What to make of this recent item in a publication that calls itself The Australian Times?

LAS VEGAS– Stand up comedian Eddie Warren, 49, said his struggle with finding decent material had led him to the fart joke.

“It is simple and it works. The KISS principle, keep it simple stupid,” Mr Warren said.

Mr Warren, who goes by the name of Funny Eddy, said the fart was a simple act to perform and it always brought a laugh.

“It doesn’t even need to be a real fart,” Mr Warren said. “Sometimes I just push my tongue out the side of my mouth and make the sound. Laughs straight away.’

Las Vegas Comedy Corner owner Max Hilton said since Funny Eddy had changed his act he had continued to play to packed houses.

“This is really great for business. Comedy is win/win. We make bucks and the people are happy. I guess you could say the people are happy to make us rich,” Mr Hilton said.

“I quite often have a chair on stage. As I pick up my foot to place it on the chair I fart,” Mr Warren said. “Another routine includes making different farting sounds and calling them names like the wet fart, the sneaky fart, the George W Bush fart. It is really making a name for me.”

Patron Jimmy Birkley of California said he had never seen anything as funny as the Funny Eddy show.

“I almost pissed myself when he did the funny walk across the stage and farted all the way,” Mr Birkley said. “And the one when he tried to play the national anthem through his arse was hilarious.”

If we were to take him on as a public relations client, we would dub him “The Gastro-Intestinal Wonder From Down Under.” Can anyone in Vegas verify the existence of “The Comedy Corner?” We are loath to classify or categorize the likes and dislikes of an entire country’s comedy community, but it seems that an inordinate number of comedians who make a splash up here do so either by jamming something into, or expelling something out of, their ass. We’re reminded of the fellow from down under who made quite a name for himself at the Just For Laughs festival of a few years back by ending his set by igniting a roman candle which had been inserted in his “arse.” (Sure, a lot of American or Canadian comics do the same, but it’s usually offstage!)

Dan Anic, Los Angeles
Simon King, Vancouver, B.C.
Vic Lippucci, Vancouver B.C.
Kevin Shea, San Francisco
Joe Klocek, San Francisco

Tony Boswell, Chicago
James Inman, Seattle
Jen Kober, San Francisco
Gabriel Rutledge, Olympia WA
Mark Scalia, Boston

All have won a minimum of $500, and are eligible for the $5000 first prize.

They will perform in six shows starting Tuesday November 16.

Five will move on to the finals, which begin Tuesday November 23.

According to the Minneapolis Star-Turbine, Seinfeld‘s on Letterman tonight. If he gets bumped, blame it on them. We urge all who are serious about standup (from a performing or a viewing viewpoint) to watch and learn. (We might actually miss it, as we are fatigued from our recent trip to Saginaw/Flint. We just got home this morning and we’re operating on five hours of quality sleep. And we’ve just stuffed ourselves with a basil chicken/sun-dried tomato/pasta dish, created right here at SHECKYmagazine HQ.) We witnessed the Return of Seinfeld– the set he did on Letterman, his first after the series was cancelled. It was splendid. We urge all comedians with a well-meaning relative, to drop hints that the DVD of Seinfeld’s documentary, “The Comedian,” would make a wonderful Christmas/Hannukah present, if you haven’t procured a copy already.

Kathleen Madigan, talking to the Rocky Mountain News to promote her Comedy Works appearance, has little good to say about her Last Comic Standing experience:

Unfortunately, the show was canceled before its final episode and Madigan said she and her teammates are still waiting to collect the prize money they won during the weekly competitions.

But Madigan rests easy knowing that former castmates Heffron and Ant are diligently trying to track down the cash.

Read the whole thing here.

Attention all non-profit charitable foundations: Standup comedy shows are a natural for raising gobs of cash. When booked properly, a charity comedy show can be a bonanza– all the warm and fuzzy feelings the audience gets from all that laughing translates into fat checks. Killer Beaz headlined a recent show in Charlotte, at the Zone. We read about it in the Charlotte Observer online:

The Green Foundation’s “Hilarity for Charity” event, which supports Michael Waltrip’s “Operation Marathon” on behalf of Victory Junction Gang Camp, raised $25,000 on Oct. 18.

Click here to read the rest (Registration required).

Nadine Heintz, writing for Inc. Magazine, tells the story of one of New York’s longest running comedy shows. Through three different locations and through the boom, the bust and the re-boom, Caroline’s has offered standup in an upscale setting to Manhattan patrons for more than two decades. We worked the club when it was Caroline’s on 8th, in the Chelsea district, and we worked it a few times at the Seaport location, before we fled to the West Coast in ’88.

I opened a cabaret with two friends in the early ’80s. They were both guys, and they wanted to name the club after a woman, so we called it Carolines. But the cabaret acts weren’t really doing it for me, so I suggested we start doing some comedy. I had a feeling that there was going to be some sort of explosion, between Jerry Seinfeld and Jay Leno. Leno was our first act. It brought in a whole different kind of clientele. People in their late 20s and early 30s came out. I could feel it was the start of something.

Hmmm… no mention of Neil Hirsch, the eye-poppingly wealthy dude who, the legend goes, bankrolled the original club and was Mr. Caroline Hirsch at the time. We heard third- or fourth-hand that their marriage went belly up somewhere during the Reagan administration. Not sure if it was acrimonious or amicable. His conspicuous absence from the Inc. piece would suggest the former.

We skipped on over to competing biz rag Forbes, where Adam Leitzes and Joshua Solan wrote a fascinating piece about Neil back in December of 2000:

…Actually, try 1969. That was the year Neil Hirsch founded Telerate, a financial information service that provided securities prices for the international bond and currency markets. In a remarkable display of foresight, Hirsch helped usher in the age of electronic networks by building a global infrastructure of terminals. For more than 20 years, he helped Telerate become one of the most powerful brands in financial information and eventually sold the company to Dow Jones for more than $1.5 billion in 1990.

We remember Neil haunting the Chelsea club one week when we were on the bill. Rumor had it that he owned the first Mercedes stretch limo in Manhattan. We knew he had some jack, but whoa!

We don’t bring up Neil to take anything away from Caroline’s accomplishments. Far from it. She runs a hell of a club. Even had a TV show shot there! In fact, she lines up with us closely on one of our pet theories; says Caroline:

There was talk in the early ’90s that there was so much comedy on TV that it diluted all the clubs. Not true. If anything, it’s made us stronger. Even today, when I have young talent in the club who has been on TV, fans come out in droves. We recently had three of the standups from the reality show Last Comic Standing and they generated a tremendous amount of business. When a musician puts out an album, that album drives concert sales. It’s the same thing with comedy — people want to see the performer live.

And she caps off the article with this string of gems, for which she will always have our undying admiration:

I enjoy what I do, and I’m a big fan of comedy. If you don’t like it, there’s something grossly wrong with you. See your shrink. If people tell you they don’t like it, run. Run away fast!

Run away fast, indeed! This would make a tremendous motto for this very publication! A great interview. If you like, you can read the rest.

As for Neil, he’s a superstar in a totally different discipline– global communications networks. He was into global communications before it was cool. A fascinating profile. If you like, you can read the rest.

SHECKYmagazine contributor Jim Mendrinos will be on BBC 4 this Friday, November 12th at 7:30 PM. The show is “The DVD Collection– New York Special.” Mendrinos will be commenting on the history of Saturday Night Live! We post this because an examination of our statistics lately shows a decent number of visitors to our site from the folks in England. (And Senegal, Taiwan, even Cote D’Ivoire! Curious!) If you haven’t already, we encourage you to read Mendrinos’ column, Jim Mendrinos IN NY.

We got a press release from CBS, breathlessly titled, ” JAMIE FOXX SAYS HIS BIOLOGICAL PARENTS ‘COPPED OUT’ ” Intrigued, we read the rest. Here’s the money quote:

Despite all the disappointments with his biological parents, Foxx accepts the way his life has gone. Gordon asks, “Would you give up all of what you’ve accomplished all of what you’ve gained, if your life had been different and your parents had been together and you with them?” Foxx responds, “No. No, because I know now as a parent that, in a sense, they copped out. I don’t cop out on my daughter no matter how busy I am, so, you know…I wouldn’t do that….”

We’re told that the boys at 60 Minutes got tears! Real tears! It’s sweeps month gold! (How does one tell, we must wonder aloud, when one is interviewing an actor, if those tears are real? After all, there is an awful lot of Oscar® talk surrounding Foxx’s turn as Ray Charles! Is that too cynical, even for comics?)

On the drive up to Easton, PA, we speculated on the order. Who would close? Who would open? And where do you put Prof. Irwin Corey?! When guessing the order of a bill containing this many comedy legends, there’s a lot to consider. One thing is clear, however: a show presenting Bill Dana, Dick Gregory, Prof. Irwin Corey, Shelley Berman and Mort Sahl, and hosted by Dick Cavett, is noteworthy just for the sheer spectacle. The average age of the performers was 79! Sure, Corey is 91, but it’s still a remarkable assemblage of comedy experience and talent.

The drive took two hours– mainly because we crawled up along the Delaware to avoid Philadelphia metro traffic and because the deer are rutting– so we had plenty of time to speculate. (We nailed it. The above title to this post has them in order.)

The State Theatre was part of the Keith vaudeville circuit in the ’20s and ’30s. It was totally restored to its original grandeur in 1990. It is a spectacular old theater and the people who book it have placed a tremendous emphasis on comedy. In her welcome essay on the first page of the program, Executive Director Shelley Brown recounts how the first act they booked in the new era was Bill Cosby. And the ensuing pages trumpet upcoming ’04 and ’05 season shows headlined by Drew Carey, Larry The Cable Guy, Ron White, Tim Conway & Harvey Korman, Pat Hazell and Cosby (again!). It’s gratifying to see that this splendid venue, in a river town 40 miles north of Philadelphia, places a heavy emphasis on standup. And, from all appearances, it works. Friday’s show saw a 75 per cent sellout crowd of mostly baby boomers (the older end, probably folks who listened to these comics when they were children, teens or in college).

Host Dick Cavett strolled onstage to a warm and lengthy round of applause. He was just as witty, just as calm, just as entertaining as he has always been, no matter what the situation. (He was even a bit edgy– “I’ll bitchslap you all the way to the curb!” was how he threatened an excited female audience member. Twice!) When he brought on Dana, he acted as his straight man, feeding lines to– who else?– Jose Jimenez, the politically incorrect but nonetheless well-loved character that earned Dana a career that is in its fifth decade. Cavett departed and Dana finished up by telling about a dozen “street jokes.” Although, considering that Dana’s been around for so long, we can’t say for sure that they weren’t originally authored by Dana himself. (Dana factoid, from the program: He wrote the script for the Emmy-winnning All In The Family episode “Sammy Davis Visits Archie Bunker.”)

Next up was Dick Gregory. When you see legendary (and, let’s face it, old) comedians, the tendency is to hover above the whole spectacle and try to assess in terms of how it might fly in a contemporary comedy club– Is the material fresh? Is the delivery sharp? Is the crowd cutting him a break? These questions evaporate within seconds when watching Gregory. And the same held true for all the evening’s acts. They may well have been awarded a few points before they even opened their mouths– legendary status will do that. But none of them needed any kind of cushion. They were all tremendous. It should be noted that, even though these five are “legendary,” it shouldn’t obscure the fact that, at least in the case of Sahl, Gregory and Berman, they all still gig on a regular basis.

Most startling was Corey. When you watch him, you can’t shake the fact that he’s 91 years old! So, practically everything he does will inspire a curious mixture of awe, admiration, etc. But he came out and did his act in almost exactly the same way he did it in 1967! Dressed in the black high-top Chuck Taylors, with the rumple tails, Corey’s timing was dead-on. His mixture of the physical humor, the double talk, the setup/punchline jokes, the political humor, added up to what was arguably the best set of the night, audience response-wise. (Which is not to say that the others didn’t kill. They all killed. And each comic did at least one thing better than did any of the others. But Corey had the best time out there, if you consider laughs per minute and sustained laughs.) And he was the first one to say “fuck.”

What can you say about Shelley Berman that hasn’t already been said? He’s amazingly consistent, a technician. We’ve seen him perform four times now, in a variety of situations. (His one-man show at the Chicago Festival, in a sweatshirt and jeans at a Yarmy’s Army gathering in the room upstairs at Jerry’s Deli in Westwood, in a function room at the Las Vegas Festival last year and in Easton.) He’s the most theatrical of the group. His sets, no matter how short, are like miniature one-man shows.

We don’t think it goes too far to say that Mort Sahl is what any political comic should strive to be. It’s a well-known fact that Sahl’s political sympathies lie somewhat to the left of center, but here in Easton, addressing what was clearly a conservative crowd, he got big laughs regardless of which side he was hammering. His demeanor was bemused, not bitter. Sahl proved that there is such a thing as a nuanced cheap shot. Clutching his trademark newspaper (ostensibly, in this case, the New York Times), he joked about the recent campaign and only three-day old election results, but also managed to touch on the ongoing Disney/Eisner/Ovitz lawsuit– “Ovitz called Eisner a fascist in a Delaware courtroom. He may be a fascist, but he least he got the Monorail to run on time.”

After a brief intermission, the legends were assembled onstage in a semi-circle for an all-too-brief session that was supposed to be a Q & A, but there were no Q’s! There was, however, 25 minutes of smart, witty, back-and-forth (B & F?) among six of the greatest comic geniuses of our time. We’ll take it. At one point, the conversation turned to the proper use of the word “fuck!” We have a suggestion for the show’s producers: Solicit questions from the audience, in the lobby, before the show (or during intermission)– or totally fabricate some questions!– so that the Q & A appears to be a bit more interactive. We were told that this was the first such show on the tour, so maybe they’ll tweak it as they go. Look for a Vanity Fair piece on the tour– publicists with the State Theatre told us that VF was there on Friday night to shoot these gentlemen. Apparently there has never been such an aggregation of comic genius in history. We don’t dispute that for one minute. And, in case you’re wondering, Dana is 80, Berman is 78, Gregory is 73, Sahl is 77. Add Corey’s 91 and divide by five and you have an average just a hair under 80. It’s a comfort to know that, three decades from now, we might all be doing smart, fresh and snappy comedy before a wildly appreciative crowd of theater-goers.

We want to thank the folks at the State for playing ball with us. (And, we note that, prior to the show’s start, a SHECKYmagazine reader, no doubt one of perhaps dozens motivated to attend by the glowing words on the pages of this very magazine, buttonholed SHECKYmagazine Editor Brian McKim in the lobby to heap praise on our humble publication and express his excitement at the upcoming show!)

Japan Times Online is following the soap opera revolving around Shinsuke Shimada, a wildly popular standup comic who has been accused of assaulting an employee of the talent agency he works for:

One of Japanese show business’s greatest success stories is Shinsuke Shimada, a former juvenile delinquent who made his name as a comic during the manzai (standup comedy) boom of the early 1980s. Possessed of a nimble wit, Shimada has since become one of the most sought-after emcees on television. He currently hosts eight different quiz or variety shows, and until last spring helmed TV Asahi’s Sunday morning news program. In addition, as a self-taught financial wizard, he has written several best-selling books about investment strategies for lay people.

The rest of the story is fascinating, not just for the window it provides into the Japanese comedy scene, but for the analysis of Shimada.

…Though his accomplishments are considerable, it’s easy to discern a lack of self-esteem in Shimada’s transparent efforts to come off as being just as smart as the college graduates he often works with. In the past, even the most successful comics never stepped outside comedy, which was considered a low profession…

It’s gets even weirder! If you have five minutes, you can read the whole thing.

Two clubs gone in one week– neither one due to lack of business. Hmmm… This time, it’s Knuckleheads, the one at the top of the huge Mall of the Americas.

Knuckleheads closed after it and other clubs on the fourth floor of the Bloomington mall were sold by the Jillian’s chain of entertainment emporiums to another emporium chain, Dave & Buster’s, based in Dallas. The changeover occurred Monday morning. That afternoon, an insider says, Knuckleheads’ managers were informed of the closing.

Read the rest here.

According to articles in the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Akron Beacon-Journal, Hilarities in Cuyahoga Falls has been nearly destroyed by fire.

“The place is almost destroyed,” said Pete Barakat, whose brother, Tannous, owns the club.

The Cuyahoga Falls police and fire departments and representatives of the Ohio Fire Marshal investigated the damage Thursday.

The fire started shortly after the club was closed. No one was hurt.

Lucy Bibbee, the club’s marketing and sales director and booking agent, said management hopes to reopen as soon as possible and is considering other locations, preferably in Cuyahoga Falls.

And, it is hoped, near a hotel.

The following came over the transom, from George Sarris, Big Cheese at the New York City Underground Comedy Festival:

The NYCUCF would like to thank all the media, industry and fans for making this years festival a massive success. A special thanks to Chris Rock for his special guest appearance, XM Radio & Freddie Roman, Dean of The Friars Club.

Stand by for an announcement concerning the dates for NYCUCf 2005.

An email from a semi-finalist:

Hey folks…just an quick announcement:

The semi-finals for the Andy Kaufman Award being given by the New York Comedy Festival take place:

When: Monday November 8th @ 8pm
Where: The Marquee Theater, 356 Bowery (bet. 3rd & 4th Street)
Doors open to the public at 7:30. There is a $5 charge at the door. Seating is limited and is done on a first come, first served basis.

Contestants get 3 minutes. There are 30 semi-finalists.

Further info can be found at: www.nycomedyfestival.com

From the 30 semi-finalists, 10 will be chosen to perform in the finals later in the week @ Carolines On Broadway.

Thanks!

Jeff Rusnak of the Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel found an interesting way to incorporate the recent elections into his (Entertainment) beat reporting:

If your candidate won, the laughs should come easily. If you lost and see the country careening off a cliff, then see as many shows as you can afford.

Read the whole story.

Just spotted this advertisement online:

New York Comedy Club, in Manhattan, is seeking people interested in producing shows at our venue. Primetime Friday and Saturday nights available. Top producers receive 100 per cent of box office. No rental fee. At New York Comedy Club, you will never be forced to add guest spots on your show. You control the entire lineup. New easy going management team. Dates going quickly. For booking info, contact Al Martin (718)979-9898.

You may recognize Martin’s name– he’s one of the principles in the new Improv in Manhattan. Perhaps he’s “repurposing” his New York Comedy Club instead of turfing it altogether. Whatever the case, it sure beats the hell out of a “bringer” show, which, as readers of this publication already know, we regard as evil. For further details on the venue, at 241 E. 24th St., see the club’s website.

Our Canadian friends handed out some hardware at the Canadian Comedy Awards last weekend in London, Ontario. The winners, standup-wise:

Pretty Funny One-Person Show: “The Road Between My Ears”– Ron James

Pretty Funny Newcomer: Ron Sparks

Pretty Funny Female Stand Up: Laurie Elliot

Pretty Funny Male Stand Up: Derek Edwards

Note: The use of the somewhat tepid “Pretty Funny” description is their idea, not ours! (We must agree, however, that it’s pretty funny.)

In a Reuters article about Saturday Night Live,

The always fierce competition among comics to land a gig on NBC’s Saturday Night Live is set to become the basis of a reality series for the network.

As Pat Cooper would say, “It’s over!”

Has SNL appealed to anyone but children since ’77 or so? This is the final nail in the coffin of a comedy show that was ever so briefly fresh. The recent flap over Ashlee Simpson’s lip-synching controversy was the second-to-last nail in that coffin. Sure, Simpson handled the whole thing poorly, of that there is no doubt– blaming it on her band, on acid reflux, on the lunar eclipse– but in her defense, she just turned 20 years old 30 days ago. Not one of the stories on the whole fiasco even bothered to mention that somebody– a highly paid professional– in the control booth screwed the pooch big time! Not only has SNL escaped any blame for the goofup, they came back the following week and mocked her on national television! Talk about chutzpah!

What is going on over there? If somebody was unhappy with Simpson’s appearance they could have easily quit the show. But exposing someone as a lip-syncher, on national television, is cowardly. Even if someone had a problem with Simpson guesting, that’s bogus– SNL’s musical guests have largely been embarassing for the past decade or two– Color Me Badd need we say more?

Then Lorne Michaels said that they had no idea that she was going to lip-synch and that the show would have never agreed to it. Huh? Michaels is lying to the press in order to discredit a 20-year-old girl that he invited to appear on his show!

When it comes out that 60 Minutes was trailing Simpson for a feature, it begins to appear that one thing happened: Simpson was set up. Pathetic.

Remember when SNL usta have standup comics on as guests? Kinison! Billy Crystal! Joel Hodgson! Steve Martin! Anyone care to guess who hosted the very first SNL? None other than George Carlin (October 11, 1975). And, on that very same show, none other than Andy Kaufman appeared and… lip-synched to the theme from Mighty Mouse.

If anyone in the NY/PHL area wants to buy tickets to “The Comedians” show this Friday, Nov. 5, (See Comedy Legend Overload! below) they can do so by calling 1-800-999-STATE or by hopping onto StateTheatre.org! We plan to be there.

We’re still seeking respondents for our newest SHECKYmagazine Readers Poll. It’s the one about how long you’ve been reading SHECKYmagazine.com. Click here to be taken directly to that posting. Or just seek out the poll itself over —–> there.

And wish to remind all that SHECKYmagazine content is now availabble for your My Yahoo! Click here and it will all make sense. Or, if you already know what we’re talking about, the button to add our content is right over ——>there. Thanks!

Asahi Shimbun, a Japanese newspaper, has an story about a curious program that uses comedy to educate consumers as to the dangers of scams and cons:

College students who specialize in the “sit-down comedy” style called rakugo put on shows in venues all around the capital area. They don kimono and kneel on a cushion to relate a comic tale, switching voices between the story’s various characters. But, unlike traditional rakugo stories, these tales have a serious punchline.

In the project’s nine years, last year was the worst yet for hapless consumers being cheated by crooks. A total 160,817 complaints were brought to the Tokyo Metropolitan Comprehensive Consumer Center in fiscal 2003.

Read the whole bizarre story at asahi.com! I suppose the Japanese would look askance at the Improv Driving Schools!

The New York Daily News reports that Larry The Cable Guy got into some minor hot water by making a crack about American Idol Clay Aiken during a recent appearance on The View:

Hey, it wasn’t that bad. I said I was on the Clay Aiken diet. That’s where you pop in a Clay Aiken CD and try to keep food down,” said Whitney.

“I mean, is someone actually sitting at home bent out of shape because I did a joke about Clay Aiken,” he asked incredulously. “It’s like, all the crap goin’ on in the world and that’s what floats your … boat.”

The lesson here? We can’t decide. Either you don’t go on The View if your act has any sarcasm in it, OR, if you do, you must take care not to make fun of someone whose fans have the time and the wherewithal to make your life miserable by inundating you with hate-email (Housewives? Children? Teenage girls?). Read the gory details here. (Thanks to Sharilyn for the tip!)

We arrived at Henry W. Longfellow Elementary at about noon. The voting booths were set up in the gymnasium, as always. A couple elderly, white-haired gentlemen chatted outside the doors to the gym. Inside, there was no waiting. The atmosphere was calm, serene; poll workers chatted idly among themselves. There were two separate banks of cafeteria tables set up, one for each district (or precinct?) and we went to the wrong one initially. When we got to the correct one, we realized why– the “M through Z” sign was obscured by one of the poll workers seated in front of it. She was a woman, maybe in her late 50s, African-American, wearing a pink velour jumpsuit. When we finally cleared up the confusion, we complained (in a joking manner) that she was the reason that we were confused! She laughed. (She immediately knew we were kidding!) We even accused her– loudly– of voter suppression! We all laughed heartily and she mock protested, “Don’t let the TV cameras catch me!” All of us had a good laugh at that one. We produced passports– even though ID was never required. We all swapped info about which kind of ID we had, and why we had it. Amid the jocularity, a guy wearing a badge that read “Poll Challenger” walked up and asked us our names. He skittered away and riffled briefly through a box of index cards. We procured our slips of paper and proceeded to vote. The whole process took maybe three minutes. Placid democracy taking place in the ‘burbs of Southern New Jersey.

“But I don’t vote… because I don’t really think it makes a big difference. I think the owners of the country do what they want to do anyway. No matter who is in office. …they know they really own everything, they make the decisions, they control people’s lives, and they’re not going to change that. You try getting the power away from them now. I mean, you can never really do that.”

–George Carlin

Brian Regan will team up with a good chunk of the team that created Scrubs for his own sitcom.

“Brian is the absolute best comic out there that hasn’t had a sitcom yet,” Lawrence said. “Tim and I connected early on in our careers and our friendship over the fact that we both worship this guy as a comic, and we’d always tell each other that when either one of us had a chance to make a TV show that we are going to try and make a show for him.”

The headline of the Reuters story is “Rising Comic Regan Gets Own Sitcom Project.” Rising? This one might actually fly. Those Scrubs guys have put together one of the most underrated sitcoms ever.

Just got word that Steve D’Addario, better known as Stevie D, has passed away. D’Addario was the proprietor of Stevie D’s, a ramshackle comedy club a couple miles off of Rte 1 in Middleton, MA, about 45 minutes north of Boston. D’Addario and his room were a big part of the fast-paced Boston comedy scene in the mid- to late-80’s. The low-ceilinged club was frequently packed. The crowds were tremendous. A family-run business, Stevie D’s treated the comics exceptionally well. It was obvious that D’Addario enjoyed standup and he derived a great deal of satisfaction from running a comedy club. It was also clear that he enjoyed the company of comedians. When the club closed in the early ’90s, we mourned the loss. Now we mourn the loss of the guy who started it.

Hey, comics: We would appreciate your feedback on this. (Feedback is easy– just click on the “Comments” link at the end of this post. Comment anonymously, if you like.)

WHERE are the best clubs in the U.S. and Canada for videotaping one’s act? Important criteria are: Good crowds, good sight line from the camera to the stage, minimal waitstaff traffic, minimal audience noise, minimal bar noise, proximity to the stage, good sound system, aesthetic appeal of the backdrop, helpful tech staff. If the club has a system in place and it’s merely a matter of supplying blanks, tell us about them, too, and include a rating on the quality of the tape.

WHERE are the best clubs in the U.S. and Canada for digitally audiotaping one’s act? Please don’t leave any advice as to the best Mini-Disc recorder to purchase or how to thread a Sennheiser lavaliere up through one’s pantleg. Those are discussions for a different posting altogether. What we want is info on clubs that have a DAT system setup (and are cooperative about allowing comics to tape).

Keep in mind: If the club charges a fee to tape (video or audio), we’d rather not include them in this list. (And, please spare us the explanation for why the clubs charge– we’ve heard them all and they don’t wash.)

The Film, TV, & Commercial Employment Network has a page called Jobs For Comics that regularly runs classified ads seeking comics for film shoots, one-nighters, auditions and the occasional “bringer show.” Those of you who are totally lacking in discipline can, for $20/year, have the folks at Jobs For Comics notify you via email every time the listings change. (Or you can configure your Netscape browser to do it automatically– for $0.00! See below!)

(Editors note: We forgot the first– and perhaps most important step– BOOKMARK THE SITE FIRST! This is easily done by first pointingyour browser to http://www.employnow.com/comics.htm, then hitting “Control + D” Mind you, this is the way it’s done in Netscape. With IE, we’re certain that the procedure is to click on “Favorites,” then hit “Add to Favorites.” We hope this clears up any confusion.)

Click “Bookmarks,” then
Click “Manage Bookmarks,” then
Locate the Jobs For Comics bookmark, then
Right click the bookmark, then
Click “Properties,” then
Click on the “Schedule” tab, then follow the directions for scheduling your own personal notification. You can also click on the “Notify” tab and customize the notification even further. You can see by the illustration that it works equally well with any website, including– SHECKYmagazine.com!

Three monster tours of note are coming to a small theater or very large comedy club near you. Brian Regan, Mitch Hedberg and Ron “Tater Salad” White are in the midst of ambitious tours criss-crossing the U.S.A. This is a good thing for standup comedy. Highly visible tours like this one are well-promoted, heavily advertised and able to “convert” multitudes of people into rabid live standup fans very efficiently.

Ron White’s tour schedule.
Brian Regan’s tour schedule.
Mitch Hedberg (& Stephen Lynch)’s tour schedule.

Ben Fong-Torres penned a two-page profile of Ellen DeGeneres for Parade magazine. It’s in your Sunday paper today. But, oddly, Parade’s website won’t run the article here for another week! So, click it and bookmark it if your local paper doesn’t carry Parade.

Ellen found attention as a standup comic in 1982 after Showtime named her “The Funniest Person in America” following a series of regional competitions. But DeGeneres, then 24, didn’t have it easy on the road. “I was sandwiched between comedians who were doing the exact kind of humor that I am totally against,” she recalls. “Everything’s negative and everything’s mean-spirited, and I just didn’t fit in.”

We just read a Globetechnology article about a show (that took place at the Yuks in Ottawa on Oct. 27) that was billed as “a show of support for Canadian Satellite Radio and its proposed Laugh Canada channel.” Earlier in the article there was a reference to CSR’s “proposal to launch the Laugh Canada channel using satellite radio’s digital quality sound technology.” We skipped over to CSR’s website, and we didn’t immediately see any mention of the “proposed” Laugh Canada channel. Indeed, we weren’t sure that CSR had even launched! Then we waded into their press releases and discovered that CSR has a hearing on its licensing on Nov. 1, 2004, before the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission.

(We began to think the whole thing was an elaborate gag when “The CSR Programming Philosophy” was translated into “La philosophie derrière la programmation de CSR”– what is the French word for “buttocks” doing in there? Anyone fluent in French know why?)

Anyway, we found it fascinating that a couple dozen comedians “showing support” for the proposal eventually results in Laugh Canada becoming a reality. Canada– she is mysterious, no? Here in the capitalist pig sty that is America, a handful of people cook up the idea, get the money from God knows where, actually launch the damn system (with not one but three comedy channels!) and then hemmorhage cash– billions of dollars– over a period of years and then maybe– maybe!— they get it back, and then some, somewhere down the line. (At least that’s how CSR’s partner XM Radio is doing it.) Up north, folks gotta show support. (For the record, we prefer the sty. But, I suppose there are merits to both systems.)

It looks like all systems are “go,” as the idea has the endorsement of no less a power broker than Bruce Hills:

CSR’s proposal has broad-based support among Canadian comedy groups.

“Just For Laughs is excited about the potential of Canadian Satellite Radio,” said Bruce Hills, Chief Operating Officer, Just For Laughs. “It can be a great launch pad for Canadian talent into the North American market, and is an important step in creating a new and progressive model of Canadian comedy talent development.”

We wish you luck! We know you’ll love satellite radio if and when you get it or get on it. In the meantime, you can make comments and suggestions (and show support!) by clicking here.

Anysoldier.com coordinates with service members in the Middle East. Packages sent to the AnySoldier contact with the line “Attn: Any Soldier” will be distributed to members of the unit. On the “Where to Send” page, there are messages from the contacts, descriptions of life in-country, and a wish list for the unit. We went there and found this:

A benefit show for Any Soldier Inc., is scheduled for November 3rd at the Stress Factory Comedy Club. STARRING: NANCY RYAN, RICH VOS, JIM NORTON, ERIC MCMAHON, TONY DARO AND VINNIE BRAND!Click HERE for details. Tickets are going FAST!

Here’s a suggestion from SHECKYmagazine.com:

There are hundreds of items on the “What to send” page– things like razors, Tylenol, baby wipes and batteries. But they also are pining for things like DVD’s and CD’s! So, along with a few of those items (and a nice letter from home) SEND THEM YOUR COMEDY CD!

One particularly touching thing we read was that they also are soliciting Beanie Babies– the soldiers can easily carry a few around at all times and give them to the kiddies they encounter. Go to the site now and throw together a package and send it along the next time you go to a post office to mail out a press kit!

SHECKYmagazine.com Editor Brian McKim and “Hemi Guy” Jon Reep lookin’ mean at the Punchline in Atlanta Friday night.

Check out Reep’s website.

We’re here through Sunday night. Dontcha hate working Halloween? Maybe it’ll be different this year.

In a posting from Las Vegas in August, we ended with the following: “Our new favorite name is the one we found on the back of a lost Club Sahara card– Ashkon Batmanghelich!” Two months later, we got the following comment:

I just saw that you guys found my brother, Ashkon’s club card. Hahha I glad his name gave you guys a good chuckle. Incase you are wondering, I am Kamron Batmanghelich.

To which we reply:

Greetings, Kamron! Small world, eh?

Yes indeed, your brother’s name is quite the spectacle! We still have the card! We’re thinking of framing it!

From where do you hail?

(We’ve been getting some wild hits lately, geographically… Hyderabad, Pakistan… Yigo, Guam… Buenos Aires, Berlin, Paris, Helsinki, Hong Kong, Bosnia-Herzegovina! The WWW is a wondrous invention.)

Vaughn Meader, the impressionist comedian whose gravy train was derailed when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in November of 1963, has died at the age of 68.

Meader, who had battled by chronic emphysema and other ailments, died at his home in this central Maine city after refusing to be taken to the hospital, his wife, Sheila, said.

The first Vinyl Word that we ever uploaded– in May of 1999– was of Meader’s landmark album “First Family” in which Meader and a gaggle of stage and radio actors mimic not only JFK, but the entire first family and much of Kennedy’s cabinet. Such was the public’s fascination with JFK and his brood that Meader’s album became the fastest-selling record of its time, racking up 7.5 million copies and winning the Grammy for album of the year. “First Family” is available at finer thrift shops everywhere (When an album sells 7.5 million copies, there’ll be two copies in every vinyl bin!), the sequel, however, is somewhat rarer. To read the entire Maine Today obit, click here. To sample some audio bites of the album, click here.

Contests? Some comics love them. Some comics hate them. The Third Annual California’s Funniest Female Contest will be held at Martini Blues in Huntington Beach, California, March-June 2005. (This posting is not meant as an endorsement! Like we said, some comics love contests, some hate them!)

Check for the dates here.

Check for the rules here.

Here’s the results of the latest SHECKYmagazine.com Readers Poll, in which we asked When was the last time you When was the last time you witnessed live comedy?:

Within the past month– 58 per cent
Within the past 3 months– 16 per cent
Within the past 6 months– 2 per cent
Within the past year– 4 per cent
Within the past 2 years– 6 per cent
More than 2 years ago– 12 per cent
Never– 2 per cent

Let’s massage those numbers a bit– 66 per cent, or roughly two-thirds of you, have seen live comedy with the last 180 days! And, hey– what is up with you 2 per centers out there? What are you waiting for? (Unless you’re comics, in which case, you have an excuse. Or maybe you’re under age. Or you live in a country where there’s not much live comedy going on– we did just get a hit from Hyderabad, Pakistan… probably not much live yuks available there! New parents, maybe. Hmmm…) And you 16 per cent who haven’t caught it live in the past 2 years or so– you’re a sizeable chunk! How can we motivate you? We have plans to update our club list soon. If anyone out there has updated info that can bulk up our club list, send it in! And, if you have sent something in, and we didn’t insert it, please send it again… we lose stuff once in a while. Thanks to all those who responded! We’re trying to use the data for good and not evil!!

Now… on to the new Readers Poll! We’re trying to determine exactly how long you’ve been with us! Please take a moment to click on your answer in the new poll– “How long have you been reading SHECKYmagazine?” It’s right over there—> Thanks!

If you are a Yahoo fan and if you’ve personalized your Yahoo using Yahoo’s My Yahoo feature, you can click on the button below and add SHECKYmagazine.com to your My Yahoo. Thoroughly confused? No need!

If you already have a My Yahoo configured, just click the button and follow the prompts. If you haven’t configured yourself a My Yahoo, hop onto yahoo.com and click on the “Personalize” button in the upper right corner and follow the directions.

We’ve had one configured for some time. At the click of a mouse, we have several different “modules” that deliver clickable headlines in such categories as Top Stories from AP, Top Reuters Sports Headlines, and headlines from the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times. We made our My Yahoo our home page when we open up Netscape.

This is unprecedented. Three of the top seven best selling books, according to the USA Today Best-Selling Books list (on page 6D of today’s edition, available online here), are authored by comedians. That’s right, number one is “He’s Just Not That Into You” by Greg Behrendt, co-authored with Liz Tuccillo. Number two is “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Presents America (The Book)” by Jon Stewart and number seven is “When Will Jesus Bring The Pork Chops” by George Carlin.

Click on any of the above titles to be whisked to Amazon.com’s description of each.

We were priveleged to watch the monumental spectacle of the Red Sox winning their first World Series since 1918 on the big screen at the Punchline in Atlanta. The evening’s show had long since ended when somebody flipped the switch to shoot the game onto the big screen onstage. Add to that the spectacle in the sky of the total lunar eclipse and you have one of those special nights that make all this scurrying around the United States chasing that honky tonk comedy dream worthwhile. Congratulations to all those long-suffering Boston comics who have supported the local team all those years!

Here’s a partial list of the comics slugging it out in Seattle:

Joe Klocek, San Francisco
Kevin Shea, San Francisco
Susanna Lee, Portland, OR
Richie Stratton, Portland, OR
Scott Klatt, Portland, OR
Darren Meyer, Omaha, NE
Julia Lillis, San Diego
Simon King, Vancouver BC
Cory Harding, Edmonton, AB
Tony Boswell, Chicago
Mark Scalia, Boston
Matt B. Davis, Los Angeles
Dan Anic, Los Angeles
Jeremy Greenberg, Kirkland, WA
Alysia Wood, Louisville, KY
Beka Barry, Seattle
Brett J., Seattle
Tony Daniel, Seattle
Gabriel Rutledge, Olympia, WA
Stacia Jensen, Seattle
Jeremy Whitman, Tacoma, WA

And here’s their grueling schedule:

Round 1 – 15 comedians
Wednesday Nov. 3 Liberty Theater Puyallup
Thursday Nov. 4 The Moonraker, Kent
Friday Nov. 5 Best Western Hallmark Inn, Moses Lake
Saturday Nov. 6 Washington Athletic Club, Seattle
Sunday Nov. 7 Fairhaven Pub and Martini Bar, Bellingham
Monday Nov. 8 The Comedy Underground, Seattle
Round 2 – 15 different comedians
Tuesday Nov. 9 The Comedy Underground, Seattle
Wednesday Nov. 10 Liberty Theater Puyallup
Thursday Nov. 11 Jack-Son’s Restaurant and Sports Bar, Yakima
Friday Nov. 12 Best Western Hallmark Inn, Moses Lake
Saturday Nov. 13 Columbia Theater for the Performing Arts, Longview
Sunday Nov. 14 Fairhaven Pub and Martini Bar, Bellingham

Semi-Finals – top 10 comedians
Tuesday Nov. 16 – Pub 85, Kirkland
Wednesday Nov. 17 Liberty Theater Puyallup
Thursday Nov. 18 Skagit Casino Resort, Bow
Friday Nov. 19 Lucky Eagle Casino, Rochester
Saturday Nov. 20 Forecasters Alehouse, Redhook Ale Brewery, Woodinville
Sunday Nov. 21 Fairhaven Pub and Martini Bar, Bellingham

Finals – top 5 comedians
Tuesday Nov 23 Club Hollywood Casino, Shoreline
Wednesday Nov 24 Comedy Underground, Tacoma
Thurs Nov 25 – HAPPY THANKSGIVING – no show
Friday Nov. 26 – Kirkland Performance Center, Kirkland
Saturday Nov. 27 – Admiral Theatre, Bremerton
Sunday Nov. 28 Comedy Underground, Seattle
Monday Nov. 29 Muckleshoot Casino, Auburn – prizes awarded.

May the best comic win.

Ottawa-born comic Jeremy Hotz is touring Canada (along with six other comics, including Joe Starr) as part of the Just For Laughs tour. The Saskatoon StarPhoenix ran an interview with him:

Audiences here are great because you don’t have to hit them over the head, man; you can be subtle here. You don’t have to explain the joke. In Vegas, there are two tags that help explain the joke that I just drop here. Guess what, they get it right away here.

Read the rest here.