An article in the Chicago Trib by Steve Johnson seeks to determine if Dane Cook is worthy of forgiveness.

The “crimes” he’s committed are only mentioned in passing. There’s testimony from Paul Provenza (and exculpatory, if somewhat negative, evidence provided by Doug Stanhope), and a quote from expert witness Bert Haas. Says Provenza:

“I caught a couple of Dane Cook shows at the Laugh Factory in Los Angeles, and he was fantastic,” says the comic, director of “The Artistocrats,” a film about the craft of comedy. “I specifically went to see him because I had heard from some critical voices that he had really made an effort to grow.”

Provenza speculates that it may be a desire for respect, or maybe a maturity that came with some family problems: In addition to losing his parents, Cook’s half-brother, who helped manage the comic’s career, was recently arrested on charges of allegedly stealing millions from him.

Or it may be that professional jealousy clouded everyone’s vision from the get-go and Cook’s “evolution” is illusory. Perhaps there was always some merit to his onstage antics, his material, his construction, his methods– it was just that the large following led some to believe that Cook had gained “an audience that he hasn’t yet deserved.” Those are Johnson’s words. They are offered as a legitimate gripe. And they’re attributed to Cook’s fellow (jealous) colleagues. We maintain that an audience, no matter how big– or how small, are never deserved… they just are.

Stanhope, in a characteristic moment of brutal honesty, says, “I don’t hate Dane Cook. I hate the people that laugh at Dane Cook.” It could be argued that this displacement that Stanhope admits to is merely a fancy way of restating Provenza’s critique– that Cook, “did all the work to get this audience and neglected the reason that one should have an audience.” (Whatever that means.)

It reminds us of the folks who snidely dismiss the folks who are caught on camera laughing unapologetically at Larry The Cable Guy, (the much derided “white frat boys”). It brings to mind the folks who cited Andrew “Dice” Clay‘s macho Long Island mooks and midriffs who packed arenas in the 1980s as some sort of sign that the culture was heading down the toilet and that, somehow, Clay’s ascendancy was the reason that Bill Hicks wasn’t a household name.

Could not the same be said of Steve Martin‘s ascension to the comedy throne in the 1970’s? We’re sure there were people– colleagues and critics– who felt that Martin didn’t “deserve” his notoriety.

This isn’t a zero-sum game– a comic who gains a vast army of followers doesn’t “take those fans away” from a struggling but brilliant comic who toils in obscurity.

And now, Cook begins his “rehab”/”apology” tour. Of course to his fans, he’s never had to apologize for anything. This article is kind of bizarre. Exactly who is it for? If they really felt that way, why didn’t they just ignore Cook and continue to do so? Are they hoping to be a part of his rebirth? Is this some sort of public comedy intervention? Will they now all be able to take some credit if he eventualy becomes part of the comedy pantheon?

The underlying story: Cook is developing and maturing. Of course Cook is developing and growing– that’s what comics (good comics) do. But a good portion of Cook’s early years took place on Comedy Central and in front of 20,000 fans at the Fleet Center. (And Cook, more than anyone else, seemed as baffled and as humbled by his seeming “overnight success” as anyone.)

His aw shucks demeanor in countless interviews (and in his communication with his fans via his website) may have all been an act, but if it was, it was a damn good one– and an eye-popping formula for success. But in our dealings with him (admittedly few and via email), he’s been polite, genuine and humble.

It seems his only “crime” though– the one that overshadows all the others, real or imagined– was his rapid and wild success.

Thanks to Vince Vieceli for the tip.

We attended Melvin George II‘s roast last year at the Brokerage and it was hysterical.

We just worked with Melvin last night in Springfield, NJ, and he told us that he’s uploaded the entire audio record of the roast to his website.

Many of the speeches are hysterical even if you know and love George as we do!

(It’s a little tricky, requiring some cut and paste and a few minutes to download the mp3 file from MediaFire.com, but it’s worth it!)

That booming laughter you hear is Melvin’s– he’s got his fancy, HiDef MiniDisc recorder in front of him.

Particularly ingenious was Ed Ryan’s presentation. Some of the gags are visual gags, but the speech itself is hysterical. (“We are here to night to honor Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes…”)

Speaking of last night– we appeared at Scotty’s Steakhouse in Springfield, NJ. The Female Half filled in for a fellow comic at the special Mother’s Day show and the Male Half tried out another five-minute set in anticipation of next week’s trip to the Comedy & Magic Club.

The Comedy Cove was a comedy room started above Soctty’s started by former Rascals GM Ed Cavanaugh. Cavanaugh is leaving the Cove to take a management position at Gotham in New York City. He assures all that the Cove will continue with new management.

We are SO proud.

Congratulations to the bride and groom.

“Dying” on stage takes one step away from its metaphorical meaning and one step closer to its standard connotation in this show with a premise that is intriguing and also a little disturbing. Comedians will tell jokes, one at a time: If the audience laughs, great; if not, the comedian will be “mercilessly” pelted with paintballs– and presumably he won’t be wearing the sort of body armor enjoyed by the titular moving target of Shoot The Freak at Coney Island. With storyteller/improviser Chris Gethard as the emcee and arbiter of punishment, this sounds like a horrifyingly perfect way to spend a late Saturday.

Sharp-eyed reader Kelly Terranova sent along this link to a story from the website of The (Bergen?) Record. It’s about a football coach who is arrested for purchasing crack with the assistance of a former student.

School district officials confirmed Thursday that Thomas Whiteley, 51, of Fair Lawn, a physical education teacher at School 14 and the defensive lineman coach at Eastside, had been suspended after refusing to submit to a drug test.

If we’re not mistaken, that description and photograph looks an awful lot like comedian Tom “The Coach” Whiteley.

Outfitted in Knute Rockne-era garb, Whiteley scores laugh after laugh with his carefully crafted monologues and high-adrenaline performance.

As Terranova says, “First Schimmel, now this!”

An article in the LAT on freelancing for late-night talk shows.

Many a comedian has “faxed in jokes” to the late-night shows and gotten a check or two for his labor. It’s a bit of a thrill and it looks great on the résumé and, in some rare cases, it leads to a writing gig!

The Halves of the Staff did it when they resided in Burbank (we faxed into Fox’s Comic Strip Live and continued the practice when they migrated back east (faxing into Politically Incorrect and Tonight). They actually sold some gags! It was a thrill! It looked great on the résumés! It actually led to other gigs!

We got $100 per gag back then.

If the Writers Guild of America had their way, no talk show would be able to solicit such material without paying the freelancer the union minimum of $3,215.

In other words, if the WGA had their way, the practice would cease instantly.

Why? It’s very simple if you’re Lowell Peterson, executive director of the WGA, East.

“It’s a question of really maintaining employment opportunities for guild writers,” he added. “Some people might say, ‘What’s a joke or two?’ But that’s what our folks do — they write a joke or two or six.”

Lowell expects everyone to believe that freelance joke-faxing is a threat to staff writers.

Fortunately, the WGA has never forced the issue. Until now… obviously they must be forcing the issue or planning to if we’re reading about it in the LAT.

In the past, the union has taken action against shows that used freelancers. The guild lodged a complaint with ABC in 2003 over the use of freelancers on “The Jimmy Kimmel Show.” The show’s producers agreed to stop the practice.

The union also warned Leno not to solicit freelance material on “The Tonight Show” after a staff writer lodged a complaint in 2001. At the time, Leno maintained he was buying freelance jokes to use in his stand-up act at a comedy club in Hermosa Beach, where he performs most Sunday nights.

Peterson said he believed none of the New York-based shows employ freelance writers. When informed that The Times had spoken to writers who freelance for several, including “Late Show” and “SNL,” he was taken aback. “Wow, that’s disturbing,” he said, vowing to “follow up on the matter.”

Oh, well. There goes that opportunity.

Particularly stomach-churning is this paragraph:

Indeed, few freelancers win the big prize: a late-night staff writer job. That troubles Dawna Kaufmann, a former stand-up comic and staff writer for “Saturday Night Live” and “Mad TV” who has worked as a freelancer for Leno. A self-described “fax person” in the late 1990s, Kaufmann said she sold hundreds of jokes to Leno and other late night show hosts, receiving $50 to $100 per joke. “To me, writing for Leno and others was a full-time job, and it bothered me that I and others like me weren’t put on staff and paid under a union contract.”

It bothered her that she was making thousands of dollars, paying her rent and setting her own hours? It bothered her, even though it undoubtedly led to a staff job for two network television shows (which, let’s face it, is why most people fax jokes in)?

This is the best they can come up with?

This is what bothers us, Dawna: The WGA threatening writers and show hosts. WGA officials saying that Conan O’Brien is “pure on this issue.” (Does that phrasing cause anyone else a chill?)

What also bothers us is the possible obliteration of a practice that has led to myriad opportunities (some union, some not) for dozens (hundreds?) of comics over the years because guild members want to protect their jobs and because Dawna Kaufmann felt exploited.

Multi-platform sleaze fountain TMZ is reporting that Robert Schimmel has been arrested and booked for felony domestic violence. In a brief item on their website, they described Schimmel as “a big comic who has appeared on Howard Stern’s show many times.” He’s being held on $50,000 bail

It’s in the Idaho Statesman– an article on last week’s opening of Hijinx, Boise’s new comedy club.

It’s managed by former Boise Funny Bone manager Pat Mac.

The plan to open this club has been in the works since the Funny Bone closed in 2007, Mac said. He managed the Bone and is now working with Hijinx owner Colby Smith to run this locally owned night spot.

From what we’ve heard, Boise audiences deserve a full-time club.

We were booked at the Bone, but that date was wiped out when the club closed its doors. We look forward to the new venue. Boise is serviced by Southwest Airlines. It’s all good. Here’s the venue’s website.

Why does the MSM still express surprise when a comedian continues to do standup after success in other media… or success in standup itself? (And they also like to ask those who strictly do standup why they haven’t ventured into other areas!)

“Stand-up is my most comfortable place to be,” Mandel says. “It’s the only place I don’t have to hit a mark and I don’t have to memorize a script. I go wherever I want to go. It’s like a primal scream at the end of the day, and I love it. It’s one of the constants in my career. I started with it, and when it comes time for me to go out, I will go out with it.”

Howie Mandel, quoted in the Las Vegas Sun.

“It’s a blast,” he said. “It’s my favorite thing. If that’s all I did, I would still enjoy it– just getting on stage and making people laugh is worth it.”

“What makes it worth it, honestly, is the letters and e-mails I get from fans– anywhere from people who are dying from disease to being crippled from something to troops fighting in Iraq to losing a loved one. I get tons of that stuff. And they always talk about what I do getting them through a certain point in their lives. They laughed, and that’s why I do what I do.”

Dan Whitney, aka Larry The Cable Guy, quoted in the North Platte (NB) Telegraph.

Standup, despite the endless protestations of those who do it, never appears to be a worthy enough pursuit for our friends in the media. They scratch their heads and continue to dust off the question in countless interviews.

Then, there’s this:

“The thing is, I want to enjoy my life outside of work. I’ve been on Jay Leno‘s show several times and they call him the hardest-working person in show business. The last things I want to be associated with are the words ‘hardest-working person in show business.'”

Daniel Tosh quoted in the Sacramento Bee.

The AJC ran an interview with Ray Romano— his live show, with Brad Garrett onboard, will be at the Fox Theatre on May 5.

Q: Has it been an easy transition for you, post Raymond?

A: It’s real hard. I’ve tried a couple of movies. But people see you as a character for nine years and you become ingrained into their consciousness. My buddy Kevin James [“King of Queens”], he’s doing it right.

Q: Who would have thought he’d have such a big hit with “Mall Cop!”

A: That thing was huge! We played Vegas together a couple of weeks ago. We went out on stage and I noted that his movie grossed $145 million. So with “Mall Cop” and my “Welcome to Mooseport,” we’ve grossed $148 million together!

Pretty funny quote.

We’re not so sure what it is about James’ movie that Romano sees as “doing it right”– or what it was about Romano’s Mooseport flick that might have been “doing it wrong.” From what we’ve seen/heard, neither was offensive, neither deserved the scathing reviews they got and either one could have grossed big bucks.

The Cincinnati Enquirer ran a profile of former comic Jimmy Gilliece.

Fifteen years ago Jimmy Gilliece traded a career doing standup comedy in clubs across the country for life as an owner and operator of Chez Nora, a popular tavern, restaurant and nightspot in the heart of Covington’s MainStrasse Village.

But while Gilliece left the road after 16 years, he’s still performing every day and most nights.

He’s the barkeep who knows most everyone who walks in the door; the restaurateur who works the floor – often with a cocktail in hand – patting backs, shaking hands, asking is “everything all right?” and sharing the latest Covington political gossip or local news; the accommodating host with the ability to make customers feel special.

Sounds like he’s in a burgeoning restaurant district in Covington, KY, just across the river from the Queen City.

If our math is correct, Gilliece dropped out around 1993 or so. A lot of comics threw in the towel around that time, as it was at or near the bottom of the bust. Sounds like he’s enjoying his life as a restaurateur. We wonder if the comics who work the Funny Bone (less than a mile away) ever stop in?

We stumbled upon this article about Guy Williams, the 21-year-old “rookie stand-up comedian” who won the right to be Dai Henwood’s opening act via an New Zealan reality show called Dai’s Protégé Project. What? Allow us to explain (from Wikipedia):

Dai Henwood (born 1978) is a New Zealand comedian. He is best known for presenting Insert Video Here on the C4 music television channel, but also performs stand up comedy.

Translation: Comedian Dai Henwood hosts a show on New Zealand’s equivalent of MTV (inexplicably named after the plastic explosive).

Read the brief interview with Williams– notable mainly because he’s so… humble. No swagger with this young man.

He told Stuff.co.nz he was “terrified” at the thought of performing in front of large crowds during the tour’s seven dates.

“It’s a fantastic opportunity,” Williams said. “The largest venue I’ve ever played previously is 150 people at the Bath House in Cuba Street, so to go to a venue of 700 is ridiculous.

“I don’t know how I’m going to handle it. ‘Terrified’ is the word … If the first show doesn’t go well it’s going to be a long tour.”

They’re holding it (and the competition) in Johnny Carson’s hometown of Norfolk, NE, in June. We snagged the list of competitors from their website:

Keith Alberstadt, New York City
Kermet Apio, Seattle
Aaron Aryanpur, Dallas
Ahmed Bharoocha, Smithfield, R.I.
Larry “Bubbles” Brown, San Francisco
Jessi Campbell, Minneapolis
Jesse Case, Seattle
Nhan Du, West Palm Beach, Florida
Pat Dixon, New York City
Jon Fisch, New York City
Tim Harmston, Minneapolis
Joe Larson, New York City
Ryan Lowery, Colorado Springs
Kumail Nanjiani, New York City
Michael Palascak, Orland Park, Ill.
Rudy Rush, Dallas
Tom Steffen, Minneapolis
Mike Vecchione, New York City
Chris Voth, Denver
Darlene Westgor, St. Paul, Minn.
Joe Wong, Boston
Andy Woodhull, Chicago
Jeff Wozer, Denver
Dwight York, Minneapolis

The 24 comedians will be split up so that six perform at each of the four preliminary rounds of competition at the festival on Wednesday, June 17, at 6:30 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. and Thursday, June 18, at the same times.

The top two from each of the four preliminary rounds advance to the finals of the competition set for Friday, June 19, which will be hosted by Brill.

The judges for the competition will include David Brenner, who will be the headliner for the festival’s gala finale on Saturday, June 20; Bill Dana, the longtime comedian writer and producer who will receive the festival’s “Comedy Legend” award; Wende Curtis, owner of the Comedy Works club in Denver; Chris Mazzilli, owner of The Gotham comedy club in New York City; and Jackie Miller-Knobbe of Falls City, a talent agent for the Agency for Performing Arts in Los Angeles.

A reader, comedian Jon Wilson of Minnesota, asks if we know of any website that has a link to current open mikes around the country. Well, we know that Erin Bennet, aka Gigglechick, maintains her “[semi] world famous open mic list” here. There’s even a form that one can fill out to add more data about an open mike not included on the list (or to augment/correct information that is already included).

So far, it includes information from about 12 regions of the country. If you have information about an open mike in your area, and you don’t see it on Erin’s list, fill out the form! (We couldn’t help but notice that the splendid Hidden House open mike is not listed among the many on her site! Perhaps we’ll drop them a line.)

We hope this helps Jon Wilson from Minnesota!

John Griggs, Steve Maxwell, Myke Dehu, Kirk Buckhout

It was Wednesday, April 1, when The Male Half headed over to do his five-minute set at Phoenix’s most raucous open mike at the Hidden House. It was the second time that The Male Half found himself in the Valley of the Sun with a need to get a that set out of his mouth and hear some sort of response. “The crowd was great, the response was tremendous and it was just what I needed to make the weekend at the Comedy & Magic Club go well!” says the Male Half. The intimate room was wall-to-wall and a succession of local, touring and regional acts went up and gave them a good time.

Fortunately, the guys and gals at Hidden House are some of the most obliging souls in all of comedy. And they’ve told us to tell you (comics) that, if you’re ever in the area, passing through PHX on a Wednesday night, send them a message and ask for stage time!

(We know what you’re saying: That was almost a month ago! Why are you telling us all this now? Well, when we took the pic, the SD card wasn’t in… so the pic got stored on the onboard memory. And it took us this long to find it and extract the pic from the camera! And last time we visited the Hidden House, our batteries were fried. So, we were determined not to let camera problems keep us from trumpeting the hospitatlity shown us at H.H.!)

The Male Half had a riotous ten-minute phone conversation with Shecky Greene. Does life get any more bizarre?

We were just settling in to watch the latest episode of Better Off Ted (the hysterical ABC sitcom that is in danger of cancellation), when The Male Half’s cellphone buzzed.

The I.D. flashed “Shecky”! (We had stored the legendary comic’s number in our cell after a lengthy phone conversation a couple years ago covering everything from Vegas to horses to television.) Since then we missed seeing/meeting the man on a handful of occasions.

Earlier in the day, we had sent an email to Mr. Greene saying that we were making plans to attend the Sunday night show at the Suncoast in Vegas on May 17. (When we were in Vegas earlier this month, we saw the ads– he’s there May 15-17. We vowed that we would make it to Vegas one way or another to finally see him live!) We weren’t sure if the email address we used was still good… or if our message would get to him.

Then the phone rang!

We just made final arrangements for our air and hotel. We’re traveling first to Los Angeles (The Male Half is doing another 20 Hot Comics weekend at the Comedy & Magic Club on Friday and Saturday, May 15-16.), we’ll travel to Vegas to see Shecky Greene perform! In Vegas! (And, it is hoped, pal around a bit after the show! We’ll keep you posted, of course!)

Or so he says in his column from April 11. It’s an interesting set of observations about standup, but mainly about jokes and how to tell them. Along the way, Ebert shares stories and advice from such luminaries as Lou Jacobi and Buddy Hackett.

Buddy was a student of the science of comedy. His favorite Las Vegas stage was at the Sahara. “I was offered twice the dough to move to a certain hotel,” he told me, “but nothing doing. Comics who work that room always flop. There’s a physical reason for that. The stage is above the eye lines of too much of the audience. At the Sahara, the seats are banked and most of the audience is looking down at the stage. Everybody in the business knows: Up for singers, down for comics. The people want to idealize a singer. They want to feel superior to a comic. You’re trying to make them laugh. They can’t laugh at someone they’re looking up to.”

Read it. It’s fun. It’s informative.

Thanks, Paul Ogata, for sending us to it.

Southwest announced plans to start servicing LaGuardia in June. Good news for comics in the NYC market. That’s not all:

The carrier, which recently added service to Minneapolis, has said that it is starting flights at Boston’s Logan International Airport in the fall. While Southwest is expanding into some major U.S. markets, the airline has also been cutting unprofitable routes and said it will lower capacity 4 percent this year.

Southwest currently serves 65 cities, with more than 3,300 flights a day.

We’re getting flashbacks.

This would be Chris Pennie (l) and Tim McIntire bakcstage on Saturday night at Mottley’s in Boston. Pennie hosted the shows on Friday and Saturday featuring The Halves of the Staff. McIntire is one of the principles in the venture.

We had a splendid time working there this past weekend. It was a relief to determine that the Boston crowds are just as fun-loving and attentive and hard-drinking as any this great land has to offer– just as we remember them to be way back when.

We look forward to another go-round with them in the not-too-distant.

Mottley’s is an intimate, sub-terranean standup haven just off the sprawling, bustling entertainment sector of urban bacchanal that is Faneuil Hall. Formerly, it was dominated by Bill Blumenreich and his gargantuan Comedy Connection. (He moved into the still-larger Wilbur Theater location over in the theater district some time ago, ceding this corner of Beantown to hardy entrepreneurs like McIntire and his partners.)

They’ve managed to capture the Best Of Boston blessing from the Phoenix, so they’ve got a good kick in the ass from the local alt media. And they are trying some interesting novelty nights which, from all reports, are successful.

From FOS/SHECKYmagazine contributor Doug Hecox:

I’m working on a magazine article I thought you might be able to help with. Do you remember the first comedy show you did after 9/11? Where was it, and how soon after 9/11 was it? How would you characterize the audience? Any travel difficulties associated with the closing of domestic air traffic for the days following the incident?

If you could pass this along to anyone else you think would be interested in helping, that would be much appreciated.

Thanks –
Doug Hecox
www.dougfun.com

You heard the man– contact him at doug(at sign)dougfun(dot)com and help him out.

The Weekly Standard has a piece explaining why Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke needs to spell out how he plans to head off hyperinflation by Andy Kessler. It’s a pretty concise explanation of money supply, inflation, deflation, etc. And, mixed in with the history, the economics and the references to fractional reserve banking is this:

But banking did increase the money supply beyond the amount of gold that could be extracted. In fact, since Adam and Eve, 160,000 tons of gold have been panned and mined from Mother Earth. At $35 per ounce under the gold standard, that came to $180 billion in value, not nearly enough to support all the value created by entrepreneurs; heck, Google is worth almost that much.

In the long run, the economy grew faster than population, ushering in railroads and interstate highways and even Carrot Top performing at the Luxor in Las Vegas. Now that’s wealth. So something eventually went right. One something was the Federal Reserve, created in 1913 to control how much money is in circulation. The Fed would create a monetary base, originally backed by the gold in Fort Knox, that private banks would then lend against.

Carrot Top is officially a cultural icon. His headlining in the Luxor, along with extensive railroads and well-maintained highways, is a sign of remarkable (perhaps excessive?)
American wealth!

We hung out with Nick Zaino last night (he came to Mottley’s to see the show), and he told us that Boston will see the opening of a new club soon.

According to Zaino’s blog:

John Tobin and Frank Ahearn completed paperwork this week to open a new club in the Charles Playhouse on May 2.

What a thrill that the ol’ Charles Playhouse venue– site of the long-gone Comedy Connection we so fondly remember from the old days! The club will be called Tommy’s Comedy Lounge and will feature sketch/improv on Thursdays and standup on Fridays and Saturdays.

While Marshall Chiles announces the closing of his Funny Farm (shuttered because the entertainment complex it was housed in, Star Time, ceased operations), FOS Joe Satterfield has announced the opening of The Buford Variety Theater (click the link to see photos of the exterior and interior and become a Facebook fan).

So, Atlanta loses one club and gains another, almost simultaneously.

And the Punchline still rolls on.

And Chiles has taken to booking larger names into the Laughing Skull Lounge (at The Vortex, in midtown Atlanta).

Looks like comedy is the healthiest it’s been in Atlanta in a long time. (We remember when the city had Sandy Springs, North Lake, an Airport location– all three were Punchlines– and a revolving tenant at a comedy club venue in/near Buckhead! Circa 1989, perhaps?)

Way back in November, when The Male Half did a couple sets at the Comedy Factory Outlet Reunion Shows, up on The Boulevard, we had the pleasure of meeting Robyn McCloskey, columnist for the Northeast Times. (Actually, she columnizes for a gaggle of community papers that are now under the umbrella of the Inquirer. We still refer to her home rag as the Northeast Times!)

She vowed to interview us and make us the subject of a future column and, whaddya know– We’re immortalized in the most recent issue (dated April 16) which hit the streets of greater Philadelphia today!

Last November my friend Clay Heery, former owner of Philadelphia’s well-known but now-defunct Comedy Factory Outlet, invited me and my husband Chris to a CFO reunion that he was putting together for Thanksgiving weekend.

It featured performances by Chris Rush, Terry Gillespie, John DeBella and Clay Heery himself, whom you might remember as Captain Cranky, part of WMMR’s Morning Zoo program.

Chris and I are huge fans of standup comedy. We enjoyed the show as well as our night out on the town. But what we mostly enjoyed was meeting the comics who performed that night.

Among my favorites were Pennsauken, N.J., native and Temple grad Brian McKim, a taller and thinner version of Drew Carey, and his adorable wife, Philly’s own Traci Skene, who enjoys her own comedy career.

What follows is about as accurate and upbeat a profile as any we have enjoyed in any publication. We’re hoping it will drive folks to see us at the Comedy Works in Bristol, PA, when we do two shows there April 24-25!

With Mottley’s being named Best Of and this interview, it should be a pretty swell weekend in Boston. We’re heading up there for one show Friday and one show Saturday.

Sarah Faith Alterman must use a tape recorder. None of our pearls of wisdom were hacked into unrecognizable mush!

SKENE: We do have people come up to us a lot after shows, and I can just sense that they want to be a comedian. I tell them, the first thing you have to do is get onstage. (I’m always trying to talk people into getting onstage!) Go to open mics. Watch as much live stand-up as you can. That’s the only way to know if you like it. You have to keep doing it! You can take a class, but that puts you about three months ahead of everybody else. Stage-time is the only way you can get better. You just have to get up there and do it. Singers can practice in their basement, actors can practice with other actors. Comedians have to get up onstage and practice in front of a crowd. It’s more than just being funny and making people laugh; you have to be able to handle a certain amount of autonomy.

We’re headed to Boston Friday, where we’ll make our triumphant return for one show that night and another show Saturday night at Mottley’s. It will be the first time performing inside Boston City Limits in quite some time. (Does Dorchester count? We had a blast at Ed Regal’s Emerald Isle about four years ago… the judges say Dorchester is not within city limits.)

The town’s been going through a transition, a re-shuffling of its venues. Bill Blumenreich pulled his Comedy Connection club out of Faneuil Hall back in August and opened up a gargantuan venue at the Wilbur Theater. At about the same time, it was announced that Mottley’s would open (which it did, in September) in that very same Faneuil Hall, but in a much smaller venue.

Now, the Boston Phoenix has determined that Mottley’s is Boston’s Best Comedy Club in a Readers Poll.

Owned by two comedians and one business guy (so it’s only two-thirds rooted in fucked-up childhoods and self-hatred), Mottley’s attracts both major players on the national comedy scene and local chuckleheads who are on the verge of breaking into the big time.

That is soooo funny!

Congratulations to proprietors Jeff Fairbanks (the business guy) and Jon Lincoln and Tim McIntire (the ones with the fucked-up childhoods who hate themselves).

We look forward to two packed houses. (We have reason to hope because– 1. The venue is… “intimate!” and 2. We’re getting a hit in the Phoenix and, as is obvious, that publication is influential and its readers are standup fans.) Also appearing on the bill will be local chucklehead Chris Pennie.

Because it was just so compelling!

We posted about an article on Friday (click here or scroll down) that was carried on TheFrisky.com with the byline of “Anonymous.” Now, it’s been picked up by CNN.com and the byline is “Mary Swanson.”

We were doubtful that it was real when it first ran. Now that CNN.com has slapped the Mary Swanson byline on it, we’re even more suspicious. Mary Swanson? Really? No bio on Swanson at the end. Hmmm… Something doesn’t smell right.

Boston’s altrag has a pulsing banner that leads to their list of the 100 Unsexiest Men. The opening page contains their criteria, and says the list was “Assembled by a watchful team with a low tolerance for hypocrisy, wastefulness, and unfunny comedians…” The first graf even has a swipe at Carrot Top… and others:

To the masses, unsexiness is defined in superficial ways — pores big enough to drive Hummers through, and hair that grows like kudzu in unwanted places, and unexplained protuberances. Think Danny Bonaduce or Carrot Top (or virtually any man you can think of with red hair).

The Male Half (as a comedian and as a redhead) is, predictably, not amused.

Among the undesirable 100:

98. Patton Oswalt
93. Russell Brand
89. Greg Behrendt
62. Jim Norton
43. Denis Leary
28. Kevin James
19. Judd Apatow And Friends
15. Andrew Dice Clay

And, if we include Jack Black (45) and Jimmy Fallon (22), the list is ten per cent comedians.

We spotted the banner just as we were about to click on an interview by Sara Faith Alterman with Jonathan Katz (Click here).

The Phoenix seems conflicted. They pay a good amount of attention to comedy– indeed, Alterman’s interview with both halves of the staff (in anticipation of this weekend’s appearance at Mottley’s) will appear in the pages of their tab this week– yet they seem eager to slag on comedians as a group.

Des Moines Register staffer Brianne Sanchez goes ontage for the first time and lives to blog about it. It goes well enough.

The rest of the acts involved a healthy dose of masturbation and poop jokes, which aren’t quite my style, but getting on stage at all is so extremely difficult, it’s not right to hate. After the show ended, I still had friends and the night’s comedians congratulated me and called me a natural. (Excuse me while I brush my shoulders off.) At the end of the night, not one tomato was thrown.

Read the whole thing to stir up memories of that first open mike night performance.