Ricky Gervais on the New York Comedy Festival: “I enjoyed my Q and A with the audience and live interview with John Hodgman at Town Hall so much that I may do similar events across the country. Caroline Hirsch of Carolines Comedy Club produced this and did armchairs which clinched the deal. ‘Stand Up’ is fun, but ‘Sit down’ is more comfortable.
“And the ‘Stand Up for Heroes’ show was a humbling experience.”
Obama’s biographer isn’t even as busy as Ricky, so what else is he doing?
“To plug my app ‘JustSayin,’ which allows you to actually talk on Twitter, I did my 23rd Letterman appearance, my favorite one so far, plus ‘The View,’ which invited me back to co-host. I said yes. But I don’t know when yet.
“Also, my new sitcom ‘Derek’ premieres on NetFlix next year. I consider Netflix TV’s future. Viewing habits changed. People want everything On Demand. Its figures are impressive, I have absolute artistic freedom and an artist wants maximum viewers with minimum interference. Besides, Netflix made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. I tell you, I worked it out to 28 times what I made from the first series of ‘The Office’. Ker-ching!”
KIDDIES, the NY Post delivers! Pawling residents send me mucho gracias for slapping those nonexistent NYSEG trucks when power went out in the upstate area in which their operation functions. This New York State Electric and Gas bunch is owned by a company in Spain. When Sandy hit and they remained as accessible as Spain’s former monarchy, I reported it. My big mouth was heard across the Atlantic and a light went on not only in their heads but in Westchester homes. The situation then got remedied en seguida.
DENZEL Washington plays a soused pilot in the new movie “Flight.” Its writer John Gatins lives in NY. He phoned me from LA. He flew there. So no nervousness about flying?
“No. Our director, Robert Zemeckis, who’s a pilot, explained aerodynamics to me. Still, I think something about air being faster above the wings seems unnatural. But pilots say it’s the safest way to travel. I’ve studied the physics. An automobile incident is one in 15. In a 50-ton piece of metal seven miles above Earth, it’s one in 250,000. So far, I haven’t checked on ferries.
“I love cars. I have a boat. To see Matthew McConaughey about a story, I stopped off in Germany on a 14-hour flight to Malta. I fly for work, but I just don’t really love it. A helpful pilot friend pointed me toward NTSB reports, public records, explained black-box transmissions and said the industry follows all research information. This friend I’d trust with my kids. We had professionals and technical advisers, but he’s the guy I want flying my plane.
“Strange energy’s on an aircraft because one in three, 33 1/3 percent of passengers, have an acute fear of flying. Like driving my car, I know I’m in control. In an airplane, it’s who’s flying it. Control’s given over to the pilot.
“Once, off to London, when we landed, everybody clapped. Seems another carrier was on the runway. I’ve had serious turbulence, and one engine caught fire, and we went back. There’s backup systems. You can fly on one engine, because airplanes have two or three engines.”
So how did this film idea come about?
“It’s not the Wild West up there, and many pilots are military-trained, but these guys are just human beings. Even in the NY Post recently, I read about a heart surgeon whose ex-wife said he did cocaine.
“On one flight from Frankfurt, I wanted a pilot next to me to shut up, and he wouldn’t. I didn’t care to know his wife hates him or his kids don’t talk to him. But . . . after that one ride . . . I started writing this movie.”
MARSHA Mason sold her New Mexico home and moved back to return to our stage with “The Exonerated” . . . Triomphe Restaurant, 44th St., gives a percent of proceeds to City Harvest on Thanksgiving Day . . . Last weekend the 50th ann’y of Eleanor Roosevelt’s passing was commemorated at our only memorial of the wife of a president, her Riverside Park, West 72nd St. statue.
HURRICANE Sandy decimated fuel pumps everywhere — but not around the Hamptons. No line. Nothing, nobody. Not one lone Aston Martin, Alfa Romeo or Ferrari, cars as pampered as their drivers and accustomed to chugging to art gallery openings and movie premieres in petrol marked Premium and Superpremium, gasped for a piteous cupful of three gallons. Sunday a Lexus tooled up to one gas station. Mumbled the driver, “Nobody here’s upset about lacking gas, right?” Replied the attendant: “Oh, please . . . around here people are upset that we only have Regular.”
Only in New York kids, only in New York.