from: http://www.post-gazette.com/ae/20021003seinfeld3.asp
Seinfeld blazes a comic trail across the county, including three shows locally
Thursday, October 03, 2002
By Barbara Vancheri, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
Imagine everyone in Heinz Field picking up a phone
during the same hour (not
to debate Kor-dell vs. Tommy) but to call Heinz Hall to
buy tickets to see
Jerry Seinfeld. That's akin to what happened the day tickets went on
sale -- a reported
64,000 calls in a single hour. As Elaine might have
said, "Get out!" Overloaded phone lines that typically accommodate
customers in five minutes
or less were placing them on hold for up to an hour.
Callers who did get
through snapped up all 2,676 seats for Saturday's Heinz
Hall show in 90
minutes, prompting the addition of a second Seinfeld
performance that also
immediately sold out. At the same time, patrons were
using the same line to
buy tickets for a Scottish Rite Cathedral booking in
New Castle tomorrow
(as of yesterday, 62 seats were still available by
calling 412-392-4900). When all was said and sold, 8,000 tickets ranging from
$40 to $77 for three
performances were purchased in two days. The Ladies Hospital Aid Society of Western Pennsylvania
bought 844 tickets
to use as a fund-raiser for Working Hearts, an
initiative of the Jewish
Healthcare Foundation designed to help women understand
and reduce their
risk of heart disease. The society priced its seats at
$150 and $250 (those
audience members get access to private receptions) and
easily sold out. No wonder Seinfeld typically doesn't do interviews (a
representative turned
down a request for a seven-minute Q&A by phone). He
doesn't need to. It's been more than four years since the gang squeezed
into a booth at
Monk's, reached into Jerry's fridge for a bottle of
water or heard about
Elaine's latest mimbo, shorthand for male bimbo.
"Seinfeld" lives only in
reruns, very popular reruns to be sure, but Seinfeld
seems to be everywhere.
For a 48-year-old man who, unless he invested all of
his money in Enron,
probably never has to work another day, Jerry Seinfeld
is one busy guy. The New York comic and an all-star cast raised more
than $1.8 million for
the Twin Towers Fund with a Carnegie Hall benefit a
year ago, and he
continues to perform to sold-out houses around the
country. E-Bay
opportunists are peddling pairs of tickets for upcoming
dates for anywhere
from $147.50 to $339. In late September, he and Regis Philbin handed out the
inaugural Liberty
Medals at a Gracie Mansion gala that counted New York
Gov. George
Pataki and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg among
the guests. Seinfeld also has stacks of his first picture book,
titled "Halloween" and
charmingly illustrated by James Bennett, in stores now.
It examines the sheer
joy of the holiday for a kid whose only clear thought
is "Get candy." A
miniature Jerry says, "You're like, 'What is this? What
did you say?
Someone's giving out candy? Who's giving out candy?
Everyone we know is
giving out candy? I gotta be a part of this!' "Sweet.
In the end, "Halloween" is a cheery ode to candy,
childhood, superheroes and
baby boomers who remember the "big bars" with a
cavity-filled smile. This Halloween, Seinfeld will do new standup material
on David Letterman's
program. On Oct. 10, he is scheduled to be a guest on
"The Tonight Show
With Jay Leno." And he appears in a documentary called
"Comedian"
opening Oct. 11 in New York and Los Angeles? It will
arrive in Pittsburgh
Nov. 1. For a year, director Christian Charles and producer
Gary Streiner followed
Seinfeld into clubs as he honed new material. After
retiring his old material in
an HBO special, Seinfeld has a whole new area to mine
-- life as a husband
and father of a 23-month-old daughter, with a second
child on the way. And much more continues to happen in the Seinfeld
universe since his sitcom
went off the air in May 1998. Borrowing catch phrases
that we still hear on an
almost daily basis, we offer these tidbits: Masters of their domain: When TV Guide, a publication
clearly addicted to
lists or the readers who love them, announced its
"Greatest Shows of All
Time" in May 2002, "Seinfeld" was No. 1. Not that there's anything wrong with that: Who would
have thought that
Larry David would emerge as a TV star in a
post-"Seinfeld" age? His HBO
series, "Curb Your Enthusiasm," is an Emmy-nominated
hit. Balding,
bespectacled David, co-creator of "Seinfeld," traffics
in the comedy of the
uncomfortable, making friends and strangers squirm --
and viewers laugh. Always leave 'em wanting more: The mantra that George
Costanza learned
late in life was true of Seinfeld's appearance on NBC's
75th anniversary
special in May. He opened the high-profile show, poking
fun at his black-tie
audience and onetime network and asking the sort of
puzzler that once was a
"Seinfeld" standard: "Why is the screen measured
diagonally? Nothing else in
this world is measured diagonally except the TV set." Yada yada: In July, HarperCollins published Jerry
Oppenheimer's
unauthorized biography, "Seinfeld: The Making of an
American Icon."
Oppenheimer provides exhaustive detail about Seinfeld's
childhood, high
school and college years and his coming of comic age
and the explosion of the
comedy clubs. He seems intent on unearthing signs that
Seinfeld is gay, raising
questions about his friendships with men but never
accepting the fact that
maybe he just had a George or Kramer in his life. But don't look for chitchat from many insiders.
Although intriguing, the bio has
an arm's length, nostalgic feel -- except for the
section on Seinfeld's courtship
and Christmas 1999 marriage to Jessica Sklar. Then, the
long knives come
out from sources loyal to Sklar's former husband. "If Jessica hadn't been engaged to Eric, she never
would have met Seinfeld,"
Oppenheimer quotes Nederlander's best friend. "That's
the reality of it
because it was Eric who bought her the membership to
the Reebok Club,"
where she met her future husband. Nederlander comes off
as a man
pressured into proposing and mistaking his fiancee's
discontent for
pre-wedding jitters. In the end, you're left with the impression that
Seinfeld was in the zone to get
married and become a father once the show that had
consumed his life ended.
And that enormous success and money changed Seinfeld,
not exactly a
surprise. You've got to see...: The author dedicates "Halloween"
to his "wonderful
wife, Jessica, and our little Sascha, the sweetest
candy of all." Guess that
refrain, "You've got to see the baby" was true after
all