We headed north, up the 110 to sit in the audience at the Alex Theatre in Glendale for the taping of episode eight of Last Comic Standing– the third episode of the Finals! One comic was eliminated. They’re down to six. One more will be eliminated on August 2nd, then a winner will be chosen from the lucky five. (The five then go on the monster LCS Tour! We hear it’s 60 cities and ends sometime in February.)

The Female Half was familiar with the drill– she was in the crowd during the Male Half’s semifinal taping back on July 5. This taping was much more enjoyable, as it was shot in real time and only took an hour!

One thing we didn’t expect was that other audience members would be excited to see us! (Duh! We should have expected it… after all, the folks in the audience are standup comedy fans in general and LCS fans in particular… and we appeared on LCS, so… we wound up being celebrities in the audience! And we had some nice contact with fans.)

Saleem Muhammed (known popularly as “Saleem”) handled the warmup quite ably. He is a commanding presence, a large, imposing man who is also extremely likable. It a combination that makes for a good warmup comic. The crowd was excellent– especially considering that they lined up at 11 in the morning and the taping didn’t start until noon. Comedy in the daytime? It’s do-able.

East Coasters will discover the outcome in about an hour. West Coasters, about three hours later.

For now, we will say that the show was enjoyable and the taped “Let’s find out more about…” pieces were funny, well-conceived and well-edited.

Of the six who were allowed to perform tonight, they all seemed to be much more confident, much stronger, than in past episodes. The sets seem to be getting tighter as the end approaches. Perhaps it’s because they all now know what’s expected of them. In the earlier stages of the competition, it was sometimes unclear as to just how long the sets were to be. Let comics know what’s expected of them– and when it’s expected– and the results will automatically be better. Tell them how many sets they will have to concoct and how long each set will have to be, and the comics will respond by sorting through material (or purchasing it!), devising sets that fit the criteria and practicing those sets in club settings. (We’re of the opinion that, had the acts all had such precise information– In an email? Prior to the morning auditions way back in February or March?– they would have been able to craft appropriate sets for each step of the way. It’s that uncertainty that causes stress and degrades performance.) In seasons past, some of the finalists showed signs of cracking or fatigue by this point. The sequestering of the contestants in The House cut into prep time… the uncertainty of not knowing if there would even be a performance– it all added up to less than optimum performance.

We had the pleasure of performing (The Male Half) and hanging out (The Female Half) at the Comedy & Magic Club this past weekend. We watched Tommy Johnagin do two, 2-1/2-minute sets there over three nights (and Mike DeStefano doing five-minute sets on that same stage over two nights).   The idea was to do two sets at once– one for this week and one for next week.  Is that presumptuous?  No. It’s being prepared.  It’s good to be prepared in the event that you advance. And the comics wouldn’t be able to do such preparation if they were in a house or if they didn’t know how many sets were coming up or if they didn’t know how long the sets would be. We’re not sure why the producers of a precision-engineered television show– that is often taped down to the minute– can’t let the contestants know exactly how long their sets will be. Or why the times will be set at one length at one point and then– in a seemingly arbitrary fashion– be changed to a different lenght at another point down the line.

This way is better. And it allows the contestant to engage in a bit of strategy. The sets are tighter. America gets to see these thoroughbred performers perform at their very best and the country gets the idea that comedians– professional comedians– are pretty damn good at what they do!

We’re down in Redondo now. Our plan, though, was to meet up with some of the contestants over a bottle of bourbon and celebrate and recap the hourlong taping. But they were still being held captive for post-show interviews, so we packed it in and headed south. (We don’t leave until Wednesday afternoon, so there’s still hope for some sort of get-together.)

We participated in Dick And Darren’s Podcast last night in Studio City. It was a spirited hour or so of conversation and hilarity touching on REO Speedwagon, radio, Last Comic Standing, Yugo ownership and lots more! The Male and Female Halves of the staff joined Dangerous Dick Spenneberg and Darren Carter (“The Party Starter!”) under the capable engineering of Randy Wang. Click on the above link to listen to it or download it!

Dangerous Dick Spenneberg, Randy Wang, The Female Half, The Male Half, Darren Carter

Oh, God… another one. Another article on joke thievery. This time, it’s in a theater blog attached to a British newspaper, the Guardian, and the amateur sleuth is James Kettle (who writes about comedy a lot and fancies himself an expert on the subject).

“Has Keith Chegwin been stealing comedians’ jokes on Twitter?” is the question posed in the headline. And the answer seems to be “Yes.”

But we don’t have a problem with pointing out that Chegwin is a joke thief. Because “Cheggers” seems to be a serial joke-stealer. And he also seems curiously unrepentant.

What we do have a problem with is many of the assumptions that Kettle makes. And many of his pronouncements about standup just serve to perpetuate ridiculous myths about standup comics and standup comedy in general.

Among the gags retold by the one-time player of pop were identifiable jokes written by a number of contemporary standup stars, including Milton Jones, Lee Mack and Jimmy Carr. And what Cheggers presumably envisaged as a warm-hearted bit of fun has stirred up a sizeable amount of bad feeling within the comedy community. One comedian, Ed Byrne, even took Chegwin to task on Twitter, telling him he was wrong not to credit “working comics” for the jokes he was using.

Now, you could be forgiven for reflexively assuming that the standups are being a little bit precious about this (and that’s the line Chegwin has taken, telling his followers with apparent glee that he’s managed to upset the “ususal [sic] bunch of jealous comics”). And to be fair, a lot of people have a bit of a blind spot when it comes to the concept of intellectual property. But it surely can’t be that hard to grasp the principle that whether you’re in a building site, an office or browsing on the internet, finding out that someone is passing off your hard work as their own is not exactly on– especially if you’re working freelance, as pretty much every comic is.

Kettle goes on to say that such a cavalier attitude might not have been out of place back in the days before “alternative comedy” took hold in England. It refers to a break in style and approach, the two factions being represented by Bernard Manning (old school) and Ben Elton (new school).

The idea that a comedian had outright ownership of his material seems to have taken root in this country once (Bernard) Manning et al gave way to the Ben Elton generation. For the original alternative comedians, simple gag-telling was far less important than presenting a fully-formed original perspective on the world.

(Of course, their use of the term “alternative” differs from ours. A similar changeover occured here in America twenty years earlier.)

The article is interesting and useful for it’s window into the history of the evolution of British comedy (and for the knowledge of the British comedy scene it imparts). But we’re afraid that it’s not very helpful when it comes to definitively coming down hard on real, certifiable joke thieves– The language used is a bit too mushy for our liking, e.g.: “…Jimmy Carr threatened to sue Jim Davidson for copying a routine the Channel 4 star believed was his…” Believed? Oh, no– If Jimmy Carr goes to the trouble of suing, Carr is certain (and we are, too) that the gags are his. Let’s give original and prolific comedian/writers like Carr the benefit of the doubt, okay?

And that’s the trouble with all these articles about joke thievery (and about the public airing of grudges and the conduct of informal joke-stealing trials via YouTube and Twitter and other social and mainstream media)– they make theft seem like a much more pervasive problem than it is. And they turn the public into annoying, ill-informed sleuths. (Just check out the comments that inevitably follow these kinds of articles… the accusations are ludicrous and sickening.)

And check out some of the tweets related to Last Comic Standing. We were horrified to read some of them. After each airing of an LCS episode, there are tweets that accuse this comic of ripping off that comic. We reached the end of our patience when one weasel tweeted that DeStefano had “totally ripped off” a bit from Jim Gaffigan. WTF?!! It soon became a parlor game at SHECKY HQ– see if we could top that one! “WTF? Bill Hicks totally ripped off Phyllis Diller!” or “OMG! Doug Stanhope so stole that bit from Shields and Yarnell!”

We warned folks early on, when this trend was just gaining some steam. We cautioned everyone about taking this kind of thing public. The genie seems to be out of the bottle. (We totally ripped off that turn of phrase from Barbara Eden!)

We flew into LAX on Monday morning. The Male Half will be at the Comedy & Magic Club through Saturday. Both Halves hung out at C&MC last night. It was “16 Comics for $16.” (The crowd got a bonus two comics last night!)

Mike Siegel, Rob Paravonian, Tommy Johnagin, Becky Pedigo, at the Mermaid

Mike Siegel, Rob Paravonian and Tommy Johnagin were on the bill last night (as was The Male Half) and afterward, we all retired to the wonderfully seedy Mermaid bar (with Becky Pedigo, above right) at the end of the pier in Hermosa Beach for drinks and lively conversation. (Pedigo will read from her book at the Improv Lab next Thursday… sadly, we will not be here to see it!)  Also on the bill were: Alan Havey, Dwayne Perkins, Diane Nichols, Charles Viracola, Darren Carter, Jimmy Brogan, Lamont Ferguson, Quinn Dahle, Jim Short and many, many more!  (We forgot to write the names down!)

We’re here in SoCal until next Wednesday. We plan on going to the LCS taping on Monday morning. Stay tuned.

We’ll limit our observations to this: Of the contestants sent home tonight, we accurately predicted the demise of two of them (won’t say which ones) and we predicted (privately) the other one would be eliminated next week.

Gone are James Adomian, Laurie Kilmartin and Maronzio Vance.

We predict that we’ll go four-for-four when the dust settles (just not in the exact order we predicted).

BTW: When we predict someone will be out, we do so without any personal enmity. We are totally divorced from emotion or personal preference when we calculate our predictions. We employ cool logic and data scraped from the Twittersphere and other sources. We are rather like the bookmaker who determines the spread and whose business would be ruined were he to make his picks base on any sort of prejudice.

Also: We wondered (aloud… on our blog… in “print”) where the judges were last episode. This week, the judges were restored.

Also: We wondered (aloud… on our blog… in “print”) what the deal was with Craig Robinson and his reluctance to touch the contestants. Hmmm… in tonight’s episode, Robinson quite deliberately clapped a hand on each and every one of the contestants after they completed their performances and awaited “judgment.”

All right… that’s it. We’re not offering another word of analysis of the show (over and above any sort of rudimentary commentary that one might find on any other popular standup comedy website) until we’re put on retainer as consultants to NBC’s Last Comic Standing. It’s about time we parlayed these eleven years of blood and sweat and tears into a paid gig!

The skies opened up and what appeared to be straight-line winds whipped through and tore the street festival asunder! The Place des Arts, just across Rue Ste.-Catherine, was, until that moment bedecked by two great red horns and, together with the giant eyeballs, it made the modern edifice look just like Victor, the green creature who is the Just Pour Rire mascot/ambassador. The mighty wind came and took one horn away. Shortly thereafter, crews removed the other.

The buildings have eyes. They turned the Place des Arts into a giant Victor. Yesterday, one of Victor's horns blew away!

On more than a few occasions over the past four days, we told people that we were absent from the ’08 and ’09 JFL festivals. And on more than a few occasions, we were told that we didn’t miss anything last year. This is meant to imply a number of things: Attendance was down, Industry didn’t show up in very large numbers and JFL seemed a bit smaller, a tad less intense. (We theorized that maybe U.S. Industry types chose to sample the recently launched Chicago version of Just For Laughs… and who wants to attend two festivals in the same year?)

Joey Elias (l) and Steve Patterson celebrate the end of a grueling festival week, at the Hyatt

On the flip side, this year’s fest seemed like old times. (We suppose this means that Chicago was found wanting.)

Or was it like old times? We’re not sure. We know that many of the usual suspects were up here performing (Festival favorites like Dom Irrera, Jimmy Carr, Christopher Titus, Andy Kindler and Harland Williams to name a handful), but were the Industry people here? Sad to say, we’re not sure… we’re dismally bad at ID’ing the Juice Dispensers, the Power Brokers, the Importantes, the Ones Who Sign the Checks.

The lobby bar at the Hyatt– the circular schmooze circus that rages every night from midnight to 3 or 4 AM– certainly seemed crammed. So there’s that. But we have no way of knowing if JFL is still the be-all/end-all for running into the people who can make or goose a career.

Left to right: Jimmy Carr, Bo Burnham, Noel Fielding

Part of this year’s JFL was the Comedy Conference… or was it called the Insiders Series… or was it the Comedy Conference/Insiders Series? We’re confused. It was supposed to be a bunch of panels and discussions and such. We only caught one small slice of one of the installments of the Pitch ’til Your Sides Split. And we caught a small hunk of Web Face-Off: Comedy Kingmakers. (A lot of the Comedy Conference events were held in the morning. At 10 AM, we were only capable of hustling down to the breakfast buffet and hurrying back to the room to file our analysis for our readers. So we missed all the “fun” (we use that word advisedly, thus the quotes). Heck we couldn’t even budget our time to catch the Networking Lunches! That was free food! Why didn’t they call it “Let’s Do Lunch?” (Does Pat Riley own the rights to that, just like he owns “Three-peat?”) Well, what do you expect from the gang who cooked up the ungainly “Pitch ’til Your Sides Split?” (Maybe it was named something mellifluous in French that just didn’t survive translation.)

Apparently, “Late Night: In the Writer’s Room” was well-attended. (But The Female Half had a bad case of “the whirlies,” so we had to pass on that gathering.) And though attendance may have been good, we can’t help but think that it might have been better had the description not been this:

Back by popular demand and after a tumultuous year in the spotlight, the world of Late Night television is on the hot seat in this panel.

Such a tortured sentence could not have been written by anyone who ever spent any time in a writer’s room. We question the credibility of the presentation… after all, there was a woman on the panel (Allison Silverman) and everyone knows there are no women in the late night writers’ rooms!

(The Whirlies, BTW, is a condition often brought on by malnutrition, fatigue and dehydration. It is easily cured by a honking plate of cuisine Indienne, a ninety-minute nap, an Extra Strength Tylenol and a snort of Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey.)

That Comedy Kingmakers presentation could be summarized as dealing with the issue of why comedy is popular on the web. Various execs from CollegeHumor.com, the Onion.com and other online comedy initiatives made up the panel. From what we saw, it was five guys sitting on a stage telling the audience that “that doesn’t make money,” and “this doesn’t make money” and “well, we tried that and we won’t know if it will make money for a couple or years or so” and “it’s terribly difficult to make money doing that.” Lots of talk of “insustainable models” and “revenue streams” and occasional dreamy speculation as to how the WWW might some day be just like television. (Weren’t they supposed to put television out of business? Where’s your pluck? Man up and get out there and shift the paradigm fer chrissakes!)

The Male Half poses with a SHECKYmagazine fan at the Hyatt last night at about 3 AM

We spent our Saturday evening dining at the legendary Dunn’s Famous Deli with the Vos-McFarlanes and Jim Norton (who was between shows, having just completed a “Bubbling” and on his way eventually to an 11 o’clock Best of the Fest at the Comedy Works). Also joining us later was Norton’s manager, Jonathan Branstein (who is rare among comedy management types in that he has… a sense of humor!)

Norton is a delightful dinner companion in that he is knowledgeable, introspective and passionate when it comes to discussing standup.

Had we actually attended any shows yesterday, this is probably what we would have taken in: “The CBC Radio’s The Debaters.” Hosted by Steve Patterson, “the festival’s best talent facing off in a verbal slug-fest of facts and funny. Attendees saw Andy Kindler vs. Harland Williams, Kristeen von Hagen vs. Pete Zedlacher, Pete Johanssen vs. David Hemstad, Mark Little vs. De Anne Smith and Andrew Maxwell vs. Michael Mittermaier. It was held at 2 in the afternoon… hmmm… something like that would be so much more fun at 2 AM, don’t you think?

Or we might have watched a bit of the Not Inappropriate Show– a Bob Odenkirk project– which is billed as a family-friendly (read: clean) sketch show for people 8 years of age and up. How odd and refreshing that a festival would even think of offering such a thing. And how fascinating that it’s Odenkirk who dreamed it up. Might clean become hip soon? Don’t bet on it.

Does it sound like the Fest is engaging in a bit of innovation? Attempting, perhaps, to shake up things a bit? Another show that sounded interesting was Comedy Leagues– a team standup comedy competition featuring the best comics form the top four cities in the northeast. NY, Boston, Montreal and Chicago were represented by Ryan Hamilton, Mark Normand, Ophiria Eisenberg, Bethany Van Delft, Joe List, Lamont Price, Eman, Mike Paterson, Tim Rabnett, Allison Smith, Darin Rose and Eddie Della Seipe. We hear that Team Boston led going into the final round, but were eventually defeated by Team NY. Ryan Hamilton (Last Comic Standing, Season 7) was MVP and was rewarded for his performance with a spot in Saturday night’s Bubbling With Laughter.

As always, there were standup- or comedy-related movies exhibited this week. SHECKYmagazine readers are already familiar with “I Am Comic,” the Jordan Brady-directed doc featuring Ritch Shydner. “Exporting Raymond” sounds like a must-rent– it tells the tale of the exploits of “Everybody Loves Raymond” producer Phil Rosenthal as he prepares the long-running sitcom for syndication… in Russia! “American: The Bill Hicks Story” is a movie that recounts “the amazing tale of Bill Hicks.” And Ahmed Ahmed directed “Just Like Us,” which features an international lineup of standup comics in live performances. One movie company held a sneak preview of the not yet completed movie’s trailer– “Eat Drink Laugh, The Movie” tells the story of the Comic Strip Live. The famed NYC club celebrates it’s 35th anniversary next year and Chris Rock executive produced the documentary that features Ray Romano, Judah Friedlander, Bill Maher, Colin Quinn and Paul Reiser among others. (And, of course, McFarlane and Vos were actually shooting some of their upcoming movie while up here. They, and the producers of the Comic Strip Live movie, hope to have their films completed by next year and, of course, are hopeful that their flicks will be in the lineup for JFL 2011.)

There’s always a buzzy gala, the one gala of the week that everyone anticipates or talks about because of the host. This year, it quite possibly could have been the gala hosted by Pamela Anderson, but it was nosed out by the Steve Martin gala. (Actually, there were two Steve Martin galas!) The lucky ones who got to be on them were Gerry Dee, Jack Whitehall, Nick Cannon, Jared Christmas, Steve Patterson, Rove McManus, Mike Birbiglia and Joe Koy (early show) and Godfrey, Tom Wrigglesworth, Todd Barry, Andrew Maxwell, Mark Little, Orney Adams and Whitney Cummings (late show).

And Dane Cook flew in from Utah (where he’s shooting a movie) and dropped in as a surprise guest. Cook told us he always wanted to share a stage with Steve Martin. Mission accomplished.

Cook came back to the Hyatt afterwards (which is where we encountered him). Near the end of our conversation, Cook said, to The Male Half, “You need to do me a favor… I always see pictures of you with comedians… so could you take a picture of you and me?” (Since 1999, no one has uttered anything close to the words to The Halves. Cook says he’s checking back to make sure we run it. Ha!)

Dom Irrera (on the left, missing one antenna) and Rich Vos, at the Hyatt

We left the Hyatt lobby bar at 4 AM. And, although last call was announced nearly an hour earlier, the party was still proceeding at a pretty good pitch when we departed. (It’s always a frantic party on Saturday night, due in part to the fact that many attendees are doing the dreaded “Stay Up”– the ol’ “My plane leaves at 7 AM, and I have to leave for the airport at 5, so I might as well stay up!“)

To which we reply: NO! Don’t do it! (But by that time, it’s too late. They are doomed to a hellish, hungover airline experience.)

We were on the elevator with McFarlane yesterday and she said, “You guys didn’t do anything today, what’re you going to write about?” Vos pipes up, “If McKim drops something on the floor, there’s five-hundred words right there.” The ticker at the bottom of the WordPress window reads “Word count: 1838.)

We caught the last fifteen minutes of Just For Pitching… we usta accidentally call it “Pitching It.” Now they’ve changed the name of it and they’re billing it as “Pitch ’til Your Sides Split: TV series pitch session.” There were only three pitches scheduled. That guy from Banff Television with the clipboard wasn’t running it… is he not involved this year? Steve Patterson (comedian from Toronto) emceed it this time.

We got there in time to see “NNN News,” one of three sitcoms pitched at the afternoon session. We didn’t take any notes, but we do know that Omnipop’s Bruce Smith was one of the pitchers. And the pitchees were the usual suspects– execs from Canadian and (maybe) US television. The trailer was slick, no doubt about that. But the verdict from one of the suits was that it skewed too old (as least for his network) and the others were just confused. But, of course, they each took turns explaining exactly why they were confused– using exquisitely opaque ExecSpeak! We theorize that heavily compensated television executives endeavor to demonstrate their salary-worthiness by speaking. Words– spoken words– are their most important product! And you thought it was television programming! No, no! Their most important product is their artfully spun web of ponderous speech– decorated with delightfully arcane catchphrases and buzzwords that serve as shortcuts to their main points. It’s totally modular! They build giant delicate word castles of lacey, fluffy nothingness! They hold forth for a good five minutes on this pilot or that sitcom project– that’s 300 seconds– when the elusive word they search for– “No.”– takes only about three-hundredths of a second. That’s a ratio of about a thousand to one! Such waste! We suspect that somewhere, deep in their contracts, they’re paid by the word. They are each a modern Charles Dickens!

We missed today’s Pitch ’til Your Sides Split. Darn. We need a refresher course in ExecSpeak. (We haven’t heard anyone use the word, “interstitial” in years!)

Who knew Donald Glover ("Troy on NBC's "Community") is adept at rapping?

Andy Kindler’s State of the Industry Address was scheduled for 4:30! Huh? No coffee? No danish? No spread of gooey chocolate chip cookies and sugary soda pop? And why so late? It’s Friday evening and a lot of people are getting ready for their Friday 7:30 shows! This kind of timing tends to suppress attendance. It was held upstairs. Or was it downstairs? The Hyatt’s layout is not… linear. Rather, it is an architectural funhouse with two elevator banks that don’t agree on anything and secret passages and salons and levels and… a shopping mall! (Press the wrong button and you’re launched into a brightly-lit, late 20th century, atrium shopping mall!)

We got to the address in time to catch Harland Williams‘ wacky intro. (Williams is a surrealist!) We’ve seen Kindler’s address ten times now. And this one was not his best. It never got rolling… it lacked momentum. Without getting into the particulars, there was only giant applause break. It’s usually a non-stop, rollicking roller coaster affair– in which even the valleys are funny. This time, it was… even.

Specifically: He didn’t get to Last Comic Standing quickly enough! LCS was the giant, 1,000-lb. elephant in the room. Right? Andy Kindler, Alterna-God, goes over to The Dark Side of Network Television. Isn’t that the theme this year? Admit it: When you heard, “Andy’s going to be a judge on Last Comic Standing,” didn’t you think, “Hey… maybe LCS might be good this year!” and then, “Geez… I wonder how he’s going to handle this in the State of the Industry Address?”

Well… we did, at least.

He got to it. But he took his time getting to it. And when he got there, he didn’t hit it hard enough.

Man, that Classic Comedy Radio bit was Classic Comedy! Kindler mocked the fast-talking patter of hacky radio deejays but inserted sly and often vicious references to Lisa Lampinelli, Wayne Cotter and Etta May.

Since we were planning to hover around the Vos/McFarlane juggernaut all night (starting with a 5:45 shuttle call for the 7:00 Gala show hosted by Cheech & Chong), we hadda leave before Kindler go to the closer– his “Jay Leno material.” (What’s a SOTI Address without some Leno bashing?) Now hear this: It may have appeared that we were walking out in protest– some sort of statement in solidarity of Team Leno– but we assure one and all that was not the case… it was a simple matter of scheduling!

We’re still puzzled as to why they videotape the address every year. It doesn’t seem to be up online. Is it up on iTunes? Is it going to be released in a boxed set some day? (Physical media… so last century!) It has a shelf life– pretty soon references to some of Kindler’s favorite targets are going to evoke not belly laughs but momentary confusion as the celebrities slip out of the public consciousness. We say: Put them all up online! Let us all have at it! There’s gold in them thar hills of snark!

There are bootleg audio copies floating around out there. In this day and age, it’s best to get out in front of that and offer it via digital download!

On the left: Ben Roy (New Faces) On the right: Fortune Feimster (New Faces, Last Comic Standing)

It was fascinating hanging out in the narrow hallway at the Theatre St. Denis during the aforementioned gala. It’s a show… a big show. And it’s a television taping, too! So it’s controlled chaos– lots of clipboard-toting gals and guys and camera/sound crews crabwalking past while clumps of comics and their “crews” huddle throughout the warren of dressing rooms. At each end, plasma screens display the program and each performer is greeted with applause upon returning to the backstage area.

McFarlane was scheduled for the middle of the lineup that included Jay Malone, Jim Jeffries, Noel Fielding, Bill Burr, Joey Elias, Chris Hardwick, Pete Johanssen and Lavell Crawford. Cheech & Chong’s bits were interspersed throughout.

We don’t review comics. But MAN is that Bill Burr in some kindofa zone these days! He makes us howl! He dug himself a hole (by his own admission) with the somewhat judgemental gala crowd by starting off with a bit about how skeptical he is that “there’s never an excuse to hit a woman.” (“Really? Really? Never? I can think of seventeen!”) But he powered through and killed mightily with a lengthy bit about his girlfriend “rescuing” a pit bull. It’s so funny, it makes one fear that the laughing muscles may have sustained permanent damage.

In the many backstages we’ve hung out in this year, there seems to be a looseness… less of a militaristic, tightly-controlled striving for a precision, down-to-the-minute production. It seems to be left up to the comics as to how and when the show might proceed. It’s relaxing! (Of course, the Gala, since it’s taped for airing on Canadian television, is, by necessity, scripted and timed. But even so, it didn’t seem very tense back there. For a TV taping, it was pretty laid back.)

If only the audiences were similarly laid back. We’ve seen a few instances of audiences being judgemental, stiff, a little too quick to jump on a comic after hearing only a setup or a premise. That is soooo 1996! People, you’re at a comedy festival! Give the joke a chance… we can pretty much guarantee you it’s going to be funny once we all arrive at the punchline! We can guarantee you (if that is what you require) that you’re not going to be offended. And, if you are offended, we would (not so) respectfully request that you keep your trap shut and hide your discontent! (No booing, please. It’s the eventual manifestation of the premise police and the political correctness disease that swept the continent over the past decade and a half– people feeling entitled to voice their displeasure… at a comedy show! And too many of these goofs are offended at the setup! Huh? Are these people ADD, perhaps? Unable to wait until the rest of the gag is unspooled before they get all judgemental? It’s rude, it’s stupid, it’s unwanted.)

The Male Half consented to man the video camera and tail McFarlane as she rustled her tot during the shuttle ride, straightened out a false eyelash controversy down in makeup and did the curtain call. We’re sure some of the footage will be usable.

Kristeen Von Hagen and Jo-Anna Downey at the Funny Or Die party

We hit Ernie Butler’s Comedy Nest on the other end of town, at the Pepsi Center (the old Forum), for the Comedy Night in Canada show. (Featured were Jo-Anna Downey, Daniel Tirado, Eddie King, Graham Clark, Pete Johanssen, McFarlane, The Doo Wops) It was bittersweet– we’ve performed at the Nest on two occasions in the past, but this was the first time we’d set foot in the joint since the passing of Butler. (We last saw him at the ’07 JFL, just weeks before he succumbed to cancer.)

Rich Vos and The Male Half at the Funny Or Die party

We stopped back to the Hyatt to mix up a batch of Manhattans and chill on some modern lobby furniture. We engaged the occasional passing comic (“Hey! You’re Greg Hahn!” “As a matter of fact, I am!”) and share networking tips with Kevin Meany– “You look like you’ve put on weight,” Meany says, then, “I’m going to say that to everyone!” Yes, Kevin… that’s an idea that so crazy, it just might work.

Then it was off to hang backstage at the Nasty Show. It’s a raucous and densely packed, subterranean bunker that doubles as a green room– Greg Giraldo (host), Jimmy Carr, Jim Norton, Rich Vos, Tiffany Haddish and Andrew Kennedy are present as the Club Soda crowd upstairs is treated to nastiness. Agents, managers, publicists and others drift in and out. It’s a party atmosphere. So much so that most don’t leave for the free-liquor/free-food bash just up the boulevard (the one hosted by Funny Or Die) until 2 AM!

A ten-minute shuffle up Boul. Ste Laurent gets us to that bash. Up four or five floors and the elevator doors open and the throbbing techno rattles the ribcage. In past years, we’ve sought refuge from the decibels in the room off to the right side. But this year, even that sanctuary was uncomfortably loud. What sense does it make to force a bunch of comedians to scream themselves hoarse… at a party… at a festival… a festival at which those same hoarse comedians will wake up on the next morning sounding like Kathleen Turner after drinking Drano… and who will then have to perform on Saturday night?

We hung… we ate a delightful smoked meat sandwich (Thanks, Funny Or Die!) and huddled and shouted for a bit before heading back to the Hyatt.

While shouting and drinking, we heard an amazing story from Jo-Anna Downey, who runs a free-wheeling and respected open mike/workout room in Toronto. Irwin Barker, the Canadian comedy legend who passed away last month at the age of 57, often performed there, says Downey. Barker is quoted as saying, “Cancer has my body but not my spirit, and I’ll continue to make jokes, not so much about cancer, but in spite of it.” In this case, Barker walked the walk– Downey says that Barker showed up the room just two weeks before his death… and did a set of new material. (Such a story is inspirational… and it might just motivate us to get off our asses and seek out a stage somewhere and break in the stuff that’s been hiding in notebooks and lurking amid the scraps of paper on the desk.)

The view's not always spectacular... check out the guy in the middle of the frame, wearing a speedo... and little else... in broad daylight.

Gloomy day. Windy, too. There’s a giant slab of crappy weather just south of us and oddly enough, it’s shaped like Philadelphia (but 20 times the size). It’s moving north/northeast, so we might escape it’s wrath. 

Last night was typically hot and muggy. A perfect night for holding a party in a carwash. 

The carwash gang just getting warmed up.

That’s Doug Stanhope down there somewhere. That’s a carwash (Lave Auto Centre-Ville!) just across Jeanne-Mance from the Hyatt. And Stanhope rented it out for a party. Round about ten last night, The Halves and designated cetacean Bonnie McFarlane swam over (through the soupy, humid Montreal air) and checked out the scene– It’s a carwash… and it’s set up like a party, with beer and vodka and a sound system and a mike in one corner. Stanhope’s idea is to jam a thumb in the eye of the Just For Laughs fest. On his Facebook status from Wednesday, he said he intended to “set up camp right outside their camp. And get drunk with the good ones.” Attendees were given a “Doug Stanhope Festival Survival Kit,” which was a small nylon zippered pouch containing mints, caffiene energy gum, adhesive bandages (popularly know by the proprietary name of “Bandaids”), Aleve, Blistex, antacid, Wet Ones, a “No Screwing” tattoo and a condom. (The Female Half says that, with the exception of the condom and the tattoo, everything’s going straight into her purse. She puts Boy Scouts to shame with her desire to be prepared. She would end up with a whopping prize were she to appear in the audience of Let’s Make A Deal.) 

Stanhope is filled with more than the usual amount of rage in his most recent (July 12) journal posting– “Comedy Death Camp,” in which he savagely trashes those who profit from training others in the art of standup. People who teach the occasional comedy classes are “loathsome enough but don’t create much damage.” But he reserves particularly poisonous venom for those whose marketing skills enable them to “make a career out of it–folks like Comedy Bible author Judy Carter and JFL talent coord Jeff Singer. And he is particularly galled by Kyle Cease (he calls Cease a “fucking rotten, soul-plundering asshole”) for joining forces with Louie Anderson to create Comedy Boot Camp. Is reading Stanhope the best thing for us to do before filing one of our JFL updates? Man, can that boy pump out the bile! Even at our most vicious, our prose reads like the minutes of a romance novel book club meeting compared to Stanhope’s barbarous essays. 

In the course of trashing those who teach, he also holds up Michael “Chicken” Roof as symbolizing everything that’s wrong with The Industry in general… and festivals in particular… and JFL if you want to go even further. So, his carwash show/party is a pointed response to the fest. It reminds us of the comparitively gentle counter-fest that was mounted many years ago by a gang of Boston comics who set up a mini-fest of their own one year on a boat in the St. Lawrence River near Vieux Montreal. Their attitude was congenial (and betrayed more of a desire to be included in the fest than a desire to wound the fest). 

* * * * * * 

Bonnie McFarlane and Joe List at a party honoring Jay Roach, director of "Dinner For Schmucks"

Speaking of being included/excluded: That’s Joe List (next to Bonnie McFarlane) in the picture above. Our readers will recall that List was “disapeared” from Last Comic Standing– he “got through” from NYC to the semifinals in Los Angeles, performed on night number one of those semifinals, but his likeness was expunged from the final cut of the show! We asked him how it felt to vanish like that. He reminded us that not only did he end up on the cutting room floor, but so did Tom Shillue, Stuckey and Murray, David Cope and Jeff Maurer. In our updates, we mentioned all but Mr. Maurer… so Maurer has the distinction of not only being dissed by LCS, but he was also hosed by SHECKYmagazine.com! We forgot! Honest! (Fer Chrissakes, could we JUST STOP WITH ALL THE REFERENCES TO LAST COMIC STANDING?!) 

List said he “didn’t get the call.” He said that he never pursued the matter… never phoned up Hollywood and asked what, if anything, he did to deserve such an ignominious fate.  He added that it wasn’t fellow comics who busted his chops about his absence on the show but… friends and relatives!

(We never considered the “friends and relatives” angle. Perhaps because we have few friends and our relatives have the rude habit of dying a lot.) 

That's Adrienne, Adrian and Adrian (Iapalucci, Mesa and Cunningham, respectively) at the Hyatt

Patrice O’Neal was supposed to be here this week. We heard the tix were selling like hotcakes. But the shows were canceled and the tickets were refunded. (He’s been a fixture up here for a few years.) We heard that O’Neal was turned away at the border. We found out that he attempted a second time to fly into Montreal but was again “red-flagged.” It seems that an old legal matter, stemming from a 1987 charge when O’Neal was a callow youth of 17, somehow has resurfaced and is making things like crossing borders devilishly difficult. (Initially, we were reluctant to report on the matter, but we were encouraged to do so by O’Neal’s management– it’s better that O’Neal’s absence be revealed as beyond his control, than have his fans think that he merely stiffed them, goes the logic.) 

Angelo Tsarouchas greets Godfrey in the lobby of the Hyatt

Check out the above candid shot: Zoom in on the hands in the center of the pic… it’s the moment of “shake!” 

Shaking hands with comedian Godfrey is Angelo Tsarouchas– the Canadian comedian/actor who stars in a film we’re keenly interested in seeing. It’s called “Fred and Vinnie,” and it tells the tale of the relationship between comedian Freddie Stoller and the late Vinnie D’Angelo. D’Angelo was a founding father of Philadelphia comedy who passed away after moving from his native New Jersey to Los Angeles. We knew D’Angelo from our days in Philly comedy. He is missed. Tsarouchas approximates D’Angelo physically (especially with the matching facial hair which is absent here). 

* * * * * * 

The single most satisfying moment of the festival so far? That would have to be catching the last fifteen minutes of Lewis Black’s Keynote Address. (We were working on yesterday’s update… we blew off the first 30 minutes.) 

Black’s speech was part of the Comedy Conference, an amorphous program if there ever was one. But, from what we saw, Black’s tirade was well-formed. 

You know that vein that sometimes throbs on someone’s forehead when they’re outraged? Well, put a jacket on one of them and that’s what Lewis Black is. He spent the last third of his talk dealt with his frustrating (and numerous) encounters with television executives. It’s delicious to watch/hear Black eviscerate TV suits– while a bunch of them are present! 

And the climax was when Black told a story about when he was younger– in his late 30s– and a friend of his scored a deal for a television show with MTV. The friend wanted to use his buddies on the show… on a regular basis. Black was among the people he wanted to use. The exec told Black’s friend that the friends “skewed too old” for the intended audience. The friend countered that, when he was little, his comedy idol was Groucho Marx and that Marx was not only old… he was DEAD! (Imagine the line barked out in the patented Lewis Black manner! It was priceless! It was inspirational! It had all the satisfying emotions and implications! It was logical! It was insightful! It was satisfying in that it laid bare the TV executives and their blinkered, Philistine pig-ignorance! And, of course, it’s something we’ve been bleating about for 11 years!) 

Michael Kosta (Host, New Faces) and Ryan Hamilton (Last Comic Standing)

How about that Twitter? And that Google? And all that internet stuff that enables people to find information? We’re in awe of the technology. Ever more so when we hear stories like that told to us by Michael Kosta (above left). We posted yesterday that we were greatly amused by Kosta’s command of the two-leveled Cabaret venue as he hosted the 7:30 New Faces show Wednesday night. Hours after we hit “Publish,” we encounter Mr. Kosta in the lobby bar last night and he tells us that he was working out earlier in the day when he received a .txt message from his sister who lives in Ann Arbor. Turns out sister keeps tabs on brother’s comings and goings by means of a tailored Google search which pushes new Google citations of “Michael Kosta” to her desktop. And whaddya know, she gets word that the nice people at SHECKYmagazine (which she spelled wrong in her message!) said something nice about her brother! Just hours it takes for word to ricochet from Montreal to Ann Arbor back to the gym at the Hyatt Regency!! 

Kosta nearly didn’t make it to the show, he says. He commandeered a shuttle from the Hyatt lobby in plenty of time to make it to the 7:30 show. But, since Rue Ste. Catherine is all chewed up due to a beautification project, a trip which would normally only take five minutes now takes double that. No matter, there was still plenty of time. His driver, a young lady whose French was way better than her English got a little… lost. Minutes later, Kosta says, he finds himself headed over the Pont Champlain, headed for Brossard, Quebec, with the city of Montreal getting smaller and smaller out the back window. Panic city!! 

Kosta was patient. They eventually made it, but it was touch and go– and the venue had someone lined up to replace the missing Kosta in the event he never arrived! (We consider the driver to be one lucky gal, as we have seen some rather ugly, narcissistic flare-ups during past festivals– managers or agents or talent screaming (literally screaming!) into the face of a hapless driver whose only offense may have been to arrive a minute late to a pick-up or show up without enough room for a client.) 

Stiltwalker, from our window at the Hyatt Regency

Holy Crapping Jesus! Who could predict that the acoustics in a tent would be so awful? We entered the 2010 Variety’s Ten Comics To Watch Cocktail Reception and slammed into a cacophonous wall of music and chatter and yelling. It was like a thousand vuvuzelas pumped through a CB radio and re-pumped through a Marshall amp. We grabbed some red wine and a Blue and headed back out into the sunshiney terrace. We watched as, one by one, the Comics To Watch exited the tent, dazed and clutching their framed Variety citations. The Male Half jokes (in Kindler-esque fashion) that on one or two occasions, he hasn’t been a Comic To Watch even when he’s onstage. In no particular order, they are/were: 

Hannibal Buress
Deon Cole
Lucas Cruikshank
Brett Gelman
Chris Gethard
The Imponderables
Kyle Kinane
Kate Micucci & Riki Lindhome
Chelsea Peretti
Jack Whitehall 

We have a lot to say about this article… but not enough time to say it right now. (Perhaps when we return to Jersey, decompress and unpack… then re-pack for our upcoming trip to Los Angeles… we’ll read some Stanhope and spin out some white-hot blog napalm about it. For now… a cleansing breath or two and we move on.) 

We encounter a wide variety of Industry and Media people. We marvel at McFarlane’s ability to say a wildly inappropriate thing with a smile… and we marvel at the reactions and we are particularly fascinated by the (sometimes) excruciatingly long pauses that take place before the recipient of said thing puts it all together and realizes that… it’s a joke! Example: We encounter Al Parinello. Al introduces himself and tells us he’s the Executive Director of the Andy Kaufman Award. McFarlane smiles and says (totally innocent and totally believably!), “Oh… How is Andy these days?” The Excruciatingly Long Pause ensues. The Realization occurs. The Female Half pipes up, “You know… you really should have an answer for that question.” Which is true. He should. On this day, he does not. (For anyone who thinks that’s cruel, we counter that Kaufman– and anyone looking after his legacy– has only Kaufman to blame. The man– and his fans– perpetuated the notion that he faked his death and gleefully went along with the gag when Kaufman played very elaborate and very public tricks with his identity and his existence… indeed, some believe that the man lives on to this day.) Eventually guffawing ensues. 

* * * * * *
The above photo is what we see out our window today. The JFL people have shifted some of the street performance from its old home on Rue St. Denis to the plaza just outside our hotel, in front of the Place des Arts. We’re not sure, but we think it will crank up to full throttle starting tonight. But, during the day, we look out and we see only the occasional oddity– giant papier mache heads (Carnival-style) of the Marx Brothers or ghostly, floating characters lit from within and filled (we assume) with helium. And, as pictured above, the occasional stilt walker. The Female Half says that, were she to walk through a crowd on stilts, she would bark out, “Please! NO PICTURES!” She might even go all Marlon Brando on them and hiss, “Get that f***ing camera out of my ankles!”

We got an email:

Hi Shecky,
I have enjoyed reading y’all through the years…keep up the good work. Though I do have one little “gripe” if you could call it that. It seems like all of your recent posts have been about Last Comic Standing.It’s cool that you’re covering it, but it feels like the page has become a LCS exclusive. I don’t mind to sound “nit-picky,” …I guess I was just hoping to find some other Stand-Up news on here as of late. Are you guys going to be covering the Just For Laughs Festival this year? That would be cool. Anyway, that is all. Keep up the good cause in promoting the wonderful art and craft that is stand-up comedy.

Guilty as charged!

Of course all of our recent posts have been about Last Comic Standing– as have most of our recent private conversations… and a good portion of our emails. Indeed, since securing the audition spots back in January, even a good portion of our dreams have been about Last Comic Standing.

That’s just the way it goes when you step on the Primetime Network Merry-Go-Round… or is it a roller coaster? Or a Wild Mouse (a Wildwood reference for all you Jersey Shore people… the real Jersey Shore, not the creepy, stereotype-laden, reality show Jersey Shore Jersey Shore)?

To answer the question: Yes, we will be covering the Just For Laughs festival this year. In fact, we’re typing this from our room at the Hyatt Regency, overlooking the intersection of Ste. Catherine and Rue Jeanne-Mance in downtown Montreal.

What is that? We think it's people dressed like tongues. Huh?

Our first observation: There are a lot of comics in this year’s festival who appeared on this season’s Last Comic Standing!

Ha! See what we did there?

Speaking of Last Comic Standing, when we attempted to cross the border into Canada yesterday at about three yesterday afternoon, we crawled up to the booth– the one containing the border patrol dude who asks you where you reside and what you intend to do on your visit to Canada– and the following exchange ensued:

Border Patrol Dude: What is the purpose of your visit?

Us: We’re going to the Just For Laughs Festival.

Border Patrol Dude: Are you there to perform or to attend?

Us: We’re going to attend.

Border Patrol Dude: (Pausing as he inspects our passports, then) I saw you on TV.

Us: (Laughing hysterically and saying, in unison) Then call the festival up and tell them to put us in!!

And they let us into the country anyway!

The Female Half, Kristeen Von Hagen, Luciano Casimir, Bonnie McFarlane, out back of the Comedy Works

This week, we are unashamedly Vos-McFarlane barnacles. We are attached to one or the other for the duration of the festival. Wherever they go, so shall we. It is in this manner that we will gain access to the inner recesses of the fest and consequently gain valuable insight into the inner workings of this, the largest comedy festival (still) in the English-speaking world.

Sounds passive. Well, it is. We took the last two years off. We’re out of practice. We’re exhausted. (You know, from our Last Comic Standing experience… did we mention that both Vos and McFarlane were featured in previous seasons of Last Comic Standing?) But we’re always looking for a different way to experience the fest. One year, we hustled– sweaty and panicked– hither and yon, snapping pictures and jabbering about the magazine to anyone who had ears. Another year, we merely planted ourselves in one corner of the Delta Bar and let the festivalgoers wash over us. This year, we brought a suitcase full of booze and we’ve turned off our cellphones– Verizon’s Canadian coverage policy is murky… so why take chances? It’s our tenth year here since 1999, so we dream up different ways to cover it.

Jason Weems (Last Comic Standing) and Lavelle Crawford (Last Comic Standing)

We met up with Rich Vos and Bonnie McFarlane (the cetacean to us anthropods) in the lobby of the Hyatt. And don’t you know Harland Williams is there, too. And don’t you know the first thing he says (to The Male Half) is, “Hey! I saw you on Last Comic Standing and I really enjoyed your set!” Swear. To. God.

The Male Half just wants his life to go back the way it was. (Sarcasm light is flashing.)

Williams is hosting Bubbling With Laughter, McFarlane is on the show. (Around here, we just call it “Bubbling.” It makes us sound and feel like television executives.) We eventually abandon the idea of grabbing a shuttle in favor of walking the two or three blocks to Club Soda. Ste Catherine St. is torn up– a beautification project– so the sidewalks are hemmed in by piles of gravel and saggy chain link fences. We enter through the rear. We descend into the subterranean green room where we hang with fellow Philadelphians Dom Irrera and Brendon Walsh. Also present (and due to mount the stage above us) is Eric Andre, Michael Ian Black, Jimmy Carr and look– it’s Last Comic Standing’s Natash Legerro! (She acknowledges The Male Half… but completely ignores The Female Half… apparently, The Female Half is not “the bee’s knees.”)

Mike Vecchione (Y-town!) and Josh Wade (Freehold, NJ)

The Male Half is distressed and disoriented by the lighting in the green room, so we decide to head up St. Laurent to Cabaret, where we manage to catch the sets of (among others) Last Comic Standing’s Mike Vecchione and Adrienne Iapalucci, barely missing the set of Last Comic Standing’s James Adomian. (We’re not even bothering to italicize Last Comic Standing any more… it’ll save us hundreds of keystrokes over the course of the next few days.)

Doug Stanhope is here... and so is Jon Dore

We also watched Josh Wade, Karl Hess, Ben Roy, Adrian Mesa all hosted by Michael Kosta. (That Kosta is a heckuva emcee. Kept it moving. Did time when it was merited. Busted the balls of a stonefaced patron in the upper deck.)

As they’re loading in the crowd for the second New Faces show of the evening, McFarlane pops in (fresh from her spot back at the Club Soda), while we’re chatting with J.P. Buck (erstwhile Aspen T.C., former T.C. for Tonight, future T.C. for Conan’s upcoming TBS resurrection). McFarlane and both Halves decide to walk back to the Regency to catch a shuttle to the Comedy Works. (It is there that hubby Vos will be hosting the marathon Best of the Fest.)

From left: Godfrey, Tom Green, Bill Burr, Hannibal Buress and someone named "April!"

We good-naturedly badger the folks at the logistics desk for a shuttle ride… they disappear for a while, trying to figure out just where all the shuttles are… we take the opportunity to stock up on the free whoopie cushions… McFarlane spies the hockey game sign-up sheet, grabs a pen and signs up David Feldman and Dan Naturman (We threw our heads back and laughed and laughed at the idea of either comedian skittering around on skates, checking Brent Schiess into the boards!)

All the shuttles are at the airport.

Adrienne Iapalucci and Brian McKim were robbed! (according to the Twittersphere)

We embark on The Just For Laughs Death March– Jeanne-Mance to Bishop St– stopping along the way for food and refreshments.

The Works is packed… and hot… and the crowd is hot as well. We catch McFarlane’s set from the hallway in the back of the house, then hang out on the back stairs for a bit before comandeering a shuttle for the return trip to the Hyatt. By the time we enter the Lobby Bar, the party is in full swing. The vast majority have arrived within the past 18 hours or so. It’s (PHL) homeboy Ralph Harris! (Wasn’t he on Last Comic Standing, Season 6?) Over there is Fortune Feimster! (We met her in Glendale in April, during the taping of the Last Comic Standing, Season 7 Semifinals!) And that’s Bruce Smith! (He manages Last Comic Standing judge Andy Kindler!)

Ralph Harris and The Female Half at the Hyatt

We exited at about 2:30. We had been up for about 21 hours by that point. Some things never change. We kick off our five days here by digging ourselves a sleep deprivation hole.

There will be hundreds more words and dozens more pictures.

For those keeping score at home, there’s about 18 references to Last Comic Standing in this post. Nineteen if you count this one.

If you’re looking for a link to aaaallll our coverage– each and every word and pic we’ve ever posted from Montreal, from 1999 through 2007, click here.