A House Built Of Wormwood *

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

We here at SHECKYmagazine.com rarely have anything bad to say about the elders of the business. (Our default feelings toward them is warm and fuzzy. They deserve nothing but our respect and they’re a tremendous source of wisdom, great stories and– if they’re still gigging– it’s a real kick if you’re lucky enough to catch any of them perform live.) We reserve any vitriol for the ones who have nothing but nasty stuff to say about us young’uns. To wit, this quote from Jack Carter from an Oct. 1 piece in the Washington Times:

Industry veteran Jack Carter — best known to TV viewers as a regular standup performer on “The Ed Sullivan Show” — has a slightly different take on the quality of young comedians at the festival. He said many members of last year’s class were not ready — even if they did get work out of the festival.

“There are very few Seinfelds around,” he said. “But all of them have a sitcom right away — two minutes in show business, you get a sitcom.”

Carter said part of the problem is that performers breaking into comedy today learn their craft in venues that do not push them or challenge them to be better.

“They work in those comedy rooms and it’s a restrictive audience,” he said. “They laugh at the weirdest things. They laugh at ideas today. They don’t even need routines.”

Read the rest of the article here.

* The Wormwoods are members of the great family of Compositae and belong to the genus Artemisia, a group consisting of 180 species, of which we have four growing wild in England, the Common Wormwood, Mugwort, Sea Wormwood and Field Wormwood. In addition, as garden plants, though not native, Tarragon (A. dracunculus) claims a place in every herb-garden, and Southernwood (A. abrotanum), an old-fashioned favourite, is found in many borders, whilst others, such as A. sericea, A. cana and A. alpina, form pretty rockwork shrubs.

The whole family is remarkable for the extreme bitterness of all parts of the plant: ‘as bitter as Wormwood’ is a very Ancient proverb. (Source: Nature One Health Organization)

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