Our own Adam Gropman is in Aspen, observing, as only he can, the goings on at the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival. He sent us a huge email… which we dropped into an HTML file. Enjoy.

Here’s an excerpt:

Our short played 7th our of 8 in the group and it did not get the huge laughs that we were accustomed to and perhaps expecting. While reaction was almost never consistently huge for any of the shorts that day, I think we came in a little cocky and with flighty expectations because our short has generally killed in terms of audience response at viewings around L.A. What we kind of forgot was that the very strengths that our film possesses can appear to be shortcomings in a screening of this sort. We followed 6 highly produced shorts, some live action, some animated. A couple of the animated ones seriously looked as if they had tens-of-millions of dollars worth of high-tech productions studios and massive computer consoles and Flame/Inferno digital effects machine behind them. One, called “Gopher Broke” looked like a Pixar or Disney release. It had a surprisingly old-school, little kid cartoon feel. It’s credit roll had like 30 guys under EACH different technical section, so sophisticated and undoubtedly expensive was their production. And then came ours. Our short was done lean, mean and pretty quickly, although our editor Marc Leidy was still enough of a stickler to do 17 takes of one particularly subtle and important segment, and I’m glad he did because the attention to detail certainly paid off. Anyhow, our short looks exactly like a threatening terrorist video, one in which hooded Arab Muslim terrorists hold an American or European hotage- often with guns prominently displayed- and make menacing and beliggerent threats and denunciations against the United States, Israel and whoever else.

Don Rickles has been performing as a headliner in Vegas for 47 years. Need we add more? Perhaps we’ll let him add more:

“The transformation has been unbelievable. When I started here, I worked in a place where the Sky Room was on the second floor,” he said in a statement.”

BOOM… ZING… POW! The 79-year-old Rickles will perform later this month at the 52-year-old Stardust, scheduled to be demolished later this year. Read the whole article.

In January, we cited (“E! Dumps On Dunk!”) an E! Online item about comedian Scott LaRose‘s film, “Comedy Hell,” featuring the talents of, among others, Brian Dunkleman. E! erroneously reported that the film was produced and directed by Larose for a paltry $130,000. Turns out that figure was on the smallish side. Actual figures remain elusive. But we are assured it was several times that amount. We regret E! Online’s error. People in H-wood get skittish about production numbers.

Sandra Tsing Loh profiles Shelley Berman in the Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles (“Inside Shelley Berman, Again”):

Further, while Shelley’s famously not a fan of ringing phones, in a cruel twist of fate (as a producer, the phrase “bowels turn to ice” comes to mind), during Shelley’s performance not one– but three– cellphones go off. Three! (Including one whose owner left the building 24 hours ago.) But even here he finds humor. Removing the cell phone from one young man, he says: “I’ll hold it for you. To get it back later, all you have to do is kiss me… ” Long cross back to stage… “Some place.”

Photo at left is from late 1999. The plucky editors of this publication found themselves in Las Vegas for 18 hours with nothing to do, a Polaroid camera and the knowledge that a comedy legend was appearing on The Strip.

He graciously posed for this pic, gave us his email address and we interviewed him.

At the heart of the Oscarcast story? A comedian.

The catalyst in the Danish Muslim cartoon controversy? A comedian. (Scroll down, if you gotta.)

A player in the story about the recorded lecture of Colorado high school teacher Jay Bennish who compares Bush to Hitler in front of a bunch of high school students? A kid who has done standup. Of course.

Sean Allen got an I-Pod for Christmas, then got an Overland High School teacher suspended (with pay!) when the MSM played Allen’s recording of said teacher’s lecture and determined that he might have strayed slightly “off message” for a public school geography teacher.

The MSM googled Allen and found out that he fancies himself a standup comic of sorts. They found his myspace where he self-deprecatinglly refers to his nascent comedy career:

Im from Aurora Colorado or the A-town as we know it. Im the youngest stand-up comic that i know of at this point.Im a new comedian to the game. If thats what we call it…I also don’t know who “we” is. Maybe its “us”, but then who am I? Nevermind…Anyway I’ve done a couple of shows and am happy to say they have gone over well.

Now what relevance does this fact have with regard to the larger issue of a student taping his teacher then sending it to a talk show host (Mike Rosen, KOA) and a syndicated columnist (Walter E. Williams)?

Well, nothing. (Of course, we like to point out things like this because, well, that’s what we do here. If there’s a comedian, even an open miker, robbing a bank or hosting the Oscars or carving a statue of Mark Twain out of a 500-lb. block of butter, we’ll probably comment on it in the pages of this magazine.)

But some of the folks who are defending Jay Bennish (he’s the teacher) and trying to discredit Sean Allen (he’s the student) seem to be using the fact that he’s a standup comic against him. Paranoia again? We don’t think so. (Of course we don’t… we’re paranoid!)

But seriously, folks: If the fact that the 15 year-old Allen had done a coupla open mikes was in any way relevant when discussing the important issues of this controversy, we’d be glad to point them out and kick them around. But it’s not relevant. Which makes the references to his avocation all the more disturbing.

We’ll allow that, if the facts were otherwise, it might be relevant. If the kid was doing material about this or that or how his high school geography teacher sucks or whatever– it might have some bearing on the controversy. But, so far, all we’ve heard is some gag about beating a Jehovah’s Witness to death with the JW’s bible. (The ungainly setup is merely to get to the punchline, which is wordplay involving “Jehovah’s Witness Protection Program.” Not exactly the most original joke in the world, but the kid seems to be on the right track.) But so far, nobody can make a credible case that what he’s saying in his comedy act in any way impugns Allen or weakens his case.

(Here’s another weird thing– They’re mangling his joke. It’s a wordplay thing, that much is clear. But the folks who are referencing the bit focus on the violent setup. And totally leave out the actual punchline. Very odd.)

Often, they’ll drop the fact that he’s a comedian into the mix… and leave it at that. As if the mere fact that the kid fancies himself a wiseguy is enough to discredit him. Very unnerving.

Some folks are even going so far (so low?) as to imply that he’s doing all this to further his standup career. What standup career? He’s done a handful of open mikes… he’s 15! (Actually, he just celebrated his sweet 16.) Yeah… defending Bush and appearing on right-wing talk shows– ZOOM! To the top he goes! Why just this week in Aspen they had a Conservative Teenage Comics With Two Minutes of Material Showcase. Heavily attended, from what we hear!

Paul Farhi has written a splendid profile of Dave Chappelle/Chapelle, taken from backstage conversations after a recent sold out concert at the Tower in Upper Darby, PA. The show was part of a nine-city mini-tour promoting the opening of Chappelle’s Block Party movie.

Sorta kinda sorta.

It has come to be known simply as “Aspen.” The official title is The United States Comedy Arts Festival. However, the acronym thing is un-doable, since USCAF sounds like some sort of coffee-flavored emitic. (Ipecac for adults, maybe?) This give us an idea for a counter-fest, rather like Slamdance is to Sundance: IPECAC– The International Performers, Entertainers, Comedians (not in) Aspen, Colorado. Hold it in Denver. (Or anywhere, really, considering the geographical obstinance contained in its very name.)

We’re only turning our attention toward that expensive, high-altitude private party because we have two spies there… we think. Our Big Mover Paul Ogata is in a film directed by Damon Wayans. And our Adam Gropman is there as well, by virtue of… well, let’s let him tell it:

My short film (I wrote and starred in) “Insight Into The Enemy,” will be showing at Aspen on Wednesday, March 8, 1:30pm in Isis 1 Theater and Friday, March 10, 10:15am in Isis 2 Theater.

We hope the two of them hang out together and form a SHECKYmagazine contingent in the mountains of Colorado. (And we hope they snap some pics and perhaps generate some text for you, our readers.)

Wade through the USCAF website if you have a spare epoch.

We don’t normally mention this kind of thing here…

We were scheduled to work in Saginaw, MI, this weekend. (Yeah, yeah, stop bragging!) At a club called 6 Shooters. Some folks know it as Shooters. Got a phone call a couple Saturday nights ago. (Strategically placed so as not to actually get one of us live, no doubt! If you wanna call a comic, but not actually talk to him/her, call on a Saturday night.) On this particular Saturday, however, we’re home; we answer. And we’re told that, 13 days hence, we’ll not be needed in Saginaw. No more comedy at Shooters. Less than two weeks notice. No offer of compensation, partial or otherwise.

We make this public for two reasons: If you’re booked at Shooters, start making phone calls now. And secondly, we’re looking to replace our cancelled date. We are available this weekend, to put it another way.

What’s going on in the Mitten-Shaped State, comedy-wise? Comedy is booming everywhere else. The Great Lakes State, however, seems to be having its difficulties. Stay tuned. And send us an email if you have any openings for two plucky comedians this weekend.

We’ve read a lot of articles in the past 24 hours about the Oscarcast. As the day wore on, the MSM became increasingly bold in their condemnation (Is that a strong word? We think not.) of Jon Stewart. Somewhere along the way, we read something that gave us a chill. It was a negative review that compared Stewart to hosts past, but lumped him in with Chris Rock, Chevy Chase and David Letterman. It identified all three as “comedians” and did so in such a way as to pin their failure on the fact that they were comedians. (And they wrote it in such a way as to deliver the word “comedians” with the literary equivalent of a contemptuous spit in the reader’s eye.)

Are we being paranoid? Of course! Where have you been for the last six years and eleven months?? A large part of our mission in that time has been tracking the snottiness of the media regarding standup comics. And they’ve been pretty bad. (And, as we always say, “if there actually after us, is it really paranoia?”)

But lately, it has been getting better. Until today. We have the ugly, sweaty feeling that the media might take this opportunity to not just hammer Stewart, but to turn their negative attention to comics in general. Something about the tone of the last 24 hours. We’ll be monitoring (as always!), but now we’ll be extra vigilant for Oscar fallout.

It seems as though the powerful folks (in the MSM, in Hollywood, etc.) like comedians… as long as comedians joke about the things they want them to joke about. When they don’t, they get indignant, angry, vengeful. And they tend to commit the unpardonable sin of failing (willfully so?) to distinguish one comedian from another. We’re hoping it doesn’t happen again.

Don’t be fooled by the headline on the review of Stewart’s performance on the website for Canadian television. Their praise is tentative at best. In its recap of the evening, they said:

…hopefully Stewart’s legacy won’t share the fate of fellow New York talk show host David Letterman who bombed on stage with the infamous “Oprah, Uma&quot’; joke that sealed his fate as a one-time host.[…]But Oscar organizers are hoping that Stewart will bring in the highly-coveted younger audience that makes up much of the viewers of his cable TV show.

Not exactly a rave. Read the whole thing, as it quotes Stewart’s material extensively, not just the Bjork gag.

Associated Press is less tentative. Their review, “Stewart Disappoints As Oscars Host,”

The broadcast began on a shaky note with a filmed intro that found past Oscar host Billy Crystal being introduced as this year’s host, then declining, followed by Chris Rock, Steve Martin, Whoopi Goldberg, David Letterman, Mel Gibson, even Mr. Moviephone — none of whom wanted the gig.

That seemed to leave it to Stewart by default. Maybe it’s come to this.

Frazier Moore is the byline. He/she doesn’t get it, obviously. Perhaps AP’s first priority when assigning someone to review a comedy performance should be to assign someone who has… a… sense… of… humor? Is that asking too much?

But as the night wore on, Stewart proved too deferential, too nice and too obvious in his targets.

Deferential? Does Moore own a dictionary? (No one does deferential like Billy Crystal, who has developed the art of simultaneously delivering a punchline and apologizing.) Stewart deferred to no one. We suppose the reaction to Stewart comes down to this: In this, the year of Serious Oscar tackling Major Important Issues, they hired Stewart because they figured he’d get down and dirty and deliver a non-stop stream of Bush bashing and Red State gags. Instead, he targeted Hollywood. And, as we saw, Hollywood has a marvelous sense of humor about everything… but Hollywood. Proof of this: More than one article citing the Bjork joke as the hardest laugh of the night and a high point. It was the weakest one of the evening and the most hackneyed (Hasn’t there been enough Bjork jokes? She wasn’t even in the building! How about a Lorena Bobbitt joke while we’re at it?) But it came closest to what the Hollywood Establishment anticipated.

ADDENDUM (2:57 PM EST): From H-wood media crank, Nikki Finke, comes this– “Even his sharp political humor, what little there was of it, was dull. He slammed the Democrats twice, and told only one Cheney joke. (That got his biggest laugh.) He didn’t lay a glove on Bush, and what’s up with that? Isn’t that why we tuned in, to see Mr. Liberal get himself in trouble with the Red State Right?”

Pretty spooky, huh? We called that one!

Stewart makes a living mocking the self-important, pointing out hypocrisy. Hollywood is dripping with self-importance and the streets are paved with hypocrisy. It’s a comedy gold mine! (When you have a rapper from Three 6 Mafia clutching an Oscar and thanking Gil Cates, it’s a dream for a comic like Stewart.)

Tom Shales in a Reuters review…

…found it “hard to believe that professional entertainers could have put together a show less entertaining than this year’s Oscars, hosted with a smug humorlessness by comic Jon Stewart, a sad and pale shadow of great hosts gone by.”

Smug? Certainly. That’s what he was hired for, it’s his main asset on The Daily Show. Humorless? Only if you’re the butt of the jokes.

At least Ebert and Roeper dug the act.

“He was smart, he was funny, he was as comfortable and as anyone since Johnny Carson, and I think he could have the job for life, if he wants it,” Ebert said. Roeper chimed in that he thought the “the Carson comparison is perfect.”

We thought the performance was consistently funny throughout. No one has been harder on Stewart than us over the past year or so. But we enjoyed the show. We had a feeling it might go this way, however… as did Stewart. (Recall his reference to– and defense of– Letterman’s Oscar hosting performance on Larry King Live last week.)

A personal note: Hey! What’s up with US Weekly? They had their first-ever Oscar bash at Wolfgang Puck’s place at the Pacific Design Center and they didn’t invite the Fashion Policers? Oh, sure! Ask us to comment on the horrid apparel of H-wood’s beautiful people, but, for God’s sake, DO NOT invite them to any parties!

Further ADDENDA: Could anyone be more out of touch than the WashPo’s Tom Shales?

“Stewart began the show drearily, loping through a monologue that lacked a single hilarious joke with the possible exception of “Bjork couldn’t be here tonight. She was trying on her Oscar dress and Dick Cheney shot her.”

That was about it– and Stewart had five months, working with his legions of writers from the Daily Show on Comedy Central, to come up with good material. It goes to prove that there’s still a big, big difference between basic cable and big-time network television after all.”

Shales is sticking up for Network Television, against Cable Television, while working for a dying newspaper. He has no idea how irrelevant he is…

MSNBC.com has gone so far as to say it “Daily Show host will be lumped in with Letterman, Rock as Oscar failure” in a sub-headline. MSNBC.com contributor Andy Dehnart said:

Exposing hypocrisy while being self-depreciating (sic) is what Stewart does best; in fact, it’s basically all he does. Those who believe The Daily Show is actually “fake news” don’t understand either satire or the exceptionally smart, informative humor that the show invokes on a daily basis. Stewart and The Daily Show‘s team emphasize and demonstrate the importance and gravity of the day’s news by making fun of it.

But that sort of contradictory, somewhat nuanced humor didn’t work well for the Oscars’ audience. The theater audience’s lack of laughter was judgmental and was at odds with viewers who were laughing because this was the funny Jon Stewart we know from cable.

And there’s the frustrating part: Stewart was a success. We here at SHECKYmagazine HQ enjoyed his hosting. A good portion of America enjoyed it. But Hollywood will have the final say. And they’re not amused. If they cared at all about their declining appeal among great portions of America (box office receipts are waaay down), they would laugh off Stewart’s jibes. They are in no mood to do so; they care not about their sinking Q rating.

They won’t be able to destroy Stewart, but they won’t be inclined to compare him to H.L. Mencken anytime soon.

They take the only nominee with a sense of humor and a near-permanent smirk (George Clooney) and they have him introduce the “In Memoriam” portion of the broadcast. (That’s the one where they show slo-mo clips of all the movie type people who’ve died in the past year.)

Then… they don’t include Don Knotts! Where the hell was Don Knotts? Or Darren McGavin? Or Dennis Weaver? All three made movies. All three were well-known. What, did they die too recently? Was it too much of a problem to edit them into the clip reel? (They’ve got a town full of professional film editors! You would think the deadline for the dead reel would be a matter of hours before the broadcast!)

At least they included the two expired comedians– Pat Morita and Richard Pryor.

Hour number one of the Oscarcast is over. We laughed heartily at several points. The fake host thing that opened it up was well done. The monologue superior. The cowboy film clip thing was hilarious.

But we’re getting the idea that Hollywood is/was more in love with the idea of Jon Stewart. When confronted with the reality of Stewart, however, they seem to be shifting uncomfortably in their seats. We suppose that’s a danger when a passel of ultra-serious films and filmmakers and actors are nominated– comedy has an uphill battle. (Tim Burton couldn’t even muster a smile for the Wallace & Grommit sight gag! What’s up with that?! What a bunch of humorless pricks!) We think even Stewart started to sense that his monologue wasn’t getting the response it deserved. He’s probably calling Letterman backstage and commiserating.

It only takes a few minutes to read the touching NYT Magazine article (Free reg. req.), a humor piece by Todd Barry.

The School for the Deaf called me to teach a variety of subjects. One day I was called to teach home economics. The entire class was made up of two taller boys who looked a bit too old for grade school. We spent the class hanging around and burning food. (I believe it was macaroni and cheese.) It was fun. Yes, things were going O.K. at the school. That is, until I made a tragic error in judgment. I made a joke.

It’s a pretty big deal (at least for the foreseeable future) when someone gets a piece published in the NYT Magazine. We envy Mr. Barry.

Here’s what we’re hearing (from an anonymous email):

1) Just because one made it past the Tempe round does not guarantee that one will advance. They find out in two weeks who gets cut and who doesn’t. They just know that they advanced past Tempe and have a chance of making the finals.

2) There are no semifinals, just finals. So they’ll pick like 60, then sit in a room and whittle it down to 20-30. So those who got picked in Tempe might not step onstage again.

3) Here’s who got picked in Tempe:

Ty Barnett
Mark Saldana
Josh McDermitt
Lahna Turner
April Macie
J. Chris Newberg
Chris Porter
Bruce Fine
Eddie Ifft

4) There was no “Simon-like” producer I saw. Just Bob and Ross (and Ross can be mean in his own right– but not Simon mean). The producers were all nice.

5) One person who stood in line got picked for the night show. Everyone else had “appointments.”

Once again: Rumor Disclaimer. We’re not sure if any of this is 100 per cent true… but it all sound plausible. We’ll keep you posted.

Hey: We note that Ralphie May’s girlfriend (wife?) and Gary Gulman’s girlfriend were picked. Hmmm… Where’s Ant‘s girlfriend? (Hey– he’s one of our Myspace Friends… we’re allowed to bust his balls. I think.) We also note that the comedy business has reached critical mass, comedy couple-wise– It’s time now for Comedy Couple Challenge (“A very special L.C.S.”), hosted by the premiere comedy couple, Rich Voss and Bonnie McFarlane. We’re available.

And, here is who we hear made it in from L.A.:

doug benson
adam hunter
tig
gabriel iglesias
jackie flynn
mike burton
kira soltanovich
kyle cease
saleem

Chris King, writing in Las Vegas City Life, on the death of his old man, “lounge giant” Sonny King (so named by Frank Sinatra):

He went out the old-fashioned way– from hard living. He was penniless from financial irresponsibility; both ears were shot from years of high stage volume; his cancer-ridden throat was ravaged from belting out three shows a night, six nights a week; and his lungs collapsed from the smoke-infested cabarets. These battle wounds were the products of seven decades of saloon singing. For him, life was not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving in a pretty and well-preserved body, but rather, a party wagon skidding broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out.

Without naming names, there are a few people in this business who wouldn’t mind going out that way!

At one point, in this account of his father’s funeral, King recalls that “A little guy who looked like Santa Claus said, ‘I remember when your father and Shecky Greene got so drunk they ran a car into the Caesars Palace fountains.'” In all the times we’ve heard the story of Shecky driving into the fountains at Caesar’s, we had always heard it told that he was alone at the time. It puts the story in a different light.

A spy from Los Angeles sent us an email, from which we extracted he following:

1. Anthony Clark will host LCS IV. He has signed a 3-year contract, so I guess NBC is banking on LCS being a ratings hit again…

2. There will be NO HOUSE this time, just comedy — NBC wants it to be more the comedy version of American Idol.

3. …the Simon Cowell of LCS IV (a producer of the show) is tearing up established comics left and right… trying to make a scene… to be like American Idol.

4. Comics with numerous Tonight Show appearances to their credit (among other things) auditioned in LA at the Improv only to be “Simonized.” (Our term, not his– Editors)

5. Comics who have already made it on LCS IV: Gabriel Iglesias, Gene Pompa, Tig

The author warns that these are just some L.A.-based comics who’ve made it and that, if other comics from other cities are added, these folks may be cut. Hmmm… Stay tuned. We’re not saying any of this is true… but it certainly sounds plausible. (And, in defense of Simon Cowell, he is not uniformly nasty or unnecessarily so. He is knowledgeable, he is sharp and he is honest. Might it be giving this LCS producer too much credit to compare him to Cowell?)

Sounds less like reality programming and more like a comedy contest… which, to be quite honest, is reality programming. The more things change…

March 7, 8 and 9 are the dates for Ron White‘s Workshop at the Atlanta Punchline. He’s trying out material for his upcoming (and never-ending) tour. The Punchline website says it’s for “Blue Collar III.” Regardless of what it’s for, it’s a chance to see White in a club setting.

This gives us another chance to plug Kid Dave Miller‘s “Runnin’ With Tater Salad,” a fascinating peek into Miller’s recent experience with the ultimate one-nighter, accompanying White on a recent arena gig!

Dave Chappelle/Chapelle says, of Comedy Central’s plans to air the half-baked Season 3 episodes:

“I feel like it’s kind of a bully move,” Chappelle told the Dayton Daily News in a telephone interview for a story Wednesday. “That’s just how I feel about it. I don’t know if that’s the case. But if people don’t watch it, then I’d be more than happy.”

Does anyone know if he kept that $50 million? If he did, we figure there’s no way he can squawk about the disposal of the episodes. If he didn’t, then maybe he has a say. (And that’s a big maybe, when you’re talking about the upside down world of TV. And was there really $50 million involved? We’re starting to have our doubts.)

Here’s another question: How desperate is Comedy Central? Why don’t they just find another Dave Chappelle/Chapelle? (Or two or three mini-Chappelles? For a fraction of the purchase price.) Actually, that’s three questions. And a declarative statement. Sorry. Have they forgotten that before Dave Chappelle was Dave Chappelle, he was merely… Dave Chappelle?

A rare case of a gaggle of TV execs who refuse to vengefully turf their current star and mount a search for “the next (Fill in name of vengefully turfed star here)!” Instead they cling pathetically to the “proven commodity” while the proven commodity says all manner of horrible things about them to the press. A pathetic display… even for TV executives!!

Or is it the other way around? The money quote from the Reuters story:

HBO chairman and CEO Chris Albrecht said that once the opportunity arose to form a partnership with Cook, the network jumped on the chance to “get in business with him as many ways as we could.”

Staggering.

If we were Dane Cook, we’d open up every set with, “I just signed a deal with HBO…” and then wait for the response from the comics in the back of the house.

“Original content is the salt and pepper on the meal,” he said. “It is certainly not the engine driving this.”

This horribly mangled metaphor, in a fascinating NYT article (“Yahoo Says It Is Backing Away From TV-Style Web Shows”), is hocked up by Lloyd Braun, former ABC-TV suit who is now head of Yahoo’s Media Group. We’re betting that there was a tiny trickle of sweat just arriving at the top of the crack of Lloyd Braun’s ass as this escaped from his lips.

Yahoo, sitting atop an eye-popping pile of cash, hired a TV guy (Braun from ABC) and a movie guy (Terry Semel from Warners) to make Yahoo into the next Big Media Thing. When hired five years ago, Semel said, “I will always have a lot to learn about the internet. But I’m surrounded by what I consider to be some of the world-class experts.” He proceeded to hire experts… on television. Slick!

One of those experts was Llloyd Braun, he of the salty, peppery, engine.

But things are not going well in Yahoo-land. It’s been five years– an eternity in cyberspace– and the suits can’t decide if Yahoo wants to emulate television or movies or… what, exactly?

Braun, no doubt fighting for his job, incongruously and clumsily reminds all of his most recent triumphs:

He acknowledged that coming off developing ABC programs like Lost and Desperate Housewives, he had overly grand expectations for what he should do at Yahoo.

He then goes on to indulge in some spectacular Suitspeak, admitting his woeful failure to comprehend the newness of The New Media and simultaneously speculating out loud about how he might save his executive skin:

“I realized I have to check my ego at the door for a moment, and forget whatever expectations people had about me because of my former life, and really take a hard look at who should this business be built for the long term-— a business that is not dependent on a series of expensive one-off’s to survive,” he said.

Is it just us, or does this sound like something one says after one has been fired?

The occasion for all this hand-wringing is a Startling Announcement by Yahoo that they wanted a do-over on their previous Startling Announcement. That is: We aren’t going to produce a boatload of television-like shows for Yahoo.

When we heard the original announcement, we were delighted! They were, in effect, going to become another TV network– more opportunities for comedians, said we. None of that is happening now. It turns out that they must now devise new and ingenious ways for The New Media to fail.

They seem to be pleading: Why can’t everyone just leave the TV and Movie guys alone while they screw up the New Media (just like they did TV and Movies)?!? Give a suit a break!

From the sidelines comes this quote:

Jordan Rohan, an analyst with RBC Capital Markets, said Yahoo’s shift in strategy was sound. “Embracing things like blogs and sharing of content between individuals” is at least as important as “coming up with the next mega-online event,” he said. “The Internet is such a niche content environment that the broadcast model does not really work.”

Note to Yahoo: Hire Jordan Rohan! He seems to have good grip on which part of the engine the salt and pepper should be sprinkled!

The folks in Hollywood are at it again.

Barry Garron, writing in The Hollywood Reporter, on Fox’s Free Ride:

Searching for a different approach to the traditional sitcom, Rob Roy Thomas, a veteran commercial director, came up with a series in which actors rely on a story outline and their own improv skills. After piecing together the best takes, the result was sensational. Sadly, Significant Others lasted only two seasons on Bravo.

Yes. How very, very sad.

The sitcom, don’t you know, is dead.

The truly funny sitcoms– the ones that will carry us into the next Golden Era of Television– won’t need writers. Brave souls like Rob Roy Thomas will re-invent the form and skilled actors will merely improv their way into the Television Hall of Fame. No writers need apply. (Those pesky writers were getting in the way!)

Why do they insist on this fantasy? What is so utterly horrifying to these nitwits about taking an idea for a sitcom, hiring accomplished writers to concoct truly humorous situations and dialogue, then hiring talented actors with a flair for comedy? Why all these wistful daydreams about a world in which we don’t need writers, the actors are all triple threats and the genre that brought us The Honeymooners, Mary Tyler Moore and Seinfeld is a flawed model tossed unceremoniously on the scrapheap of television history?

How long before AFTRA insists on writers’ pay for the actors? How long before they insist that all actors on these “Improv-coms” join the Writers Guild? Can you imagine being a writer on one of these shows? Oh, sure, you get that fat paycheck for 13 weeks or so, but then you pick up the trade paper and see “Writers Unnecessary!” (And, how utterly unimaginative on the part of the publicists– highly paid publicists!– at these networks! Can’t they figure out any other way of making their sitcom seem noteworthy?

And why is it that the producers of dramas never claim that their product is improv-ed? (Well, with the exception of Henry Jaglom. Has anyone, not doing acid, ever made it more than 12 minutes into a Henry Jaglom movie? Oh, and Woody Allen. Has anyone enjoyed any of the “largely improvised” Woody pics lately? I think some of them were supposed to be humorous… it was hard to tell, though.)

It’s good to see Allan Havey in a series– for that fact alone, Free Ride was worth noting on this website. But it would be so nice if they abandoned this moronic “re-inventing the sitcom” story line.

From the obituary for Linda Smith…

…whose distinctive south London twang was heard on everything from the News Quiz, to Just a Minute, to I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue. She also appeared frequently on TV including Have I Got News for You, QI, Call My Bluff and Countdown.[…]

Smith’s roots were in standup and she became a circuit regular after winning the Hackney Empire new act of the year in 1987.

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Jon Stewart is handling this whole Oscar buildup with astonishing calm. His response to nearly every press inquiry has been either witty, disarming or both. And always funny. And his conversation with Larry King was noteworthy if for no other reason than for his defense of David Letterman‘s Oscar hosting stint from 1995, which was labeled by the cretins at MSN Entertainment as one of the “Top 10 Cringe-Inducing Oscar Moments”

In 1995, American chat show king David Letterman hosted the Oscars. His chief mistake was importing elements of his night-time show into the ceremony. To say it didn’t work is putting it mildly; it was a bigger flop than Rik Waller.

Stewart said he has the ’95 Oscarcast on tape and that he marvels every time at how good it was. He said that the lore that has sprung up over the past decade regarding that show doesn’t match the reality. It seems apparent, from this and other interviews, that Stewart’s worst fear is that he would do what he always does (and does well) but that, like Letterman, his effort would be judged harshly and wrongly. Who can’t relate to that?

An item in the Rocky Mountain News (“Starz Inches Into Original Program Fare”) says that Starz will start using comedians:

But don’t expect Starz to mount a $100 million epic miniseries like HBO’s Rome anytime soon. Instead, Douglas County-based Starz is focusing on unconventional time lengths– like 10-minute acting auditions and stand-up comic routines– that bolster the network’s focus on films while comporting with video-on-demand viewing habits.

The revolution will be televised.

This is worth keeping an eye on. Who really needs more than ten minutes of exposure? Just a nice, tight ten minute set, repeated over and over at various times of day, over a period of weeks. If it gets a good response, agitate for another one. Sounds good.

We were sad to hear that Don Knotts died on Friday. We actually had the pleasure of meeting Knotts. That’s him in the middle. On the other side of him is Chicago Comedy Festival honcho Dan Carlson. The SHECKYmagazine staff were thrilled to be invited to a meeting of Yarmy’s Army in April of 2000, at Jerry’s Deli in Los Angeles. Knotts was among the many legendary comics and writers present at that meeting. Read our account of that encounter here.

“Nothing is off limits,” says the woman in charge of beating the bushes for tapes and DVD’s for Simon Cowell’s next show. Actually, it’s his next next show– the one that hits the airwaves after his show seeking inventions and their inventors debuts. Busy (and, we assume, wealthy) man, that Simon is.

I am casting for a new reality show with Simon Cowell and we are looking for a variety of different talents. The more unique and more personality the better! The show is just starting up, so nothing is off limits. We want everything from jugglers, magicians, comedians, acrobats, animal trainers or bands. I would love it if you could send me demo VHS tapes or DVDs of anyone who may be interested by the middle of next week. You may send them to:

Becky Cattie
Fremantle Media
2700 Colorado Ave Ste:450
Santa Monica, CA 90404

Better hurry.

Sharp-eyed reader Terry Reilly sent us the link to a WSJ story (“A Comic’s Quarter Century of Smooth Sailing”) about a 25-year veteran of performing on cruise ships, or as author Joanne Kaufman calls it, the “saltwater circuit.”

“You play Vegas and you have to cheer up the losers. You play nightclubs and you have to avoid the drunks,” explains Mr. Sherman, 74, who speaks from considerable experience. “On a cruise ship the audiences want you to be good. They’re rooting for you. It’s rare that you encounter any hostility.”

74-year-old Don Sherman is profiled in this piece. Worth reading for the telescoped account of one man’s zig-zag path through show business. (And for the reference to Hey, Landlord. If it wasn’t so easy to look things up on the internet, we’d give something away to the first person to email us with the reason Hey, Landlord is of any significance to a magazine about standup. But it is. So we won’t.)

Apparently, that’s what they call it, “Post-K,” as in Pfter Katrina. We got an email from FOS Bill “Wild Bill” Dykes, catching us up on the comedy scene in New Orleans now that the wind has died down and the flood waters have receded:

Hey all:

Just a quick 411 on the state of things here in NOLA. Gearing up for Mardi Gras (pulling out old Halloween costumes to recycle for Fat Tuesday, bingeing on Po-Boys, beer and King Cake…same old.) Jodi Borello is kicking it in a new location in River Ridge on Fridays (with a little help from Louis Duet, formerly of Martine’s). They are at www.thecomedystand.com.

Our open mic night has moved to Lucy’s Retired Surfers Bar on Wednesday nights. Averaging 10 to 15 newbies and crusty vets a week. Seems there is a bigger demand for funny in post-K NOLA. Crowds have been consistent, and venues are more open to supporting new shows. My company (Stand Up NOLA) is producing the open mic, as well as a show March 24th at One Eyed Jacks with Doug Stanhope, and a fundraiser for Orleans parish schools on April 7th at the Howlin’ Wolf with Marc Maron and Bryan Callen.

Hope to have you back soon. Keep up the good work, and I’ll keep you all up to date on our slowly healing town.

peace,

bd

The Forward ran a brief item on Yossi Vassa (“Ethiopian Comic Mines History For Laughs”), an Ethiopian Israeli comic. (Check out that byline– Loolwa Khazzoom!) Vassa was among a few thousand Ethiopian Jews chased to Sudan, then airlifted to Israel back in the ’80s and 90’s, all the while avoiding starvation, extermination and “villagization.” Kinda makes The Big Move look like a stroll in the park!

Vassa’s four-week tour — which was designed to coincide with Black History Month — offered American audiences a hilarious, though sometimes painful, glimpse into the lot of Israel’s Ethiopian community.

“We dreamed of Jerusalem for 3,000 years, then got dumped in Netanya. That’s like spending three millennia pining for Manhattan, and ending up in New Jersey.”

We were vaguely aware of the plight of his people prior to seeing this. After reading a brief history of Ethiopian Jews, it’s a wonder he can laugh about it!

Word on the street is that Jay Mohr will produce, but not host. The hosting duties, it is rumored, are being offered to Anthony Clark.

Jon Stewart, participating in the Oscar buildup, has probably spent much of the last two weeks on the horn to major dailies from around the globe. And they all ask pretty much the same inane questions– Are you nervous? What if you bomb?

Stewart, being the professional comic (and wiseass) that he is, handles the queries with aplomb (and a bit of sarcasm):

But if he’s nervous, he’s not showing it.

“If I had to go out there and surf, that would be a problem,” Stewart says. “But you know, it’s just comedy.”

and

“I’ve bombed in front of many fine audiences filled with many talented people,” he says. “And if this is that night, well, that’s the way it goes.”

Read the rest here.

We’ve often said that comedians are important to Western culture, but that, with few exceptions, the MSM tends to downplay our contributions and influence. (It’s the funny factor. It’s the same reason they rarely or never give out Oscars to people who star in a comedy. But standup comics often seem to pop up, if not at the center of important events, just off center.)

We knew there were comics at the heart of the bloody riots that have recently rocked the Muslim world. But comedians?

There’s an op-ed piece making the rounds of newspapers worldwide by Flemming Rose, the culture editors of Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, in which he defends his decision to publish the cartoons. You know, those cartoons. And, don’t ya know, a comedian figures in the whole mess:

The idea wasn’t to provoke gratuitously — and we certainly didn’t intend to trigger violent demonstrations throughout the Muslim world. Our goal was simply to push back self-imposed limits on expression that seemed to be closing in tighter.

At the end of September, a Danish standup comedian said in an interview with Jyllands-Posten that he had no problem urinating on the Bible in front of a camera, but he dared not do the same thing with the Koran.

This was the culmination of a series of disturbing instances of self-censorship.[…]

Read the whole thing. If we read it correctly, it seems like the comedian’s self-imposed censorship was the last straw, in Rose’s mind. He lists a handful of incidents, and it seems that the Danish comic’s statement was the last one before the you-know-what hit the oscillating cooling device. (Perhaps the thinking was, “Hell, comedians are crazy! If even the comic won’t provoke Muslims gratuitously, there’s something seriously wrong out there!)

The saga of Club Soda Kenny continues!

This time, the website for a television station in Florida picked up the story off of United Press International (“Cop Suspended for Night Job as Comic”).

It’s the same story as appeared in the NYT, but worth noting for two reasons:

1. They chose to put it in their “Weird News” section

2. It was accompanied by the above picture.

We’re not quite sure who this guy is. We’re fairly certain it’s not Club Soda Kenny, though. The URL for the pic indicates that it’s a stock photo from Clear Channel (the owner of WPMI, NBC 15, on the Florida panhandle) from their “Miscellaneous” files! We suppose that the web editor plucked it from hundreds because it fit his idea of a what a comedian looks like.

Isn’t there some sort of law against this? Well, at the very least, a website or a news outlet should go to some lengths to stress that the fellow in the picture isn’t the guy talked about in the story. (That’s why you’ll often see “File Footage” over an old piece of video when they don’t have any fresh video on the subject.) This doesn’t help the credibility of the folks at WPMI. (And, if the guy above is a clean comic, he won’t appreciate being identified as a suspended cop who is “a standup comic specializing in bathroom humor.”)

It’s a whole different world up there in Maine. And it appears they have their own humor. Check out this article in the Portsmouth Herald Accent (“50 years after ‘Bert and I’, Maine humor retains its appeal”) to get a feel for the “scene,” such as it is.

There are a handful of humorist making a decent living by spinning yarns in the peculiar laid back style that has become part of the Pine Tree State culture.

Contemporary comedian Bob Marley is mentioned, but it’s clear that the author perceives Marley as a departure from the traditional humorists.

His brand of comedy, he said, comes at a different pace.

“On The Tonight Show, they want a laugh every 20 seconds. A Maine humorist might take four minutes to get the first laugh,” he said.

Maine humor is presented most often at theaters, festivals and professional gatherings, not comedy clubs or bars. Humorists steer clear of off-color language and say they avoid performing in venues where liquor flows because their material demands an audience’s close attention.

Sounds like a corporate gig.

SHECKYmagazine columnist Kid Dave Miller sends along pics and his inimitable prose detailing a recent trip with Ron “Tater Salad” White on a one-nighter extraordinaire!

Turns out the jet wasn’t a Lear, but a brand new Raytheon Hawker 400. Close enough.

It had been flown one time. You think new car smell is cool, try new jet smell. The jet seats eight passengers, but there was only 3 of us.

We climbed aboard, taxied into position and the pilot firewalled the throttle. The Hawker climbed like a bottle rocket off the runway and into the instrument conditions above. It seemed like we were in the soup about a minute before coming out on top of a cottony white stratus layer of clouds, on our way to a cruising altitude of 34,000 feet. That’s about 34,000 feet higher than the cruising altitude at which I usually travel to comedy shows.

I was on my way to open a show for one of the most popular comedians of all time, in a chartered business jet, with the pilot tossing me beers. Never in my wildest open mic dreams did I ever picture anything like this happening to me, but thanks to the generosity of one Ron White, it was.

Wallow in the full account of Kid Dave’s trip from Tater’s mansion to a gig in Michigan (with a stopover in Columbus, OH)– all in the space of nine hours!

Now there’s a NYT article on Sgt. Feder, aka “Club Soda Kenny,” the former Diceman sidekick and frequent Opie & Anthony guest who is suspended without pay from his gig as an internal affairs investigator for the West Orange (NJ) PD.

But late last month, when a CD of Sergeant Feder’s act was mailed to police officials and members of the City Council, the laughter stopped. They suspended him last week and filed departmental charges that could cost him his $88,000-a-year job and his pension.

When we first commented on the case, we opined that the suspension was justified, imagining the sticky situation Feder might find himself in with, say, a speeding motorist. However, we now know that Feder has little or no contact with the public (in the traditional cop sense). But, we still aren’t certain that his standup isn’t at odds with the department’s code of conduct.

Feder’s attorney unwittingly made a case for his client’s suspension:

He said he suspected that the CD was sent to police officials as an act of retaliation by a rogue police officer Sergeant Feder had investigated. “It’s hard to imagine who else might do such a thing,” he said.

Oops! Let’s see… I’m a cop who investigates other cops… there’s an outside chance (just the teeniest, tiniest chance) I might get suspended if somebody finds out I’m telling jokes about screwing my dog… hmmm… I don’t suppose I’ve compromised myself in any way. Not at all. Whew! That was close! (Into intercom) Miss Jones, send in the next (allegedly) dirty cop!

Others are casting this as a free speech issue. The internet is crackling with all manner of foaming, 1st Amendment rhetoric, much of it over the top; some of it from his attorney– “This is a man who risks his life every day to protect the public and uphold the Constitution,” says his lawyer, obviously counting on the reader’s ignorance as to Feder’s job description. (We’ve watched enough NYPD Blue‘s to know that the closest the guys in “IAB” come to risking their lives is via their sedentary lifestyle combined with a high-fat diet.)

Like we said earlier, we haven’t heard the last of this story. (Prediction: Feder’s attorney will wangle some sort of deal where Feder gets the back pay that he lost during the suspension; Feder apologizes for disgracing the West Orange PD; Feder will promise to keep the child molestation and raping-a-bride-at-knifepoint gags to a minimum over the next few months while Feder’s attorney and the department hammer out an early buyout, with full pension. Everybody goes home happy– West Orange is spared the embarassment, Feder gets his pension, and, most importantly, Feder is free to pursue standup comedy full time! (After you get your puss in the NYT, it should be no problem to secure representation for personal appearances. If Hank the Angry Dwarf could make some coin, it shouldn’t be any problem for Club Soda Kenny to make a decent buck cutting ribbons, appearing on O & A and occasionally opening for Jim Norton.) Stay tuned: There’s a departmental hearing on Feb. 23!

Las Vegas Casino Death Watch is an online entity entirely devoted to implosions of Vegas casinos. Bookmark it, check it out regularly if you are at all bummed about the disappearance of Old Vegas. (Or Sorta Old Vegas. Let’s face it, Old Vegas is gone. And most of us are too young to really remember the Old Vegas.)

On downtown’s venerable Golden Gate:

From statements owner Mark Brandenburg has made as well as this hotel’s reluctance to ink a new union contract, it sounds like this venerable downtown hotel/casino isn’t making a lot of money. While this place may not have elaborate mini-suites, big-name headliners, or gourmet restaurants, we really like this little place. The Golden Gate is probably the casino which best exemplifies the feel of old Glitter Gulch. If we recall correctly, this property first opened in 1906, and it’s last major “upgrade” was in 1930. That’s a lot of history, and it would be a real shame if the place had to close.

We recall a tremendous late-night breakfast around a large circular table at the Golden Gate during our Comics-Only Reunion back in April of ’01. Eight or nine comics (Don Weir, Pat Mac, Kid Dave Miller, to name a few) ordering all manner of unhealthy foods, swapping stories about life on the road, in the clubs or on the stage, staying way past the checks. We’ll miss the Gate if it goes down in a cloud of dust.

Word is that Bourbon Street dissolves in a heap TONIGHT!

Those Jean Shepherd CD’s from Radio Again will go to Alan Kaye of Egg Harbor Township, NJ!

Mr. Kaye will receive “The X Random Factor” (“8 complete and unabridged classic radio performances by raconteur Jean Shepherd from the archives of Hartwest Productions.”)

And “Don’t Be A Leaf,” in which the master radio storyteller holds forth on “the impact of dirty glasses, shopping for cars with the old man, flyswatters, growing up with the White Sox and the great divide between Southside and Northside baseball fans.”

Kaye will get 12 unabridged recordings of some of Jean Shepherd’s best work. NINE total hours of humor from the man who brought you “A Christmas Story!”

Congratulations to our winner! And THANKS to all who entered!

A reader, Kliph Nesteroff, writes: Jean Shepherd never did stand-up in the traditional sense, but he did do speaking tours in the same vein that Al Capp did. A comedy record of one of these campus talks by Shepherd was released at the end of the 1960s on Mercury Records titled “The DeClassified Jean Shepherd: The People Have a Right to Know.” Added to the record are some strange psychedelic effects at the start in which Shepherd’s voice is looped and echoed to some garage guitar music. Thanks, Kliph! (Kliph Nesteroff is a Vancouver based comedian, poet, and record collector. His publication, “Generation Exploitation,” covering the world of unusual film and forgotten vinyl records has garnered praise from Vancouver to Baltimore and “sheds light on things that nerds, generally, take too seriously.” –Ultra8.ca)

Hollywood Reporter says that principal photography begins Wednesday in Santa Fe, NM, on the Jessica Simpson-Dane Cook movie that’s been in the pipeline for a couple months.

The Lionsgate project centers on best friends, played by Cook and Dax Shepard, who work in a Costco-like store and meet a hot new cashier (Simpson) who prefers ambitious men. The men begin an all-out war to become the store’s next employee of the month in order to impress her.

Efren Ramirez and Harland Williams will play store employees. Greg Coolidge will make his feature directorial debut on the film.

We swear this is the last time we’ll say anything about it until it opens. Promise.