Gina Brilion embraces bottle of Poland Spring while Leighann Lord embraces Gina Brilion

The Female Half of the Staff shared a bill last night at the Northeast Comedy Cabaret with Leighann Lord, Gina Brilion, Dena Blizzard and Ronette Holt-Jones. The occasion was the Linda Creed Breast Cancer Foundation fundraiser produced by comic Coleman Green. Green lost his wife to the dread disease several years ago. Touched by the generosity of others in his (and his family’s) time of need, Green produces the annual event as a cosmic payback.

Hollywood Reporter reports the following:

Good Morning America weatherman Tony Perkins will leave the show December 2 to take a job with Fox’s local morning show in Washington, D.C., to be closer to his family.

Perkins, who left Fox affiliate WTTG-TV in 1999 for “GMA” will return to the station that where he worked between 1993 and 1999.

We met Perkins many years ago when he was opening the shows for us at the 23rd Precinct Comedy Club in Crystal City, VA, outside of D.C. Perkins was a competent, likeable weatherman and comedian in the D.C. region before snagging the GMA gig. ABC’s loss is D.C. comedy’s gain… if he chooses to continue with the standup.

The Laugh Factory is finding creative ways of driving people to their website. This time, they’re asking fans to write and submit a 250-word (or less) George Carlin-esque essay by Nov. 5th. Winners will receive a poster for Carlin’s HBO special, autographed by Carlin and their essay will be posted on the Factory site. Click the above link for details.

An article in the Desert Sun, the newspaper of Palm Springs and environs, details the goings on at a recent poker tourney organized by Dick Van Patten.

And it doesn’t get much funnier than the brilliant Shecky Greene, who entertained at the Sunday night awards dinner (along with singing comedy impressionist Scott Record). Palm Springs resident Shecky told us that after decades at the top of the comedy heap, he’s no longer in show biz. That made us doubly lucky, because this rare performance had everyone howling with laughter. At 80 years old, he looks great and is as sharp as ever. Encore, Shecky!

“The Springs” (as Alf usta refer to it) sounds like a bizarre place, filled with celebs past and present and, of course, Frank Sinatra’s old place, fully restored! An earlier article on the poker tourney listed Shirley Jones, Marty Ingalls, Lenny Dykstra, Vijay Armitraj, Wilford Brimley, Bernie Kopell Bo Hopkins, Lyle Waggoner and Fred “The Hammer” Williamson.

We hear that HBO and TBS have snagged Shecky for their Festival next month, where he’ll appear on the Founders Show.

Midnight October 31 is the deadline for voting in the Wendy’s Comedy Challenge! Let’s get to it and vote for Bill Bunker! SHECKYmagazine readers are familiar with Bunker through his occasional Wells St. Journal columns and if he places in the money in this Wendy’s Challenge, they’ll send him to Vegas to be part of the HBO/TBS Comedy Festival next month! (If he goes, he promises that he’ll crank out a first-person account of his adventure for SHECKYmagazine readers!)

Just read the following online in the Toronto MetroNews:.

After a 16-year stint on the North American standup circuit, (Russell Peters) has won the attention of Warner Bros. television division, which has signed the comic to shoot a pilot for a new television sitcom.

Peters, who will play the lead in the show as well as being a creative consultant, can’t say much about the series except that it’s a workplace comedy produced by the team of Tom Werner (That ’70s Show, The Cosby Show), Jimmy Miller (Elf) and Eric Gold (the upcoming Get Smart film).

He can also confirm that the untitled project will be based around his brand of comedy, which draws largely on his South East Asian heritage.

The photo at the top depicts, from left, Joe Starr, Peters, and Traci Skene, at the most recent JFL. (Photo credit: Francine Starr)

When we worked in Montreal last January, the club was plastered with small posters heralding the upcoming appearance of Russell Peters. The flyers were a parody of an early James Bond film poster. The management was abuzz about his impending engagement… and his unerring ability to pack the joint– and deliver. Back in December of ’04, we posted about Peters and his involvement in a US tour of South Asian comics in which the promoter labelled the comic as “the best South Asian standup comic he has seen”

P.S.: Starr, btw, just finished shooting a small part in the upcoming Oliver Stone movie, “the true story of John McLoughlin and William J. Jimeno, the last two survivors extracted from Ground Zero and the rescuers who never gave up.” The project is so far untitled.

Just got an email response to our recent posting about the recent San Francsisco Comedy Competition.

We aren’t in the habit of posting emails from people who won’t identify themselves, but this one raises some interesting questions. And they aren’t questions that a whole lot of other people probably didn’t have after reading the letter from the Competition organizers or reading accounts of the competition on the SFICC site.

So, without further qualification, we present a letter from a comic who has “never competed in the San Francisco International Comedy Competition,” and who claims to be among a group of “other San Francisco comedians (who) have chosen to boycott it.” He adds that there are “no sour grapes here, either. I just don’t want to eat the grapes in Reno, Fresno, Chico, Saratoga, Brooks, Benicia, etc.”

Dear San Francisco International Comedy Competition Coordinator,

First off, thanks for having your competition.

If this year?’s competition wasn’t quite up to par, perhaps you should ask yourself, “Is there a reason that a previous winner had to return to win it again this year?” For example, other competitions prohibit winners from competing again, forcing the competition coordinators to keep an eye on fresh upcoming talent.

Maybe you should have the competition inside of San Francisco. Why was the first round of the competition in Reno? That’s not even the same state. Over the course of the four-week competition, only one show took place in San Francisco. Maybe you should ask yourself,”Why don’t the local venues want to have any part in my competition?” If your event used to be the talk of the town and now you can?t even be in the town, maybe there is something wrong.

What is the quality of the venues? For instance, you would not want a bucket sitting on the stage to catch droplets of water leaking from the ceiling like you did in 2003. Comedians don’t want to perform in dilapidated venues and crowds do not want to watch shows in those venues for an outrageous ticket price.

Why are your crowds dwindling? Is it the aforementioned bad venues? Or is it because your promotional hype includes the names of winners from ten or more years ago and nothing current? What incentive do crowds have to attend your event?

In the thirty years of this competition, how come the only thing you have to offer next year’s contestants is more money? Where is the industry? Where is the prestige the competition once had?

Keep the comics on your side. It’s about them. Don’t treat them like children. If you keep them happy, the audiences will be happy.

From the Moderated alt.comedy.standup newsgroup, posted by Darryl Rhoades:

For those of you who might not have heard, Kelly Moran was found dead this morning in Amarillo. Kelly was co-owner of the Amarillo Comedy Club as well as being a great comic.

This is truly sad.

I send my condolences to his family.

Click on this to read about Kelly Moran on Kelly’s Geocities site. (For the record, there’s no mention of Moran’s death on the site.) UPDATE: The Amarillo comedy club site now states: “Kelly Moran It is hurts too much for me type. Services Saturday at 2:00 in Amarillo. More info on Kelly soon!”

Sharp-eyed reader Tom Bickle alerted us to a posting on the John Bizarre blog:

I walked over and the staff was clearing out all their stuff. The club was officially closed. Something about the lease on the building. The night before, the first night of the week, the show had been cancelled (lack of attendance), and now the second night of the week the entire club had been canceled. I never even set foot on the stage.

The Memphis Funny Bone – best gig I never did.

Good to see that Bizarre is back and blogging. Bad to see that a club has closed. Good to see that a reader saw fit to hip us to a development in the business.

Got this in our inbox. We’re fairly certain it’s the real deal. It was allegedly sent to all the participants in the 2005 San Francisco International Comedy Competition, after the Oct. 9 conclusion of the venerable competition:

Ladies & Gentleman,

First off– thanks for taking part…

If you scored low in Material perhaps you should ask yourself, “Does my stuff take the audience on that mental ride of laughter?” For example– Kip Addotta advises that there should be a surprise in every punch line. Bruce Baum wore a gold lamay (sic) diaper to sell Disco Baby Man.

Talk about technique– how are you presenting your material? Is your act one dimensional? Think satire, acting, parody, commentary, slapstick, lampoon, music, improvisation, impressions, and props and mime– how much do you do? Can you embellish your material so that it’’s funnier; do you use funny words in your setups? Does all the blue language really work effectively? Are you overdoing it to the point that the emphasis you intend becomes ineffective? It worked for Eddie Murphy and Dice Clay but look how they sold it with other aspects of their acts.

Delivery problems? Do you enunciate and speak clearly? What’’s your face and body language doing while you’’re talking? Do you smile? Are you aware of your mic technique– are you eating the mic? Or should you work without touching the mic so that you can mug and gesture more? Do you wait for the laughs? Kevin Pollack once told the comedian opening for him, “”Have faith in your material, don’t drop your punch lines.””

If your stage presence doesn’’t crack up to your expectations in the eyes of others, perhaps you should dress differently. But really it’’s about confidence and charisma. Do you self critique on stage? There was a lot to what Elaine Boosler meant when she said, ““Never let them see you sweat!””

If your Audience Rapport scores are out of whack, do you do anything to relate to your audience– local references, etc? What do you do to instill their respect? Do you sound intelligent, condescending, are you vulnerable?

Does anybody really care about your sexual, marital, or political preference as much as they want to hear something funny about it so that they can picture personal experience?

Audience response – keep them on your side. First and last rule– “It’’s
gotta be funny.”

We’re dumbfounded. The letter implies that the only reason the participants lost is because they weren’t good enough, their skills were not up to par. We’re of the opinion that the only thing that a competition should say to its competitors, after the whole thing is over, is “Thank you for your participation. You are the best batch of comics in the history of the competition. We wish you all good luck and we look forward to the 2006 event.”

Full disclosure: The Male Half of the Staff was actually accepted for the 1987 edition of the SFICC, but cancelled due to a scheduling conflict. No grapes here, sour or otherwise.

The Female Half of the Staff caught the second half of a CMT American Revolutions documentary while channel surfing last night. This one is about country comedians. She missed the first half, the one where they talked about the oldsters. (We’re taping it tonight.)

Profiled are Jeff Foxworthy (and the entire BCCT), Grandpa Jones, Minnie Pearl, Jerry Clower and Tim Wilson, among others. Interviewed are Reno Collier, Jon Reep, Rodney Carrington and Clint Black, among others. Nice that they saw fit to do Wilson, as he is not nearly as well known as the others.

Hop onto the Country Music Television website for further details.

Just got a genuinely humorous press release (those are so rare) heralding the launch of a new comedy tour:

Just when you thought every conceivable ethnic comedy tour idea had been exhausted, the sound of native drums signals the arrival of the Trail of Laughs Pow Wow Comedy Jam. Featuring four Indian, uh, Native American comics, (for you PC types),this peyote-induced comedy vision is the brainchild of Northern California comic Marc Yaffee and Spokane standup, Vaughn Eaglebear.

Conceived over two years ago, Pow Wow Comedy Jam has survived several misfires and roster changes. “Actually, we were just stalling while a couple hundred more tribal casinos, or as we like to call them, ‘€˜Native American Reparation Centers,€’ were being built,”€ concedes Yaffee.

Pow Wow Comedy Jam has evolved into its current lineup of Yaffee (Navajo), Eaglebear (Lakota Sioux/Colville), JR Redwater (Standing Rock Sioux) and Jim Ruel (Ojibwe). Now with management in place and tour sponsorship in the works, the Native funny men take the stage at Yuma, Arizona’s Paradise Casino, November 4th with visions of larger casino paydays and cross-over shows in their future.

Click on the above link for details.

Center: Milo Tremley, alias Prof. Milo, alias James Lee Reeves. Left: Amber, alias Mrs. Prof. Milo. Right: Traci Skene, alias The Female Half of the Staff.

Las Vegas crowds were spectacular– geographically and demographically diverse and all itching to have a good time. And voluminous, too. (It helped that we got a hit in the R-J and that Milo got a nice hit in the local paper as well.) Finally back in the office, after a week in Vegas. Still fighting to get from PDT to EDT. Not successful. We’ll be in the office for a few weeks, gigging largely locally, eventually heading north to Buffalo for a return weekend at the Comix Cafe early next month. Stay tuned. Hit Milo Tremley’s website.

Fishbowl provides a blow-by-blowhard account of a Sept. 30 appearance by Jon Stewart at the American Society of Magazine Editors (ASME) get together in New York. Billed as the Magazine Publishers of America Magazine panel “Laughing Matters: Magazines Celebrate Humor,” it sounds like a sweet gig for Stewart: We’ll assemble onstage the editors of Time, Cosmo, Vanity Fair and Men’s Health and have you come out and mercilessly berate them– to the unmitigated delight of the entire east coast (well, Manhattan) magazine publishing community. Oh, and we’ll hand over a giant bag of cash.

He recalls being approached to host the gig and asked if he wanted to interview four top editors. “I thought, wow, that’s great. Or – or – should I put a needle in my eye.” See? The crowd LOVES it! Then they mentioned the budget (and by the way, the budget! Lincoln Center! Open bar! Veggie spring rolls!). “And I remember thinking…mmm, it might be interesting. (Faux-mulling) Editors are interesting, they go to parties, they write “stet” in the margins…they go to parties….fuck it, let’s do it.”

Fishbowl, from what we can tell, is the rakish blogging arm of Mediabistro.com, which is a portal for all the people who toil in publishing in NY and LA. Lots of job openings, gossip, trendspotting, etc. (We’re not sure, but we think there might be a mildly headache-inducing registration/password process but, if you’re interested in dirty media laundry, it’s worth it. And it’s a lot less pompous, paranoid and catty than Romenesko’s site has become of late.)

In our half of the country, it airs (can we even say airs any more, now that it technically doesn’t travel through the air, but through a cable?) at 9:30 PM. We advise you to check your newspaper (yeah, right… a newspaper! Or click on this.) for the time in your area.

An uproarious stand-up performance with Bonnie McFarlane who was featured on Last Comic Standing and who has appeared on The Tonight Show With Jay Leno and Late Show With David Letterman.

Read the interviews with the comedians who are One Night Standing. Or just read Bonnie’s interview.

Yeah, I don’t know anybody who buys jokes. Comedians will sometimes sit around with each other and give each other jokes. Or you’ll watch somebody say it and you’ll think of a tag and give it to them. But there’s also comedians who are really controlling, so even if somebody comes up with something good for them, there’s a 90% chance they’re not gonna use it because it’s like ‘I have my own thing going on here.’ Sometimes a celebrity will want to start doing stand up and then they’ll buy some jokes. But the problem is that, for whatever reason, until you’ve been doing stand up like 15 – 20 years you can’t just do somebody else’s material. It’s it just doesn’t work usually.

Whatever you do, DO NOT click on the link that takes you to the One Night Stand Bulletin Boards to “Discuss Bonnie McFarlane.” It is an utter waste of time. And, judging from the number of posts and their pathetic quality, an utter failure.

From the Hollywood Reporter:

On Sunday, WB will replace the double dose of sketch comedy Blue Collar in the 9 p.m. hour with a repeat of its hot new Tuesday drama Supernatural. Blue Collar, from Warner Bros. TV, has had the misfortune of facing off against ABC’s top-rated Desperate Housewives in its most recent airing, the two installments of Blue Collar averaged 2.4 million viewers. Still, the show will remain in production and return to the network’s lineup later this season.

Does anyone even use collar stays any more? Or even know what they are?

Associated Press is reporting that SNL cast member Charles Rocket, who was found in a field near his home with his throat slashed, apparently committed suicide.

Now, we know Rocket wasn’t a standup comic (He was, in fact, a television anchorman prior to the SNL hire.), but “the incident,” in which Rocket uttered “fuck” during a sketch on a live telecast, was a bizarre incident that all comics no doubt related to at the time. It was also the subject of much speculation. Did he do it on purpose? Is his career over? What might have motivated him?

He was 56.

You have until Nov. 17 to get a 3/4-lb. Mega Dog at the Westward Ho. Photo credit: Susan Hawkes

It is with a heavy heart that we deliver the news that the Westward Ho will close its doors on Nov. 17, after which it will be demolished to make way for… does it matter? It won’t approximate “the Ho” as we affectionately called it. It won’t come close to the Ho for its loopy, relaxed ambience, it’s cheap beers and margaritas, its representation of Middle Aged Vegas.

Going down with the Ho (or shortly after) will be Slots O’ Fun, Circus Circus (and that slice of Hunter S. Thompson lure), The Stardust and the Frontier. A vast swath of Vegas, erected in the last 40 years or so, will succumb to the momentum that has already claimed the Dunes, the Sands, the Hacienda, the Landmark and the Desert Inn. And although our personal Vegas experience only begins with our first visit in 1988, we still remember all those establishments fondly. And while the new “mega-resorts” are pleasant and charming in their own way, we lament the loss of the funky, older, cheaper spots– the ones with history, the ones sporting glorious black and white portraits from the era when the entertainers created the aura and not the buildings or the decor or the food.

We’re told that the swath of casinos that is so unfortunate as to be situated between the Venetian and Paris will also be obliterated– that’s the Casino Royale, the Barbary Coast, Imperial Palace, Bally’s and Harrah’s. Along with Harrah’s will go the Improv. And, unless and until they find a new home in LV, that’ll be three fewer slots for comics in the desert. We’ve been hearing for some time now that the Trop is scheduled for an appointment with the dynamitologist, too. Three more slots bite the dust when that goes down. (Correction: We have it on good authority that the Trop will remain standing for three more years. If true, this means that the Stop at the Trop will continue as well. And rumors are flying around Vegas that there’s been a management shakeup at the top of the Catch a Rising Star chain, further impeding their re-entry into the Vegas market.)

We hear that the Riv is safe… for now. From our room on the 20th floor, looking north, we can see seven cranes in the not-too-distance. The development– residential and casino-al, is encroaching. The Riv is celebrating its 50th anniversary. The old black and white pics are everywhere– on the walls, the placemats, everywhere. In 1955, Wladziu Valentino Liberace sliced the ribbon on this slice of Vegas history. We were told by one of the maitre d’s that the lounge from which Shecky Greene ruled this town is now Penny Town, a slot enclave just inside the Riv’s northwest corner which opens out onto Las Vegas Blvd.

Comedy, with a capital “C,” is still a major component of the entertainment scene here– Carlin, Clay, Spade, Wayans, Rudner, Wallace– all of them are headlining rooms up and down the strip. But will small-C comedy survive? The room here at the Riv is going strong with great crowds, two shows a night, seven nights a week. It’s deceptively large– 350 maximium occupancy. And it has a great, small club feel. Will mega-resort owners put in 350-seat rooms like this one? Who knows. If they didn’t, would that be the end of small-c comedy? We’re inclined to think not.

When the mega-resort Borgata opened in Atlantic City a couple years ago, the powers-that-be installed the state-of-the-art Borgata Comedy Club. It seats 900, it has a 3-comic format and it is, from all indications, a success. Perhaps this is the wave of the future. Maybe small-c comedy has matured to the point where the Steve Wynn’s of the world are inclined to provide it with glittering 900-seat venues like the one in A.C. Perhaps the outlook is actually better than ever. Perhaps instead of promoting two shows a night in a 350-seat room, they’ll do one show a night with 700 to a thousand. Either way, the crowds get a real kick out of seeing live standup comedy. The two experiences are different– for both the crowds and the comics, but they’re both wildly entertaining. Maybe the large and the medium rooms will co-exist, as they currently do in A.C.

Andrew Dice Clay, in Las Vegas Weekly, on being asked his about his placement as number 95 in Comedy Central’s 100 Greatest Standups of All Time:

“I don’t even buy into shows like that. It’s all comics putting themselves where they want to be. I did arena shows for many years. At a 100 per cent sellout rate– 20,000, 15,000 people a night. I’m the biggest standup comic there ever was as far as straight standup goes. I should have been number one, if they were really being factual about it. And what’s being planned now is for me to do Giants Stadium. I’d like to see somebody do that other than me. That’s going to be the biggest one-man standup show ever in our history of American pop culture. And I’m doing it because nobody else ever could. The only one I’m topping is myself.”

Clay will be a the Luxor October 18 through November 12.

“Success? You can’t get a big head about it. When people stare at me, they could be whispering to their friend, ‘That guy sucks! Have you seen him before? He’s horrible.'”

–David Spade, quoted in What’s On. Spade appeared at the Mirage October 14-15.

“I’ve heard people say I switched (my politics) for career purposes. I defy anybody to say coming out in Hollywood and saying you voted for George Bush can do any good in that community. That’s not a big ice breaker, trust me.”

–Dennis Miller, in Nevada Events and Shows. Miller will be appearing at the MGM Grand October 20-24.

We got the following email:

My name is Brian Catalina. I’m a former stand up turned TV producer who is finishing a documentary film on the world of unknown standup comics. I’m currently looking for stills, film or video of Igby’s Comedy Club (exterior or interior) and vintage footage/stills of the L.A. Improv. I’m also looking for performance tape of standups from the early 80’s thru the early 90’s. And any unusual tape from standup performances (crazy hecklers, fist fights during sets, horrible bombing, etc.) Can you help me get the word out? I will pay for any footage used in the film.

Thanks,

Brian Catalina
Director
Say Something Funny
catalinab@earthlink.net

The decade or so of the modern comedy boom is fertile ground for a documentarian. Combine that with the fact that cheap video cameras boomed at the same time and there should be several hundred thousand hours of video to choose from. (We extracted a reassurance from Mr. Catlaina that any standup comics would be treated with respect.)

We’re still at the Riv, where the hi-speed wireless connection is flickering and always threatening to crap out. So we’ll post three posts under one head and let our savvy readers sort it all out.

Bonnie McFarlane‘s HBO special kicked off at midnight last night. Don’t worry, though, it’ll run many times this month. Check your paper for times.

Slade Ham, proprietor of Comedy Texas, the premiere comedy club in Beaumont, TX, has survived Rita. So, too, apparently, has his club. We got an email from him, exhorting one and all to come on out to the club this weekend. He’ll be headlining htere through the 15th.

Jeff Singer is the producer of Nick At Nite’s Funniest Mom in America 2. He dropped us a line to let us know that they’ll be organizing auditions in 52 venues, seeking a fresh crop of candidates in a second, and more ambitious search for the funniest American woman to reproduce. Hop onto the Nickelodeon website for details. (And it that URL is hinky, we apologize. We’re posting under less than ideal conditions. The laptop is on its side, resting atop a trash can, in a wacky attempt to catch the wireless signal. No telling if it will work long enough for us to hit “post,” but we’re going to give it a try!)

In a previous post, we alerted all to the fact that the magazine’s archives, from June to present, were inaccessible. (We monkeyed around with our archiving settings in the Blogger guts and cheesed the archive location. We were unable to de-cheesify it, no matter how much we swore through clenched teeth.) We never did fix the problem, but we did make the archives appear again. (To access them, click on those links in the lefthand column.)

They’re back now.

The Stagebenders, Mike Burton and Gary Brightwell are at the Improv. Tommy Drake, Al Ducharme and Mike Donovan are at the Comedy Stop at the Trop. Vinnie Favorito appears to have found a home at Binion’s downtown, doing shows Tuesdays thru Saturdays. David Brenner is doing the Shimmer Cabaret Theater at the Hilton. Carlin is a the Stardust, with Dennis Blair opening, as usual. George Wallace is ongoing at the Flamingo.

And we’re doing two shows a night a the Comedy Club at the Riv, with James Lee Reeves, alias Prof. Milo Tremley.

We were in danger of not being able to post without great difficulty because the Male Half of the Staff (who is in charge of matters technical) forgot to pack the keyboard that goes with the laptop. (Having spilled coffee on the ol’ Compaq 1215US some months ago, the workaround solution was a compact keyboard tethered to the laptop’s rear ports.) Not to worry, though: The Ross (“Dress for less!”) just down the street from the Riv sells keyboards! Let that be a lesson to us all!

And we also were pleased to be able to spend some quality Vegas time with Calgary comic Robert Hawkes and his lovely wife Susan. The two were in town for a vacation, staying at the other end of the strip at the Mandalay Bay. We shoehorned them into the first show Monday night and had cocktails last night at Slots O’ Fun. Stay tuned for a full-color photo of the 3/4-lb. Mega Dog that Hawkes ordered, despite our fervent warnings not to!

From FOS Neil Lieberman:

Dearest Shecky Magazine,

This is Neil Leiberman (The Comedy Coach®), your San Francisco connection for comedy. Every year San Francisco State (my alma mater) produces a comedy show to raise money for its athletic department. The comedians are supplied by Yarmy’s Army (Yarmy was Don Adams real last name). Over the years they have showcased Don Knott’s, Bill Dana (a.k.a. Jose Jimenez), Phylis Diller and for the first time this year, Shecky Greene.

I had never had the opportunity to see Shecky live and in person. And considering that he retired a few years ago, I figured that my chances of ever seeing him perform was slim. But, he came out of retirement for this show. Needless to say, he was the closer (because nobody dare follow Shecky), and ripped the roof off the place. Singing, clowning, sweating and working, for the most part, off the top of his head. I just sat there with my mouth open the entire time. The man held the audience in the palm of his hand from the second he walked onstage until his final curtain call and standing ovation.

I have seen Milton Berle, Johnny Carson, Joey Bishop, Jerry Lewis, Don Rickles, Bill Cosby, Richard Pryor, Eddie Murphy, George Carlin, Robert Klein, etc., live, but Shecky was an entirely different animal. It was the purest (not the cleanest) performance I have ever seen. He is playing in a league of his own and the rest of us can only watch in awe.

I thought that it was important and appropriate to share this with the readers of Shecky Magazine. If you ever have the opportunity to see Mr. Greene, run. Run fast. I promise you the night of your life.

— Neil Leiberman (The Comedy Coach®)
www.comedycoach.com

Thanks, Neil. Always nice to know that we named the magazine correctly. (And that’s a pretty impressive list of live comedy performances you’ve seen! You have tons of cred!)

By the time this posts, we’ll be touching down in Las Vegas, arriving just in time to start a week of shows at the Comedy Club at the Riviera. Stop by, if you’re in town. (We’ve already heard from two comedy associates who might stop by.) We hear the Riv has installed wireless internet access, so we plan on keeping the site updated. One way or another, we’ll figure out a way to blog. See you in Vegas, baby!

P.S.: Some of you may have noticed that our Archive links on the lefthand column work only up until June 2005. We’ll work to correct that. We suspect that sometime back in June, possibly in preparation for our trip to Montreal, we jiggled our settings and jammed up the archiving function of our blogger configuration. Annoying.

Comedian/Filmmaker Jeff Ross’ will be on hand for a sneak preview of his wonderful film “Patriot Act” at the Egyptian Theater Thursday, October 13, at 7:30 PM, as part of American Cinematheque’s Alternative Screen Independent Film Showcase.

If you’re in or near Hollywood, and you haven’t seen Ross film yet, GO! We saw the movie in Montreal this past July at the Just For Laughs Festival and it is a fine piece of film making.

SHECKYmagazine columnist Bill Bunker writes:

I just got some great news, and could use your help. After clicking to the Wendy’s Comedy Challenge from your site and showing up at Zanies on a rainy Monday morning to do my three minutes, I have made it into the top 15. Or so they just told me on the phone.

Starting October 10, online scoring will commence at www.wendyscomedychallenge.com and I could use some help spreading the word to vote early and often, as they say here in Chicago. This is still a bit hard to believe, but if I can get in the top 5, I go to Vegas for a showdown.

You heard the man! He needs our help! Here’s a golden opportunity for SHECKYmagazine.com readers to send Bill Bunker to Vegas! If you click on that link above today, you’ll be able to enter your email address and they’ll remind you to come back and vote for Bunker. If you wait until Monday, you’ll be able to voter for Bunker instantly!

This is great! SHECKYmagazine might have a representative at The Comedy Festival, that TBS/HBO conflagration going on in the desert in November! C’mon readers! This might make another great column for Mr. Bunker!

According to a Houston Chronicle article, the desk, clock and other items from the Tonight Show set are to be auctioned today in Dallas.

Among the unique features of the gold-colored, inlaid top desk: a hidden, sliding ashtray holder Carson used to conceal his lit cigarettes; a trash bin; and a lining of orange shag carpet with a burn mark from the time Carson set fire to his index cards after his jokes kept tanking.

We covet the 3-ft. square section of stage that Carson stood on to deliver his monologue from 1985 to 1992. Of course, we don’t have the jack to scoop that item up, but we covet it nonetheless.

Adam Gropman, Dough Hecox, Brian McKim, Chris Rich, Traci Skene, occupying power table at NYC’s Laugh Factory. PHOTO CREDIT: Adam’s sister

We were crawling along in late-stage, rush-hour traffic through Weehawkin, NJ (that scramble of concrete and asphalt and civilization that one oozes through just before rounding the bend to enter the Lincoln Tunnel), when we decided take a spin around the radio dial. We stopped spinning when we heard the immediately identifiable voice of NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg:

“We have done and will continue to do everything we can to protect this city… We will spare no resource, we will spare no expense.”

That kind of talk is never good. We learned that there had been a “specific and credible threat” against the New York City transit system and that the method of terror had been determined to be a bomb.

Excellent timing!

We were headed to the Port Authority Bus Terminal. The PABT is a mere 200 or so steps from the entrance to the Laugh Factory. Their comedy catacombs contained the room where our SHECKYmagazine Show would be held. (“Maximum occupancy: 89,” read the sign just outside the venue alloted to us.)

The PABT is, no doubt, on a DHS short list of so-called “soft targets,” so were just a little edgy. But it provided a convenient place to park our car for our foray into the Big Apple. And the terrorist threat provided us with a convenient excuse in case a crowd failed to materialize for our show. Which it did. Failed, that is.

Sum total of people who unwittingly bought tickets to the SHECKYmagazine Show. NOTE: Larry Miller, Jerry Seinfeld and Jamie Masada are not actually present. NOTE, TOO: These are the real people. They were later given the option of seeing the Emerging Comics Showcase, which they eagerly accepted. We begged one of them to send us the identities of all in their party. We await that email.

We had heard rumblings earlier in the week that ticket sales for many Festival events were… disappointing. As our day arrived, we heard that many of the previous evening’s shows had been cancelled. In a curious way, it becalmed us. We had also received an email from Fest organizers earlier in the day that stated that all or nearly all the Fest’s program that evening was to have free admission. That kind of talk is never good.

SHECKYmagazine columnist Adam Gropman onstage in the empty room, faking a performance for SHECKYmagazine’s camera

We commandeered a corner booth in the spacious Factory lobby/holding tank and awaited the arrival of Chris Rich, Joe Starr, Doug Hecox, Adam Gropman and, eventually, Carole Montgomery (whom Skene mischievously scolded as being “ten minutes late for a show that never happened!”) Skene conferred with Factory personnel at 10 minutes ’til showtime and “called the show,” after also receiving input from the performers and meeting the prospective audience members!

We thanked the four hearty fans. (To be honest, they didn’t purchase tickets specifically for The SHECKYmagazine Show, but had merely purchased tickets for “the 8 o’clock show.” They weren’t so much fans of the magazine as they were fans of our show’s early start time!) The Male Half dialed up Louis Ramey and told him, “stay home and thanks anyway.” Ramey was very understanding.

All that remained was to order a round or two of drinks and try our best to create a Fest vibe and make the best of our trip. We ran into Andrew Clay, a Kiwi comic in town for the Fest. We last encountered Andrew at the Just For Laughs Fest in 2000. We also ran into Brett Alan. It had been eight years since we worked with him– he was the house emcee at the legendary Westward Ho comedy club in Grand Forks, ND, at the time. (Our week with him was the next to last week of his 13-month “comedy boot camp.” He moved to NYC three years ago.) Philly comics Dena Blizzard and Coleman Green stopped by the table. They were participating in the Emerging Comics Contest upstairs.

Considering the grim nature of the proceedings (bomb threats, cancelled shows, etc.) everyone seemed to have a swell time. But it’s always disappointing to get geared up for a slot at a Festival and then have the comedy rug pulled out from under you. And in such an excruciatingly slow fashion. We once again thank all the people who spent their hard-earned time and money to converge on NYC for this event.

From the UK Guardian article, “Breaking America’s grip on the net “:

A number of countries represented in Geneva, including Brazil, China, Cuba, Iran and several African states, insisted the US give up control, but it refused. The meeting “was going nowhere,” Hendon says, and so the EU took a bold step and proposed two stark changes: a new forum that would decide public policy, and a “cooperation model” comprising governments that would be in overall charge.

Much to the distress of the US, the idea proved popular. Its representative hit back, stating that it “can’t in any way allow any changes” that went against the “historic role” of the US in controlling the top level of the internet.

But the refusal to budge only strengthened opposition, and now the world’s governments are expected to agree a deal to award themselves ultimate control. It will be officially raised at a UN summit of world leaders next month and, faced with international consensus, there is little the US government can do but acquiesce.

China? Cuba? Iran? Controlling the internet? What a great idea! Why hadn’t anyone come up with this idea sooner?

The latest column from Doug Hecox, Writer of Wrongs, has him dropping such names as Emo Phillips, Dom Irrera, Chris Coccia, Henny Youngman and Marshall Berle (pictured with Hecox, above, at left, photo credit: Dianne Chai).

Recently, I was in Tampa, Florida, and had lunch with one of the most interesting people I’ve met in a while– Marshall Berle. He’s Milton Berle’s nephew and, despite a very brief go as a standup comic in the Los Angeles/Las Vegas area, he eventually built a very successful career in the rock and roll business. He discovered the Beach Boys, for example. He also discovered Van Halen, briefly employed a secretary named Belinda Carlisle of the Go-Gos, and managed Ratt for several years. Mr. Berle even directed two Ratt videos, which is why his Uncle Miltie actually makes a cameo in them.

Hit the Laugh Factory Times Square website and click on that tiny link that says “Buy tickets” and a small window will pop up allowing you to purchase tickets to the SHECKYmagazine show at the New York Underground Comedy Festival! C’mon, New York City! It’s a great (and inexpensive) way to come to a great NYC club, see a show of spectacular comics (at a low, low price of just a hair over 62 cents per comic!) and then hang out and drink with some of the people who make SHECKYmagazine one of the coolest places to surf in the entire WWW! Do it for the comics! (See below!) We’re counting on you! Call (212) 586-7829, ext. 1, and reserve a seat now! It’s a great way to spend a splendid fall evening in The Large Apple.

And we’ll reiterate that the entire festival benefits Operation Uplink!

For the second straight year, SHECKYmagazine.com will be featured in a showcase show at the New York Underground Underground Comedy Festival! The editors and publishers of the WWW’s most beloved magazine about standup comedy will perform on one of NYC’s premiere stages and welcome SHECKYmagazine columnists and friends for a great night of standup comedy, cameraderie and general frivolity!

Thursday night, OCTOBER 6 at 8 PM, at the Laugh Factory, will be the SHECKYmagazine.com, featuring Joe Starr, Doug Hecox, Adam Gropman, Carole Montgomery, Chris Rich, Brian McKim, Traci Skene and Louis Ramey. Tickets are $5! There are only 100 seats, so make plans to attend now!

The venue that will host the SHECKYmagazine Show is one of many at the Laugh Factory comedy megaplex! In addition to our show at the Factory that night, the other venues will be hosting Jason Good, Bobby Johnson, Ben Morrison, Dan Allen, Baratunde, Lizzy Cooperman, Dante Nero, Andrew Clay, Rachel Feinstein, Sasha Guillaume, Brett Alan, Ellen Karis, Grant Cooper, Clara Bigl, Margot Lietman, Johnny Watson, Rick Younger, Lori Chase, Poppi Kramer and Karith Foster at 7 PM for the Laugh Factory Auditions Show. And the Emerging Comics Contest with Stan Chen, Dena Blizzard, Natalie Gray, Coleman Green, Gab Bonesso, Jamie Pierce, Barron Vaughn, Brian Longwell, Abby Rosin and Mike Burton at 8 PM.

At 8:30 PM, The Traditions Show, honoring Freddy Roman, will also feature Judy Gold, Ross Bennett, Cory Kahaney, Mickey Freeman, Stewie Stone and Scott Blakeman.

There are still more shows to be announced for that night on the other Factory stages!! With all that comedy going on under one roof, the Factory should be the epicenter of the Festival for that evening, so stop on by, grab a $5 seat, enjoy the show and say hello!

Attention industry: If you’d like comps, please contact us or contact (212)501-1799 for reservations.

The Laugh Factory is located at 303 West 42nd Street @ 8th Ave., in New York, NY and their phone number is (212)586-7829.

As it says on the New York City Underground Comedy Festival website, most of our partner clubs take reservations directly. Also check back on the site to see what shows and comics have been added!

We’re a little late to the party, but Mike Weatherford of the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported on Sept. 22 that:

It’s official. The Luxor pyramid will have a Carrot Top for the next three years.

The red-headed prop comic (aka Scott Thompson) will take a three-year residency at the hotel starting Nov. 24, after nine years of periodic engagements headlining the MGM Grand’s Hollywood Theater. […]

Carrot Top will share the Atrium Theater with the topless revue “Fantasy,” and will open after the current early show, Toxic Audio, wraps its engagement Nov. 16.

“Scott doesn’t have an ego. He just wants to do a good show. It doesn’t have to be a ‘Carrot Top Theater,’ ” Propper says. Besides, sharing expenses with “Fantasy” helps keep the ticket price down to $42.

Propper, who also manages comedian David Brenner and hypnotist Anthony Cools, also says he prefers a rental, or “four-wall” deal to a guarantee because with the latter, “someone else is in charge of your destiny” and “everyone gets greedy,” driving ticket prices up.

Carrot Top’s low-dough show debuted on the Strip in 1996, making the comedian, now 38, an early draw for the younger demographic so prized by casinos. But his real fame came four years ago when he began doing TV commercials for AT&T. The comedian did 53 spots for the just-concluded series, filming 12 of them in Las Vegas

Emphasis ours. Once again, fame is solidified or augmented by television, specifically by a television commercial.

On the road for a decade (and getting ink just because his show took up two tractor trailers), it was inevitable that The Top would take up residence on The Strip eventually.

Ray Romano “hasn’t retired from standup,” according to an Associated Press report. Romano clarifies things:

“I don’t know if I will do that (standup),” Romano told The Associated Press. “I love standup and I haven’t given it up.”

All clear now?

From the Associated Press bio:

“Born in Atlanta, Russell launched his television career as Officer Anderson in the 1961 television series “Car 54, Where are You?” He also appeared in the 1994 film version.”

A Nipsey Russell fan site claims that he performed in Vaudeville. We know him from his multiple appearances on game shows.

His name became a punchline. Not because the man himself was laughable, mind you, it was just a classic comedian name. Where are today’s Nipseys or Sheckys or Slappys? Why do we all have such serious names?

Photo courtesy of AP.

L to R: Alan Marx, Chris Coccia, Chris Rich, Kris Clayton

Described thusly: “Some of America’s funniest comics have joined forces to raise funds for The American Red Cross to help support the hurricane relief effort.”

L to R: Stephen Geary, Theresa Krallinger, Brian McKim

In a show hosted by comic and Philly Newsgroup moderator Theresa Krallinger, Alan Marx, Chris Coccia, Chris Rich, Mike Vecchione, Stephen Geary, Regina Smith, Jay Black, Brian McKim and Traci Skene spun out a 2-hour, 20-minute show at Rascals in Cherry Hill, NJ, Sunday night to raise money for all the soggy victims in LA, MS and AL. A splendid time was had by all. Special thanks to Rascals’ Kris Clayton!

L to R: Jay Black, Regina Smith, Traci Skene

We see a banner at the top of our Yahoo! page today that promises to take us to a page where you can “Get famous faster than you can say, ‘That thing got a Hemi®?'” Of course, we can’t resist. Especially since we see the poor bastard (who used to be somewhat famous by virtue of his appearance on those wildly popular TV spots) excised from the ad and his face replaced with the classic “YOUR FACE HERE!”

So we click:

AUDITION

Give us your best HEMI® Guy/Gal #2 at one of our open auditions. Create your own character. Make us laugh. Make us cry. Just make sure you show your HEMI® spirit.

Audition dates and locations:

* 10/1: ESPN Tailgate Gridiron Blowout, Tempe, Arizona
* 10/7-10/8: ESPN Tailgate Gridiron Blowout, Texas State Fair, Dallas, TX (HEMI® Guy #1 is also scheduled to make an appearance!)
* 10/8: LA Event TBD

If you can’t make it to one of these events, don’t worry. Submit your VHS, Mini-DV, DVD or an MPEG file on CD via U.S. mail. Tapes need to be less than one minute in length. Submissions must be postmarked by October 8, 2005 . Go to http://www.hemistars.com/ for submission application and instructions

Do whatever you’d like to show your acting ability, your HEMI® spirit and Dodge attitude. Try to include the phrases, “That thing gotta HEMI®” and “Sweet.” Give it your best shot… Who knows? You could be on your way to HEMI® Stardom.

Do you know someone who embodies all things HEMI®? Click here to tell a friend

Of course, “Hemi® Guy #1,” as he is referred to in the above ad copy, is standup comic Jon Reep, who has been Reep-ing the benefits of “Hemi® Stardom” for some time now. (He got the role the conventional way: In a harshly-lit room, in front of casting people, sent there by a commercial agent, etc.) People show up to his (comedy club) shows and go apeshit when finally he utters the immortal phrase. His notoriety is a fascinating thing to behold. (What’s that you say? TV killed comedy? Yeah, right– Even exposure via the much-despised television commercial is a means to fill seats.)

They must have dumped Hemi® Guy #2 (or he is uncomfortable with his Hemi® Stardom and has chosen another path). No matter. You all have six days to submit your video. Gentlemen, Ladies, start your Hemi® engines.

We were combing our stats recently and we came across a URL. We’re kinda fuzzy on what it was/is. Near as we can tell, it was posted on UbuWeb (which describes itself as “a completely independent resource dedicated to all strains of the avant-garde, ethnopoetics, and outsider arts.”). It’s billed as “SOME DIFFERENCES BETWEEN POETRY & STAND-UP” and our favorite passage might be:

Poets think they know all about time: meter, iambs, syllabics, caesuras. And all that. Stand-ups know all about time. Stand-ups handle time. The only people better at handling time than stand-ups are convicts & mothers.

There’s an HTML version and a PDF version. Must reading for any comic. (We advise poets to stay away.)

We are not clear on who the author is. He might be an Irish poet. We’ll wait by the inbox for someone to claim credit. When we find out, you’ll find out. Either way, it’s brilliant.

Tomorrow (Sunday) night at 7 PM EDT, from the official Star TV synopsis:

Star! goes behind the scenes at the 2005 Just for Laughs comedy festival. Stephen Colbert and producer Ben Karlin reveal some of the secrets of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. One of Canada’s funniest exports “Harland Williams” talks to us about returning to the festival after a three year absence and gives us a gift. We also sit down with Penn Jillette and Paul Provenza and discuss their controversial film The Aristocrats. The authors of He’s Just Not That Into You” , Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo explain how the best seller was breaking up relationships before it even hit the shelves.

FOS Johnson sent us a videotape of this very show from a couple years back and we found it very enjoyable. (We’re still mystified as to why Harland’s name is in quotes. Perhaps it’s a Harland Williams impersonator.) In an earlier post, we proclaimed the Star! coverage to be the next best thing to reading SHECKYmagazine coverage of the fest. A distant second, but enlightening nonetheless!

From comic Byron Yee:

I haven’t seen anything posted about the passing of comic Warren Thomas who died a little over three weeks ago but word did not spread until last Monday. I’m not the best person to furnish an obit for him but I wanted to get the word out for all those who knew and loved him.

Warren Thomas, a San Francisco comedy legend and past winner of the SF Comedy Competition, passed away earlier this month in New York City. He was one of the giants of the San Francisco comedy scene in the late 80’s and early 90’s and was deserving of being known as a comic’s comic. Watching Warren riff on stage was like listening to jazz. His bits would always spin out of control and he was infamous for doing everything to lose the crowd, only to bring them back. There will be a rememberance for Warren Thomas on Sunday evening, October 9th, at the San Francisco Punchline.