Left to right: Brian McKim (Old Face), Jordan Carlos (New Faces), Adam Devine (New Faces), at the Hollywood Reporter party

No dusty turds at the Hollywood Reporter party. No sweaty cheese, either. Just high heat, high humidity and lots of free booze. (And not very much of a mob to fight through to get to it!) There was a healthy crowd, smaller than in past years, but enough for a party! Usually, somebody stops this HR party in its tracks, grabs a mike and thanks the assembled for attending. No such interruption occurred this year, though. There wasn’t much of an HR presence at all. Just a lot of media types, industry people and others gearing up for the evening and gulping down a Labatts or three while deciding which show to attend.

And a handful of New Facers loosening up for the two Shaun Majumder-hosted shows at Kola Note. One of them, Omaha native Adam Devine, told SHECKYmagazine that The Female Half of the Staff and the Male Half of the Staff were the headliners on bill the very first time he mounted the stage at the ill-fated Jesters on that city’s west side. (That makes two people at this fest who have that distinction– The SHECKYmagazine staff witnessed the maiden comedy voyage of Ottawa’s Jon Dore. It makes us sooo proud! What are the odds? Hmmm… don’t answer that. Considering that we’re both members of The 50-State Club and that we’ve been professional comics for a combined 40+ years… pretty good, we guess!)

This year’s New Facers speak woefully (and hilariously) about the tuneup show they all performed on at the Comedy Nest earlier in the week– the crowd was made up largely of a group sale/charity event crowd from a Lebanese church group! But at least they’re putting up the NFers in much nicer accomodations– just across the street from the Delta, too, at a place called l’Appartement. (That’s right, we’re taking credit… In one of our 2004 updates, we whined about the youth hostel in Chinatown that JFL used for the young ‘uns that year. The one we cleverly referred to as “Gitmo du nord.” Well, whaddya know, now they’re billeted in a splendid suite just across Rue Sherbrooke!)

Two Petes (Pete Dominick and Pete Lee, New Faces and New Faces) at the Hollywood Reporter party

It’s always something with the New Faces. This year, we were told, during the tuneup show at the Nest, the New Faces comics weren’t allowed to watch the show. It is in a comic’s blood (most comics anyway) that he/she is almost always interested in seeing the room in action– especially for a high-pressure or important gig like a contest or an audition… or a festival tuneup show like this one. But such would not be allowed on this night.

Indeed, their actions were tightly controlled througout the evening. They weren’t even allowed to leave the green room. (Exceptions? If you needed to smoke. Nice.) What is it with the New Faces? We suggest that, next year, the New Facers be made to wear black hoods with the eyes cut out (like the executioner wears!) in the days leading up to their big night, and then, just as the comic is introduced– whoosh! Off comes the hood! Dramatic, no?

Left to right: Hannibal Buress (New Faces), Greg Walter (3 Arts), Steve Trevino (New Faces)

We feel a kinship with the New Facers this year. At least a half-dozen have admitted to being avid, regular readers of the magazine and some have told us that they prepped for their inaugural trip to the Festival Just For Laughs by reading (and re-reading) our archived Festival Updates from our seven previous trips to Montreal. (We extrapolated these facts to mean that we’re influencing an entire generation of new comics… oh, the comedy humanity!)

On the left, Festival Buddy Dan Rosenberg (Author, “The Book On Hosting– How Not To Suck As An Emcee”), on the right, Taylor Williamson (New Faces)

The Montreal Gazette reviewed the two New Faces shows last night (Anne Sutherland is the byline) and rated the comics on a scale of one to ten. Sutherland gave both Roy Wood, Jr. and Joe Devito a 9.5. (Only Wood, however, made it into the sub-head, “Roy Wood, Jr. gives tremendous show&quot’; Perhaps Mr. Devito should learn to be a little bit nicer to the members of the fourth estate– he spied our ancient digital camera late last night at the Delta and said, “What is that?! A Viewmaster?!” Witty. Very witty. Just kidding, Joe. Just kidding. This does afford us a deluxe opportunity to make a public appeal for a new, sleek digital camera like all the kids have today. Ours was a gift from Polaroid in late 1999– ancient history in digital tech terms– we got it in exchange for an ad on the front page of the mag and the Polaroid logo on our Montreal updates. It is rather clunky… and every once in a while it has a stroke.)

On the left, Todd Barry (Masters), on the right, Morgan Murphy (New Faces)

In the same Gazette article, Morgan Murphy is rated a 5. (“Deadpan to the point of catatonic,” was the quote.) Yet, in the July 17-23 (the one that’s heavy on the comedy), Murphy is named “One of the Ten Comics to Watch.” and described by Jimmy Kimmel as “One of the funniest and most unique comics I know.” We only point this out to illustrate how subjective this comedy beast is. (And it also nicely illustrates why SHECKYmagazine stays out of the comedy reviewing game. There’s just no point to it, really.)

Dwight Slade is on the left. Todd Allen (Homegrown Comedy Competition) is on the right.

Speaking of T-shirts– We ventured north armed with a few dozen lovingly hand screened SHECKYmagazine T’s, for the purpose of creating a T-shirt-clad army of SHECKYmagazine fanatics… a cyber-cult of Hanes-clad standup comics and industry people. We’ve been throwing them around freely, and we laid one on Jon Dore. Dore spotted us later on (after he had returned to the Delta from his Go West Show at Bourbon St., on the bill with Kyle Dunnigan, Laurie Kilmartin, Willie Barcena, Andy Parsons and Joe Starr) and he told us that, if we could spare it, he’d like another shirt. We asked him what happened to the other one and he explained thusly (and we paraphrase slightly):

I had it slung over my shoulder and I was at Bourbon Street, and I went to the bathroom, and I bent down to flush the toilet and I had forgotten that the shirt was on my shoulder and dontcha know it fell into the toilet and there a classic log in there, so there was no way I was going to fish it out of there, so there’s a shit-stained SHECKYmagazine T-shirt in the toilet in the men’s room at Bourbon St.

We howled, of course. And promptly handed over a second T. And we’re disturbed by the omission of certain details, but we’re not investigating further. (We’re still taken by the term “classic log.” Whose log? Don’t know… don’t care.)

Last night at the Delta, from left to right: Joe Devito, The Female Half Of The Staff (Traci Skene), Kathe Nelson, Talent Director, Comedy Boulevard.

The party continued at the Delta, of course. Not as insanely congested as in years past, as there may be some folks siphoned off by the “fun-filled discotheque” party space that has been created over at the JFL Museum on St. Laurent. The Female Half of the Staff decided earlier in the day that she would not, no matter what, have her first beer of the evening until 11 PM. However, she neglected to wind her watch (No modern, newfangled, electronic watches for her!) and, as such, she was 25 minutes late in discovering that her arbitrary start time had already passed! Deprived of alcohol for a precious 25 minutes! The moral of the story: If you’re drinking on a schedule, wear a backup timepiece! Redundancy is key!

We’re off to the State of the Industry Address! 2 PM Friday, at the Delta. Stay tuned!