We took in Just For Pitching Thursday at noon in the Delta. A less than capacity crowd watched six sitcoms and a drama pitched. Pitching were Ronnie Khalil (The Garden), Kira Soltanovich & Rachel Reiss (The Cult), Nat Coombs (Dear Journal), Ian Harrison (Bangalore Whore), Dwight Slade (thirtynine), James Mullinger (Success) and Eddie Pence (A Comic Life). Catching were William Burdett-Coutts, Amy Hartwick, Jeremy Whitham, Brent Haynes, Anton Leo and
Ron West.

“Originally, it was scripted… but I thought you liked that improvised crap.”

The above is a quote from Eddie Pence. He said it toward the end of the grilling he endured after his A Comic Life pitch. Grilling… did we say grilling? It was more like a mushy, Orwellian, cognitive therapy session in which the patient is being cured of the notion that he or she can create a marketable sitcom (instead of being cured of anxiety or depression). And there are six therapists. All of whom are fearful of contradicting each other… but, curiously, not at all afraid of contradicting themselves… sometimes in the course of one sentence.

There were seven pitches, and, as one of our party whispered, halfway through the proceedings, “Where is this year’s Beat The Chimp?” (See last year’s wrapup of Just For Pitching– We didn’t go on about BTC in any detail, but Franz Harary’s simian-based game show idea was offbeat and his presentation was entertaining. Nobody was able to engage the audience in such a manner this year.)

The panel– British, Canadian and American TV execs– were in rare form when it came to tortuous rhetoric, but somewhat sluggish. Brent Haynes of Canada’s Comedy Network, though gloomy, still got off a zinger or two. But the panel was somewhat reserved, not very enthusiastic. Perhaps even they are fed up with their own horseshit.

We actually heard one of them describe a former TV exec as a “champion of original voices.” We’ll let that sink in.

It took them only 35 minutes for someone to use the word “interstitial.” We counted two “Zeitgeists” and a “multiplatform.” We’re refining a pitch of our own. We said in years past that Just For Pitching would, in itself, make a great show. Now, we are considering adding the element of audience interactivity by turning it into a drinking game, encouraging the viewers to take a shot of distilled spirits every time an exec uses something on the approved list of Suitspeak Terms or Phrases. (Other terms or phrases: “high-concept,” “character-driven,” “script-dependent” any adjective combined with the word “voice.” You get the idea.)

After a while, we began to feel bad for the pitchers. They were all the butt of a protracted, yearlong practical joke!

Last year, the panelists declared the sitcom to be dead, dead, dead. (“The days of taking a fat guy, giving him a hot wife and building a successful sitcom around it are gone,” said one exec in 2005. Note to exec: The fat guy with the hot wife just got an Emmy nomination!)

Last year, everything was high-concept, improvised and reality-based. (You know, like Curb or Reno or Arrested, they all said, paring down the show titles to one word.)

So… The pitchers gave them high-concept, the pitchers took great pains to emphasize that there would be “unscripted and/or improvised components” to their shows and that their would be at least “be some segments that would be reality-based.”

So… The execs batted them all down.

In case you hadn’t heard, pitch people, we execs are all on the same page now and we’re “re-inventing the sitom” and “changing the face of television comedy!” From here on out, we want characters that people care and good writing. “The sitcom built around a clever idea is a misnomer,” they said. “At the end of the day, it comes down to a script. I would have to see a script.” We want Cheers! We want Friends! Get outta here with that improvised shit.

What a burn job!

We’re considering a pitch for next year entitled What The F*** Do You Want?!

“Before we begin our presentation, we’d like to ask the panelists a question: What the F*** do you want?!? Because, oh, man, we can give it to you!”

Now, if you’ll excuse us, we gotta go sneak into The Hollywood Reporter party and bolt down some sweaty cheese and a couple free drinks before anyone realizes that it was we who called the folks at The Hollywood Reporter “dusty turds.” (See our review of Tourgasm from last month.)

More updates to come. We’re busting them up into smaller components and posting them when we can!

Thanks for reading!

Yeah, it’s Thursday, but the upload is all about Wednesday.

We got in at about 4:15 or so. Not enough time to check in, hump the equipment up, obtain our press laminates and make it on over to the inaugural Just For Laughs BBQ Bash. (Where the heck is the Club Charlot, anyway? After a cursory glance at the map, we determined that it was too far away.)

In the real world it might be hump day, but Wednesday in late-July in Montreal at the Festival JFL is the day when the pace quickens and the volume of the late-night chatter in the Delta bar is boosted a notch or two. A rather large chunk of this weekend’s contingent arrives throughout Wednesday afternoon and evening.

The Delta has been refurbished somewhat. The scent of adhesive and fresh paint greets us we enter the lobby. There is new furniture in the schmooze corral that doubles as a bar. We struggle mightily to connect the facelift that the Festival HQ has undergone with the rebirth that standup comedy is undergoing. Perhaps we will just leave it at that. (We will have more to say about the rebirth of comedy in subsequent updates. Stay tuned!)

What we will say now, however, is that the WWW is a presence once more– at this Festival in particular and in the business in general. You’ll recall that we noted the preponderance of dot com entities in one of our Fest updates from six years ago to the day:

The back page of the HRSCI (Hollywood Reporter) was purchased by Laugh.com. Half of the lobby is dominated by comedyworld.com’s “cybercast” corral and banners hang overhead touting thefunniest.com and pop.com. The folks at humorvision.com (a division of fastband.com) purchased a quarter-pager and playboy.com has dispatched a representative or two. And, of course, SHECKY! (sheckymagazine.com) is present in the form of editors Brian McKim and Traci Skene. There is an explosion of dot-commers here at the festival this year. Much moreso than last year. And there are many more business cards with email addresses.

And one of the entities that is branding the festival at every turn is MySpace.com, recently purchased by Rupert Murdoch and spending cash like a drunken Australian sailor. The social networking site launched earlier this year and they’re determined to make their presence known.

The internet is good for comics. Bad for suits– TV suits, movie suits, music suits. They’re circling the new technology like a ten-year-old boy circles little Suzy– oddly fascinated, yet still convinced that Suzy is, when all is said and done, “yucky.” The trades are all atwitter over the new technology and how it’s shaping the business. Not all the talk is good.

Some contend that the internet, through its convenience, its reach and its versatility will hurt festivals. From the Hollywood Reporter:

Instead, a growing number of comics find that they can make a decent living after appearing on NBS’s Last Comic Standing and/or by promoting themselves through blogs and websites such as myspace.com and youtube.com

“Deals are being made off of youtube now,” Paramount TV Senior VP Comedy Development Brian Banks says. “These days, you can’t close off anyone simply because they don’t show up at a festival or play the Improv.”

The internet has become the ultimate launching pad for the harried agent who doesn’t even have to leave his or her seat to take in a quick routine.

Stay tuned for a parade of quotes from a gaggle of TV and other entertainment execs that completely contradicts the above statement. (How about this: “Of course, the internet is utterly bloodless and cold. There’s no connection with the performer. We need to see the act, feel the applause, appreciate connection between audience and performer,” says Harry Dumshitz Tantamount TV VP Comedy Talent Development Wetware Division.)

There was a new feature: The Comedy Showdown (“American Idol meets Last Comic Standing meets 8 Mile” reads the official description) sounds like a clusterfuck, but, from all accounts, it worked. We suspect that the competition format (“eight comics, three rounds, one chance to win”) worked mainly because they chose the judges wisely– Andy Kindler, Dom Irrera and Jimmy Carr. And the whole thing was ably hosted by Torontonian Steve Patterson. The winner? Andy Parsons.

The Homegrown Comic Competition at the Cabaret Juste Pour Rire was won by Mark Forward, who was instantly forwarded over to the Comedy Night in Canada at the Nest. So quick was the transition that Forward didn’t have a chance to savor his victory. (“They didn’t even get a chance to have a beer!” was how past HCC winner David Pryde described the rush job.) Forward beat out Todd Allen, Greg Cochrane, Steve Ditata, Steven Crowder, Andrew Iwanyk, Jeff McEnery, Rodney Ramsey and Jeffrey Yu.

Above is The Staff of SHECKYmagazine.com being interviewed by Ernie Butler. This was one of two radio interviews we did in the Delta lobby. The other was for XMRadio’s Canadian-flavored Laugh Attack (Channel 153). Quizzing us on behalf of XM was Ben Miner, Canadian comic. Miner is one of the many people clad in XMRadio gear– mikes in hand, professional recorders at the ready– who are swarming this festival and creating quite a presence for the recently-launched channel. SHECKYmagazine readers may recall that Miner was one of the many folks who appealed to the Canadian radio commission back in December of 2004 when that body was deciding just how to bring satellite radio to Canadians. We linked to a NYT piece on the hearings:

Mr. Miner is passionate enough about the technology that he appeared in November at the radio commission’s hearings, decked out in his only suit – a three-piece pinstripe – and a gold tie, gold shirt, and gold pocket square, to speak in favor of allowing satellite radio in Canada.

Miner is one of many comics in Montreal this week who are up here in a capacity other than standup. When we first came up here in 1999, it felt rather odd that, though we were standup comics, we weren’t up here to do standup comedy. We were here to report on the goings on.

Fast forward seven years later and there seems to be a lot of that happening– Comics in and around the Festival not doing standup but engaged in some other creative endeavor. In the space of just a few hours last night, we ran into Jeff Rothpan and Matt Hurwitz, who were writing skits, wraparounds and other material for the Gala shows. And Scott Faulconbridge, who is doing on-camera interviews (for one of the TV nets up here), buttonholing the performers as they exit the stage at the Gala shows. Emery Emery, up here in the capacity of videographer, working on a documentary centering on standup. Brad Reeder, up here in the capacity of a club owner (Charlie Goodnights, Raleigh).

Then there’s this from the Hollywood Reporter: “The networks and studios all are thinking outside the standup comedy box for inspiration,” Thruline Entertainment manager Willie Mercer said. “The way the whole game has changed, they have to. You’ll go to a Montreal and surf around the web, and what you’ll be looking to do is sign and build a roster of young comedic writers, actors and directors. You’re not just looking for guys who can tell a joke, but someone who might write a great film.” Hmmm…

From left to right, that’s Jeff Rothpan, Matt Hurwitz and Mike Marino (Jersey’s Bad Boy of Comedy). Marino is on the Wise Guys shows along with Mike Birbiglia, Frank Spadone, Cris Nannarone and Rocky Laporte.

It’s a photograph 19 years in the making! Patty Rosborough and Joe Starr smile for the camera. Starr has been trying to have his photo snapped with Rosborough for nineteen years– we’re unclear on the details of the story. (So what does he do? He squeezes the life out of her and turns the pic into a digital grotesquerie! Had not Ms. Rosborough (who is done for the week after having performed on the Nasty Shows and the Relationship Shows.) been leaving town this A.M., we would have taken a proper picture later on today.

We call this picture “Two Craigs.” On the left is Craig Ferguson, who hosted Wednesday night’s gala. On the right is Craig Shoemaker, who hosted the Relationship Shows. (Not sure who the bloke is in the center.)

“I think my eyes were shut,” is what David Pryde (center) said, just after the flash from the above photo died down. He was right. Very right. Pryde, who normally goes about his life as a Montreal comic with his eyes fairly wide open, is flanked by longtime SHECKYmagazine contributor Adam Gropman (left) and erstwhile (and longtime) Atlanta Punchline bartender Joe Satterfield. Gropman is in Montreal representing his short film, “Insight Into The Enemy,” which is part of this year’s Comedia Twisted Shorts program. Satterfield made the trek north to represent his recently formed entertainment management company, TSTalent.

We planted our promotional material on the Promotional Material Buffet Table in the Delta Lobby. It hasn’t gotten chaotic yet. But it will. In addition to planting our self-congratulatory postcards, we also dropped a pile of about two dozen vintage Parkhurst hockey trading cards. They were gone in minutes. (We suspect that someone, thinking that they were actually valuable, swiped them all in one shot! Too bad, sucker! They’re reproductions, people– not worth more than about 3 cents Canadian!)

We held onto Pit Martin (“The softspoken 23-year old Quebec native has a degree in French and history from Windsor College as well as a great future in goal-getting.”) Adam Gropman, who spotted the stack of cards before they were swiped, thought that they were clever faux hockey cards that depicted Canadian comics! Not a bad idea, though!

A nice touch: At the rear of the Delta, around the corner from where the press and logistics rooms are situated, the interview space in the Vivaldi Room has been renamed the Allan Johnson Press Room, in memory of the Chicago Trib writer who passed away suddenly and tragically last winter. “Johnson was a respected journalist and dear friend of Just For Laughs.”

For the first time, we are speechless.

Non-news to us. According to Reuters, Yahoo! and a host of other sources, “MySpace on Tuesday officially launched a new online community designed for comedians to reach fans.” We suppose the crucial word is official.

MySpace said more than 7,500 comedians currently use its new community to post tour dates, share audio/video clips and interact with fans.

Including us.

For branding, Tom and Rupert quite logically chose the Improv chain. Now they’ll all set out to make MySpace Comedy appear sanctioned, certified, hip, authoritative and the place to be for comics and comedy fans. They gotta watch the language, though:

The new site also will be used to promote events, aggregate funny viral videos from throughout the site and offer comedy specific forums where members can trade jokes and talk about artists.

Emphasis ours. Trade jokes? We don’t think so. Perhaps they mean the fans can trade jokes. We hope so.

There’s a Toronto Sun article on third-year Toronto Argonauts (CFL) running back John Avery (“Avery’s laughing it off”), who is looking for something to do now that his team has hired Ricky Williams (suspended from the NFL for smoking too much dope). Apparently, Avery has been telling anyone who will listen that he’s the funniest person in the entire CFL, and that he’s so funny someone should build a sitcom around him. An important step toward that goal is an appearance on a new Canadian TV show.

With his playing time cut to nothing after the arrival of Ricky Williams, Avery has had a bit more time to work on his comedy, giving him an entertaining distraction. He had his first major standup gig last night at Club V downtown and is the star of one of 13 episodes of Punched Up, which will debut on the Comedy Network in the fall.

“It (comedy) has been therapeutic as far as me giving me something to do,” said Avery, who just recently broke his media silence. “When you’re not involved, you’re not playing, it’s easy to go crazy. I thank God for giving me some other abilities to kind of vent through, so that’s what I do.”

The show (linked above) is “a 13-episode mockumentary series satirizing makeover programs and reality TV. The series features a crack team of comedy writers who take the average Joe or Jane and make their (sic) lives better, or at least funnier.” Of course, Avery is far from your average Joe. And, we suspect that none of the folks they seek for punching up in their casting call (open until July 28) will be anywhere near average, either. (In fact, the Sun article says that the next subject after they’re done with Avery will “feature an anchorwoman from the Naked News.” You get the idea.)

The producers “want to turn him from a brash American into a humble Canadian. That, they think, will help Avery land a deal for the sitcom he has produced about his life, tentatively titled Avery-day Life.” Because, you know, brashness never got anyone anywhere in the television business.

While they’re there on the field, they should screen-test Ricky Williams… I smell big potential as the ganja-smoking sidekick! Williams confessed to the media that he was pathologically shy, suffering from a fear of people, but that he was treating it with weed and the more socially acceptable seratonin re-uptake inhibitors that all the kids are taking these days.

Normally the JFL folks are tight-lipped about who will be included among their New Faces and their Masters series. Not so this year.

This year’s Masters will feature Greer Barnes, Todd Barry, Vinnie Brand, Nick Griffin, Laurie Kilmartin, Joe Starr and Katt Williams.

The New Faces for this year are Hannibal Buress, Lee Camp, Jordan Carlos, Lizzy Cooperman, Adam Devine, Joe Devito, Pete Dominick, Russell Howard, Pete Lee, Hyle Matthews, Morgan Murphy, Andrew Norelli, Jeff Short, Jacob Sirof, KT Katara, Steve Trevino, Maronzio Vance, Brett Walkow, Reggie Watts, Taylor Williamson, Roy Wood Jr. and Fraser Young

Info is from the JFL Myspace.

From UPI comes a report that the city fathers in Austin, TX, are trying to shut down a male strip club for violating certain rules governing nudity.

The club’s owner, Kevin Cox, told the Austin American-Statesman the dancers do not go beyond the topless stage, with boxers or briefs covering their genital areas. He describes the dance routines as fantasies in which the strippers do standup comedy or dress up as firefighters or police officers.

The firefighters we understand… and we understand the police officer thing. But standup comics? Apparently funny is the new sexy.

Yes, you read that right: The club owner’s name is “Cox.” You can all make your own jokes at home.

The following came in an email, from more than one source. It details the efforts of a venue (whose name/location we withheld) which is seeking to find two comedians for a gig. Said venue has enlisted the aid of a comedian in their quest. In the email, the aforementioned comedian spells out the terms of the gig. Nothing unusual there.

Read on:

Need a headliner (bring your own opener) for a show in (location withheld) on (date withheld).

Pay is ($XXX, actual figure withheld) for the headliner and ($XXX, actual figure withheld) for the opener + hotel for both of you.

Here’s the deal– you bring your own opener, but they have to be PG CLEAN. NO EXCEPTIONS!!! And they obviously have to be funny. If you bring someone with you that sucks, you won’t get paid. It’s that simple. The headliner can roll into an R rated show, but the opener has to be PG clean.

Emphasis ours, of course.

This bites for many reasons.

One of the parties involved (we assume it’s the venue) has attached rather subjective criteria to the deal– No funny, no money. This is reprehensible. We’re professionals. You pay us, we give it our best, professional shot. We then get paid. It really can’t be any other way.

We’re reminded of Donald Trump’s recent tantrum on an episode of The Apprentice— His proteges hired a professional comic for an event, which didn’t go well (and it’s immaterial as to whether it was or was not the fault of the comic). Trump actually suggested that the comic shouldn’t have been paid!

For the venue to put this outrageous stricture on payment demonstrates their total disconnect from reality. And we can’t help but wonder why the comic agreed to assist them in their quest. For him to agree to such an offensive conditional proposition is a betrayal of his fellow comedians.

He could have/should have said:

No thanks.

Or…

I will gladly help. But payment must be guaranteed and you should trust that whomever is booked will do an honest job.

If that’s too much for the venue to handle, they should look into renting a karaoke machine.

We’ve got no problem with the PG/clean restrictions. They’re often part of the business. We are appalled at payment being contingent upon such subjective and ambiguous criteria. And it’s doubly appalling that the venue would tie the payment of the headliner’s act to the satsifactory performance of the opener’s act. This opens the door for all manner of abusive and capricious behavior on the part of the venue.

The above is the appropriate headline supplied by FOS Joe Starr for this post which links to the LA Times obituary of Red Buttons. He was 87 years old (Buttons, not Starr). And, as Starr wrote to us minutes ago, this death, coming so close on the heals of the death of Jan Murray, makes this “a sad week for those of us with a sense of history.”

We’re heading up to Boston for their festival this year. The last time we were in that festival was in 2003, if we’re not mistaken. This year, we’ve got film in the Movie portion of the fest (to be shown Sunday night at Improv Asylum) and The Male Half of the Staff will be slugging it out in their competition, in Bracket 5 on Tuesday evening, September 12. (Click it and see who else is in the running.)

Gabriel Iglesias gets caught with a Blackberry. Yawn. We knew he was kicked off eventually, but we weren’t sure of the manufacturer, or the model number. You get the idea.

We commented on this long ago, May 19, to be exact. (Actually, we reported generally on April 30 that Iglesias was gone fron the show.) We wrote in May that Iglesias was bounced for:

Using a communication device of some sort to inform the outside world of the LCS goings on, which is strictly forbidden in the rules and regs of L.C.S.!!

Leaks? The chatter on the internet is that Iglesias got kicked off because of what we reported on this blogazine back in the spring. The theory being that the producers knew someone had to have leaked the info to the press (or the internet!) and that someone (Iglesias) had to pay! We’d love to take credit, but we really can’t. But if the MSM and the WWW would like to believe that it was us, well, have at it!

Gabriel Iglesias may have been roasted, but Kristin Key got burned. That editing job they did on her roast performance was cold!

The fake laugh that Iglesias effected was not convincing, since he used it to degrade one of the acts in the heckler competition a coupla weeks ago. So that makes it horrifying.

For winning the roast competition, Chris Porter will be “flown to Las Vegas, where he will perform with the comedy superstar Louie Anderson.” (We wonder if he was lucky enough to get on the bill with Louie prior to his diverticulitis surgery… or if he had to share the bill with the surly David Brenner, who has been subbing for Anderson of late.

Kristin Key didn’t know what a Blackberry was? Is she kidding? Sure she continues to beat that “I’ve only been doing comedy for the last 10 months or so” drum, but she’s never heard of a Blackberry?! Would she have us believe she’s only been on the planet for the last 10 months?

Not a good night for Kristin Key. Not a good night for Rebecca Corry. Gone, both of them! Ty Barnett was the third comic that had to battle it out in front of a live audience tonight. He wins by default. (He probably could have won merely by staring at the audience for three minutes.)

Count Clark was particularly pale tonight. And he steadfastly refused to do any of the sparkling material that his supporters have been promising! What is up with that?

Remaining:

Chris Porter
Ty Barnett
Roz
Michele Balan
Josh Blue

Find out how you can get every comic who has ever done comedy back onto the show by calling up and voting for them and then being part of their live studio audience and voting for your favorite comic who has ever been anywhere near Ross Mark and Bob Reade…

…or, we’re confused about the rules.

We can’t quite figure out what happens next.

Plus, we got a Myspace bulletin from Doug Benson saying that he and all the other were still eligible for inclusion in the competition. So, we’re totally unsure how the whole thing will shake out. Be assured of this: Everyone associated with the show this season will be burned a thousand times worse than Alonzo Bodden ever was in Season III.

From the NBC Last Comic Standing website:

Give an eliminated comic the chance to perform on the live finale!

Vote now on the Producers’ Favorite Online Comics, in a “Wild Card” Bonus Round!

The moment is almost here… On July 18, viewer voting begins. And YOU decide who will become the final three house comics!

We haven’t been this confused since the final season of Star Search (the old Ed McMahon Star Search, not the one where Naomi Judd insulted Ben Bailey). We’re thinking of starting a write-in campaign which will include any comic who was ever featured on Comedy Central’s Standup Standup (but only the season hosted by Wali Collins or Sue Kolinski. You gotta keep the list down to a few hundred or so)!

Ladies and gentlemen, your Last Comic Standing producers:

Too cool for school, or what?

From the NBC.com Last Comic Standing blog posting from Producer Dan (the sullen one on the left, not the sullen one on the right):

Let’s be clear about something. The online competition doesn’t allow discarded comics to get back into the competition to be Last Comic Standing. However, the two finalists will appear in the finale episode, and if they are so much better than the comics that made it to the house I guess we will all have egg on our faces.

WARNING! WARNING! To all comics who might be included in the final episode to “appear”: You are being setup! DO NOT agree to appear on the final episode! The two most powerful producers on the show have publicly confessed that they have a stake in making you look less funny than the other comics on the show! Their reputations are at stake and they have said so on the NBC.com website. Back away slowly from this trainwreck and be grateful that you were warned in advance!

Click to this Youtube video from season III of Chappelle’s Show. Insiders will love the Barry Katz impression. Outsiders will just love the video for the video. Youtube is packed with tons of Chappelle’s Show clips.

Thanks to Patrick from Cringe Humor.

Got the following email from a reader:

Dear SHECKYmagazine:

I’m just starting out in comedy and am pretty much lost with how the business works. I’ve been doing open mic’s, bringers, and whatever else I could find for a little while now and have done fairly well. I definitely don’t expect anything to fall into my lap after such a short time doing comedy but I’m having a lot of trouble deciding whether certain endevours are worth it or not. For instance, I did a bringer at (insert name of comedy club). I did real well and the booker called me and told me he liked my stuff, etc. He wants me to do another one, but I have no way to tell whether he really liked my set or is using me to make money off of my friends… or both.

To which we reply:

You have stumbled upon just one of the downsides of the bringer. (There are many.) Our official position on bringer shows has been that they are evil. (We never did a bringer in our lives, but Male Half started doing the open mikes in 1981 and the Female Half in 1985. And in Philly. And we moved to L.A. in 1988. So our perspective is way different from yours.)

The Bringer Show is a “bad habit” that the clubs in some markets have gotten into, possibly born of tough economic times, back when the business wasn’t doing as well as it is now. And, quite simply, the clubs are asking the comics to do a portion of their work for them, in this case, advertising and/or promotion.

Our hope is that, just as market forces compelled the clubs to adopt this odious practice, so shall market forces make it unnecessary for them to do so in the future.

We are not optimistic, though. For one thing, one of the forces at work here is the desire of aspiring comedians in a crowded market to acquire stage time. Some, not all, see the bringer as a way to “buy” (or, to be more precise, “barter”) their way onto stage. Of course, this method, for the vast majority of comedians, has diminshing returns– for most, there are only so many people that they can pester before their “victims” cry “enough!”

Instead of expending all that energy and social capital to enrich a major club, we suggest directing it toward producing your own show (either through that same venue or at a venue of your choosing). In this way, you get what you want (stage time), you achieve it via the same methods (pounding the phones, mass emailing, myspace bulletins, leafletting, pestering friends and relatives, etc.) but you get it wholly on your terms. And, if you enlist the partnership of other comedians in a position similar to yours, you can pool your resources and divide the labor.

Amy Alkon, whose Advice Goddess column is syndicated to several dozen alterna-rags throughout America, fields the following question in her latest installment (spotted in this week’s Reno News & Review):

I’m an unattractive guy who’s overweight and socially awkward. When it comes to talking with women, I just clam up. The only thing I have going for me is a huge penis… Am I crazy to think some women would look past my faults if only they knew what I was packing?

The opening of the second paragraph of her response caught our eye:

Probably half the successful male comedians look like they fell face-first out of the womb onto the ugly stick. These guys turned their shortcomings into a living and, in turn, a way to get girls…

Has anyone noticed an increase in anti-Kevin James chatter in the Mainstream Media? Since the Emmy nominations were announced, there have been snide comments about KJ– about his acting ability, his physical appearance, the relative quality of the show and the show’s writing. And the comments are often in passing, very matter of fact, as if we’ve known all along that this is understood. Which is doubly perplexing, since it seems at though James and Co. have been laboring in obscurity the past several years. How does one go from being under the MSM’s radar (even though one is the center of a solid hit sitcom) to being a pariah, the object of scorn, almost overnight?

The answer is: Get nominated for an Emmy… and be a standup comic, too.

But you must be in a sitcom– so far, Denis Leary has escaped the MSM’s opprobrium… then again, Leary has been catching some flack lately due to the spousal rape depicted in a recent episode of his Rescue Me. (We were amused at the fact that the boom mike appears early on in the scene, just as Leary’s character throws his estranged wife to the couch. She should have just asked the sound guy to klong Leary on the head with that big fuzzy microphone, putting an end to the assault. Perhaps the boom “accidentally” appeared, so as to make the scene appear less realistic for the more squeamish viewers.)

Some of the finest websites are the ones that are the simplest. Cats That Look Like Hitler is such a site. Our… face… hurts.

(Thanks to Ace of Spades for the tipoff– Says AOS: “One would have a much larger website if one attempted to document the millions of cats who think like Hitler.”)

Former SHECKYmagazine columnist Rusty Ward sends along the following:

Join comedian Rusty Ward for the recording of his upcoming CD, together with host Susan Prekel and featuring musical guest, the
world-renowned Harry Chapin tribute band The Cats in the Cradle.

LEARNING TO TOUCH YOURSELF
A Spiritual Guide for Emotionally Ugly People
July 11 & 12 @ 9pm
Don’t Tell Mama
343 W46th St
bet 8th & 9th Ave
NY NY

$5 cover and 2 drink minimum

FOR RESERVATIONS PLEASE CALL:
212 757 0788

You heard the man! Pack the place and make that CD sound like it was recorded at Madison Square Garden!

Kevin James has been nominated for a Best Actor award, as has Denis Leary. We saw James’ friend John Henson (Talk Soup host, 95 to 99), who now works for TV Guide Magazine on MSNBC last night saying, and we are paraphrasing, “I’m his friend, but I don’t think he deserves an Emmy nomination.” Nice! Henson went on to name some actors who were more deserving… at least we think he did… we stopped listening after that statement.

We have always thought that James is a better than average sitcom actor. His series is underrated and perhaps this will get the show some notice, to go along with the decent ratings and the hundreds of millions of dollars that it’s made so far, and the billions it is making/will make over the course of its prime time run and its syndication run.

A glaring omission from the nominations: Hugh Laurie, formerly a comedic actor frequently seen on British TV, Laurie is now the lead actor on Fox’s House. But his performance (and the superb writing) are actually hysterical. (Perhaps the “dramedy” nature of the show is what befuddled the Academy. They seem to be so easily befuddled.)

We got a letter from J.J. Leslie, whose bio starts this way:

Currently, the Guinness Book of World Records is considering the claim of J.J. Leslie as the World’s Tallest Standup Comedian. The 7-foot tall, 410-pound comic strikes an imposing figure in comedy clubs around Boston and New York City.

Initially, Leslie got a rejection letter saying his claim was not “adequately quantifiable,” so Leslie, with Guinness’ blessing, is on a quest to adequately quantify the claim that he is the world’s tallest standup comedian. (We’d run a pic, but the pictures on his site only show him from the waist up.)

Since we’re a magazine that is read by comedians and comedy fans all over the world, and since part of the quantifying process involves scouring the planet for examples that might disprove his claim, we figured we could help out. A Boston Herald reporter, Sean L. McCarthy, has blogged on it.

A quick Google search shows that Ryan Stiles and Penn Jillette both have gotten mentions as “tallest comedian,” though they both hit only 6-foot-6 on the measuring stick. The late Eddie Carmel did vow at one point to become the world’s tallest comedian, and at well over 7-foot-6 (if not 8-foot-9 as he was sometimes billed!) the Jewish Giant was that. But Carmel died in 1972.

Any comedians out there taller than Leslie? Go to his myspace if you think you have a lead on a towering comic.

…it’s the only thing we can say after reading the following statement from Brit TV producer Adam Tandy (the article, on UK comedy guide Chortle, is entitled “Comics Killed the Sitcom”):

Ever since the Young Ones we have turned to stand-up comedians as our mainstay of talent. It’s as though if you tell a joke and deal with hecklers, that somehow makes you a comedy genius and right for a sitcom.

Read the whole, short thing here.

Tandy says that the whole reason the British sitcoms suck these days is because they keep building them around standup comics. Turns out British TV suits are just as dumb as American TV execs.

With one exception. Avalon’s Jon Thoday said:

Comic timing is a difficult thing and most people would agree that comic acting is harder than straight acting, he said. Comedians tend to be better at it.

Thank you, Brother Thoday. While we stammer, Gleason-style, you frame our argument succinctly.

Thanks to FOS and Vancouver journo Guy MacPherson, for tipping us off.

…you probably didn’t know they were broken.

Seems that we gooned up the archives FTP path sometime back in June… or was it May? Anyway, the blogger technology was putting the archive in a file folder that was making them inaccessible. So, if you clicked one of our archive links on the left column and got the ol’ “File not found” message, that was why. The past three or four months have been unavailable. And that also means that if you googled our site, you got incomplete results because of the goofup. We have corrected the error. Happy surfing!

…is pockmarked with oodles of comedy potholes.

In the past, we’ve cautioned politicians and other officials to leave the joking to the professionals. Few politicians have a way with the joke… and trying to riff off the cuff while campaigning usually creates more misunderstanding than mirth.

There’s a clip from the June 17 installment of C-Span’s excellent and morbidly fascinating Road To The White House in which Joe Biden is depicted in Delaware, talking to a potential voter, an Indian-American. In the course of explaining how wonderful his relationship is with the burgeoning Indian-American population in The First State, he says:

You cannot go to a 7-Eleven or a Dunkin’ Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent.

The camera is tight on Biden’s face as he tries to sell the joke with an eerie half-smile/half-grimace. We can only assume that the “target” of the gag is less than pleased.

(As a joke, though, it’s abysmal. Aside from being offensive, it doesn’t make any sense. It lacks the necessary logic that even the best jokes need to avoid being insulting. And, outside the context of a comedy club or an after dinner speech, it just comes off as… boorish. Context is everything! We can only assume that he was flying by the seat of his comedy pants, trying to appear like a regular Joe, most likely battling a focus group factoid that pegs him as “humorless.” He failed miserably. Leave the joking to the pros, Joe. Or hire a writer!)

Here’s a quote from Aaron Barnhart, influential TV critic, in a recent article in his home paper, the Kansas City Star:

I can’t say for sure that comedy will ever make a comeback in prime time. But I do see glimmers of hope.

This from a man who makes his living watching television and writing about it. He can’t say for sure that comedy will ever make a comeback! Is he serious? We conclude that he is.

It gets better. The reason for his optimism, his “glimmers of hope,” are four sitcoms, two of which are already airing (It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia, Lucky Louie), one of which will air this fall (Let’s Rob…), and another sitcom that hasn’t even been broadcast or picked up by a network (Nobody’s Watching).

We’re not debating the relative funniness of any of these shows, nor do we take issue with Barnharts’s contention that they might signal a revival of the sitcom (which would be the twentieth or twenty-fifth such revival in the history of television; see The Male Half’s “Laughable Situation” column from a few years back), but we are disturbed by the fairy tale that Barnhart is perpetuating (the “backstory”) concerning the up and down fortunes of Nobody’s Watching.

Barnhart says that through the miracle of Youtube, the series now has caught the attention of network executives! That’s right. The show was rejected by NBC, then by the WB. But– Whoa! What’s this?– the pilot was uploaded to Youtube and was watched by 100,000 people (Young people!!) and now, the suits are panting and slobbering and climbing over each other to wedge it into their schedules this fall, or so the story goes.

Barnhart even has help telling the ridiculous tale from one of the show’s creators, Neil Goldman. Says Barnhart:

But the more profound lesson is this: Viewers, especially younger viewers who have grown up on a harsh diet of crime dramas, are ready to laugh again. Indeed, Goldman suspects that one of his fresh-out-of-college assistants on Nobody’s Watching was the one who uploaded the pilot to YouTube.

Indeed!

How dumb do these people think we are?

Some pertinent facts:

1. Nobody’s Watching was co-created by Goldman (one of the writers from Scrubs) and Garrett Donovan (the creator of Scrubs).

2. Scrubs aired for the past five seasons or so on NBC.

3. NBC just signed a deal with Youtube which will essentially make Youtube a promotional arm of NBC.

4. NBC owns Nobody’s Watching.

Gee, golly! says Goldman, That young whippersnapper who fetches my coffee done went and uploaded my pilot onto that newfangled website on the World Wide Net or whatever it is ya call it! Garsh! And now the big-time Tee Vee folk in their fancy clothes might change their mind and have my little show on their network after all!

What an insulting load of horse manure! Why can’t they just find funny people to create funny sitcoms and other funny people to star in them? And then present them to the public (who always appreciates genuinely funny sitcoms and has for about 50 years or so).

Postscript: NBC is thinking of pairing the new sitcom with… Scrubs.

If this is the television industry’s idea of harnessing the power of the internet in new and exciting ways, television might just go down faster than everyone is predicting. And down with it will go the TV critics.

Some time in August, said the voice on the other end of the phone at the Sands Regency, they’ll be re-opening their comedy club. And it’ll have a different name, “Funny Bones.” We suspect she meant Funny Bone, without the “s” on the end. Which means that it’ll be booked out of… Where exactly? (Can anybody keep it straight as to who books what when it comes to the Funny Bone chain?)

The Voice said it’ll be twice the size of the old club, which was booked by Jon Fox, former SF Punchline owner and evil genius behind the San Francisco International Comedy Competition.

There are two other clubs in Reno– Catch A Rising Star at the Silver Legacy and Comedy Comedy at the Hilton out near the airport. (There’s an Improv down on Lake Tahoe, too.) The Male Half of the Staff is working this week at Catch with a very much alive Joe Restivo.

Reno is going condo-crazy. At least three defunct casinos have been gutted recently and will be converted to condominiums. There should be a significant bump in the local population here in a year or two.

Flying from Vegas to Reno, we bought a McPaper to occupy our short time in the air. We scoped out their Reality Check feature, which keeps USAToday readers up on the latest developments in the various reality TV shows. They have wrapups and tables and charts that enhance reader pleasure in following their favorite unscripted docutainment.

We were struck by the fact that this issue had wrapups of three shows, but not a wrapup of Last Comic Standing! Notable because they’ve covered LCS in the past. Doubly ominous is that they found it worthy to comment on an Animal Planet reality series that documents the lives of a bunch of African meerkats, Meerkat Manor, but not on our comedy pals on the Queen Mary. Triply ominous is that, in their online version, where, let’s face it, real estate is not at such a high premium as it is in the hard copy, they offer wrapups of a total of six reality shows, but still no LCS.

That’s right: Animal Planet finds a series on a bunch of freaky ferrets to be more believable and more satisfying to watch than the standup abomination on NBC. To quote Howard Cosell, “It’s… over.”

FOS Neil Leiberman sends along a link to an online petition that calls for the president to award the Medal of Freedom to Jerry Lewis. Past recipients have included Johnny Carson, Bob Hope and the Pope. And Edward Teller, the father of the hydrogen bomb. And a lot of other folks, too numerous to mention. If you believe that Jerry Lewis belongs in that group, sign away! There’ve been 156 so far. The goal is 5,000. Considering the length of his career and the amount of money he’s raised for charity, it’s a wonder that one didn’t automatically appear in his mailbox one day.

Jerry Fink, interviews David Brenner in today’s Las Vegas Sun. Brenner explains how he happened to sub for Louie Anderson, currently recovering from surgery to correct diverticulitis:

Adam Steck, who has the club where Louie performs, called my manager, Richard Super, and asked me if I would like to fill in. What I don’t understand is why he couldn’t have had the operation back in February, when business was good. This time of year isn’t the apex of money-making for performers in Las Vegas.

Now that‘s gratitude! (We’re pretty sure this wasn’t meant as a joke.)

From the NYT obit:

Jan Murray, a stand-up comedian who became one of television’s first stars, died yesterday at his home in Beverly Hills, Calif. He was 89[…]

Mr. Murray belonged to a close-knit generation of New York stand-up comics who honed their craft in local clubs and successfully made the transition to the then-novel medium of television[…]

The family often shared a story about the blend of cultures in Mr. Murray’s circle. Passover Seder at the Murrays was a Hollywood tradition, with a guest list of 40 on each of the two nights. Among the regular guests were Jackie Gleason, Jerry Lewis, Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme.

That would be one swingin’ Seder. Murray’s daughter said the house was always filled with comedians– Sid Caesar, Milton Berle, Shecky Greene and Buddy Hackett often gathered there for dinner and poker games. Read the rest.

Above, from left to right: Marilyn Baum, Bruce Baum, Leonard Baum, at the Riviera Comedy Club, Las Vegas, NV, last night. (That miniature sun rising out of the junior Baum’s head is actually the Riv Comedy Club’s logo.)

We figured we’d show you the people responsible for Bruce Baum– He says that their record collection contained no music, just comedy albums. And that they took him to see Red Skelton (with Buddy Hackett opening!) when Bruce was just 7 years old.

Check out Bruce’s website, to see his latest short film, “Don’t Cha (Wish Your Boyfriend Was Bald Like Me),”a video/parody of the Pussycat Dolls’ “Don’t Cha,” coming to a computer screen or TV set near you.

From FOS Dan Rosenberg, comes the following:

The “How Not to Suck as an Emcee” Workshop.

Join Dan Rosenberg (author of “The Book on Hosting: How Not to Suck as n Emcee”) and his special guest speakers JIMMY BROGAN, JIMMY PARDO and DAVID GEE (three of the best hosts working today!) for an afternoon that is GUARANTEED to change your comedy career!

NOON, Hollywood Improv, 4pm, Sunday, July 16, 2006.

Registration fee is only $99. Pre-pay by July 9th and save $20, PLUS… get Dan’s book (a $19.99 value) FREE!

Here’s our website.

Tell him SHECKYmagazine sent you. Or click on the advertisement in the lefthand column for a discount!

For some odd reason, the last 18 days or so of our October 2005 archive file were missing. A lot happened (to us, to standup comedy in general), so we decided that the problem should be fixed– sooner rather than later. We have painstakingly restored the October ’05 index.

Oddly, someone found our magazine using the keywords “Westward Ho Mega Dog Picture” This led us to the discovery that our famous photo of the 1-lb. Mega Dog was missing. (We lovingly photographed that culinary abomination at the Westward Ho Casino, the last time we were gigging in Vegas! It was cradled in the hand of FOS Robert Hawkes. Sadly, the Ho is no longer with us! They imploded it in November.)

Speaking of implosions: The slots were decomissioned at the Klondike yesterday afternoon! That little rundown slice of medium-old Vegas, at the end of the strip, in the shadow of the Mandalay Bay, has been sold and will be razed to make way for luxury condos! Too bad! the SHECKYmagazine staff stayed in the funky confines of the ‘Dike on one or two occasions over the past few years. It will be missed!

October ’05 is restored, so surf away!

If you want to read Adam Gropman‘s latest column, hop on over to Grop-land, the home of his blog! In his latest essay, Gropman finally realizes the wisdom of some of America’s foremost “relationship comics,” Adam Ferrara, Bobby Slayton, and Bob Marley:

Guys like Ferrara, Slayton and Marley talk at length about the enormous communication differences between men and women and also about the huge rift between what it is that we as men and they as women want. Sometimes they cite fairly generic activities- lying in bed, seated at the dinner table, going out in public, kicking back on the couch. But sometimes the activities are a lot more specific, like watching the game on TV, playing cards with the buddies, going to Home Depot, hanging at a strip club or fixing the car. And in these bits, the incessant woman can never just leave them be.

I couldn’t relate because those specific activities aren’t my usual activities. And I erroneously thought that if my regular activities were so different from those of the woman-bashing comedians, then their girlfriends and wives must be so different from ones I would be with, and the fundamental dynamics of their relationships so different from any relationship I would be in, that I had absolutely nothing to learn and nothing to laugh at from these guys. To quote the band Sisters of Mercy, I WAS WRONG.

Read the rest here!

Mr. Gropman last wrote for SHECKYmagazine in dispatches from the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival (aka Aspen), and the short film that Gropman co-wrote, “Insight Into The Enemy,” will also be featured in next month’s festival in Montreal.

It’s way past midnight, Vegas time. We’re at the Riv through Sunday with Bruce Baum, and we’ve got two shows each night at 8:30 and 10:30. So, we hadda rig up the video camera and train it on the screen of our hotel room TV and watch it later on, on the tiny 2-1/4-inch LCD screen of the camera itself. Later on is now.

The Radio Challenge. Last week, we saw the previews and said, “The previews of next week show some asshole at a radio station yelling (presumably at the comics) ‘Be funny!'” Well, we were wrong. It wasn’t “some asshole,” it was Adam Corolla. So, change that to “an asshole.”

The radio challenge was a challenge only because each contestant had 60 seconds to be funny with the topic each was given… and they had to put up with constant interruptions from Corolla. He was a comedy speed bump. With only 60 seconds, you would think he could have just shut his yap and let them take the mike for one lousy minute. It was a seminar illustrating precisely what a DJ/morning radio host/air personality should not do when he has a comedian as a guest. (It always creeps us out when the host says, off-mike, just as the last commercial is playing before our segment: “So… uhhh… give me some topics so I can lead you into some material!” And it’s always a comedy killer when the host “contributes” along the way, eviscerating your bit, totally oblivious to where you’re going with whatever it is you’re doing.)

We now share the best piece of advice we’ve ever gotten regarding what to do when appearing on radio: Just go in and take over. Exceptions? Bob & Tom. They know precisely what they’re doing. They are expert in the care and feeding of comedians on the radio. Elsewhere? Take over.

Rebecca Corry got immunity. We have never seen so many comics not wanting to perform, so many comics with seemingly so little faith in their ability to smoke another comic. We don’t get these people preferring to engage in ludicrous competitions rather than engage in what they do (or should be able to do) best, and that is perform standup in front of a live audience.

As you all (in all time zones) know by now, Joey Gay, Michelle Balan, Chris Porter and Bil Dwyer all went head to head to head to head. (There was a four-way tie in the “I think I’m funnier than…” portion of this lameass competition.) Gabriel Iglesias did the “hat thing” again. Annoying the first time, excruciating the second time… only bearable with the knowledge that he is eventually bounced from the show.

Of all of tonight’s competitors, Dwyer did himself the most good with his brief shot. But he’s gone, as readers of this magazine know. As is Joey Gay (misspelled as “Joey Jay” in a previous post). Why did they show that woman looking confused during one of Dwyer’s punchlines? Everyone else was choking, but the camera zooms to this one gal with a sour look on her puss. What’s up with that? Where are they recruiting these audiences? We think they did it (Twice during Dwyer’s set!) on purpose. Perhaps a little editing magic was employed to justify his getting bounced from the show.

You might be saying: Dwyer went out and met his challengers head-on and look where it got him. Perhaps he would’ve been better off with immunity. To this we say that Dwyer’s brief set, in spite of the fact that he was bounced, showcased him very well on network television in front of an audience so large that it might take him three or four Tonight show appearances to equal. He may have lost the competition, but he’s got no short-term career worries after tonight.

The preview depicts a roast of Gabriel Iglesias. (Don’t forget: The next episode is in TWO WEEKS.) Then they turn all serious and say that someone “does the unthinkable” and is thrown off the show. Of course, readers of this magazine know that it is Iglesias that does the unthinkable (but not the unknowable!) and we are left with seven contestants:

Kristin Key
Michelle Balan
Chris Porter
Ty Barnett
Rebecca Corry
Josh Blue
Roz

We are abolutely stunned by how dull and boring everyone appears. The show is a wheezing turd. Properly shot, comedians can deliver some of the more interesting and watchable footage on the planet– has anyone seen Seinfeld’s Comedian? Or The Aristocrats? Or Fran Solomita’s When Standup Stood Out? How has NBC assembled a dozen comics and managed to make them look so utterly dull and uninteresting? We’re running out of words for “boring.” And the animatronic Anthony Clark has our mouths agape. Belly dancers? Snakes? Throwing balls at crotches?

The supreme irony is that the prevailing opinion out there on the chat rooms and the bulletin boards is that this show was rigged by producers who wanted to engineer some classic Reality-TV pyrotechnics, the kind that comes with just the right amount of diversity/chemistry– gather the right (gender, ethnic, age, ability) mixture of people, toss them in a kooky house, throw in a reptile or two and put them in zany situations and capture the resulting hijinks on mylar. All that remains is a bit of editing and you’ve got Reality TV Gold!

What we’ve seen so far is pewter.

Todd Barry has another essay in the Sunday New York Times.

I was pretty sure I knew who had sent me the e-mail message, but I had to find out for sure. I wrote to him and asked if he was the same guy who once gave me a free gym membership after I did a benefit comedy show. It turned out he was. The guy who used to work for a major fitness company was now working for a major cake company.

I wrote back with my address, wondering what cake-company swag would consist of. Believe it or not, I was partly hoping that it wouldn’t consist of actual cake. My doctor had just told me that I was consuming too much sugar. He didn’t mention cake specifically, but I’m betting he would have if the appointment had lasted more than four minutes.

It’s called “Free Refills” and you can read the whole thing without having to register.

There’s a rift between the West Coast Friars and the East Coast Friars, according to a recent NYT article (Free reg. req.)

Despite the Friars Club motto, “Prae Omnia Fraternitas,” or “Before all things, brotherhood,” sides are being drawn.

“I’m in the Freddie Roman posse,” said Susie Essman, who has been a member of the New York Friars Club since 1995.

As a star on the HBO comedy series Curb Your Enthusiasm, which is taped in Los Angeles, she said she stays in a hotel when she’s working in Los Angeles and has never considered joining the West Coast club. “With their pharmaceutical money, who trusts them?” she said. “I trust comedians.”

Jack Carter, 80, the veteran stand-up comic and a Los Angeles Friar, is in the Schaeffer posse. “All they have in New York City is the names of rooms,” Mr. Carter said by telephone from his home in Southern California, referring to the New York club where most of the rooms are named after celebrities. “All the talent is in L.A. There’s no one left in New York anymore except Stewie Stone.” (Not that Mr. Carter is dissing Mr. Stone, an old friend with whom he performed recently on the Florida condo circuit.)

We’ve been in the Santa Monica location of the West Coast Friars (attending a screening of the excellent Friars docu “Let Me In, I Hear Laughter” a few years ago). It was fascinating and we found ourselves in the presence of Milton Berle, Norm Crosby, Jerry Vale and other luminaries. We have yet to visit the East Coast club, even though we have a couple standing invites– our sked just hasn’t allowed it yet. But East or West, we have always liked the idea of the Friars Clubs, both the physical buildings and the concepts embodied by the organization.

Early on in our magazine’s history, we tried to connect with the Friars, via their New York location. Their PR people ignored us. We weren’t exactly sure what we wanted from them, or what they might be able to offer, but we figured that the venerable organization might have wanted to somehow communicate with/through the WWW’s most beloved magazine about standup, run by two plucky “youngsters,” (who named their publication SHECKYmagazine.com for cryin’ out loud), but… NOTHIN’! Mind you, we aren’t complaining, we’re just saying that an organization like this one, which claims to be fighting for its life, seems to have rather large blind spots when it comes to modernization.

The East Coast branch claims to have been somewhat successful in recruiting new blood. That’s good. And the West Coast claims to have poured a lot of that “pharmaceutical money” into the physical plant and into the club’s image. That’s good as well. There’s still a lot of value to club like this one, on each coast. Again, from the NYT piece:

Still, for many comedians, the past is what makes the Friars Club relevant. “I became a member over 20 years ago,” the comedian Richard Lewis, who lives in Los Angeles and was unaware of the bicoastal contretemps, wrote in an e-mail message. “I joined mainly because I love the astonishing history behind it, the food is the greatest and the several million anecdotes that one can hear, on a daily basis, remind me that I haven’t been the only performer screwed in show business.”

We put together a photo montage with a music bed, displaying several dozen photos from the past seven years of our Just For Laughs coverage. Go to our myspace and click on that arrow that’s pointing at Howie Mandel‘s chest and the film will start! It’s in the right-hand column! It’s four minutes and sixteen seconds of festival frivolity!

You’ll see color pics of Lenny Clarke, Sinbad, Dave Attell, Kevin James, Joe Rogan, Andy Kindler, Tammy Pescatelli, Dane Cook and many more!

(Please report any problems to us! We’re interested in making it a pleasurable experience for all!)

Do not adjust your browser. The above title simply means that Rauf Lala is the winner of the Great Indian Laughter Challenge (see earlier post below). Believe it or not, Lala wins the title… and a Chevrolet Aveo. We’re not making that up.

Thus did George Sarris, co-producer of The Masters Series at Gotham, describe last night’s installment (in a myspace bulletin he sent out today). The shows are scheduled once a month for now, but Sarris and Jim Mendrinos (also a co-producer) plan to kick it up to a weekly basis, come the fall.

Pictured above, post-show, are, from left to right, Mendrinos, D.J. Hazard, Melvin George II, Janette Barber and Brian McKim. The hook of the show, as we explained in two previous posts, was to gather five comics whose total experience in the laffs biz totalled 100 years (or more!), with none having less than 20 years individually. The idea being that folks might want to turn their funny bones over to a quintet of calm, confident and seasoned professionals for a guaranteed rollicking 90 minutes or so.

The evening was splendid throughout– before the show, during it, and after. As Sarris pointed out, there was about a century of comedy experience just among the fine comics who were merely hanging out in the back— among them were Angela Scott (see photo below), Vanessa Hollingshead, William Stephenson, (former SHECKYmagazine columnist) Tom Ryan (newly settled in NYC!) and SHECKYmagazine’s Traci Skene.

Standup comics are always popping up in major news stories! Now there seems to be a comedian near the epicenter of the Duke Rape Case!

From the Wilmington (NC) Journal, in a story entitled “Cousin says $2 million dollar ‘hush money’ offered” comes the following description of Jakki (last name withheld to protect the family), the newly-appointed spokesperson for the famous Duke Rape Case accuser:

Jakki, who would only say she’s “thirtyish,” identifies herself as an actress and standup comedian who has performed in several clubs, various commercials, and even in the movies, appearing in “Do Not Disturb” starring D. L. Hughley, scheduled for release later this year.

Three things (at least) jump out at us from this paragraph.

1. We find it interesing that an actress would identify herself as “thirtyish” and not “twentysomething.” Perhaps being an actress based in Wilmington instead of Hollywood engenders a certain amount of honesty.

2. We find it curious that Jakki, who is witholding her last name to protect her family, and who is engaged in fighting for the reputation of her cousin (the accuser) would somehow furnish the press with her acting and performing resume. But you know those show-biz types.

3. We searched the WWW for a movie called “Do Not Disturb” starring D L Hughley but could only find the IMDB listing of a 2006 film called “Do Not Disturb” and found it to star Ron Jeremy, aka “The Hedgehog.” The well-endowed porn star dabbles in standup and also starred in a low-budget parody called “Being Ron Jeremy,” which was co-written by former SHECKYmagazine columnist Rich Williams. A glance at credits for “Do Not Disturb” found no mention of any Jakki.)

Two more comedians connected, if only peripherally, to a major ongoing news story! If you’re scoring at home, that’s:

1. Cousin Jackki
2. D L Hughley
3. Ron Jeremy
4. Rich Williams

Four standup comics! You know what they say: “Everybody’s a comedian.”

From an interview with Tommy Tiernan that appeared on Irish Echo Online, on bringing his “often controversial brand of humor” to U.S. audiences:

“During the last tour, I performed in New York, Nebraska, Texas, Pennsylvania, Sacramento San Francisco and Washington DC,” he said.

“I don’t know if Nebraska and Pennsylvania are Republican states, but the idea that I had about them was that they were and I thought they were going to be conservative America, you know? And I actually found they were incredibly tolerant of my stuff. They struck me as people who worked hard during the week and just wanted to have a laugh. They didn’t really care what you were talking about, had no notion of political correctness or anything like that and if you said something funny, irrespective of the what it was about, they’d laugh.”

Californian audiences, he said were “a little bit prissy.”

“Yeah you know, I found them slightly more…it was kind of as if they wanted to appear to be at the vanguard of all progressive thinking,” he said.

“That was more like auditioning my material for a board of directors in some huge ideological factory.”

We have long maintained that Political Correctness is the comic’s worst enemy.

We might try to catch Tiernan next month, as he hosts the O’Comics Gala (co-hosting with Ed Byrne) in Montreal at the Festival Just For Laughs.