SHECKYmagazine quoted in Indy BJ

by Brian McKim & Traci Skene on January 14th, 2010

We were awakened by our phone the other day… at 8:10 AM. And the caller left no message. We star-69-ed it and got an Indiana number. We know a few people in Indiana. But they’re all comedians. And a comedian would never call another comedian before 10 AM!

We Googled that and got the phone number for the Indianapolis Business Journal. We called it and learned that Kathleen McLaughlin was doing a story on the shrinking comedy business in the capital of the Hoosier State. “City’s once-thriving stand-up comedy scene fades” is the title.

We knew that Oneliners shut its doors in June of 2008 after 15 years of operation.

And we had heard that Morty’s closed– their last show was on NYE.

We figure the case could be made that it’s shrinking. But we hadn’t thought of the Indianapolis market as “fading.” And we figure that, considering that the city still has two clubs, it’s thriving more than say, Philadelphia (which only has one!) or any number of comparable markets that don’t have the luxury of two venues.

But they write these headlines after the interview.

Our conversation with Ms. McLaughlin was pleasant. Our chat resulted in some good quotes, apparently– our pearl of wisdom kicks off paragraph four and, we daresay, forms a nice cornerstone and pivot for the story!

“Indianapolis is a great market for comedy,” said New Jersey-based comedian Brian McKim, who also edits Shecky Magazine, a blog/magazine.

McKim is among the industry insiders who attribute comedy’s strong run locally to the presence of Bob and Tom, the nationally syndicated radio hosts who’ve built their show around visiting comics.

“It puts stand-up in the forefront of everybody’s brain,” McKim said.

WHAT? No link?!?!

Anyway, we stand by what we said. Of course, Indy is not a great market for us personally. We haven’t performed there since we moved back east from L.A. in 1993. (Actually, we headlined One-Liners back in 2005 or so… but that’s outside the city limits. But The Male Half sat in on Bob & Tom for about three hours, so we suppose that’s performing in Indianapolis!)

If you read the story, it’s not a “Comedy is dying” story as much as it’s a “Running a comedy club is not for everybody” story. One-Liners proprietor Dave Wilson says he was “too busy.” The folks that ran Morty’s (into the rich, fertile Indiana soil) seemed to have made several fatal business calculations.

From what we hear, the two remaining clubs (now named Crackers) are doing just fine. And, like we said, Indy ranks 33rd among metropolitan statistical areas. 33rd! Two clubs! Not bad!

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