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.

We're looking forward to heading to Easton, PA, next Friday (Nov. 5) to see "The Comedians," a show featuring comedians Shelley Berman, Irwin Corey, Bill Dana, Dick Gregory and Mort Sahl! From the press release:

The evening has been described as "truly a once in a lifetime experience to see the most influential and innovative performers ever all on one stage. There has never been an event, either live or on television or film, that has brought together such a distinguished group of purely American comedy creators and visionaries."

Can anyone quarrel with that description? We're going to try to get some pics. It ought to be fascinating. Oh, and the whole affair is being hosted by Dick Cavett. We're not sure if this is a tour or a one-off show. We'll try to find out if there are any other shows like this one scheduled.

Fascinating results, so far, from our latest SHECKYmagazine.com Readers Poll. We're not going to publish the result yet, because we want more of you to respond-- the bigger the sample, the more valid the results. (Or something like that... if you're a statistician, spare us the lecture!

Anyway, so far, it looks like 65 per cent of you have been to a comedy club within the past month! And, it seems that 80 per cent of you have been within the past three months!

It makes all the sense in the world, we suppose-- readers of the WWW's most beloved magazine about standup would be inclined to go see comedy live. But we're amazed at how dedicated they are!

Thanks for those who've responded so far and PLEASE, if you haven't yet, take 15 seconds to punch your choice!

Jamie Foxx, who is the beneficiary of some volcanic pre-release hype for his portrayal of the late Ray Charles, apparently doesn't have to fake it in the scenes where he portrays Charles tickling the ivories. According to an item in the latest TV Guide, Foxx attended college in San Diego on a classical piano scholarship. We're pretty sure one has to know how to play piano to get one of those!

We peruse the McPaper, whenever we get the chance, to catch items like the following:

And Steven R. Schirripa, who plays Bobby "Bacala" Baccalieri on HBO's The Sopranos, has signed with Touchstone to star in a comedy based on his book, "A Goomba's Guide to Life."

Sopranos fans might know him as , but comics know him as "the guy you hafta call to get booked at the Riv in Vegas."

We decided to stay in Gulfport, MS, Monday, and we seemed to recall that there was a Monday night comedy show at Comedy Magic, one town over, in Biloxi. So we hopped on down there to see who was performing. (Don't you love it when the front desk of the casino and the box office don't know the names of the comedians who are performing? Not even the house emcee?!) We figured maybe we'd take a pic, too. We got there to discover that house emcee Dan Saah was welcoming Jack Kearney and Mark Anthony. And we discovered that we had NO SmartMedia card in the ol' camera! (And the one in the video cam was also gone!) We thought maybe we'd just describe each of them. Nah... How about we just direct you to Kearney's website and Mark Anthony's website? Much easier. And we'll never make the mistake of forgetting our card.

Now, it's on to Atlanta!

What's that in the Times-Picayune (one of our favorite newspaper names!) Friday?

Comedy at Martine's 2347 Metairie Road, Metairie. Stand-up comedy with Brian McKim, Traci Skene and Jodi Borrello, 9 Sat. $8. Call 289-6529.

Jodi Borrello, Brian McKim and Melanie Rucker at Martine's, after Saturday night's show. Borrello's Running Funny produces standup and sketch comedy shows in and around New Orleans. Check out her website.

We start at the Punchline in Atlanta on Wednesday night. We urge any SHECKYmagazine fans to come on out and see us and Jon Reep this week, through Halloween!

P.S. For the past 24 hours, Ms. Rucker has been mistakenly identified as "Melanie Aultman!" Our apologies. We knew who she was, we just got terribly confused when it came time to write the cap!!! Sorry!

Jeff Charis-Carlson, writing in the Iowa City Press-Citizen, interviews Russell Peterson, a graduate student in American Studies at the University of Iowa on the subject of political humor:

As you said, these people have to have some idea of what is going on even to begin to understand the jokes being told. What people get from comedy-- that they don't get from news shows-- is that comedy is all about making judgments. News coverage is supposed to be about avoiding making judgments. Journalists can present information and can say so-and-so said this and these people said that, but they are bound not to draw conclusions. Comedians make judgments all the time. They can report that same information, but then they assess that information in an easy way that makes people laugh.

Read the rest of the interview.

Paul Ogata has crafted a new Big Move. In this one, he contemplates that most elusive (and perishable) of assets, the TV credit:

Great. Just great. No sooner had I nailed my first hefty TV credit than that quitter Craig Kilborn up and ruins it. My appearance this past summer on The Late Late Show was a big thing for me. It was supposed to be my first big step into The Big Pond, the beginning of my Big Move. But with Kilborn's announcement of his decision to leave the show, all that is in doubt.

Has Ogata made the big move, le grande voyage, el grande viaje? Click here to find out.

Charlie Viracola will be on The Dennis Miller Show (CNBC, 9PM EDT, with repeat showings-- check your listings!) tonight.

Once again, Ed Will, writing in the Denver Post, demonstrates that he's one of the people inn the MSM who "gets it." His piece on Mitch Hedberg borders on the reverent.

"A lot of the stuff I was thinking early on was pretty much the way I think now, but at the beginning I didn't have a clue ... how to write a joke," Hedberg said. "So that took a while, too. I found out that against all better judgment, taking words out of jokes was actually better than adding words."

Read the rest here.

Late Show talent coordinator Eddie Brill, in Vancouver for their Festival, is interviewed on straight.com:

With the number of comics he sees each year around the world, either in person or on video, and with the limited number of spots on Letterman (no more than one a week), the odds aren't great for aspiring funny people. But being a comic himself gives Brill a sympathetic side most talent scouts lack.

Read the rest here.

In anticipation of Dave Attell's upcoming Bettendorf gig, an article entitled "Not losing any sleep," by David Burke, appeared in the Quad City Times:

"It's pretty politically correct out there," he said. "The audience has grown a lot, especially if you say something that's a little blue or dirty, but people should embrace (comedy). That's probably the last place you'll be able to hear that stuff before the FCC cracks down on that. People should support it, for the freedom of speech. Everybody wants to hear dirty stuff, but let's grow up already. It's not going to kill anybody. I don't see why there's this big moral crackdown on all this stuff."

We'd bet cash money that Attell said, "The audiences groan a lot..." (Understandable, since it was probably a "phoner.") As for the authorities cracking down on the speech in comedy clubs, Attell need not worry (if that is indeed what he's expressing here). Especially from the FCC, which has jurisdiction over broadcasts over licensed airways, not live performances in smoky bars. And the days of the local sheriff busting a comic are long gone. In fact, we're coming up on the first anniversary of the posthumous pardon of Lenny Bruce.

(Lead attorney for the Bruce forces) Robert Corn-Revere praised Pataki, a conservative Republican, for the pardon of Bruce, who spent four months in jail and botched his handling of his appeal by failing to abide by court rules.

From "Comedian Lenny Bruce pardoned" (firstamendmentcenter.org, 12/23/03)

Is this some sort of hoax? We got an email alert that supposedly linked to the following item on contactmusic.com:

WILLIAMS' RETURNS TO STAND-UP
Contactmusic Wed, 20 Oct 2004 6:18 AM PDT
FLUBBER star ROBIN WILLIAMS' movie career has deteriorated so much, he's returning to stand-up performances to earn some money. The actor complains he hasn't been offered film roles for so long, he's been forced to return to his comic roots to cover his expenses.

But, when we clicked on it, it took us to a story about how eight people died in a private plane crash in Missouri. Hmmm... We jumped to the contactmusic site, did a search using "robin williams" and found five or six items about how he's asked the Queer Eye guys how to remove his body hair, how he's grieving for Christopher Reeve, how last June he found a corpse in his car, how he has his own wine made from his own grapes, blah, blah, blah. Nothing about a return to standup. (We will say this: For someone who can turn publicity on and off like a faucet, it's hard to believe that he's gotta go out and hump this comedy thing to make his nut. And, one more thing: FLUBBER star?!?!)

There's a nice piece in the Daily Iowan, the student newspaper for the University of Iowa, about Dave Attell's pending visit to Cedar Rapids to do a couple of shows there.

"I was watching Wild-On E!-- these people are beautiful people going to beautiful places, and that's not me," he said. "I was the ugly version of that. They made people look really stupid or competitively whorish. Everyone's trying to get on TV. This show - well, toward the end, it got like that - but I don't want people to eat bugs or shit - maybe that made it stand out."

Read the whole thing.

Just got an email from F.O.S. Sharilyn Johnson, who sends along this heads up programming note/VCR alert to our friends to the north:

It's about time they aired this thing! Just a heads up so you can let all your Canadian readers know that the Star TV hour-long special from Montreal will air this Saturday night at 8 pm Eastern. Promo doesn't show much other than a few interview clips, but I'm sure we'll get the usual coverage of Kindler and the parties and all the *good* stuff.

Right you are, Johnson. And there's an encore presentation the following Saturday at noon... near as we can tell from a cursory examination of the Star TV website, where the following description resides:

Star! Hits The 2004 Just For Laughs Comedy Festival as we travel to Montreal to get the inside scoop on the comedy biz at "The 2004 Just For Laughs Comedy Festival." This one-hour special spends a whirlwind ten days with some of the hottest comics on the circuit including Wayne Brady, Pauly Shore, Andy Kindler, Modi and Brad Zimmerman.

Please take a moment to click on your answer to our latest SHECKYmagazine Readers Poll. This one asks "When was the last time you witnessed live comedy?" We ask that any comics who respond to answer the question "When was the last time you saw live comedy when you weren't on the bill?" The poll is over ------> there. Thanks!

In a Hollywood Reporter piece entitled "Daily Show Host Gives Satire a Serious Look," Paul J. Gough writes:

It may be a funny role for a man who anchors a "fake" newscast, but Jon Stewart seems to be channeling H. L. Mencken these days, casting himself as a fierce critic of the journalism establishment that he skewers so mercilessly on Comedy Central's The Daily Show.

Channeling Mencken now, is he? The spin and the damage control begins. We take it that Stewart's email was decidedly negative after his Crossfire hissy fit. The effort to portray Stewart as serious-minded and equate him with Mencken and Edward R. Murrow is laughable. Here's a quote from his recent commencement speech to William & Mary's class of 2004, in which Stewart said:

We declared war on terror-- it's not even a noun, so, good luck. After we defeat it, I'm sure we'll take on that bastard ennui.

Of course, both "terror" and "ennui" are indeed nouns, but that, of course, is not the point. The point is that Mr. Stewart makes a fine comedian and a fine anchor of a "fake" news program, but, in his effort to recast himself as a crusader for truth and the man who will single-handedly save public discourse, we fear he may have jumped into water that's way over his head. We rooted around SHECKYmagazine HQ, but we couldn't locate our Mencken biography. (We know a bit about the dude. We even comandeered the television in the Atlanta Punchline greenroom to watch an hourlong C-Span interview with P.J. O'Rourke on the subject of the legnedary Baltimore Evening Sun editor.) We did manage to dig up a couple of gems on the WWW (courtesy of brainyquote.com):

A society made up of individuals who were all capable of original thought would probably be unendurable.

and

The worst government is often the most moral. One composed of cynics is often very tolerant and humane. But when fanatics are on top there is no limit to oppression.

and

I never lecture, not because I am shy or a bad speaker, but simply because I detest the sort of people who go to lectures and don't want to meet them.

Compare these pithy quotes to Stewart's gems from his recent CNN appearance:

Stop, stop, stop, stop hurting America.

and

No. No. I'm not going to be your monkey.

and

You know what's interesting, though? You're as big a dick on your show as you are on any show.

As mean and cantankerous as Mencken was known to be, we're certain he wouldn't have had to resort to calling someone a "dick." I guess a job on the Daily Show writing staff is totally out of the question now.

Adam Gropman has observed... and the results, as always, are humorous. Thus the name, "Observational Humor." When we last heard from Adam, it was an opus-- a lengthy and vicious reflection on his day job called, "Day Job." This time around, in a column snappily titled "FOR THOSE ABOUT TO CONSIDER A SITUATION IN WHICH TO ROCK," things are a little different:

I was fired for a pretty cool reason, though, one that has nothing to do with "performance." I was fired because I let a short film crew shoot a scene in the building in which my ex-company inhabits office space. The boss was away on vacation at the time, but after he came back, building security told him what had happened and he deemed it "poor judgment" and canned me.

Read the whole thing, by all means. And Mr. Gropman is involved in other endeavors aside from collecting unemployment or performing in the New York Underground Comedy Festival. Like this:

The Passion II: Double-Crossed "edgy, smart, delightfully semi-offensive sketch in the vein if SNL at it's best." A Cast of eight graduates of the S.C.L.A. Training Center (including Gropman).

Fridays, Oct. 22 & 29, 8PM, at the Second City Theater next to The Improv on Melrose, Hollywood, CA. Only $5.

MIXED NUTS
By Lawrence Epstein

The readers of this magazine may be familiar with Mr. Epstein via his book, "Haunted Smile: The History of Jewish Comedians in America," which we excerpted on these very pages and which we go back to quite frequently as a reference. Publishers Weekly says that "Mixed Nuts" is "a lively history of entertainment from early vaudeville through radio, film and television." If you like your comedy mixed with history and sociology, this is your book. Check out the excerpt below, from Chapter 13-- Comedy Teams of the 1960's.

There were other comedy teams that emerged from improvisational comedy. Jack Burns had once teamed up with George Carlin. Burns had been a Texas newscaster when the two began to work together on a Fort Worth radio show. They went to Hollywood where, in 1960, they served as morning disc jockeys at KDAY. Lenny Bruce, among others, admired their talents. Bruce helped them, and they soon appeared on The Tonight Show. After two years as a team, Burns and Carlin decided that they wanted to end the partnership, and Carlin began his own brand of comedy.

Burns made his way to Chicago where, at Second City, he met Avery Schreiber, who, after a stint in the army and work at a theater, had joined the troupe, as he recalled, sometime in 1960 or 1961.

Burns was Catholic and Schreiber Jewish, and they, like an all-male counterpart to Stiller and Meara, took over the comedic exploration of cultural differences. Burns and Schreiber even looked gloriously at odds: Burns was thin and clean-shaven, and Schreiber had heft, loads of curly hair, and an impressive mustache.

Because Burns was generally politically and socially conservative and Schreiber more of a liberal, their personal differences, filtered through an ethnic lens, provided almost dueling stand-ups, unlike Stiller and Meara who had created more accomodating characters. Burns and Schreiber were after something darker. Stiller and Meara's characters communicated understanding; Burns and Schreiber's characters remained forever locked in their own individual psyches.

Their most famous sketch, "The Cab Driver and the Conventioneer." captured their differences perfectly and, in doing so, reflected very early the emerging cultural divide that was to mark American life in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

***

Burns: I don't care about the color of a man's skin. I was the first guy to scream when they took Amos 'n' Andy off the air... By the way, your name on the nameplate there. You're of the Judeo-Hebraic tradition?

Schreiber: You mean I'm a Jew.

Burns: Hey. I don't go in for name-calling. But let me tell you, pound for pound Hank Greenberg was one of the greatest ballplayers who ever lived.

Schreiber: What about Sandy Koufax?

Burns: Don't tell me he's one of them too?

Buy the book here

That's the nicest thing anyone has ever said about us in print... even if it is a backhanded compliment (they can't help themselves). It's amazing how a hit on USAToday.com (not even the print edition) can result in the second highest hit-count in the history of the magazine.

We got an email about who won the contests at the L.V.C.F.: "Winner of Royal Flush (I dont know who the other top two were): A kid with cerebal palsy named Josh Blue won the $10,000... Uncle Lar won the whole thing the big $25,000."

COngratulations to Josh Blue and Larry Reeb!

We got another email from a comic who participated. The following is but a short excerpt:

When she said "I'm a judge," what she SHOULD have said was "I'm THE judge." This PA or intern, or whoever she was, was THE judge. A comic, no. A booker, no. Just a festival runner of some sort with a clipboard, taking some notes and marking on a template. There was someone else giving the comics the light but she was not writing anything down. "Wow! This is a contest?" I thought surely that there would be...say...a panel of maybe three judges all with some sort of insight to comedy, or at least with a good sense of humor. Club owners, bookers, Paula Abdul, someone, anyone but ONE gal connected to the festival? Come on.

Sounds... interesting. Read the whole thing.

We here at SHECKYmagazine.com rarely have anything bad to say about the elders of the business. (Our default feelings toward them is warm and fuzzy. They deserve nothing but our respect and they're a tremendous source of wisdom, great stories and-- if they're still gigging-- it's a real kick if you're lucky enough to catch any of them perform live.) We reserve any vitriol for the ones who have nothing but nasty stuff to say about us young'uns. To wit, this quote from Jack Carter from an Oct. 1 piece in the Washington Times:

Industry veteran Jack Carter -- best known to TV viewers as a regular standup performer on "The Ed Sullivan Show" -- has a slightly different take on the quality of young comedians at the festival. He said many members of last year's class were not ready -- even if they did get work out of the festival.

"There are very few Seinfelds around," he said. "But all of them have a sitcom right away -- two minutes in show business, you get a sitcom."

Carter said part of the problem is that performers breaking into comedy today learn their craft in venues that do not push them or challenge them to be better.

"They work in those comedy rooms and it's a restrictive audience," he said. "They laugh at the weirdest things. They laugh at ideas today. They don't even need routines."

Read the rest of the article here.

* The Wormwoods are members of the great family of Compositae and belong to the genus Artemisia, a group consisting of 180 species, of which we have four growing wild in England, the Common Wormwood, Mugwort, Sea Wormwood and Field Wormwood. In addition, as garden plants, though not native, Tarragon (A. dracunculus) claims a place in every herb-garden, and Southernwood (A. abrotanum), an old-fashioned favourite, is found in many borders, whilst others, such as A. sericea, A. cana and A. alpina, form pretty rockwork shrubs.

The whole family is remarkable for the extreme bitterness of all parts of the plant: 'as bitter as Wormwood' is a very Ancient proverb. (Source: Nature One Health Organization)

Just got an email from someone who was at the Las Vegas Comedy Festival who described this year's fest as "The most disorganized cluster fuck of all time."

Contests had, on the average, twenty or fewer audience members not counting the comics. (This includes the Comedy Club and Mainstream Picks.)

Contests weren't even open to the public (You had to have spent $495 on the whole festival). I can see how the big-ticket events like the final final show and the seminars, and the show with names would be invite-only, but the rest of them shoulda paid someone eight to ten bucks an hour to flyer the streets around the casino.

The rules, by the way, didn't include who was judging that night, or what the categories being judged were. As of today, none us are even sure they remembered to get judges for that event. Event organizers were in the room but seemed occupied with festival matters. The other LVCF staff members I saw that night were helping with the order, running the light or helping backstage. There was no judges "table" that I was aware of.

The Boston Comedy Auditions were supposed to be an open call to anyone in the Royal Flush (as it says on the website). They decided-- the morning of-- to post a list of the comics that were "invited" to it. But the list had 15 comics, and only 9 went up, because no one bothered to tell them. One comic had to drive back to his hotel and change just to make it in time.

The contest was in the middle of the day for one-- yes, that's one-- audience member, plus the other eight comics. Poor Rick Corso had to host. Props to Jim McCue, for making the best out of bad situation, and to Corso, for making it fun, and to the comics who sat and supported each other in an environment where they could have turned against each other.

Winners of the Royal Flush, Mainstream, and Comedy Club categories weren't even told that night if they had won that evening's competition. So, if you were an audience member, it was kind of a rip to see a contest and not know the winner. Contestants had to go up to the office in the hotel the next day to see who won. Pretty fucking lame. Again it also takes away from some of the validity of judging. Also, you had to stay an extra night in Vegas (and get another night's hotel room, etc.) just to see if you were still in the contest. Remember, that in these categories are 15-20 year comics like (Steve) Mcgrew, Dwight Slade, Uncle Lar (Larry Reeb), Peter Berman and Rocky Laporte.

Speaking of which, they had a "warmup" round of those contests the night before in one of the conference rooms upstairs at the hotel. Some of the aforementioned comics refused to go up. One comic I know said he might have gone up and been a "team player" had someone from the Festival at least acknowledged that it sucked, apologized for no crowd, and asked nicely. Instead they looked at him funny when he said he'd pass on the warmup.

I guess at the end of the day, I think of the Boston Festival-- which is two guys running it out of their apartments-- and what a great festival that is, and then I think of the LVCF-- which is in VEGAS, where all they do is conventions and festivals and have access to a lot of people that could help them make it kick ass-- and it totally sucked.

Anyway, PLEASE PLEASE put the word out. Your article last year let a lot of us know the LVCF was fucked, but I guess some of us figured maybe they'd get their shit together in another year. Because the word was that the first year producers were out, and maybe these new guys might have been off to a bad start in 2003, or whatever... The point is....

There is NO WAY I would participate in it again. If any comics ask and are thinking about going next year, I will tell all comics I know not to bother, and how it has consistently sucked.

PS: The one thing I would want to be sure to include is what a good job the Boston Fest guys do.

There it is. An unsolicited email from a Fest participant. We have no reason to doubt its authenticity. And we have every reason to believe it-- considering the source and considering our experience last year!

Is Jon Stewart starting to believe his own press? The man who famously asked John Kerry, "How are you holding up?" is apparently growing weary of having the weight of the world on his shoulders-- he went on CNN's Crossfire (ostensibly for the purpose of plugging his new book) but instead took the opportunity to label the hosts partisan hacks and call Tucker Carlson a "dick."

Where has Stewart been? Crossfire hasn't been a serious program for a few years now. (Not since they canned Bob Novak and Michael Kinsley, hired Begala, Carville and Carlson, and went to the live audience format, at least!) And, ahem, John: CNN hasn't been a serious network since... well for a long time. Stewart has an extremely low opinion of Joe Average's ability to distinguish between news, opinion, spin and entertainment.

Check out the transcript at cnn.com.

From wrestling-news.com comes word that professional wrestling legend (We can call him a legend, right?) Rowdy Roddy Piper has a sleeper hold on standup comedy. ("Rowdy Roddy Piper Ventures Into Different Form Of Entertainment-- Standup Comedy!") It seems that Piper and comedian Barry Kolin "are working on a one-hour standup act." Then the article veers (further) into fantasy. We'll let wrestling-news.com correspondent Anthony DeBlasi take it from here:

The article also mentions that if all goes well, Piper will travel to comedy clubs all along the West Coast, then onto Las Vegas. From information I received earlier reveals this could be last a while for Piper. If this act is a success, there is a chance that he will remain in Las Vegas as an attraction for one of the major casinos.

We must find that "article" DeBlasi mentions. We can either regard this as an affront to the art of standup comedy, or a sign that standup comedy is going so well (and appears attractive as an entertainment career option) that people from other sectors of the entertainment business consider jumping in. Think back... When was the last time you heard about anyone going to standup from another discipline? (Or, maybe it's a sign that the wheels are falling off of pro wrasslin'!)

Either way, we're a bit disturbed about that "working on a one-hour standup act" remark. Exactly how does that work? This gives us pause. We know people who've been at this for 20 years who are "working on a one-hour standup act." We'll keep tabs on Piper's progress. Read the rest here.

We get all sorts of emails here at SHECKYmagazine.com. This one came from Jon, Casting Associate Producer of ABC's reality series, Extreme Makeover. We have confirmed that it's legitimate. So, comics, if you wanna get in some of that primetime makeover action, here's your chance:

My name is Jon and I work for the ABC primetime reality series, Extreme Makeover. We're looking to cast fun, outgoing people, and what better people personify that image than comedians? I was hoping to find out if any of your readers would be interested in applying for the show. The makeover might include a mini-makeover involving a new look without plastic surgery. Or, go the extreme route which may include multiple plastic surgeries, a new look, a hot wardrobe, etc.

Please contact me at this email address if interested or have anymore questions jau4u2003@hotmail.com.

If you are not familiar with the show, you can also look for us online, at abc.com/extrememakeover.

Best,
Jon
Extreme Makeover Casting Associate Producer

From the Hollywood Reporter:

E! Entertainment Television is joining forces with Las Vegas fixture Wayne Newton to find the city's next superstar performer.

The cable network said Thursday it has given the go-ahead to The Entertainer, a 10-episode reality drama series featuring Newton that's set to debut in January.

The elimination-style series will feature 10 performers-- including male and female vocalists, illusionists, comedians and specialty act performers-- competing in performance challenges. Each week, Newton and a team of judges will whittle down the contestants until one winner remains. The last remaining contestant will perform alongside Newton during the series finale and also get the chance to become a featured performer in his Las Vegas show.

They've got ten weeks to line people up for this (if they havne't already started). Gentlemen, ladies: Start your engines.

We thought we noticed something vaguely familiar in a Variety.com article sent along by Tommy James.

Comic DJ Nash is teaming with Kelsey Grammer's Paramount-based Grammnet shingle to develop a half-hour laffer for NBC.

My Other Life in Brooklyn will be based on Nash's recent real-life experience working in New York on Whoopi Goldberg's Peacock sitcom while commuting home to his wife in Los Angeles.

During the season he spent on Whoopi, Nash lived with two single male roommates in New York five days a week, then flew home to his wife on the weekends. The dual life experience gave Nash some insights into male-female relationships that will serve as the center of the project.

Then we read the tail end of the story, where they said that Nash signed and starred in a CBS pilot "a couple years ago, not long after being voted best new face at the 2000 Montreal Comedy Festival." Hey... wait a minute... We recalled that we once jokingly proclaimed Paul F. Tompkins to be the "Festival Winner" at the 1999 JFL. Then we also faintly recalled someone (as it turned out, it was pop.com) declared someone to be that year's "Most Outstanding New Face!" Back then, he was David J. Nash, as is evidenced by this excerpt from one of our JFL 2000 updates:

The dotcom thing has become quite a force here. There's always speculation at JFL about deals being signed for x amount of dollars. This year, however, the only sentences that had those three words in them also contained the words "dot" and "com" somewhere in them. Pop.com went so far as to hand out a plaque to a comic, David J. Nash, and unofficially (Non-JFL-approved!) saddled him with the rather ungainly title of "Most Outstanding New Face." They briefly stopped the music and brought out (much to everyone's horror) an Austin Powers impersonator to present the award. Then they turned the music back up, turned on the strobes and it was back to ignoring the cauliflower! The food was atrocious at all but one party (comedyworld.com/Thursday night You can't go wrong with smoked meat!). Does anyone really eat cauliflower? Sushi is risky. When you refuse to eat free food, you know something is horribly askew!

Since then, of course, Nash has dropped most of the letters in his first name and the period from his middle initial. And pop.com's domain name has been bought by a bunch of movie fans named CountingDown.com. Time marches on!