Winner Mandy Stadtmiller blogs on her experience on Comedy Central’s CCInsider and show producer and NYUCF publicist Ryan McCormick sent along some pics of the contestants and a lovely shot of The Male Half emceeing!

L to R: Ed Condran, Roger Clark, Ojinika Obiekwe, Mike Trainor, The Male Half, Mandy Stadtmiller, Nikki Egan, Robert George, Pete Kramer, Meredith Daniels and Paul Messina. Not pictured: Catie Lazarus. (Photo credit: Ryan McCormick)

(Photo credit: Ryan McCormick)

Check out Stadtmiller’s blog, too. There’s a clip from her Thursday night performance.

The Halves are participating in the October 15th Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation’s Walk to Cure Diabetes! We’re part of the Sam’s Leaping Lizards team. Sam (pictured below with The Male Half of the Staff on a recent trip to Disney World) is the son of longtime friends Franklin Solomon and Alana Bradley-Solomon. He’s one of the juveniles we’re walking to cure!

A half-million other walkers across the country will be walking that Sunday morning to raise money for finding a cure for juvenile diabetes.

Any contribution to our team, of any amount, is appreciated! If you’d like to contribute, click HERE to go to our Team Captain’s fundraising page! It’s easy– click the “Donate Now” link and take it from there!

Ahmed Ahmed, A.J. MacKenzie, Al Rae, Allen Morrison, Andrew Donnelly, Andy Kindler, Assaulted Fish, Aubrey Tennant, Ben Mills, Boyd Banks, Brian Posehn, Bruce Arthurs, Bryan Erwin, Bucket, Carter Hortie, Charles Demers, Chris Casillan, Cody Rivers, Craig Baldo, Crawford Twins, Dan Hershfield, Dan Licoppe, Danny Bevins, Darcy Michael, Darren Trumeter, Dave Shumka, Dave Kessler, David Cross, David Crowe, David Milchard, David Tsonos, Diana Frances, Dr. Russ Kennedy, Drew McCreadie, Dylan Rhymer, Earl Skakel, Eddie Brill, Eddie Gossling, Eddie Pepitone, Elvira Kurt, Eric Fell, Erica Sigurdson, Eugene Mirman, Fanny Fabulous, Geoff Keith, Gerald Varga, Graham Clark, Greg Kettner, Howard Kremer, Ian Bagg, Ian Boothby, Irwin Barker, Ivan Coyote, Jane Stanton, Janeane Garofalo, Jason Bryden, Jaz Halloran, Jeff Rothpan, Jeffery Yu, Jen Grant, Jen Kirkman, Jeremy Hotz, John Beuhler, Jon Benjamin, Jordy Fox, J.P. Mass, Julia Lillis, Jy Harris, Kate Flannery, Kelly Dixon, Kevin Foxx, Kevin Lee, Kristen Schaal, Kyle Dunnigan, Lachlan Patterson, The Lampshades, Lauren Martin, Leland Klassen, Marc Maron, Margaret Cho, Maria Bamford, Melody Mangler, Mike Black, Mike O’Connell, Morgan Brayton, Morgan Murphy, Nathan Clark, Patrick Keane, Patrick Maliha, Paul Bae, Paul F. Tompkins, Paul Breau, Paul Irving, Penelope Corrin, Pete Johansson, Peter Kelamis, Phil Hanley, Rachel des Lauriers, Richard Lett, Richard Van Camp, Rob Pue, Roman Danylo, Roy Wood Jr., Sam Brown, Sam Easton, Scot Robinson, Scott Thompson, Sean Devlin, Sean Proudlove, Shana Orlowsky, Shane Koyczan, Shashi Bhatia, Shaun Majumder, Shaun Stewart, Simon King, Simon Rakoff, Steve Byrne, Tim Rykert, Timmy Williams, Toby Berner, Toby Hargrave, Todd Allen, Todd Barry, Todd Glass, Trevor Moore, Tyler Fortin, Veda Hille, Veena Sood, Vic Lippucci, The Walsh Brothers, The Whitest Kids U’ Know, Zach Cregger,

It starts today, goes through the 24th.

Dan Boulger won.

Check out this story, from the blog of a Boston comic, about how Boulger was denied entrance to the theater where the Lewis Black show was going on– the same theater where, 30 minutes earlier, Boulger won the contest!

Door guy: Can I help you?

Rob: Yeah, this is Dan Boulger, he just won the comedy festival, and we’d like to come in.

Door guy: Yes, congratulations, very funny… didn’t actually see your set, but I heard it was quite good…

Dan: Yeah, I mean, we could stand in the back upstairs, that would be fine.

Door guy: I’ll check for you, sir.

(Door guy confers with a couple of women that look like they are in charge.)

Door guy: I’m sorry sir, the ticket office is closed.

Dan: We could stand in the back?

Door guy: Sorry sir, it’s a bar code issue.

Dig that crazy Peter Max Lite artwork by John Alun Rennie! Laff Records A204 is “A Day At The Races,” a 1979 recording whose back cover contains liner notes by Shelby Meadows Ashford. We googled Ashford and found that his/her work has been featured on several albums, even for “Belly Dancing in the Bacchanal Room.”

It’s from 1979, and the notes speak of appearances in Vegas and Tahoe and on Carson, The Mike Douglas Show and, in December of 1978, The Love Boat!

Our thanks to Dave Soltz (A/V man at Catch A Rising Star in Atlantic City) for scanning the album from his private collection!

Tonight is the night that the Bob & Tom Comedy Tour premieres on Comedy Central. That link will take you to Yahoo TV and not to ComedyCentral.com. (Why? Because ComedyCentral.com might be one of the worst-designed websites in the short history of website design. CORRECTION: It is merely annoying and not the worst-designed website in the short history of website design. Annoying and counter-intuitive. But not the worst. We apologize for the slagging. We don’t know what came over us.)

Anyway, it’s airing (cabling?) tonight at 9 PM EDT, and it will feature a lot of the comedians you’ve come to know and love if you have Bob & Tom in your market. At the very least, it will feature Drew Hastings! And if it only featured him, it would be well worth watching. Twice!

Ladies and gentlemen, the finalists of the BostFest contest:

Floyd J. Phillips
Daryl Lenox
Stewart Huff
Russell Bell
Brad Upton
Shane Mauss
Dan Boulger
Sierra Mist’s “Next Great Comic” Ryan Hamilton

Frank Santorelli also made it into the finals, but we’re told he dropped out due to another commitment. It appears that Brad Upton was not included among the announced winners from last night’s semifinal, so we’re assuming that he is taking Santorelli’s place. It all goes down tomorrow night at 7 PM. (Correction: Upton performed in the second semifinal, and apparently did not substitute for Santorelli as we speculated earlier. Curious, as Upton competed against Santorelli in Bracket 6 on Tuesday night’s prelim. If anyone can clear this up, you know where you can reach us.)

Earlier, we hopped onto the BICF website. Saw this, on the righthand column, under the heading of news:

Congratulations!

There follows a list of the contest prelim winners. Scrolling down, we see:

Prelim 5
Lamont Ferguson
Kjell Bjorgen

How very odd. How very, very odd. Stay tuned. It might just be a web jockey slipping up on a few keystrokes here and there. Scroll down on this page to read our account of Tuesday night’s Prelim 5 if you’re not familiar with the particulars.

Also: We noticed that The Male Half is listed as performing on the Festival Favorites show at Nick’s, Saturday, 8:30 PM. We were not informed of this. It ain’t happening.

After performing emcee duties last night at Gotham, The Male Half was reminded once again of FOS Dan Rosenberg‘s book, now available via Amazon.com, called “The Book On Hosting– How Not To Suck As An Emcee.”

We say that every comedy venue in America should purchase a copy and chain it to the wall of every green room. (Full disclosure: The back cover prominently features a blurb from the editors of SHECKYmagazine.com!)

We have it from multiple sources that Dan Whitney aka Larry The Cable Guy will the be subject of a profile on CBS’ 60 Minutes. Allegedly, there are film crews skittering around the small town he grew up in shooting “B-roll” footage. Stay tuned.

The New York Underground Comedy Festival will pick up the pace even more tonight (FRI) through Sunday night, as they head for the weekend. Click on the above to browse through the schedule.

We were at Gotham last night, doing double duty– The Male Half emceed the Funniest Person in Media contest and the Female Half served as a judge (along with NYUCF bigwig George Sarris and Gotham proprietor Chris Mazzilli).

That’s “media,” as in New York Post, NY 1, amNY, MSNBC, the Asbury Park Press, the Journal-News of West Chester, WB-11 and Newsday, all of which were represented quite nicely as eleven of the New York area’s reporters, producers and writers mounted the stage and made like comedians. (Not to be confused with “Media,&quot the small borough of 6,000 people 20 minutes south of downtown Philadelphia. The Funniest Person in Media, PA, will no doubt be suing Underground Festival organizers!)

Winners of the Funniest Person in Media Contest (l to r): Mandy Stadtmiller (1st), Nikki Egan (2nd), Robert George (3rd)
When the dust settled, it was the NYPost’s Mandy Stadtmiller who took home the title, beating out MSNBC Senior Producer Nikki Egan and NYPost Editorial Writer/Columnist Robert George.

Show producer and Fest spokesman Ryan McCormack brought on The Male Half, who introduced WB-11 morning personality Tiffany McElroy to pump the evening’s charity, Operation Uplink, then it was time to bring ’em up!

Mike Trainor (NY1 writer), Robert George, Catie Lazarus (amNY writer), Paul Messina (NY1 reporter), Ojinika Obiekwe (field producer, WB-11), Mandy Stadtmiller, Meredith Daniels (Newsday editor), Roger Clark (NY1 reporter), Nikki Egan, Peter Kramer (Journal-News reporter) and Ed Condran (Asbury Park Press features reporter) kept the level consistently high throughout. And the audience, consisting of media types, relatives and friends, never flagged. There were none of the deadspots that inevitably plague these amateur comedy contests. The judging was difficult and we congratulate all the participants. (Note to Mike Trainor– Nobody has ever won a comedy competition after going on first! Don’t know why, it is just an immutable law of comedy contests! That is why they refer to the position as “taking the bullet!”)

So statuesque is fellow Fashion Policer Dan Allen that he is still a head taller than The Female Half of the Staff– and he’s scrunching down! (At Comix opening gala)

After a photo session in the Gotham basement and some post-show partying, we exited and headed south to the Meat Packing District, where Bobby Collins and Wende Curtis threw a huge, seething bash to celebrate the opening of Comix, a “New York Comedy Club and Corporate Events Venue,” according to the title bar when you bring up their website.

Comix comedy club principal Bobby Collins with The Male Half of the Staff at Comix opening gala

We walked over in a slight drizzle and were guided to the exact location via a cellphone call to SHECKYmagazine columnist Tom Ryan. So large and volatile was the gala that we encountered a handful of comedy luminaries on the street before we even arrived at the venue a half-city-block away– We formed a mini-gala on the sidewalk, catching up with Tony Camin, Todd Jackson of Dead-Frog.com and comedian Eugene Mirman.

Comedian Barry Weintraub and SHECKYmagazine columnist Tom Ryan at Comix opening gala

Once inside the sleek, ultra-modern vestibule of the new club, we staked out a spot amid the sweaty, chaotic bustle and spent some quality time with Ryan, Lynn Shawcroft, Barry Weintraub, Michele Balan, Dan Allen, Karith Foster, Steven Scott, Collins, Betsy Wise and Vinnie Brand. Spotted, but not contacted, were Alex Borstein, Todd Barry, Josh Blue, Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement, all of whom were on one or both of the evening’s shows, along with Sarah Silverman, David Spade and Kathy Griffin. A video crew roamed the circus, capturing sound/video bites of the guests, quizzing them about their impressions of the new club.

The club brags about having all the latest, bleeding-edge A/V equipment and the menu uses words like “remoulade,” “aioli” and “piccalilli.” And they don’t just offer “slaw,” they offer “mango and basil slaw.”

The premiere was top drawer, and, upon exiting, all guests were handed a groovy, Tyvekkian update on the old canvas bag, stuffed with a set (tops and bottoms!) of scrubs emblazoned (top and bottom!) with the Comix logo!

Tonight at 8 PM, at the Empty Stage Comedy Theatre, 2372 Veteran Ave., Los Angeles 90064, is a Comedians for the Cure show. Take a look at that lineup:

Ian Bagg
Maria Bamford
Owen Benjamin
Chris Bonno
Jim Coughlin
Erica Doering
Bil Dwyer
Brett Gilbert
Paul Gilmartin
Matt Knudsen
David Koff
Cathy Ladman
Sketchatorium
Andrew Solmssen
Kevin Shea
Nick Thune
Joe Wilson

Tickets are $25 at the door (cash only). Go to their myspace to purchase tickets in advance. Hurry! It’s tonight.

We checked our email and there was a message from “Mr. Shecky Greene,” saying he wanted to talk.

It took seven years, five months and twelve days, but we finally made contact with Shecky Greene. It was a thrill.

He’s got a DVD coming out. Stay tuned.

Had we only taken the time to read our own magazine, we would have saved ourselves the trouble and expense of a trip to Boston.

Way back on July 12, 2005, we posted about the winner of Sierra Mist’s quest to crown the “Next Great Comic”…

…Ryan Hamilton won and he’ll be pumped through the 23 Improvs along with Jim Gaffigan or Aries Spears.

Fast-forward to the evening of September 12, 2006.

We enter the Comedy Connection. The Male Half is scheduled to be in Bracket 5 of the preliminary competition of the Boston International Comedy Festival Contest. On each table is placed a free bottle of Sierra Mist. The walls are festooned with Sierra Mist banners. (The front page of the B.I.C.F. website has a Sierra Mist logo prominently displayed, we hazily recall. Hmmm…)

And, going up onstage that evening, as one of the 12 contestants was… (Do we hafta finish this sentence?) …Ryan Hamilton.

That’s right– The Male Half was about to compete in a contest (sponsored by Sierra Mist) that was part of a festival (co-sponsored by Sierra Mist) onstage at the Comedy Connection (flanked by banners bearing the Sierra Mist logo) in front of people who were drinking complimentary soft drinks (which were bottles of Sierra Mist, provided by Sierra Mist), up against 11 other comics… one of whom is The Next Great Comic, as determined by voters who visited www.nextgreatcomic.com, a website/shrine (erected by Sierra Mist) to honor The Next Great Comic, Ryan Hamilton (Pictured above, earlier this year, at the Improv with Pablo Francisco).

Bracket 5 contestants Jan Davidson and Mark Serritella flank Bracket 6 contestant Frank Santorelli, in the Connection green room which, as you can see, is actually green.

To make things even more surreal, one of the judges was Michelle Weissbaum of Levity Entertainment Group. (According to the Levity website, she’s executive assistant to Robert Hartmann, one of two principal partners of Levity Entertainment Group. Hartmann, our more knowlegable readers may know, is a principal owner of, and primary booker for, the largest chain of comedy clubs in America, the Improvs. The Improv chain, our more alert readers may remember, was the very chain that Hamilton was pumped through as part of his “prize” for winning the coveted title of “The Next Great Comic.”)

The Rev. Tim McIntire, Bracket 5 contestant Renata Tutko and Bracket 1 contestant Mike Dorval

Ryan Hamilton won the Bracket. Kjell Bjorgen was second.

We know what you’re saying: It’s a contest.

We know it’s a contest. We’re the first ones to say that contests are strange and capricious beasts. And we’ve said so in the cyberpages of this very magazine. To wit:

Keep this in mind: You were in a contest. Contests are notoriously unpredictable. Anyone who enters a contest expecting logic, order and justice is a fool. Yet we enter them anyway. We also buy lottery tickets, play the occasional hand of blackjack or go for the girl who is “way out of our league.” Sometimes, things actually go your way.

So, we didn’t expect logic, order or justice when we walked in last night. But we at least expected the appearance of logic, order and justice.

For the record: This is not the assessment of a sore loser. If logic, order and justice prevailed, Lamont Ferguson would have advanced to the next round from Bracket 5. He went on last. Feguson, the one-time winner of the Seattle Comedy Competition is a 24-year vet who proved he knows his way around a 5-minute contest set. And, under normal circumstances, we might have chalked up his failure to advance to the typical quirks, peculiarities, vagaries of The Contest. But, on this night, his expulsion just… looked… bad.

We were told that our introductions would include no piece of information other than our name. This, we were told, was necessary “to keep the playing field level.” (How does this desire to level the playing field square with the situation described earlier in this post?)

We were also told that two comics from our bracket would advance. Yet, in Bracket 6 later that same night, three comics advanced. Both brackets contained 12 comics. Using rudimentary math skills, this means that the folks in Bracket 6 had a 1 in 4 chance of advancing, yet the folks in Bracket 5 had a 1 in 6 chance. This would be your unlevel playing field. (We’re sure the Fest officials had some sort of explanation, but we hear from at least two sources that neither the crowd nor even the comics were apprised of how that discrepancy occurred.) We hear that similar discrepancies occured in other brackets. (Indeed, the Fest’s own website front page congratulates the two comics who advanced from bracket 1 and the three comics who advanced from Bracket 2. Curious.)

We all have our reasons for entering comedy contests. And we enter competitions fully aware that, depending on how things go, we may end up feeling like a loser. But it is always our fervent hope that we don’t go home feeling like a sap.

For a detailed account of the rest of the competition, check out Sean L. McCarthy’s blog for BostonHerald.com

Editors note: The Male Half of the Staff was screwed by fate– he drew the number one spot. Upon informing the Female Half of his number, she instantly replied, “I’ll go pull the car around.” Bracket 6-er Frank Santorelli, upon hearing of the Male Half’s slot number, said, succinctly, “You’re fucked.” The Male Half later told Bracket 6-er Brad Upton: “If I had any advice, I would tell you to hold off picking your number until dead last if you can!” (Amateur statisticians may know better but the logic is that waiting until the last possible moment to pick the numbered pieces of paper out of the Tupperware tub increases the chance that other contestants will pull the number one.) Upton advanced, as did Santorelli.

We’ll be in Boston tomorrow (Tuesday) night. The Male Half is entered in the contest and his bracket (Bracket 5) is competing at 7 PM at the Comedy Connection at Faneuil Hall. It should be a great night. Click here for details and ticket purchase!

We understand that there’ve been two prelims already. It says on the front page of the Fest’s website that Prelim 1 winners were Matt Malley and Logan Jacobson and that the winners from Prelim 2 were Russell Bell, Frank G and Chris Tabb.

Blogging for the Boston Herald, Sean L. McCarthy is providing detailed recaps of the festival events as well as a blow-by-blow of Doug Stanhope‘s Abbey Lounge show the other night.

MSNBC.com is reporting that the Hollywood Reporter is reporting that Variety says that Steve Schirripa (identified as a “former” Sopranos star) is being pitched as the host of a Fox talk show.

The untitled talk show project will be executive produced by Hugh Fink, a co-creator of Comedy Central’s The Showbiz Show With David Spade and former head writer on CBS’ The Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson.

SHECKYmagazine columnist Doug Hecox has a column in today’s (9/11/06) Washington Post. It’s an account of his performance at the D.C. Improv on September 14, 2001.

In the five years since, I’ve performed in venues ranging from fire halls to Times Square, but that single show on Sept. 14 will forever be special. It was a tough room but a great audience. The people put aside their fears for the sake of a few laughs on a Friday night. That was truly noteworthy.

Read the whole thing .

First off, spelling “travelling” with one L or two L’s is a personal preference. They (the O& A people) go with one. We’re going with two.

In the maze of the backstage area at the Tweeter, there are maybe a dozen green rooms, another half-dozen offices, a large catering room serving hot food and an impromptu tequila bar set up off the concrete loading dock, just before the entrance to the real backstage– the one with the thumping bass and the tech crew, the curtains and the thick cables that supply the juice for this gargantuan operation.

Robert Kelly and Rich Vos look on from the wings.

Security is tight– not oppressive, but tight and unforgiving. There are, after all, at least ten well-known comedians and two superstar radio personalities back here. And it is a given that there will be a fair amount of scheming by the curious, the fanatical and the malevolent to get back here, into this area, and mingle among the well-known. (There was some talk that there were some counterfeit all-access O & A laminates floating around, so one can’t be too careful.) Also milling about in this bizarre party atmosphere were media types, a two-man crew from MySpace.com, a dozen scantily-clad strippers, family members, radio station personnel (interns, a P.D., promo people), girlfriends, wives, fans and undefined “others.”

Lynn Shawcroft and Traci Skene

We were backstage VIP’s as guests of Bonnie McFarlane and Rich Vos. Vos emceed the first half of this evening’s show. We hung out mostly with Bonnie and comedian Lynn Shawcroft (who opened for Doug Stanhope across the river at the Khyber Pass Pub Thursday night). A fortunate convergence of events and conditions led to our presence here on this evening– we were idle this weekend, we live only minutes away from the Tweeter, the kindness of the Vos-McFarlanes, etc. That The Female Half of the Staff would be able to partially exorcise some residual O & A demons was icing on the cake. (See her column on her January O & A ordeal here.)

Jim Shubert interviews Dom Irerra for MySpace.com

The show featured ten comics– Vos, Jim Shubert, Tracy Morgan, Ralphie May, Patrice O’Neal, Bob Saget, Robert Kelly, Dom Irerra, Bill Burr and Jim Norton. At least that’s the comedy portion. The comics were split into two groups, with an intermission between and video packages kicking off each half. And there was some sort of a halftime bacchanal that featured the aforementioned strippers. (We’re not convinced that eroticism and standup are the perfect combination. The brain shouldn’t be asked to process humor and worry about an erection at the same time.) Hosting for the second half was assumed by the hosts/heroes Gregg “Opie” Hughes and Anthony “Anthony” Cumia.

Coming out first on a show such as this one is an unenviable position, but at least Vos’ workday was done by intermission. In the giant shed that is Camden’s Tweeter Center– half outdoor, half indoor– with a crowd estimated at anywhere from 7,000 to 10,000, emceeing a show like this one might be the toughest spot anywhere, any time.

Dom Irerra onstage at the Tweeter

Add to this situation the fact that, with an O & A crowd, a set goes one way or the other. It’s a maddening combination of Showtime at the Apollo and The Springer Show.

Vos killed. Shubert was booed for nearly his entire time onstage. Up. Down. Up, up, up. Down. A roller coaster ride, sometimes within the space of a single comedian’s set. Dom Irerra, performing in the show’s second half, was crushing until, mysteriously, the mood of the crowd turned ugly. What happened? No one could say for sure. The only certainty is uncertainty. It made for some odd moments in the wings, to be sure. When noted and competent comedians like Shubert and Irerra are treated so cavalierly all comics are necessarily… concerned.

Bob Saget flanked by WYSP promo people

We’re in Camden, but this is, for all intents and purposes, a Philly crowd. The town that famously booed the Easter Bunny and threw iceballs at Santa Claus. Or was it booed Santa Claus and threw iceballs at Jimmy The Greek? Either way, they’re tough bastards on their best day. Assemble a few thousand of them in a hot amphiteater, throw in a few thousand plastic tumblers of Bud Lite and some pole dancing tarts and you have, quite possibly, the mother of all hell gigs.

Shubert, the son of a Philly cop and a tough bastard in his own right, was also one of Sam Kinison’s Outlaws of Comedy. If there was any comic who might have expected a warm reception from these folks, it was him. Shubert dealt with it admirably– he bulled through, disregarded the hellish booing and did his time with the same inflection, the same timing, as if it had been a kill. When things got ugly for Dom, he chose to deal with the reaction head-on– “Oh, one minute you love me, now you fucking hate me?” A brief reprieve, then the booing resumes, perhaps even worse than before. A bemused Irerra vows not to be intimidated, but eventually cashes in slightly early.

There was to be a third way of dealing with adversity on this night. And that was what shall forever be referred to as Bill Burr’s Philly O & A Set. We can never capture Burr’s 15-minute tirade– the slow start, the immediate booing, Burr’s quick realization that he couldn’t turn the ship around after valiantly trying for the first 180 seconds or so.

MySpace.com’s Jordy Fox talking to Bill Burr

And then… it started.

A gang of comics was slowly clumping near the giant P.A. cabinet at stage left, sensing that something significant was developing. Irerra, Kelly, Vos, McFarlane, Shubert, Jordy Fox, Cumia– a dozen and a half comics, VIP’s and others witnessed Burr as he turned the corner and launched into a vicious tirade that attacked all that Philadelphians hold dear. One by one, such Philly institutions as cheesesteaks, Rocky (Paraphrasing: “You’re biggest hero and he’s not even fucking real!! Joe Frazier’s one of the toughest bastards in history and you put up a fuckin’ statue of that 3-ft. tall piece of shit?! You racist fucks!” Here’s a clip of the meat of it, on YouTube.), the Phillies, Donovan McNabb, the Flyers (Gasp!)– even Ben Franklin and the Liberty Bell were blasphemed! It was magnificent in it’s scope, it was positively evil in it’s desire to inflict real pain.

Dead center on the stage in front of Burr, visible to all of us on near the P.A. cabinet, was a giant TV monitor that displayed, in 18-inch high characters, the number of minutes left in his set. At the 11-minute mark, Burr defiantly exclaimed, “I got eleven minutes to go, you fucks!” Cheers went up and battled the boos! It was electric. And so it went– Burr going on his devastating stream of consciousness incantation, stopping only to announce that he was yet another minute closer to the end, each minute’s announcement greeted with that cheer, each one prompting hoots and high-fives from the assembled comics as well. It was legendary.

And, although this declamation of Burr’s was historical, although no one present is likely to forget him or his speech, we very much doubt that Burr had any fun presenting it. We daresay that Burr would have gladly skipped the battle and opted for a clean kill. We suspect the whole episode unnerved him somewhat, despite the acclaim that followed.

Comics Chris McDevitt and Pat House performed on the Helium side stage prior to the mainstage event

And though we were fortunate to be present for the spectacle that was Burr’s smackdown, we were somewhat anxious, troubled about what effect “The Virus” might have on the future of comedy in general. They call it a virus, not us, so it is appropriate to continue the metaphor. Is it spreading to other venues? Other gigs? Do those infected with it behave similarly at other non-O & A events? Will comedians be forced to reckon with a rowdy, mob at every turn? Will polite silence be permanently replaced with catcalls and blood-curdling chants? We certainly hope not. For although the carriers of this virus were enthusiastically queued up afterward to get the autographs of all the comics involved, and although their response is certainly enthusiastic, it seems as though the relationship between performer and audience has been turned upside down. A certain amount of control has been ceded to the mob, specifically to a certain rowdy and intolerant element of the mob. On balance, it seems like that’s a bad direction to go in for standup comedy– for the audience members as well as the performers.

Burr, Patrice O’Neal, Anthony, Opie (standing), Jim Norton sign autographs to poster, pics, boobs, etc. after show

…”National Lampoon’s Jokes, Jokes, Jokes; Collegiate Edition” by SHECKYmagazine columnist and FOS Steve Ochs? Well let’s mention it now.

“From the vast collection of knucklehead comedians, pranksters and practical jokers that make up the contributing community of writers to the National Lampoon come party jokes, off color college humor, and decidedly un-PC punch lines that populate this comprehensive collection of jokes and silly anecdotes. For example, Q: What’s the difference between Billy Joel and Great White? A: Billy Joel didn’t start the fire! Or, while my roommate was doing laundry he yelled, “What setting do I put the washer on?” So I shouted back, “What does it say on your shirt?” And he replied, “University of Arizona!””

Larry Getlen‘s “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Jokes” hit bookstores this week! Love that cover! Click on the box at left and you’ll be whisked to Amazon.com, where you can purchase it!

Getlen managed to get Gilbert Gottfried to write the foreword! Getlen is an author and a comedian who has contributed to SHECKYmagazine, as well as a few other publications like Esquire, Maxim, Variety and Salon.

The Boston Comedy Festival kicks off Sunday night with their film portion. Here’s a list of films screening at the “Shorts” IMAGINE Movie Night at the Improv Asylum:

JUST YOUR AVERAGE ARAB, directed by Raouf Zaki, (19:00). Arab-American characters meet in the storage room of a convenience store to take an Arab American Survival Course post 9/11. Ahmed Ahmed stars. The film will make you laugh and think.

EMBEDDED COMEDIANS, (the trailer) directed by Joey Carrol and Jim McCue, (2:31). Two Boston Comedians get embedded with the US troops on a 30-day tour of Bosnia, Kosovo, Kyrgistan, Kuwait and Iraq. Starring Joey Carroll and Jim McCue and the US military and an angry Camel.

AVAILABLE MEN, directed by David Dean Bottrell, (14:59). A Hollywood agent (on the verge of being fired) is dispatched to a L.A. bar with strict orders to sign a hot new writer he has never met. On the same night, a sensitive gay man (with the same first name as the writer) arrives at the bar to meet a blind date. Hilarity ensues when these two men mistake each other for the other person they were expecting to meet.

MY PARENTS WERE POETS, directed by David Punch, (23:00). A highly stylized comedic spoof and well produced story of how two stand-up poets find each other, lose each other, and find each other again told with a lot of rhyme and feel of the time.

JUNIOR! THE WENDY’S GUY, directed by Stephen Stephanian, (15:15). A short documentary about a man who has attained cult status on the campus of the University of Texas at Austin through his speedy and unorthodox handling of the register at the Wendy’s in the Texas Union.

FIRST KISS, directed by Stephen Stephanian, (3:30). Was your first kiss awkward? So what? You still got to kiss, didn’t you?

MIME MASSACRE, directed by Colin Decker, (6:01). When it comes to mimes, people either love them or hate them. This movie is for the haters.

DIARY OF AN APRICOT CREAM, directed by JP Ouellette, (5:17). A spoof of “JAWS” and the retelling of an Indianapolis disaster, as told by an apricot cream.

MASK OF THE NINJA, directed by Kevin Anderton, (3:06). A Chinese Special Agent must defeat the ninja warriors of her nemesis, Master Plan, and save the free world.

MARINE ON THE SCENE, directed by Dario Russo, (5:17). Marine Biology students Troy and Grant have transplanted the brain of a killer whale into the body of a multimedia student.

EVERY THIRTY SECONDS, directed by Jeremy Corray, (5:49). Every Thirty Seconds. A man is hit by a drunk driver. This is that man.

A MAN AND A WOMAN, directed by Brian McKim, (3:23). Wind-up toys make a statement about life, love, and romance. (See it on YouTube.com!)

BARNEY THE TERRIER, directed by Anny Slater, (1:23). The White House Scottish Terrier talks to his secret service agent about life at the White House.

THE NORMAN ROCKWELL CODE, directed by Alfred Thomas Catalfo, (29:00). A famous museum. a shocking murder. a distinguished symbologist.an alluring cryptologist. secrets written in code. THE DA VINCI CODE gets cracked (and smacked upside the head) in this whimsical parody.

The Boston Comedy & Movie Festival “Opening Night” Party immediately follows the Movie Night presentation.

A cryptic article in the Tapai Times details the bizarre world of expatriate English-speakers from New Zealand, Canada and elsewhere who do standup and produce open mikes in Taipei, the capital.

He asked to get out but the producer glared at him and whispered he’d better be funny, otherwise the crowd would eat him alive. Speaking into the microphone the producer asked, “What are you going to do?”

“Sir, I’m gonna fuck a chicken!”

Read the rest and see if it makes any sense in context.

We assume that the audiences on most nights are composed of English-speaking expatriates residing in Taiwan. Or, maybe it’s filled with locals seeking to brush up on their idiomatic English.

We have learned, from snooping around on the internet, “there is a big pressure for Taiwanese to speak good English, and this has led to a huge demand for native speaker teachers.” (That was from TaiwanJobLink, a site with oodles of information for those seeking employment on the tiny island off the coast of China, which includes this gem:

Deodorants are not easy to buy in Taiwan. Bring a year’s supply.

A TMZ.com article says that Rodney’s widow, Joan Dangerfield…

…is accusing Friedman of copyright infringement and fraud for attempting to distribute a 1988 video of the legendary comedian’s Las Vegas act.

In the lawsuit, Joan claims that Melanie persuaded Rodney to allow her to videotape his act for her “personal use, so that her future children could see it.” Melanie then allegedly gave Rodney a copy of the video, but told him it was the master copy. Years later Rodney learned he did not have the master and asked Melanie for it. According to the lawsuit, Melanie refused to return the video saying it was her “personal property.”

The video (or portions of it) are included in the upcoming Comedy Central Legends docu on the comedian to air Sunday. (For details on that, scroll down.)

AP is reporting that Ellen DeGeneres has been chosen to host the Sunday, February 25 broadcast of the 79th Annual Academy Awards. Jon Stewart was unavailable for comment.

In a tortured sentence that would receive a D or worse from a sixth grade English teacher, the show’s producer, Laura Ziskin, said:

I can already tell she is going to set the bar very high for herself and therefore for all of us involved in putting on the show.

Comedy Central kicks off a series, Legends, on Sunday, September 10 (9 PM EDT), which they describe as…

…a new type of documentary series that takes an inside look at the legends of comedy as told through the voices of comedy insiders and those who worked with them and knew them intimately.

The first one focuses on Rodney Dangerfield.

This is, as Martha Stewart might say, a good thing. We can’t find out who else they might be docufying. Stay tuned.

Cynthia Littleton, writing in the Hollywood Reporter, says that David Letterman will remain in his chair through the 2009-2010 season.

The harmony between Letterman and CBS stands in stark contrast to the situation 4 1/2 years ago, when Letterman was being heavily courted by ABC and reportedly felt under-appreciated at CBS. At the time, Letterman wound up striking a two-year renewal deal that included a series of one-year options, while sources said this time around the deal is a four-year commitment.

Drudge is reporting:

Rosie O’Donnell’s first morning as co-host of ABC The View seen by 4.2 million viewers, roughly 54% more than VIEW a year ago.

The former standup comic debuted as the “moderator” of the ABC squawkfest on Tuesday.

Speculation is rampant as to whether O’Donnell will “take over” the show and make it her own.

Well… we watched as much of the show as we could stomach and, during one segment, they cut to a shot of one of the show’s crew (The floor director? The producer?) and we spotted, just over his right shoulder, standup comic Janette Barber. Barber was head writer and comedy producer for O’Donnell’s old syndicated talk show. Hmmm…

Greg Proops, Joey Elias, Tommy Tiernan, Jim David, Todd Lynn, Jim Caparulo and Tim Nutt will form a flying wedge and knock down comedy fans from Newfoundland to Vancouver, as they represent the Just For Laughs Festival in a tour that lasts just over a month.

Saturday 21-OCT St. John’s,NFLD– St. John’s Convention Centre
Sunday 22-OCT Corner Brook,NFLD– Pepsi Centre Theatre
Wednesday 25-OCT Moncton,NB– Capitol Theatre
Thursday 26-OCT Moncton,NB– Capitol Theatre
Friday 27-OCT Charlottetown,PEI– Confederation Centre
Saturday 28-OCT Charlottetown,PEI– Confederation Centre
Sunday 29-OCT Halifax,NS– Rebecca Cohn Auditorium
Wednesday 1-NOV Montreal,QC– Spectrum
Thursday 2-NOV Hamilton,ON– Hamilton Place
Friday 3-NOV Toronto,ON– Massey Hall
Saturday 4-NOV London,ON– Centennial Hall
Sunday 5-NOV Ottawa, ON– National Arts Centre
Tuesday 7-NOV Thunder Bay,ON– Community Auditorium
Thursday 9-NOV Saskatoon,SK– TCU Place
Friday 10-NOV Regina,SK– Conexus Arts Centre
Saturday 11-NOV Winnipeg,MB– Centennial Concert Hall
Sunday 12-NOV Brandon,MB– Centennial Auditorium
Tuesday 14-NOV Ft.McMurray,AB– Keyano Theatre
Thursday 16-NOV Banff,AB– Eric Harvey Theatre
Friday 17-NOV Calgary,AB- EPCOR Centre
Saturday 18-NOV Lethbridge,AB– Enmax Centre Theatre
Sunday 19-NOV Red Deer,AB– Memorial Centre
Tuesday 21-NOV Edmonton,AB– Jubilee Auditorium
Thursday 23-NOV Kelowna,BC– SW Showtime Theatre
Friday 24-NOV Vancouver,BC– Orpheum Theatre
Saturday 25-NOV Victoria,BC– Save-on-Foods Theatre

We’ve seen chatter here and there on the internet about a comedian who appeared on The Late Show on August 21 and melted down after only 45 seconds of fumbling. He was introduced as “Andy Sansone” and his credits were only that he had appeared on Comedy Central’s Premium Blend.

Near as we can tell, the whole thing was a bit, a hoax, a comedy sketch, a put-on.

The WWW is turning into the Wild, Wild West. Anheuser-Busch has swamped the wires with the announcement that they’re planning an internet site. And not just a site where you can register complaints because your beer wasn’t fresh enough. This site will have… entertainment on it.

Anheuser-Busch announced partnerships with some big-name stars who plan to contribute shows, including comedian Vince Vaughn. The Web site also will receive material from actor Kevin Spacey’s TriggerStreet.com project and actors Matt Damon and Ben Affleck’s Project Greenlight filmmaking contest.

Schumacker said one channel will imitate the YouTube phenomenon, letting viewers produce their own skits and advertisements featuring Anheuser-Busch products like Budweiser and Bud Light.

“We know this cannot be a passive site,” Schumacker said. To engage young consumers, it must be a “lean-in experience” that lets them vote on shows and make their own content, he said.

While the shows will be original, Anheuser-Busch won’t make them itself, Ponturo said. The company will act as an executive producer, choosing ideas to fund and buying completed shows to broadcast.

Our first impulse, as it always is with announcements like this one, is to flash back to that big announcement that Mike Ovitz made when Coke formed that freaky partnership with CAA. (That was 1991. There was no WWW as we know it today.) That was a big, fat bust. This is different.

Budweiser is going to become a miniature television and movie studio. Only, it won’t be all that miniature. A-B is chugging along nicely, with an annual profit last year of nearly $2 billion. That article ends with this, a quote from a beer analyst:

“It’s just part of the whole shift away from traditional media in advertising, which seems to be accelerating.”

The gates are opening. And there are more gates. The Entertainment Industry is changing fundamentally and we are fortunate enough to be entertainers who are alive to witness it. This is going to get very interesting.

BTW: Since when is Vince Vaughn a “comedian?”

BTE, Pt. II: What exactly is a “lean-in experience?”

Remember back on August 17, when we told you about the Real Men of Comedy Tour Talent Search? Well, they’re still accepting submissions and now you can send in a VHS tape.

NOW ACCEPTING VHS SUBMISSIONS FOR THE FINAL 3 DAYS

1. SUBMIT NOW AT WWW.MAXIMONLINE.COM/REALMENOFCOMEDY

2. READ THE OFFICIAL RULES &#amp; DOWNLOAD THE RELASE FORM

3. SEND A SIGNED COPY OF THE RELEASE FORM WITH YOUR MATERIAL
TO THE ADDRESS LISTED

ENTRIES MUST BE POSTMARKED BY MIDNIGHT THIS FRIDAY

* DO NOT SEND ANY ADDITIONAL MATERIALS
* ENTRIES SHOULD BE NO LONGER THAN 3 MINUTES IN LENGTH (ONLY THE FIRST 3 MINUTES OF A LONGER SUBMISSION WILL BE JUDGED)

Here’s an email that’s going around. It’s from J.J. Parrone, the owner of Comix Cafe in Rochester, and it’s signed by “Comedy Coordinator” Ralph Tetta. It is in reference to a one-nighter in Rochester, the Comedy Block Party, a Thursday night at a place called Milestones, that’s booked by a couple of Rochester comics.

Dear friends,

I have been asked by JJ Parrone from the Comix Cafe in Rochester to contact you regarding the Comedy Block Party at Milestones. Currently, your name and/or biographical information (and possibly your photo) is included in the CBP website.

JJ’s stance on this that he is not interested in building CBP’s business by promoting you to larger crowds at the Cafe, allowing those folks to follow you to Milestone’s.

If you have work on the books with Comix Cafe, or intend to in the future, JJ asks that you contact Comedy Block Party and have your information removed from the website. Failure to do so will jeopardize your future business with Comix Cafe.

If you have any questions regarding this policy, you may contact JJ at jjp@comixcafe.com and he will provide clarification.

Ralph Tetta
Comedy Coordinator

We met one of the comics who runs the Block Party, and we thought that the energy and enthusiasm that he devoted to the Block Party gig was admirable. And necessary– His comedy universe consists of Rochester, Buffalo (74 miles west) and maybe a few towns scattered around upstate New York. That admiration influenced our decision to accept a booking at the CBP later this fall, on the night before our upcoming Buffalo Comix Cafe engagement, November 2 through 4. (So, our info is up there on the website. So far, we haven’t received any thuggish emails. And, if we did, we wouldn’t dream of taking it down.)

Letters like the one above– letters that threaten comics (“Failure to do so will jeopardize your future business with Comix Cafe.”) are out of line. Not to mention shortsighted. We’re the last ones to tell a club owner how to conduct his business, but a weekend club that tries to hamstring a one-nighter is creating tension where none should exist.

We all had the Block Party venue equivalent in our formative years– the gig where you could do as much time as you wanted, the one where there was a nurturing atmosphere, where you closed the show for the first time. But we all knew– the public knew, the comics, the other weekend headliner rooms– that there was a vast difference between that room and the bigger rooms. And the bigger rooms usually knew all that, too.

And where do you suppose the big rooms got their experienced emcees and feature acts? From the well-run one-nighters, of course. And, if the market conducted itself in a sensible manner (like in Boston and in Seattle and San Francisco and elsewhere), the big rooms knew it was in their best interests to allow the small rooms to promote themselves as they saw fit.

Not so in Rochester.

Citzens of Rochester: Be not fooled by the weaselly behavior of your local comedy club, the Comix Cafe! (See below)

We were alerted to the above advertisement by a comedy fan in Flower City. It seems that the Comix Cafe in that fair town was using the appellation “Voted Top Ten in Nation by USA Today” in their print ads. It is a lie and a fraud!

The USA Today article referred to is one in which the editors and publishers of SHECKYmagazine.com were consulted and asked to provide a list of ten clubs throughout America which were “Great places to sit down and watch standup” for an article in their Travel section. We obliged. We provided them with a list– a carefully considered list– that contained ten clubs that we felt represented a cross-section of clubs in America. Some of them we were intimately familiar with– some, we had it on good authority, were representative of their market or their genre.

The Comix Cafe in Rochester was not on the list. For them to claim otherwise is a lie and a deceit. (We suspect that they’re playing on a bit of confusion with the Comix Cafe in Buffalo— a club that was in fact on the list and a club at which we’ll be headlining in November!)

This is a lowdown and wretched thing to do. We implore the weasels who run the Comix Cafe in Rochester to cease and desist at once!

Paul Brownstein of the Los Angeles Times spins out one of the most insipid, most ridiculous, most hackneyed take on standup comedy that we’ve ever had the misfortune of reading.

Where do we begin?

Brownstein wasted his time (and the precious ink of the Tribune company) by writing a mean-spirited and embarassingly cliched review of Dane Cook‘s HBO special that premiered last night.

The next to last line of Brownstein’s childish tirade:

This is, for now, the Cook legacy: He signals the end of the comedian as we knew him– reclusive, angry, socially awkward, anguished, self-defeating.

All you need to know, really. Brownstein, and his compadres in the media, feel good about themselves as long as they are secure in the knowledge that us comedians are “reclusive, angry, socially awkward, anguished, self-defeating.” Take a good look, fellow comics– Tom Shales called us all “monkeys.” Brownstein’s world is rocked when a comic comes along and demonstrates that he is neither reclusive nor angry nor socially awkward, anguished or self-defeating.

Take a look at Brownstein’s shopping list when he goes a-hunting for a comedian that is to his liking:

reclusive
angry
socially awkward
anguished
self-defeating

What a narcissistic, melodramatic, drama-queen douchebag is Paul Brownstein. We hope, for his sake, that he had some regrets when he hit “send” on this particular 22 column-inches of drivel. For him to totally believe this nonsense would signal his total breakdown as a credible commenatator on the scene that is American pop culture.

Here’s the first line of this horrific shank of shit:

Comedians aren’t supposed to be happy, just the opposite, but Dane Cook is the Disneyland of comics: He’s the happiest, most uncomplicated place on Earth.

We get it now: Comedians aren’t supposed to be happy. We get it and get it clearly– Paul Brownstein has it all figured out. Comedians are supposed to be dreary, apocalyptic truth-tellers, fresh from the shooting gallery, the needle, only minutes before, snatched from our forearm, the memory of the searing pain of our stepfather’s knuckles across our cheek still fresh in our minds.

What does he want?

We get the feeling that he’s aching for a combination of Tennessee Williams, Edith Piaf and Judy Garland, spewing poignant material that makes us all wince, that makes us all look inward, that causes us vow to change the world– as soon as the waitress brings the check and we settle up.

It is telling that Mr. Brownstein, in his laughable quest to paint the comedian as some sort of heroin-fueled Pagliacci, dredges up the ghosts of Kurt Cobain, Lenny Bruce, Mitch Hedberg and Drake Sather. This is the ideal world of Paul Brownstein: The ones who make the mirth are hiding enough pain for millions. Their output is a cry for help and a wakeup call to the rest of us. They are new age messiahs… but we are too stupid, too shallow, too predictable to figure out that we should be taking our yucks with a spoonful of Ipecac. If we come away from a comedy performance feeling the least bit giddy, we should drag a razor across our veins.

Are we going overboard a bit? You’re goddamned right we are. Fight fire with fire, we say.

From all reliable accounts, Frank Fay was an insecure, melodramatic douchebag. Bob Hope learned pretty much everything from observing Fay. Hope was a rock star who enjoyed the ride, dominated the business, and made an eye-popping fortune over sixty years. Why are we still insisting on squeezing every comic into the Frank Fay mold? Is the entertainment press suffering from some sort of 80-year hardon?

Brownstein and his ilk seem unable to tap out a single coherent sentence unless their framework is a premise that relies heavily on irony. Irony rules. The preacher who diddles little girls, the hooker with a heart of gold, the comedian who cries buckets before the applause has died down. Irony is good, it’s satisfying and it’s been a sturdy armature upon which to sculpt fiction, drama, etc. But when one lets it rule one’s commentary on real events, it becomes a ludicrous crutch.

Mind you, we’re not defending Cook out of any warm and fuzzies for the man or his comedy. We’re just sticking up for Cook or any comic who doesn’t enter stage left alongside Death, Famine, Pestilence and War. And we’re sticking up for any comic who might project a carefree air onstage yet who doesn’t share an apartment with the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse in his off hours.

If the influential Brownstein can have such a narrow, limited, inflexible view of standup comics when it comes to Cook, what must he think of such titans as Jim Gaffigan, Brian Regan or Wanda Sykes?

Get a load of this statement, summing up Brownstein’s justification for admiring Mitch Hedberg:

It was understood, at least among his peers, that Hedberg’s act would not have existed without his demons.

Say what? We’re of the opinion that Mitch was great in spite of his “demons,” and that only an uninformed bonehead like Brownstein would make such an presumptuous and extravagant statement.

More from Brownstein, on how Cook has become a star:

He’s become huge by asserting that the comic mind does not come from alienation and restlessness but from adoration and social connection…

…and the problem is?

Alienation? Restlessness? In the bright, shining comedy utopia envisioned by comrade Brownstein, all comics will be forced to advance the cause or get out of the business, lest we hurt comedy or damage social progress.

Here’s one last gem. It’s from the section where Brownstein sticks his nose into perhaps the most heartbreaking episode in the last decade of standup, the death of Mitch Hedberg:

Hedberg’s memorial was held at the Friars Club in Beverly Hills; half a dozen comics eulogized him, and it was odd, the sight of them reduced to tears, or trying to reduce themselves, insofar as comedians can feel for one another.

Shales called us monkeys. Brownstein has an even lower opinion.

Shecksism? You decide. Read the rest here, if you must.

New York Underground Comedy Festival Big Cheese George Sarris has snagged his second New York Post Page Six mention in a matter of weeks. The most recent hit in the NYC tabloid revolves around Sarris’ offer of a job to recently fired Apprentice assistant Carolyn Kepcher. Sarris’ timely and (probably) facetious offer of employment proved irresistible to the Page Six editors!

Over the years, we’ve heard stories of comedians experiencing poor treatment at the hands of the media, the pop culture, club owners, hoteliers, etc. We’ve even been the object of such poor treatment ourselves. The folks who’ve been on the receiving end of such treatment have been old, young, black, white, male, female– but always sharing one thing: their occupation as comedians.

We get worked up at the injustice of it all. We rarely, however, view the mistreatment specifically as ageism, racism, sexism, homophobia, misogyny, misandry or xenophobia. We tend to think that the abuse derives primarily from a deep-seated resentment toward comedians!

So, we’ve developed a new term, a new “ism,” so to speak: Shecksism. That’s right. From now on, when we see a comedian done dirty, we shall declare the action to be “shecksist.” And we shall hold that the perpetrator is indulging in shecksism. (Rhymes with “sexism.”) Use it three times and it is yours! And, we’re expecting a phone call from the folks at Merriam-Webster any day now telling us that the new term has been incorporated into the newest edition of their dictionary. What the heck– if “booty call” and “ollie” can be legitimized, so can this one.

We understand that we’re veering dangerously close to proclaiming victim status for an entire group. What the hell? Everybody’s doing it!

Shecksism (shĕk’siz’əm)

1 : prejudice or discrimination based on employment in the field of humor; especially : discrimination against standup comics
2 : behavior, conditions, or attitudes that foster stereotypes of social roles based on making one’s living telling jokes

The Male Half of the Staff can recall that when Karen Carpenter died, way back when he was starting out in 1983, he was fielding phone calls and a answering machine message or two from colleagues who facetiously expressed sympathy at the concomitant death of his Karen Carpenter bit. Pretty funny, really– a major star dies a protracted and most likely painful death and comics, with their grim sense of humor, were seemingly more concerned over the death of a joke. (The Male Half was grieving slightly, too, because, at this point in his development, he could ill afford to lose any material, no matter why.)

Some years later he was forced to “retire” a bit that hinged on Lucille Ball. He heard from a handful of comics later on that, upon learning of the TV star’s death, they immediately thought of the bit and instantly knew that it would necessarily be banished from the act.

We recount these incidents to illustrate how comics react to such tragic news. It provides insight into how comics think… or at least how they did in the past.

We were stunned by the news of the death of Steve Irwin. There was no one on this planet who approached his gig with more enthusiasm, which was, by all appearances, genuine. Our thoughts went immediately to his two small children, left fatherless after a freak accident in the waters off of Australia’s Golden Coast.

Perhaps even more stunning was the reaction we perceived “out there” among comics with regard to the celebrity death. It appears that some comics (and maybe not a small number) are taking the opportunity of Irwin’s demise to castigate fellow comics for their decision to incorporate material into their acts that played on the popularity of The Crocodile Hunter. There seems to have been an undercurrent of rage (some of it genuine, some of it imitative) among some comics that their colleagues have been somehow letting down the artform by covering topics/subjects that they deem to be hackneyed. They seem preoccupied, obsessed with the idea that there’s more than one comic out there who is doing material that wrings humor from the audience’s recognition of a quirky Australian TV star. They rub their hands together with vindictive glee at the prospect of a few dozen of their colleagues being forced to drop a bit that they find beneath their standards. It is unbecoming, to say the least.

Steve Irwin, it has been written, reached a worldwide audience of 200 million people. It is incomprehensible that a standup comic– any standup comic– would refrain from trying to play upon that renown. (Unless he/she wanted to claim a reputation as one who traffics in the obscure, the vague, the enigmatic. Along with that reputation, however, comes a reputation for getting few or no laughs.) So, we are all forced to find that magical combination of the ambiguous and the familiar which also adds up to actually results in us being regarded as… funny.

To dismiss, out of hand, an entire subject or premise is ridiculous. (To use the occasion of a tragic death to grind the “hack” axe is more akin to something that some of our unenlightened journalist friends might do. From comics, we expect more. Much more.)

To dismiss an entire premise, to declare it off limits, is an exercise in futility. To declare that any bit (or any comic) is less than honest or artful merely because a proscribed subject, celebrity or annoyance has been touched upon is bogus. To do so without ever having seen/heard the bit/performer– a preemptive strike, so to speak– is totally bogus as well and reminds us of the lunkheaded blowhard who won’t go to a comedy club “because the potty-mouthed comics who perform there just talk about sex all the time.” It is generalization, it is lazy, it is the very definition of prejudice… and our colleages deserve better. And we expect more from our fellow comics.

We’ve all seen the lazy comic who merely uses buzzwords or a reference to (or a less than dead-on impression of) a salient celebrity to elicit what might be called a cheap laugh. But we’ve also seen comedy gold come from some of the most familiar and ordinary things, people or habits.

Not much new in the Sept 1 article by John Katsilometes, writing for the Vegas Sun, in which he describes Alonzo Bodden’s recent travails at the Palms and excerpts Bodden’s MySpace posting.

Katsilometes ran it all by Palms spokesman Larry Fink…

…who said, “We received numerous complaints from Mr. Bodden’s fans, who were unimpressed by his performance.”

Classy, or what? Of all the players in this drama, you’d think that the Palms might be the ones that play it off as nothing huge. Bodden trashed the owner and the owner’s hobby, sure, but they’re a giant company– the destination of choice for the MTV generation has 455 rooms and 95,000 square feet of casino floorspace. Bodden has his reputation. Why would their “spokesman” choose to go this route? It demeans the Palms and it was calculated to hurt Bodden. It doesn’t make any sense.

What has happened to Las Vegas? Where is the old Vegas? Bodden may not be Buddy Hackett or Frank Sinatra, but he is Alonzo Bodden (Last Comic Standing? National Broadcasting Company? Primetime television?) and he was invited to perform at the Palms. Upon his arrival, he was treated like a day-tripper who had blown into town in a dusty ’78 pickup from San Berdoo.

A UPI article details two new shows to debut on VH-1, each of which focuses “on celebrities in their 40s trying to make comebacks– Andrew Dice Clay and Tom Sizemore.”

The Clay series, produced by Fox, will follow the acerbic comedian as he writes a book, records a CD and produces his own Sirius satellite radio show, Daily Variety reported.

VH1 Senior Vice President Jeff Olde describes the show as a “real-life ‘Entourage,’ only with disheveled fortysomething guys in the comedy world.”

Check back with us in February, as the series will start in March. The MSM may not be able to help itself in the leadup to this.

We still see remnants of their deep-seated hatred for The Diceman to this day. (Already, they’re throwing Sizemore into “the comedy world.” What’s up with that? And they can’t help but describe the two as “disheveled.” By the time they’re done, “disheveled” will be a compliment.)

How many of us have been thinking the following, but never actually said it? It’s a quote from the delightful vaudeville history “No Applause– Just Throw Money,” by Trav S.D. The tirade is attributed to performer Richard Bennett, who had apparently had enough of one particular Ohio town’s audiences:

“For forty years I’ve been an actor on the American stage. My entire family is well represented in the entire field of show business. I’ve played this very city of Cincinnati for thirty or forty years. I’ve never had a decent reception here. I’ve been waiting all this time, ladies and gentleman, to say to you that you, the people of Cincinnati, are the greatest morons, the most unintelligent, illiterate bastards I have ever appeared before in my entire life. Take a good look at me, because you’ll never see me again.”

They never did.

Rascals GM Jason Pollock is on the right, comedian Bernadette Pauley is on the left. Michael McDonald is in the center. They are in the lobby of the Crowne Plaza in Cherry Hill (formerly the Cherry Hill Hilton), which is home to Rascals Comedy Club. The former Doobie Brother was in town, performing at Camden’s Tweeter Center, when this pic was snapped weekend before last. (Photo credit: Unnamed friend of Michael McDonald)

Wrestling legend and standup comic Rowdy Roddy Piper is on the left. Rascals GM Pollock is on the right. Piper stopped into the comedy club last Saturday night and did a short set, much to the delight of the crowd and to the delight of that weekend’s comedians Big Jay Oakerson and Kurt Metzger
.

Who will stop into the South Jersey comedy club this weekend? Well, for starters, the Male and Female Halves of the Staff will be sharing the bill there Thursday, Friday and Saturday (One show each night, 8:30 PM Thursday, 9 PM Fri/Sat). And bluesman, singer/songwriter, teen hearthrob and standup dabbler John Mayer will be playing at the Tweeter on Saturday, sharing the bill with Sheryl Crow. Hmmm… perhaps there will be celebs aplenty. We’ll be sure to bring the camera!