3:44 P.M., July 20, 2000
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SHECKY! A magazine about standup... treks to Montreal for the second straight year to bring you daily slices of the world's largest comedy festival!

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The King of Queens and the king of queens. KEVIN JAMES and JASON STUART digitized for posterity at the Delta bar.

Omnipop's T.J. MARKWALTER, comic MARGOT BLACK and comedy legend JOHN TRUESON prior to seating for the Comedy Night in Canada show at the Comedy Nest.

That Canadian Guy GLEN FOSTER patiently poses with the familiar SHECKY! logo prior to closing Comedy Night in Canada.

ICTG, Inc.'s KEITH SAGE-EL, comic SHERYL UNDERWOOD and Arts and Letters' STEVEN NASH briefly turn their attention away from a stack of Suzanne Westenhoefer CD's.

SHECKY! editors BRIAN MCKIM and TRACI SKENE flank comic JIM DAVID outside the Delta bar.

MONTREAL--Montrealer comic David John McCarthey during his set the other night: "I was reading the newspaper earlier today...well, actually it was the Gazette..." They love to tease the hometown paper here. The stories in Montreal's English language daily provide the native comics with grist for the comedy mill. And the Gazette itself often ends up as grist. But the paper actually pays attention to standup comedy. And the coverage they've given the Festival is quite satisfying to see. Today's Gazette actually devoted the top two-thirds of page D-7 to Wednesday night's (first English language) Gala. And they teased it on the front page (with a full color Bonhomme Verte mascot --he's the little green fellow on all the Festival literature).

"King rules first English gala," read the headline, referring to the fact that Kevin James, (King of Queens) hosted. They commissioned a "panel of experts" to rate the acts in various categories including Best Act, Worst Act, Never Want To See Again and Worst Joke. "Experts" might be stretching things a bit. One was a columnist (Bill Brownstein) the other was an Assistant Managing Editrix (Lucinda Chodan) and (are you ready?) Spaceman Bill Lee, former Montreal Expo pitcher and legendary flake (thus, the moniker "Spaceman"). Lee even admitted that the gala was "the first show I ever went to." At the risk of being accused of losing our sense of humor, SHECKY! feels compelled to point out that branding these folks experts in bold, 18-pt. type might actually lead the average Joe (average Jean-Claude?) to believe that these folks are experts. And they might then give their opinions a bit too much weight. Hmmm...

It is especially irksome when, for example, Lee describes Montrealer Rick Miller as being "too good for a comedy fest." The implication is obvious and not very good for the rest of the performers.

On the positive side, Brownstein devoted his entire Wednesday column to an insightful and honest profile of Boston comic Jackie Flynn. That column ended up sliced, diced, Xeroxed and stacked on the press table in the Delta lobby hours later.

The press table is a curious phenomenon. Just as one swings through the Delta lobby and heads around the corner to the staircase that leads to the Delta bar, the press table beckons. It is laden with releases, cards, clips, CD's, videos and all manner of promotional materials, all designed to promote this comic and that show. Some folks go all out and crank out handsome four-color stuff, others get the message across with simple black and white. A fair amount of "merchandising" occurs in the course of a typical day. Agents, managers or talent will approach the table and will, under the pretense of tidying up the stack of his or her materials "accidentally" re-arrange the table just a bit, affording the materials in question better "shelf position." Often, a stack of cards will mysteriously migrate several feet in one day and into press table oblivion! (Usually the cards with the familiar SHECKY! logo!)

In the alternative weekly known as the Montreal Hour, a writer named "Skidmore" groused about how comic Jason Stuart did a bit Sunday night at the Queer Comics show that he had done "three, maybe four, years ago" and that "In spite of how hilarious the bit is, such antics only make the performer seem lazy, or worse, like a one-trick pony." Excuse me? Fuck you! (There. We feel much better.) We're reminded of the time we caught Jerry Seinfeld at Caroline's at the Seaport back just before his little sitcom started. Fans throughout the room were actually yelling out requests for certain bits. Seinfeld graciously complied. People love to hear classic bits. Comics, for the most part, love doing them.

Jeffrey Ross was given free rein to craft a show for the fest at the Noveau/New Club Soda. The result was last night's Black Tie Optional. Ross, dressed in a tux, his bowtie unraveled, welcomed several pals to perform just after midnight to a nearly-packed house. The atmosphere and attitude was very Rat Pack-y. A band played the comics on and off. The stage held a stool, a table with a bucket of Champagne and a large black leather sofa. Ross (whom SHECKY! readers may be familiar with via his June SHECKY! Interview) welcomed Adam Ferrara, Dom Irrera (in the guise of "Fritzie Anderson"), Harland Williams, Kevin James, Jim David and Todd Glass. It was a fun show, a healthy slice of industry showed and the crowd had a blast. Each comic was invited to stay on the couch and eventually encouraged to freely bust balls as each new comic launched into his set. Lots of interaction between comics. Reminds us of the clips we've seen of Dean and Sammy and Frank on stage at the Sands. Particularly howl-inducing was Dom's Fritzie and Kevin James' impression of Ray Romano.

How's this for quirky: Comic Orny Adams is managed by George Shapiro, whom, you may recall, was Andy Kaufmann's manager (portrayed by Danny DeVito in the Kaufmann biopic). Adams' business card is simple, white and says only "I'm with George" that's all.

RAW DATA:At the Gala was Richie Minervini, Joey Elias, Carl Barron, Jackie Flynn, Rick Miller, Jim Breuer, Umbilical Brothers, Martha Chavez, Andrew Grose and Steve Marmel. Comedy Night In Canada included David Pryde, Ian Bagg, Al Rae, Pete Johansson, Bonnie McFarlane, Joey Elias and Glen Foster. Britcom, because of popular demand, was held over for another night.

WAKE THE KIDS!:SHECKY! editor Brian McKim is somewhat ambivalent to announce that he will be featured as one of the combatants on Ed McMahon's Nextbigstar.com! McMahon's new internet venture is touted as an online version of his wildly successful Star Search. McKim got the news yesterday. The clip, which will begin cybercasting on Monday, is of a recent set at Atlanta's Punchline.