This Catch A Rising Star club is a frustrating one. When you’re up there on the stage, you’re never quite sure how it’s going. Yet, when the show ends, the audience members just can’t say enough nice things about you and how they enjoyed themselves… hmmm… We conclude that it’s a sign of Rookie-ism– folks not quite accustomed to live comedy… typical of a casino. It’s not a funeral up there, but it’s not riotous, either. “No momentum,” is how we describe it. (Be forewarned: If you sell product after the shows, Catch– or is it the Legacy?– extracts 26 per cent from your total receipts!)

The crowds were thinner than we might have expected this holiday weekend. We attributed this to the fact that the big show in the giant showroom downstairs was “Eat Bulaga!” It’s a live theatrical version of the long-running comedy television show, famous in the Philippines for 26 years! The casino was mobbed with… Filippinos, naturally. And, since neither myself nor Mr. Weiner does material in Tagalog, we weren’t drawing huge chunk of the guests. (Last time we performed in Reno, the hotel we were in was filled with deaf softball tournament participants… hmmm…)

Nice incident observed in the Legacy lobby by Traci Skene: 10 year-old Filippina girl was scolded, at length, in Tagalog, by Mom. Mom walks away, kid waits one or two beats, then says, wearily, with a sigh, to no one in particular, in English, “Here we go again.”

We were met at every turn with video footage or giant posters of George Carlin. The former Hippy Dippy Weatherman is scheduled to perform in the giant sub-terranean room July 9.

Finished with our obligations at the Catch A Rising Star at the Silver Legacy Friday night, we headed on over to the Golden Phoenix, just a block or three south. The former Reno Flamingo Hilton was shuttered last time we were here, but hit has since risen from the ashes as the Golden Phoenix and is aggressively courting locals and a somewhat younger demographic (Younger for Reno, that is). That’s why their Retro Lounge (a lounge/showroom hybrid, partially closed in, with a decent sized stage) is hosting free concerts by such Big ’80s acts as Flock of Seagulls, Tommy Tutone and, on this night, General Public.

General Public, you may recall is the band formed by remnants of The English Beat, Dexy’s Midnight Runners and The Specials. (Or, as fans of The English Beat might put it: It’s The English Beat without Saxa.) As it turns out, it was Wakeling with a pickup band (drums, percussion, bass and keyboard) but n no Ranking Roger. (And, special credit goes to Traci Skene for eventually identifying the keyboard player as the guy on HBO’s Taxicab Confessions a few months back! He was gigging in Vegas, he picked up a beautiful babe after one of his shows and BOOM– he ends up in the back of a camera-laden taxi, talking about marriage… and sex, of course.)

The joint was packed with at least 400 ska fans, of all ages, undulating and swaying while Wakeling cycled through a 1:15 set of Beat/Public’s greatest hits. (Wakeling’s a crafty one– he appears in this same lounge two weeks later fronting The English Beat, where he’ll probably play the same set!) He and his bandmates were featured in a Bands Reunited, the VH-1 reality show that sought to bring Big ’80s bands back for one-off shows. The male half of the staff had a special affinity for the Beat– he listened to “I Just Can’t Stop It” (The Beat’s debut album) non-stop for the entire first year of agonizing open mikes and auditions and such when first starting out in comedy.

While Wakeling and company rocked out, the monitors over the bar showed footage of performances from the U.S. side of the 1985 Live Aid concert. It reminded us that while Jagger and Madonna and Hall & Oates were sweating through their sets in that historic concert, your humble editors and publishers were bobbing up and down in the pool of the Promenade Hotel in Wildwood, NJ, totally oblivious to the goings-on just 75 miles up the Atlantic City Expressway. (McKim was gigging down the street at the Club Casbah, sharing a bill with Keven Sullivan and erstwhile comedy team Corson & Trueson!)