The Other Guy (Interlude) [Live]

So, um, this is a celebration of the friendship of Anthony and I, the past twenty years we've been friends, and we have the-- [cheering] Thanks! We have the, uh, extraordinary good fortune to be able to celebrate it with all you guys through music and a few stories. When Anthony and I first, uh, were cast in Rent, back in '95, '96, and we moved to Broadway, when we would come out the stage door we would occasionally get mistaken for each other. And, uh, you know, I guess if you didn't have particularly good eyesight, or you weren't sitting particularly close to the stage, and we were on our own clothes and not in our stage clothes, I could see how you might be able to make that mistake. So, on numerous occasions I definitely signed "Anthony Rapp" to people's playbills. [laughter] Call me. [laughter] Um, hahaha. And so, now, one of the things that happens when you have a huge success like that in the entertainment business is that you get all of these offers, a lot of times from bizarre places, to do things, having to do with entertainment, whatever it may be; music, film, TV, whatever. So, probably one of the more bizarre opportunities that I got back then, but which also turned out to be one of the greatest things I've ever done, was I got offered to do the voiceover narration for a hippopotamus documentary for the Discovery Channel. [laughter] And so, I was completely dumbfounded, I had no i-- like why would in the world would they ask me to do that? So, uh, but of course I did it, it was, it was a huge honor, I'm a huge, uh, nature fan, and, and nature documentary fan, and I just, like, jumped at the chance. So this is like '97, right? So, now, cut to 2009, and Anthony and I are on the Broadway tour, which we took around the country, we went to Japan, we went to Korea. We are at a stop in Pittsburgh and a number of us from the cast went out to a bar after the show, uh, to have a drink, and, and, turns out that a number of the audience members also went to this same bar and so, we're standing there having a few drinks and, uh, after about a half an hour this woman comes up to me and she's obviously had a few drinks and she's like [nasally] "Hey, Adam, [laughter] how you doin'? Uh, we were at the show tonight, you guys were great. I don't know if you remember me, but I was the producer that hired you for that hippopotamus documentary that you narrated all of those years ago." and I was like "Oh my god, it's been so long, how've you been? I never would have recognized you but it's so good to see you!". So we're chatting it up for a few minutes and she goes [nasally] "Well, you know, it's so funny that we're standing here talking, because I never thought I would actually see you again and there's something that I always wanted to tell you and because you're standing here right in front of me I guess I'll just tell you. So, remember when you came in to do the documentary, you walked into the recording booth and you started recording, and as soon as you started to talk I turned to the engineer and I said 'Oh, it was the other guy I wanted'." [laughter] I said "It was wonderful to see you again, thank you so much. If you have any other jobs you don't wanna hire me for, please, here's my phone number". This is a song that, uh, that I think I probably dedicated to every girlfriend that I ever had in my entire life.