Jim Blumenfeld writes:

I am pleased and excited to announce that the "Paul Rudeen Benefit for MADD" show will be held on Saturday evening, May 19th, 2007, at the Auburn Elks Lodge just off the Mass Pike at exit 10 in Auburn MA. The room seats 350 and seeing as the wake had 275 people we expect a full house.

The current lineup includes:

Chris Tabb-- Host
Tom E. Morello-- Cuban
Dan Boulger-- The Future of Comedy
Tim McIntire-- Headliner
and other young punks, to be announced


I will be introducing the family and then getting out of the way. There will be raffles and a soda bar (obviously no alcohol for an event of this nature).

Thank you all for your support. More news to follow.

As we reported here, on October 16, Rudeen was an aspiring Boston-area comic who died when another motorist lost control of his vehicle and crashed into Rudeen's vehicle.

This year's San Francisco International Comedy Competition winner, Jay Wendell Walker sent us the following:

Can't thank you enough for all press you have given me. But I am starting to feel like an ambassador for senior citizens. There will always be people who say your too old or too young or from the wrong part of the country. It is kind of fun proving them wrong! Thank God there are people like Jon and Anne Fox who give us a chance to do it. I don't think they get as much credit as they should. A lot of great talent came out of their contest over the past 31 years. I watched Jon for six nights a week for three weeks. I was impressed with his love of the business, the respect and support he gave every comic and how hard he worked to make sure the contest was fair, honest and a learning experience for all of us. So, for every person who says you can't, there are people like Jon who says you can.

Wishing both of you a Happy New Year,

Jay Wendell Walker

Thanks, Jay. And, as for the senior citizen thing, we hope that every time we mentioned your age, we also mentioned the amount of experience that you have acquired. That's the impressive thing to us. We're dumbfounded by the lack of respect that experience commands in the business. And we're doubly perplexed by the premium placed on youth-- which, with few exceptions, necessarily indicates an utter lack of experience. (Trust us, if your or someone your age won the SFICC after only having done standup for two years, we would have made far less of a deal about the victory.)

That's right, Brian McKim and Traci Skene have produced their very first audio CD-- 66:41 of hilarity!

We thought that the fourth-to-last day of 2006 would be the perfect time to launch the CD. It's been a year of D.I.Y. for us-- new color headshots, new video clips, YouTube and MySpace exploitation-- all made possible by the new WWW technology and some local capital investment in some hardware here at SHECKYmag HQ.

We recorded the audio using our Sony MZ-R50 MD recorder. We copped it from eBay way back in the early spring, and also picked up a couple of inexpensive lavaliere mikes with pretty good frequency response. The quality is startling.

The title comes from the intersection that The Male Half of the Staff grew up a half-block away from, in Pennsauken, NJ. We think it captures us quite nicely!

Click on the PayPal button in our left column (the one where you can buy a sweatshirt ... the same button that has been inoperative-- unbeknownst to us for a few days!)-- and you'll be whisked to our PayPal page. It's available for $12! (That includes shipping and handling!) We did a test-market this past weekend and things went well! And the feedback we got was very positive!

There are many ways of doing things. One can wait around for someone to come along and do it for you, or you can Do It Yourself! It's a nice feeling to have finally created an item like "Pleasant & Gross." It's nice when an audience member comes up and proclaims, "I gotta have one of those!" And it's a nice feeling to be able to provide it!

We plan on many more D.I.Y. projects in 2007! And we wish you all the gumption, the energy and the wherewithal to do yours, too!

Standup comic Frank King, who bears a striking resemblance to '04 vice-presidential candidate John Edwards, has at least another year to impersonate the former North Carolina senator for cash! Edwards announced that he'll run for the White House in '08 yesterday in New Orleans. (He was depicted in wire photos, appropriately enough, wielding a shovel!) King, whose website is notjohnedwards.com, is undoubtedly rooting for Edwards to avoid a rout in the early primaries and jumping on the opportunity with a press blitz.

"I have an enormous advantage as an impersonator," King explains, "in that most people who are look-a-likes aren't actually performers, much less comics. They can stand and wave, grip and grin, and maybe deliver a few canned one-liners as the person they resemble, but that's it. I can do comedy, in character, and as the campaign progresses I'll have more and more material."

An AP article says that a Florida firm is suing Leo Gallagher. We're not exactly sure why from reading the story. Will the judge be tempted to place grapes under his gavel?

We saw Gallagher perform in the theater at the Sahara in 1998 and were disappointed. Everyone has his off nights. We've recently heard chunks of his material on XM and found them to be thought-provoking and well-written. (We've never understood the bad rap that he's gotten. We've concluded that it's a kneejerk reaction to his use of props.)

1. Michael Richards melts down at Laugh Factory

And what followed was a circus parade of various figures saying and doing the most ridiculous and shameful things-- Factory owner Jamie Masada sets up a virtual swear jar for his comics; Paul Mooney, Dolemite and Oprah Winfrey publicly declare that they'll reconsider use of the dread N-word; Jesse Jackson parachutes in, Media Whore Gloria Allred reps the "victims"; All the while, the DVD of Seinfeld's Season Seven sells like hotcakes. Best quote to come out of all of it: "I'll be damned if the white man uses that word last!" (Damon Wayans upon using the word several times onstage at the Factory-- and gladly paying the subsequent "fines.")


2. 2006: The Year of Dane Cook

He signed a mega-deal with HBO, produced "Tourgasm," starred in a major motion picture, headlined two MSG shows, caused a stir at a Vancouver comedy club. We could have proclaimed 2005 as The Year of Dane Cook, but Cook topped Cook in the last twelve months. It wasn't without controversy-- everyone from Rolling Stone to Louis CK fans to his fellow comics did their best to take him down a notch or three, but his stock shows no sign of falling.

3. The return of NBC's Last Comic Standing and HBO's Comic Relief

After they hosed Alonzo Bodden, everyone (including, probably, Jay Mohr!) thought L.C.S. was dead, done, fini. Not so. It was more popular than ever. It's back in 2007.

After the media's obsession with homelessness subsided, everyone (including, probably, Whoopi, Robin and Billy!) thought Comic Relief was dead, done, fini. HBO, however, had different plans-- a festival to promote (The Comedy Festival) and a disaster to relieve (Katrina). It's a win-win-win: Hours of programming, prime exposure for comedians and actors, promotion of the fledgling fest... oh, and Katrina's victims get some dough, too!

4. 2006: The Year of the Internet and Comedy

MySpace.com creates MySpace Comedy and YouTube is embraced by standup comics and standup comedy fans. And every other week sees the announcement by some huge media entity of their "online comedy initiative." HBO, TBS, Comedy Central, NBC and others have announced such initiatives where they will, to varying degrees, develop comedy programming and build a site that relies heavily on "user-generated content" and serve as high-tech hothouses for future programming. Right!

So far, we have Lazy Sunday, the Pauly Shore knockout hoax and Chriss Bliss juggling to "Golden Slumbers."

5. Booing makes an ugly comeback

Reports from the field detail comedy club crowds that have no compunction about booing standup comics, no matter what their level of accomplishment. We can't wait until polite, icy silence makes a comeback. Who ever thought we'd long for the days of polite, icy silence?

6. Howie Mandel, Bob Saget and Penn Jillette occupy primetime television real estate as hosts of network television game shows

In January, we advocated the kicking of Howie Mandel's ass. Upon the announcement that he would be hosting a game show on NBC, he (or his publicist) circulated the preposterous notion that such a venture would be death to his career. Of course, we knew different. Mandel has since recanted, thereby prompting us to rescind his ass-kicking fatwah.

Saget's show is breeding a whole new generation of unsuspecting Saget fans who will be fooled by his warm and fuzzy TV persona into witnessing the hair-curling specatacle that is his twisted, filthy nightclub set!

7. Jon Stewart is hyped as host of the Oscar telecast

We called this one. We praised his performance during the buildup. He was modest, he tried desperately to ratchet down the expectations. The hype was unbearable and we said as much. His performance was tremendous. And we defended him when the MSM tore him a new one. Ellen Degeneres has already been announced as the host of the '07 telelcast and Stewart will get to host it again when either hell freezes over or Letterman is offered another shot at it-- which will be on the same day.

8. Stephen Colbert bombs at the White House Correspondents Dinner

Word of it was carried to all corners of the earth. And they spelled Colbert's name right. When the dust settled, nobody cared and "truthiness" was named word of the year by dictionary makers Merriam-Webster.

9. Oldster wins SF Comedy Competition

Jay Wendell Walker won the 31st Annual San Francisco International Comedy Competition at the age of 64. This is in direct contradiction to the boneheaded pronouncement of D.C. Improv manager Allyson Jaffe who said, in a piece in the Washington City Paper, that "Once you're 10-plus years in this business, you only have a certain amount of years to make it." Walker is simultaneously celebrating his win in the SFICC and his 46th year as a comic.

10. "Shecksism" and "Charlie McCarthyism" continue unabated

The Mainstream Media and their useful idiots perpetuated the notion that standup comics are dull-witted, misogynistic louts.

The assault on standup comedy as an artform and standup comics as people was taken up by Tom Shales of the Washington Post, Nikki Finke of the LA Weekly and Paul Brownstein of the Los Angeles Times. We detailed their crackpot rantings in numerous posts. Bigoted, hate-filled invective propped up flaccid prose in many an article in the MSM in 2006. As always, we pointed it out when we were aware of it. The rigors of such a quixotic campaign makes us weary to our marrow, but our recent two-week break has re-energized us.

SHECKYmagazine coined the term "Charlie McCarthyism" to describe the Comedy Police, Comedy National Guard, Comedy Supreme Court-- three MySpace entities that were organizations formed by comedians, of varying experience, ostensibly dedicated to rooting out sub-par comedians, incidents of supposed intellectual property theft and various other standup-related transgressions. We took offense at the attitude, tactics and fallout from such endeavors and we especially took offense at the idea that the accusers sought to remain unnamed. (If we gotta hang our ass out there with our name and likeness emblazoned on our publication, we'll be damned if these weasels were going to be allowed to operate under the cloak of anonymity.) All three projects eventually withered and died.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

We're glad to be back at the keyboard. We'll continue to publish SHECKYmagazine indefinitely. We look forward to the new year and we're anticipating continued and increased success for us and for all of our hard-working, creative and enterprising colleagues engaged in the coolest occupation of all-- standup comedy.

Happy New Year to all our readers! We'll be here all year! Try the veal!

We're posting again. And we went through the year of postings to assemble a list of those folks who were comedy-related who passed away in the past twelve months. Here is that list.

Red Buttons, comedian and actor, 87

Don Knotts, comedian and actor, 81

Al Lewis, comedian, actor, club owner, 92

Jan Murray, comedian, 89

Allan Johnson, Chicago Trib columnist, 46
Johnson wrote often about, and was a fan of, standup comedy.

Blair Shannon, comedian, 46
The comic was shot to death in his hotel room in St. Thomas, while working on a cruise ship.

Richard DeAngelis, comedian and actor, 73
The actor portrayed Col. Raymond Foerster on HBO's The Wire and performed earlier as a comedian under the name Ricky Roach.

Lyn Bartlett, longtime Punchline (ATL) employee
Among three people brutally murdered in a home invasion in her farmhouse in Cumming, GA.

Matt Long, comedian
Hit by a car on Highway 33 in Ventura County

Robert K. Hoffman, one of the three original founders of National Lampoon, 59

Peter Boyle, actor, 71

Joe Restivo, restarateur and onetime standup comic, 54
(Not to be confused with Joe Restivo, longtime comedian who still merits the bold type because he is still very much alive and performing. The live Restivo battled the confusion caused by the matching names and similarity in vocations.)

One of our most popular columnists, Dan French, has surfaced. He last wrote for us when he landed a gig writing for Dennis Miller at CNBC. (He had written previously for Craig Kilborn on Late Late Show and for Fox's Best Damn Sports Show, if we're only going to list the high-profile positions.)

His columns (now archived at the end of the above link) remain among the most-hit files on our server and for good reason. French headed to Hollywood with his eyes open and his pencil sharpened. Our readers are among the most savvy in the business, due in no small part to having had regular access to his dispatches from the balmy, batty epicenter of the entertainment industry.

Out of the blue, we received a holiday present in the form of an email that announced that he would be sending us columns once again. From his perch in Austin, TX, our What Works columnist will resume the analysis. His prologue follows.

So, on July 23, 2006, roughly seven years after arriving in LA, I jumped on the same highway-- the 10-- that brought me there, and headed east, out of the city, to move back to Austin, Texas. True story-- on the way out, just past Upland, I paced Hulk Hogan in a convertible, hanging with him at his cruising speed of 90 mph for about twenty minutes, until he turned off onto the route to Palm Springs, flipping me the finger because I had spent too much time within his allotted celebrity space.

Ah, now that, my friends, is a proper exit from LA-- full of all sorts of nuanced lessons in meaningless, yet somehow meaningful, brushes with important, and yet utterly unimportant people.

It's been a while-- oh, probably three years-- since I last wrote anything to Shecky, which is probably a good place to begin to find an explanation for why I decided to get out of Hollywood and back into the Hinterlands. It's kind of a big story, and most of it I won't get into here because who really cares, but basically, after three staff writing jobs, and lots of tiny writing jobs here and there, and lots of driving of city streets, and lots of job chasing and packet writing and friend-making and experience-getting, to tell you the truth, I got tired of the work of Hollywood. I got a little tired of "the game," and of the city, but mostly, I got tired of the actual work. I got tired of endless production of material, most of which went unused, that would be churned and burned and abandoned and forgotten forever. I got tired of the politics, and the impression-management and the effort around the work. But beyond all that, I got tired of working for people who, though all talented in their own way, never made me laugh. I was spending all my own creative capital constantly feeding a voracious furnace-- television-- that I couldn't even force myself to watch-- even if I had written the piece that was on the air. So, I'm saying that I didn't leave because of creative differences, I left because of creative waste. Because I could easily see myself at the end of all of this sound and fury I call my life, looking back and not being able to point to a single thing that I had created, or helped to create, that I thought was "good" or interesting or enlivening or even palatable.

Ugh.

But let it be known, I probably would have stayed in that system if I couldn't see other options that might also be lucrative, and perhaps more satisfying. Hollywood money is good money. When you work, as long as you're not being screwed by a non-guild signatory show (there are lots of them now)-- the money is great, and therein lies the ultimate tar pit truth of Hollywood-- big money makes you put up with big a-holes. And even makes you start to think you're creating good product. Although, sorry, you aren't. Even if it's "popular." It's still mostly-- okay, almost always -- crap.

But I make humor for a living, so to leave the place where most of that is done, and move away from the production facility, you better have a plan. And I guess I do. Ill 'talk about it here more in the future, but basically there are things opening up on the Internet, in standup, and in the great splintering of the media, that will allow more people to do smaller things, own them, and then watch while Hollywood tries to buy them. I know this because I've got experience in that system, I know how much that system needs product, I know why that system can't produce interesting product on its own. So I'm taking that experience elsewhere to see if I can make the theory-- that good humor can be created on smaller budgets in non-Hollywood cities, then sold back to Hollywood-- into any kind of reality.

I'll keep you posted.

The hardest working man in show business has taken his final bow. Brown died this morning.

Brown was performing to the end, and giving back to his community.

Three days before his death, he joined volunteers at his annual toy giveaway in Augusta, and he planned to perform on New Year's Eve at B.B. King Blues Club in New York.

Read the entire obit.

The Male Half saw the Godfather of Soul perform in 1980 at Philadelphia's Academy of Music (with Wilson Pickett opening!) and found it to be one of the top three concert experiences of his life, if not the top. Just last week we transcribed a live album of Brown's ("James Brown Mean On The Scene") from vinyl to digital. Recorded at Studio 54 in 1982, the disc is poorly produced but has a thrilling version of "Too Funky In Here" and a spectacular rendition of "Get Up Off That Thing." Even though it isn't the highest quality (and contains only five decent tracks), it's an aural snapshot of Brown in his prime.

That's Bonnie McFarlane onstage at the Kid Chris-Mas Holiday Spectacular on Ice.

The Electric Factory is just over the Ben Franklin Bridge. Literally five miles and two turns after we leave our parking lot. So we headed out on a foggy Thursday evening to hang backstage with FOS Rich Vos and FOS/Columnist Bonnie McFarlane at the Kid Chris-Mas Holiday Spectacular on Ice.

1,200 or so WYSP fans screaming and drinking their guts out for a lengthy lineup of comedians-- Rich Vos, Pat House, Ed McGonigal, Chris McDevitt, Geno Bisconte, Bonnie McFarlane, Rev. Bob Levy, Colin Quinn-- and an "eclectic" assortment of show regulars (although that is stretching the term) in a rapid-fire, raunchy, rowdy radio bacchanal thrown by the station's afternoon drive host Kid Chris.


That's Kid Chris, the 3-7 PM host on WYSP, next to Ed McGonigal.


That would be Colin Quinn, Chris McDevitt and Bonnie McFarlane.

From Radio Ink:

Standup comedian, Comedy Central fave and frequent "Howard Stern Show" guest Nick DiPaolo is joining Stern's longtime terrestrial flagship, the former K-Rock, now Free-FM. DiPaolo will host a midday Talk show.

David Hinckley reports in the New York Daily News that in addition to the arrival of DiPaolo, XM's Ron and Fez will join Free-FM for 6-9 PM and late-evening and overnight shows are also expected to be added.

After we posted about the forensic counselor who declared that all comedians have attention deficit ("It's official: Standup comics are sick"), we decided to get a second opinion.

Who better to ask than Dr. Will Miller? Miller is former spokestherapist for Nick At Nite, a comedy veteran and a "recognized expert in the area of interpersonal relationships, organizational health and workplace culture!"

Here's what he had to say:

It is always suspicious when a therapist sees others through the lens of their own diagnosis. How cheap and easy and, by the way, ethically ill-advised. I am happy that the doctor has discerned his own psychological problem and found good medication for himself. But clearly his generalizations about comedians are absurd and offensive. Of course there are comics who struggle with attention deficit and even hyper activity. And perhaps comics share some of these characteristics at a higher incidence then the general population. But he is shamelessly over-reaching with his arm-chair diagnosis. Does Emo fit the same psychological profile as Jerry Seinfeld?

Do Brian Regan and Jim Carey share a similar brain style? Where is the evidence of ADHD in Steven Wright? I never got an ADHD vibe from Paul Reiser or Jeff Foxworthy.

This is, of course nonsense. It's bad enough when media pundits pose as experts talking about politics and culture. But it is inappropriate and unethical for mental health professionals to publicly speculate about the mental state of someone they have not seen and do not know. Any new comic will tell you that Richard's rant, whose content was egregious to be sure, was more likely rooted in his inexperience being confronted by rude crowd behavior. And to propose letting him off the hook because of a speculative psychological diagnosis is false. His vitriol does indeed suggest racial animus more than ADHD. Richards may be a television celebrity but he is a raw newcomer to the world of nightclub standup. It took me a few years and hundreds of performances to handle interruptions with calm equilibrium. To suggest that Richards has ADHD (a ridiculous presumption) or bipolar disorder (a serious psychiatric diagnosis) tells me that this forensic psychologist needs to shut his yapper rather than trying to insert himself into a nasty media storm. I might suggest that the Doctor has misdiagnosed himself. From what I read he may well have a narcissistic personality disorder that can be treated with psychotherapy and a different medication than the one he is taking. And it is very likely that he is repressing his bitter rage that he is unable to be a standup comic himself. I mean if he too has ADHD, maybe he should get his butt onstage on open mike night. He would come to appreciate the interior strength it takes to be a standup comedian.

Just kidding, of course. You cannot diagnose someone you don't know. Michael Richards has to work out this mess himself with the help of a professional who is actually speaking to him. CAPICE, DOCTOR?

Dr. Will holds four graduate degrees and is a practicing psychotherapist at Purdue University where he lectures on popular and organizational culture and the media. Will spent 16 years as a professional comic in New York City and, according to his email sign-off, "probably has ADHD." to be his MySpace friend, click here.

Check out Elayne Boosler's reasoned rejoinder to the nonsense that's pooled around our ankles since the Kramer Meltdown.

The rule about heckling is this: you fire at a cop, get ready to die. Yelling "you're not funny" at a comic is firing with an AK. Hurt your feelings? Tough. Anything goes for hecklers, including excessive force. I lay myself bare up here, at my most vulnerable you shoot me in the chest, I will kill you if I can. You know why Richards looked so shell shocked at his own outburst? Because he's not a racist, he was simply in the zone. Comedy clubs are like Indian reservations. They are their own country. I don't think he should have apologized. You pay your money and you take your chances, step right up.

It's got references to Bernie Mac, Chris Rock, Marsha Warfield, Lenny Bruce, Richard Pryor and lots more. At times, it veers dangerously close to a "In my day, comics would never..." screed, but it always swings back into a focused, final word on the insanity that followed the famous freakout. It's worth reading to the end and there's really not a word wasted. We just wished she'd have sent it to us first.

Peter Boyle, Ray Romano's TV dad for ten years, died.

What comic doesn't love "Young Frankenstein"?

Boyle died Tuesday evening at New York Presbyterian Hospital. He had been suffering from multiple myeloma and heart disease, said his publicist, Jennifer Plante.

A Christian Brothers monk who turned to acting, Boyle gained notice playing an angry workingman in the Vietnam-era hit "Joe." But he overcome typecasting when he took on the role of the hulking, lab-created monster in Mel Brooks' 1974 send-up of horror films.

The Puttin' on the Ritz scene is frequently cited by comics and non-coms alike as one of the funniest moments in cinema history.

Boyle had local Philly roots. The Male Half is familiar with Boyle's father, also named Peter, who went by the name Pete and was a Philadelphia broadcasting pioneer. (He vaguely recalls the elder Boyle hosting a show in which he talked to puppets, introduced cartoons and did charcoal drawings. The show was sponsored by Acme Markets, owned by American Stores. Patricia Heaton, who portrayed Raymond's wife, Deborah, is currently spokesperson for Acme Markets here on the east coast. Spooky! At one time the senior Boyle took over the hosting of an afternoon cooking show when the host moved to mornings. That host was Ernie Kovacs. There's always a comedian involved.)

From club owner Rob Jenkins:

The Pauly shore incident was definitely a hoax. we planned it all weekend long and fun with it. It was all planned out rehearsed and carried out perfectly as far as Pauly is concerned. was it stupid? Maybe but it definitely let other comics and performers know we are here. We are a great club with great patrons we hire off duty police to help w/ crowd problems which have never happened. A few hecklers of course but nothing would EVER happen like this EVER at my club. I know that for sure. We have two huge security guards and a off duty police officer every weekend. Thanks for the coverage! Talk to you soon.

What could they have been thinking?

We can't figure out what our favorite part is:

"...but it definitely let other comics and performers know we are here"

or

"Thanks for the coverage! Talk to you soon."

The Odessa American, the local paper, ran a story today on the hoax.

Meanwhile, Jenkins, who performs standup comedy himself, has been basking in the publicity.

"Word's getting out," he said. "They're calling me to work the clubs."

Too creepy for words!

TMZ.com is reporting that the Odessa cops say that the whole thing's a hoax. Of course, the press release from the Odessa cops could be a hoax, too. But then we're really into weird territory.

The objections raised earlier are still valid. The hostile environment just as real. The negative fallout for comedians is still negative, hoax or not.

What could Pauly Shore have been thinking?

Here it is, 4 PM EST, and the MSM hasn't run a word about it. Only three or four websites have covered it so far. That makes no sense. Pauly Shore might not be a comedy star on a par with Carlin or Steven Wright, but he's been in several films, he had a television show (if only briefly) last year, and he was a fixture on cable for a good chunk of the nineties.

The club where it's alleged to have happened hasn't posted anything about it-- last time we checked, they had taken Shore down and had put up this week's headliner, Michael Winslow.

A hoax? It would appear that way. A good, old-fashioned hoax. For publicity purposes, we suppose. That a comedy club would go along with a gag like this is inconceivable, seeing as how poorly the club appears with regard to their security and the inhospitability of their patrons. But we suppose it's all good as long as they spell the name right.

In our initial post, we almost likened the whole affair to an Andy Kaufman-esque stunt-- part performance art, part publicity stunt. It appears our initial instincts might have been correct.

The fallout for the rest of us, however, might be bad. How long before yet another patron mounts the stage and socks a comic?

According to the Defamer, the clip originally appeared on YouTube, but was taken down at the request of Shore's reps at the Gersh Agency, ostensibly because it was a copyrighted performance and was used without permission. The clip bobbed back to the surface on iFilms.

The reaction of some comedians and others has been disconcerting. The word of the day: schadenfreude, "A malicious satisfaction obtained from the misfortunes of others." Some folks, even some comics, are behaving like 14-year-old junior high girls by taking the "I never liked that guy anyway/he deserved to get socked/it's about time" approach to the whole affair.

Shore is a comedian. Plain and simple. He's a draw, he's a professional, he's a standup comic, just like us. We see him get punched and we immediately identify. If you think you're immune to this kind of assault, you're out of your mind. If you think Pauly Shore somehow deserved to get punched onstage in a comedy club, you're part of the problem.

Ifilm is hosting a short video that purportedly shows Pauly Shore dealing with a heckler in the front row of The 8th St. Comedy Club in Odessa, TX. Another patron hops onstage, confronts Shore, then decks him, as the crowd yells, "Hit him!"

The title of this post is what someone (we believe it's the guy who eventually assaults Shore) yells just before the confrontation.

the 8th St. Comedy Club in Odessa seems to have a crowd control problem. And America seems to have a problem with comedians.

Is it real? According to their website, Shore headlined there this past weekend. It sure looks real. There's no statement on the site alluding to any assault. Other websites like the Defamer are reporting it, but the MSM has yet to pick it up. We suppose that, since there was no racial slur involved in the incident, there's really no story here. (Unless you count Shore calling the crowd "White trash motherfuckers," as he left the stage, after being assaulted.) And, because of the MSM's inexplicable hatred of Shore, they view this as something that was inevitable, if not a public service.

Thanks to Paul Ogata for alerting us.

A sharp-eyed reader has notified us that Associated Press is shooting out an article about Enss Mitchell's declaration that his Comedy Union will welcome comics who use the dreaded N-word... and all other words as well.

"Someone had to stand up for comics and freedom of speech has to rule the day," said Enss Mitchell, owner of Comedy Union. "No matter if you agree or disagree with what someone says, you have to allow them the opportunity to say it."

Apparently, Mitchell declared the Union's Friday show as a show where anyone could say anything. The show was, according to reports, well-received and no complaints were registered. At least not by audience members...

"It is amazing to me when we see acts of racism, when we see acts of injustice, when we see acts of war, clubs don't take an hour to fight that, but they want to have a fight for the right to call us" the n-word, (Rev. Al) Sharpton said. "There's something sick about that."

Nice to know that Al's on the side of free speech.

A NY Post item says that The Asian-American Journalists Association was fuming after O'Donnell mocked the Chinese language and Chinese speakers. (On The View Thursday O'Donnell said that Danny DeVito's drunken appearance made news internationally. "In China it was like, 'Ching chong, ching-ching-chong, Danny DeVito!'")

Kelly Ripa makes a vaguely anti-gay crack while busting on Clay Aiken and O'Donnell goes apeshit. (Ripa denies the remark was in any way a reference to Aiken's vague and, as yet unofficial sexual leanings. O'Donnell would have none of it.)

Out of the blue, O'Donnell performs a schoolyard-caliber imitation of a billion Chinese folks and it's A-okay. Hmmm... A double standard to match the double chin?

We were impressed by the scorched-earth policy of O'Donnell's spokesperson:

"She's a comedian in addition to being a talk show co-host. I certainly hope that one day they will be able to grasp her humor."

Ouch!

We're of the opinion that nobody should be immune to mockery. Chinese people, gay people, vaguely gay people, Chinese gay people, vaguely Chinese gay people, rotund talk show hostesses-- all should take it in the spirit in which it was delivered. And keeping up the quality of the humor might go a long way toward defusing any anger on the part of the mockee.

And smug, humorless outfits like the AAJA should be able to issue fiery, indignant statements to the press.

Yes, even comedians are fair game for such mockery. All we ask is that it be delivered with a sense of humor and that the humor be of a decent quality!

A Reuters item quotes a Wall St. Journal article that says that CBS, Viacom, NBC and Fox are in talks to create a rival to YouTube. Google purchased YouTube last month for a little over $1.5 billion. (Actually, it was $1.65 billion, so, in this case, "a little over" equals only $150 million!)

The companies aim to cash in on the fast-growing market of Web video advertising and have also discussed building a Web video player that could play clips, the Journal said.

Rumpled British wit Christopher Hitchens holds forth on the subject of humor and gender in this article for Vanity Fair (the magazine SHECKYmagazine called "Tiger Beat for people with post-graduate degrees").

Why are men, taken on average and as a whole, funnier than women? Well, for one thing, they had damn well better be. The chief task in life that a man has to perform is that of impressing the opposite sex, and Mother Nature (as we laughingly call her) is not so kind to men. In fact, she equips many fellows with very little armament for the struggle. An average man has just one, outside chance: he had better be able to make the lady laugh. Making them laugh has been one of the crucial preoccupations of my life. If you can stimulate her to laughter—I am talking about that real, out-loud, head-back, mouth-open-to-expose-the-full-horseshoe-of-lovely-teeth, involuntary, full, and deep-throated mirth; the kind that is accompanied by a shocked surprise and a slight (no, make that a loud) peal of delight—well, then, you have at least caused her to loosen up and to change her expression. I shall not elaborate further.

Women have no corresponding need to appeal to men in this way. They already appeal to men, if you catch my drift.[...]

The Female Half Of The Staff says it should be re-titled "Why Christopher Hitchens Can't Get It Up Around Funny, Hot Chicks."

Hitchens' piece makes a nice companion to Bonnie McFarlane's last column for SHECKYmagazine, "Women Aren't Funny."

An Aspen Times News article hypes Saturday night's Laugh Your Aspen Off comedy show at Steve's Guitars in Carbondale, CO. It'll be the third in a series of shows produced by FOS Clifford Fewel, who hatched the idea while working at the Aspen fest earlier this year.

"I heard Dave Chappelle describe Aspen as 'your little Smurf village' one evening while I was selling tickets at the tent," said Fewel, "and it made me curious as to what an insider's perspective about life in this area might be."

As a standup comic with 10 years under his belt, Fewel wondered if there was enough local talent to stage a show about "life in Aspen and below."

Turns out there were at least ten comics-- Nine guys and one gal share the bill this Saturday in Carbondale-- who passed the September auditions for the series. Fewel says, "a highlight DVD has been sent to HBO with hopes of being accepted as a part of the 2007 Comedy Festival in Aspen in late February."

Doors open at 8 p.m. Admission is $10 per person for the 18-and-over show, with Steve’s Guitars’ customary BYOB policy in effect.

From a Columbus (GA) Ledger-Enquirer article by Kaffie Sledge, speculating on why Michael Richards acted like an asshole, comes a quote from a Ph.D:

"I don't have any statistics, but we do know that most stand-up comics are ADHD adults," said Paul A. Jurek, Ph.D., a presenter at the annual Convention of the National Association of Forensic Counselors in Las Vegas.

No, he doesn't have any statistics, but he does have a gross generalization formed from... formed from what exactly? A half-baked theory mixed with a little prejudice, a dollop of folk wisdom and a heaping helping of junk science?

Read the entire piece. Could this guy sound like any more of a crank? What's next? Forced sterilization? It gets stranger on a near-daily basis.

Hey, Doc, how about you take your ritalin and go fuck yourself? (There's that anger boiling up out of our brain that's "30 percent slower than the brains of everybody else.")

The next time someone looks at you funny when you tell them you're a comic, you'll know why. (Be prepared, they'll probably start speaking slowly-- just so you'll be able to understand them better. And they'll probably flinch if you make any sudden moves.)

AP movie writer David Germain embarasses himself in his review of "Unaccompanied Minors" by complaining about what the director has done to Lewis Black:

How do you defang and declaw caustic standup comic and commentator Lewis Black? Stick him in a PG-rated holiday family movie, then stand back and watch the laughs not pile up.

We suspect that Germain was also sorely disappointed that George Carlin didn't school the kiddies on the seven dirty words while narrating Thomas The Tank Engine? It's a PG-13 movie!

Perhaps this is Germain's wink and a nudge to his young readers that he, too, is "hip" to the "youth culture." His way of telegraphing that "Hey, kids (those under 50), I know who Lewis Black is!" Either that, or AP is hiring 15-year-olds to review movies.

Is it not a time-honored tradition for edgy comedians and others to put aside their acts for roles that do not necessarily incorporate their onstage personae? Is it inconceivable that Black might star in a movie and not be waggling his finger and saying "fuck" while speaking truth to power? Where has Germain been?

And why is Black portrayed as a passive party to all this? We're fairly certain that Black himself put aside the claws and fangs (in exchange for a hefty paycheck) and that the original script made it quite clear that Black's character was several shades lighter than that which we saw/heard onstage at Carnegie Hall.

And, had he taken movie role after movie role that had the trademark Black claws and fangs, simps like Germain would be tearing him apart and calling him a "one-note" performer.

AP is reporting at 5:20 AM today that:

Dick issued an apology through his publicist.

"I chose to make a joke about a subject that is not funny," said the statement, which was provided to the Los Angeles Times. "In an attempt to make light of a serious subject, I have offended a lot of people, and I am sorry for my insensitivity. I wish to apologize to Ian, to the club and its patrons and to anyone who was hurt or offended by my remark."

The original posting follows.

A sharp-eyed reader sent us the link to a TMZ.com bulletin which described an incident at the Improv on Melrose.

Ian Bagg's onstage. Andy Dick heckles him. Dick hops onstage with Bagg (insert scrotum jokes here). Then, Dick "began joking with" Bagg (that must've been uncomfortable). They briefly touch on the subject of Michael Richards, but continue onto other matters.

Then:

As Dick exited the stage, he suddenly grabbed the mic and shouted at the crowd, "You're all a bunch of n*****s!"

The stunned crowd gasped and stared at each other. Bagg tried to play it cool and move on with his set, but the laughs weren't there.

Big Winners: TMZ.com, Andy Dick (whose reptutation as a "flake" was far more widespread than Richards' and who therefore, will not suffer the consequences of yelling such things in public), The Improv (It's spelled right).

Big Losers: Ian Bagg (who won't be able to wash the stench of association with a "racist," flaky performance artist who often whips his dick out at inappropriate times), Comedy Industry (now that Dick has reinforced the notion that comedy clubs are "cesspools of hate," a theory recently made popular by cantankerous crank Nikki Finke).

We feel for Ian Bagg. Unless, of course, this was all his idea.

We received the following email from comedian Jason Resler:

Dear Traci:

I just wanted to tell you that I just read your column on Bemidji, while I'm sitting in the Northern Inn on a day off. I won't bore you with my horror story right now as I'm sure it will not be nearly as well articulated as yours. But the biggest highlight was following an angry one-armed feature act who had more appendages than punchlines (insert clever Fugitive reference here).

Perhaps the one-armed hack was fleeing from the authorities when he decided to leave me stranded at the hotel causing me to miss my flight out of Minneapolis and thus costing me another day in Bemidji, and Visa another $859. Truly, your column was the silver lining. Thanks to the power of Google I was able to find a fellow comic to identify with. Comiserating is the love of company.

Take Care,
Resler

A sweet piece in Slate by Bryan Curtis about a major-league ballplayer who finally replied to his request for an autograph by mail-- fifteen years after the fact-- is worth reading.

I recount all this because my mother, who still lives in the house I grew up in, sent me an e-mail the other day. Remember those ballplayers you used to write to, she asked... Well, she wrote, another one of them replied. Someone named Don Carman, a left-hander with the Philadelphia Phillies.

It seems that Carman, who pitched for a little over a decade for the Phils, Reds and Rangers before calling it quits in 1992, stumbled across a box full of letters similar to Curtis' and decided, a decade-and-a-half later, to answer them all.



We slagged Curtis mildly in October for an article he wrote for Slate about standup, but we're not totally Anti-Bryan Curtis. This article was a joy to read and we related to Carman (the ballplayer) because, over the last two or three years, we've been receiving requests for autographs-- not our autographs, but the autographs of famous comics. We've posted in the past, trying to explain that we don't know the addresses of any really famous comedians! It's the teachers who put them up to it-- some sort of letter-writing exercise. We gotta open the letters, just in case there's a death threat or whatever. Some of them are funny, some are goofy, some are just plain pathetic. One of them even seeks a reply from Snoop Dogg!

A sharp-eyed reader sent us to an LA Times article on the first "Chocolate Sundaes" show at the Laugh Factory, a night of mostly African-American comedians, one of whom was Damon Wayans. Wayans, predictably, wasn't too keen on Masada's highly-publicized ban of the you-know-what word.

"Give yourselves a big round of applause for coming down and supporting 'N***** Night,' " Wayans said, using the word itself, to gasps and laughs. The producers "tried to prep me backstage-- 'Don't say the N-word.' They're going to fine me." Wayans sprinkled folded bills across the stage floor, green confetti at his feet. "How much you want?" he asked, looking at club owner Jamie Masada, who sat with his head in his hands at his table in a back corner of the intimate room's main floor.

Anger bubbled just beneath the surface.

"I'll be damned if the white man uses that word last," Wayans said, then he went on to use the word 15 more times during a 20-minute routine...

Wayans comes out of the article looking good. Everyone else? Not so much.

The Laugh Factory was mentioned five times (seven times, if you count the logo in the full-color photos that accompanied the story) and Masada was mentioned eleven times, his named spelled correctly each time. Mission accomplished.

Letterman and the network confirmed what was reported in September-- they'll be working together for another 4 years at least.

"I'm thrilled to be continuing on at CBS" Letterman, 59, said. "At my age you really don't want to have to learn a new commute."

Letterman is expected to make somewhere north of $30 million a year.

Well, add the D.C. Improv to the list of clubs that won't be calling us because of our big cyber-mouths!

From a Dec. 1 item in the D.C. alternative paper is an account of the recent Lucky 21 "contest" at the HBO Comedy Festival in Las Vegas. It was supposed to be a contest. The Fest asked 21 clubs around the country to pick their best comic. Those 21 would then be split into three groups and presented as part of the Vegas Festival. The groups would perform twice, once on Friday, once on Saturday. Winners would be chosen by audience vote. The winner(s) would be included in next year's Aspen fest. According to the account in the Washington City Paper (which was reconstructed from quotes attributed to D.C. entrant Todd Rexx and D.C. Improv manager Allyson Jaffe) no one knows who won. No one seems very clear on whether anyone won.

Don't you just love contests?

But the quote that got our attention (and the quote that has been circulating through inboxes all over the English-speaking comedy world) is this pearl from Jaffe:

"Once you're 10-plus years in this business, you only have a certain amount of years to make it," says Jaffe. "Once you hit 30, 35, you really don't have that much more time. It's like an athlete, once you hit your prime, you're out." Much of Rexx's competition in Vegas wouldnt be facing the same deadline. "A lot of these newer guys that have only been it for two years," Jaffe says. "They'll have more opportunity."

This woman runs a comedy club? In a major market? In a major chain?

It's like an athlete? Once you hit your prime you're out? Could a standup comic be any less like an athlete in that regard? A comedian's value rises as he gains more experience. He actually gets better at what he does as he does it more! Sure you can't cast a 50 year-old comic on Dawson's Creek, but he can kick mighty ass at standup

What is the origin of this ridiculous meme? Where did anyone get this goofy idea that young comics are hitting it big left and right? From Eddie Murphy's experience as an 18-year-old SNL castmember? That was 25 years ago! A QUARTER CENTURY! Which child comedian (male or female) has set the comedy world on fire since Murphy's debut? Do folks consider Adam Sandler to have been a youngster? David Spade, perhaps?

Even if you could cite five examples, we could cite you 25 examples of folks who've achieved substantial success after having logged far more than a decade in their craft and at well over the age of 35. Do we have to dredge up Rodney Dangerfield again?

Or perhaps Jaffe's understanding of what it means for a comedian to "make it" is vastly different from our understanding. ("...you only have a certain amount of years to make it," she says.)

It might just be that Jaffe's idea of making it is so narrow, so ill-defined, so simple-minded that we're not understanding what she's trying convey. Or perhaps she is totally unclear on what comedians are after.

Is selling out theaters throughout America not making it? Tell that to Brian Regan or Ron White. Is cleaning up in corporate dates not making it? That might come as a shock to Brett Leake or Wayne Cotter. I think that Brad Stine or Jeff Allen could be said to have "made it" as they sell out theaters and arenas on the Christian comedy circuit.

And there are scores of comedians who wield power (and are handsomely compensated) behind the scenes in the production of television and movies. Think Judd Apatow or Larry Wilmore.

It makes little sense to place a premium on youth in a business like standup when all the evidence seems to indicate that the real value derives from skill, experience and notoriety that is oftentimes gained from longevity.

Here is the letter that we sent to LA Weekly after the disgraceful tirade by their "crotchety columnist" Nikki Finke described comedy clubs as "cesspools of hate." One of our spies on the west coast says it appears in the hard copy as well!

Brian Regan (l) and Paul Mecurio in the basement of the Scottish Rite Theater in Collingswood, NJ.

We've passed by the hulking building literally thousands of times while going about our daily lives. The former Scottish Rite Cathedral on White Horse Pike, in the formerly sleepy (but now trendy) borough of Collingswood, is just a bit more than a mile from our front door. When we accidentally found out that Brian Regan was to perform there on Dec. 2 (our eighteenth wedding anniversary!), and when we realized it coincided with a night off, we contacted FOS/Columnist Tom Ryan and asked if he could hook us up with tix and VIP passes.

Ryan has opened for Regan on a few occasions. He happily made inquiries and last night we found ourselves in the third row of the 73-year-old theater, uncomfortably close to the stage (uncomfortable for comedians, that is!). We surmised that we were in what was probably the orchestra pit in the venue's previous life.

Mecurio opened and did 20, going into the crowd with zeal and pumping up the capacity crowd of 1,050. The room is large, richly appointed and boxy, with a high, ornate ceiling inlaid with stained glass. The stage is huge, the sound was excellent and the fans ranged in age from 10 to 70. To our left sat erstwhile Helium manager Ben Maher with BtB Julie.

Mecurio aggressively works the audience (literally going into the crowd!), mildly panicking the Female Half of the Staff! Just prior to the beginning of the show, The Male Half of the Staff ducked out for a bathroom break, failing to return to his seat in time for the start of the opener's set. Mecurio, spotting TMHotS trying to re-seat himself without disrupting the show, began to riff on TMHotS's glasses, but ceased the assault when he recognized him! ("Hey, I like those ironic frames... Oh! It's Brian!") Crisis averted!

Regan did an hour. All killer, no filler. The audience wasn't about to let him get off with just sixty minutes, so he came out and encored for another 20, taking "requests" for old bits.


Afterward, a knot of people, including Electric Factory Concerts personnel, Regan and Mecurio, tour manager Matt Komen (The Biz) and Both Halves of the SHECKYmagazine Staff, gathered at the Bishop's Collar at 24th & Fairmount, across the river in PHL. (The intersection sounded familiar to TMHotS and for good reason-- in a previous life, the Bishop's Collar, which is now a cool, chic and trendy boite with microbrews on tap and hi-def TV's, was a dive by the name of 99 West that offered a peanut-shell-strewn floor, a pool table in the rear and a management team that didn't care if the smoke that wafted from the back was... pungent. (Those qualities made it The Official Bar of the Temple University News back in 1978 or so, which is why at least the adress, if not the ambience, was familiar to TMHotS!)

Regan is confident onstage and off. It is quite a spectacle to see 1,050 pumped, mostly young, Regan fans fill up this theater on a crisp December evening. Young, old, in-between; couples, couples with a teen or two in tow; clots of couples excitedly reciting Regan bits as they ascend the stairs to the showroom. Not much attitude or posturing, a lot of energy. The fans reflect the man-- not much attitude or posturing and boundless energy. He is a draw by virtue of his multiple Letterman appearances. He can regularly fill theaters like this one (and larger ones) because of a method and a work ethic that produces fresh material (of equal or higher quality than than that which it replaces) on a scarily regular basis.

His modesty is genuine. His befuddlement universal. He has hit upon a way to wring tears of laughter from the most mundane subjects and has also figured out how to economically work string theory or show horses into short, sharp chunks of hysterical material. While the MSM and the alt-weeklies struggle mightily to turn "Observational Humor" into a pejorative term, Regan has quietly restored it to an artform and amassed legions of fans in the process.

Standup comics Mark Matusof and Al Carpenter (pictured below with their new friend, Oscar ™ is Matusof in the center and Carpenter on the right), experienced a whirlwind week in Hollywood after they were among ten finalists chosen for a Nicholl Fellowship in Screenwriting. Below is Matusof's account of that week.


Two Comics, One Screenplay, A Week in Hollywood

It was like Twilight Zone episode. Last month, Al Carpenter and I were thrown into the deep end of the screenwriting business. Our script, "38 Mercury," earned us a 2006 Don & Gee Nicholl Fellowship in Screenwriting, sponsored by the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences-- the Oscars.

This was only the second script we've written, and to be honest, neither of us realized the prestige of this contest nor did we realize the ramifications of being a Nicholl Fellow.

Out of almost 5,000 scripts entered, the field was cut to 10 finalists in October. The 5 Fellowships were then chosen from these 10 (Al and I, as screenwriting partners, counted as one).

Every year, these 10 Nicholl finalist scripts are among the hottest spec scripts in Hollywood. Apparently, the industry uses this Nicholl process each year to screen thousands of scripts, deeming these ten to be worth reading-- and trust me, they all want to read them.

The committee that chose the 10 finalists, and then the 5 Fellowship recipients was made up of industry luminaries including directors, producers, cinematographers, writers, and actors. The whole purpose of the Fellowship is to introduce new writers to Hollywood.

As soon as the finalist list was released, Al and I were besieged by calls and emails from dozens of production companies, studios, agents and managers, all of whom wanted to read the script. It was overwhelming for a couple of road guys whose biggest phone calls previously were from a booker calling to say a Wednesday had fallen out.

Everyone was gave conflicting advice. We were able to land a literary manager, who is now handling all that for us.

The Oscar people arranged for a awesome week of meetings, luncheons, dinners and seminars for us. We were treated us like gold. They flew us out, put us in a luxury hotel at ground zero-- Hollywood-- and kicked in a per diem for meals, gas and parking.

File this under "Once a comic, always a comic"-- On the first night, at an informal get-together in a restaurant for the ten finalists, AMPAS personnel handed each finalist an envelope with the cash per diem. Everyone else put his envelope down and started to eat-- except Al and me (the comics), who reflexively tore open the envelopes and started counting.

The climax of the week was the Awards Banquet at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel. Two hundred producers, directors, and writers attended and the keynote speaker was Kevin Smith ("Clerks," "Dogma," "Mall Rats").

We found out the day before that we all had to give acceptance speeches. The idea of speaking in public terrified some of the other writers. Needless to say, Al and I are pretty comfortable with a mic and 200 strangers. We didn't even prepare anything. We just winged it and had a blast up there!

On the final night, we dined with the Nicholl Fellowship Alumni, which, we discovered, is a rather exclusive group totalling no more than a hundred. They encourage alums to mentor newer members of the group.

What happens to "38 Mercury?" Well, we have a manager now-- That's right, Al and I have "people." Okay, we got a guy. And our guy is running point for us-- having us do a quick re-write, getting it out to all the production companies and studios who expressed interest and circulating it among his own contacts. We'll see where it all leads.

This contest is open to anyone with an original script who has not earned over $5,000 in the field of screenwriting. Each year, as many as five fellowships are awarded. All the information is here.

A modest cash award comes with the fellowship and all finalists are obligated to write a new script for them within the next year, which we're currently working on.

Meanwhile, does anyone have a Wednesday to fill?

Generalizations are the rule in an opinion piece by Ted Sherman, entitled "Surprise!! "Kramer" Not Alone In Smut Standup Spotlight" (We'd link to it, but the website has an annoying habit of sending the reader to "pop-under" ads and other pages without consent.):

Have you seen stand-up lately? I watch it often. I visited a major comedy club in Las Vegas recently, and although every one of the stand-up routines was mildly to totally obscene, a requirement in Sin City, one guy spent his entire time on stage saying the worst racial, sexual and toilet curse words he could spit out.

No jokes. No punchlines. No humor. Just locker-room obscenities. And the audience laughed, screamed and applauded, including black couples and, seated right next to me, a group of well-dressed matrons. That comedian's ancestors were Oriental, but on any night in any comedy club in America, anyone of any racial background could have been spouting the same obscenities. "Kramer" is not alone on today's dirty stand-up stages.

No jokes? No punchlines? No humor? We find it hard to believe that Mr. Sherman encountered a comedian onstage in Vegas who had no jokes, no punchlines, no humor. If, as he says, he watches comedy often, he would know that a comedian doesn't play Vegas (even the smaller rooms) without having those prerequisites. Perhaps Mr. Sherman was confused. Perhaps he accidentally stumbled into an AA meeting. Or he's lying about the "major" part of his description of the comedy club.

Did he say Oriental?

Sure wished Mr. Sherman had named the club specifically. We know that when we've performed at the Comedy Club at the Riv, the preference of management has been to keep it on the the PG side of the line. And we've kept it there. And the other clubs we've performed at in Vegas have had that same request.

The larger issue, however, is that Sherman (and publications like National Ledger) will continue to use the Michael Richards thing to say the most damaging things about standup in general. (Sherman even takes the occasion to dredge up "The Aristocrats"!)

Get used to it, folks. Once in a great while, amid the vast, varied tapestry that is live standup in 21st century North America, one comic will say or do something outrageous and this will be seized upon as indicative of the entire business. Ignoring dozens of smart, clever, prolific comedians, the same stereotype will surface again and again.

In his parting paragraph, Sherman implores Richards to cease with the apologies, and that...

...Many other toilet-mouthed comedians are on stage with you in spirit. Unfortunately, there's no indication of the slime ever being flushed away by genuine humor, good taste, respect, basic decency and common sense.

No indication, of course, if you ignore Brian Regan, Todd Barry, Emo Philips, Steven Wright, Paula Poundstone, Jim Gaffigan...

Sherman is described as "a retired corporate PR manager and executive speech writer. Today he's a humor and travel writer, and occasional contributor of jokes to a major TV comedy show. He's a graduate of the University of the Arts and the University of Penn Grad. School of Communications, and a US Navy veteran of WWII and the Korean War." So, I suppose you could say that his excuse for being so horribly wrong is that he's... horribly old? (Actually, The Male Half's old man was a WWII vet and, even after seeing Joy Behar say "fuck" about 18 times onstage at a show at the Comedy Stop at the Tropicana, circa 1986, he would never have dreamed of describing her as "toilet-mouthed slime." So, no, being ancient is no excuse for lacking the ability to think critically.)

One must wonder how Sherman's moaning got past the editors of the National Ledger, though. They describe themselves as a publication that "wishes to provoke old-fashioned independent critical thinking with our presentation of news stories, commentary and external links that reside within these pages."

Old-fashioned? Definitely. Independent or critical? No. Not at all.

Someone posted Jeffrey Zaslow's article in today's Wall Street Journal in its entirety on the Philly Comics' Newsgroup. (We'd post a link to the WSJ site, but the article is accessible to subscribers only. Is this theft? Not sure.)

Anyway, it's an article on how clean comedy is back, because...

...comedy clubs have become a breeding ground for anything-goes slurs, culminating in the recent onstage racial tirade by Seinfeld star Michael Richards.

This exact article gets written about every 18 months or so and it has quotes from more or less the same people. Only this time, the author convinced his editor that the "hook" for the story was the Richards incident, making the article "fresh" again.

It's no joke. Those in the funny business are saying that, despite all the explicit sitcoms and mean-spirited Internet humor, there's a quiet countermovement toward clean comedy. Some comedians are deciding they're tired of using profanity as a crutch. Others find clean comedy can be more lucrative.

It is not "a quiet countermovement," it is not "a backlash, 40 years in the making." There have always been comics (Redd Foxx, Pearl Williams, et al) who have preferred to work "blue." There have always been comics who have preferred to work clean (or not blue). Stories like this one treat working clean as though it's a "solution" to a "problem." And they regard the use of certain language as "a crutch."

Penn Jillette, as usual, brings sanity to the debate when he...:

...argues that the difference between clean and dirty is like the difference between electric and acoustic guitars. "Both make music. Both are valid," says Mr. Jillette, the co-producer of last year's "The Aristocrats," a documentary in which dozens of comedians told variations of the same offensive joke.

Mr. Jillette says that if someone prefers not to use blue material for artistic or personal reasons, he understands. "It's like an artist saying he doesn't like using the color blue in a painting. I respect that. But if someone says people shouldn't use blue because it's immoral, then I say [string of expletives]."

We have taken Mr. Zaslow to task in the pages of this magazine before when he described comics as "neurotic, cranky, potty-mouthed attention-seekers." Near as we could tell, the characterization was only somewhat ironic.