Our first time in the District in well over a decade was a blast. We were lured outside by perfect weather, so we headed out from our Georgetown hotel and walked first to the Lincoln Memorial. (What schoolchild on the eastern seaboard doesn't recall the first time he/she stood, awestruck at the foot of that giant Lincoln statue, finally inside the building depicted on a million pennies?) It impresses even more as an adult.



We then made our way to the Korean War Memorial, then to the World War II Memorial, then we strolled through the giant C-SPAN Book Fair on the Mall. We checked out the U.S. Botanical Gardens, after which we took in the Air and Space Museum. We headed back up Pennsylvania Avenue and got as close as we could to the White House.

On the way back to the hotel, we passed the Hotel Lombardy. That location was the jumping off point for this story from an earlier visit to Washington, back about twenty years or so, when The Male Half, John Mulrooney and Dave Kelly stopped by that hotel to pick up Rich Jeni for a memorable afternoon.

All in the space of about five hours. We calculated the distance walked at about six miles. It was great to do the touristy things while on the road. Sometimes it's easy to get into a business-only rut and ignore the wonders and the splendors that some cities have to offer.

We were working at recently-opened Riot Act Comedy Club on 14th St. with Denver-based comic Frank Schuchat and we were graced, all too briefly, with the presence of D.C.-based Roger Mursick and Tony Woods.

As The Male Half exited the stage at the end of the first show Saturday, the applause was accompanied by a (live!) trumpet rendition of Call To The Post. Riot Act proprietor John Xereas explained that the horn player was none other than Faith Dane, who had stopped by the club midway through the show. Faith (she had her name changed to just "Faith") has run for mayor of the District multiple times and, it would seem, is never without her horn. (She was featured in both the Broadway and film version of "Gypsy!") She was a fixture on and off stage at the D.C. Improv when Xereas coordinated the talent for that venue. Her rendition of "Gotta Have A Gimmick" from the movie and musical is cited by Paul Reubens as the inspiration for the creation of his Pee Wee Herman character!

Faith's number begins at about the 1:30 mark. Well worth the wait!

Both Halves of the Staff will be on the Comedy For Grownups show at the New York Underground Comedy Festival on Tuesday night at 7 PM at HA! Comedy Club!

They'll join Jim Mendrinos, DJ Hazard, Mike Siscoe, Leighann Lord, Richie Byrne, Quentin Heggs, Danny Kelly and Janette Barber.

If you'd like to get on the comp list, send an email request to Carole Montgomery at ivorygirl(at sign)att.net and she'll put you on the comp list!

Come on out Tuesday night for a talent-packed show at the Underground Fest and say hey to the Male and Female Half!

Editors note: We accidentally put an "s" at the end of Leighann Lord's name... we apologize to Leighann for pluralizing her.

In the Arizona Republic, Richard Ruelas profiles Phoenix-area comedian Randy Hausner, whose brother Dale was indicted on seven counts of first-degree murder.

The August 2006 arrest of Dale Hausner on scores of murder and attempted-murder charges stunned the family. But after the initial shock wore off, reality set in. Randy Hausner had to decide whether it was still worth pursuing a career in comedy.

Dale Hausner is half of the pair of serial shooters who recently terrorized the Phoenix area for 14 months, shooting people at random.

The 38-year-old Hausner is now dealing with the notoriety head-on, continuing to do standup at various venues in the Valley of the Sun. It's a fascinating story. Read the whole thing here.

Of course they are. Reuters is cooking down the essentials of the Forbes list of television's biggest earners. As expected, Oprah is the lede.

But Jerry Seinfeld, David Letterman, Jay Leno and George Lopez are among the top ten. Ellen Degeneres comes in 15th with $15 million.

The top twenty is dominated by people raking in the dough via Talk and Reality. After that, there are three News people. Keifer Sutherland is the highly-paid lynchpin of an hour-long drama.

Then, there's Lopez and Seinfeld-- two middle-aged standup comics who will continue to make gobs of cash through the syndication of a situation comedy filmed before a live audience. Apparently people still want to see that kind of thing.

Go figure!

Mark Sullivan, writing for magazine PC World, has written "The 10 Funniest Sites on the Internet," which can be read on MSN.com.

Along with sex and shopping, comedy is one of the biggest drivers of traffic on the Web. Especially now that a lot of regular people know how to post their homemade video and audio to the Web (along with clips from TV or radio), there's an awful lot of funny stuff online. After months of exhaustive research, including lie-detector tests performed on laboratory rats, we've gathered a list of the funniest sites on the Web. Visit these sites and try not to laugh. Also, you'll notice we've left off sites like Comedy Central and College Humor, which are funny but a little overexposed.

Yes, but they included the grossly overexposed Funny Or Die!

Although Sullivan says that the WWW is a much funnier place, "especially now that a lot of regular people know how to post their homemade video," only one of the ten sites that were featured conforms to that model-- eBaum's World. (Funny Or Die has been, for lack of a better word, corrupted-- a visit to that site displays videos featuring John C. Reilly and Bill Murray. And the original rollout, as every man, woman and child on the planet knows by now, featured the hilarious short "The Landlord," by Will Ferrell and Adam McKay, hardly regular people.)

eBaum's World, is truer to the "regular people (who) know how to post their homemade video" ideal.

In an ideal Ten Funniest list-- with care taken to avoid duplication or overexposed sites-- eBaum should have made it to the exclusion of Funny Or Die.

We are in agreement with Sullivan on one site: James Lileks' Institute of Official Cheer is a highly bookmarkable site. We stumbled across Lileks several years ago and he is a genuine wit.

Most of the sites are either good, but not funny and not intended to be funny (Found Magazine); rely heavily on irony and not so much on wit (Omodern, Mullets Galore, Engrish.com, Overheard in New York) or are mere oddities (Pictures of Walls).

One of them is produced by a giant ad agency to help Burger King goose sales of its chicken sandwiches. (The credibility of Sullivan and his list take a major hit here!) The print and electronic media, we fear, are slipping into a mindset where nothing on the WWW is worth covering if it lacks some sort of involvement from major media conglomerates or stars. They simultaneously fear it, are puzzled by it and are inclined to encourage its cooptation by the mainstream media outlets.

The article reminds us of similar ones from 1996 through 1999 when the mainstream media didn't know what to make of the WWW. They ran one predictable feature after another that focused on such sites as The Camera Trained on the Coffee Maker at the Cambridge Computer Lab and similar sites, declaring them "hilarious!" The plan seemed to be to marginalize the internet and emphasize the frivolous and the mundane.

Of course, a lot of what was on the WWW back then was actually frivolous and mundane. But they could have dug a little deeper. We got the feeling that they were giving less than their all in the search for truly interesting sites. These feelings were reinforced when, in the first couple years of our magazine, we found it a frustrating experience to get the MSM to pay attention to our publication!

We still feel a bit of that frustration! Hey, Mr. Sullivan: If you do another similar article, include SHECKYmagazine.com! We're not All Funny, All The Time, but we do run the occasional corker-- Hitler Bunches of Oats, Cum Park Plaza-- to name just a couple! (And, even though our blog contains a lot of somewhat serious contemplation of the art/craft/business of standup, we can't count how many people have told us that they think our magazine is hilarious!?!? It seems as though the general impression is that we're a humor site.)

We got an email from someone who said that Carlos Mencia got heckled at a huge show, attended by several thousand people, and that Mencia's response was to whip out his dick and swear at the crowd.

Then we emailed someone who was there and asked if this was true, and that person said that, though he didn't actually see it, he was certain that it happened.

Here's what gives us pause: Where's the YouTube video? A comedy concert, attended by 15,000 fans-- at a venue named Verizon Wireless Amphitheater no less!-- and there's no jumpy, garbled video up on YouTube of Mencia's alleged flipout.

Hmmm...

Watch FOS Joe DeVito tonight (in two hours, at 2 AM EDT) on Fox News Channel. He'll be on the freewheeling topical talk show Red Eye, hosted by Greg Gutfield.

DeVito gave us a heads up-- He managed to wedge an "Am I right, ladies?!?" into the conversation, just as he had promised us.

If you can't/won't stay up that late, check out Gutfeld's Daily Gut blog-- It's one of the most wickedly and consistently funny topical blogs on the WWW.

MSN.com has a lame-o article that says that "edgy female comedians are crossing over, big time." The breathless copy informs us that:

Hollywood's bursting with a great crop of hilarious female comedians who sparkle in a variety of media... these funny girls make us laugh in everything they try: movies, TV series, reality shows, books, CDs, stand-up routines, news-show commentary, sketch comedy -- even burlesque.

A modern take on rip and read-- from network press releases and agent/manager faxes.

The piece, "Funny And In Your Face," is remarkable only for the grotesque quality of 11 or so of the 14 photos that illustrate it-- most look like they've just got done wrestling a wolverine at a water park! Who chose those pics?!

Sarah Silverman is taking some heat for her monologue at the MTV Video Music Awards, specifically for the gags about Britney Spears' young sons.

"The joke that everyone was upset about-- me calling the kids 'adorable mistakes'-- was the most innocuous joke," the 36-year-old comedian tells Us Weekly magazine in the issue that comes out Friday. "It never occurred to me that would be deemed hurtful or over the line."

Silverman is asking us to swallow a lot here. The joke is far from innocuous. (Perhaps she doesn't understand the meaning of the word.)

It's usually a good idea-- even for someone who has a reputation for being edgy, blasphemous and outrageous-- to, at the very least, lay off the kids! If the critics were to give Silverman heat for jokes about adults, no matter how cruel or off-color those jokes might be, we'd probably be among the first to defend her. But there are tens of thousands of kids and adults in therapy right now because someone implied or explicitly stated that they were "mistakes!" They are public figures, but only in the strictest sense of the phrase. As such, they should be deemed off-limits, even for the sharpest of wits, even at the sleaziest of events.

Rather than take the route she has, Silverman would have been better off comparing any possible damage from her jibe to the real harm that mom might be inflicting on the tykes.

Aside from that, US Weekly in particular and Hollywood in general has some nerve coming down on a comedian after all the abuse they've heaped on "The Pop Tart" prior to and during her rather public and excruciating meltdown. The 25-year-old former Mousketeer is obviously in a hell we can only imagine. After a while, it might be best to totally ignore her, rather than exacerbate her situation.

Sadly, ABC news is reporting that the body of Nailah Franklin, sister of standup comic Marina Franklin, has been found near where her car was found in Indiana.

Once again, our thoughts are with the family.

Nailah Franklin has been missing for just over a week now and news of her disappearance has been all over the cable and network news. Her family is now offering $10,000 for any information that might lead to her. We comment on it here only because, according to bulletins on MySpace.com, Franklin is the sister of comedian Marina Franklin.

Anyone with any information is asked to call the Chicago Police. The family has set up a website, BringNailahFranklinHome.com.

Our thoughts are with the family. We are hoping for the best.

Jon Stewart famously declared to Tucker Carlson and Paul Begala on their show Crossfire, "I'm not going to be your monkey." That was three years ago.

Last night, Stewart was more than happy to be Evo Morales' monkey when the Bolivian president appeared on Comedy Central's Emmy award-winning fake news program.

Looking a bit stiff and speaking through a translator, Morales did not seem at first to understand some of Stewart's jokes, delivering serious responses. But he gradually relaxed under gentle questioning from Stewart and a crowd that delighted in the leftist leader's indictments of Western capitalism and appeals for social justice.[...]

But when Stewart urged Morales to discuss his reforms, the president got free reign to extol his successes and drew wild applause with nearly every example.

One of the highlights of Morales' standard after-dinner speech is his declaration that capitalism is "the worst enemy of humanity." How does that square with Stewart's position as the youthful face of the $17.5 billion behemoth known as Viacom? We suppose that is entirely compatible with "gentle questioning" and flirtatious interviews with a guy who champions coca farmers and is regularly photographed with Fidel and Hugo.

The Male Half and the Female Half will appear in Washington, D.C. (for the first time in forever!), this weekend, September 28-29, at the Riot Act Comedy Club! 1610 14th St., NW, is the address for the club, which is located in the basement of HR 57, which is described on the website like this:

HR-57 Center for the Preservation of Jazz Blues is a non-profit music cultural center that takes their name from a House Resolution first passed by congress in 1987. This resolution (H.Con.Res 57) designated jazz as "a rare and valuable national American treasure."

Now, in the intimate subterranean room below the jazz club-- a venue started recently by John X-- the rare and valuable national treasure known as standup is offered five nights a week.

This is a call to all D.C.-area SHECKYmagazine fans to stop on by the Riot Act this Friday and Saturday and say Hey! (And to make R.A. your MySpace friend.)

NOTE: The club was one of many that was recently added to our Club List! If you notice any missing full-time comedy clubs, click on the Club List Update Form and help us update the list!

It's been in all the papers-- Burma is about to get regime change from within. Or not. Thousands of monks are leading the pro-democracy protests this time. Back in 1988, the ruling junta, who insisted on renaming the country Myanmar (and referring to the capital of Rangoon as Yangon), killed 3,000 protestors.

This time, in response to huge, new protests led by Buddhist monks, they've arrested some entertainer/artist types, including a comic!

A comedian famed for his anti-government jibes became the first well-known activist rounded up after the curfew was imposed.

Zarganar, who uses only one name, was taken away from his home by authorities shortly after midnight, with family members saying authorities told them the 45-year-old had been “called in for temporary questioning.”

Zarganar, along with actor Kyaw Thu and poet Aung Way, led a committee that provided food and other necessities to the Buddhist monks who have spearheaded the protests. He earlier had been imprisoned twice and his comedy routines were banned for their satirical jokes about the regime.

It is encouraging that, this time around, the junta is merely gassing the monks, shooting over their heads and hauling them away in trucks. Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu and Laura Bush have all spoken out about the situation and President Bush yesterday announced new, tighter sanctions on the regime.

Sharp-eyed reader Jeffrey Nealy tipped us off to the above paragraphs!

Their MySpace profile describes Kamikaze Komedy thusly:

We are Lars and Powermann, two up and coming comics from Edmonton and we will be your guides to the world of local national and international stand up comedy... we are Kamikaze Komedy

The one on the left is Powermann; Lars is on the right.
The show airs every Wednesday evening at Midnight (MT) from Edmonton's CJSR, and you can listen via the internet.

The Male Half will guest tomorrow night, starting at 2 AM EDT/11 PM PDT! Tune in! We'll be talking about all things comedy.

From FOS Don Munro comes word of an article in the Sydney Morning Herald about the new Shorter Oxford English Dictionary:

Hyphens are the latest casualty of the internet age, with more than 16,000 words losing their hyphens in a new edition of the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary published this week. Bumble-bee is now bumblebee, ice-cream is ice cream and pot-belly is pot belly. And if you've got a problem, don't be such a crybaby.

Doubles that have become one include pigeonhole, leapfrog, chickpea, lowlife, and touchline, while the twos include fig leaf, hobby horse, test tube and water bed.

The dictionary blames electronic communication, which favours speed over grammatical correctness. "People are not confident about using hyphens anymore," said Angus Stevenson, editor of the new edition.

"They're not really sure what they are for. It will probably upset a few people but the point I would make is that we are only reflecting widespread everyday use. We are not saying it should be dropped completely."

Munro knows that we knocked the hyphen out of stand-up when we published our first edition of SHECKYmagazine.com back on April 1, 1999. We did so for purely selfish reasons-- we knew that, if the magazine took off, we'd be typing that word thousands of times, so why not eliminate a few thousand keystrokes?! (Plus, while we're pretty speedy on the keyboard and we are adept at no-look touchtyping, we still goof up the hyphen with regularity!)

Originally, the decision hurt us, as the search engines insisted on making the fine distinction between the two versions of the word-- our mag didn't come up very high in the results when folks searched for "stand-up." Improvements in search engine algorithms and more of an acceptance of the unhyphenated version have solved that problem!

From a Reuters account of the speech by Holocaust-denier and budding standup comic Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, comes the following priceless nugget:

When Ahmadinejad, speaking in Farsi, actually tried to crack a joke, it drew no laughter, although maybe the nuance was lost in translation.

"Let me tell a joke here," Ahmadinejad said. "I think the politicians who are after atomic bombs, or testing them, making them, politically they are backward, retarded."

The crowd seemed uncertain how to react. Some applauded that pacifist sentiment, others seemed befuddled by the insensitive use of the word retarded.

Emphasis ours.

The pint-sized terror supporter violated Rule Number 3 of Kip Addotta's three rules of joke telling:

1. Commit to the joke

2. Go THROUGH the joke

3. Never ask permission to tell the joke

Of course, he's working the room at Columbia, so his biggest error is using the word "retarded." The Holocaust denial, the support of terrorism, the execution of homosexuals-- it all takes a back seat to the use of an insensitive word like retarded. Rookie!

If he wanted to end on a big laugh, he should have knocked off the comedy after he claimed that there is no homosexuality in Iran!

The Times-Picayune fielded this question from a reader, "Does New Orleans have any good comedy clubs, where you can have a drink and hear some good jokes?" The answer serves as a mini Market Review of New Orleans.

Baba Ali is a filmmaker and part of Ummah Films, "a Muslim film company that strives to provide Halaal (Islamically permissible) entertainment to Muslims and non-Muslims alike." He blogged about his recent decision to take standup comedy classes.

I recently decided to take a standup class with the hope it will make me more comfortable speaking at events. Alhamdulillah it seems to be working and I have a great teacher (a comedian from Last Comic Standing). Now I'm actually starting to enjoy the class and once in a while I get on stage and do standup. One thing I have learned that many people who are naturally funny aren't funny on stage and that many people who you may come across dull off stage are actually really funny on stage. It's weird.

Following Ali's musings on his approach to standup are several encouraging comments from the blog's readers. Then there's this one:

Dear brother in Islam, I hope you will be able to read this knowing that you have so many things on your hands. Bidhnillah, there will be some sort of benefit in my following advice.

When you began this ummahfilms productions, it was amazing and yet not something that resembled kuffar imitation. However, when I came to realize that you did stand up comedy, well that seemed the first step of shaytan to me. Things like 'Allah made me funny' are just plain wrong. Honestly, brother, do you think that Abu Bakr and Bilal would do stand up comedy (forget that, would they even allow it)? Brother Ali, I am simply saying this out of concern. Reconsider what you`re doing. Will making people laugh help you on the Day of Judgement? Isnt it true that too mucn (sic) laughing kills the heart? wallahu Alem.

(For those of you following along at home, "shaytan" means Satan and "kuffar" means, variously, unbelievers, infidels, deniers or blasphemers.)

It is widely believed that the above statement about laughter is a direct quote from the prophet Prophet Muhammad. And the following is a popular interpretation of that part of the Koran that deals specifically with levity and joking:

The necessary condition for the permissibility of joking is that it does not contain lies or cause fright to a Muslim or a non-Muslim citizen, because this hurts others, and we are forbidden to do so.

Excessive joking is blameworthy and forbidden, since it eliminates one's dignity and reserve, and creates resentment in certain situations and people. It also causes immoderate laughter, which kills the heart.

Sean L. McCarthy, writing for the NYDN, interviews Dane Cook. It is notable because McCarthy gets Cook to address the "backlash" against Cook, Mencia and Whitney, inside and outside the business.

Obviously, I can't speak for Larry or Carlos. I don't really even know them well enough to comment on how they handle their business. I know with me, people are going to gun for you when you're going up that ladder. People might look and say, oh, your trajectory! I look and say, it's been 17 years that it's been slow and steady wins the race. To have people coming out right now and being in attack mode, it's in a very twisted way, it's flattering. Because you know that the GQ editor, there's going to be a new guy there in a few months, and he's going to love you and he's going to write an article about you and put you on the cover. Then six months after that the next guy's going to think that you’re the worst thing ever. Rolling Stone did it to me. It was like they put me on the cover said funniest guy, genius marketer, then there was a guy who wrote an expose six months later, said I'm the worst thing to ever happen to comedy. I cut them both out, I framed them and I put them in my office. That's what a career is.

It's a huge interview and, if you scroll through and read the whole thing, you're rewarded with Cook addressing the whole Louis CK issue.

The Male Half has been stopped on the street four times over the past two weeks (twice today alone!) by people who notice his shirt (see shirt here if you must) that has the Just For Laughs logo on the front. He got it for free by playing in the Industry vs. Artist Basketball game at the Just For Laughs Fest a few years back.

These folks who stop him are unaware of any festival, however. They are huge fans of the television show that bears the same name as the fest and which is produced by the same people who produce the fest. According to the Nielsen ratings, the show has been a big hit this summer.

And, if getting stopped on the street is any indication, the show has struck a bigger chord than can be determined by the numbers in any ratings journals. These people are thrilled by the show. One woman, at the Walgreen's, said it's "one of the best TV shows she's ever seen."

It makes perfect sense. Candid Camera (and, before it, Candid Microphone) was a huge hit, a cultural phenomenon. The words "candid camera" and the name Allen Funt became part of the language. It disappeared eventually.

There was a vacuum. One which wasn't filled by Punk'd or The Jamie Kennedy Experiment or Borat.

An AP item is one of the Most Viewed News Stories. It tells of an Air America radio host, Cenk Uygur, who provides evidence, via a YouTube clip, that his "debating Republicans sound like Klingons" joke was ripped off by Colbert Report host Stephen Colbert.

There is every likelihood that a Trekkie is employed on the Colbert Report writing staff (if not several!). But, there is also a good chance that one or more CR staffers listens to Air America and/or has watched some or all of the 874 webisodes of the Young Turks YouTube clips that feature Uygur's commentary. It's a tough call.

But, after reading some of the 151 comments left on the YouTube clip, maybe it's not such a tough call after all. This one, from someone calling himself "Frumpy Jones," is interesting (and, as the attorneys might say, "dispositive"):

A few things:

1) Instead of suing him you should send him a fruit basket for the thoughtful lesson in HOW TO TELL A FUNNY JOKE

2) I actually said the Klingon joke to my wife DURING the debate (And even THAT was funnier than yours). Should I sue you now?

3) I feel sorry for you that you are trying to drum up publicity for your show like this. From the snippet I've seen, I plan to not tune in.

As for Uygur's attempt to drum up publicity, he has succeeded and failed-- We note that the online AP story carries a photo of Colbert but no pic of Uygur. Who wins that round?

But, when one considers that Uygur's clips normally get somewhere in the neighborhood of 500 to 3,000 views-- and that his Colbert challenge clip has garnered, at last count, 15,748-- perhaps that round is a tie.

Uygur may yet have his day in the sun: A CR spokesperson said Colbert, "will most likely address it on the show." So, there is every possibility that the faux conservative pundit will have Uygur on the show for a faux grilling/showdown. If that happens, you can score one for the plucky liberal talker.

J. Ridewood, interviews Steven Wright for the UT Austin Daily Texan on the occasion of the impending release of Wright's second album, "I Still Have A Pony," and the tour to support same.

"I realized that there is a whole generation who was born after my last album. I thought I could reach a whole new audience."

Writing and performing jokes is a fluid process for Wright. He explains that he is "always adding things, taking stuff off. Good jokes slowly evolve through touring."

He does, however, employ a simple technique for rooting out the jokes. If he tells a joke three times and each time it doesn't go over well, then he'll scrap it. He promises that his new album consists of the jokes that stood the test of time.

Wright's career trajectory has been unlike any other. Over two decades, he has starred in a watershed HBO special, created an Oscar-winning short, released a seminal album, appeared in small roles in another 15 films, produced another film, starred in another HBO special. It seems like a lot when it's all lumped together like that, but when you consider that it was spread out over 22 years, it's positively Joseph Heller-like. Yet Wright remains, mainly by virtue of his first LP and his first special, one of the most influential and recognizable comedians of all time.

Kathleen Grohman, writing for the Santa Clara University undergrad weekly, gives an account of a Welcome Weekend show headlined by Jamie Kennedy and opened by "his friend Bill Dawes."

Still, Kennedy's jokes were not as vulgar as those of Dawes.

Dawes told his fair share of racist jokes, gay jokes and every other type of crude joke imaginable, but in the end, he gave a poignant reminder that they are just jokes and not meant to offend anyone. Although there were a few sullen faces amidst the laughing crowd, many students expected political incorrectness.

Sullen faces? (The Female Half says, "Ya know what colleges need these days? Drugs!") Why are these mopey types even showing up for the comedy shows? Are they wise/mature beyond their years? Or are they just being groomed to be professional worriers and complainers majoring in World Saving with a minor in Guilt-Induced Fund-Raising? In our day, we called these people party poopers... or worse. (Hint: It begins with an "A" and ends with "hole.") Stay back in the dorm. Play some night hacky sack. Add a couple more unicorns to your MySpace profile. When the gang from down the hall stops by and asks if you wanna go to the comedy show-- Just Say No!

The article ends with a quote from a student-- "Everyone knows a stereotype is a stereotype and not true for everyone." Duh! This kid's got some good drugs!

It's official. Jon Reep is the winner of this season's Last Comic Standing. (The Male Half picked Reep to take it all from the very beginning.) We congratulate Mr. Reep and we also congratulate Mr. Crawford and all the folks who appeared on the show this season.

The two-hour finale was... two hours!

Bellamy Bill looked like a wishbone wrapped in aluminum foil. The two-hour extravaganza managed to pack about 20 minutes of actual watchable television into a 120-minute slot. It's television magic! Bellamy Bill's hosting was particularly mediocre tonight, making us even more depressed that he's returning to host in '08. The man has no sense of drama or pacing. He's all one-note. He starts out with adrenalin squirting from his ears and, by the end, he's still screaming, only by this time, we don't care any more. This is the exact opposite of what a host should do.

We thought that LCS was capable of making only comics look bad. Tonight, they managed to make the USC Marching Band look bad. The USA Marching Band! How did they manage that?! They sounded like holy hell as they marched into the theater!

Carrot Top crushed! The copper-haired prop comic has been hustling lately-- on the Jerry Lewis Labor Day Telethon, Mind Freak, the Flavor Flav Roast on Comedy Central-- perhaps it's necessary to pack the Luxor. Whatever the reason, he crushes in each appearance and tonight was certainly no exception. He deserves credit, considering all the snarky things that are said about him in greenrooms (and even on talkshows!)-- he comes out, time after time, with new material, and slays.

Robert Schimmel came out and did perhaps the darkest set in the show's history, and, quite possibly, in the history of primetime.

Sprinkled throughout the broadcast were The Top Ten Biggest Laughs on LCS-- counting down by showing ten separate bits from ten different comics. Who hell chose these bits? We've seen these comics do much funnier bits than the ones they trotted out tonight. We've seen them do them on this very show! It's not like there was some sort of licensing problem! It is truly mystifying.

One particularly agonizing segment was the One-Liners thing they did-- lining up the Bottom Eight and setting the clock at 2:00, then having each comic in turn do a one-liner. Nothing makes a comic look better, huh?! It was excruciating and pointless but, at least it made the comics look incompetent! (And that, after all, seems to be the point of the show this evening.)

To quote Ant, "Somebody has to tell the truth." One lackluster segment had the three Celebrity Talent Scouts from this season lined up onstage on stools, being "interviewed" by Bellamy Bill, interspliced with a few video clip strolls down memory lane. The loving tribute to Ant merely re-affirmed the truth-- He might be the luckiest person in show business.

Dane Cook swaggered onto the stage (after we were shown a short clip from "Good Luck Chuck") and said some nice things about the two finalists. But... he didn't do any standup! He's a movie star now! This had to be delicious for him. All the abuse he's taken from the standup community fades to a faint memory as the man is invited to appear on LCS, just before the exciting climax-- representing the current pinnacle of standup success; representing standup itself!-- and all he has to do is say some nice things about the two comic who "have a bright future ahead of them!" And then... Exit! Stage right!

The roast was hacked into two segments-- one devoted to roasting Crawford, one to roasting Reep. It was taped September 11, so they had seven days to hack it into bits and slap it all back together again into it's final, sorry form. The comics were all funny, but the editing ripped the balls off of the affair and sucked a lot of the interest out of it. Next time, more roast, fewer puppets!

Now... what is the deal with the fucking puppets?!? It's the biggest night of your life... now you have to talk to foul-mouthed puppets backstage. What is with TV producers that they feel the need to wedge puppets into every other project? It's like a sickness. Every every other project you say? Damn near. The reason you don't see them in everything from the nightly news to the farm report is that, eventually folks come to their senses and lose the puppets. But they try. Heck, the first season of Saturday Night Live had puppets! It's never funny and it just brings the proceedings to a screeching halt. Enough already with the puppets!

It is hoped that, lame as this season was, it inspires the folks at home to go to a comedy club (or a casino, or a theater) and see comedy the way it should be seen-- Live the way it is meant to be seen. Nothing else compares to it. Sit in the front row. Go often. See your favorites, see someone you've never heard of before. Just go and see it.

Burgess Meredith was, of course, speaking of a boxer. But it holds true for many occupations, including standup comic.

A manager! There's a MySpace bulletin ricocheting around the internet that contains details on a free seminar on how to get a manager.

Wednesday, September 19 at 5:30 PM

Topic: Managers and How to Get One

Panel
Chris Mazzilli, Gotham Comedy Club Owner
Ben Carrizzo, Command Performance Entertainment
Rick Dorfman, Relevant Entertainment
Tom Ingegno, Omnipop

COST: FREE

For more information please visit www.gothamcomedyclub.com or call 212.367.9000.

Gotham Comedy Club is located at 208 W. 23rd Street, between 7th & 8th Avenues.

The Minneapolis television stations are reporting that the infamous bathroom at the MSP airport where US Sen. Larry Craig inappropriately conducting himself back in June has become somewhat of a tourist attraction.

The Male Half is flying into that very airport this Friday (Jetting to the Twin Cities to appear at this Friday through Sunday at The Joke Joint in Bloomington!), so he is going to try to get a photo of the storied john either upon his arrival or his departure!

Attention all Minneapolitan/St. Paulian SHECKYmagazine.com fans: Come on out to see The Male Half in his first Minneapolis appearance in nearly 15 years! The Joke Joint is at the Ramada Mall Of America, right next to the airport.

FOS Terry Reilly forwards a link to a syndicated LAT column entitled "The Sitcom is Dead; Long Live Hybrid Humor" by Mary McNamara. She takes the occasion of the impending premiere of Back to You to ruminate on the state of the sitcom. It's rather like a relative speculating on funeral arrangements within earshot of the patient; a patient who is still quite alive and who will most likely leave the hospital upright.

Throughout the ten-year battle that has been waged against the sitcom, one ridiculous term after another has been coined, one lame concept after another has been advanced as the successor to the sitcom. As soon as it's... you know... dead.

We've had the Dramedy (a cross between a drama and a comedy!), which was so much better because, well, they weren't so stridently and obviously going for the laughs!

Then there was the glorification of the one-camera shoot over the multicamera shoot, which was better because, well, it was less like a sitcom and, well, we didn't have to put up with that live studio audience cheering and hooting!

Then there was the unscripted comedy, which was so much better than the tightly scripted, setup/punchline sitcom, because, well, because the laughs were subtle and the humor wasn't so broad and the actors were improvising and... Look-- if we have to explain it to you, you just don't get it.

Now, there is Hybrid Humor.

"There's plenty of perfectly hilarious writing and acting on television, it just isn't marked 'comedy,'" says McNamara. She cites the CW's Reaper as "the test version of the new humor hybrid rising from the ashes of the sitcom." The specific example of Hybrid Humor she trots out-- a supposedly hilarious exchange between two character-- is comedy for people who hate comedy. It's all cool and ironic and, ultimately, not all that gut-busting funny.

Alliteration is about all this concept has going for it.

McNamara now champions "shows that do not pause for three seconds after the joke, shows that don't acknowledge there's been a joke at all." Ah, yes! The "Aren't we clever>" school of comedy that the critics love and the viewers go to great lengths to avoid! That's the ticket!

McNamara asks, "So who really cares if the sitcom is extinct?... Will we really miss the irritating bray of the studio audience?"

When did the laughter of a live studio audience become an irritant? That's twice in three days we've seen this. The HR's Barry Garron said, "Only the superior acting and writing of Back To You will keep them from becoming bored by the format and annoyed with the studio laughter." Are these TV critics all receiving talking points? Who is annoyed by the sound of human laughter? Satan comes to mind. Only the most cynical, the most crotchety are annoyed by the sound of other human beings enjoying a good yock. Only, apparently the television critics.

Perhaps that's why they like shows that aren't... all... that... funny!

They're all going to look like fools when the next multicamera sitcom comes along and dominates television and subsequently spawns a long line of imitators. It will happen. It may not be Back To You that is the watershed series, but one will come along.

And, because they hate the sound of outright guffawing, their lives will be made miserable for several long TV seasons. The poor dears.

On our recent trip to Seattle, to perform in that city's Mainstage Comedy Club, we had the pleasure of meeting and working with some of the comedians who form the People's Republic of Komedy. They were enthusiastic about standup and they weren't about to sit around and wait for someone to give them stage time-- they produced their own weekly showcase, The Laff Hole. Along the way, they've learned a thing or two about the business, the art, the craft of standup. And they've picked up some ink-- most recently, making the Organization Shortlist in the Annual Genius Awards issue of The Stranger, a Seattle entertainment alt-rag.

The Stranger described the PROK as a "four-man comedy collective" who "obliterated The Stranger's legendary, decade-long... bias against local comedy and turned us into relentlessly vocal proponents."

At the very least, The Stranger admits to the bias.

But the brief piece on the PROK also contains this:

Live comedy is always a crapshoot, and PROK's weekly showcase-- Laff Hole, Wednesdays at Chop Suey-- isn't immune to bombing comics. But the ultimate worth of any collaborative comedic venture can be calculated by a simple equation: Does it rock more than it sucks? Week after week, PROK's Laff Hole rocks way more than it sucks-- a small miracle that's placed PROK members Daniel Carroll, Kevin Hyder, Emmett Montgomery, and Scott Moran at the center of Seattle's blooming alterna-comedy scene.

Okay. A compliment... sort of. A backhanded compliment counts as a compliment. But then, there's this:

On his own, each of the dudes is funny; together, they're hilarious, managing the remarkable trick of being four twentysomething white guys with identifiably different comedic styles.

Now they've veered from being merely biased into being stunningly dumb and boorish. Can anyone explain the difference between this statement and, maybe, "All those Def Comedy Jam comics are the same to me." or "You know, I can't tell them Asian comics apart!"

The Stranger, for all its hipness and coolness, ultimately tends to sound like the blue-haired grandma or the beer-swilling lout, incapable or unwilling to make distinctions between hard-working artists because... well, because they're all white and male. And you know... they're all... the same!

We wouldn't want to spoil what is, for the PROK, a triumph-- being mentioned as a contender for a Genius Award is a major deal. But we would like to suggest that the folks at The Stranger grow up a little and not only acknowledge their hideous bias, but take some pains to actually get rid of it. All it would take is some critical thinking.

The LAT profiled Jeff Garlin because he wrote, directed and stars in "I Want Someone To Eat Cheese With."

The piece is capped by this quote on why he continues doing standup comedy:

"It keeps me creative," he says. "It is like the equivalent of other people doing crossword puzzles. It keeps me young and vibrant. I started doing stand-up when I was 20 years old. I never thought one of the big motivations to do it would be to keep me young."

Check out the SHECKYmagazine Garlin interview, done in January of 2004, here.

Amy Schumer was interviewed in the Pocono Record, on the occasion of the LCS Tour hitting the Caesars location in that stubby Pennsylvania mountain range.

When asked how hard it is to be a woman in standup comedy, she replied:

I actually think I've gotten more opportunities because I'm a woman. It's still hard, but it's hard to be any minority comedian. And actually, it's just as hard to be a middle-aged, white comedian. I have friends who get told all the time they can't get on stage because the club already has too many white stand-ups.

This is a 180-degree turn from her Episode 10 statement, for which we took her to task.

Schumer is unashamedly flogging this female sympathy vote thing-- "Women have to be twice as funny to get half the credit." Either she believes it... or she's cynically pandering to get the female/eunuch vote. Either way, it's revolting.

Barry Garron, writing about television for Reuters, reviews the new Fox series Back to You.

And now, our favorite paragraph:

The multicamera format adds to the show's familiar, as well as conventional, feel. It's what creators Steve Levitan and Christopher Lloyd know best, but it might be tiresome to a growing number of younger viewers. Only the superior acting and writing of Back to You will keep them from becoming bored by the format and annoyed with the studio laughter. Maybe we've reached the point where no comedy can revive the multicamera format and the best one can do is overcome it.

Emphasis ours.

Yes that's right: the "multicamera format" is dead, says the TV reviewer who daydreams about being a television executive. Why, just the other day we overheard a gaggle of twenty-somethings complaining about how tiresome the multicamera format is! And how annoyed they were by studio laughter! Is it any wonder the multicamera format is toast?!?

Let's see if we have this straight-- Younger viewers are mesmerized by superior acting and writing? This is what will keep them from becoming bored? The same people who watch Survivor, Big Brother and any of the dozen or so shows based on people forgetting the lyrics to songs are utterly incapable of making such fine distinctions. They are un-bore-able! The execs and the reviewers give them far too much credit. They'll watch a funny sitcom if someone tells them to or if they find it funny themselves.

The death of the sitcom is overstated and the coroner's report is utter nonsense. It is the pack mentality of Hollywood gone amok. Up until just recently, the multicamera format ruled television. Who declared it dead? The viewers? Certainly not. The execs did.

Sure, Scrubs, The Office, My Name Is Earl, 30 Rock are doing okay. (But only okay. On last night's Emmy broadcast, 30 Rock creator Tina Fey said she'd "like to thank our dozens of viewers.")

On the other hand, Two And A Half Men is kicking ass. The New Adventures of Old Christine is a top ten hit. The recently departed King of Queens was a solid performer, as was Everybody Loves Raymond. But one cannot honestly say the format is "dead" or that viewers find it "tiresome." The television execs, with their herd mentality (and helped along by the reviewers), are the sorriest gang of timid yes-men the planet has ever seen. And once a multicamera sitcom (inexplicably?!?!) reaches the top of the ratings, they'll scramble to be the first to say they never believed the format was dead in the first place!

And Back To You might be the one that turns the ship around. It's got Kelsey Grammer, Patricia Heaton, Fred Willard, James Burrows, Christopher Lloyd, Steve Levitan, a classic backdrop, a simple yet ripe premise.

It seems there are a lot of comics making movies these days. We decide to create a group on MySpace, a place where comics can share information about making, uploading and promoting their video creations, and we called it "Comicus Directus."

We cordially invite any comics who have made a video (or are contemplating the making of one) to hop on and join the group!

The film below was written and directed by Rye Silverman and Bill Arrundale. As they explain on YouTube:

This video was created for the 40th birthday of Dave Stroupe, manager of the Columbus Funnybone Comedy Club, and booker for many other clubs. It originally played at a surprise roast put on at the club on September 10th, 2007. Some of the jokes are inside jokes, but a few comics have requested that I post it online, so here it is.

Silverman and Arrundale are not yet members of Comicus Directus, but we hope they join.

From AP:

A television writer and producer paid $10,200 for what an animal rights group said are notes from football star Michael Vick's speech apologizing for a dogfighting scandal.

Carol Leifer made the winning bid for the notes sold by the Humane Society of the United States. Leifer is a writer and co-executive producer of Rules of Engagement, a CBS comedy.

The Humane Society auctioned them off after an HSUS employee "found the notes when he retrieved his microphone from the hotel podium where Vick delivered his apology Aug. 27."

It's Friday! We're making our weekly plea to help us revise the Comedy Club List!

We're keeping up with the changes that you folks have sent in! Keep those revisions coming and check back to make sure that we get the information right.

Here's the CLUB LIST REVISION FORM

Here's the CLUB LIST

We're still seeking information on full-time or weekend clubs only. (And, much as we'd like to add improv clubs, our focus is on standup and standup only. And, we simply can't add anyone-nighters.)

If you see information on a club on the list that needs updating, please fill out the form and send us the updated information!

We seek basic, important info like:

Club Name
Club Address
Club's Website URL
Club's Reservations Phone
Booker Contact Info

Thanks to all who send along information, we hope to make the list up-to-date and comprehensive!

A list like this one, when it's finally updated, will be a boon to the comedy fan, the comedy club itself and, of course, to comedians.

Thanks!

The Female Half was surfing the internet yesterday morning when she responded to a MySpace bulletin offering free pairs of tickets to the Paolo Nutini concert across the river at the TLA, which the new owner, LiveNation, now calls the Fillmore at the TLA. Apparently, LiveNation does this sort of giveaway thing with some frequency, sending out bulletins to other MySpacers to create excitement and liquor sales for impending concerts.

We were only passingly familiar with Nutini, the 20-year-old singer/sonwriter from Scotland whose hit song and video, "New Shoes," swept the world late last year. When we were staying at the Hilton in Atlanta last month, the in-house channel repeatedly played a series of interviews with creative folks, in which they talked about concepts like home, travel, creativity, etc. They then had them sing a tune-- some sort of obtuse marketing campaign that marries creativity, travel, hotels and Hilton(?)-- and Nutini was among the artists they grilled. During his segment, he does a rather compelling version of "New Shoes" accompanied only by his mate on an acoustic guitar. We ended up watching the damn thing about a dozen times or more, so catchy and so mesmerizing was his quirky performance.

So, when we had a chance to see the young man live, we couldn't pass it up.

The TLA was formerly a repertory cinema on Philadelphia's famous South Street, but hasn't been for quite some time. (The Male Half actually performed there once, when it was still a movie house-- opening for the movie "Airplane!")

They husked it out, fitted it with a bar and it plays host to several acts a month, from Squeeze to Twiztid to Toots & The Maytalls. Next month, The Comedians of Comedy Tour comes in on the 28th. It holds about 1,000 bodies, all general admission, all standing room only.

Nutini took the stage promptly at 10. (The openers, The Virgins, did a pleasant, if somewhat perfunctory half-hour set, starting at 9.)

It's hard to believe he's 20. He's got the voice (and the stage presence) of someone three times his age. You gotta give him credit for doing The Big Hit only two songs into the show. It wouldn't surprise us if 90 per cent of the audience owned the debut album, as many of them (mainly the girls) sang along to many of the numbers.

His onstage manner is quirky, but it works. He reminded us somewhat of Mitch Hedberg, had Hedberg been a rocker instead of a comedian. The simple three-piece band is as good as any we've seen and he does some unexpected covers-- Harry Nilsson's "Everybody's Talking At Me" and "I Wanna Be Like You" from Disney's Jungle Book to name just two. (It was the latter choice that made us realize his voice is a bizarre cross between Al Green and Louis Prima?!?) He did an hour, then came out and did a ten-minute encore. Thoroughly enjoyable. From here he's headed to Austin. He's taping Austin City Limits, which should make him an even bigger star here in the states.

Marc Unger emailed us to stress that he is not one of the owners of Magooby's, though the article (and our posting) may have made it appear so.

Punchlines in Parkville is the title of the Baltimore Sun article on the grand re-opening of a comedy club in suburban Baltimore called Magooby's. Formerly Tracy's at the Bowman, the club is launching this weekend under the new name and management.

The article tells of brothers, Andrew and Marc Unger, who saw potential in the withering venue, which had been offering comedy for the better part of the past two decades. Andrew is a radio show host, Marc is a standup comic.

Andrew Unger said Tracy's, which has been in operation as a comedy and nightclub for more than 20 years, had some definite potential. With the help of his colleagues, he made a variety of changes to the club's appearance, promotions and service.

"Tracy's looked a lot like a banquet room," Unger said. "We wanted to ... give the place a more upscale feel."

It's a story being repeated over and over lately. If you refurbish it, they will come.

So often, comedy club owners or managers will live for many years with an acceptable level of empty seats, dismal decor and a generally unenthusiastic staff. So gradual is the decline that they fail to recognize it until it is too late. (Even comedians can fall into the same rut with regard to material or performance.)

It takes a new pair of eyes (and, often, deep pockets!) to identify the problem and realize the potential. It's encouraging to see a venerable venue taken over and made over. The enthusiasm, regardless of whether it's partially amped up for the benefit of the media, is good to see. The Ungers' tale should serve as a wakeup call to anyone sitting atop a moribund comedy club.

Dan Conlin, quoted in the Peoria Journal Star article on the Jukebox Comedy Club's open mike night:

"If a comedy club doesn't have a place where aspiring comics can try it, I don't know how else they could see what it takes," he said. Comedy isn't something you can try out in front of the mirror or in your living room; aspiring comics need to get up on a stage and see if they can connect with a crowd.

Conlin gets it. And so, apparently, does the article's author, Danielle Hatch. Her copy is blessedly free of the usual cliches and the article is evenhanded and informative.

We're not so sure about open miker Casey DeFauw, retail manager for a local video store:

DeFauw was on stage telling a joke and the audience went silent after the punch line.

"Get it? Get it?" DeFauw prompted, but the audience didn't.

"I've told that joke before and murdered crowds," DeFauw said after the show. "I think the crowd that night probably would have preferred if I just went up there and rehashed Larry the Cable Guy."

Do we detect frustration and bitterness creeping in already?

But DeFauw, who is participating in the club's annual, multi-week amateur tourney, seems more introspective later on in the story, "You just tell the joke," he said. "When I first started, I'd get genuinely flustered. I'd freeze, would forget my next joke, wouldn't know what to do. But you just gotta keep going."

Cheers to the PJStar for a decent account, giving a few aspiring comics a nice clip for that important first press kit.

A press release from XM Satellite Radio trumpe