Seattle's "dysfunctional family"

by Brian McKim & Traci Skene on June 25th, 2008

Comedian Alysia Wood recently attended a barbecue that attracted a sizeable chunk of the Seattle comedy community. The reunion prompted her to reflect on her experience in that city’s comedy scene. Her MySpace blog, entitled “Seattle BBQ” contains mini-tributes to some of the people that had an impact her in those crucial early years.

Open mic was also your first stop from the road. Cell phones and the internet weren’t widely used so if you wanted to know what was going on in the constantly evolving scene then you were wise to stop by open mic. Sitting in the “cave” of the underground, comics chain-smoked, drank, swapped their new road stories and gave out bookers’ info. There was a huge turf war between Giggles and the Undergrounds, the only clubs at the time, but even the owner of Giggles would stop in from time to time. I equate it to a dysfunctional family: you really had to fuck up to not be welcome.

I didn’t know how amazing my comedy community was until I started touring the country and moved multiple times, immersing myself in other scenes. It wasn’t even close to what we call an “A room” but I still believe it’s the best club in the country– especially since you were never censored. The club never paid weekend acts well but the audiences were smart and savvy– which meant at least once a year, a legendary act would stop by to work on their material for an upcoming special or release. I could NOT have been more grateful to work with those comics.

I remember Brad Upton saying, “Enjoy these years. They don’t get better than this.”

Read the whole thing.

We attended a similar gathering, to celebrate 25 years of Philadelphia’s Comedy Works, a few years back and we are at a loss to figure out why clubs and markets and comics don’t organize gatherings like this on a more regular basis.

Also: Read this account of our national/international Comics-Only Reunion in Las Vegas, that we engineered back in 2001.

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