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Flying Yellow Footballs on
Le Terasse Jardin
The Comedy Network, Canada's version of Comedy Central (Oooh! I bet they just love it every time they hear THAT!) threw a bash on the open-air terrace that overlooks Rue Sherbrooke. Bright yellow peewee footballs, emblazoned with the Comedy Network logo, were whizzing by our heads as we stepped out into the light of a late Montreal afternoon. It was billed as a barbecue, with dogs, burgers, sausages and beer--all of it gratis. (Do we go on too much about the free food? Maybe it's because we're comics. Give a comic free food and you have a friend for 45 minutes--an hour if the crowd's really good.)
Top: Harland Williams (L) poses with Tom Higgerty at the Delta bar. Below: Andy Kindler and Bobby Slayton...caught in an intimate moment at the Delta Bar...right near the piano...FLASH: Slayton's Rat Pack (HBO) garnered 11 Emmy nominations.Bubbling, New Faces, Best of Fest, Gala 8: The Raw Data!Everybody started peeling off and heading to the 7 pm Bubbling With Laughter at Club Soda. Appearing were: Host Anthony Clark, Arj Barker (who killed at the Works Thursday night),Dave Gorman, Iron Man Mike McDonald, Jeremy Hotz, Paul F. Tompkins, and Ireland's Ed Byrne.
The Gala, hosted by Rob Lowe, featured John Wing, Elon Gold, Judith Lucy, Harland Williams, Gregg Rogell, Derek Edwards, Wanda Sykes, Gavin Crawford, Tuan Le and Kevin James
Another New Faces of Comedy show Scott Henry, Daniel Tosh, Merrin Dungey, Kyle Dunnigan, Gary Gulman, Sean Corvelle, Bob O'Schack and Gabriel Iglesias
SHECKY! Managing Editor Traci Skene holds impromptu smile contest with Bonhomme Rouge (French for "Red Guy")...Exhausted but ecstatic author Bob Harris (See May SHECKY!) gives the SHECKY! thumbs up with SHECKY! Editor-In-Chief Brian McKim.
We nipped on over to the Comedy Works for the 11:15 Best of the Fest where it was hot, crowded and humid--the only club with its own weather system!. The acts had to congregate out back on the deck to escape the oppressive atmosphere inside.
The grizzled veteran Dan Whitney hosted wearing a Ted Nugent camouflage T-shirt and brought a steady stream of talent to the stage. We caught the tail end of Alonzo Bodden and all of Bob Golub, Jordan Rubin, Gary Valentine and Joe Rogan. An exceptionally strong show. And those were just the acts we managed to see. We missed Pete Johansson and Vic Henley.
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SHECKY! Hits the airwaves!As we walked through the lobby to comandeer a shuttle to get to the Best of the Fest, we noticed another remote radio broadcast in progress. This time, the call letters were obviously from the States: The "W" in WMAL gave it away. I squinted to read the name tag on the press pass on the fellow behind the mike and whaddya know: It's Chip Franklin! Everybody on the east coast knows Chip Franklin! He's a comic, a booker, a radio personality and a columnist with a killer web site.
Chip lights up when we introduce ourselves. We've never met, but we've corresponded via email and he uses our press kits as coasters. Chip: " I feel bad about never having booked you guys." Traci: " Aww, stand in line! This hotel's packed with people who feel bad about never having booked us!"
He was broadcasting back to listeners in D.C. and he conducted a spirited interview with us while notables Roger Paul, Kirk Noland, Adam Pal, Seth Buchwald and AOL humor columnist and Chip's co-host Bill Shein looked on.
COMEDY CENTRAL'S Mindnight Breakfast!We arrived fashionably late to the fashionably late bash thrown by Comedy Central (The American version of ComedyNetwork...Oooh! I bet they just love it every time they hear THAT!) Take hundreds of exhausted industry types, add bargeloads of scrambled eggs, throbbing music and several metric tons of pork products, mix with alcohol, turn the thermostat up to HELL, and stand back!! It's either a recipe for disaster or the best danged bash since...last night!!!
The buzz was that the Andy Kindler-hosted Alternative Comedy Show was a smashing success. Frank Conniff, Paul F. Tompkins, Ron Lynch, Audrey Rapoport, Doug Benson and Rachel Arieff performed to an appreciative crowd at Montreal Arts Interculturels (We just call it MAI).
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