Mr. Warmth

Don Rickles brought his schtick to Andiamo's Celebrity Showcase in Warren last night. Surrounded by a twelve-member orchestra, Mr. Warmth delivered a bawdy mix of ethnic jokes, insults to people sitting in the front row, and Frank Sinatra stories. The most entertaining part of the evening (for us) was when he broke from his routine and reminisced about his early days working burlesque shows at Detroit strip clubs owned by "the boys" (i.e.- the mob). Those days are long gone and Rickles is one of the few remaining dinosaurs from the pre-historic era when "the boys" ran seedy Detroit hangouts.

His show had the politically correctness of a stag party. How Rickles gets away with this is a testament to his talent- instead of dismissing him like a nutty relative with a case of Tourettes syndrome, you realize he's simply having fun and everybody is in on the joke, regardless of who's getting skewered.

Our lame excuse for the lack of better photography from last night is: our table was waaay in the back and the lighting was lousy. But this clip is pretty close to how he operated (although without the orchestra).