From Associated Press:

PARIS (AP) - French writer Michel Houellebecq's new novel about a standup comic and his clones went on sale in bookstores Wednesday, the most highly anticipated release of France's annual literary season.

The book, La Possibilite d'une ile, or The Possibility of an Island, has been seen by some critics as a defence of cloning and the Raelian movement, which believes life on Earth was created by clones of extraterrestrials.

The English translation will be released in Britain in November.

We can't wait.

Press releases fly around the WWW at lightning speed. Ya gotta read each all the way to its conclusion. We found the following at the tail end of the "Pacifica sports round-up," from the Pacifica Tribune Online:

If you enjoy laughing, the Mckenna Theatre on the campus of San Francisco State University will be the place to be on Friday, Sept. 30, and Saturday, Oct. 1, as the SFSU Athletic Department host The Veterans Of Comedy Wars VIII at 8 p.m. both evenings. The event is a fundraiser for the schools Athletic Department Scholarship fund.

Associate Athletic Director at SFSU Doug Hupke, a longtime Pacifica resident and stand-out basebll player at Sacred Heart Cathedral as well as Skyline College and the University of San Francisco, is chairing the night of laughter and has lined up some of the funniest comedians and comediennes of that the older generations will surely recognize. Entertainers performing include Shecky Greene, Julius LaRosa, Kaye Ballard, Margaret Smith and The Unknown Comic. Also appearing will be George Segal, an accomplished actor who appeared in many films Host for the evening will be Ronnie Schell and the announcer will be Carter B. Smith, who enjoyed a long career as a radio personality in the Bay Area For ticket information contact the SFSU Athletic Department at (415) 338-2218.

Margaret Smith now qualifies as a "Veteran of Comedy Wars!"

At least one club is pitching in to help the Hurrican Katrina victims. in an email that circulating around the WWW:

Did you know that Western New Yorkers donate more to charity per capita than any other region in the country?

It's not hard to see why. Even though we get bad rap about our weather, snow melts! Other areas of the country suffer through floods, tornados and earthquakes, events that cause far more lasting damage than a snowstorm.

This weekend is our Comedy for a Buck weekend. You can come to ANY show through September 4 and pay ONE DOLLAR for admission. All money collected through admissions will be sent to the areas hit by Hurricane Katrina.

It is a great show this weekend, so click on the link below to make reservations!

Make your reservations here!

If any other clubs are planning similar programs, send us a release.

Just kidding. The offices of SHECKYmagazine.com are finally DSL-enabled. For years, the folks who have had broadband have done their best to try and make us feel bad about ourselves for relying on dialup. (Actually, having dialup is enough to make one feel bad about having dialup.) We finally pulled the trigger on Earthlink's DSL. It's like lightning. And it hooked up and diagnosed itself in a matter of minutes. We've been accessing the internet via dialup since we first hopped on in 1995! First at 24 Kbs, then 33.3 and until ten minutes ago, 56 K. It's a beautiful new world!

The New York Times is the only American paper that cares a whit about Edinburgh, for better or for worse. They've reported on "this year's Perrier Award, sometimes called the Oscar of the comedy world." (Not by us!)

There were no Americans on this year's short list, but their presence is increasingly felt at the Perrier Awards: Rich Hall ("Sniglets," "Not Necessarily the News") won in 2000 and the downtown hipster comedian Demetri Martin did in 2003. With more American comics straying from standup into character sketch territory - as Ms. Solon herself had - there is growing concern over what the Perrier Award means.

"I think in 2006 we will introduce another Perrier," said Nica Burns, the director and producer of the Perrier Award. "Some people want an international award, to separate the British from others, and others still want a pure standup award, with no slides or sketch comedy. It's my job now to canvass opinion as to what it should be"

We're confused by the phrase, "...there is growing concern over what the Perrier Award means." Hmmm... is someone questioning the relevance of the award? Is standup eclipsing sketch comedy? Is sketch comedy eclipsing standup? (If it were, why then would they even consider a second award for standup?) And, we know this is the NYT, but what exactly is a "downtown hipster?"

From left: George Lowe (Voice of Cartoon Network's Space Ghost and Atlanta radio personality), Heath Hyche (of Blue Collar TV fame) and Brian McKim (Editor of SHECKYmagazine.com) onstage at the Punchline in Atlanta Sunday night. (Photo credit: Holly Doss)

After returning to solid earth (after gliding a few hundred feet above the planet, courtesy of Kid Dave Miller), we headed to Atlanta for a week at the Punchline, sharing the bill with Birmingham native (and Blue Collar TV cast member) Heath Hyche.

The week was capped nicely by a guest announcer kicking off Sunday night's show: George Lowe, the voice of Cartoon Network's Space Ghost, did the opening announcements-- as Space Ghost, of course! (He even identified the Female Half of the Staff as "my (Space Ghost)'s former wife!") A real hoot!

The staff of the Punchline was, as always, gracious and friendly-- even easing the pain of the Female Half's 40th birthday (Saturday night!) with a smiley face-bedecked ice cream cake!

Hyche's Elvis impersonator routine was one of those bits you made sure you were in the room for-- as many times as possible!

Because of the westwad turn of hurricane Katrina, we'll be driving home in sparkling weather tomorrow. We hope all the fine folks we've come to know in New Orleans are safe and sound and far north of the Big Easy and we hope they don't sustain any damage!

Rob Hiaasen, writing in the Baltimore Sun, kicks out a top ten comedy albums of all time list in "From Newhart to Rock: These guys made us laugh"

Over the next four decades, people bought records from Jonathan Winters, Jackie "Moms" Mabley, Redd Foxx, The Smothers Brothers ("Mom always liked you best!"), Phyllis Diller, Cheech and Chong and Lily Tomlin (This Is a Recording reached No. 15 in 1971). Then came Flip Wilson, Sam Kinison, Rodney Dangerfield, Andrew "Dice" Clay, Eddie Murphy and, more recently, Larry the Cable Guy and Dane Cook.

Through our Vinyl Word feature in the early days of our publication, we sought to provide context for modern day standup. We still run the occasional album from time to time. Good to see the Sun paying respect to the comics who moved a ton of vinyl. Read the whole thing to learn what came before.

FOS Sharilyn Johnson writes:

Hey guys,

Just wanted to pass this along to you-- word of mouth seems to be benefiting "The Aristocrats," as it's the only movie in the top 20 to have moved up since last weekend. Should hit $4 million soon.

For mathematical fun, it's now surpassed the entire theater gross of "Comedian" ($2.7 mil). But combined, both films still come up short of the magic number of $21.9 mil -- the amount Punchline made. Taking
inflation into account, that's a good-to-crap ratio of approximately 1:5.

And I flunked 300 Math. Phhttt.

Follow the above link to Box Office Mojo, the site that charts the box office bucks.

Legendary standup comic and actor Shecky Greene has a website.

The turning point of Shecky's career came in 1953 after he was signed to play the famed Chez Paree in Chicago as opening act for Ann Sothern. Those were the days when headliners like Joe E. Lewis, Sophie Tucker and Ted Lewis were mining gold in the fast-expanding Nevada gambling casinos. When the Golden Hotel in Reno offered over $1,000 a week, Shecky made a beeline for the Wild West. The owners tore up his four-week contract on opening night and made him a deal which insured him $20,000 a year.

Hop on to peruse bio, pics and other goodies. A CD will go on sale soon.

Dusty Saunders, writing in the Detroit News:

Like (Ray) Romano, Jerry Seinfeld and other TV comedy stars, James came to series work via standup comedy. He was signed for several appearances on Everybody Loves Raymond after getting rave reviews at the 1996 Montreal Comedy Festival. This was followed by a development deal under which he helped create King of Queens.

James returned to his roots as an on-the-road standup performer last spring and early this summer.

"The reactions of audiences are interesting," he says. "I think Seinfeld said it best. They give you a lot of initial recognition because of who you are. In the first five minutes of my act, I can't even finish a punch line because they're clapping and going so crazy.

"But after they settle in you've still got to be funny, because for an hour just the fact they get to see you live in a theater is going to wear off if you're not doing well."

Read the whole thing. James may be second only to Drew Carey in terms of being a real trouper when it comes to his reaction to his treatment at the hands of the network he works for. While it's true that neither James' series nor Carey's series were the cultural phenomenon that Seinfeld was, we've seen networks go apeshit over far less. Not only is James and co. not getting any kind of press push from CBS, the Tiffany Network has seen fit to change timeslots on the series yet again. ("Here's your hat... what's your hurry? BTW: I took a dump in your hat!")

Photo credit: Dan Zink

"Let's go flying," Kid Dave says. He pauses, realizing he'd caught us off-guard, so he rephrased it as a question-- "You guys wanna go flying?"

It was getting to be about sixish; dusk was approaching this corner of the country where Tennessee, Georgia and Alabama collide. We had just driven in from Winston-Salem all day. We fully expected to "go flying," but we figured we still had another 12 hours or so to steel ourselves... or maybe even talk ourselves out of it. 20 minutes after Dave's invite/proclamation, however, the Male Half of the Staff was doing lazy circles at 2,400 feet. The Female Half would follow minutes later and go even higher, reaching 4,000 feet. Surreal, to say the least.

We were gigging in Nags Head, NC, last week. We're in Atlanta right now. But in between, we had three days off. So, we made arrangements to bunk at the home of SHECKYmagazine columnist Kid Dave Miller. Dave had graciously offered lodging... and flying! His sideline, his summer gig, his passion is flying the tow plane at Lookout Mountain Flight Park. ("Our complete desire is to help you realize your flying dreams and hang gliding goals.") We had a foggy idea of what went on there-- and what we might be in for. Had it been any less foggy, however (in other words, had we had any real clear idea of what we might be getting into), we might have declined!

For days leading up to our adventure, the Female Half kept saying, "They're going to throw us off a mountain!" I would reply, "It's not a mountain... it's a cliff." As it turns out, they weren't throwing us off of anything. We ended up doing the Tandem Flight ("Soar like an Eagle in this purest form of flight!...Fly Tandem with a professional certified instructor pilot by your side"), but instead of running of a cliff, we were towed slowly into the air by a Kid Dave-piloted airplane, tethered by a 60-ft. line. When we reached our ultimate altitude, our tandem instructor signaled Dave and we were free!


The Female Half, dangling from the glider, at about 200 ft.

The wind on that day was non-existent. But that matters not to the hang glider. As we drifted slowly earthward, the wind (the relative wind) was about what you might experience if you stuck your head out the window of a car going at 20 mph or so. Or maybe piloting a bicycle downhill on a calm day. The view, as you might imagine, is startling. Downtown Chattanooga off to the east, green and rolling hills interrupted by the occasional hayfield or Trenton, GA, to the west. The equipment, our instructor assures us, is sound and eerily aerodynamic, nearly capable of flying without any meddling from us!

The treetops became more like those on a model train platform as we were towed higher and higher. It was nearly too much to process. And it all happened in an unhurried fashion and, except for our incessant chatter with our instructors, it was quiet. Leisurely and quiet, as opposed to, say, jumping out of an airlplane, which seems frantic and deafening. The instructors and Dave and the other hanggliders who hung out at the business end of the airfield were as calm as the wind, which takes the edge off of any panic. And the park's reputation (and track record) instills confidence. The gliders and instructors and pilots all seem to have a cameraderie similar to that of standup comics-- they're all involved in an endeavor that has certain risks and that has a certain appeal, but that tends to scare off all but the most brave, the most suited. To put it another way-- we're all well aware that we're engaged in an activity that most people would dearly love to try but is terrifying to the vast majority. It tends to make a group bond.

Kid Dave Miller writes: "Cool article! FYI the tow line is 200 feet long. Attached is a pic you can use. Shot by a man named Chuck Frew."

Nice shot! Kinda gives one a feel for the whole process. You can see our Dave's plane, dead center, as he tows a glider to its ultimate altitude over the misty mountains of GA/TN!


Photo credit: Chuck Frew

Tim Cuprisin, writing in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, says that former standup comic and, (briefly) former talk show host Michael Graham has landed a gig or two.

THE LOOSE LIPS UPDATE: KFI-AM, a Los Angeles talk station owned by Clear Channel Communications, is picking up fired talker Michael Graham for fill-in work, scheduling him for the 7-9 p.m. shift on Friday, according to Graham's www.michaelgraham.com. He also says he's doing an Internet talk show at rightalk.com at 11 a.m. weekdays starting Monday. He promises: "no liberal network execs, no advertisers, not even the FCC."

As reported in Wednesday's column, Graham was axed by ABC-owned WMAL-AM in Washington, D.C., for refusing to retract numerous on-air attacks on Islam.

We were familiar with Graham, catching him on occasion when cruising through the Richmond area during his WRVA afternoon drive show a few years back. We corresponded with him briefly when we discovered that he was a former comic. (He has since dropped the standup from his resume!) Click on this link to a transcript of an MSNBC debate on the controversy, check out what the industry rag says about in this Billboard article or read the original Washington Post story.

A reader, Adam White, writes:

Hi. I was reading about the blood drive at the Laugh Factory and it reminded me of something that Improv Olympic did in Chicago. They had a blood drive and everyone who gave blood got a quart of oil. It was the blood for oil drive. And then classes ended, so I never checked to find out how it went. Great story, I know.

For nice slice of comedy history, in this case, Chicago-style, take in the article in Sunday's Chicago Sun-Times by Mike Thomas.

With its comedy-friendly blend of tight space and smart crowds, Kelly's proved ideal for the brainy stylings of such rising talents as Mort Sahl and Lenny Bruce, Shelley Berman and Bob Newhart, Joan Rivers and Phyllis Diller. In 1964, Woody Allen paid a repeat visit to make his first comedy record.

Lots of fun to read, complete with reminiscences from a bunch of the comics who played the room at its peak. Our fascination with Mr. Kelly's stems from the fact that its mentioned in the liner notes on Berman's albums and both he and Dick Cavett mentioned Mr. Kelly's in their SHECKYmagazine.com interviews!) Clubs like it are rare.

In addition to optimal atmosphere, the tight-knit staff at Kelly's made performers feel welcome and above all respected. Elsewhere, that wasn't always the case. "I made some good friends there," Sahl recalls. "It was a wonderful place. You never missed home when you were there. I was having a good time, and people were awfully good to me."

Likewise, lots of show folks who stalked Kelly's stage still have a soft spot for the night spot that gave them a shot when shots were rare, that paid well when pay was poor, that honed skills and bolstered confidence. Here, their memories of those thrilling and formative days.

Click the above link and wallow!

Hop onto the Comedy Central site to enter their Jet Lag Sweepstakes.

The Grand Prize winner will receive four round trip airfares to Montreal, Edinburgh and Melbourne, plus transportation, hotel accommodations, VIP tickets to multiple performances and $5,000 spending cash.

Mind you, it's not just to hang out at those locations, but to hang out at the giant comedy festivals that take place there each year. Nice. Comedy Central is paying attention to standup comedy with a vengeance! Winners go to the Fringe Fest, JFL and the Melbourne Comedy Fest. Hell, we might even enter.

The first few grafs of a LA Times story on Howie Mandel's new series is fascinating.

Not only did Mandel create and produce the show, he also owns it. In order to get it on the air without network meddling, Mandel acted as his own studio, which essentially left him paying to be on television. The Bravo license fee (less than $1.8 million for all six episodes) didn't cover all of the production costs, which included many location shoots and salaries for Julie Warner, who plays his wife, guest stars such as Estelle Harris and Marlee Matlin, and the crew, according to Mandel, who wouldn't disclose how much he spent.

Mandel is a bleeding edge television producer. Seems like the suits in Hollywood are slowly awakening to the decentralization of power. Multi-chip video cams and wildly powerful computers within the budgets of mere mortals are changing the way TV does business. Read the whole thing and you realize that latter day alternative acts got nothing on Mandel. (Thanks to Sharilyn Johnson for the hot tip!)

According to a release from the company that is administering the licensing to the tapes of the old Rascals Good Time Comedy Hour, XMRadio and Rascals have struck a deal and XM will air the audio of those shows.

Over 200 hours of classic comedy with Celebrities such as Ray Romano, Drew Carey, Tim Allen, Sinbad, Rosie O'Donnell, Brett Butler, Dennis Leary, Dice Clay, Jackie Martling, Rich Jeni, Jeff Foxworthy, Joy Behar, Darrell Hammond, Rich Vos, Wanda Sykes, all the BIG stars!

All the BIG stars... and several hundred stars who had only been doing comedy for about 18 months, but signed the release and taped the show anyway! The Female Half of the Staff did the show (with Vic Dunlap and Wayne Cotter) early on in her second year of comedy! She's contemplating a pleading lettere to Joel Haas to leave her performance OFF of any satcast! ("I'd rather give blood!" says she. See below!)

The release also mentions in passing that the company "has also starting (sic) taping a new Rascals Comedy Hour." No indication as to whether that will be audio and video, or just audio only. (Or, perhaps it'll be video only! Woulnd't that be something.)

From the LA Weekly:

There's got to be a joke here: At the Laugh Factory's Hollywood Cares Day, you give blood while comics perform onstage (we're thinking about a "little prick" or "I laughed till I clotted!"). We promise it won't hurt a bit. Every donor gets free Laugh Factory tickets, a goodie bag, food and a raffle ticket for pricey prizes. 8001 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood; Sun., Aug. 21, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Reservations recommended: Call Katherine at (323) 656-1336, Ext. 203.

Nice idea. Some years ago, the Male Half of the Staff heard that a blood drive was going on in Syracuse, so, during a radio appearance, he pledged to give a pint and urged listeners to do so. (Of course, he also pledged the same for the Female Half, but she has been banned by the Red Cross from giving-- she tends to pass out. And they can't find her veins... and her blood drips out too slowly... They finally told her never to come back.)

If you're keeping track of the upcoming comedy festival in Vancouver, hop onto the CanWest ComedyFest website. So far, they've secured the services of Scott Thompson (hosting the "Funny and Gay Show," Steven Wright and, on the "The Comics of The Late Show With David Letterman Show," Jim Gaffigan, Eddie Brill and Jake Johanssen will bring the experience that comes from their combined 58 appearances on that late night institution. More shows and performers will be announced shortly.

A reader, Patty Wall, writes that Bob Saget did a chat on USAToday (Click it for the transcript) today. Wall's husband, a member of comedy team Mixed Nuts, submitted the following question, which Saget answered:

Domskyville, PA: You started in comedy in Philadelphia as a part of a two-man comedy team. While you went on to huge success, fame and fortune, whatever happened to your partner?

Bob Saget: I can only assume this is him typing this question. Or a close friend of his. Sam Domsky is a dear friend of mine and responsible for a lot of what I have done because he brought me in as a comedy pal when I was going to film school at Temple University. Sam and his friends went to Penn -- I was too dumb to go there and Temple did have a great film program which turned out great for me as I won a student Academy Award for a film I made. Sam and I did comedy in the dorm's coffee houses, Pagano's Pizza and he is part of group called 'Mixed Nuts.' They are truly hilarious and all could have gone into show business but chose to have normal lives and raise families. They all came to see my play in New York a few months back. It meant a lot to me, though that night I felt I was off my game because 50 people I knew were in the audience. A true professional, huh? Sam is now a dentist outside of Philly, kind of like Laurence Olivier was in 'Marathon Man.'

The Mixed Nuts do indeed have somewhat normal lives. However, the team still occasionally performs, doing corporate gigs. Wall, readers may recall, cajoled The Male Half of the Staff into trying his first open mike, back in 1981!

From the Dark Horizons website, comes this heads up:

In his first proper film since "Narc," Joe Carnahan will direct his script "Smokin' Aces" for Working Title and Universal reports Variety.

Carnahan is casting the drama and targeting an October start date. Ryan Reynolds, Jeremy Piven and Alicia Keys in talks to star and Ben Affleck planning a small role.

Reynolds will play an FBI agent supervising a manhunt for a standup comedian (Piven) who has decided to squeal on the mob. Before he heads off into protective custody, the comic goes for one last hurrah in the casinos at Tahoe, drawing a crowd of assassins. Keys would make her screen starring debut as an assassin.

When was the last time a standup comedian was a main character in a movie? We're talking major here, not Leonard Barr playing Shady Tree in "Diamonds Are Forever."

A sharp-eyed Doug Hecox sends this along:

USCAF/ASPEN SUBMISSIONS

Since its inception in 1995, the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival has
become known as a primary launching pad for comedic talent and
for hosting one-of-a-kind events. The USCAF will return to
Aspen, Colorado from March 8-12, 2006 for its 12th year.

To be considered as a performer for the 2006 U.S. Comedy Arts
Festival, please submit your materials (DVD, CD, VHS tape, press
kit, upcoming performance schedules, articles, etc.) to the
address listed below before November 7, 2005.

NO WRITTEN MATERIALS WILL BE ACCEPTED.

Mailing Address:
Talent Department
U.S. Comedy Arts Festival
2500 Broadway, Ste. 400
Santa Monica, CA 90404

ABOVE: Brian McKim (l) and Dennis Horan

We had a swell time at Helium last night. Helium is the first new club in the 215 area code in a loooong time. Owner Marc Grossman has recruited some of the finest people in the business and apparently spent a bundle on fineries such as cutting edge decor, comfy chairs and state-of-the-art sound and lights (Radical!) to create one of the finest clubs we've seen in some time.

We were given carte blanche (a French phrase meaning put anyone on the show you fancy) to craft a SHECKYmagazine.com Show and we invited Jules Reilly and Dennis Horan to do sets before the SHECKYmagazine staff finished off the crowd of 40 or so. Laurence Mullaney emceed the whole affair and local comic Corey Alexander stopped by just to "be a fan!"

We're pulling for Helium to rise to the top. They are encouraging an open mike night that is attracting giant crowds and robust numbers of talented comics. The Philly market has been dragged down by clubs that pay pitifully and regard the comics with disdain. We are heartened when clubs like Rascals and Helium move in and hasten the demise of the lower-tier venues.

In a previous post, we told of the formation of a new newsgroup, moderated.alt.comedy.standup, which was recently started to serve as an online discussion group for professional standup comics. We mentioned, in passing, that several regional or local newsgroups have also been formed to cater to the more specialized needs of comics withing a specific city or metro area. Some of the more successful ones are linked below.

We would consider a newsgroup a success if it has 1) a healthy number of members who 2) post regularly with useful information or commentary. A search of Yahoo!'s newsgroups reveals a lot of "husks," ng's that were started, maybe burned brightly for a while, gathered some interested posters, then, for one reason or another, withered into irrelevance. A good indicator of a healthy ng is the "Activity within 7 days" listing at the top which says how many posts, how many new members, etc. (There are no sadder words than "No Activity!") Starting and maintaining a healhty group is not an easy thing. It seems that the more robust ones got that way through the tireless promotional efforts of one person or a small group of persons who saw the value of the group and figured out ways to drive comics to it (and drive destructive comics away!) and keep it focused.

Some groups are "Membership Required," others are "Public." Some are moderated, others aren't. Some have rules and a sharp focus and are useful to members for such purposes as hipping members to open mikes or casting calls or standup seminars. Note: These are just Yahoo! groups. There's a whole boatload of groups on Usenet, but these are more user-friendly.

Philly Comics
SC(Southern California) Comedy
SF(San Francisco) Comedy
Pittsburgh Comedy
Gay Comedy
Atlanta Comedy
Nashville Standup
Detroit Comedy
Cleveland Yucks

One need not be a resident of a city or region to join, post or "lurk." If you're contemplating a visit or a move to Philly or Detroit or SoCal, visiting that city's group is a must.

We also notice that some were started by comics to promote themselves and their personal appearances. Not as vain as it sounds, really! It's an easy, inexpensive way to coordinate fans, publicize gigs, etc.

We here at SHECKYmagazine.com started one dedicated to the Las Vegas comedy scene, Las Vegas Comedy, which we haven't really promoted until now. We started it mainly to coordinate any communication among Las Vegans (and anyone else!) considering entering the upcoming Poker Tournament on November 17! (Of course, it can be used by and for the many comedians who have set up shop in Las Vegas. On our last few visits to the desert, we've noticed some momentum in the Vegas scene.) So, hop on, join and start posting!

Addendum: Just what we had hoped might happened, has happened-- comics' groups that we weren't aware of are checking in!

My name is Nate Smith. I am a professional comic from Portland, Oregon. We have a pretty good sized yet tight knit group of comics (pro and open mic) that use the yahoo group listed below to keep informed. You can add http://groups.yahoo.com/group/portlandcomics/ to your list.

Consider it added, Nate!

And, we managed to recall a couple others on our own. The comics who inhabit Nashville have a website, Nashville Standup, that has a unmoderated forum that allows them to communicate with each other. And the funny folks in Ottawa have the Ottawa Comedy Resource, which offers a "Green Room" for that city's comedians. And, finally (although we don't believe that we've heard the last of this!), the Comedy Studio's website has a well-attended Kvetch Board that gives voice to all the humorous types that live and work in the Boston area.

And (probably not finally), we have a New York City area group called the Standup Asylum.

Sunday was a double-hit day-- hits in the Chicago Sun-Times (scroll down for that posting) and a hit in the Philadelphia Inquirer's Arts & Entertainment section heralding our show Wednesday night at Helium in Philly:

Married couple Brian McKim and Traci Skene are the editors of Sheckymagazine.com, "the online magazine that takes standup comedy seriously." So they know (a) what's funny and (b) what's misspelled. The comedic duo performs at 8 p.m. at Helium Comedy Club, 2031 Sansom St. Tickets are $15. Call 215-496-9001.

Just thought that any of the magazine's readers who live in the PHL metro area who don't read the Inky might want to stop by and say, "Hey!" The Helium club opened only recently and, from all reports, is a splendid venue. See you Wednesday night! (And, just to correct the record, we are not a duo!)

Congratulations! We have our winners!

Leana Benson-- Grand prize:
Dane Cook's Retaliation CD/DVD! (In stores NOW!) + the Harmful if Swallowed CD + Lewis Black's "Nothing's Sacred" and a box of Comedy Central pencils

Rod Bengston & Joel Bryant-- Runners Up:Retaliation and Harmful if Swallowed!

If you haven't been following The Comeback, HBO's original comedy starring Lisa Kudrow, it's a fascinating, if somewhat excruciating peek into the manufacture of a mediocre sitcom. We follow Valerie Cherish (Kudrow) as she is followed by a camera crew that is documenting the reality series that focuses on her. It's a show within a show, within a show. It is excruciating because it is an unblinking look at the demeaning and debasing life that is (sometimes, at least) life working in a sitcom in Hollywood.

When the show gets mediocre ratings (after the first episode or two), the producers are forced to halt production and eventually retool. One of the major "improvements" they make is to re-focus the show on two characters-- a comedy team of two "middle eastern" guys (or maybe from India?) who speak in gibberish.

During the re-tooling meeting, it's explained to the existing cast that that same comedy team (the ones generally promoted as the key to the redone show's success) would be "a really great comedy team that they discovered at Aspen." ("Aspen," of course, being shorthand for The U.S. Comedy Arts Festival. )

In a subsequent scene, the team is revealed to be just ungodly awful. The Show Runner and the Head Writer love them, though. And the rest of the cast is wildly unhappy.

What we have here is an original series on HBO, which purports to be an unflinching look into the production of a television sitcom, which holds up a fictitious "comedy team discovered at Aspen" as an object of ridicule. Aspen, you may recall, is/was the brainchild of... HBO.

We give them huge points for... bravery? Honesty? Stupidity? Self-loathing? Why would HBO essentially disrespect everyone who has ever appeared at their festival to make a point in one of their series?

Curious!

It was only a matter of time.

Long ago, there was a usenet newsgroup called alt.comedy.standup which provided a convenient way for standup comics to join together in an online community of sorts. The main ideas being to share information, get questions answered and coordinate business and social events. The Male Half of the Staff recalls:

I had a Toshiba laptop and a text-only internet account via Delphi and I was on there as early as 1996, maybe even late-1995. It was fascinating. The potential was there to really network and coordinate. There were the usual incidents where people tried out material (huge gaffe!), tempers flared or name-calling got out of hand, but, for the most part, it was used for good and not evil. People posted under their real names, shared information, a few bookers even hopped on to fill the occasional hole. It was useful. The potential was eventually squandered when a handful of anti-social types, arrested development show-off types and anonymous trolls dominated it and chased out any real useful discussion.

This opened the door for a series of regional newsgroups to fill the void. Groups-- moderated groups-- sprang up in Philadelphia, Southern California, San Francisco and elsewhere and filled the same needs that the usenet group did, but on a local, and more concentrated basis. The newer groups are administered mainly through the technology (and bandwidth) provided by Yahoo! Registration is easy and you can jigger the configuration to have the whole thing dumped into your email inbox if you don't feel like regularly checking in.

Meanwhile, back at alt.comedy.standup, it eventually became a rat's nest of troll posting, political commentary and incoherent cyber masturbation. Real comics abandoned it until it became a husk.

It's nice to see that someone has finally gone to the trouble of resurrecting a national or international ng to serve the standup biz.

That someone, "Father Luke," is seeking standup comics and others to populate a new newsgroup, this one moderated. He writes:

Hi you guys, Father Luke here. the usenet group, alt.comedy.standup went bye bye a long time ago. Welcome to moderated.alt.comedy.standup. Tell everyone you know, invite everyone who matters. Only industry may post...

There's an FAQ posted there, there are also some bugs to be ironed out, but a moderated newsgroup of this kind has the potential to be very useful. If you're unclear on the concept of a newsgroup, click on the article on our resource page about alt.comedy.standup, written by Suzy Soro and, if you're really unclear after that, click on the button on that file that explains how to use a newsgroup. If you click on the link from Father Luke's email and follow the directions for registration, you'll be able to register (for free!) and begin posting, after your subscription request is approved. Although it's a good idea to "lurk" for a while before posting.

In an Chicago Sun-Times article by Mike Thomas, in anticipation of the film's impending opening in the windy city, the very existence of the joke that is at the heart of the documentary is questioned. The eventual conclusion is that it's real, but Thomas' angle makes for one of the more interesting Aristocrats articles. (And SHECKYmagazine is quoted early on!) Bob Saget, who will appear on Conan August 9, seems to be the one comic featured in the movie that causes the greatest stir.

"I'm embarrassed by it, but it's freeing," (Saget) admits. "Because honestly, I don't want to offend anybody, I really don't. But it's just words, and if you're ignorant and mentally disturbed enough to turn words that you hear a comedian say into action, then that is just pathetic of where you're at as a human."

The argument is made that Saget's segment is the filthiest. We contend that the general public may find the contrast between Saget's public, Full House, AFV image and the side he "reveals" in the Aristocrats is what makes it seem all the more tawdry. Those of us who've seen Saget's club act have known of his dark side for some time now!

We changed the poll, so it's time to analyze the stats and put up a new one. First the stats: It looks like half of you have discovered us in the past year or so. So, we seem to be attracting new readers all the time (via hits in major dailies, via links off of other sites and from search engines). And, since about a third of you have been with us for two years or more (an eternity in WWW terms) we seem to be able to retain a lot of you.

Check out the new poll! How long should a live standup comedy show be? The poll is on the righthand column, so take a minute to click on a button and make your opinion known!

Thanks!

Edinburgh is going on right now. An article in The Scotsman tells of some difficulty being encountered by some of the acts:

Artists and performers are reacting in many ways to global terrorism in shows at the Edinburgh festivals this year - but some have altered their acts after the London bombings. [...]

The leading Irish comedian, Andrew Maxwell, said he had originally written a large segment of his show on the theme that it was impossible to have a British suicide bomber.

"That was a very key section of my show, about the Britishness of Muslims, more interested in the car and making a cup of tea than extremism," he said.

"It was in a nutshell that you would never get a British suicide bomber, that the 'normalness' of British Muslims would preclude them ever being fanatical enough.

"The audiences loved it but it proved to be completely wrong and irrelevant."

On the other hand, dick jokes are never wrong and/or irrelevant.

While Charlie Murphy is telling everyone that Chappelle's Show is gone, he's also telling our own Paul Ogata that it's not gone gone. Murphy guested on Ogata's radio show while gigging in Hawaii recently.

It was while chatting with him on the air that he revealed there are a good number of sketches finished already. Enough, he says, to possibly do a Chappelle's Show Movie and show the bits in their uncensored, unexpurgated form.

Hmmm... Sorta like Kentucky Fried Movie or the The Groove Tube. Could spawn a series of flicks, maybe... could be just what the doctor ordered for Chappelle, who doesn't seem to dig the grind of a regular series on TV.

Proclaiming that "This will be the largest comedy festival
in the history of New York City," George Sarris, Big Cheese of the New York City Underground Comedy Festival, has also snagged a proclamation of NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg declaring that Oct. 2-10 is "New York City Underground Comedy Festival Week." Hop onto the NYUCF website for details. (There's a thunderstorm coming... we gotta hop offline!)

Gary Susman, writing for Entertainment Weekly, takes the occasion of the release of The Aristocrats to pen a list of "favorite stand-up comedy routines." An example:

Bob Newhart CD: The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart (1960). It's hard to imagine today that a stand-up album could win a Grammy as the year's top record, but that's how massive a hit Newhart's debut was. 45 years later, Newhart's patented one-sided phone conversations are still wryly hilarious. HIGHLIGHT: Abraham Lincoln's publicist tries to convince the president to make the Gettysburg Address more audience-friendly.

Susman limits himself to bits that are available on DVD or CD. But he still mixes it up well. Nice feature: You can join the fray and, if you keep it clean and under ten lines, you can add your opinion to the tail of the story. Go. There. Now.

"Patriot Act" director Jeff Ross accepts the Comedia Award in a ceremony July 24th at the Monument National in Montreal while two unidentified film-types look on. His film won the award for best feature film. Ross heads out this week for another "tour of duty." Read the SHECKYmagazine interview of Ross here.

Good for Kathy Griffin for providing viewers of her My Life on the D-List with a glimpse into a certified bomb. The reality series cameras followed Griffin as she hosted a Beverly Hills charity auction-- where Griffin herself admits she demonstrated poor judgement in the selection of her material! (In a voiceover, Griffin analyzes the disastrous emceeing gig and conducts a post-mortem with husband Matt on the elevator. Painfully familiar!)

No doubt some of Griffin's confidence stems from the fact that her hourlong special, "Kathy Griffin is Not Nicole Kidman" (which was definitely not a bomb), preceded the premiere of her D-list show. (Check your local listings for repeat showings of the special.)

PlanetOut.com conducted an interesting and hysterical interview with Kathy Griffin:

It's really weird, because that happens all the time, and yet I can't seem to stop myself. I used to say "OK, no cancer jokes, no AIDS jokes." But let me tell you something: Nobody makes a better fucking cancer joke than someone who has it. I have friends who are going through chemotherapy, and they make the darkest, most hideous cancer jokes you've ever heard. So I wonder if anything should ever be off limits.

Okay, that was one of the interesting parts. Now go read the hysterical parts!

A reader, Bruce, writes: "How about some feedback on Pauly Shore's 'Minding the Store' comedy disaster?"

Good question, Bruce. We haven't seen one episode of the show yet (although we couldn't get away from the promo for it, though). But the show premiered on the Sunday before we departed for Montreal, and the second episode was the Sunday we returned from up north, so sitting down in front of the TV for either one was out of the question.

So, we fell down on the job! Although we must admit that our enthusiasm for watching was dampened when we saw that it had a fake cast of characters (odd for a "reality" show, no?) and they were casting about for a "Hot Girls of the Comedy Store" show.

We'll watch the next one. Even if it means we must program the VCR! (Remember those?)

From eonline.com comes this:

The only bright spot among new releases came courtesy of a dirty old joke. The Aristocrats, an unrated ThinkFilms (sic) release in which A-list standup comics retell a classic, if X-rated, joke, did huge business in limited release. It averaged an amazing $65,000 at just four sites for $260,000.

Read the whole article only if you want to see how bad Hollywood is doing these days, as there is no further mention of The Aristocrats.