'm being lazy this morning so I'll just quote it.

At some point during the early 1990s, Gallagher’s younger brother Ron Gallagher asked Gallagher for permission to perform shows using Gallagher’s old routines, and also using Gallagher’s trademark Sledge-O-Matic routine. The idea was that Ron Gallagher, who was unemployed, would tour the country working small venues that couldn’t afford a show put on by Gallagher himself. Since Ron bears a strong familial resemblance to his older brother, the show would be almost like having a real Gallagher show.

Gallagher granted his blessing to his younger brother on the condition that Ron and his manager would make it clear in their promotional materials that it was Ron Gallagher, not Gallagher himself, that was putting on the show.

After a few years of complying with Gallagher’s conditions, Ron began blurring the line between his act and that of his brother. He would often promote his act as “Gallagher Too,” a moniker Gallagher felt was insufficiently informative. In some instances, Ron’s act was promoted in a way that provided no clue to prospective attendees that they were seeing someone other than Gallagher himself.

Gallagher initially attempted to get his brother to stop these activities by requesting that he stop using Gallagher’s well-known Sledge-O-Matic routine. These efforts proved futile, and Ron kept touring as “Gallagher Too” while using the Sledge-O-Matic routine his older brother had made famous. Consequently, in August 2000, Gallagher sued his brother for trademark violations and false advertising. The courts ultimately sided with Leo Gallagher, and an injunction was granted prohibiting Ron from performing any act that impersonates his brother in small clubs and venues.

During the lawsuit, all of Gallagher’s immediate family sided with Ron over the controversy. As a consequence, Gallagher is now estranged from his parents and siblings.

I presume that last sentence ("estranged from his parents and siblings") will soon be updated to read "until March of 2012, when Gallagher suffered a major heart attack and his family rushed to his side."

[Tdarcos]

I could summarize the story from Wikipedia

I went and looked it up, and it had a warning of an unreferenced fact (a pure fact not having proof) that he had run for Governor during the 2003 California Recall election and had gotten about 5,469 votes to be in 16th place. So I went and looked up two sources, CNN had a lower vote total, but did indicate he was 16th. The California Secretary of state had him as 5,463. So I put the reference in and thus improved the article. My entire contribution is one footnote at the bottom of the article.

That article has has 16 edits just today, and about the same number yesterday.


Larry Flynt got 3 times as many votes.

[Turing Test]

I went and looked it up, and it had a warning of an unreferenced fact (a pure fact not having proof) that he had run for Governor during the 2003 California Recall election and had gotten about 5,469 votes to be in 16th place. So I went and looked up two sources, CNN had a lower vote total, but did indicate he was 16th. The California Secretary of state had him as 5,463. So I put the reference in and thus improved the article. My entire contribution is one footnote at the bottom of the article.

That article has has 16 edits just today, and about the same number yesterday.


Larry Flynt got 3 times as many votes.

Fail.

[RC]

After reading this, I'd give that show a miss: http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/gall ... id=4357855

[RetroRomper]

Then Gallagher gets a tin pie plate. He opens a giant can of fruit cocktail and pours it in. He opens a can of some Asian vegetable—water chestnuts, maybe—and pours that in, too. "This is the China people and queers!!!" he screams and takes his sledgehammer to the thing with a fury that is no fun at all.

Wet chunks of China people and queers fly everywhere. The hateful, bitter old man laughs. I cannot believe Bill Hicks is dead and this motherfucker is still touring.

[Flack]

I read that article (after purchasing tickets) and it sounds awful. Part of me wants a refund; the other part of me, perhaps the journalist, wants to go just to capture the moment.

I met Gallagher once, by the way. We played PlayStation together for about two minutes in Best Buy before the store opened. The Best Buy I worked in was right next door to a comedy club, and Gallagher had wandered over to buy some PlayStation games before the doors opened.

[pinback]

Here's me havin' beers with Gallagher at the Denver airport a couple years ago:

[Flack]

Wow, that's pretty cool.

The only other famous person that came into Best Buy was Michael Winslow, the black guy from Police Academy that did all the sound effects. There's no way to say this without sounding racist, but uh ... he came in with like six other guys that looked just like him and I wasn't sure which guy it was. Had he been wearing a police uniform or that helmet from Spaceballs, sure, but uh ... he wasnt. So I got his autograph but, I dunno, maybe it wasn't him.

Oh I almost forgot, Tesla did a meet and greet there before one of their shows. The entire store was filled with girls with 80s hair standing in line to meet them. Every single girl brought a teddy bear or flowers or candy to give to the band. Eventually the band escaped out the back door and left all the gifts behind and instructed us to "take it home and give it to your girlfriends," because they obviously couldn't take all that crap with them.

[The Happiness Engine]

He stormed out of a Marc Maron interview http://www.laughspin.com/2011/01/31/mar ... -responds/

[Flack]

Yeah, it's pretty tough to find positive press surrounding him that's been written in the past 10 years.

I read yesterday that Gallagher had yet another heart attack over the weekend (less damaging than the one the week before last, although defining any heart attack as "a good one" would be tough) and in that interview he said he is retiring indefinitely.

Which, if that's anything like KISS, Madonna, the Rolling Stones, Aerosmith, or Cher, he'll be performing again in about 2 years.

I'm a fairly big believer in both karma and cosmic justice, and it's hard for me to write off the fact that moments before the guy went on stage to do his (apparently homophobic and racist) act, he suffered a career ending heart attack.

Karma-o-matic ... POW.