At 5:52 pm EDT, Rayna Lynn Vos entered the world, weighing 6 lbs, 10.8 oz. Her parents, Rich Vos and Bonnie McFarlane, are comedians. What little we know came from a terse MySpace bulletin sent out by the proud father at 6:10 PM. (We assume that our "Missed Call" from "Restricted" at 7:53 PM was an attempt by Vos to provide us with further details-- the color of the baby upon arrival, the condition of the mother, the number of death threats made by the mother directed at the father during labor, etc.)

We congratulate them!

We're chugging toward our second ever Million Hit Month. That's right-- July 2007 and March 2007 will surpass the million-hit mark. We're hoping that it becomes a regular occurence. (With the way things have usually progressed around here, it will.)

Over the course of the past month there are two items that might have escaped your attention due to the timing of the post. The first is Bill Bunker's latest column. It's Bunker's fifth column for us. He writes of that "curious mix of emotions (elation, dread, hope), the inexplicable drive that keeps us pursuing the comedy thing even through the bad experiences." And, if you missed it the first time, please check it out again. (And, just like nearly everything else that we run, it's worth a second reading as well!)

Also: Our most recent short film is up on YouTube. It's called "Starting Over" and it's here. It's only seven minutes and change, but it's quite entertaining. (Link fixed at 10:07 AM EDT, JULY 31-- Editors)

And, if you're wondering where our coverage of this year's Just For Laughs Festival is, just scroll down. (We haven't gotten around to bundling all the posts into one neat file yet. We will soon.)

This phrase rears its ugly head again. We seem to recall it popping up in the mid-90s, shortly after the bust.

This time, it's in Mason Lerner's Houston Chronicle story ("The Laff Stop's owner is vying for laughs with a deep-pocketed, nationally franchised chain") that examines the dilemma of Jeff McFerrin, who purchased Houston's Laff Stop the same year the Improv moved into town.

The Improv is not the only competition McFerrin faces. Since its opening, a host of stand-up comedy clubs have come and gone, with some like the Laff Spot Comedy Cafe and Comedy Showcase surviving and doing well.

And that's not to mention the many bars and hotels that regularly host comedy nights.

"What we had was a diluted comic pool. We were both going after the same comics," McFerrin said of the Improv. "And then there is the Verizon Wireless Theater and other venues like that, which were telling comics they could make as much for one show as we could pay them for six shows. So that is the No. 1 challenge."

Lerner could have stopped right there and had himself a tidy David and Goliath story. Instead, he solicits the opinion of Cap City Comedy Club GM Margie Coyle, who offers sane, sensible advice on how to differentiate the product, how to adapt to the changing landscape.

As for the challenge of competing for top acts, she said, McFerrin definitely has his work cut out for him. But it can be done.

"That's a tough one. You just have to take your knocks and keep plugging away. One thing about this business is that there is a lot of talent out there. If they can't get certain acts, then they go after other acts. Maybe they are lesser known, but there is plenty of talent out there," Coyle said.

She added that the Laff Stop will also have to offer better service and a better atmosphere.

Coyle said there can even be advantages to featuring lesser-known comics.

But she said that will only work if McFerrin is always on his toes when it comes to marketing and promotion.

"The big names are not cheap," she said. "They take a large percentage of the door. If you can get crafty at getting people into the club for your moderate-range-priced talent, you're doing about the same on your own."

As two people who are currently in the "moderate-range-priced talent" category, we much prefer Ms. Coyle's approach. We've never tried to get into the Stop, so we're not sure how McFerrin goes about the task of finding talent. But, we've all too often run into club owners and GMs who flat out say that they don't look at tapes. And we don't see them at festivals. And rare is the owner/GM who relies on the word of a trusted comic who recommends a fellow performer. So, we wonder, how ever do they expect to find the "moderate-range-priced talent" that might hold the key to their survival?

Coyle is correct, though, when she says that there is "plenty of talent out there." Much of it with 20 years (or more) of experience and with finely honed acts that play well to most/all geographic regions and to a wide demographic. And, with the internet, YouTube, MySpace and DVDs, it has never been easier for the McFerrins of the world to connect with that talent. Start here.

Way back on June 13, we posted the following, toward the end of our LCS Episode 1 analysis:

(We predict that our stats will be filled with google searches for "Mel Silverback" He'll make one of the larger cyber-splashes. Of course, a good number of them will be for "Mel Silverberg," from people who don't get half the joke...)

We noticed one yesterday-- a Google search using "Mel Silverberg." We've gotten a half-dozen or so in the last week. We assume we've gotten many more in the past month. We've been way too busy to check our stats that closely.

He's made a big impact, at least in cyberspace. Knowing the way network executives think, and knowing that they are no doubt watching with great interest the premiere of the Caveman series at rival network ABC, some folks at NBC probably had visions of pitching a gorilla-out-of-water series.

But they ditched him last episode, so he's off the show. And they can't bring him back. (Sure, sure, they brought back comics in Season II, but that was when they had a house. No such device exists this year.)

Perhaps they'll dredge him back up in spirit by concocting a challenge for future episodes-- Bellamy Bill will tell the contestants (in a raised voice) "each of you will be forced to do five minutes in the animal costume of his or her choice!" This would give the network plenty of other potential series pitches-- Dog Rickles (Sure, it sounds a lot like Triumph, but, in television, imitation is the sincerest form of revenue!), Mort Sahl-amander (The acerbic lizard who's performed for six presidents!), Whoopi Goldfish. (Stop us before we write any more bad jokes. You get the idea.)

Just for the record, Wikipedia says:

A silverback is an adult male gorilla, typically more than 12 years of age and named for the distinctive patch of silver hair on his back.

It was Monday, so it might be considered old news. But, since Michael Vick appeared in court today to answer federal charges that he was involved in a dog fighting conspiracy on property he owns in rural Surry County, VA, Drew Carey's statement on Late Show is relevant once again.

After announcing that he and his representatives had just signed the deal for Carey to host the CBS-produced game show The Price is Right, the Cleveland native said that, although he was a huge Cleveland Browns fan, if the NFL lets Michael Vick play this season, he won't watch one minute of NFL football. The crowd erupted.

It took some guts for Carey to make such a statement-- CBS has a deal, worth hundreds of millions of dollars to broadcast some of the league's games. And he said it all on a CBS television show. Les Moonves must be purple with rage.

Of course, Vick has pleaded innocent, and is, of course, innocent until proven guilty, but folks don't take too kindly to people who are even peripherally involved in a group of people who would hose down a dog then electrocute it to death. (One of the many charges in Subsection 83 of the feds' 18-page indictment.)

If you think the anti-Vick sentiment is high now, wait until video is "leaked" to YouTube.

The Ziddio people have ironed out their tech difficulties. Go here for details and scheduled local and regional competitions.

According to Variety, Last Comic Standing is pulling decent numbers:

The Peacock was also solid Wednesday with "Last Comic Standing" (2.6/8 in 18-49, 6.39m) and "Dateline" (3.1/9, 7.17m), which featured the newsmag's popular "To Catch a Predator" feature. And though it didn't do gangbuster numbers, Monday spec "Victoria Beckham: Coming to America" won its timeslot (2.2/7 in 18-49, 5.05m).

So, it looks like they won't feel forced to "Bodden" anyone.

Also: If you seek another take on this season's LCS, comedian Jay Black, who lives only two towns over from SHECKYmagazine HQ, is guest-blogging for TVSquad.com here. He's remarkably even-tempered in his assessment of the show, considering he and his wife just welcomed a baby into the Black home on Sunday!

"The ever-funny Mr. Ant!" is how Bellamy Bill introduced Celebrity Talent Scout Ant. He described Alonzo Bodden as "hilarious and funny." (Aren't the same thing?) He introduced Kathleen Madigan as "sassy." We don't think of Kathleen as sassy. We can think of many positive adjectives for her, but sassy is not one of them. Bellamy Bill is not cut out for this. They should have stopped the taping and re-done the intros.

And he really should get some sort of Master of Ceremonies Thesaurus and figure out new and fresh ways of saying, "Let's give it up..." Bellamy Bill: How about you give up "Let's give it up!" May we suggest, "Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome..." Anything would be better.

No emcee on a network show should ask the audience, "Are you ready for some crazy shit?" They hadda bleep the host? What's up with that? Not even Joe Rogan ever did that.

Can anyone explain why Tom Arnold is in the house? Anyone? Can Arnold even give a plausible explanation for why he was there? Oh, sure, he got a paycheck, but that is not so much an explanation for his presence as it was an incentive for him to be there, so we're still not sure why he was there. A cardboard cutout would have functioned as well. There were people in the audience who got more face time than Arnold did.

And speaking of people in the audience, we spotted a couple of people that we saw all last week in Montreal... must've been agents or managers. And, speaking of Montreal, we neglected to mention two of the 32 who were at the JFL Festival-- Deb DiGiovanni, who made it into the top ten in last week's episode and Amy Schumer, who made it in from this week's batch.

In doing some research and tooling around the archives of our site today, we re-read some of our coverage of LCS from last year. Boy, oh, boy, were we pissed! We ripped into a comic or two and we were generally very worked up about the contest as it unfolded last year. This year, however, we just can't seem to get all that worked up about it. What's different? Is it us? Or does this year's LCS seem... flat?

And we're somewhat deflated because, we just watched a show with performances by 16 comedians and we were stunned at how little we laughed. Some of it is because of time constraints, editing, material choice and the natural limitations of network television. Some of it is just because of our personal preferences-- some comics just don't ring our bell. That's not a bad thing, not a good thing, it's just a thing. But some of the comics, that we know-- firsthand-- are funny, and who usually make us laugh... didn't make us laugh. We laughed four times, at four different comics. (And, coincidentally, those four didn't make it to the next round.)

Those numbers should be reversed-- we should have found a dozen or more comics to be entertaining and maybe not have been tickled by a handful. What should have been a knee-slapping hour of television was instead a stodgy, unimaginative, dull slog. Not the greatest commercial for standup comedy. (It was not unlike watching Real Sex on HBO, a show that is ostensibly about sex, but which contains not one single erotic moment. Ever.) How have they accomplished this? Is it the comics' fault? It can't be. We have seen many of these comics be much funnier-- on TV and live.

And things don't look to be improving any-- we saw the teaser for the next episode and the producers have brought back perhaps the most odious challenge from a previous season, the heckler challenge. Could there be a more degrading thing, for both the heckler and the heckled, than to engage in this display? Here's what we wrote about it last season:

The point of the heckling exercise, says Clark, is to see "who can dish it out and who can take it." Don't the clubs have bouncers that pretty much make this point moot? At least the better clubs do. Why not just have the comics do a hell gig somewhere in Fresno or Victorville? At least spare the comics from the ignominy of having to heckle another comic. Through this exercise, the contestants run the risk of having the audience view them all as pathetic, desperate individuals, incapable of saying "no" to even the most shameful requests. (Actually, after seeing the heckling challenge, there is no risk. They have demonstrated it quite clearly.) Oh, it's all in good fun, you say.

Good for Joey Gay for refusing to take the bait for staying silent when asked to heckle April Macie.

We aren't sure we can watch next week. We might just take the week off. Five more weeks is suddenly starting to seem like forever.

We suppose that the whole reason the show got picked up in the first place was that it was pitched as a reality show. But the tiny bits of "reality" that they wedge in here and there are tedious. In keeping with the look and feel of a reality show, they insert behind-the-scenes stuff that doesn't serve to heighten the tension or provide insight into the comics or give the viewer a good idea of what it's like to be a comic. It all just sucks valuable time away from the funny stuff, the actual sets. So, it sucks as a reality show and it sucks as a comedy show. So, to answer Bellamy Bill's impertinent question, Yes... we are ready for some crazy shit. And we have absolutely no faith that we're going to get it from this show any time soon.

We noticed that the producers have seen fit to tell us just how long each comic has been doing standup. Just before each was introduced at the theater, a chyron appeared with number years of experience next to the comic's name. This is reality. It's interesting to us, and, we must assume, it's of interest to civilian viewers.

We nearly busted a gut when Sean Rouse said, "Sympathy from a dead relative will get you far on a reality show." And he said it during his set! A sly observation on the nature of reality shows and a good-natured (we assume) dig at (we assume) friend and fellow comic Ralphie May. Readers may recall that May wept during one of his challenge sets on season one.

Near the end of this episode, when he brought out the top five from this week (Gerry Dee, Jon Reep, Amy Schumer, Matt Kirshen and Capital One Audience Favorite Lavell Crawford), Bellamy Bill said, "Let's hear it one more time for all our contestants this year and please come out to see them at a comedy club near you."

That's a positive thing. The show should be/could be a splendid force for driving people to live performances. And not just by the winner... or the top three... or the top ten. Or not even only for the folks who competed and made it into the top 32. But for comedians in general.

Maybe it will be.

P.S.: For those of your who haven't hopped on the site for a day or two, there's a SPOILER ALERT a little further down this page. SO, if you don't want to know what happens, don't read it.

Is it just us? Or does this bus bear a vague resemblance to der Fuehrer? Rather unsettling when one looks across the breakfast table to see a bus like this, with the now-ominous words, "NEXT STOP, YOUR HOUSE" on the top!

The bus is part of a promotion by Post, a contest where "You Could Win The Ultimate BREAKFAST BLOCK PARTY For You and 99 of Your Friends!" (Or is that "...For You and 5,999,999 of Your Friends!")

No comment from the ad company who created the campaign, Batton, Barton, Durstine and Reifenstahl.

Second prize winners receive a copy of the DVD, "The Diary of Anne Frankenberry!"

Tonight, at 9 PM EDT, is an hourlong episode of Last Comic Standing. Last week, they showed edited sets from 16 comics. This week, we suspect they'll do that again. We missed last week, but we're all over this one.

The reason we missed last week, of course, is because we were in Montreal, covering the Just For Laughs Fest. We upped 8,798 words and 20 photographs depicting 39 comedy-related people. You can read all of that by scrolling down!

Thanks.

Normally, we wouldn't be posting about just any new comedy club, but this one is significant because a comic (Rich Francese) is opening it and it'll draw on talent from NYC.

The Manhattan Comedy Club, as Francese plans to call it, would be Orange County's first full-blown comedy club, competing with Bananas in Poughkeepsie and the new Catch a Rising Star at the Monticello racino.

Racino? That's not a typo, that's a made-up word that describes a race track that's been outfitted with slots. It will be located near Middletown, NY, which means that comics in the city can get there in about 90 minutes.

Read the entire Times Herald Record article.

Here are multiple listings on the "Dave Chappelle checks into hospital for exhaustion" story.

And a short piece on Slate by Christopher Beam on whether or not exhaustion is a legitimate medical problem.

There are plenty of legitimate reasons to hospitalize someone for exhaustion. For one thing, exhaustion can be a symptom of an underlying condition. Metabolic ailments like adrenal insufficiency, which develops after periods of extended physical or emotional stress, or hypothyroidism, a chronic slowing of the thyroid glands, can leave you feeling wiped.

We've always wondered about it ourselves. We've heard the tales of stars onstage collapsing from exhaustion. We thought it would be cool to be in an audience at a historical exhaustion episode. Country and western stars always seem to be running themselves ragged an flopping into the first row. We recall being sorely disappointed when we attended a show at the Grand Ole Opry a few years back and nobody took the dive. (We came close, though-- Skeeter Davis was celebrating her birthday just a little too much and she was markedly lurching as she performed "End Of The World." Oh, wouldn't that have been ironic!)

The Comedy Festival (TCF), the consumer-oriented comedy fest in Vegas created by HBO (partnered with TBS), has hooked up with Ziddio.com (which is the online video-sharing, user-gen site launched by Comcast), to conduct The Lucky 21.

The Lucky 21 will allow comedy fans to send their favorite comedians to TCF by supporting them at their local comedy club and voting for them online.

In the first round of competition, 42 comedy clubs across the country will choose their top comedians to perform in front of a panel of judges. Two comedians from each club will be selected to advance to one of seven regional competitions. During the regionals, fans will have the opportunity to vote online for the top 20 comedians who will advance to Las Vegas and perform at TCF.

If anyone can find anything at all on the ziddio.com site about Lucky 21, please post the URL in the comments below. We tried, using two different browsers and two different desktop computers, and all we got was:

Sorry for the inconvenience, but we can't find the page you're looking for. You may have clicked on an outdated link, or possibly typed in the URL incorrectly. Click your BACK button or try one of the links below to see if they point you in the right direction.

They did this last year, but we're not sure if the online component was part of the deal.

We got this, through back channels:

...I wanted to let you know the results of the first elimination challenge in Last Comic Standing that took place last night.

The competitors were:

Dante

Gina Yashere

Ralph Harris.

Basically it went like this: The producers had the audience and comics film three versions of who the winner was before the show started.

Does that make sense?

So before the show began each comic was announced and filmed as winning the competition, complete with bogus audience results, (i.e. "with 67 percent of the vote the winner is....")

The reason they did this is so that none of the studio audience would do what I'm about to do right now, which is reveal the winner: Ralph Harris.

They didn't announce it last night.

There's no way we can verify this. It was sent to us anonymously. We're not passing on nuclear secrets here. It's not a good thing. It's not a bad thing. It's just a thing.

This "casting call" just came over the cyber-transom. For those of you who are electronically illiterate, "HD" stands for High-Def... or High Definition. Trust us, it's a good thing.

Could your close-knit group use an HD makeover worth up to $40,000?

Would you like to switch your technology "has-beens" with some state-of-the-art gadgets?

If so, let us help you out!

A new reality series is seeking groups of all shapes and sizes (PREFERABLY 4-6 PEOPLE) throughout the U.S. in all their lovable and quirky glory, to shower in thousands of dollars worth of the latest electronics! Not just father/daughter or single mother/kids teams, but COMEDIANS, SURFERS, small business FIRMS, COFFEE SHOPS, FIREHOUSES, ANYTHING that feels like "family". Be ready for a technology makeover like no other, but also be ready to show that your family can put the technology to good use.

Email us at TECHNOLOGYFAMILY@GMAIL.COM with your group members' names, ages, location, a contact number, recent photo, and WHY YOU DESERVE TO BE CHOSEN!


Thanks so much!
Best,
Jon Unger
Casting Director
Magical Elves Productions
213.630.6530 ext 289

Damn! We here at SHECKYmagazine.com could use $40,000 worth of gadgets. Unfortunately, we fall two to four people short of their group-size requirement. Perhaps we could find two or three or four people would could pretend to like us, so that we might all compete for a truckload of home entertainment.

Paul Mooney, Warren Hutcherson, Charlie Murphy and D.L. Hughley are among the comedians who will figure heavily in the fall lineup of Black Entertainment Television (BET).

Mooney will star in Judge Mooney "as the outrageously funny judge who lays down the law with his own brand of humor."

Hughley will host a reality show, S.O.B., that will "use hidden cameras to test the value systems of people."

The executive producers of Somebodies are listed as Pete Aronson and Warren Hutcherson, who were executive producers on The Bernie Mac Show.

But the most eagerly anticipated debut, tomorrow night at 10:30 PM EDT, is that of Hot Ghetto Mess-- we know, we know, it's been retitled We Got To Do Better, but we like HGM better... and besides, that's what people are going to call it anyway-- a show based on the website hotghettomess.com and hosted by Charlie Murphy. Folks are backpedaling away from this like it's a turd in a swimming pool.

Initial reports say that Home Depot and State Farm pulled their ads from the show. Then further press releases from Home Depot and State Farm said that they had never bought ads on the show, they merely pulled their ads from the BET site, so as to avoid the appearance of ever having endorsed the show in the first place! Two layers of insulation! This must really be something!

We're popping some popcorn.

The aforementioned website, started by a 34-year-old D.C. attorney contains some jarring images, some heavy quotes and a message that is too hot to handle for many. (It needs some work, though-- maybe some extra server power and better architecture as it is slow to load some things and the layout's a bit confusing.) What isn't confusing, however, is the mission. We'll be interested to see if the TV show clearly reinforces the website's message.

Check out the PR Newswire release straight from BET for details and showtimes.

The LA Times ran an article about joke stealing (Free reg. req... not that it's all that worth reading in the first place). We're serious! This is not a post from 2005 that has accidentally floated to the top of the front page! Robert W. Welkos, the author of the piece, is probably not to blame. We're guessing his editor, whose zip code is in Squaresville, is like so many other assignment editors. An editor is often like a stegosaurus-- someone steps on his tail and three weeks later, he says, "Ouch!"

Firstly, any article that quotes Jamie Masada on the topic of standup comedy is automatically a candidate for lining one's birdcage. Secondly, the article actually quotes a comedian (we won't embarrass him by naming him) who claims to have written the original donut/cop joke (we'll assume this claim was intended as ironic and the reporter didn't pick up on that). Lastly, the article, in paragraph four refers to, "an outbreak of finger-pointing among comics that some say is starting to smack of McCarthyism." We hasten to point out that on May 14, 2006, we coined the term "Charlie McCarthyism" to characterize the fever that swept the comedy community. A much more colorful, more evocative phrase. "Some say," Mr. Welkos? (Are we accusing Mr. Welkos of thievery? Hey, why not! It seems to be all the rage.)

We're also puzzled as to why the online version of the story was accompanied by photos of Andy Dick and Jon Lovitz, when their tussle had nothing to do with larceny. Perhaps it was just to reinforce the notion that all comics are loopy.

And we must wonder exactly how broke is David Brenner? Nearly every quote from him in the MSM, over the past eight years has conveyed, in one way or another, just how sorrowful he is that he isn't the wealthiest comedian on the planet. Regardless of the question posed or the issue at hand, he steers it toward how much money he made/is making/failed to make.

Drew Carey will replace Bob Barker as host of The Price is Right. And he's already hosting The Power of 10, another game show.

Michael Learmonth, writing on Variety.com details the zany goings on at "the Peacock" concerning the upcoming transition at 11:35 PM weeknights, from Jay Leno to Conan O'Brien. It looks like whoever swung the deal in the first place screwed the pooch.

Or did they? Are these guys so devious that they cooked up this deal a couple years ago knowing that they'd hafta fork over $40 million to O'Brien just to stay put at 12:35? Even in the $urreal world of TV, forty mill is still a good chunk of money. (Heck, they say that the annual revenue from Tonight is only $160 million. That would make the "We're sorry" check to O'Brien approximately 4 per cent of NBC's total annual revenue.)

The network also has the option, which many outsiders believe still must be on the table, to back out of the deal, pay a reported $40 million penalty to O'Brien and sign Leno to another five-year deal, a move that would protect the "Tonight" franchise through the end of Letterman's deal at CBS in 2010, and the possible transition at the Eye to Jon Stewart.

Musical chairs. Stay tuned.

Here's another weird part of the deal: NBC says that they'd ask O'Brien to move (with his staff) to Los Angeles. Not everybody is happy about that prospect. And that, since they're on an hour earlier, they'd hafta ditch some recurring characters like The Masturbating Bear.

We noticed a disturbing trend at the JFL last week. There seems to be a tendency on the part of some television execs to view the online component of their studio or their network or cable outlet as a necessary evil, a holding bin (a garbage bin?) an afterthought.

We heard suits say that certain projects were "perfect for their online presence." Of course, in every case, it was a comedy project that they were speaking so unenthusiastically about. We sense a trend. If an exec is faced with a comedy project (especially one that sounds like a sitcom), he immediately says that it's probably suitable for online, for the internet, for our multi-platform initiative. They say it in such a way as to imply that: 1) It's passe, it's dated, it's unwanted when compared to reality programming or whatever else it is they think will save television and 2) It's something that they'll be able to knock off for very little money.

This devalues two things-- the internet and comedy. They seem at once to wish to appear knowledgeable about the potential of the internet as a platform for comedy content, but they seem to also hold it in some sort of contempt. They're certainly aware that the internet is the next big thing, but one might get the impression that they're hoping it doesn't pan out that way. They seem to be only faintly aware that the load could shift and not only would the internet become the next big thing, but that it could do so in a couple of heartbeats and simultaneously make their own little sandbox yesterday's technology.

The fact that they're doing this while simultaneously badmouthing comedy (particularly the sitcom-- "The genre is dead!") is doubly dangerous. They shouldn't turn their back on the internet (or even appear to do so). The internet might actually take their outcasts and discards (ie: sitcoms, standup, wacky films) and, in the short run, dwarf them and their reality crap and their game shows. This will be a deliciously ironic catastrophe to watch.

The very qualities that make television so un-good-- giant bureaucracies, huge budgets, a consensus approach to the artistic process, a reliance on demographics and market segmentation-- are the very things that are blessedly absent from the creative process on the internet. The means and the methods by which interesting stuff makes it to the consumer on the internet are the polar opposite of those which result in content on the telly.

Rather than play to their strengths, the TV people seem intent on bending the new technology to their will and on transposing the old ways onto the new media. You'll have, for example, hybrid tv/web execs "creating" organic videos. We'll pause to let the irony of that concept sink in.

They seem to be focused mainly on re-making the new medium to conform to the old model, with superficial, cynical attention paid to the new conventions. And they seem to think that there are terrible flaws in the new model that only they can remedy. Rather like a buggy whip manufacturer who suggests that the new automobiles are missing a golden opportunity because they have not made any provisions in their new designs for a place for the driver to store his buggy whip.

We don't think that this will all take 40 years to shake out. We predict we'll know the outcome in four years max.

Meanwhile, there was a press conference Thursday morning in one of the salons at the Hyatt at which was announced the upcoming World Comedy Conference, "a two-day event for broadcasters, TV and film producers, studio executives, agents, writers, digital content aggregators and creators, financiers and others," to be held at next year's JFL. We aren't clear on the concept, but the Fest seems to think it will pump up the number of Industry attendees. Currently, they estimate 1,000 industry badges are issued each July.

We only mention it in this posting because, if it's done right, it will shake things up a little bit and hasten the transformation of the industry from old media to new.

Time Magazine and Jamie Masada have conspired to resurrect the frayed fallacy that facility at making people laugh is a form of mental illness, or, in some variations, that a prerequisite for being a good standup comic is some sort of hideous emotional disorder.

We've been battling this for years now and, slowly but surely, we've noticed not just a willingness on the part of some writers to abandon this sophism, but a willingness to go a few steps beyond and actually approach the analysis of standup (and standup comics) with a bit of maturity, a smidgen of intelligence and a shade or two of nuance. We had hope that they'd thrown away their journo-crutches and were ready to actually think for themselves (and check their prejudices at the door) when it came to thinking and writing about us.

Then along comes Time and Masada, strolling arm-in-arm. Rebecca Winters-Keegan is the byline. She has cranked out a lengthy piece of drivel with the ostensible purpose of analyzing the Lovitz-Dick bantamweight battle that took place under Masada's roof last week. She uses the occasion to besmirch an entire genre of entertainer, weaving cliche after cliche into a tapestry that doesn't so much enlighten us as to why Lovitz engraved the Factory bar using Dick's puss but makes a case for giving a comedian a wide berth should we see one walking toward us on the street. Nice work! She seeks the opinion of a professor and a psychotherapist, pretty much tipping us off as to the kind of outcome she wanted/expected. (To the man with a hammer, everything is a nail!)

Says Masada of his bread and butter:

...they are so sensitive to other people. They are so vulnerable to other people; 75 per cent of the comedians I know, something is missing inside them. Something is not filled. They try to overcome it by going on the stage and making people laugh.

Utter pop psychology nonsense. So.. it turns out that teeing up a dying child for Michael Jackson is only the second or third worse thing Masada has ever done. It's right up there with restricting the language of the comics who go onstage in his club. And letting Michael Richards on that very stage in the first place.

We never hear this kind of drivel come out of the mouths of the folks who run the Comedy & Magic Club. We never hear Budd Friedman pontificate on the mental health of the folks who make his Melrose club an entertainment institution. Why does Masada feel compelled to peddle this nonsense? Why does he seemingly have more regard for drunken hecklers than for the actual performers? Why would any comedian enter his club again, even to pee, after this kind of negative publicity? We're certain that we won't.

A Hollywood Reporter wrapup article tapped out by George Szalai says that a number of comedians were singled out for their performances over the past two weeks in Montreal. Tom Segura, Tommy Johnagin, Geoff Keith, Matt Braunger and Mike Winfield were the New Facers mentioned. Kevin Hart, Bill Burr, Jeremy Hotz, Jo Koy and Louis CK were among the Old Faces cited, tactfully referred to as "established talent.

Although we never did find out who officially won that development deal prize from Just For Pitching, we did learn from the HR that two pitches earned deals from the CBC's Anton Leo.

Foss' comedy idea Four Minutes Apart, about an anti-establishment female stand-up who moves in with her upwardly mobile brother and his family, and Glinski's Sibling Rivalry, about a young woman's changing relationship with her younger brother, convinced CBC head of comedy Anton Leo at the annual Just For Pitching panel.

Interesting to note that, despite all their highfalutin' talk of establishing new conventions and offering shows that break the mold, the two shows that secured deals were about as traditional as you can get, about as close to traditional sitcoms as anyone pitched.

AUDUBON, NJ-- We're back in the office after a typically gruelling drive down I-87. We departed crazy early in order to avoid the jam-up at the border crossing. Didn't work. We still had a 90-minute wait. Shoulda gone through Vermont.

Also found out that Canada doesn't refund the GST any more. (Or the Harmonized Sales Tax, for that matter, but that doesn't apply here.) We looked forward to hitting the Duty Free store and getting back the tax on our lodging, then blowing it on a huge bottle of Bombay Sapphire... or maybe some Knob Creek or something similar. Then we saw the sign:

As of April 1, 2007, non-resident consumers who purchase goods in Canada and remove them from the country cannot receive a VRP rebate for the GST/HST they paid on goods if the tax became payable after March 31, 2007.

Total bummer, eh? According to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Finance, "the visitor rebate program was taken up by only 3% of visitors." Others dispute this. What isn't disputed is that the revocation of the rebate will probably hurt the $60 billion Canadian tourism biz.

That and the fact that the exchange rate is good for Canadians but not advantageous for us Americans. It's the lowest we can ever recall in our two decades of heading north. We seem to recall $1.32 on our first trip to Montreal to play the Nest in the late 80s. This past weekend, it was $1.05. Which means that when we forked over eight bucks CD for a Blue, we were pretty much paying eight bucks US for a Blue!


The Male Half with Mike DeStefano (Wise Guys) Photo credit: Todd Jackson

The sun made an appearance on Saturday. Thursday and Friday were wet and miserable, but Saturday was one of those days that enable Montrealers to push those suicidal thoughts out of their heads when they're suffering through March. Shocking blue sky, puffy clouds, slight breeze.

We posted our third report early Saturday afternoon, then headed down to the sparsely attended Artist vs. Industry hoop game. The Industry kicked ass, winning by nine points. It was the second win in a row for them. Too bad there wasn't a larger crowd on hand to witness the spectacle. Perhaps the RBK Ball Hockey Cup game is drawing sporting enthusiasts away from it. This is Canada, after all.


Last Comic Standing's Ty Barnett (l) and Don Friesen at the Hyatt

We swang through the Delta... er... the Hyatt later on, then decided to wade through the street portion of the Festival, on the Boulevard de Maisonneuve. The streets were packed with families and kids and twins and midgets and those big heads that are popular at Carnevale (this year's theme was Carnevale). And there were, parked along the boulevard, large floats depicting famous comedians-- Charlie Chaplin, Laurel & Hardy, Mr. Bean, Mike Myers and Jacques Tati. We were also half-heartedly searching for the secret Comedy Network party. Nobody seemed to know about it. We heard rumors that they only extended invites to Canadians. We heard it sucked, too. And, no, that is not a case of sour grapes.


The Male Half with Tom Papa at the Hyatt. (Note The Male Half's glowing Shrek-like ogre ears!)

For the first time since our arrival on Wednesday, we felt that crushing fatigue that comes over nearly all Fest attendees at one time or another ("Festigue," perhaps?), so we slipped into a light coma at six, resolving to arise in two hours time and decide which show to take in that evening.

We obtained tickets to Family Guy Live. How would they fill 90 to 120 minutes?? What exactly goes on at one of these (Fill in the blank) Live presentations?

We strolled on over to the Place des Arts, the hulking, modern jumble of buildings and sculptures and plaza that occupies a city block or two directly across from the Hyatt. The show was to take place in the Salle de Wilfrid-Pelletier, the largest multi-purpose concert hall in Canada. It seats nearly 3,000 people.

And, as the showtime neared, we approached the building and noticed clumps of two and three and four people walking, darting, around the circular, glass-enclosed mezzanine level of the building-- searching. Searching for... the entrance! Here, at street level, we wandered just outside the building, clearly able to observe the folks who had somehow figured out how to gain entrance. We switched directions, we communicated our frustration to the other unfortunates who were equally stumped by the mystery portal that would-- some day-- enable us to... get inside.

Whichever lunkhead had designed and built this modern marvel in 1963 probably thought he was being clever. However, he neglected to make clear just how us common folk might actually enter the edifice. (The Male Half was "architecturally livid.") And no one milling about outside seemed to know how to get in, either! We solved the mystery eventually-- one must go underground to get in, through a rather dank, unappealing tunnel. Here you have a splendid hall, dedicated to the presentation of the great works, and the poor shmucks who wish to see those great works must march down a futuristic shaft in the ground, like the Morlocks in "Time Machine."


Montreals comic Asaf Gerchak (l) and Peter J. Radomski (Bubbling With Laughter) at the Hyatt

Eventually, we took our seats inside. It is quite impressive-- it is akin to being inside of a large spaceship (with much better acoustics). And, fittingly, the motif seemed Star Wars-y-- many of the fixtures seemed to be assembled from the spare parts of Stormtroopers.

By the time we scrambled into our seats in Section Q, series creator Seth MacFarlane was well into the introductions. As each cast member was brought out to thunderous applause, he/she took a director's chair behind a microphone. What followed was a table read of an episode called "Airport '07."

After the table read, some cast members took turns singing songs (to musical accompaniment) in the voices of the characters from the show. Including a duet between Peter Griffin and Lois (Alex Boorstein) called "You Don't Eat My Pussy," sung to the tune of "You Don't Bring Me Flowers." After that, they took questions from the audience.

It is worth noting that this was the 10 PM show. And it also worth noting that earlier in the evening, there was a 7 PM show. And it is worth further noting that the cast was, quite openly and with much fanfare, drinking onstage during the entire performance. Seth Green, who voices Chris, was pulling directly from a large bottle of red wine, from what we could tell. The crowd loved every minute of it. They exploded the first time MacFarlane did Stewie. The fans went ape over most of what MacFarlane did/said. Perhaps their second fave was Mike Henry, who voices Cleveland and the perverted Herbert.

Afterward, the Hyatt was packed, of course. Final night drinking is a tradition for many. On this particular Saturday evening, among the revelers were Lewis Black, Louis CK, Susie Essman, Kathleen Madigan, Jessica Kirson, Greg Fitzsimmons, Bill Burr, Jimmy Carr and many, many more. (And if the abovementioned weren't there Saturday, we can be forgiven for imagining that they were, as they had been there all week!)

Of the gala hosts, we spotted only Howie Mandel. Once. And that was during the day, for a photo shoot. The other hosts-- George Lopez, John Pinette, William Shatner-- avoided the throngs. At least while we were in the house.

Buzz? Jo Koy, Joey Kola and Bill Burr. They all either were the recipient of heavy ink in the Gazette or wild word of mouth or both.

Any common themes or threads? We saw four teams. Fancy that. Are comedy teams making a comeback? It is hard to do, and, on a personal level, it's hard to keep a team together. God's Pottery, Stuckey & Murray and The Doo Wops use music. Team Submarine do not. We were entertained by all four. (The Male Half had a discussion with Team Submarine on the history of comedy teams while waiting for Thursday night's installment of the Green Room. He told them that he had read in the excellent book, "No Applause, Just Throw Money," that quite often comedy teams split apart because the straight man would essentially drink himself to death. Good luck to all of you, gentlemen!)

Other trends or threads? We were assaulted at nearly every turn by presentations that were, in part or in whole, telling us what to do/what not to do, what's funny/what's not funny, who's funny/who's not. What is that all about? Why all this urgency to beat us (comedians nearly all) over the head with this pedantry? And where, we ask, is the entertainment value? After the last four days, we're thoroughly convinced that comedians are never less funny than when they're making fun of other comedians. If you're going to deconstruct comedy, you had better make it funny... or go the serious route and make it damned interesting. Much of it falls awkwardly between funny and interesting, landing somewhere between petty and pathetic. For the most part, this kind of stuff falls flat.

And, some of those same folks who were crying hack at every turn were quite possibly guilty of it themselves on more than a handful of occasions, at least according to what we saw, and according to what we heard secondhand.

Case in point: How is travelling to another country (in this case, Canada) and making lame "Bush is stupid" jokes any different than going to Cleveland or Phoenix and inserting the name of the local gay bar into an opening joke for a cheap laugh? It's not, really. It's Hack 2.0 And, it seems, a startling number of comics did it. To paraphrase Seinfeld-- We're not offended as Americans, we're offended as comedians. And in every case, the "joke," such as it was, contained nothing more than the words "Bush" followed by "dumb" (or its equivalent) modified by "fuck" (or its equivalent). To put it another way, there was no artfullness, not even an attempt to be subtle or clever. Even Seth MacFarlane, the creator of one of the more clever and cutting television shows in existence, could only come up with "the president is a flop-eared fuckface." (And in his own voice.) Not exactly the height of sharp wit. It doesn't even rise to the level of Will Rogers (and believe us, Rogers was pretty lame-- go back and read some of his stuff.) Here's the really weird part: With the exception of MacFarlane's hamhanded slam, precious few of the attempts at getting a cheap laugh by bashing Bush got so much as a weak, oftimes uncomfortable, laugh. Perhaps even folks who might be predisposed to laugh at a W gag might be sensing that it's played out.

Finally: We were thrilled to meet several of our "fans!" By "fans," we mean regular readers of SHECKYmagazine who seemed to be thrilled to meet us. Indeed, some even seemed, for lack of a better word, "starstruck." As we always say, there is no need to be intimidated. It's just us! We do not bite. We are eminently approachable. If you see us at a function, come up and say, Hey!

Tune into the blog of Sean McCarthy (formerly of the Boston Herald, now of the New York Daily News) and tune into Dead Frog by Todd Jackson for other perspectives.

The most-asked question at the festival? "What time did you leave the bar last night?"

The second-most-asked question? "What time did I leave the bar last night?"

The tightly-wound artists are starting to ease up now, as they get their first (or first few, or last!) set(s) out of the way and the weekend arrives. By the time Friday rolls around there's a significant number of comics who are here with nothing to do but schmooze, party, vent and reflect. And Friday is also the day when Andy Kindler, who has been reflecting for the past 12 months, finally gets around to venting.

As promised, we skittered on over to the Hyatt in plenty of time to get a seat at the State of the Industry Address, which the program bills as "a charming mix of anger and jealousy" (Hmmm... That sounds like something SHECKYmagazine would concoct. We simply must look that up.) This year's celebrity introducer was KITH Dave Foley, who asked the over-capacity crowd to welcome, "the most self-destructive man in show business."


"The Most Self-Destructive Man In Show Business" and The Male Half of the Staff at the 80s At Midnight Party


It started 10 minutes late. No surprise there. It took him until the 29-min. mark to mention Hitler. No surprise there. What was a surprise? The tone. It was different. It was as close as he has come, in our experience, to a club set. Oh, sure, there were gags about ICM and Jamie Masada and Entertainment Weekly that provoked guttural, cathartic laughter among the folks in The Industry, but there was also reams of accessible material that would go over equally well in Uncle Fucker's Chuckle Hut (Credit: Dana Gould, circa 1989). And, in spite of Kindler's savaging of the comedy club business (complete with now-obscure references to Ken Muller, Dave Tribble, Tom Sobel and Brad Greenberg), this year's address sounded less like a diatribe and more like an audition set.

"Why do real estate people have headshots?"

He told of attending a funeral where the minister asked, "How is everybody today?" When the assembled mumbled feebly in response, the minister countered with, "Oh, c'mon! You can do better than that!" Several punchlines later, he exasperatedly mused, "Does everything have to be high-energy these days?"

He managed to invoke or savage Rene Descartes, Margaret Cho, Joy Behar, Bill Bellamy, Zach Braff, Sanjay Gupta and Norman Greenbaum. And he found new ways to hammer perennial targets like Robin Williams, Whoopi Goldberg, Arliss and Lorne Michaels.

He was particularly sharp in mocking Last Comic Standing.

"They describe Ant as a 'celebrity talent scout.' Two of those words do not belong."

"Ant is the only person who might be more unnecessarily gay than Bob Read."

"Last Comic Standing makes American Idol look The Kennedy Center Honors."

This year, the Fest insisted that Kindler host a new show on Saturday evening with the title, "State of the Fest." Kindler worried that it might cause confusion. In fact, he said that he'd been approached on more than one occasion by folks who were confused by the show, who thought that his SOTIA was now scheduled for Midnight on Saturday.

And, as in past years, Kindler hosted the Alternative Show Friday night at the Cabaret Juste Pour Rire featuring God's Pottery, Sean Cullen, Eugene Mirman, Zach Galafianakis, Glenn Wool and Sean Lecomber.


Murray of Stuckey & Murray (l) and Stuckey of Stuckey & Murray at the 80s At Midnight Party

Throbbing three floors above that very showcase was the 80s At Midnight party, sponsored by the Festival Just For Laughs and MySpace.com. We eventually made our way to that blast after taking in two earlier shows-- Short Bytes Cinema at Monument National and Jim Jeffries' one-man show, "The Second Coming" at Theatre Ste. Catherine.

Short Bytes is billed as "some of the funniest short films made for the web," so you can understand why we might be interested. (We just "released" our second short film, so we were curious to see what passes for the state of the art, short-film-wise.)

We were horrified.

First, the good-- The show was hosted by Stuckey & Murray, a funny guitar duo who capably handled the emceeing duties and got the show off to a rousing start. And the KickedInTheNuts.com presentation by The Family Guy's Mike Henry (he writes, voices and produces for the show) was amusing and Henry himself was charming.


Left to right: Al Madrigal, Kara Baker (Avalon Mgmt.), Matt Braunger and New Facer Sheng Wang at the 80s At Midnight Party

But the shorts presented by the folks from Heavy.com were mystifying. They stressed that the movies they pump through their wildly successful site-- some animated, some live action-- were targeted to 18-39 year old men, but to us, it appeared that they were aiming at 11-15 year old boys. Each short was loaded up with all the hallmarks of inorganic "viral videos"-- irony, violence, celebrity, parody-- but curiously missing was any trace of genuine humor. There was plenty of irony, but what good is irony when there's no yuks? If this is the future of web videos, it is a bleak future indeed. Fortunately, the WWW is a vast, nearly limitless expanse where the zero-sum math no longer applies. So, soulless dreck like that offered via sites like Heavy.com can't "crowd out" truly clever and honestly funny creations if and when they're generated.

We strolled from the Monument National to the Theatre Ste. Catherine with J.P. Buck from HBO's U.S. Comedy Arts Festival. We arrived just in time to stake out some standing room in the balcony for the sold out Jim Jeffries set. Jeffries is funny, likeable, and confident-- eliciting hoots from topics that range from filthy to deadly to profane. A minor quibble: We were always under the impression that a one-man show or a flying solo show (or whatever they call them these days) was separate and distinct from a 50-minute club set because it was produced and stage-managed and fussed over and tarted up with lights and sounds and props or stage direction, etc. Or at the very least, it had a theme that every inch of material reinforced. To be honest, we were surprised that "The Second Coming" had no geegaws or knickknacks-- it was Jeffries, a stool, a chair and a stage.


Matt Harawitz (l) and Jo Koy at the 80s At Midnight Party

Up the road a piece, was New Faces at Kola Note. In all the retrospective pieces that have been cranked out on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of JFL, they note that New Faces premiered in 1996 and that it was "a showcase for unsigned talent." We weren't here in 1996, so it may well have been true. But it certainly isn't true this year (and, to our recollection, hasn't been true since 1999). Of this year's crop of 16, only three seem to be without representation. Everyone else has the muscle and might of ICM or Gersh or Levity or Brillstein or 3Arts or what have you. We've heard the sentiment expressed on more than one occasion that it was pointless for a manager or agent to attend the New Faces shows, as everyone was already signed, sealed and delivered.

How difficult would it be to find 16 people who are truly unsigned? We daresay we could do so. (Hell, The Male Half and the Female Half are unsigned! There's two right there... one-eighth of the way to the goal already!) It is not an impossible feat to find 16 (or 32... or 48!) unsigned comedians in North America, the U.K. and Australia who could "bring it," (as Ant is so fond of saying!) in a New Faces showcase. And-- BONUS!-- audience members wouldn't be paying 25 smackers to see comedians who've been in the game for only two or three years. No sir-- it would be possible to stock a New Faces show with comics who average ten years behind the mike. We hasten to add that this diatribe is delivered with no help from The Green Monster-- no "charming mix of anger and jealousy" here! We're just observing.

There's a quote in the HR from Greg Giraldo on his New Faces experience that is fascinating.

Giraldo, by his own admission, was fairly green to the circuit when he hit big at JFL at "the tail end of the ridiculous trend of giving young standups deals based on six minutes. That's literally what happened. It took me from being an inexperienced, unknown comedian to an inexperienced, unknown comedian with a development deal."

We hate to sound like a broken record (or, for the folks in New Faces, we hate to sound like a scratched CD... uh, make that, we hate to sound like a corrupted mp3 file), but we hear the same stuff year after year. We're just sayin' is all.


Left to right: The Female Half of the Staff and Talia Raine (Business Johnson) and Casper Frank (Business Johnson) at the 80s At Midnight Party (Editors note: In a previous posting, we mis-identifed Casner Frank as "Frank Casner!" We apologize for the error! And we attribute the mistake to the fact that, since we arrived in town, we know of at least three laminate goofups-- two of which were ours! When we saw "Casner Frank," we naturally assumed that this was yet another! Paul Ash has a laminate that reads "Ash Paul." He shall forever be known to us as "Ash Paul!")

We headed up the hill to the 80s At Midnight Party, arriving just after midnight (comics are noted for their timing!) and found throbbing music (from the 80s, of course!), a disco-era light show and plenty of gals in leg warmers slinging trays of hot smoked meat sandwiches and curried chicken on a stick! An hour or so later, the crowd had arrived and an 80s cover band was delighting all in attendance with a show that included costume changes! How utterly Vegas-- we don't mean that in a bad way. Rick James, Prince, Dead or Alive, DeeLite-- no act too big or too small for this ensemble. What is it about 80s music that makes people ecstatic? Techno tends to put folks in a sour mood or it makes them hypersexed. 80s tunes makes them giggle and shout and hop up and down. Which would you rather have?

Sitting and relaxing at a party like this one is a luxury that only early-arrivers can enjoy. When the midnight shows empty out and the second large wave of attendees starts deploying from the giant freight elevators, the joint is SRO. And on this evening, it was blessedly transvestite-free! Not a hint of faux-hip, Euro-culture shorthand-- no ripped, shirtless men wearing only tight satin pants and a bowtie; no fishnet stockinged "ladies" with prominent Adam's apples; no Cirque du Soleil lite acrobats or mime-esque drink servers. Just catchy pop tunes, giant balloons and plenty of free liquor and edibles.

Final note today: The Female Half is no longer obligated to take extra special care of herself in anticipation of her impending surgery-- we received word that her surgery has been rescheduled because her surgeon is scheduled for surgery herself! We hope that the surgeon's surgery is not on her hands or on her eyes!

A cursory examination of the back of our Media laminates reveals that possession of said credentials entitles us to "Stay out of the way" and "Shut the fuck up." And this year, unlike in past years, we weren't asked to submit ticket requests when we filed for our credentials. Oversight? Who knows. Basically, we're on our own. It's up to us to somehow weasel our way into any events we fancy. Fortunately, we know damn near everyone up here with the "Artiste" designation. And we know a good chunk of the Industry folks and the "Accompaneurs." (Which is the fancy French word for hangers-on.)



On Wednesday night, when we were hanging out on Ste. Catherine, waiting to get a seat for The Green Room, there was a rather scary incident acted out on the street in front of the theater-- a babbling (a Francais!) homeless dude was being loudly and relentlessly hassled by a scarily persistent and disconcertinly focused crazy dude. (Everyone identified Dude # 2 as a "crackhead!") It made for an edgy minute or two. This end of Ste. Catherine is... dicey? Previously, we haven't ventured past St. Laurent, where Club Soda is. Past Ste. Laurent the cast of characters gets a bit more... exciting.


Left to right: Nikki Glaser, Sabrina Jalees, Tommy Johnagin

We heard of another incident, that took place last week, outside of Club Soda. Dave Attell was waiting to go on at the Nasty Show when he saw an altercation spill out of a neighboring bar. One of the "celebrants" was emphasizing his points with a machete! The blade-toting inebriant then chased his fellow partiers back into the bar. Attell was, understandably, fascinated. In fact, the story goes that when the cops arrived to sort things out, Attell followed closely behind. Must be all that training on Inomniac.

Has Canada or Quebec or drastically altered their mental health policies? We don't seem to recall being anywhere near frightened on the streets of Montreal. But it seems like things have gotten a little less frivolous and just a couple of ticks more adventurous in these parts.

And we heard a rumor that yet another comic was almost sucked into a "bum fight."

And The Male Half was harassed by a drunk guy in a small bar between Club Soda and Theatre Ste. Catherine. He was bellowing, "Hey, Drew Carey! Hey, Drew Carey!" And he yelled it with an edge, more like he was seeking not so much an autograph, but a vital organ. The Female Half had visions of riding on the back of a transvestite with a broken beer bottle in one hand in an attempt to quell any violent outbreak, rather like a postmodern version of a Canadian Mountie.

We were listening to Radio 360 on the drive up and Stephen Harper was telling a crowd on his recent trip to Chile that Canada currently has the strongest economy of all the G8 member nations. Is any of that prosperity trickling down (or over) to Quebec? The above crackhead/homeless confrontation was mentioned in a Gazette review of Wednesday night's Green Room show, so it wasn't our imagination. And Section A of today's Gazette has an account of someone getting stabbed, in mid-afternoon, at the Peel Metro station on Thursday. Hmmm...Peel is only a few blocks away. What's going on here, anyway? Perhaps the Fest will be moving to Toronto after all, despite statements to the contrary.


The newly svelte Neil Leiberman (l) and John Beuhler (Just For Pitching)

And, just up the street, amid this all is The Hyatt. We said that the Hyatt had potential. Compared to the Delta, it's closer to some of the main venues-- Club Soda, Theatre Ste. Catherine, Spectrum-- so close that the Female Half can walk to them-- and back!-- in four-inch heels. But it only takes a 2-1/2 block walk to the north before things start to resemble a combination of "Blade Runner" and "Panic In Needle Park." (Was that too obscure of a reference? Well, it beats "the bar scene from 'Star Wars'," doesn't it? Sorry... we've been schooled over the past 48 hours about Hack this and Hack that, so we're on our best behavior... NOT! Sorry. Hadda throw that in!)

And the Hyatt does have some good things going for it-- it sits atop a giant mall that has a grocery story and a food court. (A "Food court" in Montreal is ten times better than any similar entity in the States. And the same goes for fast food. If for no other reason than one can purchase inexpensive and fast cuisine Libanaise on nearly every corner.)

But the bar is a disappoinment. Firstly, they stop serving food at 11:30 PM! Bad idea, since a ton of people flood in there at about 11:31! Secondly, they overcharge for booze! And the exchange rate stinks these days, so you can't even fool yourself into thinking you're paying less just because the fiver has a portrait of Gene Wilder on it. (Well, it's not Gene Wilder, but it's some old Canadian guy and the bill is a bluish-purple color.)

They've concocted names for the pizzas and sandwiches-- specifically for the occasion! There's the George Burns, the Benny Hill, the Charlie Chaplin. And then, there's "Nachos and Salsa." Unless that's the name of an obscure comedy team from the Canadian TV Hall of Fame, we're puzzled. Why would they give everything else a comedy-themed name and not the nachos? Couldn't they at least have called it the "Cheech and Chong?" Or has Political Correctness so crippled the sense of playfulness up here that such a thing would be considered a hate crime?

Schmooze-wise, the bar is inferior to that of the Delta-- at least in our estimation. We're not sure why we don't like it. Perhaps it's some sort of feng shui/architectural/cultural mojo that makes it less than ideal for a comedy bar. Maybe it's merely the unfamiliarity of it. It just seems like there's too much room to spread out-- and it's not cramped enough to create that critical mass that makes for a truly great soiree. It lacks that Breakfast At Tiffany's party scene vibe. If it doesn't take you 20 minutes to get to the bathroom, it's not a good party.

We attended the fourth Just For Pitching. And the room wasn't set up the same way it had been in past years, with the pitchers on one end of a vast, empty expanse and the television execs on the other end-- and the crowd on the sides, anxiously swinging their heads back and forth as if at a ferocious tennis match. It was set up this year like a presentation at a convention of insurance adjusters or a gathering of x-ray technicians, with the pitchers and execs occupying the same dais, pitching to directly to the audience, practically stiffing the execs to their left. And it had about as much excitement as a gathering of insurance adjusters. Perhaps it was the barometric pressure. Perhaps it was the much smaller turnout.

We noticed that seven out of the ten pitchers were Canadian. And one of the non-Canadian pitchers failed to show due to poor weather in NYC. And it was announced at the outset that one lucky pitcher would be the recipient of a CBC development deal. Excuse us, it was announced that "the best Canadian pitch" would receive the deal. Curiously, though, the winner wasn't announced. Pitching honcho Pat Ferns said that the winner would be revealed by week's end.

Every year, we've delighted in discovering at least one keen bit of Execu-Speak-- a word or turn of phrase that captures our fancy and which we use around SHECKYmagazine HQ for the rest of the year. This year, we were taken by the twin concepts of "pre-watershed" and "post-watershed," to designate before 9 PM on the primetime schedule and after 9 PM on the primetime TV schedule. This will be much easier to work into casual conversation than "interstitial." Example: "Hey, honey, what's on TV tonight post-watershed?" Use it three times and it is yours!


Left to right: Mick Dwyer, Fiona O'Loughlin, Biddy O'Loughlin

It's time for Dumb Television Executive Quote of the Day (sponsored by Bell Canada)!

In response to the pitch of "Business Johnson," a film short produced by Talia Raine and Casper Frank featuring an all-African American cast revolving around all-black neighborhood, U.K. Paramount studios Matt Tombs (emphasis on the "BS") said (and we're paraphrasing here): "Because the series has such strong African-American themes and references, audiences in the U.K. wouldn't/couldn't relate to it." To which we reply, if this is so, then why was Upstairs Downstairs such a huge hit in America? And why was Dallas a huge hit in Japan? (And in Saudi Arabia, of all places?) And how do you explain that The Female Half was delighted to discover an Australian comic who had a rather extensive knowledge of her native Philadelphia from watching reruns of The Fresh Prince of Bel Air? We're reminded of a quote from Jim Jeffries, who said, during Wednesday night's Green Room presentation, "I'll fuck anyone off the telly!" To put it another (less crude) way, people love watching weird shit on television. Love, love, love it!

And we applaud pitcher John Beuhler! He placed more emphasis on pitching himself rather than pitching his project ("That's Just John"). (Just like we advised folks to do in a previous year's analysis of Just For Pitching!) The panel of execs were taken by him and were enthusiastic about him. And he even got a spot that evening's Bubbling With Laughter on the strengh of his Pitching "performance."

Cocktails? Free cocktails? In a tent? Point us in that direction! Well-attended and sponsored by the JFL itself, it also featured plenty of fromage.


Left to right: Joey Kola, Tammy Pescatelli, Dom Irrera, backstage after the Wise Guys show at the Spectrum

We used our extensive connections to gain entrance to the 9:30 Wise Guys Show at the Spectrum Theatre. We know Tammy Pescatelli and Dom Irrera. And earlier in the day, we ran into Joey Kola-- that's the first time we'd seen him in nearly 20 years! So we were familiar with sixty per cent of the bill. The extremely charming and hysterical Doo Wops hosted and Mike DeStefano got the second half off to an edgy, roaring start. The Spectrum is a great, funky old former movie house converted into a funky old rock club that serves well as a funky old comedy venue! A packed house watched five veteran acts doing 12- to 20-minute sets-- it was... inspiring, uplifting. It's exactly what anyone could want in a comedy show-- 1,200 people going nuts with a pro in the driver's seat, kicking mighty comedy ass.

We swung through the Hyatt, picked up Matt Komen (whom we last hung with after seeing Brian Regan at the Scottish Rite Theater in Jersey in December) and headed on over to see the second installment of Provenza's "The Green Room." This time it was Phil Nicholl, Fiona O'Loughlin, Jo Koy and Andy Kindler, in that order, providing the laughs and the insight.

God's Pottery opened up. They're performing in their own show as part of the festival, over at the Mainline Theatre. They're a couple of guys who parody a Christian musical act. One plays the guitar, the other brandishes a beatific smile. The song they played, "A Brand New Start With Jesus," had such an infectious hook and was delivered with such subtly exaggerated sincerity, we wouldn't doubt if they actually may have accidentally converted some of the people present! The verse, of course was riotous!

We forgot to mention Team Submarine, the comedy team that opened up Wednesday's Green Room-- two comics, Nate Fernald and Steve O'Brien, from Chicago who have very classic comedy team chemistry.

We're headed over to Andy Kindler's State of the Industry (at 2 PM), so we have to wrap this up.


Gerry Dee (Last Comic Standing) and Steve Patterson at the Hyatt

Sorry. We couldn't watch. We were in Montreal, at the Just For Laughs Festival. So, we figured, why take a break from the biggest comedy festival in the world to watch a reality series about standup on American television when we're surrounded by live standup here? (We totally forgot to even videotape it!)

There were plenty of LCS alums here: Alonzon Bodden, Kathleen Madigan, Ty Barnett, etc. We even ran into Montreal auditioner