The speech had you sucked into his act. The man you saw on stage was a carefully scripted character acting the part of a old 81 yr old senile man who was out of touch with reality. Zer0 in that chair was the work of a age-addled mind doing tricks on him. Here was a movie icon of years past who was showing us that he was long past his years of glory. He was just another “movie tradesman.” However, Eastwood's lines were a blowtorch that Eastwood masterfully crafted "to make my day!"
Actually, the act was a brilliant parody of a classic Jimmy Stewart character, Elwood P. Dowd, from the movie “Harvey.” See if this doesn’t look familiar.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKECvqSVWPA