Comedian David Spade discusses ‘SNL,’ Vegas pools, dayclubs

Here's a pop culture flashback. Back in 1992, the world went wild when Sinead O'Connor ripped up a photo of the pope on "Saturday Night Live."

And here's news: David Spade tells me he was sort of accused of selling that photo to "Inside Edition."

"I was standing 10 feet away when she ripped up that picture of the pope," says Spade, who performs stand-up today and Saturday at The Venetian.

"I go, 'This is weird.' "

"SNL" producer Lorne Michaels was nearby, too.

"He was drinking beer. He goes, 'Oh, the Irish.' "

Spade says he picked up "a little sliver of the picture" as a souvenir.

Then "Inside Edition" got hold of the pope picture and showed its remains.

"They had the picture rebuilt but without my piece," Spade says.

Meanwhile, Spade was going around telling people he had that piece.

Word got around. Security called on him and apparently wondered whether he had sold the photo to "Inside Edition."

He had not. A crew member had, and that guy was fired.

But security took away Spade's sliver.

"I should've kept it," he says. "They didn't even do anything with it!"

A few months ago, O'Connor posted on her website that she was looking for lovers, asking for applicants and ruling out anyone who wasn't, in her words, into "anal."

Spade says she was hot once, but he can't imagine being O'Connor's squeeze now.

"I was more into her then, than today. She looks like (Chris) Farley with a bald cap."

POOL PROBLEMS

So David Spade hasn't figured out how to enjoy Vegas' poolside dayclubs, yet.

"It's so loud. That used to be a healing time, at the pool," Spade says. "I have to scream my jokes twice. Everything is followed by, 'What!?' "

A typical, shouting conversation between Spade and a girl at a dayclub goes like this, he says.

Spade: Did you hear about the hurricane?!

Girl: Yeah, Aria!

Spade: No, I didn't ask where you're staying. I guess it killed some people!?

Girl: Yeah! Bachelorette party!

Spade: Are you just guessing what I'm asking you?!

Plus, Spade, 47, has to suck in his gut at the pool. That's no good.

"The girls are pretty. That's what saves it."

The "Rules of Engagement" star isn't a nightclub aficionado, either.

"When I'm at a club at night -- just when I think the music's too loud, and it's an hour between songs I know -- then they spray smoke on you. This is how they get rid of termites, folks."

But it's the dayclubs that his friends want to go to.

"My friends have turned into day drinkers. They used to be respectable guys, but now they're (trashed) by 3 in the afternoon," he says. "I'm the one that's like a dad. I have a show that night."

A few months ago at a dayclub pool, one of his buddies wore black shoes that he bought from SkyMall, the airplane catalog.

Spade tweeted a photo of the guy's black shoes and told him, "I don't know if this is going to draw in the chicks."

"I don't know if SkyMall in general is going to draw them in. Girls don't like it when you have a bug vacuum in your house."

That's too bad, because Spade has an appreciation for the goods in SkyMall, like the triangle thing you can use as a pillow on a plane.

"In one of my movies, I want a guy whose apartment is covered in SkyMall stuff."

Doug Elfman's column appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. Contact him at delfman@reviewjournal.com. He blogs at reviewjournal.com/elfman.