CNN interviewed Brian Regan. On being clean:

I used to have a few jokes here and there with a four-letter word in it. I was always 90 to 95 percent clean with my jokes anyways, and I’m kind of anal so, why be 95 percent something when you could be 100 percent something? It worked out, and people really seem to respond to it so I guess that other 5 percent wasn’t that important anyways.

No preaching. No “should” or “oughta,” just an acknowledgement that it worked out for him that way. We note that the interviewer frames the question thusly:

You don’t really use the crass language many comedians rely on. Is there a reason for that?

And that the headline is:

Brian Regan Keeps It Clean

And that the second graf starts with:

Famous for his clean jokes…

Actually, he’s famous for his jokes.

Considering that CNN would be among the first to raise an eyebrow over anyone who might send a complaint letter to the FCC about foul language, their obsession over Regan’s cleanliness is inconsistent, to say the least. When did CNN go all schoolmarm on us?

Regan’s take on the creative process is interesting for its simplicity and its tolerance:

I used to try and sit down with a blank piece of paper. I would stare at the paper, and it just continues to stay blank. I’ve learned that for me, it’s easier for me to go out and live my life and do my thing.

Note the clause, “for me” (two times!), in that last sentence. Is this the nicest guy in all of standup?

Thanks to Graham Currin for the spot!

Wish you were here.

In this photo (produced and snapped by The Female Half), we see The Male Half and DJ Hazard posing with the iconic Crazy Girls statue out front of the Riviera. (Nothing like a little brass ass to liven things up a bit!)

The gluteus maximus riot that is used in various forms to advertise the nude revue is arguably one of the most recognizable images in modern Vegas history. And, we daresay, for good reason. (Notice that The Male Half is violating Crazy Girls protocol by actually placing his hand on the cheek.)

From the satellite box office at the Riv. (And from the posters all throughout the hotel-casino complex!)

That’s the word from NBC execs as they beat the drum for the industry-only showcase that will introduce Jay Leno’s show to the advertisers at next month’s upfront meetings in New York. The New York Times article says that Leno will hit the stage at 10 PM on the May 19 show, which will also feature Jimmy Fallon, Conan O’Brien and Rainn Wilson.

NBC exec Ben Silverman said that Leno’s new primetime show…

…will be significantly more humorous than Mr. Leno’s current work on The Tonight Show.

A difference viewers may see, said Mike Pilot, the president of advertising sales for NBC, will be “more newsmakers as guests” as opposed to the heavy quotient of entertainers who appear on the late-night shows. Another difference, he said, was intended to appeal to advertisers. “We think there will be opportunities to do things like live commercials,” he said.

Newsmakers + live commercials = comedy gold!

The idea for the comedy showcase is “partly just fun,” Mr. Silverman said, but he acknowledged that NBC’s big gamble on shifting Mr. Leno to prime time, as well as its commitment to Mr. O’Brien as the new “Tonight” host, served as considerable incentives to “reinforce the idea that comedy is one of the principal elements of NBC’s success.”

Does anyone here speak Executive?

Too many clauses. Too many qualifiers. We’re confused. How about you just find, develop and schedule some… comedies? Nothing like a few hit sitcoms to act as considerable gambling incentives to reinforce an idea or two about principle elements of success… or something.

What a steaming pile this one is. It’s from The Frisky. It’s by “Anonymous,” and it’s all about how this idiot dated a comedian for five months before deciding that she “felt invisible, ignored, and pissed” because the comedian “was always soliciting the laugh, like a kindergarten boy desperate for a gold star.”

We’re 99 per cent certain it’s fake. It’s probably a 70-year-old amateur fiction writer from St. Louis who can’t dream up anything that isn’t slathered with cliches. (One tipoff? Language such as, “I had gussied myself up for the occasion…” Gussied myself up? Who under the age of 92 uses that phrase? “Then a pair of hot blondes waltzed in…” Hot blondes? Waltzing in? There’s also mention of “a nice French restaurant.” This is what’s know in Fiction 101 as “lazy writing.”

The heroine finally dumps the jerk after five months! What kind of pathetic nitwit stays with someone who is so annoying for 150 days? Something doesn’t smell right. Several things don’t pass the sniff test.

It’s merely an excuse to dump on comedians, using sub-ordinary writing. It never should have made it to publication. It’s a fine illustration of why a website shouldn’t use anonymous submissions.

Check out the comments, too– it swerves into actor-bashing, too! Nice!

Andrew Wesson, The Male Half’s nephew, took the top spot in our bracket contest, picking the winner of the tournament correctly and racking up 125 points overall. John Conroy took the top spot among comedians, coming in second with 112 points. Sean L. McCarthy came in third after having taken over the lead in Elite Eight round. (Another of the Male Half’s nephews, Danny McKim, came in fourth.)

The Female Half ended up fifth.

Andrew Wesson, who attends UMass Amherst, wins a copy of “Mock Stars” by John Wenzel. (Unless of course, he doesn’t want it… then it goes to John Conroy!) We might see the winner in person next weekend– we’ll be performing at Mottley’s in Boston.

We’ll all be heading down the strip today to catch the three o’clock Defending The Caveman at the Excalibur. (Normally the star of the show would be Burke, but he’s on vacation. Burke has gotta be one of the hardest working comics in Vegas, if not in all of show business– two Caveman’s a day and an additional show downtown at Fitzies!) We’ll be seeing a substitute Caveman. They’ve made some tweaks to the show since we saw it, so we’ll be curious to see what’s different. (We caught Rob Becker, the original caveman himself, in a performance of DTC in Philadelphia back in 1994.)

That’s comedian/writer Jeff Shaw on the left (and The Male Half on the right) at the Riviera Comedy Club after the second show last night. Shaw made it on over to the Riv after finishing up his obligation at the Fitzgerald’s Fitz of Laughter show. (He’s headlining there this week, subbing for the vacationing Kevin Burke.)

That’s Hasan Minhaj on the left and D J Hazard on the right… surrounded by Steve Martin, Milton Berle, Jack E. Leonard, Bob Hope, Don Rickles and Martin Scorcese, at the Riviera.

We were cruising into Los Angeles (swirling around the drain of the Los Angeles Basin?) when we heard an item on KNX– or was it KFWB?– that said that Jon Lovitz was opening a comedy club at the Universal City Walk in a spot formerly occupied by a blues club branded with B.B. King’s name.

We looked it up and there’s a Reuters article with more details.

Lovitz said the new three-level club will differ from existing comedy clubs in Los Angeles– most of which have a black-box feel– in that it will be bright and open with a beachy decor, complete with palm trees, and will serve “great food.”

Some may recall that Lovitz opened a club in 2007 in San Diego. That was a four-wall venture. This is a 400-seat comedy club, opened with his business partner, Frank Kelley, GM of the Irvine Improv.

Is this the same room that formerly housed Catch A Rising Star back in about 1992 or so?

We’re posting this from the sparkling new McDonald’s on the Strip in Vegas. We’re sorely disappointed, though, that we had to PAY FOR INTERNET ACCESS! What a bunch of backwards neanderthals! Haven’t they heard the word that “free is a business model?” They’re still hooked up with Wayport, still charging $2.95 for a two-hour block of wireless access.

Starbucks and McDonald’s (and the Riviera Hotel-Casino) should wake up and smell the bandwidth– stop charging for internet access! It’s pointless. And, eventually it will not pay to charge for it… and it will be beneficial to offer it for free!

At least McCarran Airport let’s folks hop on for free. (In stark contrast, Philly International offers it to college students for free. Yeah… college students… those engines of commerce, those captains of industry. Just brilliant. What do we expect from Philadelphia, one of the most backwards cities in the nation. They only recently cooked up an idiotic scheme to blanket the city with a mesh network and then… charge people for internet access! They eventually had to abandon the project when Earthlink walked away after pouring $20 million into the disaster.)

Among those performing on the 20 Hot Comics Show last night: Matt Baetz, Michael Loftus, Elon Gold, Neal Brennan, Jeff Dye, Jim Short, Steve Bridges, John Cassidy, Jim McDonald, Larry Miller, Wayne Cotter, Finis Henderson, Steve Wilson, Guy Torry, Adam Hammer, Angelo Tsorouchas, Gene Pompa, Dwayne Kennedy and Jay Malone (and The Male Half of the Staff). Kevin Nealon was there when we arrived (he was among those performing on the evening’s earlier show) but left. Friday’s lineup was similar, with a few changes– Jeff Cesario, Suli McCullough, Sebastian, John Caparulo, Ron Pearson and Jasper Redd were among the twenty on that night.

It was a real pleasure to meet Larry Miller (See blurry photo above– that’s Wayne Cotter, Finis Henderson and Miller). And it was great to see Wayne Cotter for the first time in over a decade. (Cotter was in the house when The Male Half mounted the stage for the very first time at Philadelphia’s Comedy Works, back in October of ’81!)

Now, we’re off across the desert to Vegas. We’re going to post from the fancy new McDonald’s across Vegas Blvd. from the Riv– it’s the biggest McDonald’s in all of the Western United States! Stay tuned. (Our operatives confirm that the marquee outside the Trop lists two shows nightly starring Bobby Slayton… apparently, the folks from the club at the Planet Hollywood Casino will not be moving into Kephart’s space for the early show– it’ll be all Slayton, all the time.)

AP is reporting the WHDH, NBC’s Boston affiliate, announced that they won’t be carrying the new 10 PM Jay Leno show, opting instead to carry a local newscast.

NBC said, “I don’t think so.” They also threatened to strip them of their affiliation.

Leno grew up in Andover, MA, about a half-hour north west of Boston.

Then it’s off to Vegas.

But first, The Male Half will be performing on the 20 Hot Comics Show on Friday and Saturday night (one show each night, see here for showtimes and ticket purchases!) at the Comedy & Magic Club in Hermosa Beach.

Then we head across the desert to hit Vegas– we’ll be downtown (at the Golden Gate) for one night, just hanging out. Then we re-locate to the Riviera for a week (The Male Half is there through Sunday, April 12, with D J Hazard and Hasan Minhaj.

For without them, we would have abandoned this crazy enterprise long ago.

When we uploaded our first issue, ten years ago almost to the hour, we said that we’d continue uploading our goofy internet publication only as long as the numbers trended upward. We monitored our traffic (sometimes almost obsessively) and, by golly, the numbers went up and up.

Our readers are the best on the WWW. They gotta be to put up with our nattering.

We’ve always been thrilled to meet them in person. On the rare occasions that we’ve had the pleasure to have face-to-face contact with “fans” of the mag, it’s been very rewarding.

Very early on, we arranged a SHECKYmagazine.COMics Only Reunion in Las Vegas– three days in April of 2001 where we encouraged anyone who has ever been a comedian to come to Vegas and just… be. Just commune with one’s fellow comedians and hang and celebrate all that it is to be a professional hilariator. About 125 people showed up and each and every one of them (as near as we can tell) had a splendid time.

We like to think that hitting that bookmark and swimming around in our blogazine on a daily or near-daily basis is not unlike that three-day get-together. Since day one, our sub-title/motto has been “Dedicated to the glorification of standup comedy.” We hope to continue on with that mission. We’ll do it for as long as folks log on and read.

Thanks to you all.

The Daily Telegraph says that a gang of scientists have discovered that “men really can laugh women into bed, because a sense of humour makes them seem more intelligent, psychologists have found.”

We’ve always been heartened by the women dig guys with a sense of humor/women rate sense of humor highly surveys/studies But we’ve been skeptical. (Don’t misunderstand: The Male Half has every reason to believe that a hot gal can be snagged with a sense of humor… and the Female Half has always valued a sense of humor– but we’ve seen too many seemingly sensible women hook up with dour men.)

Although studies have shown that humour is not linked to intelligence, researchers believe that the findings could be the reason why so many lonely heart ads placed by women list GSOH (good sense of humour) as a prerequisite for a partner.

Say what? Studies have shown that humour is not linked to intelligence? We attribute this to poorly designed studies… or scientific bias. We’re also skeptical of any study that spells “humor” with a “u.”

The New York Post has published “AMERICA’S BEST COMICS TELL THE POST THE 50 FUNNIEST JOKES THEY KNOW” here.

We suppose it’s to coincide with April Fool’s Day. (And, judging from a Google search, they do it every year at this time.)

We wished they would have just gone with jokes that each comic had actually written (rather than the funniest jokes they know.)

We have it on good authority that Lord Carrett‘s joke is actually his. And it’s one of our favorites!

Today marks the fourth anniversary of the day we all found out that Mitch Hedberg had died. In the confusing hours after his passing, there were rumors swirling about and a uneasy feeling over the land as folks traded emails and hit chat boards and tried to sort things out. It wasn’t until late morning on the 31st that we all had to come to terms with the idea that rumors of his death were not rumors at all. Read our posting here and scroll down to the comments– many of our readers express their condolences and share their memories.

An editorial in the Pottsville, PA, Republican and Herald asks “Have you noticed that this stand-up comedy entertainment stuff is starting to catch on in the region?” This is an editorial, not a feature!

The region in question is that part of Eastern Pennsylvania that takes in Pottsville, Reading, Bethlehem, Allentown and the Poconos. Of course, there have been gigs there– one-nighters, casinos, resorts, some weekend rooms– off and on for the past twenty years or so, but the editors seem to sense a palpable uptick in the comedy activity.

The essay begins its windup with this:

When you think about it, you realize it takes no small portion of guts and talent to stand up in front of an audience and make people laugh for 15, 20, 30 minutes or longer, using original material.

You can’t help but admire entertainers able to pull that off. And what better relief for stress, anxiety, fatigue and the general blues is there than laughter?

Indeed, what better relief is there? We applaud the editors at the PR&H for bringing this to the attention of its readers!

Thousand Oaks resident Bruce Baum is the focus of a nice writeup in the local rag.

His latest ventures are highlighted– most prominently, TheOuterNet.com, his “offbeat online social community where anyone can post or view original comedic videos and blogs”– and the rest of the piece is a concise summary of Baum, past, present and future. The kind of clip that folks kill for!

Scott Brown, blogging in/on/for Wired, writes:

We’ve heard a lot about how Google is making us dumber and more distracted and lazier. We’ve heard less about how it’s making us—maybe even forcing us to be—funnier. For today, thanks to the digital hive mind, comedy is colloquy, everything is “material,” and life is one big writer’s room, a massive clusterchuckle of witty one-upsmanship– on blogs, on social-networking sites, in tweets, in funny video shorts, in Lolcats and talkbacks.

It’s brief. And we’re not sure what point it’s making. But it’s interesting that someone perceives that there’s pressure on the WWW to be funny.

We didn’t particularly enjoy the lede:

Once, billions of giggles ago, humans sat in dark rooms sipping watered-down mai tais while a person onstage—usually with a mic, usually with “issues,” sometimes with a watermelon and a sledgehammer—attempted to amuse us.

Firstly, and quite obviously, it’s getting tiresome, this meme that all comics have “issues” that they’re working out onstage.

Secondly (and we’re not noted for sticking up for comedy club owners, but), has anyone ever actually gotten a “watered-down” drink at a comedy club? It’s journo hacktastic shorthand for a sleazy joint. Let’s be real– on the sleazy scale, where do most comedy clubs fall? The watered-down drink cliché is from the sixties– rhetorical cousin to the sacroiliac joke or the gag that hinges on the listener’s familiarity with Freud (think Oedipal Complex). Has anyone under the under the age of dead actually experienced the watered-down drink? (You might have, if you’ve gone to a luau or a dinner theater, but that’s probably the only places on earth who still think that they can get away with that kind of thing. And really disreputable titty bars… like the kind that thrived on 14th street in D.C. until the late ’80s. But that’s it.)

We’re in Phoenix… Sun City West to be exact. (We’re headed to Surprise Stadium tomorrow to see the Giants play the Rangers– The Female Half realizes her dream of seeing a spring training baseball game!)

The Male Half has one show Friday and one show Saturday at the Comedy & Magic Club. (We’re trying to get a message into the boys at Hidden House for the purposes of securing a five-minute spot at their splendid Wednesday night open mike… but Facebook is down right now… can one become too Facebook-dependent?)

After that, we zip across the desert to begin our eight-day stay in Vegas.

Wednesday we will celebrate the tenth anniversary of the upload of the very first issue of SHECKYmagazine.com– it was April 1, 1999, when we hit “publish” for the first time and launched the WWW’s most beloved magazine about standup!

When a magazine about standup see that question come up twice in its stats in the space of just a few minutes, the magazine is obligated to do a minimum amount of Googling just to see what the fuss is about.

Turns out this is what probably happened:

1. A gossip website runs a series of pics taken during a Kathy Griffin/Paris Hilton shopping spree in Los Angeles.

2. One of those photos depicts Griffin lifting up her skirt to expose her underpants.

3. Another gossip site speculates that, judging from the “bulge” in Griffin’s knickers, she’s quite possibly a male. (But probably just doing it so they can drop the word “mangina.” It makes them giggle.)

4. (And this is pure speculation on our part.) A morning radio show picks up on the second site’s speculation and makes great hay about the idea of Kathy Griffin being a man. Such rumors are Zoo-nip extraordinaire. Indeed, one local (PHL) radio station talk host (who normally toils in a decidedly non-Zoo format) even brandished the Jamie Lee Curtis was born a man meme one morning to break up the usual talk of local/national politics and culture. (And they used it in drop-in promos for a while!)

Word echoes through the WWW (or folks listening in Amsterdam and Maspeth and Ft. Wayne listen via live streams) and they, in turn, do some of their own Googling.

They end up at SHECKYmagazine.com because we’ve mentioned Griffin on a few occasions and we have a rather high ranking in Google.

To summarize: Kathy Griffin was most likely born a female. We won’t speculate on any bulge in her pants. That wouldn’t be ladylike– or gentlemanly– of us.

Mike Weatherford, in the LVR-J, with a clarification and a correction:

Righthaven LLC has teamed up with the Las Vegas Review-Journal and the Denver Post to sue ‘mom and pop’ websites, as well as nonprofit, political action, public interest, writers, and forum board operators for copyright violations. The strategy of Righthaven is to sue hundreds and thousands of these websites and counts on the fact that many are unfunded and will be forced to settle out of court. Nearly all cases are being filed in a Nevada Federal Court and must be fought in this jurisdiction. You are not safe from Righthaven if you are out-of-state.

We have removed the quote in order to protect ourselves from legal action.

We are unclear on the meaning of the phrase, “themed comedy tours of like-minded stand-ups.” Perhaps it will be a steady stream of three-man, Nasty Show-type acts. Or a wide variety of acts who just happen to agree with Slayton on a variety of topics from culture to politics to sexual mores… or not.

In any event, the eternal question is: Who books it?

We’ll be in Vegas, starting on the fifth of next month, so we’ll sniff around and try to figure out what’s going on.

According to a press release, Finlandia, the distiller that makes the premium vodka, is sponsoring “an initiative to propel stand-up comedy in India,” headlined by LCSer Papa CJ.

The release focuses on last Friday’s show in Calcutta, which launched the tour.

Finlandia, Brown-Forman’s premium Finnish Vodka brings world-class stand-up comedy to a cool Calcutta night. On Friday night the popular stand-up comedian had the audience in splits with his witty humor; including the front row guests whom he targeted frequently with his incisive wit.

The pulsating evening saw Actors, Parambrata Chatterjee, Swastika Mukherjee, Dhruv Majumdar, Designer, Agnimitra Paul, besides celebrity chef couple, Shawn Kenworthy and Pinky Kenworthy laughing uproariously among a guest profile of 250 of Calcutta’s swish set.

Brown-Forman is a huge, American-based corporation.

Brown-Forman employs 4,440 people worldwide with about 1,300 located in Louisville. Brown-Forman, one of the largest American-owned spirits and wine companies and among the top 10 largest global spirits companies, sells its brands in more than 135 countries and has offices in cities across the globe. In all, Brown-Forman has more than 35 brands in its portfolio of wines and spirits.

Is there a better combination than standup and distilled spirits?

We have one question: Exactly what is Calcutta’s “swish set?”

A lengthy article by John Lopez in the LA Times says that comics are finding a comedy gold mine in the economy’s downturn.

In fact, rather than shrinking from the hardship afflicting their audiences, many comedians are tackling a pervasive sense of angst, schadenfreude and disgust head on — and hitting a vein.

“Every time I start writing my résumé, it turns into a suicide note,” quips young comic Duncan Trussell during “Comedy Is Dead 5,” a gothic night of stand-up that packed a crowd of hipsters and Silver Lake creative-types into the arch-vaulted, stained-glass-windowed Masonic lodge at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery. It’s a younger, more “alternative” audience than those at the tourist-stocked Sunset Boulevard clubs, but Duncan’s jokes strike a chord even with the ever-hopeful generation Obama crowd. He continues: “Obama has this look in his eyes, like a flight attendant who just found out the landing gear fell off but still has to try to keep everybody calm.”

We like the irony in the “Comedy Is Dead” title of the show… especially the numeral on the end. Read the whole thing for quotes from Marc Maron, Bill Burr and Louis CK among others.

A feature film about featuring standup comedy? Six feature films? This project snuck up on us.

Hollywood Report says the series of films will hit theaters soon.

The programming network arm of cinema advertising firm Screenvision has partnered with production firm Waggingtail Entertainment for seven original stand-up features set to hit theaters across the U.S. starting in May under the series title “Stand-Up 360.”

Caroline Rhea serves as the lead host of the live-recorded features, which typically include 100-plus minutes each of stand-up from six headline and up-and-coming comedians as well as behind-the-scenes footage.

The “Stand-Up 360” series also includes special-theme presentations, such as two “Muy Caliente” editions, featuring Latino talent and hosted by Erik Rivera, and “Inside Out,” headlined by popular gay and lesbian comics.

Among the featured comics in the series are Roz G, Judy Gold, Godfrey, Modi, Poppi Kramer and Wali Collins.

“Muy Caliente” includes Angelo Lozada, Cristela Alonzo and Sara Contreras, while “Inside Out” puts the spotlight on such performers as Jackie Hoffman, Frank DeCaro, Jaffe Cohen, Hedda Lettuce and Michele Balan.

It’s a “screen test,” and it was “leaked,” doncha know!

If this is the guy, it’ll be a hell of a lot better than Dustin Hoffman as “Lenny.” (Do yourselves a favor and skip the comments. “…this is a shit right on Sam’s grave…” and comments like that. Yeesh!)

(The Male Half saw Kinison live at the Chestnut Cabaret in Philly, circa 1984 (?). The Cabaret was a small (900-1,200 people?) venue, so it must have been before he went huge.)

Thanks to Kensil for the tip!

]

It seems as though Groucho might actually know Buckley, judging from his barely contained laughter when Buckley initially strolls out (after being introduced as “R.M. Buckley.”) Is the appearance some kind of a payback? A favor? Buckley gets to do shtick and plug the magazine he writes for. Groucho plays it as though he’s never seen him before.

The shtick goes over well– Shakespeare translated into jive (very popular at the time, even Steve Allen was doing variations on the bit).

More clips of Buckley (including a bizarre clip from the Gate of Horn from 1960) here!

Thanks to Dinocrat for bringing it to everyone’s attention.

Our title suggests a snarky response to the cliché that is the title of Daniel Banas’ article on Examiner.com (L.A. edition), “Is LA Standup dead, or just a sound sleeper?” We were going to fisk it line-by-line, but it turned out to be so thoroughly muddleheaded and so hopelessly inane that we immediately calmed down and decided it wasn’t worth the time. It’s just bad writing serving as a name-dropping vehicle and a chance to display entertainment/standup journo chops by *yawn* dissing Carlos Mencia and Dane Cook.

Add to that the internet, which offers a voice to the unhinged and socially awkward from the comfort of their lonely apartments, and it wasn’t long before the Dane Cooks and Carlos Mencias of the world are the face of the Los Angeles’ stand-up scene. Yikes.

Yikes, indeed! This meme– that the internet offers anyone a “voice” and that the voice becomes the face(?) of standup– is truly dopey.

We like the concept behind the Examiner.com (in fact, we pumped a piece by FOS DJ Hazard, whose writing appears regularly in the NY version), but they really ought to be a bit more careful about letting stuff like this get in.

Our Vegas operatives tell us that Mr. Warmth performed in Vegas last night, at the Orleans. In attendance were David Letterman, Shecky Greene and members of Alice In Chains and Anthrax. (We hear the rockers were in the front row and Rickles dumped on them pretty good.

The magazine, not the city. Although some might make the case that the city can sometimes do a good job.

From New York Magazine:

We asked the citys comedy tastemakers—club bookers, improv teachers, already-famous comedians, borderline-creepy groupies-to tell us about their favorite up-and-comers. Then we invited our ten nominees to the Gotham Comedy Club to perform a show. For each other.

We wondered if the “borderline-creepy groupies” were allowed in? Hey, why not?! They may have helped get their idol into the showcase!

One of the “victims,” Reese Waters said, “The idea was scary. But in reality it was okay.” So maybe we overstate the torture thing.

We liked the “signature joke” of Ophira Eisenberg (who is one of The Female Half’s fellow Us Weekly Fashion Police-ers)–“When the economy fell apart I thought, Oh no! What’s going to happen to me? And then nothing happened. Because I have… nothing. No savings, no investments, no mortgage. It’s like the world is rewarding me for being a transient screwup.”

We also liked her other quote: “The recession has been good to comedy in New York. Because comedy is cheap.”

Click on the slide show to connect the names with the faces.

Or just read the names here and try to guess which is which. Desiree Burch, Max Silvestri, Claudia Cogan, Hanibal Buress, Sara Schaefer, Kumail Nanjiani, Craig Baldo and Carla Rhodes.

The Female Half is ahead of the pack. On top. Leading the entire field with 51 points. Missouri and Louisville came through. She could… go… ALL THE WAY!

The Male Half is dead last, with 25 pathetic points. (And no real explanation, other than a vague wish for an upset-laden tournament that would have been historic in nature.)

That’s the title of Josh Sneed‘s podcast.

When are we going to start calling them “radio shows”? That’s what they are, really. Heck this one even has a radio show producer producing it– Detention co-host and producer Mark Chalifoux also produces The Mo Egger Show (9 to noon) at Clear Channel’s 1530 AM.

Perhaps it’s too late. Podcast they shall forever be called.

Sneed describes the show succinctly– “It’s basically the stuff you’d hear if you hung out with the comedians after a show.” Each show is “about an hour.” In the first ten episodes, he’s “hung out” with Eddie Gossling, Jon Fisch and Geoff Tate. We listened to the Jimmy Dore episode (or is that “POD-isode?”) and, by golly, it is just like being in a green room or a diner while comics swap stories, info, opinions, etc.

It’s free to download each episode from the show’s website, or by looking it up in iTunes (70 MB iTunes 8 setup.exe download required.)

Other popular podcast from comedians are Jimmy Pardo’s “Never Not Funny,” and “Hollywood Comedians Radio.” And here is a directory of British comedian podcasts in case you want to listen in on some conversations between U.K. comics. (That’s a page from the sprawling “Podcast Directory,” where we found Tom Shilue‘s podcast, which doesn’t follow the radio format but presents Shilue telling stories in front of a live audience. Which is comedy… but not… and it’s radio… but different.)

The Female Half is slugging it out at or near the top with the boys. In our SHECKYmagazine Bracket Invitational (Click on “Standings” to see who is up), we ended up with 14 contestants.

Currently at the top of the board is The Comics Comic blogger Sean L. McCarthy, with 31 points. The Female Half has 29!

In between them is The Male Half’s nephew, Danny, and John Wessling, each with 30.

McCarthy has Connecticut vs. North Carolina in the final.

The Female Half has Memphis facing the Tarheels.

The Male Half has West Virginia against Tennessee. BOTH have been eliminated. So far, he TEN of his Sweet Sixteen have been eliminated. His bracket is a disastrous turd. There is no hope for him. He is bringing up the rear!

He has switched to rooting for all the teams on the Female Half’s bracket so as to have something to root for!

Go, ‘Nova! Go Tarheels!