Tracy Morgan finally grows up
By Ed Condran
Special to amNewYork
• Tracy Morgan is at Carolines on Thursday through Sunday.Tickets: $52.75
Tracy Morgan insists that he has metamorphosed.
In some ways, the comic-actor, who is a vital part of the critically acclaimed NBC sitcom ’30 Rock’ is on the money. Over the last year, Morgan says he has become clean and sober. He also split up with his wife of 23 years.
“I’m a much more responsible and mature person,” Morgan says while calling from his Midtown apartment. “I now see morning, noon and night. Before it was just night. It’s all changed now that I’m 40.”
The new Morgan turns in at 10 p.m.
“The first 40 years of my life were like high school,” Morgan says. “Now I’m grown up.”
But becoming an adult at mid-life doesn’t mean that Morgan is serious. He still can be laugh out loud funny. In other words, he hasn’t changed a bit.
Morgan is his naturally funny self when he tries to figure out why there isn’t more demand for tickets for the Yankees home opener at their new pleasure palace.
“I know that we’re in hard economic times but you have to get that ticket,” Morgan says. “If you’re a Yankee fan, you have to say forget about the recession and pay up. Opening Day at the new stadium is going to be off the meat rack. I have six tickets for opening day. I’m going to sell some. I’ll be out there, ‘I have two box seats.’ I’m going to get mine.”
It’s hard to imagine Morgan actually scalping tickets under the El in the Bronx but you could see his 30 Rock character Tracy Jordan making a few bucks on the side selling ducats in front of the Stadium.
“I’m not Tracy Jordan,” Morgan says emphatically. “I’m not unstable like Tracy Jordan is.”
Morgan, who will perform Thursday through Sunday at Carolines, came of age during the ‘80s just blocks away from Yankee Stadium in the Bronx housing projects. “The Stadium lit up the whole neighborhood,” Morgan recalls. “It was just amazing.”
During the mid-'70s, Morgan went to his first Yankees game.
"I’ll never forget it,” Morgan says. “It was against the Oakland A’s. My Uncle Mike took me. Fat Mike, or as I called him, ‘Fatty Love,’ had a big impact on me.”
The late Fat Mike aka Mike Warden inspired the Tracy Jordan character.
“You’re the first person I’ve told,” Morgan says. “People always think the character is based on me but no, it’s all about Fatty Love. He was the funniest person I ever knew next to my father. He was Tracy Jordan. I’m not Tracy Jordan.”
Morgan isn’t Michael Jordan either but he loves his Knicks.
“I would love it if [Cleveland Cavaliers superstar] LeBron [James] came here,” Morgan says while watching the Knicks-Cavs game on TiVo. ‘He would be a great Knick.”
Does it bother Morgan that there are more famous people in the stands of Madison Square Garden than the legendary hardwood?
“Not at all,” Morgan says. “We’re all there supporting the Knicks. Come out and support them and then come out and support me when I perform. We all need to be supported.”
