Friday, March 25, 2005 | 8:29 a.m.
The room at the Tuscany is tiny, maybe seating 150.
It's far too small for a Gallagher performance -- there's nowhere to escape the splatter of flying bits of foodstuff, except for one stool at the far end of the bar at the back of the Gallagher Comedy Store.
So I sat on the stool and waited for the insanity to begin.
At a Gallagher show, it's a short wait.
The comedian with the unwieldy mop of hair around the crown of his head and the fertile imagination races around the room tossing candy to the fans and then leaps onto a chopping block on the mini-stage and begins gyrating in a hula hoop.
Behind him is a hastily hung plastic curtain that sags and begins to come down late in the show.
In front of him are almost 100 eager fans, anxious to see the prop comedian who claims to have paved the way for such entertainers as Carrot Top and Blue Man Group.
No one is dressed up for this performance -- tuxedos and evening gowns are out of place at a Gallagher show. Most are in jeans or old clothes that can withstand the shower of stuff that will rain upon them.
The first three-quarters of Gallagher's show is an anticipation of the last quarter, when he will wield his famous sledgehammer.
Hypnotist Terry Stokes has an 11 p.m. show. Gallagher's ends at about 10:15 p.m. I would hate to follow Gallagher -- the axiom in show business is you don't want to follow acts that include children or animals. Gallagher might be included in the axiom.
Chaos seemingly rules here, before during and after the performance.
Not only is Gallagher hilarious, but the place is a mess when he is finished, with gunk dripping from the walls, the low ceiling, the lighting fixtures, tables and chairs.
A cleaning crew will come in when the show is over, and Gallagher will hang around to help them.
Before the show, as the fans are being seated, he runs around making last-minute adjustments, instructing a couple of volunteers who will help him out.
It is Gallagher's style. No two shows will ever be exactly the same. His mind goes in every direction -- he starts a joke, in the middle goes off on tangents, then comes back to the original joke.
He isn't politically correct, either. Gallagher cracks jokes about homosexuality, religion, women, politics -- anything that comes to mind.
"You know how the kids like to wear their hats backward? Homosexuals have a problem figuring out which is the front and the back."
"If you have a rainbow bumper sticker on your car and you're not a homosexual, you deserve to be rear-ended."
"God is a man. He made dirt. If he was a woman he would have made carpet."
"The Arabs don't want us over there on their soil -- they don't have soil, they got sand, and it just blew in for the day. It probably isn't theirs and it will be gone tomorrow."
Gallagher interacts a lot with the fans.
"You look unhappy," he said to a man sitting alone. "Are you married?"
"No," the fan replied.
"Do you live with your mother?"
"No."
"Then you got no reason to be miserable."
A couple were talking at the side of the room.
"Shut up!" Gallagher yells. "You had an hour to talk before the show. You want to talk, go outside, this is the beginning of my show when I'm really hot. I'm creating magical theatrical moments in what would otherwise be a little piece of (expletive deleted) room on the side in a hotel nobody heard of 'til I told them."
He notices the exit signs over the doors in the room.
"You've all been dumbed down," Gallagher said. "You haven't been sitting in here wondering why the exit signs are over all the doors -- you know that's the way out.
"Every door is labeled exit -- how did you get in? And why is it lit up? In case of a fire -- dark fires do break out. And the signs are red because red looks good against the flames.
"Where is the good air in a fire? On the floor. You're going to be crawling out of this room in a fire -- they should put the exit signs at the bottom of the doors."
After an hour of bouncing from one subject to another, Gallagher begins loading up the pie pans with foodstuffs -- sauerkraut, butter, honey and dozens of other items randomly selected from the grocery shelf.
Fans don slickers handed out by an assistant, the Sledge-O-Matic comes out and the moment everyone has been waiting for arrives.
For a few minutes the scene resembles a frat house party, a food fight.
The climax is the watermelon smashing.
Fans get in line at the side of the stage and one by one get their chance to hoist the hammer high and bring it down on a wedge of watermelon placed on the chopping block by Gallagher.
When the show is over and the lights go up Gallagher jumps offstage and begins helping clean up the mess.
Fans file out, smiling.
Their favorite comedian has arrived in Las Vegas.
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