Tonight at 9 PM EDT, on BET, of course:

Nominees for the Platinum Mic Stand-Up Award are Adele Givens, Alex Thomas, DL Hughley, Kevin Hart and Sheryl Underwood

Nominees for Outstanding DVD Release are Bruce Bruce, “Bruce Bruce,” Chris Rock, “Never Scared,”– Dave Chappelle, “Chappelle Show, 2nd Season,” DL Hughley, “Live” –Steve Harvey, “One Man.”

Infinity CEO Joel Hollander on replacing Howard Stern:

“As far as I know, no one in the industry has ever replaced 27 morning shows at once,” Hollander said in hinting why final decisions on long-term plans might take some time even once the replacements hit the airwaves.

Suggesting that the successors for Stern soon will be unveiled, he said the search was more difficult than some, including industry veterans, had thought. “We went from Jon Stewart to Whoopi Goldberg and Geraldo Rivera — a lot of people thought it would be easy.”

Huh? Does this mean they approached those three? We’re not sure. It’s unclear.

Whoopi on radio? Disastrous. Stewart splitting his time between TV and radio? Don’t make us laugh.

We’re of the opinion that trying to replace Stern with one huge star– or five or six huge stars– at once is a formula for radio disaster. The big difference between Stern and all the people they are rumored to seek to shoehorn into Stern’s spot(s) is that Stern, before he was King of All Media, knew radio inside and out. These others don’t. Trying to make them radio personalities is fraught with difficulties. Some may display a natural affinity for the medium. Trying to groom them all at once will be a miserable failure. Why don’t they let 27 local personalities or teams give it a shot in their home markets and see if anyone emerges? (Let’s face it, Howard Stern wouldn’t be given a chance to replace Howard Stern using the current Infinity logic.)

The only non-radio types with a chance of survival will be standup comics. (We don’t count Stewart or Goldberg, see above.) It oughta be interesting.

The television executives have once again been embarassed. At least they didn’t embarass themselves this time– they left it to someone else, a report by a media buying firm. Cynthia Littleton, for the Hollywood Reporter, in an article on how wonderful the numbers were on the debuts of Everybody Hates Chris and My Name Is Earl:

A study released this month by media buying agency Magna Global found that despite the conventional comedy-is-dead wisdom, viewers actually are watching slightly more comedy programming on TV these days per week than they did 10 years ago (or 4.58 hours per week per household last season, compared with 4.14 hours per week in the 1994-95 season, to be specific.)

The big difference is the source of those laughs. Ten years ago, most comedy viewing stemmed from first-run broadcast network programs. According to Magna Global’s study of Nielsen Media Research data, nowadays the majority of time is spent on repeats of vintage and contemporary shows — think Friends, Seinfeld, Home
Improvement and The Simpsons— via cable and off-network syndication.

As Magna Global analyst Steve Sternberg notes in his “Comedies on Television” report, viewers haven’t given up on the notion of small-screen yucks, they’re just spending time with their favorites while “waiting for a new one to join the club.”

It’s an industry cliche that the next big comedy hit is going to come out of left field from the most unexpected source. If last week is any indication, the leading edge of left field this season just might be 8 p.m. Thursday night on UPN.

Sitcoms are dead, say the execs, with finality, every chance they get. Well, yes and no. The sitcoms you have been creating might lead one to believe that. If you build good ones, they will come.

Of course, the critics and the media don’t help the situation any. Note the article above. The headline of Littleton’s piece was “Comedy still kicking as ‘Chris,’ ‘Earl’ sizzle,” but the “leading edge of left field” leaves out mention of Earl (Tuesdays at 9, for those of you with clocks and/or calendars). The media and critical frenzy centered on Rock’s sitcom has been way out of proportion. (We haven’t seen either show, but we were totally oblivious to Earl and we couldn’t get away from hype about Chris.) So, while Earl may be a better show, expect three or four clones of Rock’s show to be greenlighted in the next few months, as the TV goofballs seek to please the critics and media.

Talent Submissions
To be considered as a performer for the 2006 U.S. Comedy Arts Festival, please submit your materials (DVD, CD, VHS tape, press kit, upcoming performance schedules, articles, etc.) to the address listed below before November 7th, 2005.

NO WRITTEN MATERIALS WILL BE ACCEPTED.

Please include the best means of contacting you (e-mail, phone, address, agent, manager, publicist, etc.) Once we’ve reviewed your material, we will contact you if we are interested in potentially booking you for the Festival. Whether or not you are invited to perform at the Festival, please note that submission materials will not be returned.

Also, periodically check out website as we will be posting announcements and information regarding the Festival.

Mailing Address:

Talent Department
U.S. Comedy Arts Festival
2500 Broadway, Ste. 400
Santa Monica, CA 90404

Sincerely,

Cameron Burr
Producer,
Programming & Talent

Don Adams has died at the age of 82. Read an obit or two.

“It was a special show that became a cult classic of sorts, and I made a lot of money for it,” he remarked of Get Smart in a 1995 interview. “But it also hindered me career-wise because I was typed. The character was so strong, particularly because of that distinctive voice, that nobody could picture me in any other type of role.”

He got that gig after he was cast as the bumbling house detective on the ill-fated Bill Dana Show. (Which also starred, IIRC, the man who played Dr. Smith on Lost In Space as the Desk Clerk.)

We almost met Don Adams once… missed him by that much.

We attended a meeting of Yarmy’s Army, a loose affiliation of standup comics, directors, writers and others who regularly commandeered the top of a deli in Los Angeles to share plans, tell stories and generally have a swell time. The Army was formed to honor the memory of Adams’ late brother, Dick Yarmy. They did charity shows all over the U.S… and miniature shows on top of Jerry’s Deli.

Jeffrey Zaslow of the Wall Street Journal filed a story in Saturday’s edition on the phenomenon of standup comedy channels on satellite radio services.

Satellite-radio services aren’t dependent on advertising, and comedians say this is liberating. When comics appear on terrestrial-radio morning shows, “stations are scared to death that listeners will hear something they don’t like and then call up Kraft and say, ‘I’m not buying Velveeta!’ ” Mr. (Bobby) Slayton says.

Say what? Having your bits turn up on satellite radio is liberating? How about doing the bits in the clubs where the material was originally peformed and recorded in the first place? Would that not be the really liberating experience? We’re already liberated. It would seem that everyone is late to our party. And what is Slayton talking about? Who cares if the local morning zoo asks you to knock out a fuck or two here or there?

Don’t get us wrong, we’re anxious to get our stuff on XM. We’ve been urging comics to send in their stuff for some time now. But it’s merely another medium– and this one just happens to accept “raw” material and doesn’t care about language or subject material restrictions because they’re on the bird. Liberating? Not really.

Mr. Zaslow seems painfully embarassed that he’s listening to comedy in the first place. In the lede, he refers to us comedians as “neurotic, cranky, potty-mouthed attention-seekers.” (Hey, we figure it’s for comic effect… Somehow, though, we aren’t laughing.) He seems preoccupied with making excuses for his habit. Get a spine, man! You work for the WSJ, not the national headquarters for the Baptist Church USA! It’s a joke! And it’s okay to laugh at jokes, no matter how “politically incorrect.” At least it was until about 1990 or so.

Zaslow can’t get over the fact that some of the material he hears on XMRadio’s Channel 150 is scatological or describes bodily functions or is graphic. We’d bet a thousand dollars, however, that Mr. Zaslow has seen “The Cook, The Theif, His Wife and Her Lover” at least six times, owns a DVD copy, and will tell anyone who’ll listen that it’s pure genius. I smell a double standard. Once again, comedians are held to some sort of ridiculous set of rules. The critics will go on and on about any other artist’s freedom to express himself. But when we do it, we’re neurotic, cranky, potty-mouthed attention seekers. Have we not been told, thousands of times daily, that the purpose of art is to shock? Except, of course, when the primary purpose is to amuse.

The Smoking Gun has ferretted out a contract for Bill Cosby’s personal appearances that is of special interest because in it, Cosby “now forbids promoters from advertising his hometown concerts in either the Philadelphia Inquirer or the Philadelphia Daily News.” A similar ban also exists on advertising in the Boston Globe. Cosby is/was upset about those newspaper’s coverage of his recent sex assault lawsuit.

Other requests include chilled Evian water, one roll of “high-quality toilet paper” and two bars of Neutrogena Bath soap (“Please remove the cardboard package and cellophane wrapper.”). Fascinating. And all we usually request is a waist-high stool onstage.

Jacques Seinberg’s NYTimes article (Free reg. req) on Jeff Garlin says some nice things–“..there has never been a sidekick quite like Jeff Greene, the fictional Mr. David’s fictional manager.”

Mr. Garlin, 43, also plays an important role off camera on Curb, as one of five executive producers. That title serves, at least in part, as an acknowledgment from Mr. David that the series might not have materialized had Mr. Garlin not broached the rough idea for it over lunch at a Koo-Koo-Roo chicken restaurant in Beverly Hills in the late 1990’s.

Anyone care to read the SHECKYmagazine.com interview of Garlin?

Mark Ridley sends along the following for your consideration:

Comics, you’ve given your material away in interviews and on satellite radio for a long time. Isn’t it about time you earned a ROYALTY on those archived performances? Satellite radio has a handful of listeners compared to the tens of MILLIONS on terrestrial radio. I want to introduce you to a brand new income source– Handheld Comedy. They use radio stations nationwide to promote your performances and deliver them via podcasting and internet download from their website. You’ll receive a 10per cent royalty on every sale of your downloadable CD or recorded live performance that they sell.

Interested? Just send your CD(s) to Mark Ridley’s Comedy Castle, 269 E. Fourth St., Royal Oak, MI 48067. This is a stunning new concept and, as someone in the business for 26 years, the most exciting I’ve seen for comics. Email me with any questions: mark@handheldcomedy.com.

Stunning new concept? Maybe. We’ll see. It has puzzled us that XMRadio, with all of its technological advancement, hasn’t simultaneously developed an online presence that seeks to create an internet-based channel that enables a listener (an online listener or a satellite listener) to hop onto the XM site and determine the artist, the CD title, and the price, and, after a couple dozen keystrokes, purchase the CD.

XM is good for comics. In addition to hearing the comic’s work, we see the comic’s name. However, we’ve been frustrated by the fact that we can’t go onto XM’s website and see who’s on the bird at any given moment, who’s just been on the bird, who’s coming up on the bird, etc. It would only be a short hop to “I just heard the funniest guy on XM (clatter, clatter, clatter of keyboard)– It’s Lord Carret! I’m having his new CD sent to my brother for Christmas!” Bang. CD sale.

Maybe this Handheldcomedy thing will be a radio/internet hybrid which will fill that void.

One always wonders what is going through the minds of certain audience members when one is doing one’s act. Or… perhaps one doesn’t. But… one will now.

The Female Half was scouring the WWW last night and she came across the site of a citizen blogger who happened to catch the Male Half at a club appearance sometime last year. Said blogger offered this appraisal of The Male Half:

Funny guy. He has a completely different approach to standup than the other two. He runs an online comedy magazine. McKim reminded me of a man I know who I wouldn’t consider a comedian so it drove me crazy through his whole thing, but like I said, funny guy.

Oh, this is going in the press kit, to be sure. “He (reminds) me of a man I know who I wouldn’t consider a comedian… funny guy!” Maybe on the business cards!

Need we say more? (Yes. The Omnipop site (the website of Andy’s “people,” says that Andy “panels on Late Night with David Letterman” on Friday. After we recovered from the news that “panel” was a verb, we wondered… what is going to happen? Has Dave instituted a new “okay” sign for a new generation of standup comics? Does Andy have a new project which can only be dissected via panelling? Hmmm… Very mysterious. TIVO alert.)

FOS Lord Carrett sends along the following alert:

Comedy legend Emo Philips wraps up his two-month run at The Steve Allen Theater by inviting Lord Carrett and Tom Ryan to guest on his final show on Monday, September 26!

The Steve Allen Theater is in Hollywood, Inside CFI, at:
4773 Hollywood Blvd (two blocks West of Vermont.)

Call (323)960-7785 for info, or visit:
See Lord’s website or click on Tickets

This is one of the finer bills anyone is likely to see, inside Hollywood or out. If we lived west of San Bernardino, we’d be there.

Check out this link to see chunks of The Daily Show set being auctioned off for charity on eBay.

The Female Half of the Staff, who’s been listening to the radio all day, says, “There’s a flight outta Burbank, headed to NY…whaddya suppose the odds are that there’s a comic on it?” And she’s got CNN on and she’s cycling through all the cable news outlets.

We kick it around for a few minutes over dinner. It was leaving kinda late… Comics in LA almost always fly to gigs “day of.” Hmmm… not sure if there would be.

Then we get this today, from Adam Gropman:

Hey, guys: Check this out. My buddy David Race called me late last night with a breathless report of this crazy Jet Blue landing-gear malfunction/near crash story that I had been unaware of until he called because I was away from media news outlets since around 4PM. Anyway, what made the story more pertinent for us, David told me, was that when the news went to do a sort of close up on a passenger who had a video camera and and had taped a “goodbye and farewell” to his girlfriend in hopes that she’d see it after the plane crashed, that passenger was Dave Reinitz, an L.A. comedian, producer of the Uncle Clyde’s Comedy Contest, and talent manager with H2F Productions! We both know Dave, see him around, and I did his contest just a few weeks ago.

You can see more about Dave Reinitz at his own website as well as H2F and Uncle Clyde’s sites.

The Female Half is a genius.

Today’s Philadelphia Inquirer has a swell article on Richard Lewis by David Hiltbrand (Free reg. req.)

The oddest acting credit on Lewis’ resume never happened. He’s listed on the essential showbiz site IMDB as a cornerman in Cinderella Man, Ron Howard’s boxing fable.

“Not only was I not in it,” Lewis protests, “but I never even saw it. People kept asking me about it and I thought, ‘Was I the trainer? Am I drinking again?’

“Maybe I should stop denying it,” he continues. “If I had a nervous breakdown, when I do crack up, it’ll give me something better to talk to the other patients about. ‘I loved working with Ron Howard. It was one of the greatest experiences of my film life.’ “

The occasion is Lewis’ appearance at the TLA (Theater of the Living Arts), a funky old repertory cinema on South St. (The fabled South St. made famous by song and the former home of the Funny Bone, then Catch A Rising Star and currently the Laff House.) The TLA’s perfect for standup. (The Male Half performed there, back in the open mike days, opening for Airplane in 1982!)

Good to see that Philly is bringing in name comedy acts, into non-traditional venues– and doubly good to see that the Inky is spilling ink on those acts. Also nice to see SHECKYmagazine quoted in the occasional article:

“His act, his persona is a schematic for Jewish humor,” said Brian McKim, editor of the comedy Web site SheckyMagazine.com, by e-mail. “He gets right to the point. He’s never more than a few pained utterances away from his guilt, his despair. He has embarked on a 30-year therapy session, yet, thankfully, he has never found a cure.”

Always a pleasure to fire up the Blurb-O-Matic for a good cause!

A Globe and Mail article on hometown boy Harland Williams seeks to corral all the various projects that Williams curently has his fingers in. As a bonus, they give you a recap of how he got here.

In school, however, he never aspired to class-clown status. “That tended to go the John Belushi types, the masters of the obvious. I’d come chugging in after and try to top them with something more clever.”

At one point, his father suggested Williams might want to become a priest– he had attended a Catholic private school. Later, they tried to get him a job at a muffin store.

Instead, he chose comedy, and while he was a fan of many comedians, he chose not to model himself on any one performer. “I hope it doesn’t sound too self-absorbed, but I tried not to have comic influences, because then they would influence what I did. I admired Ellen DeGeneres, Steven Wright and Steve Martin in the early days, but I wanted to create my own vibe.”

Rick Jenkins writes that his Kvetch Board has the results of the recent Boston contest, complete with who advanced, who were finalists and who won, placed and showed.

Click here to view that info!

Above is the happy couple atop a small mountain of cupcakes.

In the heart of Manhattan’s theater district, in the subterranean palace that is home to Caroline’s, a crowd of family members, standup comics and other invited guests wished the newly-married (Saturday, Sept. 17) couple well.

A slide show of photos taken from the ceremony played on overhead TV monitors as folks dined on mini quesadillas, cajun shrimp and beef skewers, later segueing into pasta, chicken and salad, all deliciously prepared. Jim Norton was Vos’ best man but he wasn’t present on this night. Corey Kahaney, Marina Franklin, Dan Naturman, Dave Mordal, Bill Burr, Patrice O’Neal, Keith Robinson, Eric McMahon, Sue Costello, Vinnie Brand, Collette Hawley, Jessica Kirson and Greg Giraldo were present. (As were many more that we just simply could not identify.) The guest book had a healthy number of people from places like Saskatoon and This Lake and That Mountain (whom, we suspect, were from Bonnie’s side). A fine time and an open bar was had by all!

The bride looked lovely. The groom dashing. (And he was much happier than the above pic might lead one to believe. Mr. Giraldo was taking a picture at the same time, so Mr. Vos’ attention was divided.)

Greg Giraldo with a headlock on Jessica Kirson

The happy couple will be performing together for the first time as husband and wife at Giggles in Seattle, Sept. 29 throught Oct. 1, before departing for their honeymoon at an undisclosed location.

SHECKYmagazine Publishers Brian McKim & Traci Skene with Rich Francese Photo credit: Ken Misrok (Corey Kanahey’s husband)

We note that Tom Wilson will be opening for Ian Bagg at Nashvile Zanies for a week next month. Wilson, who portrayed Biff in the Back to the Future franchise, started out life as a comedian at the Comedy Works in Philadelphia back in 1980 or thereabouts.

The Male Half of the Staff mentioned Wilson in a column about reaching a comfort level when it comes to how much or how little material a comedian should feel compelled to write. (The column, entitled “Stupid Cruelty.” was spotted by a Wilson friend, who sent him an email with our mag’s URL and Wilson plowed through a lot of our archives, becoming a fan of the mag, eventually contacting us to let us know how much he liked our humble pub.

We eventually got an email from Wilson, after he took mild offense at the Male Half’s characterization of his early days in SoCal. We eventually cleared things up with a an author’s note:

(Author’s note: After some recent back and forth with Mr. Wilson himself via email, he made it clear that clarification on this point was in order– Wilson wanted it known that he was never “one of Mitzi’s boys.” The term, as I understood it, was not a pejorative one, merely an inidcation that Wilson became a regular at the world famous Comedy Store in Hollywood. However, it has been brought to my attention that the term had considerable… weight… among those who were around the scene at that time. We apologize for any misunderstanding.)

We take this opportunity to apologize to Mr. Wilson again and make it clear that he was nobody’s “boy,” not then, not now!

And now he’s on the road again– at least he’ll be at Zanies in Nashville, Oct. 12-16

Ryan Stout won… we think. We were on the SF Comedy newsgroup and that seems to be the consensus. So… congratulations… we think. There’s nothing on Stout’s site to indicate that he actually has won. And the Boston Fest itself still has Tom Cotter up there. So… congratulations, we think.

HBO gives viewers a chance to get to know the performers on their One Night Stands, by running interviews with each on their website. The above link goes to the Louis CK chat.

HBO: Were you ever taken under somebody’s wing and shown the ropes?

Louis CK: There was a guy named D.J. Hazard who was just the weirdest comedian. He had this cult following, and he was really mysterious and interesting. I just worshipped the guy, and he took me under his wing. He used to let me do a set on his show every Thursday night at this place called Play It Again, Sam’s. I would have to run the tech stuff for him and help him a little bit, and then he’d put me on the stage. I’d bomb every night, but he didn’t mind. I was f***ing up his show, and he was like, ‘just keep trying’. So I owe a lot to that guy.

With communication being the way it is these days (very good) and with transportation being so advanced in 2005, we’re puzzled that Mr. CK refers to Hazard in the past tense.

We’ve known DJ since our 80’s Boston experiences and have hung out with him in such diverse locales as Syracuse, Los Angeles and Montreal… and we run into Mr. Hazard in the flesh on occasion just by accident. (He was on our showcase in last year’s NYUCF) and we’ve invited him to be on our Oct. 6 show this year. He’s also very gettable via his website, Earthbase Hazard.

Delicious tales of studio head stupidity in the Yahoo! Entertainment account of the making of Paul Reiser‘s “The Thing About My Folks,” his movie starring him and Peter Falk.

After he wrote the script, Reiser took it to every studio in town. Several executives asked him to rewrite it for a younger audience. One said that if Reiser would play the father and make the son an 8-year-old, the studio might fund it.

“Somebody said, ‘What if they find a suitcase and there’s drug money in it.’ I said: ‘When does that happen? That doesn’t happen in real life. That happens in a bad movie, and by the way, you’ve got plenty of those on your shelf.'”

Falk laughed. Reiser, who told the story, did not.

In fact, Reiser finally decided to make the movie his way. He found backers, hired actors, a crew and a director.

D.I.Y., the new mantra in Hollywood. Embraced by standup comics with a vengeance. Comics are ornery. Many don’t like waiting around for other people to do things for them, especially when they don’t seem to “get it.”

Just got a press release in the inbox. We won’t ID the sender, to spare him/her any embarassment.

Legendary comedy Producer, George Schlatter will be the special guest tonight, Monday Sept 19 at the SAG Board Room. George is the creator and producer of the American Comedy Awards. For you youngsters, George Schlatter is to Comedians and Comedy Specials as Norman Lear is to Sitcoms.(Emphasis ours!)

Norman Lear? Sherwood Schwartz, maybe. And that’s stretching it. What has George Schlatter done for standup… really? He produced an award show that eventually excised the award for standup! And before that, he produced a standup show that made the comics dance during the closing credits while the peppy theme song played and the camera occasionally found– you guessed it– producer George Schlatter himself (surprise)!

From FOS Lisa Corrao:

The Miami Improv is hosting a show to raise money for the victims of Hurricane Katrina. It will be held on Wednesday, October 5, at 8:30 PM, and will showcase several of South Florida’s favorite local comedians. There will even be a special appearance by Miami Dolphins Cheerleader, Julie Kick, who is also one of the comics. The other comedians (who, apparently, aren’t cheerleaders but are, nonetheless, perky) include Joe Pustizzi, Lisa Corrao, and Clyde Gordon. It will be hosted by Hansen Sinclair and headlined by the happy man with the angry name, Dexter Angry. Of course, all of this is just gravy because you’re coming out to help the Red Cross! Hope to See You There!! Tickets cost only $5 which will be donated to the Red Cross.

The Hollywood Reporter’s Ray Richmond’s review says that David Spade‘s new show doesn’t measure up:

But the premiere winds up misfiring more often than it connects with various jabs, hooks, sucker punches and haymakers, too often going in for outlandish spoof at the expense of cleverness and irony.

No offense, but we wouldn’t go to the HR for expert commentary on humor, cleverness or irony. We’ll refer you to another review, this one on TVSquad.com, a blog about television, which says:

The real core of the show is Spade himself, and just like people who are sick of mainstream news turn to The Daily Show for respite, people sickened by the fawning, super-saccharine world of infotainment will find plenty to love about this show.

The TVSquad review was also more informative. At least they thought to include the name of the network upon which Mr. Spade’s new show was airing (Comedy Central).

From the New York Daily News, Lloyd Grove, in his Lowdown says that Chong is mad at Cheech, calling his ex-partner a sellout. Cheech was ready:

The 59-year-old Marin retorted to Lowdown: “Gramps is a little old. It’s so sad when stoners get to the AARP age, you know? Who knows what’s on Tommy’s mind! It’s the Alzheimer’s age.”

Ouch…man! Weren’t these two just talking about reuniting and touring?

Chong is promoting the latest slice of what we like to call “reality cinema,” a documentary about his recent arrest for selling bongs. (Does everyone have a documentary these days?)

Marin is directing “Latinologues” on Broadway at the Helen Hayes Theater. (Does everyone have some sort of ____logue these days?)

The largest comedy festival west of Montreal starts in earnest in four days, but, we a assured by Fest Bigwig Will Davis that there’s plenty going on as we type. According to the CanWest Comedy Festival’s (Named after the Canadian media conglomerate/fest sponsor) website, the Comedy Showdown is going on at Yuk Yuks at the Century Plaza. And, unlike some comedy festivals we know, you can actually find out who won and when by clicking on a link that downloads a .pdf file that has results and brackets on it, just like they have in the NCAA tourney!

And Guy McPherson, at straight.com, is cranking out one article after another about standup as it relates to “Vansterdam.”

Click here to see the end result of not bothering to carefully read the release that you signed before you taped that local television show in your fourth year of comedy!

It’s out there, on the internet, available with just a credit card and a click or two of the mouse. We’re guessing it was recorded in 1986 or thereabouts. The Rascals Good Time Comedy Hour, was shot at Rascals Comedy Club in East Orange, NJ. Of course, that club is no longer standing, but the performances live on, through the magic of videotape.

The Female Half of the Staff found one last night, on a site called GoFish.com. The one she spotted (the one of particular interest) features Larry Ragland, Barry Mitchell and SHECKYmagazine.com editor Brian McKim. (And you know he’s wearing a jacket with the sleeves rolled up!)

Don’t bother clicking the “Listen” button– it’s mainly emcee Gary Lazer doing announcements (followed by just a small snippet of Barry Mitchell’s act). Mercifully, none of McKim’s act made it into the sample. (And, we suspect, no one will bother ponying up $13.95 plus shipping and handling to view comics recorded on a television show from 19 years ago.) We certainly won’t! (Unless we had enough money to buy all of them up!)

From Denver’s Westword.com, an article on banjo virtuoso Pete Wernick:

…Since making his recorded debut in 1971 with a band called Country Cooking, the self-proclaimed Dr. Banjo has distinguished himself in roots-music circles as an inventive solo artist, the co-founder of Hot Rize and, currently, the leader of Pete Wernick’s Live Five, a group that infuses bluegrass with an unexpectedly jazzy vibe. But on Wednesday, September 21, he’ll perform for the largest audience of his career when he guests on Late Night With David Letterman as part of Men With Banjos (Who Know How to Use Them), a quintet that features Earl Scruggs, his all-time musical hero, and comic-turned-movie-star Steve Martin.

The “back story” is fascinating. It’s a classic show biz story with a lesson for all– Cancel the gig in Ireland if Steve Martin’s on the other end of the phone. We’ll either be watching or videotaping when Wernick and the others do “Foggy Mountain Breakdown.” Wernick says, “Three minutes on Letterman, with banjos front and center?” he asks. “That’s a pretty big deal.”

According to one of our operatives, Nick DiPaolo and Colin Quinn are auditioning this week for the spot left vacant by the departure of Ron & Fez (From the XM Radio site: “Ron and Fez join the antics on High Voltage. These two comics jump on the air right after Opie & Anthony and deliver non-stop laughter each weekday morning.”), who were syndicated out of WJFK in D.C.

Quinn and DiPaolo on radio in D.C. Apparently radio is also cool these days.

In what might be called one of your “non-traditional comedy venues,” Higher Ground Music is serving up a solid series of comedy shows to citizens of South Burlington, VT, and surrounding area.

We have good memories of working in Burlington (at the defunct Comedy Zone in the Radisson). The town has a good mix of college students, independent New Englanders, ex-hippies and regular folk. And they all dig comedy.

And so, apparently do the folks who book Higher Ground. In addition to producing shows with acts as diverse as Ween and Burning Spear and Leo Kottke, they’re bringing in comics like Demetri Martin, Eugene Mirman and Leo Allen (next Thursday night, two shows) and Andrew Kennedy and Tom Cotter (Nov. 5). The Fall Series will be capped with two Bob Saget, It Ain’t “Full House” shows on Dec. 17. (Check out the Higher Ground website for ticket prices and show times.

We’ll be headed to SoBu in January for two shows on the 21st. We’ll keep you posted!

“Running Your Trap with Jimmy Pardo” returns to its new home at The Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in Los Angeles. Tomorrow night (THU) at 8 PM. The UCB facility is at 5919 Franklin Ave, in Hollywood. Reservations can be made on the UCB website or by calling 323-908-8702. The guests include Paul Provenza and Gary Valentine.

From what we can make out, it’s a faux talk show hosted, of course, by Pardo (and co-hosted by Todd “I love the sound of breaking” Glass). We saw Pardo host a faux talk show a few years back at the Chicago Comedy Fest and it was a hoot. The guy’s a natural! Let’s let them describe it:

…not your run-of-the-mill plugfest; it’s a freewheeling and engaging 75 minutes that brings back everything talk shows used to be. With hilarious sidekick/foil Todd Glass by his side, Jimmy reinvents the genre by taking it back to its roots. No cue cards, no fake standing ovations, no applause sign; a throwback to a time when people were interesting and hosts were interested. Join Jimmy & Todd every third Thursday as they meld the world of stand-up and talk shows! Good heavens, this sounds exciting!

And if you don’t know who the man is, or you would like to know the man better, click on the SHECKYmagazine.com interview with Jimmy Pardo. (From our March-April 2003 issue.)

P.S.: That part about the show “return(ing) to its new home?” That was their idea, not ours. Please, no emails about “How can a show return to its new home?!? You guys are sure stooopid!”

Hell Gig America it is not, but from Sept. 12 through Oct. 11, Vince Vaughn’s Wild West Comedy Show is hosted by Vaughn and is “playing in 30 cities over 30 days… (featuring) national touring comedians from the world famous Los Angeles Comedy Store.”

Who even knew Vaughn did standup? Well, actually, from all indications, he merely hosts the show and Bret Ernst, John Caparulo, Ahmed Ahmed and Sebastian Maniscalco do all the heavy comedy lifting.

It was only announced on the 29th of August. But, in the Sept. 14 issue of Entertainment Weekly, they ran a small story on the whole affair.

How did you assemble this ensemble from L.A.’s Comedy Store?

There’s something really pure about these comics. Like my friend Ahmed is Muslim-American, and there are not a lot…

And then comes the pitch to subscribe to EW. We figure it had a lot less to do with the “purity” of the comics and a whole lot to do with a paycheck with a lot of zeroes on it. After all, Vaughn just starred in one of the biggest movies of the summer.

The tour started in Hollywood and it’ll end up in Chicago. Check out the site for dates and venues.

We got an email from Joey Novick. He was looking to book a three-man show at a firehouse in Evansville, IN. He mentioned something about good, clean comedy and that high energy would be nice, too. We wrote back the following:

We’d be happy to put up a post that says that Joey Novick (888)782-4589 is looking to book a three-comic show in Evansville, IN, on Oct. 15.

He wrote back and said, “Sounds good. Post away.”

Due to circumstances beyond our control, the SHECKYmagazine.com Comics-Only Texas Hold ‘Em Poker Tournament, scheduled for November 17, 2005, in Las Vegas, NV, has been POSTPONED. If you know of anyone who was planning on going, please let them know that it has been postponed. We have tentative plans to re-schedule it for some time in the latter half of 2006. We will announce any developments in the pages of this magazine. We apologize for any inconvenience. Thank you.

He’s back. And he’s gigging.

Comedian Dave Chappelle just completed a run of ten sold-out shows at a Northern Kentucky comedy club.

That would be the Bone in Newport. AP tells us that Chappelle says he’s not sure what he will do next besides his standup act. He’s gotta do something to pay the upkeep on the 65-acre farm in Yellow Springs.

Pat Wilson informs us that there are now 30 venues signed up for the September 28 simultaneous Katrina benefit. (See “Help is on the way for NOLA” posting from earlier) A list of venues and organizations are posted at ComedyTownProject.com

Wendy’s Comedy Challenge is coming to ATL and CHI to find people to “Win in Vegas and perform on Ellen.” (That’s the talk show, not the hostess herself.) Click on the above for ground rules and starting time for the cattle calls. It’s all part of the upcoming Comedy Festival in Vegas in November.

Potential contestants can also skip the cattle call and upload a sample of their standup.

Submit your clean comedy stand-up and you could be 1 of the 5 Finalists selected to perform live during The Comedy Festival in Las Vegas November 17-20. One funny Grand Prize Winner will then perform on The Ellen DeGeneres Show.

Click on the link and upload your video, or click on the other link to find out where to go.

That’s right, Traci Skene hit 40 last month. She’s had a couple of weeks to ruminate and the result is her first new column in months:

“A comedy club bartender asked me if I dyed my hair black because I was having a mid-life crisis. When I responded in the affirmative he said, “Well, why didn’t you just have a baby?” I said, “Because hair dye costs four bucks.” (The last time I checked, babies cost at least twice that much.)”

Read the whole thing.

An Associated Press report says that the World Intellectual Property Organization ordered the transfer of fatalbert.org to Bill Cosby.

Go there now and there’s a transcript of a CNN article about a bear (“Bear ransacks kitchen, steals chocolate “) from Sept. 30. Truncate the URL and it brings you to a site that offers “Free email, penis enlargement pills and breast enlargement pills”

WIPO has gotten a lot of publicity lately for taking away domain names from the people who bought them if the person or corporation who complains about it is famous or rich enough. Madonna was favored by them.

Anyone can register a domain name for as little as a few dollars. The arbitration system, which started in 1999, allows those who think they have the right to a domain to claim it without a costly court battle or payment of large fees to buy the name. Critics say the system favors trademark holders and not individuals who also may have legitimate rights to the names for parody, criticism and other purposes.

Heaven forbid Madonna or Cos should have to pony up any cash to purchase a domain name!