We get some odd emails here at SHECKYmagazine.com HQ. When we launched 12 years and 307 days ago, we called our Letters To The Editor page “Like We Care.” We thought it captured our attitude rather well. (Of course, we cared… but we thought it sent a subtle, ironic warning to folks that, hey, we just might not care! In the nearly thirteen years we’ve published, the vast majority of folks have “gotten the joke.”)

Mind you, we are passionate about certain things. (In fact, we’ve been mocked for being a little too passionate about certain topics.) But, we pick and choose carefully. And woe to the goofball who tries to light a fire under us for this or that cause or crusade. We will drink a gallon or two of water just to piss on that fire. That’s when the “Like We Care” motto– and the irony– really comes into play. And most folks fundamentally, instantly understand that.

Once in a while, though, we hear from someone who doesn’t.

A recent missive sought to get us all stirred up and excited. It was an email about a bit… being done by a comedian… somewhere. There was a link attached, which led to a video clip of said comic doing said bit.

Hi there, I thought you might have an interest in this video clip of [NAME OF CITY REDACTED] stand-up comedian [NAME REDACTED] doing a fresh bit called [NAME OF BIT, YOUTUBE URL REDACTED].

To be sure, it is hilarious, but also raw and truthful. It’s a riff on a real thing that happened [DESCRIPTION OF BIT REDACTED].

Full disclosure, the show is mine, and I also filmed and edited the clip. Irrespective of that, [NAME OF COMIC REDACTED] is a brilliant young comic. And this clip is making the rounds among our friends online and getting a fantastically positive response.

Don’t know if this is something you would want to write about but thought I’d reach out.

Thanks!

We’re reminded of a quote from Firesign Theatre’s “I Think We’re All Bozos On This Bus”:

A: Why did the shorthair cross the road?
B: I don’t know.
A: Because somebody told him to. Why did the longhair cross the road?
B: Because somebody told him not to?
A: Aw– you’ve heard it already!

Well… we suppose we’re longhairs at heart. And the above email was urging us in so many words to “cross the road.”

More often than not, when we get an email that is obviously trying to prod us into doing something, we are amused. We send back a polite email (if we bother to respond at all) and curtly thank the sender and inform them that he/she is barking up the wrong blog tree.

In this case, though, we sent back an email dripping with sarcasm and condescension:

Dear [NAME REDACTED]:
We were just talking about this last week.

You do yourself and your client a disservice by referring to a rape joke as “fresh.” It’s “the new hack,” about four or five “new hacks” ago. Just how isolated is [CITY REDACTED]? We figured with the internet and all, even folks in the [REGION OF COUNTRY REDACTED] would know that folks in New York and Los Angeles (and London and Sydney and probably even Vancouver and Toronto) have done rape jokes to the point where the audiences are inured to the shock value… along with abortion… and molestation… and a handful of other jokes that our colleagues have trotted out (sometimes out of obligation) in an effort to appear “raw and truthful.” (Mind you, we’re not for a minute labeling [COMIC'S NAME REDACTED] a hack. But we grow weary of the premise police who tell us that we’re not trying hard enough to explore new territory while they turn a blind eye toward the most egregious examples of tired and hackneyed repetition. Thus, our coining of the term, “The New Hack.”)

Of course, [COMIC'S NAME REDACTED] shouldn’t drop the joke. Nor should she avoid the topic in the future. But she should be under no illusion that she’s breaking new ground or setting herself that far apart from the rest.

Good luck to both of you.

We suppose the reaction was predictable.

Dear Mr. McKim,
Thanks for your response. With all due respect, did you watch the clip and actually listen to her tell her story and hear the audience’s supportive reaction? Or did you just see the title of the clip and decide it was hack?

It’s not a “rape joke,” and it’s not for shock value. It’s the transforming of a crappy (universal) personal incident and a reversal of a power dynamic through creativity. She’s describing a real-life incident and her own internal reaction to it. By “fresh” I meant this incident happened to her a few days ago and here she is onstage working it out for the first time, not “wow, here’s a subject no one’s ever broached onstage before.”

The truth is, this sort of crap happens to women all the time, and it’s terrifying. So listening to someone like Ever grab ahold of something like this and transform it into something wonderful is an example of comedy transcending mere jokes and laughs.

Incidentally, every single response we’ve gotten to this set, from feminist blogs, gay blogs, comedy blogs – not to mention real live people – have all been overwhelmingly positive. As in “wow, I never thought someone could make a subject like this funny, and her bravery and honesty are amazing, thanks for sharing, I’m going to post this, too.”

She’s truthfully discussing a universally painful and terrible subject, and a room full of people are laughing. She wins. Comedy wins. We all win. If you can’t see that (and/or didn’t actually watch the clip), then no sweat. But don’t judge before seeing for yourself.

And, to be clear, she’s not my “client.” [NAME OF COMIC REDACTED] is a fellow castmember at a $5 stand-up showcase. This is the first time in five years I’ve ever promoted a clip like this online, because I thought it was worth the effort. We were all very proud of this show and this particular set, and wanted to share it with a broader audience. That’s all.

Also, thanks for the extra unnecessary dose of condescension in your “isolated [NAME OF CITY REDACTED]” comments.

[REST OF EMAIL REDACTED]

To which we replied:

You missed our point entirely.

The reaction to our reaction was, we suppose, entirely predictable. Seconds later, The Female Half of the Staff hops onto Facebook– not even knowing that she was a friend of the email author– to find this:

Wow! According to one – and only one – comedy blog, a joke that uses the word rape is hack, and I’d know that if I didn’t live in the backward, isolated Midwest! Also, I’m pretty sure he didn’t actually watch the clip, and is a total prick.

That’s us! We are soooo proud!

What follows is the Facebook equivalent of showing up outside our blog with glowing torches, pitchforks and bloodhounds.

I am SO PISSED right now, sorry guys. This asshole didn’t even watch the clip.

But one more thing: this guy is SUCH A GREAT COMEDIAN HIMSELF, he’s performed in all 50 states – and yet you’ve never fucking heard of him. Dickwad.

Thank you, James. It’s really fine, I just need to cool off. I guess you risk being misunderstood when you’re pushing the envelope like this.

Of course, the asshole(s) watched the clip. What kind of asshole(s) would we be if we passed judgement without even watching the clip? Jesus H. Christ! What kind of asshole(s) are these people accustomed to dealing with if they assume that we didn’t even watch the clip?! What kind of delusions are these folks operating under? (See DSM-IV-TR)

The Female Half of the Staff was understandably hurt. After all, the email we sent back, snark and all, was co-authored. As is all the output of SHECKYmagazine.com. For someone to reply to just The Male Half was a blow to her delicate sensibilities. She was momentarily unable to function. The inability of [NAME REDACTED] to appreciate The Female Half of the Staff’s personhood, to appreciate her co-authorship of SHECKYmagazine.com (and any/all correspondence originating therefrom), was a blow. Her identity– both as a person and as a woman– was rocked. She eventually gathered herself and responded.

My husband isn’t a prick. For your information, we wrote the response together after watching the clip. You missed our point. We were trying to save you from embarrassing yourself. There have been plenty of funny rape jokes in the past. Sarah Silverman is known for her “being raped by a doctor” bit, for example. If you can’t handle criticism then don’t send out the clip.

We would add that, before she hit “Send,” she deleted the line where she called the email sender a “cunt.”

We expect this kind of sexism from men. (Well, not the kind of men we hang out with, anyway.) But when it comes from a woman… it is HILARIOUS!

We wonder how all the feminist blogs who favorited her clip would feel about such a gaffe.

And then there’s the hack tactic of attacking the editors of SHECKYmagazine.com by calling into question their relative notoriety– “….you’ve never fucking heard of him!” Yeesh! That’s the new, new, new hack! Some publication fails to give you the proper love and you diss that publication by dissing the editor(s)?

Hello, sweetheart (and that comes from The Female Half, not The Male Half): There are a lot of people in this business who know who we are– from open mikers who have bought our book, to veterans who have worked with us over the past 30 years or so, to comedy superstars, to a scared little rabbit who beseeches a behemoth comedy website to say glowing things about her comedy crush.

Grow the fuck up. Is this the first adversity you’ve ever encountered in your life? Did you get shiny, towering trophies for just participating in every activity in your young existence? You are unwittingly enrolled in a Special Olympics life. We’re sorry we didn’t give you a hug at your imagined finish line. We hope you can recover.

You may be wondering why we redacted all names, place, links, identity. It’s because we wanted to spare any embarrassment to the comedian that [NAME REDACTED] so clumsily represented.

We’re told that [COMEDIAN'S NAME REDACTED] was trying out that material for the first time (or one of the first times). And it shows. Perhaps, in six months or so, with some editing and some tweaking here or there, the bit will cook down to a decent 2-1/2 minutes. But worthy of some sort of viral buzz campaign that seeks to establish a beachhead in the war against humdrum comedy? We’re not convinced.

For now, however, the spectacle of a shaky bit, being guffawed at by her friends/sycophants/shills/fellow open-mikers isn’t worthy of internet viralism. As it is, in its current form, the clip is just eight minutes of beating a (not-so-daring) premise (with just a touch of daring racism? What say you, alts?) into the ground. To be sure, the clip, according to its champion, has garnered some buzz– the clip is getting a “fantastically positive response”– but we’re not convinced that the WWW response is anything more than some sort of Pavlovian response to certain prescribed topics and methods. We don’t even buy the genuineness of the laughter picked up by the camera’s microphone. (Believe us– between the two of us, we’ve done/attended hundreds of open mikes in dozens of cities… so we know forced laughter when we hear it.)

[NAME REDACTED] says that the clip depicts “One of the best sets I’ve ever seen. Words cannot describe it, so I’ll let this clip speak for itself.” There is more there to repulse us than just simple bombast. There is a certain sort of stupidity and cluelessness and arrogance that doesn’t just seek to elevate the performer in the clip, but seeks to unfairly downgrade those who don’t live up to the performance standards supposedly set by the clip.

Perhaps we suffer from some sort of paranoia/persecution complex (the same sort that our emailer suffers from!), perhaps we don’t. But this whole exercise seems sort of embarrassing (and redundant) since there are countless comedians out there– Laurie Kilmartin? Sarah Silverman? Nikki Glaser? Bonnie McFarlane? Patrice Oneal? Doug Stanhope?– who, in the space of 15 seconds, have said something more meaningful and pithy than [NAME REDACTED] can do in 8:05.

So… in summary… don’t give us shit when we disagree with you.

For now, the author the original email is our mortal enemy. In six month’s time, however, we will not remember her name. We will only be able to vaguely recall the details of this dustup. And that is perhaps the biggest diss of all! Booyah! (Yeah… upon further reflection… maybe we are total prick(s).)

THIS JUST IN– The emailer’s latest Facebook status as of four minutes ago:

I’m sorry, I don’t have time to care about your negative opinion, I’m too busy being awesome at what I do.

Somebody give this chick (the Female Half’s characterization) a trophy!!

He’s one of the few alternative comedians that can tell a good story without delivering a lot of laughs. But when those laughs hit, they are full of impact. You can just tell that the stories he’s telling on stage are personal, which makes laughing with him twice as enjoyable.

Turn that over in your mind… let the idiocy sink in… savor the utter backwardness of it. (Hmmm… if he’s getting, let’s say, half as many laughs as “conventional” comics… and it’s twice as enjoyable, then… isn’t it a tie?)

We have nothing against Birbiglia. It is the crippled thought process, employed by the author, that pains us so. (And the depressing notion that so many people swallow such nonsense unquestioningly.)

We’re not so sure that standup can be saved.

In it, O’Neal engages in what we called (in a December 8 posting) “The New Hack!” (That is, he trashed a wildly popular comic, and, by extension, his fans.)

The incident that spurred the snark-alanche was this: Dane Cook stopped into the Laugh Factory last night and worked out material for 45 minutes. And some comics were bumped. And the material was less than focused or polished and touched upon subjects that offended the delicate sensibilities of some of the comics that witnessed the whole debacle.

Dane Cook doesn’t need us defending him. He’s a big boy, he’s successful, and controversy follows him wherever he goes yet he still ends up prevailing.

But the antics of two of the comics quoted in O’Neal’s piece are particularly interesting. Daniel Kinno (who knows a thing or two about being held in contempt by fellow comics) makes a catty comment about Cook and seems awfully peeved that he was bumped… at a major showcase club… in Los Angeles. To which we reply: “Boo–Fucking-Hoo.” If you’re living in Los Angeles (or regularly performing there, or performing in NYC), getting bumped is part of the game. Any comic who does anything more than express mild disappointment is being thoroughly dishonest. Any comic who then takes a shot at the comic doing the bumping is being a sore loser. And any comic who offers the cheap shots to a publication (or broadcasts them via social media) is being a dick. Take it and deal with it. You will be able to do it yourself if/when you get to the point where a comedy club manager in one of the two major comedy markets in the world decides that his audience would rather see you than the comics he has scheduled. 99 per cent of comedians understand that they will be be bumped by 1 per cent of the comedians on this planet. It’s nothing personal; it’s business.

The other mopey comic is T.J. Miller, who took his frustrations out via Twitter. He expresses outrage that Cook would bump comedians (and is outraged on behalf of bump-ee Bobby Lee), and labels Cook as a “damaged man” who “didn’t earn” the right to steamroll the other acts on the bill that night.

Again: Deal with it. And we’re sure Bobby Lee is getting along all right without any assistance from Miller.

We met Miller when we were headlining in Pittsburgh a few years back (he was in town shooting “She’s Out Of My League”) and we found him to be pleasant and humble. We also thought that his performance in SOOML to be perhaps the highlight of the movie. So we’re puzzled by this whole outburst.

We’re doubly puzzled by the expression of disgust at Cook’s choice of material. We’re told that it was “vicious, misogynistic, cruel, and arrogant.” Hmmm… with the possible exception of mysogynistic, are we not told that these qualities are the hallmark of some of the best “edgy” and “truthful” comics working today? (And, in some respectable circles, misogyny– and material that depends on it– isn’t merely excused but celebrated.)

When did we suddenly do a 180-degree turn and start valuing comedians who are kind, gentle, understanding and humble? Miller is particularly fixated on a Cook bit about… abortion? (Last time we checked, comics aren’t allowed to cross the George Washington Bridge or get through the Cajon Pass unless they show proof of an abortion joke in their showcase sets. Indeed, The Female Half of the Staff (half)jokingly says that she’s starting to feel bad for being the only female comic on the planet who doesn’t do an abortion joke.)

Miller further takes Cook to task for trying to “work through his own shit on stage” and for believing that “it’s okay to bomb and talk about your issues.” Exactly what the hell is going on here? Have we not, for the last decade or more, been bombarded with the meme that what matters most is the bold, edgy attempt at getting to the heart of one’s “personal truth?” And that it matters not what kind of response we get? And that audiences rightly thrill to the spectacle of a daring truthteller working things out onstage, not caring one whit about whether or not it results in belly laughs?

Cook defended himself by saying, “This was only the fourth time I’ve ever performed it, as well as the fourth time I’ve ever admitted this incident in public. So it still feels like a very nervy high wire walk for me. There’s times when I lose the audience and have to get them back, freeze up, and wonder if I shouldn’t have just kept this whole incident to myself.” Oh… waitaminute… that’s not Cook, that’s a quote from Patton Oswalt defending his savaging of a heckler at a room in Los Feliz about 12 days ago. When Oswalt tries out material during a “drop-in” appearance, he’s everybody’s hero. When Dane Cook does it (and bumps Jenna Marbles, Daniel Kinno and T.J. Miller in the process), he “took a shit on everyone.” A curious double standard to say the least.

Sounds… cumbersome. Should we all dub our sets onto VHS tapes, just to be prepared for the next “evolution” at the show? We give this system about a month before the “senior producers” start grousing about having to spend their precious time at Standup NY or the Cellar on a weeknight when they could be eating sushi or playing Angry Birds. Then, when the entire controversy has blown over, they’ll hire another talent coordinator. It seems like a giant step backward– especially in this day and age when such innovations as DVDs and Youtube.com make the process so much easier. And let’s face it: If you limit yourself to those few comedians who can be seen by a “staffer” at (NYC) “clubs and other performances spaces,” are you really doing your best to scout for standup talent?

Itzkoff also writes this:

Mr. Brill’s position was already an awkward one at “Late Show”: In addition to booking comedians, he teaches comedy workshops and programs the Great American Comedy Festival, endeavors that were perceived as conflicts of interest. Other comedians had expressed concern that he could favor performers who paid to take his classes.

Hmmm… could this be the real reason?

We’ll know if it’s the “sexist comments” or the conflict of interest that prompted Brill’s exit when they eventually hire a talent coordinator. If it’s a woman, it was the sexist comment. If they hire a dude, it was the COI.

Our commenter says:

So Shecky, let me get this straight. Previously, you argued that comedy shouldn’t have an independent columnist at the Times. Now you say that the conflict of interest issue that was reported on by the comedy columnist at the Times was real and important and while you knew about it, you didn’t write about it because of fear of criticism. That sounds to me like a counter to your original point, no?

Let’s take this point-by-point.

We never argued “comedy shouldn’t have an independent columnist at the Times.” We said that a column such as Zinoman’s…

…will have an effect on comedians, on consumers of comedy and on the business of comedy. And not all of it will be positive. Much of it may be negative.

And later on in our posting, we said:

Our biggest fear is that comedians will start changing to conform to what they perceive as the features necessary to receive the blessing of Zinoman (or other reviewers). The logical outcome of such a scenario is that comedians will slowly begin to sound, act and look the same. Already, we’ve heard from one comedian who cautioned that we should go easy on Mr. Zinoman, not anger him. The theory is that standup needs columnists. We’re not convinced. And such subservience gives the reviewer added, unearned power which might warp the creative process.

Emphasis ours.

So… we never said that “comedy shouldn’t have an independent columnist at the Times.” We stated that we weren’t convinced that comedy needs such a columnist, as some of our colleagues have suggested. And we urged folks to temper their joy with caution and we theorized that comics might take it upon themselves to change– not that the columnist might actively undertake to change the comics. Big difference.

“Jason Zinoman” also says that we were silent on Eddie Brill’s seeming conflict of interest regarding his workshops “because of fear of criticism.” This is not so.

This magazine is mainly for comedians. We rarely, if ever, cater to those who are casual observers of comedy. Our readers are comedians, industry people and perhaps a handful of rabid fans. And they all knew about Brill’s workshops. Many of our readers have taken the workshops! Brill conducted these workshops and publicized them and advertised them openly. We’re not sure what purpose it would have served to make a stink about such a conflict of interest. Like we said– we were appalled, privately. We didn’t see the upside to publicly airing that particular opinion. And, obviously CBS and Worldwide Pants had no problem with the arrangement. We are but a lowly online blog run by two comics/authors. The only result (from our perspective) would have been the “raft of shit from the comedians who would inevitably defend Brill’s practices in the hopes that doing so would make Brill more favorably disposed to slotting them on the show. Like we said, Brill is a politician. And there are plenty of amateur politicians out there. It’s an exhausting game.” Weariness, not fear, is what often motivates us.

Our silence on this matter is in no way a contradiction of any of our previous opinions on the splendor/horror of an NYT columnist dedicated to comedy. We told our readers to be “careful what you wish for.” And, significantly, we said that the worst result might be not what the critic does but what the comedians do in response to the critic. This is a subtle thing. (And something that a culture critic for the NYT should easily grasp… which is why we have our doubts that our commenter is actually Jason Zinoman.)

We are rarely, if ever, motivated by fear. As some proof of this we might point out that we kinda/sorta trashed comedy’s independent columnist at the Times! Were we motivated by fear, we probably would have jumped on the “We Love Jason Zinoman” bandwagon and heralded his assignment with tears of joy and expressions of great relief. (Perhaps in the hopes that Zinoman might turn his attention to our book, which was released just weeks before Zinoman’s debut as the Times’ comedy critic.) Instead, we urged our peers to be cautious. (And we highlighted some of Zinoman’s egregious and gratuitous slams at us– “most of those comedians are ordinary or bad” and “a majority of male stand-ups are neurotics nursing anxieties.”) This doesn’t sound like the words or actions of fearful people.

We are puzzled when “Jason Zinoman” refers to the conflict of interest “issue” as “real and important” and says that he “reported on it.” We suppose that this is true in the strictest sense. It seems to us, however that the conflict of interest wasn’t the thrust of the story. Indeed, it was but a paragraph (the seventh!) in a story that had 19 paragraphs. And, in a story that totaled 1,114 words, the “real and important” “issue” took up a whoppping 46 of them. If we don’t count the words of Anthony Jeselnik, who, we are helpfully reminded in the parting graf, just might have an ax to grind by virtue of an (“unsolicited”) diss from Brill. If anything, it could be argued that the columnist created a protective bubble around Brill by treating the COI so cavalierly and subtly portraying the “skeptical” Jeselnik as disgruntled, thereby leading the reader to discount his criticism and the criticism of others.

In the end, Jason Zinoman (the real one) has made our point for us. We have no doubt that Brill thought that he would come out on the other end of his encounter with Jason Zinoman with a nice, glowing clip in the most influential newspaper in the country (nay, the world!). Instead, he ends up unemployed with his ethics questioned. Of course, Brill must take the majority of the blame for his predicament. Regardless of whether or not his comments were taken out of context (as he claims), had they appeared in the Des Moine Register or the The Oregonian, all would be sunshine and lollipops for him on this Tuesday morning. But he spoke to the independent columnist for the New York Times– great care should be taken when speaking to such an awesomely powerful publication. If you dare to speak to them at all, you should endeavor to appear modest and benevolent and you should, like a master chess champion, try to think several moves ahead. We’re somewhat surprised at the lack of savvy displayed by Brill.

We’re not surprised at the fallout.

Mirth’s source says that CBS let Brill go for “speaking to the press without authorization.”

If we go by the Observer’s most recent headline, “Letterman Booker Eddie Brill Fired After ‘Women In Comedy’ Flame War,” Brill was canned because of the comments he made concerning female comics. They assume a lot.

If this were the case, the dismissal was unjustified and unfair. Brill (and all the other comedy talent coordinators) are paid (and well, we assume) for their opinions– specifically their opinions about standup comedy and standup comics. There is one way that CBS terminated Brill because of the comments about female comedians: CBS might be hypersensitive about gender issues in the wake of the controversy over the extortion attempt of October of 2009, in which a CBS producer “threatened to reveal that Letterman had engaged in sexual affairs with multiple female employees.” (CNN) And Letterman’s incessant attacks on Bristol Palin led some in the press to theorize that the host’s repeated jibes were more about gender than politics. Or maybe it’s about those seminars that Brill was conducting. It is entirely possible that CBS saw them as some sort of “pay to play” device. They may have been okay with such an arrangement until this latest hit in the NYT. Though they were only mentioned in passing, perhaps some “inquiries” were made that caused CBS to have second thoughts.

But, as we said late last year, be careful what you wish for.

We’re torn. We understand the power of the press. We also understand the considerable influence of the Times. And that power and influence could be a shortcut– for a handful of fortunate comedians– to the big time. And good for them if it happens!

But Jason Zinoman is but one man. One man who now wields (disproportionate?) influence by virtue of his new designation as comedy critic at the NYT. To those who rejoice at the prospect of regular standup reviews in the Times, we would recommend that they temper their joy with caution.

Such a column will have an effect on comedians, on consumers of comedy and on the business of comedy. And not all of it will be positive. Much of it may be negative.

We already note that Zinoman says that “most of those comedians are ordinary or bad.” We are not, at this point, going to dispute this claim, but we wonder why a critic would feel compelled to include this in the fourth sentence of the first paragraph of the essay that kicks off the whole comedy reviewing adventure.

And in his second column– on female comedians– Zinoman says offhandedly that “a majority of male stand-ups are neurotics nursing anxieties.”

Leaving aside the fact that Zinoman is bringing his prejudices and questionable assumptions to the task of reviewing standup comics (he is human, after all), we can’t help but think that this could end badly.

Well, it ended badly for one comedian.

Anyway, Brill said some outrageous things while talking to Zinoman. Oh, he probably said a bunch of innocuous, boring, predictable things to Zinoman, too, but the truly ridiculous statements made it to print in the “paper of record.” And that is what has Brill swimming and simmering in a high-temperature broth.

As far as we can tell (judging from the hoo-ha that has sprung up on the WWW), the thing he said that was most controversial or offensive was this:

“There are a lot less female comics who are authentic,” Mr. Brill said. “I see a lot of female comics who to please an audience will act like men.”

We here at SHECKYmagazine.com found other of Brill’s statements to be outrageous, among them that Brill “never thought Bob Hope was a great stand-up comedian.” And we’re certain that others are fuming over his tepid assessment of Eddie Murphy– “I never thought of him as a great stand-up comedian.”

But it’s the (you’ll excuse the expression) broad condemnation of female comedians that seems to have given most folks the greenlight to trash the large-headed, obscure, avuncular yet influential comedian (all Zinoman’s characterizations, not ours).

Ho-hum. It merely puts Brill in the company of such giants as Johnny Carson, Christopher Hitchens and Jerry Lewis. And, from watching the show over the past few years (or at least watching YouTube clips of the comedians on the show and monitoring Facebook bulletins about who appears on the show, as we have not really watched the show for quite some years), we have noticed something: There are hardly any female comics on the show. Nor have there ever been. So… anyone who has been paying even the slightest attention to the show has noticed that something (not so) funny has been going on.

So… why is this a shock to anyone?

Which explains the title of this post. A Kinsley gaffe is defined as “a politician inadvertently saying something publicly that they privately believe is true, but would ordinarily not say publicly because they believe it is politically harmful.” (And what is Eddie Brill if not a politician?)

We here at SHECKYmagazine.com have known Brill for about 20 years, having worked in the clubs with him, way before he ascended to his current position. And, even though we’ve had our disagreements over the years, we’re still probably what one might call “friends.” (Although that might be stretching things, as Brill “un-friended” both Halves of the Staff on Facebook because TMHOTS once labeled one of Brill’s hyper-political Facebook status updates as “childish twaddle.”)

(Full disclosure: The Male Half solicited feedback from Brill back in “04 or so– for the purpose, of course, of exploring the possibility of appearing on the show– and found Brill to be complimentary. But the follow-up feedback was a smorgasbord of somewhat off-putting, vague, “advice,” contributing to a very damaging bout of second-guessing and a lengthy period of self-doubt. He has since recovered and learned from the encounter. Among the lessons: Never try to get on Letterman again.)

The Female Half auditioned for Letterman’s show many years ago. How long ago? So long ago that TFHOTS acknowledges that she wasn’t ready for the show, but was, in fact, learning “how to auditionunder pressure.” It was a bizarre episode at the old Comedy Connection in Boston (the one under the Charles Playhouse) in which one of the show’s producers hit on TFHOTS just prior to the showcase. So… the “chick problem” at the show is… systemic. And long-standing.

So no one should be surprised. We certainly weren’t. (Which is why we ignored the article when it first came out.)

We have been more appalled at the fact that Brill has been regularly staging workshops– at various festivals and venues throughout Standup North America– in which he purports to teach people how to get on the show. This is mentioned by Zinoman only in passing (“Mr. Brill teaches comedy workshops…”), but we think it represents a glaring conflict of interest. We’ve never gone to the trouble of mentioning it in the pages of this magazine because… well… we didn’t feel like putting up with the raft of shit from fellow comics who would say (with utmost certainty) that the only reason we did so was because Brill has never seen fit to put us on his show. And, of course, the raft of shit from the comedians who would inevitably defend Brill’s practices in the hopes that doing so would make Brill more favorably disposed to slotting them on the show. Like we said, Brill is a politician. And there are plenty of amateur politicians out there. It’s an exhausting game.

So we kept our traps shut, put our heads down and tried to hone our acts for the other late-night showcases. (Privately, however, we made no bones about our dissatisfaction with the conflict of interest.)

And while we’re on the subject of conflicts of interest, we always thought it was somewhat… imprudent… for the show’s standup talent coordinator– Eddie Brill– to occasionally schedule Eddie Brill on the show as standup talent. Of course, who among us wouldn’t take advantage of that?! Perhaps that’s the problem… should a late-night show hire a standup comic– who is still interested in being a comedian– as its standup talent coordinator? Or, if it does so, should it not do so with the understanding that said comedian never appear on the show as a standup comedian, so as to avoid the appearance of some sort of (Entertainment Industry Version of the) appearance of impropriety? Perhaps we’re being too scrupulous here, but we would never take the gig unless there was an understanding that we would never ourselves appear. (With the possible exception of taking one shot– at the end of our tenure– as a sort of a golden parachute. You know, just to get the credit.)

Our estimation of comic Anthony Jeselnik skyrocketed when we read this quote: “He trades on the name of the show,” the young comic Anthony Jeselnik said. “He has workshops, a festival. He has the market cornered. I can’t believe Letterman lets him do it.”

The article contains other insights into the muddled alchemy that goes into booking the comics on a late-night show. We’re not surprised at all that it’s an inexact science. Or that female comics get the shaft. Or that acceptance or rejection is based on such fuzzy, nonsense as “the comic importance of vulnerability.” That’s his prerogative. And, were we he, we would probably never give people like Zinoman any kind of meaningful quotes that would give away our formula for choosing comedians. There’s just no upside. It just opens you and your methods up to examination and criticism.

We suspect that Brill just couldn’t resist. After all, a hit in the NYT means higher fees for personal appearances, workshops and the like. And there you have that nasty conflict of interest rearing its ugly head again.

There have been plenty of tremendous comedians on Letterman over the years. And there will be plenty more on the show in the future. And they should all be proud of their credit, as it is a prestigious one. And we are certain that this little hiccup won’t tarnish that credit one bit.

And we acknowledge that there has to be some sort of filter (some sort of “gatekeeper” as the NYT calls Brill), but we suppose that it’s just somewhat jarring that the one who has been doing the filtering has applied such clumsy, benighted criteria for so long. Or that the process isn’t as… pure… as everyone had imagined/hoped it to be.

Apparently, it’s “controversial.” It’s not immediately clear why. Partly because China Daily doesn’t exactly present stories using the ol’ Inverted Pyramid. (And partly, we suspect, because English isn’t the first language of the journos who file the stories.)

But a Shakespearean scholar (red flag!) says the campus “had been invaded by entertainment figures” and a teacher who declined to be identified said the “scholarship is a sign of bowing to vulgarity.”

So, basically, a bunch of eggheads are upset because a lowly comic is doing well enough to fork over the dough for a college scholarship.

Later on in the story, Libo is described as a “plebian person who always spouts empty and insincere chatter to amuse people.” The unmitigated horror!

Hey, if a comedian can’t be excused for spouting empty and insincere chatter to amuse people, just what is this world coming to? Thank God we don’t have such humorless intellectuals in this country! Right? …Right?

Scotti is back doing standup again. And writing a blog called “Inside and Out.” The subtitle is “Eleven years ago, Rick Scotti performed stand up comedy for the last time. Now returning as Julia,she chronicles the long journey back.”

Julia Scotti writes of her first time back onstage at The Comedy Works in Bristol, PA:

I’m on.

“Thank you! It’s good to be back.! A lot has happened in these last eleven years…let’s see, I went back to college, got my degree, my parents died, upgraded my cable package…and oh yeah…I HAD A SEX CHANGE.”

At that moment, the oddest thing happened. There was total SILENCE. The kiss of death for a comic. The equivalent of being buried alive underground in a cigar box. Like being at your grandma’s 100th birthday party with five generations of your relatives giving her gentle hugs and you squeeze her so hard you crack her rib. It’s that horrifying. Time stops. The little people in your mind get the battle stations claxon and you can see them rolling out of their bunks. Millions of tiny little engine room workers are frantically shoveling mental coal into the boiler to bring the brain some power. At the very least, this line should have provoked a titter, and possibly a nasty remark from some scoundrel heckler. But there was nothing. Crickets. Why?

And then it hit me. They didn’t believe me. All my fears of being teased, of being called a freak in public, of religious zealots throwing holy sand at me and exorcising the demons that led me astray back to Sodom were for nothing, because they thought I had been lying! This was fucking insanely fabulous! (Cue the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel’s Messiah)

I had to do something. So I looked them squarely in their eyes and said; “No really.”

Still nothing.

At this point, it was like opening the trunk, taking out the jumper cables and attaching them to their collective nipples. I took one last shot.

“No….REALLLLLLLLLY.”

Finally, they responded. Some laughed. Some began to talk among themselves. I needed to take control again, so I found the hunkiest young guy in the audience and said…

“And don’t get any ideas, buster! I see you looking at me and undressing me with your eyes! Come on… put ‘em back on !

And that opened them up. The rest of my set was nothing memorable, but I got enough laughs to make me realize that maybe I could do this again after all. Sure I was rusty and my timing needed a tune-up, but I had told the truth. And I survived.

When it was over, Kaplan walked over to me. I was expecting kudos. What I got was, “NOW WAS THAT SO FUCKING HARD?”

Ya gotta love him.

The Kaplan referred to is the perpetually (but charmingly) annoyed Comedy Works proprietor Mike Kaplan.

We always find it fascinating when someone leaves standup… and then returns. And it’s even more interesting when the returnee comes back after a major change or two (Divorce? Weight loss? Near-death experience?) and feels the need or the desire to re-invent himself/herself onstage.

The above-mentioned comeback performance occurred just a few weeks ago, so Scotti’s real-time recounting of the saga has just begun. There’s no better time to hop on, bookmark it and follow along than now!

Fast-forward a few months and there’s a viral video which consists of a short chunk of The Soup in which host and Minister of Snark Joel McHale runs a snippet of one of Corrao’s commercials (this one pushing mens’ catheters) and then makes vicious fun of the commercial. It’s hilarious!

We sure hope the producers of the show bring Corrao on live! It’s a natural. If you’ve never seen the show, it’s really well done and it moves like lightning. It’s been around a while– initially named Talk Soup and originally hosted by Greg Kinnear– it has evolved while being hosted by comedians John Henson, Hal Sparks and Aisha Tyler. Some would say that the show has reached near perfection in its current form.

Making fun of such uncomfortable things as a cheery commercial for male catheters is right in the show’s wheelhouse. And it’s known for occasional guest appearances by some of the same celebrities (and near-celebrities) it so mercilessly skews. So… an appearance by Corrao would be hysterical and entirely appropriate.