"Can't act, can't sing; can dance a little…"

by Brian McKim & Traci Skene on June 18th, 2004

We send out dozens of press kits in the course of a typical month in the hopes of securing work. The typical kit has a video, some headshots and some glowing articles. The response ranges from “This is the best tape we’ve seen in months!” to sheer indifference. Every once in a while (maybe it’s happened twice in 20 years!), the guy/gal on the other end takes the opportunity of the press kit to send back a critique! Below is the most recent unsolicited critique and, in this case, it’s hilarious!

Brian,
We viewed yours and Tracy’s videos. I am the one writing to you. We could all see that you in particular are very professional and have a very well crafted act.

And while I’m unsure whether certain routines (which would be inappropriate to our venues) can be lifted out, without the structure of your act crumbling (like your closer…”Vagina manhole cover” which would require Tracy also being on the bill, which frankly, ain’t gonna happen), there is a bigger obstacle.

You are entitled to project any attitude or energy you wish on a stage. As we are entitled to have our own preferences.

You appear to be rather road weary and that kind of joyless approach to performing and/or contempt for audiences is not what I wish to project onto our stages. I write of posture, attitude and cadence. Not only material.

While I believe your on-stage attitude has absolute validity. We just don’t want it on our shows.

We posted this ad in case there were comics we didn’t know about, who were doing powerful yet surprising work. It’s purpose was not to pad our list of guys who could do the job successfully (which you certainly can). Picking a few random states and dismissing the intelligence of people who reside in them is not very surprising. Nor are barrages of dick jokes.

I know it’s easy to read such remarks and dismiss them as being from someone who has no idea what they’re talking about. I hope you won’t make that mistake. You’re too veteran for that (and you’d be wrong to boot). Either way, keep up the good work you do. You are a very good joke flesh-outer.

Now the only choice we must make is which of these lines do we excerpt to include in our bio? Let’s see… for Traci (whose name is, we guarantee you, spelled correctly in her press kit, but repeatedly misspelled in the above letter!), the choice is easy:

“…which would require Tracy also being on the bill, which frankly, ain’t gonna happen!”

For Brian, the choice is harder:

“…Rather road weary…a joyless approach to performing and a contempt for audiences!”

or

“Absolute validity! We just don’t want it on our shows!”

Regardless of which we choose, you know I’ll be selling BRIAN McKIM: “A very good joke flesh-outer!” T-shirts after each and every show!

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