From the P-I:

San Diego comedian Lamont Ferguson won the 26th annual Seattle International Stand-up Comedy Competition. In a five-night runoff at area clubs, Ferguson narrowly defeated Seattle comic Heneghen to win the $5,000 first prize.

Ferguson won over the crowd with his smooth, conversational style. Heneghen, in second place, won $2,200. Third place went to Vancouver, B.C., comic Graham Clark.

The fourth-place winner was Sadiki Fuller of Houston. And fifth place went to Andy Peters of Seattle. Ferguson performs Thursday-Saturday at the Comedy Underground. Tickets: $12-$15.

From "Reconciling Artist's Moral Rights with Economic Principles and the Problem of Parody: Some Modest Proposals," on the Journal of Law & Communications website, comes this nugget from Paul Nicholas Boylan's treatise on parody:

The problem, in relation to moral rights, however, is that parody-– an older and better established concept than the comparatively newer concept of artist’s moral rights-- directly violates the artist's right to protect his or her reputation by preventing the alteration of his or her art. Parody depends on copying a work of art and altering that art in order to poke fun at the art and/or artist, thereby casting ridicule upon the art and/or artist.

When this happens, parody invariably takes precedent over the artist's moral rights. For example, our hypothetical artist, Noirin, discovers that a comedian-- let's call him Shecky-- has painted a curly moustache on her painting, "the Mona Lisa Marie Presley," and placed the altered painting in a humorous magazine edited by Shecky. American copyright law expressly subordinates Noirin’s moral rights to the fair use defense which, under American law, includes parody. Noirin cannot, therefore, claim her moral rights in the United States. Neither will she have a remedy in France-- the single jurisdiction where her moral rights are best protected-- unless she can prove that Shecky altered her art for malicious, as opposed to comedic, reasons.

I wonder if Shecky (Greene) can bring suit against Mr. Boylan for unitentionally impugning him in a dry, academic treatise on parody? After all, there really is a comedian, named Shecky! Boylan, however, treats him as a hypothetical entity or a fictional character.

(We suspect that we have stumbled upon an extraordinary situation: Greene's first name (his nickname, actually) has become a generic term for a comedian. Boylan is familiar with this development. He seems not, however, to be familiar with the antecedent, Greene himself. Nor, of course, does Boylan seem to be aware that the antecedent is still alive and, occasionally at least, still plying his trade as a comedian!)

Plod through the whole thing if you wanna kick around the issue of fair use and parody.

Phil Porter, of Denver, CO, is the lucky winner of our SHECKYmagazine.com Sweatshirt Giveaway! Congratulations to Mr. Porter! And we thank all of you for participating!

Dane Cook (website) will host the Dec. 3 Saturday Night Live.

The dream that I had in 7th grade is about to become a reality. I've been asked to host Saturday Night Live! December 3rd! I did this with my stand up comedy. Not a tv career or a film career. I did it because I was a good guy with great intentions. I never got caught up in anything beyond the simple idea of bettering myself at this craft that I love and respect. More than anything I am doing it because my fans are some of the sharpest, coolest comedy fans on this planet and you got behind me and never left.

Mr. Cook is on a roll. He may not have snagged his SNL hosting gig via the movies, but he has been in one or two. And he's about to be in yet another-- There's this from Softpedia:

Jessica Simpson is in negotiations to star opposite stand-up comedian Dane Cook in "Employee of the Month" for Lions Gate Films, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

The Dukes of Hazard star will portray a sexy cashier that makes the employees at a discount superstore go ga-ga, while Cook plays one of two dorky workers who are vying for her attention by competing for the Employee of the Month honor. Lions Gate is eyeing a spring start date.

Mr. Cook's price just went up. And, with the breakup of her marriage, Ms. Simpson's price probably went down. Might there be equal billing when it's eventually released? We shall see.

So read the subject line on an email we got this morning.

Now, normally, we get hundreds of emails with similar subject lines. There must be some sort of program out there that enables spammers to create enticing (and plausible) subject lines that randomly incorporate first names and combine them with superlatives such as "Amazing" or "Spectacular."

We always hit the delete button-- we turf them by the dozens, knowing that they're come-ons. This one time, though, they got lucky. They sent the editors of a magazine about standup comedy an email about erectile disfunction with the above subject line.

The spam gods are smiling upon someone out there.

Jerry Fink's Las Vegas Sun review of a recent Monday night at Kathleen Dunbar's Divas of Comedy in the Casbar Lounge at the Sahara (entitled "No joke: Vegas audiences can be tough on comedians") was notable for two reasons: 1) It described, in excruciating detail, an evening where nothing went right for the comedians and 2) It was, overall, a fair and accurate accounting that displayed tremendous empathy for the performers and was, on balance, a positive review!

From my perspective, I enjoyed watching Dunbar and fellow comedian Carla Rae sweat -- not out of some perverse pleasure, but only because I had the opportunity to watch a couple of pros working under the severest of circumstances.

They didn't quit. They gave it their best shot.

They may have been squirming as they fired blanks all night, but they didn't back down.

It was like a battleground, and the comedians were determined to win -- although in this case the victory may have just been getting through the entire performance.

The battle was brutal.

Fink perfectly captures the slow-motion disaster of a bad crowd, using nice details. At the same time, he manages to pay the highest compliments.

Having seen the comedians perform before, I know they are excellent at their craft. Their material, probably R rated, is funny. They can be hilarious. I have been sitting in audiences who were in tears as they performed.

But not this crowd.

Everyone's nightmare-- someone from the press in the house on a bad night-- results in a review that is alternately painful, uproariously funny and, ultimately, positive.

The Female Half of the Staff has played the room and found it to be most challenging, a real test of a comic's mettle. "But it can be a great room," she says. She adds that she is stunned at how well regulars Dunbar and Rae handle the room and the audiences week after week.

"You Are Where You Work-- Comedy Across the Country" is the name of one of the articles written by Vince Martin, who is, according to his Suite101.com bio, a standup comic "based out of North Carolina; I work regularly throughout the Southeast as a feature or middle act. I grew up in New Jersey, spent five years in New York City, and now live in the sticks, so I have a good grasp of a wide section of American life." The abovementioned article endeavors to give a comic an idea of which city or region might be ideal for re-location.

Suite101.com is, near as we can tell, a Wikipedia without a high-powered publicist. (And, it seems, they actually pay for content!) Vince Martin arrived on the scene and is handling standup comedy. We don't do how-to's here at SHECKYmagazine, but we're more than willing to link to the occasional instructional article or two out there in cyberspace.

The Boston Herald is reporting that Sarah Silverman is getting some flack because of a joke in her performance video, er, movie.

Silverman's joke...

...pokes fun at the day of terror, calling the day tragic "because it happened to be the exact same day I found out that a soy chai latte was, like, 900 calories."

It's not the first time we've heard the gag-- it's the marquee joke that the producers of the movie have been using to promote it. We figure they chose it for two reasons: It sums up her sense of humor and it's controversial. Well, it worked.

"It made me sick to my stomach when I read it," said Christie Coombs of Abington, a mother of three whose husband, Jeffrey, perished on Flight 11. Coombs is also the spokeswoman for the Massachusetts 9/11 Fund. "She should spend five minutes alone in a room with anyone who has lost a family member or any of the kids who have lost a father or mother."

Well, maybe she really shouldn't. Coombs is understandably upset, but obviously fails to grasp that the humor that is central to the bit hinges entirely on a grotesque self-absorption that is at the heart of everything that Sarah Silverman is/does. That's the uh... joke.

Mary Griffin, 42, of Walpole, sister of Everett Martin Proctor, who was on the 101st floor of Tower One, was equally disgusted. "I think it’s horrible," she said. "Anyone that can try to make money off such a tragedy . . . it certainly isn’t a joke."

To say that Silverman is "making money off such a tragedy," is stretching things. And it clearly is a joke. Which is why it's got everyone in an uproar. But to say that joking about a tragedy is prohibited would be wrong. (In the hours immediately following the attacks on the WTC and the Pentagon, we here at SHECKYmagazine.com advised all who had shows that night or in the ensuing days to lay off any gags about the deaths of nearly 3,000 Americans. However, more than enough time has passed that we can at the very least reference the day, the tragedy, the horror. In the case of Silverman's joke, it is, like we say, more about Silverman than about anyone who lost a life or a loved one.)

One Herald reader wrote the following:

"I think Silverman’s point is not simply to be crass and insensitive, but to push us to dig a little deeper, and examine things a bit more closely, even when it is uncomfortable or unfashionable to do so."

This would be drivel. The only thing being examined a bit more closely would be-- you guessed it-- Sarah Silverman. Move along... nothing culturally or societally significant to see here. Just narcissism squared, in much the same vein as say, Richard Lewis or maybe a post-modern Phyllis Diller. To put it another way, it's a joke.

A comic and a faithful reader, T. Reilly, hipped us to a fluffy piece by in Saturday's WSJ in which a reporter (read frustrated comic) seeks out standup instruction as a means to knock 'em dead at her family's Thanksgiving Day gathering. (Can anyone think of a worse reason to learn standup?)

The article, by Katherine Rosman, may be significant for no other reason than, as T. Reilly points out, the WSJ seems to be spilling an inordinate amount of ink on comedy these days. And this passage caught our attention:

Comedy is getting a boost from everything from satellite radio shows to popular programs like The Daily Show With Jon Stewart and its spin-off The Colbert Report. It's also increasingly considered a vital skill in the workplace, with managers paying up to $350 to learn how to craft funnier emails to lawyers trying to lighten up their closing statements. At ExecuProv, a Santa Ana, Calif.-based company that gives workshops on humor, 5,000 people have taken a "Humor in the Workplace" seminar in the past three years.

Hmmm... Perhaps ExecuProv and similar operations will supplant the Improv Driving Schools as a place where competent, experienced comics can trade their extensive knowledge for a decent paycheck while scrambling for stage time in major markets. Better to spend an afternoon with a bunch of middle managers than a roomful of people who were caught doing 50 in a school zone.

Blowhard alert:

These days, risqué humor reigns, and that's especially true for the novice comedian who thinks that's the easy route to laughs, says Ms. Smith: "Beginners always go below the belt."

That's Linda Smith, Ms. Rosman's Manhattan Comedy School instructor "who was nominated for three Emmys during her stint as a writer for Rosie O'Donnell's talk show." Sorry, Linda, can't agree less! (Hey, is that Boston Linda Smith? We haven't laid eyes on her in years.)

Read the whole thing.

Brendan "Dan" McKown was among those shot by the jackass who shot up the Tacoma Mall a few days ago. Turns out that McKown has done standup and that some of his standup buddies from the area and beyond will gather tonight (Monday) for a benefit to pay some of his medical bills.

At least 29 comedians are expected to perform at the comedy benefit Monday at the Area 151 club in Tacoma. McKown has done stand-up comedy, and his friends in the comedy community are pitching in to help him.

They will be asking for a $10 donation at the door, or whatever can be given. All the door money goes to help McKown, who has himself done fundraising for a local food bank. Thirty percent of bar sales are going to McKown, too. The comics are not being paid.

The headliner is a friend of McKown, Ty Barnett, who performed recently on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and who is taping a half-hour show for Comedy Central in December.

Barnett lives in Tacoma, but is flying back from Los Angeles, where he currently works.

McKown "is a really, really nice guy," Barnett said. "He thinks of other people before he thinks of himself. You can't say one bad thing about him."

"When comedians need help, comedians come out to help," said the host of the show, Seattle comic Travis Simmons, another friend of McKown.

Read this for details on the benefit show. Read this for details on the shooting.

Thanksgiving is over. We're back in the office. There are three new posts below...AND a SHECKYmagazine.com GIVEAWAY! Scroll down, comedy fans!

The article (Reg. req.) in today's New York Times, written on the occasion of Chappelle/Chapelle's appearance a the recent HBO fest in Vegas, recaps the careerus interruptus of Comedy Central's erstwhile cash cow on its first cyberpage. Then reporter Dave Itzkoff can't help himself, only waiting until paragraph 11 to drop the cliche of all cliches:

But another confidant, the rapper David Banner, wondered if Mr. Chappelle might still be struggling with the consequences of his drastic professional choices. "He looked better than he ever looked to me," said Mr. Banner, who appeared with Mr. Chappelle in a series of Hurricane Katrina benefits. "But he's the one who decides whether he can look at himself in the daytime. The one thing you have to understand about comedians is, the more they make people smile, the more pain that they usually feel inside."

At this point, we stopped reading. (The glass on the front of the credibility meter shatters; the needle dips way below zero, then falls off, hitting the floor with a faint tinkle.)

Note to Messrs. Banner and Itzkoff: It's when the crowd is not smiling that we feel pain. How many times do we have to repeat this? Check your hackneyed faux Freudian nonsense at the door and throw away the ticket!

But then, we couldn't resist. What other nuggets might the NYT's intrepid reporter uncover, wittingly or unwittingly? We click further:

At the Mesa Grill restaurant in Caesars Palace, at least one veteran comedian was still skeptical that the concert would happen at all. "I think the greatest thing he could do is not show up," said George Wallace, a former writer for The Redd Foxx Show. "Wouldn't that be something? It'd be the greatest press he ever got."

Well, at least George Wallace gets it. Chappelle/Chapelle knew damn well that bugging out of his TV show would be rough for a news cycle or two, but that, eventually, he'd be bigger than anyone out there; bigger than Comedy Central itself. (Of course Wallace gets it-- he's got a degree in marketing. If Chappelle/Chapelle doesn't have his own degree in marketing, he could now obtain one from any of the finest schools in the land-- an honorary one for pulling off what might be the greatest marketing stunt of all time, disappearing on April 28 and sending the media into a frenzy.)

Talent manager Jason Steinberg summed up the comedian's current predicament thusly: "He could say, 'All right, I'm going to play tonight in San Francisco,' and it will sell out that moment. To decide that and know the place will be full of fans coming to see you, it's such a powerful thing." Powerful indeed.

What Chappelle did was akin to dying and coming back to life. He will enjoy a status that very few living comics enjoy because of it. He assumes a "largeness" among contemporary comics that is normally only reserved for the likes of Kinison, Hicks, Lenny Bruce or Hedberg-- comics who die, accidentally or otherwise-- only he'll be around to enjoy it. Cynical? Maybe. But he no doubt did some calculation and figured that, not only would he survive blowing off Comedy Central and Big Television, but that he'd thrive. None of the coverage of Chappelle's maneuvers ever gave him any credit for perhaps knowing exactly what he was doing. And, it seems, some still prefer to view the whole affair in mythical terms. We prefer to look at it like George Wallace undoubtedly does.

After recently plugging Laugh Tracks in a Nov. 2 posting, we received an email from Guy MacPherson, plugging his radio show!

Well, as long as you're on the subject of Canadian radio, let me plug my own show. It's called What's So Funny? on CFRO 102.7 FM in Vancouver on Sunday nights from 11 to midnight (PST), and at
http://www.coopradio.org/listen/ on your fancy computers. It's a comedy discussion show. Each week we have a guest from the world of comedy (mostly standup, but also sketch, improv, screenwriters, etc.) and talk for an hour commercial-free. We usually play two or three comedy cuts in the hour. Our November lineup featured Jay Brown, John Beuhler, Sarah Silverman and Rachael DesLauriers. In December, we've got the king of Canadian comedy, Brent Butt (date TBA).

Fortunate are those Canadian comics and those Canadian comedy fans-- There's no shortage of media types willing to treat the art of standup seriously enough to stake out perfectly good radio airtime for the purpose of interviewing comedians!

We're familiar with Mr. MacPherson from many meetings in Montreal at the JFL fest. (And from sweating alongside him during that festival's Industry/Artists basketball scrim, adds the Male Half!) Mr. McPherson even managed to record an interview with the Male Half of the Staff at the most recent JFL, a brief encounter at the exhausted, boozy end of an evening late in the week. See the transcript of that here.

If you aren't depicted on Kamikaze, well, you probably can't call yourself a Swedish comedian. We exaggerate, but probably not by much.

There are 11 ståuppares or ståuppare/konferenciers-- For those of you who don't do Swedish, that's standup comic or standup comic/emcee-- listed on the front page of Kamikaze.se, which seems to be a Swedish standup portal. We figure for a country that size, they can't have too many more ståuppares than that. Unless, of course, Sweden has a disproportionately large standup scene.

Note: Before you start the snickering, we're fairly certain that konferencier (literally translated as Master of Ceremonies) has a somewhat higher status in Sweden than it does in most of the U.S. If not, "du var lämplig, även" is a phrase heard often by self-proclaimed konferenciers.

We found them while rooting around in our stats. We figured that we'd give them a blog-holler back. (Blog holler? Sounds like something from West Virginia! You heard the term here first!)

Enter to win a lovely (and toasty!) SHECKYmagazine.com sweatshirt! Just send an email with your name and mailing address to tmskene@hotmail.com and put the words "SWEATSHIRT GIVEAWAY!" in the subject line!

We'll gather up all the entries (one per reader, please!), fire up the old random number generator and give one of these fine sweatshirts to a lucky reader! Deadline for entry is 11:59 PM EST, Monday, November 28, 2005. We'll announce the winner on Tuesday, November 29 at NOON!

The sweatshirt is emblazoned with a 4-1/2-inch by 1-1/8-inch version of the familiar SHECKYmagazine.com "Thumbs Up" logo, letting everyone know that you're a loyal (and knowledgeable) reader of the WWW's most beloved magazine about standup comedy!

It's a Hanes 50/50 ComfortBlend XL sweatshirt in a light "Sport Grey" with the logo in black. Tasteful, comfortable, classsic and rare! Enter now!

AP is reporting that Pat Morita is dead at the age of 73. Morita was a standup comic before he was Mr. Miyagi. It was 1962-- a simpler time-- so Morita billed himself as "The Hip Nip" and nobody batted an eye.

After the war, Morita's family tried to repair their finances by operating a Sacramento restaurant. It was there that Morita first tried his comedy on patrons.

Because prospects for a Japanese-American standup comic seemed poor, Morita found steady work in computers at Aerojet General. But at age 30 he entered show business full time.

"Only in America could you get away with the kind of comedy I did," he commented. "If I tried it in Japan before the war, it would have been considered blasphemy, and I would have ended in leg irons."

Both halves of the staff would like to wish all our readers a happy Thanksgiving! We have plenty to be thankful for in this, our seventh year publishing SHECKYmagazine.com! We are particularly thankful for our readers-- you are the finest readers-- and the finest standup comics and standup comedy fans, in the entire blogosphere. (And the industry people ain't so bad, either!)

We're taking a day or two off from blogging. (And we're sure our American readers will be taking a day or two off from reading!) When we return, we're going to give away a fabulous new SHECKYmagazine.com sweatshirt! Stay tuned for details on how you can win!

Things are winding down in the Seattle Comedy Competition. They're in the last two or three months of the contest and they have about six or seven more weeks to go. Just kidding.

After 18 shows, the finalist have been chosen in the 26th Annual Seattle International StandUp Comedy Competition. They are: Lamont Ferguson, San Diego CA; Heneghen, Seattle; Sadiki Fuller, Houston TX; Graham Clark, Vancouver BC; and Andy Peters, Seattle.

Details on the final forty or fifty shows are at the Seattle Comedy Competition website. Again... just kidding.

An article about an "important new study from the forthcoming Quarterly Review of Biology" says that a long time ago (millions of years ago, so don't even try to imagine when), we developed the ability to not just laugh at funny stuff-- a fellow sub-human slipping on a banana peel, maybe-- but we "evolved the capacity for willful control over facial motor systems."

In other words, we got so far along in the laughter department, we mastered the art of the fake laugh. We figured out that we could muster the occasional fake laugh for such handy dandy purposes as "strategically punctuating conversation, and conveying feelings or ideas such as embarrassment and derision." Say the eggheads:

Humans can now voluntarily access the laughter program and utilize it for their own ends, including smoothing conversational interaction, appeasing others, inducing favorable stances in them, or downright laughing at people that are not liked.

From this is derived such obnoxious phenomena as the nervous giggle, the maniacal laugh of the comic book villain and the derisive laugh of that kid on The Simpsons!

XMRadio has added a new channel, Laugh Attack, which showcases Canadian acts. We noticed it for the first time while driving back from Atlanta yesterday. We've never heard so many jokes about bears! (Just kidding, eh?)

Whether it's politics, relationships or the regular travails of daily life, the hunt is on for the big laugh. Laugh Attack puts the comic spotlight on Canada's rich pool of extraordinary comedic talent such as Mike Bullard, Maggie Cassella, Jeff Fink, Larry Horowitz, Jim Carrey.

So reads the description of the new channel on the XM Comedy page. (As of this writing, the above Laugh Attack link brings one to a blank page. We suspect they'll be correcting that soonly.)

So far, it's a pretty tight rotation, artist-wise-- lots of Glenn Foster, Jebb Fink, Larry Horowitz, Bruce McCullough, Elvira Kurt, etc., but we suspect that's only because they've only recently begun soliciting recordings from Canadian comics. (And, we suppose, they're actively engaged in trying to determince which recordings among the audio they've already received might actually be from Canadian comics. How does one go about that? Ask, we suppose?)

We seem to recall reading a while back that Canada had essentially barred its citizens and tavern owners from owning satellite radios. After all, the powers that be wouldn't be able to properly regulate the content! The last we heard, the Canadian government, at the urging of Canadian artists and their labels, passed laws which required Canadian radio stations to devote a hard percentage of their programming to Canadian artists. The theory is that, in so doing, the Canadian artists won't get drowned in a cultural tsunami of big, bad American artists. The problem with XM and other programmers who are beamed via the birds are that Canadians just over the border (which is about 95 per cent of Canadians) would be able to listen to 200 channels which had no such restrictions! Quelle horreur! We heard that some tavern owners and other regular (outlaw!) citizens were copping XM units anyway! We guess that, after some arm-twisting and other concessions, the folks at XM agreed to block out a few channels for Canadian and French-Canadian programming so that our neighbors to the north can purchase and use their Roady's with impunity.

Mike Weatherford wrote a lengthy piece on last weekend's gathering in Vegas. Not your ordinary fluffy wrapup, but a decent account with some interesting details and some inside observations.

The secondary market helped HBO justify papering the audience with free tickets for events that were over-booked and under-promoted. For (Dennis) Miller's taping and Family Guy Live, audience members were told to ignore the reserved-seat numbers on their tickets and crowd down so the Colosseum floor would look full on TV.

There were some tactical and strategical errors by the folks who threw the fest, resulting in empty seats and disgruntled fans here and there, but it was the first year and it was rather large... and there were three large entertainment entities involved. That many suits can't agree on anything.

We enjoyed reading Weatherford's piece, but we disagreed with a couple of his conclusions, like the following about Dennis Miller:

The special is do or die time for Miller. After joining the right wing, Miller found there's not a huge call for white-collar blue-collar comedy. The new Miller was less smirky and snarky, more humble than he was during the election year. The political stuff only came in the second half hour, and it was more a soft-spoken explanation for his support of President Bush and the war.

"Do or die time?" Hardly. Miller is regularly playing, and, we assume, packing Vegas-- elsewise, he wouldn't be playing there regularly. In fact, he was just there (at the MGM Grand?) when we were at the other end of the Strip (at the Riv) last month. As for the any perceived change in Miller's tone, it probably isn't an indication of any newfound humility as much as a recognition of the seriousness of the situation and the subject matter. Anyone who regularly watched Millers CNBC show saw a lot of "soft-spoken explanation," especially during that show's Varsity segments.

We saw Extra!, the strident, ghastly, orgiastic celebrity rag of a television show, describe this festival as the first ever comedy festival to be held in Vegas. Can we get an Ouch! for the folks who put on a comedy festival in that town for three out of the last four years? Yes we can. Speaking of which, we hear rumblings that those folks are mounting yet another effort to hold a festival in Las Vegas, this time in January of 2006, with some different strategies, different backers and ambitious partners. Stay tuned for updates on that.

We got an email about yet another comedy contest, this one to take place in Cleveland.

The Ground Floor Theater is proud to announce the inaugural Cleveland Comedy Challenge beginning Wednesday January 11th at 8:00 PM. The competition takes place over six weeks with five hundred dollars going to the winner. Every week, two finalists will be selected to go on to the semi-finals in week five. After the semi-finals four comics will be selected to go on to compete in the finals week six. The Cleveland Comedy Challenge will be an ongoing competition every six weeks. The finalists will be selected in part by audience vote and in part by a three-judge panel.

In order to compete comics must sign up by calling (216)323-4677 or emailing standup@groundfloortheater.com. The Ground Floor Theater is a comedy theater with a full-service, 170-seat venue located at 2781 Euclid Heights Blvd in Cleveland Heights. The historic Centrum theater serves as home for the Ground Floor Theater in Coventry.

Thanks and good luck to all contestants.

Nate Cockerill
Artistic Director
Ground Floor Theater
nate@groundfloortheater.com

Depending on how many contestants they plan on allowing, it should attract comics from Pittsburgh, Buffalo and Detroit.

It can be revealed that the winner of the Laugh Factory's charity auction (via eBay) last month was L.A.-based comic/actor Mark Moseley. For more info about him, you can visit his website. Readers may recall that the enterprising folks at the Factory auctioned off a spot on a future Jon Lovitz-hosted show at the Hollywood comedy club, the proceeds from which were to benefit victims of hurricane Katrina.

David Schwimmer stars in "Duane Hopwood," a little movie about a boozy pit boss in Atlantic City, released today. (Read the Chicago Trip review if you like things like that.)

The film is notable in this publication because supporting Schwimmer are standup comics Janeane Garofalo, Judah Friedlander and Dick Cavett and standup comedy empresario Steven R. Schirripa. That, and Friedlander portrays a standup comic in one scene. (If anyone sees it, let us know where the scene lands on the authenticity scale-- "Punchline" being zero and "Insert title of movie yet to be made that accurately and sympathetically portrays standup comics here" being ten.)

Laurie David had them rolling in the aisles last night at The Comedy Festival in Vegas:

"We're calling for the country, the government, to admit global warming exists, admit humans are causing it and to start working on solutions now," Laurie David says.

Stop, Laurie, you're killing us!

In a cruel twist of fate, on the same day that David was wet-blanketing the house in Sin City, the wires were crackling with an upcoming report from the Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics, in which a killjoy Turkish egghead scientist concludes that global warming is caused by the sun. (Who would have thought?!)

Attendee Bill Maher was quoted as saying that "the environment is one of the hardest subjects to do in comedy. It doesn't have an obvious, easy, funny target." (Indeed! Try working "the signal of the quasi-biennial-oscillation in the extratropical stratosphere tends to be strengthened in solar minima, and weakened in solar maxima" into a punchline! Not even Jack Black could pull that off!)

Maher no doubt longs for the day when the topic du jour for serious, concerned standup comics was homelessness-- remember Comic Relief? (Oh, the irony-- while Comic Relief was raising oodles of cash for the homeless, a good chunk of openers and middle acts were living in their cars and sleeping on various couches throughout the U.S., unable to spare the required $15 for a Comic Relief T-shirt!)

The statement was part of David's schtick during the taping of Earth to America, which airs Sunday on TBS at 8 PM EST.

Just caught Seinfeld's set on Tonight. Great set, as usual. Then he did panel and pumped the Seinfeld boxed set.

Before going to commercial break, Leno said he was going to welcome Shelley Berman. How perfectly wonderful that Leno would bring on two legends of standup on one show. Let's hope it's a trend. Maybe they could bring on Carlin and Shecky Greene on one show. Make it a regular feature.

Maybe it was Seinfeld's idea. Berman is, after all, a regular on Larry David's Curb.

Disappointing they didn't have him do standup. Oh, well. Read our interview with Berman here.

So we're walking down the hallway at our fine hotel here in Atlanta when we see it-- A plastic bag containing a towel (we think... we hope), with a note attached that says, "Sorry for that"

The imagination runs wild.

In an interview in the Pune Times (please, save the jokes for later), Hindi comic Raju Srivastav says that he is pleased that he is "being liked by most masses and classes," and that "people have realised the difference between stand-up comedians and comedians in films."

Presently there are lots of comedy shows coming up in television. And I think the number of shows are going to increase in the near future. Now I believe audiences want comedy shows and producers too want to cash on with the trend.

Even the suits in India get it. Over on this side of the planet, our executives think the sitcom is dead.

Says the BBC:

In an eleventh-hour agreement ahead of a UN internet summit in Tunis, Tunisia, negotiators agreed to leave the US in charge of the net's addressing system.

The Tunis deal leaves the day-to-day management of the net in the hands of the California-based Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann), which answers to the US government.

Icann will keep its current responsibilities for overseeing domain names and addressing systems, such as country domain suffixes, and managing how net browsers and e-mail programs direct traffic.

It's a sign. Yuk Yuks, the 800-lb. gorilla of Canadian comedy, is having a contest, called the Great Canadian Laugh Off, and they're giving away lawts of munney. Entrants must sign up online by December 15, 2005, 12 am PST. A random computer draw will select the final 52 people chosen to compete.

Entries are open to comics from around the world and the grand prize winner will be presented with a cheque for $25,000 and the credentials to become the next big standup comedy star.

We assume that, since it's a "cheque" and not a "check" that it'll be made out in Canadian dollars and not U.S. We're just a tad skeptical of the "next big standup star" claim, but hey, it's a contest press release!

It's a sign. We figure that two things are at play here: Yuks is making oodles of money these days (as are a good number of comedy clubs in North America, due to the resurgence of live standup comedy) and Yuks is feeling the heat of competition like never before. Either way, it's a good thing.

Hop onto the above URL for details. The grand finale will take place over seven days, kicking off Feb. 6 at the Toronto Yuks.

AP reports that Michael Graham, who was canned from WMAL-AM in D.C. for calling Islam a "terrorist organization," has landed on his feet at Boston's WTKK, replacing Jay Severin. Graham knocked around on the comedy circuit for several years before entering the wild world of talk radio.

According to former Big Mover Tommy James, he and wife Michelle have created Devin Thomas James, a 6-lb. 3oz., 18-in. child. He made the big move on Nov. 12 at 12:06 AM, and, like so many who move to Los Angeles, he was early. In his case, 4 weeks early.

First, there was Sundance. A film festival that claimed to champion the smalltime, alternative filmmaker and eschew the big-studio, conglomerate way of making the cinema. Then, when Sundance got all bloated and corrupted and just as Hollywood as Hollywood, a bunch of wise guys started Slamdance, "across the street" from Sundance.

Enter Laugh Dance. From what we can tell, it's the answer to the bloated, corrupt and Hollywood-as-Hollywood Aspen fest. Or, it's a film and comedy contest. We're not exactly sure. If it was a comedy festival, why wouldn't it camp out across from Aspen?

I was wondering if you could post the information I have below for a comedy festival that will be held during Sundance. All the information is below. Also you have my permission to publish my name, letter and address.

Thank You,
Nate Bargatze
WWW.natebargatze.com

LAUGH DANCE COMEDY and FILM FESTIVAL

Seeking standup comedian for Laugh Dance Comedy and Film festival held in Park City, Utah, during the prestigious Sundance film festival. Artist will compete for cash prizes and Industry opportunities. Submission fee 35 dollars make check or money order payable to Laugh Dance. Include VHS or DVD of standup performance no longer than 10 minutes. Deadline is December 1st, 2005.

Send To:

Laugh Dance
C/O Dustin Chafin
30-62 Stienway street suite #184
Astoria, NY 11103-3802

We're pretty sure they mean Steinway and not Stienway. There's a website, where they explain, "At Laughdance Comedy & Film Festival we bring life healing laughter to the world by promoting comedy through quality film and stand-up. In turn, we demonstrate the unique value of comedy as a serious expression of art." So far, two comedians are listed. One of them is from Salt Lake, the other is Dustin Chafin... hey, that name sounds familiar...

We just received an email from Scott Bennett. Below is but a small portion of it:

My name's Scott Bennett and Kelly Moran was my best friend. First of all, I wanted to thank you guys for posting the info about Kelly's memorial that we had for him at the Comedy Store. We had a really good turn out and everything went really well. I know Kelly loved it.

If you'd like to read the rest, click here.

Hollywood Reporter says:

Although the festival's focus is on the consumer market, industry insiders from Los Angeles are expected to turn out because of the short distance and the good time and socializing opportunities to be had. Meanwhile, New York industry insiders have expressed less interest in traveling out West for a long weekend of work and fun.

The occasion for the story was word of the addition of George Carlin to the Founders segment of the Fest (the only portion really worth going out of one's way to see, IOHO).

Fascinating that HR has picked up on the fact that New York industry types don't want to make the trek to Vegas. Who doesn't take any opportunity to go to Vegas (on an expense account)? What the hell is wrong with these people?

Perhaps it was all that talk about this being a "consumer-oriented" festival. What did they expect? The organizers did everything they could to scare away the industry by insisting that it was for regular folks. And, let's be honest, hasn't everyone in the industry (on both coasts) already seen George Lopez, Jon Steward, Jerry Seinfeld and Dennis Miller perform already? So, where's the incentive for the NY suits to show up in the desert?

We just got back from three days at the Buffalo Comix Cafe. We were pleased to see that the USA Today clip (in which the Cafe was among the "Ten Great Places to Sit Down and Watch Standup") was lovingly framed and prominently displayed on the wall of the customer chute that leads into the showroom. We were also tickled that Karen (the Female Half of the Comix Cafe staff) was sporting a T-shirt that read, "Rabid Comedy Fan," a reference to our description of the Comix Cafe crowds!


We'll be at SHECKYmagazine HQ for 48 hours or so before taking off for Atlanta and a week at the Punchline. We didn't have ideal internet conditions in Buffalo and, rather than struggle against the technological tide, we saw it as an opportunity to take a break. That would explain the paucity of posts for 72 hours or so. We're back now, posting here and there before hitting the road again. The Doubletree has WiFi, so we should be back to our old selves starting Wednesday or so.

Read the New York Post review (Free reg. req.) of the limited-run reality series Comedians of Comedy but find something else to do when it actually airs.

Unfortunately, their life on the road is not funny. The series is not very watchable. I mean, really, who cares?

If I wanted to watch people act out and complain, I'd stay home and watch my neighbors.

Ouch.

We're disappointed by two things: First, the show, had it been centered around comedians who were slightly more upbeat and less narcissistic, would have been watchable, funny and interesting. Second, the Post's Linda Stasi seemed to be of the opinion that "people who make jokes for a living are funny all the time" but was now of the opinion (after watching C of C and other TV projects) that comedians "are often depressed or sometimes... downright mean s.o.b.'s." Great. She's ping-ponging between two extreme (and untrue!) stereotypes, neither of which is very complimentary.

We here at SHECKYmagazine have been doggedly engaged in dispelling various negative stereotypes about comedians. We're trying to bury the old myths and promote new impressions of the people who make a living causing laughter. Projects like Comedians of Comedy make our task unnecessarily difficult. And Stasi shows that some members of the media hold onto (and promote) the old impressions for far too long.

We saw the movie upon which this new series was based when it was screened in Montreal in July. We took a dim view:

The movie was, to use a favorite alternative comic phrase, "soul crushing." It is ironic that a movie about comics could be so downbeat. Nearly everything that seemed to motivate Oswalt was negative-- Comedy clubs suck; comedy club audiences suck; his target audience (18-24 year olds) don't make any money; everything sucks, sucks, sucks. Four funny comics, to be sure. But the frame, the underlying themes, the entire raison d'etre of this celluloid exercise was to combat the mediocrity that Oswalt sees in every nook and cranny of the planet... except perhaps when he looks in the mirror. How utterly un-SHECKYlike. To quote our new favorite TV executive and spiritual guru, the Eeyore-esque Moses Znaimer: "Such talented people; such ho-hum ideas." On the positive side, we applaud anyone who, like Oswalt, assesses his current situation, deems it unacceptable and then takes giant, innovative steps to change it and takes trusted and talented colleagues along for the ride. Very SHECKYlike.

Stasi says she, "...can't imagine anyone will tune in for more than one show." We're hoping she's right on this one. (Thanks to John Kensil for tipping us off to the NYP piece!)

Word has rippled throughout the world's English-language media that Lewis Black will be used by The Weather Channel to... to... we're not quite sure what.

They have said that Black will be in Atlanta to tape several segments, talking about airport security, global warming and other topics, which will be sprinkled throughout this weekend's regular weather programming.

Actually, the plan is to have several celebs tape segments for Celebrity Weather. From all indications, CW looks to be what the suits like to call "interstitial programming," which is fancy talk for short segments sprinkled throughout regular programming.

Has anyone else noticed that there seems to be less weather on The Weather Channel? Look for less weather in the future.

David Zurawik of the Baltimore Sun gives terribly negative reviews of two of this evening's PBS offerings-- The Kennedy Center Presents: The 2005 Mark Twain Prize, honoring Steve Martin and Pioneers of Primetime, a documentary featuring Sid Caesar, Milton Berle, Steve Allen, Bob Hope and Red Skelton.

While we will do all within our power to avoid any show that features Diane Keaton singing "The Way You Look Tonight," (The Twain Prize presentation), we might expend the effort to tape the Pioneers documentary. Apparently, it emphasizes vaudeville and stresses its effect on early variety television shows. (Mr. Zurawik found this to be unforgiveable.)

"...and welcome to Inside The Actors' Studio."

Did we dream that? Did we actually hear that Dave Chapelle/Chappelle will be featured on the slowly disintegrating smugfest Inside The Actors Studio?

(From the description of Chappelle/Chapelle's "Half Baked": "A trio of bong-loving buddies hatch a pot-laced plan to spring the fourth member of their smokers' circle out of the Big House." This oughta be... unusual.)

No air date has been set.

We knew the show was proceeding downhill when they had Rosie O'Donnell as a guest, but this latest announcement seals their doom as a serious show. Don't get us wrong, we love Dave. But his guesting on this show is, to put it charitably, incongruous.

Their description, not ours. Yet another festival enters the fray in January when Comedy Central will promote a festival in Miami with Fernando Arau, Mario Cantone, Dane Cook, Greg Giraldo, Kathy Griffin, D.L. Hughley, David Spade "and many more rising Latino and urban comedians." (No rural comedians here, no suburban comedians, but a lot of urban comedians!)

NEW YORK, November 9, 2005 -- COMEDY CENTRAL, the William Morris Agency, Fantasma Productions and Anheuser Busch have joined forces to launch THE BUD LIGHT SOUTH BEACH COMEDY FESTIVAL, it was announced today by Mitch Fried, SVP Promotion Marketing, COMEDY CENTRAL. The four day, multi-cultural festival will take place in South Beach, Florida from January 18 through 21, 2006. THE BUD LIGHT SOUTH BEACH COMEDY FESTIVAL is a partnership that links the preeminent name in comedy, the industry's top talent agency, the number one promoter in Florida and the leading producer and distributor of adult beverages.

The two main sponsors are Bud Light and Taco Bell-- two items that probably aren't much in demand in trendy SoBe. (Perhaps this fest will help them make inroads. "Put down that Pellegrino, yo! I got a case of Bud Light!" "You're right," says the gorgeous Czech model to her Brazilian companion. "Bud Light goes much better with the... what do you call them... take-o's?")

Every time someone announces a new festival on U.S. soil, we wonder, "Do they think this will be the festival that supplants Montreal?" Will this be the American comedy festival that is a combination of consumer-friendly, industry-friendly and comic-friendly. We shall see. So far, though, it doesn't appear to be this one.

AP reports that the results of a study showed that "Women May Enjoy Humor More, if It's Funny," at least that's what the headline says. We're not scientists, but we still like to think we can understand an AP summary of a scientific experiment.

While there is a lot of overlap between how men and women process humor, the differences can help account for the fact that men gravitate more to one-liners and slapstick while women tend to use humor more in narrative form and stories, Reiss said.

That we can buy.

AP Science Writer Randolph E. Schmid had the unenviable task of summarizing something that was written in the MEGO language of typical scientists, but we're certain he captured the essence. We're not so sure we agree with the conclusions reached by the researchers, however. Of course we're not sure what it means!

"Women appeared to have less expectation of a reward, which in this case was the punch line of the cartoon," said Reiss. "So when they got to the joke's punch line, they were more pleased about it."

Huh? The Female Half says that it makes women sound either cynical or stupid. Neither of which is very flattering.

"Beware a 'Digital Munich' " is the title of an opinion piece by Norm Coleman, Republican senator from Minnesota, in the Wall Street Journal. We won't even bother excerpting it. It doesn't go far enough in delineating the horrors of a UN-controlled internet. Other writers have managed to paint a much more frightening scenario than Coleman.

Let's just put it this way: The UN? In charge of the Internet? Are you insane?

The argument is made much more forcefully here.

At one point in his recent Newsweek/MSNBC.com interview, Bob Saget says, "Very few people hate me. Ten years ago more people disliked me." When asked why he replies:

The video show. The jokes were really lame and dumb. I'd laugh at my own jokes. It was what it was. I was doing family comedy at seven o'clock at night. I couldn't grab my nuts. What was I going to do? But now I do my standup. My 15 year old and 12 year old have never seen my R-rated standup. I don't want them to see it until they're older because to me it can be damaging. I think there's a time and place for filth.

Amen to that-- the filth part, that is.

We're still disturbed by the header on the article, which describes Saget as "the goofy star of unfunny television shows in the 1990s." How unaware can one be? These are adults writing these things. Amazing. Would the same author label The Flintstones as "unfunny?" Questions of relative unfunnyness should be directed at the endless parade of lifeless sitcoms that are aimed at adults. Bland family fare should be allowed to exist free from such examination. Why do we even bother talking about the relative funniness of such shows as Full House?! It's for children! It doesn't have to be all that funny to adults! We get it! The show sucked! What would you have us do about it? Insert a few passing references to oral sex here and there? Have the occasional walk-on from a scantily clad Eva Longoria?

Even Saget has hopped aboard the Trash Saget's Old Shows bandwagon. He's constantly forced to defend his old work. (At least he's settled on "It was what it was." A weak defense, but a true one.) We suspect he's merely doing it because to argue any more strenuously would just get in the way of his new message, which is, "I do standup now... really filthy standup."

As for AFV, well, sure the intros to the videos were inane, but it's for families! Must everything appeal to urbane, streetsmart New Yorkers? (Personally, we here at SHECKYmagazine HQ still guffaw at AFV reruns... well, at least the Male Half does. And if The Planet's Funniest Animals happens to pop up while channel surfing, PUT THE REMOTE DOWN and BACK AWAY! Who can watch a dog chase his tail and keep a straight face? Who?)

They try to throw in a comedian when they give out the Medals of Freedom.

Andy Griffith. The actor first achieved national acclaim in the 1950s for his standup comedy routines. He went on to star in television shows such as The Andy Griffith Show and Matlock and numerous Broadway productions and films.

Not a whole lot of folks know that Griffith was a comic early on. XM has been running some bits from his albums. A relaxed, storytelling style that is very bizarre and oddly effective. Very southern, almost to the point of being a sort of dialect comic. "The nation's highest civil award" will be given out at the White House on Wednesday.

We got yet another email from a television producer, this time from Melissa Mayne, from Tiger Aspect Productions in London:

My name is Melissa and I work on a brand new show for the TLC Channel called "Ultimate Blunders." The show features everyday blunders and mistakes. I read with interest your website whilst I was doing some research on the Internet and I thought you may be interested in talking to us.

We're looking for people who've had a funny, embarrassing, or unusual blunders and true life funny stories at home at work or in public.

Maybe you’ve mistaken you’re friends mom for his sister and tried to kiss her? Fallen into the toilet in your new in-laws bathroom and got stuck there…..? Jumped out of the hotel room closet to surprise a complete stranger? Forgotten the rising tide and seen your dad’s car floating out to sea? Forgotten the name of your child at parents evening or gone out of the house with your skirt tucked in your knickers.

Maybe you’d like to nominate a friends outrageously embarrassing blunder, perhaps you’re a serial blunderer or you’ve committed the blunder to end all blunders.

Hit the website or call the Ultimate Blunders Hotline at (240)223-3450.

Strangely enough, we couldn't recall making any blunders! Of course, one or two will eventually occur to us. We suspect that we've blundered here and there, but that our natural defense mechanism has enabled us to weather the initial embarassment and subsequently erase the incident from our memories. Perhaps that's one of the characteristics that enables us to be comics-- without it would we ever be able to mount the stage after that initial bomb? After all, is not dying in front of a roomful of people always named as the number one fear? (Talk about your blunders!) Comics have different criteria, maybe. Hmmm... We shall see.

Just got an email from Yoshi himself. It seems that David did follow up on that phone call he alluded to in the Herald article:

Yes, he called. And I got a little flustered. He is just like the character in the show. He just told me it is just an unfortunate coincidence. And I believe him. Since he told me he doesn't have writers for him.

Happy ending! It seems it was all a misunderstanding.

Just got an email from Yoshi himself. It seems that David did follow up on that phone call he alluded to in the Herald article:

Yes, he called. And I got a little flustered. He is just like the character in the show. He just told me it is just an unfortunate coincidence. And I believe him. Since he told me he doesn't have writers for him.

Happy ending! It seems it was all a misunderstanding.

FOS Rick Jenkins sent us a heads up about an article in the Boston Herald by Sean L. McCarthy which gives a thorough airing to L.A.-based comic Yoshi Obayashi's suspicions about his opening bit turning up on Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Obayashi has been opening with a bit about his grandfather being a retired kamikaze pilot. A recent episode of Curb featured a friend, named Yoshi, whose grandfather was a kamikaze pilot. The gag in both cases is that he "was obviously not very good."

We bring it to your attention, not because we're interested in policing material theft (that's a role best left to others), but because we were struck by the Herald going out of its way to air the complaint. A lot of us have seen our gags turn up on television-- usually in a sitcom script, sometimes out of the mouth of a fellow comic-- but we usually shrug and move on. In this case, the Herald went so far as to quiz David about the "coincidence." A sign of Curb fatigue perhaps? A trend toward helping comics protect their intellectual property? As the Herald article says in the last sentence-- stay tuned.

From FOS Sharilyn Johnson comes the following email, touting her regular radio show up north:

Tonight on Laugh Tracks, I speak to Al Rae about stolen material!

We try to convince John Q. Public that they're going to hell for liking Robin Williams, Al reveals a deep dark secret within the first 3 minutes of the show, and I risk being deluged with emails from Dane Cook's fanbase.

All with the low production value you've come to expect from UMFM!

In Winnipeg, tune in to 101.5 FM. Anywhere else in the world, listen online at www.umfm.com . Wednesday night, 8:30 pm (central), repeating Friday and Sunday morning at 6:30 am.

The topic of stolen material is becoming all the rage these days. Mr. Rae is a fine standup comic as well as the artisitic director of Winnipeg's Gas Station Theatre.

A recently updated entry on the Snopes.com website seeks to sort out the claim that "Comedian Chris Rock originated a quip about the best golfer in the world being black and the best rapper being white." The status of the claim is "Undetermined"according to the usually rock solid and dependable website that is devoted to debunking myths and ferretting out truth.

Undetermined? That's right. The site has found that the earliest known utterance of the quote is in an October 2000 newspaper profile of Charles Barkley. Hmmm... They go on to say that Rock wasn't heard in public saying anything like that until 2005.

We find it hard to believe that Barkley could have come up with the observation. He was after all quoted as saying that he was misquoted in his autobiography. Let that sink in. His autobiography!

Comedy Central's announcement yesterday will delight fans of the faux Mexican standup whose show now replaces that of Dave Chappelle/Chapelle. Carlos Mencia will be on the tube, on the CD, the DVD and on the live stage with a 30-city CC-branded standup tour.

Of course, not everyone is happy with the major goodies that Comedy Central has heaped on Mencia. Joe Rogan has for some time been telling anyone who'll listen that he's all for originality and all against joke thievery. He sounds mighty sincere. And in some blog entries on his website, he talks about his feelings re stealing material and about about how he was alerted to a bit of trash talking by Mencia during a recent radio interview. Seems that he poured a little fuel on the fire and actually mentioned Rogan by name. Big mistake. Makes for some interesting reading.