Modified On October 2, 2006
The subtitle, “True Stories of the Road from America’s Top Comics” sums it all up. Stories involving (says one reviewer) “travel, intoxicants and the colorful characters on the fringes of the comedy world,” are contributed by Jay Leno, Ron Shock, Alonzo Bodden, Drew Carey, George Lopez, Joan Rivers and others, including, of course, the authors/editors of this collection, veteran comics Mark Schiff and Ritch Shydner.
The Female Half recently tried to re-read “Comic Lives,” a somewhat similar aggregation of interviews, snippets and stories from the early days of the Comedy Boom. The macho posturing, the paranoia and the blowhardism made for some tough sledding. It is hoped that this book is a mature update on that work. As most or all of the comics in the Schiff-Shydner anthology have achieved a high level of success, they probably have what a lot of the acts in the earlier book didn’t have– perspective.