Traci Skene is one-eighth Jewish? It's a long story, but a very entertaining "Keep It Tight."

A Jewish friend of mine told me that not all Jews will recognize my Jewishness anyway. Apparently, being Jewish is passed down through the mother and only Reform Jews accept Jewish paternal lineage. So to them, I'm a Jew. To the others, not so much. (It would help if you said the last two lines while doing a serviceable Jackie Mason impression.)

We dare you to resist reading the rest.

Brian McKim liked his recent sojourn to Buffalo. What's not to like? But, as usual, he can't resist reminiscing about weird gigs in upstate NY and making grand pronouncements about his experiences past and present. Fortunately, he has a column, "A Coupla Minutes Up Front."

One of the first people to headline me was a guy named Bob D'Andrea who booked a ghastly little bar named the Outrageous Inn in Rochester. He'd put the comics up in a wretched little motel called the DeNonnville Inn and shuttle them to the club and back. I recall, while waiting for my set in the bar next to the showroom, on one of the nights of my Outrageous engagement, that a fight broke out not six feet away. I was aghast as two or three patrons gang-hugged the troublemaker and danced him past me, with not a half a foot between us, eventually tossing him out into the wicked Rochester night.

Find out what all this has to do with SHECKYmagazine's recent pronouncement that the standup biz is back to its previous, healthy levels by reading the rest!

Take time to read the latest column from Doug Hecox, Writer of Wrongs, "The Download on the Future of Standup":

Recognizing comedy's long history of reliance on technological advancement, I hope to embrace the future by being the first professional comedian to go that logical next step. By incorporating my PDA-- an old-school PalmPilot-- into my act, I can actually go on stage, "beam" my act via infrared directly to all the PalmPilots and Blackberrys in the audience, bow and get off the stage. I could do a full 25-minute set in about eight seconds, making comedy not only hilarious but very efficient for today's busy schedules...

Read the rest!

Shotgun email from XM Satellite Radio:

On April 2nd XM Comedy 150 will feature cuts from Mitch's recorded works along with interview clips every hour all day Saturday. Then, at 9pm East / 6pm West, join us for an hour long StandUP SitDOWN XM interview special followed by an entire uninterrupted performance recorded at The 40 Watt Club in Athens Georgia. This day long salute to one of comedy's great talents will be presented as usual....unedited and uncensored.

Celebrate the life and humor of Mitch Hedberg with XM Comedy Channel 150...where Mitch Hedberg's wit and humor will always be alive and well!

(Update 12:23 PM EST) We have confirmed through two reputable sources that Mitch Hedberg died yesterday, March 30, 2005. A statement will be issued shortly by his representatives.

(Update 12:23 PM EST) We have confirmed through two reputable sources that Mitch Hedberg died yesterday, March 30, 2005. A statement will be issued shortly by his representatives.

We are sad to report that Mitch Hedberg is dead.

We've referred to Mitch as one of the few "rock stars" of comedy. We saw him perform at a gala at Just For Laughs in 2001 and it was astonishing to see the reaction of the crowd in the theater that night. Radically different from any other response.

From our Sunday, July 22, 2001, J.F.L. update:

The highlight, though, was seeing Hedberg live. It was like seeing a rock star. The response was tremendous and he was forced to step on the laughter to get all the material in. It was frenzied. To top it all off, he's a nice guy.

We never did get to see him do an extended set. Our schedules never worked out. We made a half-assed attempt to get one of us (the male half) on the bill when he and Stephen Lynch came to Philly to perform at the Tower Theater late last year, but it never worked out.


We met him in Montreal, just after his gala performance. He was gentle, quick to laugh, seemingly shy-- a lot like his onstage persona.

We had the pleasure of interviewing Mitch early on in the magazine's history (1999?) and that interview put us on the map. For that, we'll always be grateful.

Shortly after it ran, we recieved an email from Mitch's mother, requesting a hard copy. We printed it out as best we could and sent it along with a note saying how nice her son was. She was very proud of him and she liked to collect all of his clippings.

To this day, it is one of our most-hit files. We declared, to anyone who would listen, that, more than any comedian who was out there working, Mitch Hedberg inspired an internet buzz, a fan reaction, a loyalty like no other. His fans, owing to their average age or sensibilities perhaps, made him the first comedian to become a WWW star as well as a television and live performance star. We could tell that he was appearing somewhere when the number of hits on that file spiked.

He was one of our favorites here. Our hearts go out to his friends, his family and his loved ones.

Word on the street is that there's a new club at the Universal Studios theme park in Los Angeles. We hear it's run by the same folks who run the Bonkerz (with a "z") in Orlando. This would follow, since the Orlando location is also at that city's Universal Studios theme park. Here's the email:

Bonkers Comedy Club is opening a new comedy club at Universal Studios City walk. Grand Opening night is the Friday, though they're having a sneak preview night tonight for Universal Employees and their friends.

Click here for their website.

Word is that they'll have a headliner, feature and emcee on Fridays and Saturdays and it will be a showcase room on Thursdays and possibly Wednesdays.

This is the first time in a while that SoCal has opened a new club. But it's not the first time that there's been a club at the Universal location. We seem to recall a room there, back in 1992 or so, a Catch, that never quite caught on and only lasted a coupla years, if that. We always found it to be rather somber and quite inconvenient to get to. So, apparently, did the customers. Let's hope the Bonkers/Bonkers people can overcome that.

We just got an email from Franklyn Ajaye:

My character, "The Nigger General Samuel Fields," will be introduced this Sunday, April 3, in the first of the four episodes I'll be in this season, on HBO's groundbreaking western Deadwood It's a pretty heavy episode, so please let all your friends know and tune in.

You heard the man! It's a Tivo/VCR alert! Check your listings for local times!

At first they kept it light, then...

The tone changed when Masada, who owns the Laugh Factory club in Hollywood, was asked by Mesereau about comedian Louise Palanker, who testified last week.

"She wants to be a comic," he said. "We help them. Sometimes you have to give them bad news."

"You've told her she's not funny?" asked Mesereau.

"Let me tell you," Masada said. "I find you more funny than she is."

Can we get an ouch?!

Chicken chain Popeyes is launching a $30 million "Stand up for flavor" ad campaign, starring comedian Bruce Bruce.

"We're trying to contemporize and make the brand more relevant," said CMO Rob Calderin, who joined the Atlanta-based chain in January. "The idea is to get standup comics to riff on stage about Popeyes. Bruce Bruce was [a natural fit] since Popeyes is already part of his act."

Read the whole thing here.

In the March 20 issue of Showbiz Weekly (the one they hand out in the airport and in the hotel and in the restaurants) there are an extraordinary number of standup comedy shows listed. More even than when we were here last (in August), and certainly more than have been listed... maybe ever.

MAR 25, Joe Rogan at the House of Blues
APR 1, Gilbert Gottfried at the H.O.B.
MAR 23-26, Steven Wright at the Orleans
MAR 25, Louie Anderson at the Alladin
MAR 25, Andrew Dice Clay at the Mandalay Bay
MAR 25, David Spade at the Mirage

Ongoing: David Brenner at the Hilton, George Wallace at the Flamingo, Rita Rudner at New York, New York, Amazing Johnathan at the Riv

And then there's the clubs:
Improv at Harrah's
Comedy Stop at the Trop
Comedy Club at the Riv
Comedy Zone at the Plaza

Gallagher opened up a comedy club at the Tuscany. There's a rumor that at least one booker is contemplating opening yet another room in this town in the fall. And there's the persistent rumor that The Comedy Store is coming back to Vegas. Catch claims that they'll have a presence in Vegas before too long. And, as always, there's Kathleen Dunbar's Divas of Comedy at the Casbar Lounge in the Sahara.

We're waiting for our flight. This is Brian at approx. 4:25 PST, in the mezzanine overlooking baggage claim at McCarran Airport in Las Vegas. We don't board for another seven hours or so for our flight back to PHL. Fortunately, there's free WiFi for all crackling through the air here! (And, fortunately, we bought an 802.11b card last year for just such occasions.)

Joe Lowers just dropped us off (he's picking up a pair of friends who just flew in from Pittsburgh) so, except for that seven-hour wait, this worked out quite nicely.

Where to begin? From a recent Wired article:

Karaoke is soooooo 1990s. For those who'd rather make people laugh at their punch lines than cringe at their high notes, the new wave in participatory entertainment is Joke-e-oke.

First of all, this is appalling. Secondly, we must correct the author-- "For those who'd rather make people laugh at their punch lines...??! We don't think it's a technicality to point out that these punchlines they speak of are not those of the Joke-E-Oke-er, they are the property of the writer, the original comic!

The premise behind Joke-e-oke is that, at some level, everyone wants to be a comedian. It's a form of entertainment software that allows people, momentarily, to realize this ambition while emulating the classic comedy routines of their favorite comedians.

Did he say emulating? I believe he did. We like to call it "stealing" or "ripping off."

The idea for Joke-e-oke is simple. It's basically karaoke with stand-up comedy material. Many dream of the chance to be a comedian with killer material in front of a laughing crowd. With Joke-e-oke, people are able to live out their comedy fantasy of being their favorite comedian onstage, choosing from a list of stand-up comedy icons to perform. A built in laugh track is added, timed perfectly to accent punch lines.

Pathetic.

If that doesn't angry up the blood, try this:

"I was impressed that a lot of the cool art hipsters at the Rx, people who wouldn't dare go to normal comedy clubs, got up and did a comic's act," said local comedian Mike Spiegelman, who did a mean version of a classic Jerry Seinfeld routine about airline food. "It was fun to see people interpret the material and get caught up in the joking. They got laughs by delivering the jokes, mimicking the comic, or by looking lost and screwing up. A lot were charmed by it."

Who are the bigger assholes here? The faux peformers or the douchebags (excuse me, the "cool hipsters") who cooked up this abomination in the first place? Throughout the entire article, no mention is made of royalties, rights or that kind of tiny technicality. The article does mention, in passing that the creeps who cooked up this whole mess, Angry Waiter 4am, "has not yet made a business out of selling the program but is looking into licensing it for distribution." Stay tuned. This can only get worse. (Thanks to Ken Marx for the tip!)

(Editors note: We commented on this wretched phenomenon way back on Dec. 7 of 2004. In that posting, we said that we would call the venue and complain, but we never followed up. We apologize!)

We'd like to thank Kelley Coe and Carol Farnum, our hosts while we were on the base here in Twenty-Nine Palms (Or is it 29 Palms? Or Twentynine Palms?) and we'd also like to thank Marlene Breegle (she's officially called a "Military Event Coordinator") of H.O.T. Military Comedy Tour.

This was a tremendous experience and we certainly enjoyed our extended hang time with Joe Lowers and Shane Keith.

But the best part? We were thrilled to be able to hang, if only briefly, and meet and greet the men and women of the Marines in the lobbby of the theater after the show. (The Gratitude Equation was way out of whack-- Marines thanking us for entertaining them?!? I don't think so! We're comics, you're Marines!)

From the Everett (WA) Daily Herald review of Woody Allen's latest movie:

Allen's joke-writing recalls a different era-- the era of Shecky Greene and Allan King and Johnny Carson. It doesn't really work anymore, and there are few actors who can work in that mode.

Doesn't "the era of Shecky Greene and Allan King and Johnny Carson" span about 40 years or so? And, since Carson and King have only died within the last 14 months or so (and, since King was gigging right up until the last and was just as creative and relevant until then), might it not be argued that the era is not one that has passed? Eras can run coincidentally. We're still in the era of Shecky Greene. Put it this way: If Woody Allen were to book himself into Steve Wynn's new casino as a standup comic headliner, would anyone speak of him as from a bygone era? We think not.

Just kidding, of course.

This item appears in Variety:

Consumers have spent more than $82 million on DVDs featuring the standup comedy show featuring comedians Jeff Foxworthy, Larry the Cable Guy, Bill Engvall and Ron White.

Did they say $82 million?! Yes, they did. Standup comedy, in case you haven't heard, is back. Fully recovered from the bust of '93. It's official. And we do not fear that proclaiming the patient's recovery will jinx the whole affair.

And the Comedy Central roast of Jeff Foxworthy gathered a whopping crowd and his special on the WB doubld that time slot's usual numbers.

Sorry for not blogging much over the past few days-- we've been busy travelling and designing a website or two and doing other non-comedy things. We are currently in Twentynine Palms, CA, home of a whopping Marine base. Tonight we (pictured above, outside the cinema on the base, are, clockwise from upper left, Traci Skene, Joe Lowers, Shane Keith and Brian McKim) will perform on that very base for a crowd that is hoped will number more than one thousand.

This afternoon, we were treated to a tour of the base by our gracious hosts and we're relaxing a bit before tonight's 7 PM call. The front page of the local paper (The Observation Post) teased the article on the front page of the Sports & Leisure section about Colin Quinn, Robert Kelly and Steve Byrne playing ten days in Iraq recently as part of the Bringing Up the Rear tour. Quinn, it says, has done four tours so far.

"A lot of people say to me, 'Oh, my God, you're going to Iraq? Be careful!' Be careful? I'm surrounded by Marines; I'm safer than they are, back in the states!"

Last night, we were drinking in the Cactus Bar, a little watering hole on Adobe, a coupla miles from the entrance to the Marine base, and the bartender, Bill, proved to be quite a standup fan. (He was especially adept at yelling "Git 'er done!" and mimicking Ron White saying "Drunk... in... pub-lick")

We're in the desert, but it's rather chilly. And the recent rains have not only caused Death Valley to bloom, but the roadside between here and Vegas is covered with wildflowers as well.

We're scheduled to depart out of Vegas late Thursday night for a redeye flight, but we're going to try to blog in some detail between now and then.

From an AP story on Friday night's Vermont victory over Syracuse in the NCAA playoffs:

WORCESTER, Mass. - He is the Shecky Green of the Green Mountains, a Catskills comedian temping as the Catamounts coach who already has taken Vermont farther in the NCAA tournament than it ever had gone before.

And now, Tom Brennan is one step away from the round of 16 and an even bigger audience for the off-beat, off-kilter, occasionally just awful anecdotes and one-liners that have made him one of the biggest stars in a state that normally shuns them.

We like to keep track of all the references to Greene in the media and the culture. Often people will ask us if the magazine is about Shecky Greene. We say, yes, and no. It is named after Greene only in that his name (his first name, really) has become a generic term, synonymous with one who likes to crack wise. And, in addition to pointing up yet another Shecky reference, this particular item has the additional benefit of tweaking our own Tommy James, whose beloved Orangemen fell victim to Greene, er... Brennan's Vermont squad.

Note to AP: You spelled Shecky Greene's last name wrong.

Just watched an episode of National Body Challenge, on the Discovery Channel, this one focusing on Jodie Wasserman, an NYC comedian who battled to drop 40 lbs. before her "big showcase." (She failed miserably, admitting just before the last commercial break that she had been binge-eating the entire time she was supposed to have been dieting.)

Supposedly a slice of "reality television," the show presented a rather skewed view of standup comedy. We suppose it's because of the constraints of television, and the desires of the producers, and the presence of cameras. (Why else would someone-- a guy in the business, mind you-- be heard asking Wasserman, "So, how's the standup coming along?" That's the kind of question your doctor asks you... or your great aunt. Of course, we don't blame the guy-- it was the cameras making someone self-conscious, we figure.) And, why are comics who are featured in reality shows always so... somber? They come off as utterly humorless. What gives there? (OR, they come off as an over-the-top hybrid of Robin Williams, Rip Taylor and a Jack Russell Terrier.) Wasserman may be quite the scream onstage and/or off, but in this episode of NBC, she was... sullen? Morose, perhaps? And the onstage portion of the episode was shot and edited in such a way as to suck the funny right out of the whole affair. Curious, to say the least.

We can wait to see if the world of comedy gets hideously warped on the Extreme Makeover featuring Steve Mittleman next Thursday. (VCR alert, to the max!)

AP reports, at 9:15 EST, the following:

A painter working at David Letterman's Montana ranch was charged Thursday with plotting to kidnap the talk-show host's toddler son and nanny and hold them for $5 million ransom.

More to come.

The horror!

We're watching ABC's Jake In Progress, (which, by the way, is very good!) and the crawl from the local ABC affiliate comes on and says, "Plot to kidnap Letterman's son"!

What is going on here? Has not David Letterman had enough freakish fallout from fame? We haven't found any updates yet, we'll search the WWW.

Steve Mittleman has gone under the knife on an episode of Extreme Makeover, to air next Thursday, March 24. Check your newspaper for local channel and showtime. (Do people still check their newspaper for that stuff?)

Those of you who are familiar with Mittleman's... "expressive"... face will undoubtedly be popping corn next Thursday night.

A reader writes:

Just saw "The Aristocrats" at the SXSW Film Festival in Austin, TX. Exceptionally hilarious. (Believe it or not: funniest version of the joke? Billy the Mime. Wearing a wireless mic.)

Paul Provenza did a Q&A and mentioned that the film will be getting released, unrated and uncut, in theatres in July (Thanks to ThinkFilm), with DVD to follow. The editor said that there's over 100 hours of footage to draw from, so the DVD will be loaded with extras, including more footage of Bob Saget, who went about an hour before hitting the punchline. He's out to destroy Danny Tanner in the public's mind and it's a wonder to behold.

An hour? We're Saget fans, but that's gotta be excruciating.

Columbia Pictures has bought the film rights to playwright Seth Greenland's debut novel The Bones for director David Mamet and producer John Calley, reports Variety.

Greenland will adapt his darkly comic book, which tells the story of Frank Bones, a talented but self-destructive standup comic who reconnects with an old friend who's become the hottest comedy writer on television.

We received the cover art for Bones, with a nice note from the author, promising to send along the real thing. So far, the ol' box is empty.

We had hopes (not high hopes, just hopes) that the book wouldn't beat any cliches into the ground-- we're still affected by Punchline (the worst movie about standup comedy ever... and possibly the worst movie ever)-- so we're still waiting for Hollywood to undo the damage done by that flick. If the press release describes the main standup comic character as "talented but self-destructive," we might have to wait still longer.

In an earlier ("Jacko's alleged victim's mom's thing for comics!", Mar. 1) post, about the mother of the victim in the Jackson molestation case, we wrote (about Jamie Masada):

The goons were dispatched when Masada went on the offensive and told the press that he was sorry he got Jackson mixed up in this mess in the first place.

But it should have read:

The goons were dispatched when Masada went on the offensive and told the press that he was sorry he got the cancer-ridden tot mixed up in this mess in the first place.

That makes more sense, yes?

As we reported here yesterday, Judge Rodney Melville has clarified the gag order on Jay Leno. Leno will be permitted to joke about Michael Jackson, just not about any aspects of the trial that might be related to the matters that Leno might actually testify about... we think. Anyway, the Los Angeles Times' Steve Chawkins filed a story on the hearing which mostly repeats that which was contained in the earlier AP story. (Ah, but the AP story didn't wrap things up with a quote from SHECKYmagazine.com editor Brian McKim!)

"Heaven forbid that for a few weeks Mr. Leno will not be able to make cruel jokes at Mr. Jackson's expense," a defense motion stated. [...]

That view was shared even by a comic or two.

Brian McKim, a New Jersey-based stand-up comedian who runs sheckymagazine.com, a trade website, said Jackson's right to a fair trial trumped Leno's right to poke fun at it.

"If people are going to pick a fight about freedom of speech and the 1st Amendment, they should pick a better fight than this," McKim said.

"When it's all said and done, all we're talking about here is some jokes."

It looks like Leno won't be able to recruit the like of Drew Carey, Carrot Top and Roseanne as surrogate joke tellers. From a publicity standpoint, perhaps it would have been better to not challenge the gag order. NBC was getting plenty of press, complete with clips, of the surrogate stunt. Read the rest here.

At a hearing today, Judge Rodney Melville clarified his gag order as it applies to Tonight host Jay Leno:

Responding to a request by Leno's attorney, Superior Court Judge Rodney S. Melville clarified that the gag order would not prevent the comic from making jokes about Jackson in his monologues.

Leno, who may be called to testify about a phone call with Jackson's accuser, has been having other celebrities tell Jackson jokes on his show since being subpoenaed. Media attorney Theodore Boutrous Jr. argued for the clarification on grounds Leno's First Amendment rights were violated.

The judge said the gag order barred Leno from talking about the specific areas on which he may testify, but it wouldn't prevent him or anyone else covered by the gag order from commenting generally about Jackson.

He said he would not even try to make Leno stop telling jokes that assume Jackson is guilty.

"I am not attempting to prevent anybody from making a living in the normal way that they make their living," he said.

The judge also joked: "I'd like him to tell good jokes ... but I guess I can't control that."

Can I get an ouch?!

Read the rest here.

Paul F. Tompkins has landed on a television show. We aren't paying any attention to any reviews, as we want to decide for ourselves whether or not it's enjoyable. (A lesson learned from watching the best sketch show on television, Mad TV, get 1/1000th the praise of its pallid, unfunny older brother, SNL.) It debuts Sunday evening on Fox. Check your local listings!

Grammer has put together a decent cast of comics. Paul F. Tompkins will be familiar to those who watch VH1's Best Week Ever, and he recently has had a recurring role on that show as Michael Jackson's attorney. He also has appeared on Mr. Show With Dave and Bob and as a correspondent on Real Time With Bill Maher.

Read the rest.

The site has been neglected over the past four days. SHECKYmagazine went on vacation. Pictured above is one of our hosts with a lorakeet on her finger, shortly before the colorful bird nipped her hand, spilling a sizeable amount of blood over everything. (This is at the aviary at Gatorland.)

We almost didn't make it to Orlando. The lunkheads at USAir goofed up our reservation (claiming that we were the ones who goofed) and almost didn't let us take our trip without substantial penalties. You know what they say at USAir: "The customer won't stop bothering us!" (Just in case any of you should have a problem with USAir-- and if you plan on flying USAir, it is probable that you'll have problems-- do what we did and call the Consumer Affairs number! (866)523-5333 is the number... don't tell them we told you... the number seems to be a well-guarded secret. Besides, we hafta fly on them one more time before they go out of business-- which should be any minute, based on the treatment we received last Sunday night/Monday morning!)

On the flight home, though, we got back into blogging mode, clipping an item from the local paper down there: Comedy Warehouse, the "comedy club" inside Disney's Pleasure Island (it's actually improvisational comedy), was described in today's Orlando Sun-Sentinel as offering a "Shrek-type of clean comedy, seemingly pure with a touch of 'Did he just say what I think he said?' " In other words, it's clean and bland for the kids, but one of the troupe throws in the occasional sexual impotence or anal sex reference so the adults aren't bored. Kind of like every Disney animated movie since Alladin-- good, clean Disney fun with Robin Williams throwing in semi-obscure dick jokes.

We'll be quoted in an upcoming Los Angeles Times article! There's a hearing today (Friday) on whether Jay Leno must adhere to Judge Rodney Mellvile's gag order in the Michael Jackson molestation case. We chatted for a bit with a Times reporter who will be in attendance. Not sure when it'll run. Hope someone out there can snag a hard copy!

We are very envious. In what is being billed as "The Greatest String of One Nighters in the World!," three comics, John Wessling, Tommy Drake and Chuck Savage, are embarking on HELLGIG AMERICA. ("It's not a contest...it's a CONQUEST!") Near as we can tell (their damn Flash featurette is still loading...) Wessling's had it in his head to do this for five years, and the trio will finally realize his twisted dream starting April 9 in Beaumont, TX, and ending May 27 in Honolulu. We are envious.

Although both of us here at SHECKYmagazine HQ have been members of the 50-State Club for some time now, we took the 20-year approach-- our plan was equally ambitious, yet far less efficient. Doing it in 50 days will be thrilling to say the least. We hope they can muster the press they deserve-- we envision camera crews from local TV news operations in each market, maybe rose petals strewn in their paths as they cross each state line. We will endeavor to bring you details on their progress, maybe a pic or two. We're trying to get them to upload a press release with details (Remember words? Set in type? Damn that Macromedia!), so we can all follow along. For now we can offer the following information:

1. Fri 4-8, Beaumont TX
2. Sat 4-9, Baton Rouge LA
3. Sun 4-10, Biloxi MS
4. Mon 4-11, Pensacola FL
5. Tue 4-12, Birmingham AL
6. Wed 4-13, Atlanta GA
7. Thu 4-14, Greenville SC
8. Fri 4-15, Knoxville TN
9. Sat 4-16, Raleigh-Durham NC
10. Sun 4-17, Richmond VA
11. Mon 4-18, Baltimore MD
12. Tue 4-19, Wilmington DE
13. Wed 4-20, Atlantic City NJ
14. Thu 4-21, Hartford CT
15. Fri 4-22, Providence RI
16. Sat 4-23, Boston MA
17. Sun 4-24, Portland ME
18. Mon 4-25, Portsmouth NH
19. Tue 4-26, Brattleboro VT
20. Wed 4-27, Buffalo NY
21. Thu 4-28, Erie PA
22. Fri 4-29, Detroit MI
23. Sat 4-30, Columbus OH
24. Sun 5-1, Charleston WV
25. Mon 5-2, Louisville KY
26. Tue 5-3, Indianapolis IN
27. Wed 5-4, Chicago IL
28. Thu 5-5, Madison WI
29. Fri 5-6, Minneapolis MN
30. Sat 5-7, Fargo ND
31. Sun 5-8, Sioux Falls SD
32. Mon 5-9, Sioux City IA
33. Tue 5-10, Omaha NE
34. Wed 5-11, St. Joseph MO
35. Thu 5-12, Overland Park KS
36. Fri 5-13, Ft. Smith AR
37. Sat 5-14, Oklahoma City OK
38. Sun 5-15, Albuquerque NM
39. Mon 5-16, Colorado Springs CO
40. Tue 5-17, Casper WY
41. Wed 5-18, Bozeman MT
42. Thu 5-19, Pocotello/Rexburg ID
43. Fri 5-20, Salt Lake City UT
44. Sat 5-21, Las Vegas NV
45. Sun 5-22, Kingman/Lake Havasu AZ
46. Mon 5-23, LA to Bakersfield CA
47. Tue 5-24, Portland OR
48. Wed 5-25, Seattle WA
49. Thu 5-26, Anchorage AK
50. Fri 5-27, Honolulu HI

We gave up on the Flash thingie. Maybe we'll call Wessling this afternoon. Stay tuned. All you broadband people might hop onto their website to check out that bulky Flash file. Inquiries can be directed to Mr. Wessling at hellgigamerica@yahoo.com.

According to an AP story Jay Leno, who has been subpoenaed in the Michael Jackson molestation case, might be barred from doing jokes about Jackson due to Judge Rodney Melville's gag order forbidding anyone involved with the case from speaking about it outside the courtroom. Of course, this has driven normally sane and reasonable people to say all sorts of ridiculous things. Like law professors who say that "The court, in order to avoid a Constitutional showdown, would try to draft a very carefully worded gag order that would allow him to make fair comment on the public aspects of the case." Huh? Or, Jay Leno, might just want to shut his yap for a couple months in order to save the court and the people involved in the case a lot of trouble, time, expense and heartache. Are a few dozen monologue jokes about Michael Jackson really worth going to the mat over? If you're going to wake up the First Amendment in the middle of the night and dance it around the room, shouldn't it be for something that's kind of... oh, let's see... important?!?

And then there's David Brenner chipping in with a whole different kind of dumb. He takes the opportunity to engage in his two favorite pasttimes-- Making himself seem important and dissing other comedians:

Comedian David Brenner decries what he sees as creeping censorship for entertainers but thinks Leno might want to restrain himself on the subject.

"Making jokes about Michael Jackson is like shooting fish in a barrel with a shotgun. It's so easy ... Pick on something that makes you reach a little bit," said Brenner, who was a frequent Tonight guest host in the late Johnny Carson's day.

"Creeping censorship?" Is he serious? Has he never heard of a gag order? What planet is he living on? (And, more importantly, why doesn't that planet's cable system carry Court TV?)

And, while we normally don't like to say un-nice things about other standup comics, in Brenner's case, we make an exception. This is a familiar pattern of behavior for him. You'll recall, in the buildup to his HBO special a few years ago, he boasted incessantly how it was going to be all off the cuff, ripped from the headlines. He ended up doing 25-year-old Uncle Momo jokes instead. (Don't get us wrong-- we don't mind 25-year-old Uncle Momo jokes at all. We just took offense that his talk show spiel leading up to the special did little but berate and belittle other comics for their lack of spontaneity and their lack of risk-taking.)

His invocation of the C-word (Censorship) is insulting to folks in other parts of the world who live with that ugly monster on an hourly basis. (Not to mention totally baseless.) People who toss around the term with such carelessness make it hard for other folks to clearly identify genuine censorship when it actually does occur.

Fortunate indeed are the citizens of Toledo and surrounding area, for Mike Kelly of the Toledo Blade writes about standup comedy on a regular basis for his newspaper. Who is this Mr. Kellly, and why does he burn to write about standup comedy so? Is it his editors' idea? No matter. The fruit of his phoner with Drew Hastings appears today. Hastings is in the Glass City as part of a revue featuring comics who regularly drop in on Bob & Tom.

"I get people making comments like, 'Oh, Drew, your stuff is so smart, the people in Indiana and Ohio probably don't really get you.'

"And I just want to say, 'Boy, it's you who don't get it.' I wrote this stuff in the Midwest, I honed it in front of midwestern audiences, and they're who I do it for."

Read the entire interview.

Bob Newhart has snagged a recurring role on the ABC series Desperate Housewives. Newhart will play Morty, the estranged boyfriend of Susan Mayer's mom, Sophie, played by guest star Lesley Ann Warren.

In the episode, Teri Hatcher's single mom Susan will attempt to get Sophie and Morty back together to keep her mother from moving in with her and her daughter.

We've never seen it. From the promos, it looks like an amalgam of Twin Peaks and Northern Exposure, set in Lower 48 suburbia. Newhart should fit right in... oddly enough.

SHECKYmagazine.com readers might recall that, way back on AUG 27, we posted on this very site an account of an incident that occurred while were in transit between gigs on a southwest U.S. swing. SHECKYmagazine editor Traci Skene slipped on a banana peel in a truckstop in Arizona. So moved by the serendipitous nature of the incident was Skene that she devoted an entire column to the incident, earning her, if not legendary status, at least a very high ranking on Google when one enters "slipped on a banana peel."



Whaddya know-- six months exactly from the day she slipped on her first peel, Skene found herself skidding again, this time in the parking lot of the Maryland House in... Maryland. So astounded were we that we consulted with friends and found a statistics expert. We wanted to know what the odds were that Skene would slip twice, exactly six months apart, on a banana peel. What follows is his expert opinion through an intermediary:

Given that your friend slipped twice on banana
peels, my first question is, "Does she own monkeys?"

I suspect that banana peel slippage statistics are
pretty hard to come by. You might just check out
emergency room records.

I believe the government actually keeps as part of
its health statistics, "slip, trip, and stumble"
statistics, but I don't think they break it out by
specific fruit or vegetable.

At the risk of sounding sexist, I remember the old
joke (circa: 1970):

A (blonde, dumb guy, whoever) is walking down the
street, sees a banana peel a hundred yards ahead,
and sighs, "Here we go again."

The fact that your friend slipped TWICE and was
wondering about the probabilities also reminds me
of another lame old joke about the guy who was getting on an airplane carrying a bomb. When challenged, he said, "It's just a matter of probabilities. I read that there's one chance in a million that there would be a bomb on any particular plane. Knowing the rules of probability I knew that the probability of TWO bombs being on a plane was infinitesmal. So every time I travel, I make sure I carry a bomb."

Bottom line, I don't know the odds of slipping
twice on a banana peel.

Sorry for the lame jokes.

Ned Freed
Author, Professor of Statistics
University of Portland (Oregon)

Tommy James sends along the following, from Ananova.com:

Prisoners get comedy lessons

A prison is offering criminals comedy courses.

Winchester Jail has hired comics to run the courses for 400 offenders reports The Sun.

The scheme is being funded with £3,500 public cash and by comedy bar chain Jongleurs.

One source said that, "This teaches inmates communication powers of empathy and humility." We say that it puts that tiny seed of doubt in the mind of every comedy club patron from here on that "this bloke up the stage probably learned to do comedy while he was locked up for who knows what kind of crime." Thanks, Jongleurs! And thank you, Winchester Jail!

Of course, this will never even get anywhere near a vote:

WASHINGTON (Reuters)-- Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Stevens said on Tuesday he would push for applying broadcast decency standards to cable television and subscription satellite TV and radio.

"Cable is a much greater violator in the indecency area," the Alaska Republican told the National Association of Broadcasters, which represents most local television and radio affiliates. "I think we have the same power to deal with cable as over-the-air" broadcasters.

"There has to be some standard of decency," he said. But he also cautioned that "No one wants censorship."

We're not familiar with Stevens. But we've always been of the opinion that cable and other pay broadcast services should, by their very nature, be unfettered. And, trust us, they'll remain so. No word on whether Stevens wants to restrict satellite transmissions.

If this ridiculous notion had any chance of becoming some sort of law, we'd be worried. As it is, we're calm. (Exactly what does Ted Stevens think this is going to do for his career? The folks back in Alaska are going to be very peeved.) Here's what would happen if Stevens waved a magic wand and made HBO and XM and Sirius subject to FCC regs: Everything would go backwards-- and slide back to a time before Eisenhower. And no one in this hemisphere would stand still for that. Hell, the FCC wouldn't even want that hornet's nest!

What does any of this have to do with standup comedy? You're here and you ask that question?

Rest assured, it ain't happening. Go back to your homes. Nothing to see here.

We can't help but notice that the names of a handful of comics are popping up in the early days of the Michael Jackson molestation case (JMC). Today's high-profile comedian was Jay Leno:

Mesereau said the mother went to comedian Jay Leno for money and Leno was so suspicious that he called Santa Barbara police to tell them he had been contacted and "something was wrong. They were looking for a mark."

The mother also approached comedian George Lopez and a Los Angeles TV weatherman who staged a fund-raiser for the child at a comedy club, the defense attorney said.

He said celebrities including Mike Tyson and Jim Carrey turned the family away, but Jackson was too sympathetic. "The most vulnerable celebrity became the mark, Michael Jackson," Mesereau said.

We also heard in another report that Chris Rock was touched up for some cash by the AVM (Alleged Victim's Mom), but all have been said to have declined writing a check.

What gives? What's with this woman's predeliction for calling up comics? Well, astute (and long-time) SHECKYmagazine readers know that the connection is probably Laugh Factory owner Jamie Masada, who introduced the cancer-stricken tot to Jackson in the first place. We posted that way back when Masada was threatened by some of Jackson's goons. The goons were dispatched when Masada went on the offensive and told the press that he was sorry he got the cancer-ridden tot mixed up in this mess in the first place. Masada has also logged some face time on the various network news magazine shows whenever they do a piece on the whole JMC. One theory is that Masada might have been taken in by the AVM. Hmmm... but if he was, then why would the goons have bothered to threaten him? Curious!

If only Halle Berry had standup comedy to fall back on. This quote is from Jamie Foxx, backstage after winning his best actor Oscar:

Best-actor winner Jamie Foxx has his own solution for maintaining quality control in his future career, especially after Sidney Poitier urged him to take "responsibility for your art." Foxx said backstage that, "I can cheat. I'm a standup comedian. So that means that, if we do not have the movie that we think is going to be a responsible movie, I will go on the road. And I will see you in somewhere in Poughkeepsie, Detroit, whatever."

We supppose this means that Foxx won't be popping up in the equivalent of Catwoman.