Name: Simon & Garfunkel's Stupid Human Tricks | Letterman
Uploaded: 2022-04-06T22:33:38.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Simon & Garfunkel's Stupid Human Tricks | Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2022-04-06. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Simon & Garfunkel's Stupid Human Tricks | Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2022-04-06. Transcript available.

We're very excited to have my first guests on their show, on our show.
It's our show. They're guests on our show.
These gentlemen are about to begin their first tour of the United States in 13
years.
Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel.
Hi.
Hi, how are you? Nice to see you.
Paul, nice to see you again. How are you, sir?
This is exciting. That makes me feel good just sitting next to you guys.
It is exciting.
Now, when does the giant tour begin?
19th. It's right around the corner.
And where will we start it?
Akron. We do a warm-up show in Akron, then we go on to Toronto.
It's not a warm-up show.
That's like a real show in Akron.
That's really... Well, this is going to be a show on the 25th, right?
That's right. It'll be after the fact, actually.
That's a warm-up show.
No, no, no.
No, that's our first show, really.
No, I was talking to Art earlier.
Sorry.
No, no, no.
I thought you were generally speaking to the group.
No, but I...
Oh, no.
It'll be all right. It'll be all right.
Okay, maybe I'm a little manic tonight.
Let's get back to the conversation.
Let's all come back.
Art was telling me there is sort of an interesting reason to work, to put on a
large show in Akron.
And he gave me a few facts about the city I didn't know.
Rubber.
What else did I say, Dave?
You said that it was a city that breaks a lot of records.
Yeah, Akron used to be a big record market. Remember that?
DJs used to break records for their songs?
Oh, yes, that's right.
Yeah, that's right.
Does that still happen there?
I don't really know.
No, what...
Now, when you say break a record, you mean...
They go out on the limb for a record they like, and they don't wait for
secondary and tertiary markets to establish the popularity.
If they like it, they'll play it.
And they get right behind it and push it, and...
It used to be that way.
Yeah.
It was disproportionately effective toward getting a record off the ground.
Well, for the size of the market.
It's like Indianapolis.
Yeah.
It's not a major city.
No, now Indianapolis people would tell you that Indianapolis is a major city,
but I don't think Akron is a...
Well, you know Akron is.
All the cities in this country are major, aren't they, gentlemen?
Come to think of it.
Now, you know, Paul was here once before.
I watched.
And Paul said a few things about you that I want to ask you about.
One was that as a young fellow, and maybe even still now, you had a habit of
shaking
boxes of good and plenty.
Well, I didn't say that he had a habit of shaking boxes of good and plenty.
That sounds like he just kind of did that.
When he went into a candy store...
Oh, that's right.
...he would shake the box of good and plenty.
Two different things.
Rich had the most good and plenty in it.
It wasn't always he was shaking boxes.
It was a candy store move.
I see.
I'm sorry.
I watched that show, and I thought the point he was making was that I was cheap.
Now, is anything true to what he said about that?
Well...
It's true, yeah.
And what is the purpose of shaking it?
Just to find out which has the...
Getting value for your money was the purpose in those days.
Trying to get the most for your snack dollar.
That makes sense.
You don't want to get four cents worth of candy for a nickel.
No.
Now, do you still eat the good and plenty?
No, no, no.
No.
No, we have a lot more money now.
Well, for any candy we want.
He, uh, you also mentioned, Paul mentioned, that when you gentlemen worked in
Japan, that you walked.
Yeah, I'm a walker.
You just, you flew to Japan, got off the plane, and...
No.
No, I had gone to Japan having nothing to do with the tour.
In fact, years before the tour, I did a solo tour of 40 cities with a band I
assembled in America in 77.
And at the end of the tour, I was extremely bored with my...
With the self-absorption of being the front man in the band, so I was really
trying to get out of my own ego.
And I took a freighter from San Francisco to Yokohama alone.
When I got to Japan, I thought it seemed the greatest thing to drop all the
little...
The baggage I'd brought, and to just walk the country and treat the country as
so much curved earth.
And without paying much attention to the civilization of Japan, I've sort of
paid a lot of attention to the natural look of the country.
Is it possible for an American, and certainly a global star like you, just to
walk unmolested across Japan?
If you're out of the big cities, yes.
And that was really the whole point of it.
It was blessed, actually, to sort of drop the professional identity and to not
be reminded of it for weeks in a row.
And so by staying in the rice fields and crossing from the Pacific Ocean to the,
is it the Japan, the China Sea across Japan?
Which is what my walk took me.
It was all rural, and it was nice.
Well, how many miles is that?
That sounds like a huge thing to do.
150 miles.
Oh, so...
It was great.
Yeah.
Now, you mentioned the pressures of being the front man of a band.
That brings up an interesting question.
You gentlemen work as equals, a team.
On the road, do you need a guy to be the leader?
Sorry.
And if so...
And if so, how would one select the person to be the leader?
Well, Paul was born before I was, so since he's 17 days older, he usually does
that.
No, but then we figured out that even though I was born before Art was,
actually, he was older because I was born prematurely.
So...
That's right.
That's right.
That would throw the computation off completely.
Exactly.
Yeah, well, I never looked at it quite like that.
We have to go away.
We'll be right back to continue chatting here with Mr. Garfunkel and Mr. Simon
right after this.
Ladies and gentlemen, as you can see, Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel are here.
We were talking a little bit about the leader of the group and whatever, diplomatically,
you mentioned you flip a coin.
Now, when was the first time you guys toured together?
Well, tour together, tough question.
Dick Clark, Cincinnati.
Oh, that's right.
Was that one of those rock and roll caravan deals?
Sock hops.
Yeah.
Well, you mean ever, you mean ever when we were kids?
Sure.
Well, when we were kids, when we were 15 years old, we did a show up in the
Hartford State Theater when we were 15.
Now, was this as...
No, no, that wasn't...
Tom and Jerry?
Oh, that's right.
Tom and Jerry?
Tom and Jerry, and...
Yeah, we were 15.
I think my father drove us up and...
That's quite a tour.
Checked us in and, you know.
Now, who was Tom and who was Jerry?
I was Tom.
Uh-huh.
And was...
So, Jerry.
That would...
Yeah.
No, what was the point of the name?
Whose idea was the name?
The name was the...
They gave it to us.
The record company gave it to us.
The record company gave it to you.
And what was the song?
Oh, Hey School Girl.
Hey School Girl.
Hey School Girl.
A big hit?
Well, it was for us.
We were in high school.
Oh, yeah.
We were amongst the more famous people in our high school.
Now, what did that do to you guys when...
Here's my favorite introduction of us from high school.
Well, now I can find out from you.
The other day I was talking to Steve Martin.
We were talking about terrible intros that we have.
You know Steve Martin?
Not the Steve Martin.
And this is the intro that we got on our first show.
Our first appearance in high school as sophomores at the talent show.
There was a singer in the school.
His name was Bill Lebrano.
And everyone loved him.
Everyone...
He was the star of the school.
And the teacher came out and it was the talent show.
And he said,
I know you're all waiting to hear Bill Lebrano.
And the audience erupted.
He said,
But he couldn't be here today.
And instead, we'll have two boys who sing.
That was our intro.
Tom and Jerry.
What's your favorite intro that you ever got?
You really want to hear it?
It was a long time ago in Los Angeles, California.
There was a show on the air called Emergency.
And they were doing a rap party.
And they needed a stooge to come in and tell jokes to drunks.
Pretty much what I'm doing now.
Now, a member of the crew...
I'm straight.
A member of the crew had recently undergone very touchy open-heart surgery.
And was just about to check himself out.
I mean, out of life.
He was...
So, what they had done just before Eats,
they had rigged up a phone call from the man's hospital room over the PA to the
audience.
And the master of ceremonies said,
Well, God bless you, Norman.
And we know your wife and your kids.
And they'll all be taken care of.
If anything, God forbid, goes haywire,
we've got the fund.
And on and on and on.
Round of applause.
And now, ladies and gentlemen,
before we open the buffet line,
I haven't seen him,
but they tell me he's funny.
A young guy,
Don Laherman.
Don, come on out.
And then, that was it.
And that's the worst.
It's not Laherman.
No, it's not Laherman.
Thanks for...
I'm sorry to...
We'll be right back, folks.
And then we'll let them talk a little more.
When you guys were Tom and Jerry,
you must...
As you said,
you were the most famous people in your high school.
But was that suddenly a really dramatic change
in how you got along with people in the hallways and stuff
when you went from Paul and Art
to Tom and Jerry with a record and so forth?
Oh, it was a big change.
Yeah, because we were 15
and American Bandstand was the most popular show
that kids watched.
And we were watching it
and then we made a record and we went on it.
So it was...
This was when the show was in Philadelphia, huh?
Mm-hmm.
Now, what was that like,
going to Philadelphia to meet Dick Clark and...
What a thrill.
Yeah.
The first show that we did,
we walked...
We did it twice.
The first show that we did,
we walked into the dressing room
and Jerry Lee Lewis was there.
He had great balls of fire as a hit.
Well...
Oh, as a hit, yeah.
Jumping right...
Now, when you guys...
This is a...
Now, is this a huge tour, 19 cities?
Is that a major tour or a...
It feels pretty big.
Yeah.
What would you think?
It sounds big to me.
Sounds big to me.
Is there anything you do to prepare for it?
You're playing pretty large...
You're going to be at Shea Stadium for two shows.
This is over 100,000 people.
The Shave for one and the Meadowlands for one.
Meadowlands for one.
Is there any way you get yourself ready to perform before that many people?
Well, we...
We performed last year in Japan and Europe and then again in Australia.
So, actually, we're...
You know, we're somewhat acclimated to playing that size place now.
But this time, we're traveling with that very big video screen,
you know, that they have like at ballparks.
The diamond vision kind of thing, yeah.
Yeah, I don't think we're using diamond vision.
I think we're using an Eidaphore.
But it's the same principle.
Right.
So, I think that helps take the onus off stadiums.
Because the sound, you can work...
You know, the sound, you can figure the sound and make the sound really good.
That's amazing, isn't it, that it can be done so that it sounds good to 50,000
people
as well as to a group of 500.
Yeah, well, it's a lot of speakers.
There's like 100 big speakers stacked.
Now, when you guys go out, there are a lot of people, of course, will come to
hear...
They want to hear every song off every Simon and Garfunkel album.
You also have new music.
But do you tire of doing any of this night after night after 19 different
places?
Sure.
Whether you're tired of it or not is supposed to be your secret.
Because you know that they want to hear the hits.
And it is some...
It's quite a few years down the line now.
So the trick is to reawaken the power of the song for yourself
and to keep trying to find what it is that made you love it in the beginning.
Now, do you do that successfully most of the time?
Yeah, I do because I love the songs.
They're great.
You know this...
I may embarrass you here by bringing up an old topic.
I mentioned this to Paul the last time you were here.
The show you did for a cable company here in North America,
your concert in the park for 500,000 people, was unbelievable.
Really terrific.
Thanks.
Thank you.
But not only were you guys terrific,
but the show actually really captured a sense of something unique going on
there.
And that's what folks will be in for when they go out and see you in Akron or
wherever.
With a bit of an update.
Okay.
New stuff from the new album.
And I also know, Paul, that recently you've been studying...
Tell the folks what you've been studying.
Oh, I don't know.
It's like a joke question.
It's not a joke question.
Oh, I know what he said.
What is it?
About juggling.
Juggling.
Well, my brother and I took a course last year,
two-day course at the new school called Basic Juggling.
And you learn how to juggle.
Uh-huh.
Now, you already knew, right?
Well, I already knew, so I was studying philosophy.
Now, have you juggled together at all?
Well, yeah.
A little bit.
Now, who's better, Art?
You or Paul?
I don't know.
Probably a newcomer.
I don't really know the progress that he's made.
I guess we'll solve that question right now.
We have the...
These are brand new.
These appear to be Dunlop.
Oh.
Who would like to go first?
Art, you want to try this?
This is a little silly even for your show, isn't it?
Let's be good sports.
Yes, you may be right.
Let's be good sports.
What's the difference if we're fools?
It's national television, right?
It is a national television or as close as NBC gets.
Well, let me try.
There's the pretzel style.
You want to stand up?
Particularly.
Okay.
And then there's the other.
This is the normal.
That's the standard.
Very nice.
If you concentrate on your face that you don't make funny expressions with your
mouth.
Then this is the other style.
That's the real...
That's much tougher, isn't it?
All of this counts.
Whoa.
That's very nice.
Very impressive.
I have to do it standing up because I am a beginning joke.
Yeah.
I think standing up, I...
That makes more sense, actually, than sitting down, doesn't it?
Oh.
Very impressive.
Very impressive.
Gentlemen, Paul, it was nice to see you and a real pleasure to meet you, Art.
I've really enjoyed your music, as has most of America for a long, long time.
Good luck on the big tour and say hello to the folks in Akron for us.
Yeah.
Ladies and gentlemen, Simon and Garfinkel.
We'll be right back, Paul.
We'll be right back, Paul.
We'll be right back, Paul.
We'll be right back, Paul.
We'll be right back, Paul.
We'll be right back, Paul.
We'll be right back, Paul.
We'll be right back, Paul.
We'll be right back, Paul.
We'll be right back, Paul.
We'll be right back, Paul.
We'll be right back, Paul.
We'll be right back, Paul.
We'll be right back, Paul.
We'll be right back, Paul.
We'll be right back, Paul.
We'll be right back, Paul.
We'll be right back, Paul.
We'll be right back, Paul.
We'll be right back, Paul.
We'll be right back, Paul.
We'll be right back, Paul.
We'll be right back, Paul.

Simon & Garfunkel's Stupid Human Tricks | Letterman

We're very excited to have my first guests on their show, on our show.
It's our show. They're guests on our show.
These gentlemen are about to begin their first tour of the United States in 13
years.
Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel.
Hi.
Hi, how are you? Nice to see you.
Paul, nice to see you again. How are you, sir?
This is exciting. That makes me feel good just sitting next to you guys.
It is exciting.
Now, when does the giant tour begin?
19th. It's right around the corner.
And where will we start it?
Akron. We do a warm-up show in Akron, then we go on to Toronto.
It's not a warm-up show.
That's like a real show in Akron.
That's really... Well, this is going to be a show on the 25th, right?
That's right. It'll be after the fact, actually.
That's a warm-up show.
No, no, no.
No, that's our first show, really.
No, I was talking to Art earlier.
Sorry.
No, no, no.
I thought you were generally speaking to the group.
No, but I...
Oh, no.
It'll be all right. It'll be all right.
Okay, maybe I'm a little manic tonight.
Let's get back to the conversation.
Let's all come back.
Art was telling me there is sort of an interesting reason to work, to put on a
large show in Akron.
And he gave me a few facts about the city I didn't know.
Rubber.
What else did I say, Dave?
You said that it was a city that breaks a lot of records.
Yeah, Akron used to be a big record market. Remember that?
DJs used to break records for their songs?
Oh, yes, that's right.
Yeah, that's right.
Does that still happen there?
I don't really know.
No, what...
Now, when you say break a record, you mean...
They go out on the limb for a record they like, and they don't wait for
secondary and tertiary markets to establish the popularity.
If they like it, they'll play it.
And they get right behind it and push it, and...
It used to be that way.
Yeah.
It was disproportionately effective toward getting a record off the ground.
Well, for the size of the market.
It's like Indianapolis.
Yeah.
It's not a major city.
No, now Indianapolis people would tell you that Indianapolis is a major city,
but I don't think Akron is a...
Well, you know Akron is.
All the cities in this country are major, aren't they, gentlemen?
Come to think of it.
Now, you know, Paul was here once before.
I watched.
And Paul said a few things about you that I want to ask you about.
One was that as a young fellow, and maybe even still now, you had a habit of
shaking
boxes of good and plenty.
Well, I didn't say that he had a habit of shaking boxes of good and plenty.
That sounds like he just kind of did that.
When he went into a candy store...
Oh, that's right.
...he would shake the box of good and plenty.
Two different things.
Rich had the most good and plenty in it.
It wasn't always he was shaking boxes.
It was a candy store move.
I see.
I'm sorry.
I watched that show, and I thought the point he was making was that I was cheap.
Now, is anything true to what he said about that?
Well...
It's true, yeah.
And what is the purpose of shaking it?
Just to find out which has the...
Getting value for your money was the purpose in those days.
Trying to get the most for your snack dollar.
That makes sense.
You don't want to get four cents worth of candy for a nickel.
No.
Now, do you still eat the good and plenty?
No, no, no.
No.
No, we have a lot more money now.
Well, for any candy we want.
He, uh, you also mentioned, Paul mentioned, that when you gentlemen worked in
Japan, that you walked.
Yeah, I'm a walker.
You just, you flew to Japan, got off the plane, and...
No.
No, I had gone to Japan having nothing to do with the tour.
In fact, years before the tour, I did a solo tour of 40 cities with a band I
assembled in America in 77.
And at the end of the tour, I was extremely bored with my...
With the self-absorption of being the front man in the band, so I was really
trying to get out of my own ego.
And I took a freighter from San Francisco to Yokohama alone.
When I got to Japan, I thought it seemed the greatest thing to drop all the
little...
The baggage I'd brought, and to just walk the country and treat the country as
so much curved earth.
And without paying much attention to the civilization of Japan, I've sort of
paid a lot of attention to the natural look of the country.
Is it possible for an American, and certainly a global star like you, just to
walk unmolested across Japan?
If you're out of the big cities, yes.
And that was really the whole point of it.
It was blessed, actually, to sort of drop the professional identity and to not
be reminded of it for weeks in a row.
And so by staying in the rice fields and crossing from the Pacific Ocean to the,
is it the Japan, the China Sea across Japan?
Which is what my walk took me.
It was all rural, and it was nice.
Well, how many miles is that?
That sounds like a huge thing to do.
150 miles.
Oh, so...
It was great.
Yeah.
Now, you mentioned the pressures of being the front man of a band.
That brings up an interesting question.
You gentlemen work as equals, a team.
On the road, do you need a guy to be the leader?
Sorry.
And if so...
And if so, how would one select the person to be the leader?
Well, Paul was born before I was, so since he's 17 days older, he usually does
that.
No, but then we figured out that even though I was born before Art was,
actually, he was older because I was born prematurely.
So...
That's right.
That's right.
That would throw the computation off completely.
Exactly.
Yeah, well, I never looked at it quite like that.
We have to go away.
We'll be right back to continue chatting here with Mr. Garfunkel and Mr. Simon
right after this.
Ladies and gentlemen, as you can see, Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel are here.
We were talking a little bit about the leader of the group and whatever, diplomatically,
you mentioned you flip a coin.
Now, when was the first time you guys toured together?
Well, tour together, tough question.
Dick Clark, Cincinnati.
Oh, that's right.
Was that one of those rock and roll caravan deals?
Sock hops.
Yeah.
Well, you mean ever, you mean ever when we were kids?
Sure.
Well, when we were kids, when we were 15 years old, we did a show up in the
Hartford State Theater when we were 15.
Now, was this as...
No, no, that wasn't...
Tom and Jerry?
Oh, that's right.
Tom and Jerry?
Tom and Jerry, and...
Yeah, we were 15.
I think my father drove us up and...
That's quite a tour.
Checked us in and, you know.
Now, who was Tom and who was Jerry?
I was Tom.
Uh-huh.
And was...
So, Jerry.
That would...
Yeah.
No, what was the point of the name?
Whose idea was the name?
The name was the...
They gave it to us.
The record company gave it to us.
The record company gave it to you.
And what was the song?
Oh, Hey School Girl.
Hey School Girl.
Hey School Girl.
A big hit?
Well, it was for us.
We were in high school.
Oh, yeah.
We were amongst the more famous people in our high school.
Now, what did that do to you guys when...
Here's my favorite introduction of us from high school.
Well, now I can find out from you.
The other day I was talking to Steve Martin.
We were talking about terrible intros that we have.
You know Steve Martin?
Not the Steve Martin.
And this is the intro that we got on our first show.
Our first appearance in high school as sophomores at the talent show.
There was a singer in the school.
His name was Bill Lebrano.
And everyone loved him.
Everyone...
He was the star of the school.
And the teacher came out and it was the talent show.
And he said,
I know you're all waiting to hear Bill Lebrano.
And the audience erupted.
He said,
But he couldn't be here today.
And instead, we'll have two boys who sing.
That was our intro.
Tom and Jerry.
What's your favorite intro that you ever got?
You really want to hear it?
It was a long time ago in Los Angeles, California.
There was a show on the air called Emergency.
And they were doing a rap party.
And they needed a stooge to come in and tell jokes to drunks.
Pretty much what I'm doing now.
Now, a member of the crew...
I'm straight.
A member of the crew had recently undergone very touchy open-heart surgery.
And was just about to check himself out.
I mean, out of life.
He was...
So, what they had done just before Eats,
they had rigged up a phone call from the man's hospital room over the PA to the
audience.
And the master of ceremonies said,
Well, God bless you, Norman.
And we know your wife and your kids.
And they'll all be taken care of.
If anything, God forbid, goes haywire,
we've got the fund.
And on and on and on.
Round of applause.
And now, ladies and gentlemen,
before we open the buffet line,
I haven't seen him,
but they tell me he's funny.
A young guy,
Don Laherman.
Don, come on out.
And then, that was it.
And that's the worst.
It's not Laherman.
No, it's not Laherman.
Thanks for...
I'm sorry to...
We'll be right back, folks.
And then we'll let them talk a little more.
When you guys were Tom and Jerry,
you must...
As you said,
you were the most famous people in your high school.
But was that suddenly a really dramatic change
in how you got along with people in the hallways and stuff
when you went from Paul and Art
to Tom and Jerry with a record and so forth?
Oh, it was a big change.
Yeah, because we were 15
and American Bandstand was the most popular show
that kids watched.
And we were watching it
and then we made a record and we went on it.
So it was...
This was when the show was in Philadelphia, huh?
Mm-hmm.
Now, what was that like,
going to Philadelphia to meet Dick Clark and...
What a thrill.
Yeah.
The first show that we did,
we walked...
We did it twice.
The first show that we did,
we walked into the dressing room
and Jerry Lee Lewis was there.
He had great balls of fire as a hit.
Well...
Oh, as a hit, yeah.
Jumping right...
Now, when you guys...
This is a...
Now, is this a huge tour, 19 cities?
Is that a major tour or a...
It feels pretty big.
Yeah.
What would you think?
It sounds big to me.
Sounds big to me.
Is there anything you do to prepare for it?
You're playing pretty large...
You're going to be at Shea Stadium for two shows.
This is over 100,000 people.
The Shave for one and the Meadowlands for one.
Meadowlands for one.
Is there any way you get yourself ready to perform before that many people?
Well, we...
We performed last year in Japan and Europe and then again in Australia.
So, actually, we're...
You know, we're somewhat acclimated to playing that size place now.
But this time, we're traveling with that very big video screen,
you know, that they have like at ballparks.
The diamond vision kind of thing, yeah.
Yeah, I don't think we're using diamond vision.
I think we're using an Eidaphore.
But it's the same principle.
Right.
So, I think that helps take the onus off stadiums.
Because the sound, you can work...
You know, the sound, you can figure the sound and make the sound really good.
That's amazing, isn't it, that it can be done so that it sounds good to 50,000
people
as well as to a group of 500.
Yeah, well, it's a lot of speakers.
There's like 100 big speakers stacked.
Now, when you guys go out, there are a lot of people, of course, will come to
hear...
They want to hear every song off every Simon and Garfunkel album.
You also have new music.
But do you tire of doing any of this night after night after 19 different
places?
Sure.
Whether you're tired of it or not is supposed to be your secret.
Because you know that they want to hear the hits.
And it is some...
It's quite a few years down the line now.
So the trick is to reawaken the power of the song for yourself
and to keep trying to find what it is that made you love it in the beginning.
Now, do you do that successfully most of the time?
Yeah, I do because I love the songs.
They're great.
You know this...
I may embarrass you here by bringing up an old topic.
I mentioned this to Paul the last time you were here.
The show you did for a cable company here in North America,
your concert in the park for 500,000 people, was unbelievable.
Really terrific.
