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What has 140 characters or less and no Letterman?
Oscar-winning actor Kevin Spacey talked up Twitter during a witty exchange Tuesday night on “The Late Show with David Letterman” but failed to enlist the host as a follower.
“Are you on Twitter?” Spacey asked.
“No, I can’t afford it,” Letterman said, asking Spacey repeatedly how much it costs. “I don’t know anything about the Twitter.”
Spacey, there to promote his new film “Shrink,” went on to extol the virtues of the microblogging service and tried — in vain — to explain it to Letterman, who played the role of tech-hating fogy to perfection.
“In fact, I can Twitter right now,” Spacey said while pulling his BlackBerry from his jacket. “Now, right now, Dave, what would you like to say to 800,000 people? Because you’d never get that many watching you here tonight.”
“Just, uh, ‘Hi, kids,’” the host replied. “Now, you have to do that with your thumbs?”
Spacey shot back: “You are, not only the cheapest man in show business, you’re the laziest man in show business.
“Dave says hi,” Spacey said as he typed the message. “Updating ... sending ...”
“So that was it?” Letterman said.
“Now, in about an hour, I’ll get lots and lots of people saying ‘hi’ back,” Spacey deadpanned, “from all over the world, people who don’t even get your show.”
“That really is a miracle,” Letterman said. “I can go out here to 53rd and Broadway and get people to say ‘hi’ to me. I don’t need any of this.”
Spacey said he’s been on Twitter for about three months and has more than 800,000 followers. He went on to discuss his emerging grasp on Twitter etiquette and told of teasing fellow actor John Stamos on Twitter after Stamos joined.
But, as could be expected, Letterman had the last laugh.
“You know what it reminds me of,” the host said, “I’m thinkin’ of, oh yeah, a waste of time.”
