An article in The Stranger (“Don’t Fuck Up” by Brendan Kiley) goes into great detail on the maturation of the Seattle alternative comedy scene. It begins with this:

There were four comedy clubs in Seattle in the 1980s: Giggles, the Comedy Underground, Laughs, and the Improv. It was the height of the standup comedy boom in America, and clubs everywhere were hopping. A lot of people were paying to see acts like Andrew Dice Clay and Gallagher. When the demand for acts began to outstrip the supply of comedians, producers pulled up inferior talent from the hacky rank and file to throw in America’s face. The form’s popularity took a turn. The country turned its attention to sitcoms and grunge while anachronistic dinosaurs like Carrot Top continued to flail around, to everyone’s embarrassment.

At least that’s the story Seattle’s comedians and club managers tell. It sounds probable, and it contains a whiff of protest: that standup doesn’t have to be painfully bad, that it can be good, that, perhaps, we’re due for a comedy renaissance.

Hey! We think Kiley may have stumbled onto something resembling the truth here. Aside from the cliched slam of Gallagher and the inaccurate characterization of the cream of 80s comedy as nothing but Gallagher and Andrew Dice Clay (which ignores dozens, nay hundreds, of tremendous comedians) and the gratuitous (and hackneyed) poke at Carrot Top, we might actually agree with the author’s summary of the Comedy Bust. (Of course, it was told to him by Seattle’s comics and club owners, so there’s every possibility that they’re merely regurgitating that which they have read in the pages of this magazine!)

You would think that the term “alternative comedy” would be as irritating to its practitioners as “grunge” or “adult contemporary.” Naming something seems halfway to killing it, but most of the alt-comedians use the term unflinchingly, even if they aren’t sure what it means.

Indeed! We hear that even Janeane Garofalo has disavowed the term. Perhaps this is alt-alt.

Or, (and this is far more likely) they are more media-savvy than anyone gives them credit for and they use the term as alt-weekly bait– which seems to have worked. This is at least the third time in a couple months that the PROK/Mirabeau/Laff Hole gang have garnered press in Seattle. Terms like “alternative” are like an aphrodisiac to the alt-stained wretches!

Read the whole article if you want a thorough account of a major comedy market in a state of flux! We especially liked reading about Mainstage (which Both Halves of the Staff will be co-headlining next month!) and we also were morbidly fascinated by the plaint of Giggles proprietor Terry Taylor, who explains the slow-motion wreckage of his venue on everyone but himself.

Terry Taylor, who owns Giggles, offered a less charitable outlook: “Alternative comedy is just people who can’t get booked in clubs so they have to go out and make their own nights,” he says.

Nice!

People who “have to go out and make their own nights?” Sounds very Shecky-like to us. Take note, all you comedians in other markets– read “Don’t Fuck Up” three times, print it out, memorize certain passages and recite them to yourself when next you feel compelled to merely bitch about the local booker who is ruining your scene.