When we were young comedy sprouts, just hanging out at the Comedy Factory Outlet in Philadelphia, one of our favorite headliners (and favorite persons) was Dr. Will Miller. Of course, he wasn't a doctor back then, just "Bill Miller."

That was four graduate degrees ago.

Now, he's "an extraordinary keynote speaker," and "a recognized expert in the area of interpersonal relationships, organizational health and workplace culture." (He's also a therapist and teacher at Purdue University where he lectures at the schools of Organizational Leadership, Management and Mass Communication on the social environment of the workplace and the impact on productivity.) He's come a long way since the NYC-PHL-D.C. comedy club circuit and he now resides in bucolic splendor in Indiana.

The Female Half's Brother recently attended a work-related conference in central Pennsylvania last week where the extraordinary keynote speaker was... Dr. Will Miller! What a small world we live in! The Female Half's Brother tended bar at the Comedy Factory Outlet back in the day, so he too had the privelege of knowing Miller. They chatted on a few occasions over the course of the conference and the FHB got to see Miller's rather inventive and entertaining presentation.

Even though he deals with some heavy (and potentially yawn-inducing) subjects, Miller has continued to keep the sense of humor front and center. His turn as resident psychologist and spokesman for Nick At Nite was popular and wildly entertaining. He carries on the tradition of using iconic television sitcom characters to shed light on our own psychological and social dilemmas on his "Pop Culture Journal," which is the front-page blog component to his sprawling website.

This week's entries explore, in a riotous fashion, such diverse topics as "Sue Ann Niven and Repression" and "What Does Your Halloween Costume Say About You." A blog that's well worth bookmarking and visiting frequently!

David Alan Grier, quoted on BostonNow.com, on the occasion of his upcoming weekend at the Comedy Connection at Faneuil Hall:

I never thought I'd do comedy in a club. I thought maybe I'd have to do it for a few weeks to get noticed and get on TV, but once I was on TV I wouldn't need to do it any more. I really looked down on those guys until one day Damon Wayans told me how much money he made the doing standup one weekend in Buffalo. Overnight my respect for standup blossomed and I couldn't wait to get out on the road.

Pumping the upcoming Pink Panther sequel and his recent kid's book (which he co-wrote), Steve Martin is quoted on ContactMusic.com:

It really requires a complete dedication; you can't just go out for a month, you have to go out for 11 months. You have to do it every night to stay fresh and hot. Whenever I would do (American TV's) The Tonight Show I would always work the night before because I found that if I didn't, I would be that less sharp, even after one day off.

Stephen Colbert appeared at Cornell last Friday. Read the review by Mary Thomas. Then read the comments by "Anonymous." Thomas is the darkest of clouds writing for the Cornell Daily Sun.

You thought today's college students were prissy, over-sensitive self-esteem engines, get a load of one of today's college newspaper entertainment writers! She is fifty words into the review of Colbert's appearance before she mentions the crowd's "dog-like admiration for the comedian." WTF?!?

They say "Never send a boy to do a man's job." Well, never send a humorless prig to do a comedy review. This review is a trainwreck. It's like sending radical feminist to review the local gentleman's club.

Another underwhelming aspect of the evening was when two hallmarks of tacky college events, the t-shirt cannon and college mascot, made appearances during Colbert’s performance. They were out of place, derivative and somewhat insulting to the intelligence of the audience.

Since when is the school mascot "insulting to the intelligence" of any college student? And what is her problem with a t-shirt cannon? What person-- of any age, race, color, creed or demographic-- can't love a t-shirt cannon?

Amazing.

Helen Herimbi, writing about entertainment in South Africa for Tonight, previews Wednesday nights "Blacks Only" in Johannesburg.

Blacks Only founder, David Kau, is quick to explain why his show, which happens for the last time this year on Wednesday, is titled as such.

"The whole idea is to give black comics an opportunity to perform to a black audience and should they wish to, perform in a language other than English," says the seasoned stand-up comedian.

Arguably the first black stand-up comedian to make it big in South Africa, Kau decided to take the attention that he was given and channel it in the direction of other aspiring comedians whose hues are darker than John Vlismas.

Some American, British and Canadian comics often view themselves as bravely tackling their countries tough social and political problems onstage. Imagine doing standup in a country that's only 13 years into democracy.

Regarding the above reference to John Vlismas: Vlismas, for those of you not intimately familiar with South African comedy scene, is probably the most successful white South African comedian, making him the caucasian counterpart to Kau.

An article in the Columbus Dispatch from last week tells of a film written and produced by Dino Tripodis entitled "The Funny Man." Tripodis is a comedian who also co-hosts a morning radio show in Columbus. The film premiered at that city's Funny Bone club last Thursday night.

"I just thought, to get off on the right foot, The Funny Man should be shown at the Funny Bone," Tripodis said.

The movie, he said, is "about a self-destructive comic struggling with where he's at in life -- not only careerwise but personally as well."

"It's a drama, not a comedy-- even though there's humor in it."

Tripodis has submitted the film to the Sundance Film Festival in Utah.

We premiered at the Bone in Columbus last Tuesday and Wednesday night-- and we would have stuck around to see the showing had we not been booked to appear in Erie the following three nights.

The Columbus Bone is a glittering, upscale club in the heart of the Easton Town Center, a sprawling complex of hotels and residential, retail, and commercial buildings constructed midway on the eastern part of the beltway that surrounds Ohio's capital. We had healthy crowds (and a near-sellout-- on a Wednesday!) and we also had the pleasure of working with Austin's Doug Mellard and Rye Silverman (whose film, "Chasing Stroupe" was co-produced with Bill Arrundale). It was also great to finally meet 20-year-plus veteran and Cleveland native Rick Tempesta who is the house emcee. We've seen Tempesta's name on countless bills over the years but never actually worked with him.

The Columbus Bone's reputation as a top-drawer room is well-deserved. It runs like clockwork and the average Columbus standup fan has a blast. Attention all comedy club managers and owners: Spend a weekend at the Columbus Funny Bone and take extensive notes. Use this room as a template. It rarely, if ever, gets better than this.

We proceeded to Erie on Thursday to work at Jr.'s-- that's two clubs we've never worked before in one week. We worked with Rochester's Ralph Tetta and the crowds are known far and wide as being attentive, comedy savvy and explosive. We will attest to that.

Jamie Lissow stopped in on his way back to his hotel Friday night, after gigging on the Penn State Erie campus. We kicked around the topics of college gigs, crowd demographics and his recent experiences on the Nobodies of Comedy tour.

This is Stanley McHale, columnist for the Liverpool Echo and allegedly a standup comic for the past decade. Her latest work is "If you don't want job be a comedian." We're not sure, but we think it's satirical. Although it's written so badly, it's hard to know. (But it's so utterly vicious, it had better be satire.)

Comedy is God's way of giving idiots as great a chance in life as regular people.

It's a job that, by its very nature, allows you to have virtually no responsibility. I know comedians who resent having to go to a simple meeting during the day because the whole reason they became a comedian in the first place is so their entire day was free of any burdens or dependability.

She goes on to say more unflattering things about comics, comparing them to monkeys, painting them as juvenile nitwits, drunks, emotional wrecks. Nothing positive. (We were always told in writing classes to mix things up a little... provide a little contrast, a little texture, lest someone take the satire the wrong way. There's no indication that McHale is kidding in the least. We kept waiting for the "But seriously folks..." paragraph and it never came. It's curiously void of any humor or wit-- strange, considering it's written by someone who claims to have been a comedian.)

The punchline is that McHale is going to be a judge tonight at a comedy competition. She exhorts Echo readers to come on down and watch the freak show. We wouldn't want to be those comedians.

We'd love to have a day or two free of responsibility. But is it necessary to move to England to achieve that?

We have our FIVE WINNERS!

James Blumenfeld, Needham, MA
Jerome Leslie, Dorchester, MA
Tom Steffen, Plymouth, MN
Dustan Birrell, Boise, ID
Wayne Hicks, Denver, CO

Thanks to all who participated!

Each will receive a copy of "Robert Klein: The HBO Specials 1975-2005!"

EIGHT Robert Klein specials! Bonus interview with Klein! All in one box! A $39.99 value!

(If you didn't win one, click here to purchase one from Amazon.com!)

# posted by SHECKYmagazine.com @ 11:59 PM 1 comments

The Politico has a somewhat serious and far more detailed analysis of any possible pitfalls that the candidacy of Stephen Colbert might encounter here.

"His best bet is to avoid flagrancy," Bauer wrote on his blog. "It appears that Colbert will flirt with violating the law," he wrote, "but since he has hired Wiley Rein, he seems also prepared to keep to the legal side of the line — mostly. If he just walks the line from time to time — as visible as the line can be — regulators will have little appetite for challenging Colbert."

And, according to FOS Sean L. McCarthy, the turnout at the NYC informational meeting on the Actors Fund.

Friedman wonders, though, how exactly the Actors Fund should define a professional comedian, and asked club owners and comedians "to get a dialogue going" to figure out what definition works best -- whether it's reaching a specific income level over the past few years from working comedy gigs, or whether it's what percentage of your income comes from comedy, some combination of the two, or even, as some club owners in the room suggested, "vouching" for the comic when they request Actors Fund services.

Read the whole thing.

No doom and/or gloom in the Appleton Post-Crescent's article on the Skyline Comedy Cafe. In "Funny business alive and well in the Fox Cities," Jim Collar quotes Skyline proprietor Cliff Diedrick as being optimistic and determined to run his comedy room profitably and to book it well. "Confidence remains strong as standup performance continues to show signs of resurgence," writes Collar.

quot;There's always room for live entertainment," Diedrick said. "You just have to find ways keep your name in front of people."

Diedrick refuses to pin any periodic tough times on competition.

Local comedy clubs have come and gone since Skyline opened its doors. Now larger venues are more often vying for slices of the comedy pie.[...]

"The graduation of those fortunate enough to move up is good for comedy in general," Diedrick contends.

Comedian Mike Merryfield is quoted as well.

An interview with Aussie comic Fiona O'Loughlin is in the Chronicle Herald. She's doing two shows in Halifax Sunday night along with Alonzo Bodden, John Wing, An­drew Grose, Louis Ramey and Kevin Brennan, as part of the Just For Laughs 2007 Tour.

O'Loughlin is from Alice Springs, arguably one of the most remote cities on the planet. The money quote:

So for me it was the hardest thing for me to do from where I was, but I guess it goes to prove that if you want to do something bad enough, you'll have it, won't you? The apprenticeship of a standup is to go to your local come­dy club and perfect your act at open mic nights until you're good enough to get paid. That's all very well, but my nearest open mic night was two-and-a-­half days on a bus.

After that, 20 cities in 26 days probably seems like a dream come true.

Christopher Cannon won the Stand-Up and Sling contest earlier this month. His win nets entitles him to close out the show at the Hollywood Improv next Tuesday night (October 30). He'll also receive $10,000.

His short film beat out dozens of other shorts by fellow comedians such as Matt Weinhold, Will Durst and Mark Pitta. (See our submission here. Warning: Partial nudity!)

Several facets of Comedy Central star Stephen Colbert's South Carolina-only presidential campaign puts him seriously at odds with the outfit that oversees federal elections. There've been a lot of campaign laws concocted since Pat Paulsen ran for president.

And readers of this magazine know that Doug Stanhope quickly abandoned his run for the White House when it became clear that a comedian running for president faces monster fines or, at the very least, lots of red tape.

Colbert's campaign is doomed. Sure, he'll get plenty of publicity, but Viacom probably won't fancy paying six-figure (or more!) fines when the FEC comes a-knockin'!

"How serious can you get about running as a joke?" said Massie Ritsch, communications director for the Center for Responsive Politics, a non-partisan group that tracks campaign finances. "The Federal Election Commission doesn't have a great sense of humor."

Nor does Pepsico, we imagine. That company owns Doritos, who is "sponsoring" Colbert's campaign. Corporate sponsorship of a presidential campaign is strictly forbidden!

"The life of an entertainment professional is very similar to any worker or independent contractor that moves from job to job to make their living. Work is erratic, security is fleeting and health insurance is often just a dream." So says the website of the Actors Fund of America.

In a phone conversation last month with Budd Friedman (on an entirely different matter), we learned that the Actors Fund is going to do for comedians what they've heretofore done for other entertainment professionals.

It "helps entertainment and performing arts professionals in theater, film, music, opera, television and dance through a broad spectrum of social, health, employment, and housing programs that address their essential and critical needs."

By now, many of our readers have already gotten an email second- or third-hand-- a plea from the Buddmeister himself-- announcing a meeting tomorrow in New York City. We'd attend if we weren't on the road.

The Actors Fund for Comedians is being formed for the express purpose of bringing to the comedy community the same type of protection and help that actors, directors, writers, etc. all enjoy. If you are a comedian and are not also a member of a protecting union than you are left out in the cold!

But now The Actors Fund of America is setting up a division to bring all these benefits to the professional stand-up comedian. We are planning an informative meeting with potential members in New York City at CAROLINES on THURSDAY, OCTOBER 25th @ 3PM.

The Director of the Actors Fund will be in attendance to answer all your questions.

We want to get your input as to how the organization should run, so please make sure you attend and please tell all your clients and stand-up friends about the meeting.

Our West Coast ad hoc committee is Buddy Morra, Ross Schaeffer and Howard Storm along with me. We are looking to form an East coast committee.

We called the public relations firm handling the meetings and learned that whatever is set up, no one will be asked to join a union. And there won't be any dues. As it was explained to us, certain criteria (similar to criteria used by existing organizations that assist actors or singers) will be established. When those criteria are met (and, we assume, somehow verified), the comedian will be able to avail himself of the services of the Fund-- help with medical bills, assistance with housing, etc.

One of the ways that the Actors Fund pays for services is through charitable contributions from corporations and foundations and through individual contributions and fundraising galas. They plan on coordinating a big event in 2008-- On a pre-determined date next year, they'll ask all the comedy clubs in America to kick in their door receipts to the fund and ask comics to perform for free. We'll keep you posted on the details on that when they become available.

FOS Shaun Eli takes Jerry Blavat to task. He took Blavat's boneheaded statement in the Joey Bishop interview as a jumping off point for a letter to the Philadelphia Daily News editors:

IN JOEY Bishop's obituary, you quote Jerry Blavat as saying, "He never used dirt or smut in his acts. Today, you can't do that. Don Rickles is the only one left, and he's 80."

Plenty of comics work clean. I produce a clean comedy show, the Ivy League Comedy Showcase.

To name some prominent comedians who work clean: Bill Cosby, Brian Regan, Jim Gaffigan.

Jay Leno does 10 clean minutes of television five nights a week.

Perhaps you've heard of Jerry Seinfeld? Ellen DeGeneres? Robert Klein? Steven Wright?

Some comics are clean. Others are vulgar. But to claim that the youngest clean comedian is 80 is ridiculous.

Shaun Eli Breidbart

Ivy League Comedy Showcase

Pelham, N.Y.

Well done, Shaun!

We were on our way to Columbus when we stopped briefly in Washington, PA. The Female Half ventured into a Famous Footwear to peruse the shoes while the Male Half searched the nearby Walmart for tech deals.

While the Female Half is among the racks of shoes, she happens to hear the last sentence-and-a-half of a conversation between two male employees-- we paraphrase slightly:

...he usta be funny but now he's just a cranky old man like me... There's no good standup comedy any more.

We'll repeat that: "There's no good standup comedy any more."

Over the past eight years, we've developed a reputation for being a bit sensitive-- perhaps overly so-- when it comes to popular attitudes toward standup comedy and standup comics. Some folks come dangerously close to calling us paranoid.

But here we were, in a town of 15,000 people, 25 miles southeast of Pittsburgh, PA, and we hear the aforementioned snippet of conversation. "What are the odds?!" asks the Female Half, her voice simultaneously wondrous and weary.

Indeed! What are the odds? Or... is standup comedy the topic of conversation a lot more frequently than even we realize? Does it mean a lot more to regular people than we can even know?

To be sure, it's disturbing that one of the few discussions about comedy we've stumbled across was a negative one. We have a friend who, when she mentions to friends that she has two friends (us!) who are standup comics, will get this response every time: "Standup comics aren't funny." We're told that it's delivered in a dismissive tone and with a certainty that's startling.

Of course, being good amateur social scientists, the first question we must ask is, "Is it true?" Of course, it's not.

But, then we must ask: Just where are people getting this notion? We contend that there not getting it through personal observation, through firsthand experience. They're inheriting this attitude, this myth, via the media.

And this has been going on for approximately 20 years. Up until the late 80's/early 90's or so, comedians were considered seriously. Their performances and their art and craft were analyzed and appreciated with some thought, some nuance. Then, when comedy exploded, the default opinion was that comedy sucked-- all of it-- and that comedians, as a rule, were to be regarded with suspicion or outright hostility.

And yesterday we have the result of that two-decade drumbeat.

What to do? Well, starting an online magazine about standup comedy and building up the "circulation" to 65,000 monthly readers is a start. But, if you're going to fight the big fight, you might as well fight the small ones, too. The Male Half dug out a business card from the valise and sprinted, in the rain, to the Famous Footwear. He handed it over (with a smile!) and told the F.F. guy that there's plenty of good standup out there! (And we also told him that he should check us out at the Pittsburgh Funny Bone the first weekend in December.)

We're not upset about this on a personal level. We long ago stopped taking this kind of thing personally. Our outrage is very practical. This kind of prevailing attitude affects our livelihood and the overall health of the business.

It's Monday, time for Laughter World! It's always entertaining when we see how folks halfway around the world regard comedy. Today, we take a look at a comedy tour that entertains expats in the Persian Gulf and a controversy in the Pacific sparked by one of our American humor shows.

From the Khaleej Times, "the #1 English language daily newspaper published from Dubai," comes "Let's Heckle A Bit," an article by Layla Haroon whch attempts to describe a Laughter Factory show that touched down recently in Abu Dhabi.

It is known for its lunatic hecklers, who try to distract the most strong-willed comedians, keeping the audience in hysterics for an hour and a half.

The evening is usually divided into three segments with a short refreshment break between each comics set. Performances are in English, attracting a large crowd of regular comedy fans of about 400 people per show of different nationalities.

The comedians who will perform this time are Dave Fulton, Paul Tonkinson and Michael Smiley.

Lunatic hecklers? Haroon says that some of the audience members have gotten into fistfights over who was funniest. Standup comedy is enjoyed differently by the international crowds who find themselves marooned in the deserts of the middle east.

And the Phillippines are all atwitter about a recent segment on The Daily Show that parodied Perez Hilton and made light of attitudes toward female world leaders. What particularly got them riled about the Daily Show piece was when a photo of Corazon Aquino appeared on the screen with the word "slut" scrawled across it. (This is a convention of Hilton's site. Apparently, the Filipinos are not familiar with Hitlon's site and the subtleties of the bit were lost on them.)

Bryan Mari Argos, writing in The News Today (an English language news service from Iloilo City!), tries to explain to his countrymen that they just didn't get the joke:

Humor can be used to gauge the intellect of a person-- those who laugh at jokes that are too physical, i.e. the wart on a witches' nose or the eczema on someone's vulva is too dumb to understand the underlying meaning of humor. Intelligent humor is the kind of humor that involves wit, finesse, discretion, subtlety, and relevance to the status quo, i.e. GMA should not be worrying about the ZTE deal that much. If she can't hear Garci through the cell phone easily as shown by the number of times she said 'Hello Garci', she probably wouldn't like VOIP that much.

Cryptic! GMA? ZTE? Eczema on someone's vulva? (Who can't laugh at that, we say?!)

For background on the story, click here.) Some of the references in Argos' story become a bit clearer if you read this one first!

Associated Press reports that a gaggle of 9/11 truthers interrupted Bill Maher's Real Time.

Maher was talking science during one of his weekly panel discussions when a protester in his audience stood up, held up a smuggled-in sign reading "9/11 is a cover up fraud" and shouted comments to the same effect.

Maher helped security guards hustle him out the door and that "several other protesters, sprinkled throughout the audience, then stood up and shouted." The incident was shown live and then re-shown again in the western U.S.

Apparently Maher incurred the wrath of the conspiracy theorists last year by dismissing their paranoid ramblings in a 1:17 segment of his show that featured Cornell West, Richard Clarke and John Legend. One commenter said that Maher had shown himself to be "another tool in the propaganda machine."

Video here.

John F. Morrison, writing for Philadelphia's Daily News gives hometown boy Bishop the deluxe treatment in today's edition.

Morrison seeks out quotes from various Philly luminaries, including local radio personality Jerry Blavat, who belches out this finely polished nugget of idiocy:

"He never used dirt or smut in his acts," Blavat said. "Today, you can't do that. Don Rickles is the only one left and he's 80."

Firstly, why does a reporter run with such nonsense? When the person you're interviewing presents you with such lunacy, why do you not ask another question (or three? or four?) until you get some quote that comports just the tiniest bit with reality? (If Morrison can't get a simple story about standup comedy right, can we believe anything we read-- about matters that are far more important-- in a modern daily newspaper?)

Secondly, what the hell is Blavat talking about? Rickles is the only one not using smut? How about Brian Regan? Or how about that other young Philly comic, Bill Cosby? Blavat might be 67 years old, but is that any excuse to be so utterly out of touch with popular culture? The old "These kids today are such potty-mouths" attitude is more like something that an 87-year-old might adopt. But what's Morrison's excuse?

We would have posted sooner, but we were on our way to Morgantown, WV.

From the Wall Street Journal:

Joey Bishop, the stone-faced comedian who found success in nightclubs, television and movies but became most famous as a member of Frank Sinatra's Rat Pack, has died at 89.

He was the group's last surviving member. Peter Lawford died in 1984, Sammy Davis Jr. in 1990, Dean Martin in 1995, and Sinatra in 1998.

Notice how the last one of the Pack to die was the comedian!

Born in New York's borough of the Bronx, Bishop was the youngest of five children of two immigrants from Eastern Europe. When he was three months old the family moved to South Philadelphia, where he attended public schools. He recalled being an indifferent student, once remarking, "In kindergarten, I flunked sand pile."

In 1941 Mr. Bishop married Sylvia Ruzga and, despite the rigors of a show business career, the marriage survived until her death in 1999. Mr. Bishop, who had one son, Larry, spent his retirement years on the upscale Lido Isle in Southern California's Newport Bay.

For all intents and purposes, a Philly comic.

We posted last week about a book, Comedy At The Edge, that quoted several big-name comics dumping on several other big-name comics.

An anonymous FOS wrote to us to say that, during a recent episode of The View, Joy Behar mentioned the book-- She particularly pointed out that the book said that Robin Williams was called out as a thief. She solicited the opinion of host (and Robin Williams' pal) Whoopi Goldberg (real name Caryn Elaine Johnson).

Whoopi said (and our FOS is paraphrasing):

All comics steal. It's a rich tradition.

When this was challenged by the new co-host, Sherri Shepherd, Johnson responded:

There are only so many jokes in the world, so you're not telling original jokes anyway. If they steal your whole act, then that's something, but if they steal a joke, that's fine.

Shepherd, apparently unaware that Johnson should not be challenged all that strenuously in her new position as View host, followed up with, "but what if the joke is something from my experience?"

To which Johnson replied:

How do you know someone else didn't have that exact same experience?

Indeed! How does one know?! There you have it! Surely you've all had similar experiences to Jim Gaffigan! Or Doug Stanhope! Let's all get cracking and start incorporating their material into our acts!

There you have it! The ol' There Are Only So Many Jokes In The World Defense! Johnson/Goldberg is channeling ancient Catskills comics obviously. No word on whether Behar (a real comic, last time we looked) was silent during this ridiculous blathering. We're seeking video on YouTube. No luck so far.

We wonder how much of Johnson/Goldberg's act was original or how much of a part of comedy's "rich tradition" she was.

Eonline and Yahoo! are reporting that Jay Leno isn't going quietly.

The article, citing "three people familiar with the situation," said Leno, despite signing off on an NBC announcement two years ago to set his retirement date for 2009, "doesn't want to go."

This is getting good. Get ready for extreme musical chairs in late night television!

Prediction: Fox enters into late night... Kimmel is most vulnerable... he will switch.

Stay tuned.

Very few solo comics have been able to do a tour that filled (or attempted to fill) arenas around the country. Steve Martin comes to mind. We seem to recall that Andrew Dice Clay filled a few cavernous venues at the height of his powers.

Dane Cook's 25-city Rough Around the Edges Tour kicks off in Toronto. And ends on the 9th of December in Anaheim.

Cook sold out TD Banknorth Garden in Boston and MSG last year.

A press release heralds a deal between "the world's largest independent video sharing site" and "the global market leader in original comedy content created for wireless handsets." Hardly a week goes by when we don't see a similar announcement.

Check out the last paragraph in the Terms of Use on the ComedyTime site:

...by submitting Materials in any form to us, in addition to other provisions of the Terms, you automatically grant Comedy Time, and its successors, assigns, and licensees and parent, subsidiary and other affiliated entities ("Comedy Time"), an exclusive, fully-paid, world-wide, royalty-free license to publicly display, publicly perform, distribute, and reproduce the Materials in any manner and in any medium, including, without limitation, through physical copies such as still photos, videos, and CDs, by television by any means, on or via the Internet, including, without limitation, the World Wide Web, and any other two-way transmission control protocol / internet protocol (TCP/IP) based distribution network or similar networks or technologies now known or hereafter to become known, including, but not limited to, delivery via such a network to personal computers, hand-held devices, and television set-top boxes through telephone or cable lines, or wirelessly through broadband, satellite, cellular or terrestrial broadcast networks and other similar networks or technologies whether now existing or hereafter developed. You obtain no rights in any form, media, or technology incorporating the Materials.

Again, pretty standard stuff. This the punchline to the Terms. The setup makes sure that you swear on the Bible that the stuff you upload is yours and that you have a right to upload it.

So, to translate: Are you sure it's yours? Yes? Okay, then. Now it's ours! Thanks and have a good day! If you'll pardon us, we must make your material "available on Sprint, VCAST, Cingular, MobiTV, Altel and U.S. wireless" and distribute it "in the United Kingdom, Denmark, Sweden, Canada, Mexico, South America, South Africa, the Philippines, Eastern Europe and Singapore."

An article in the Harvard Crimson tells of a club, formed by two '07 grads, that produces shows on the Cambridge campus and is known by its initials, HCSUCS.

In part, the level of polish some of these novice comedians display is doubtlessly attributable to the collaborative workshopping of routines-- a vital part of HCSUCS.

"Stand-up can be an isolating, solitary pursuit," says Petri. "You usually come up with things you think are funny, you go and do your set, and if you people think you're funny, you know you’ve got some good material. If not, you walk off with your tail between your legs."

"The Harvard community is great because you get to bounce ideas off of this little cadre of people," Petri continues. "It’s sort of weird, that's not the way things usually work."

Collaborative? Yipe! Standup can be a solitary pursuit, say the Harvard novices. Standup should be a solitary pursuit, say we. One of the problems of any "collaborative approach" to writing an act is that it invariably results in a tussle over authorship. The "Stand-up" that is the SU part of HCSUCS is a misnomer-- what is described is more along the lines of improv or sketch comedy.

Some of the founders of the club have struck out for NYC and have met with some success. We hope the Comedy Infrastructure doesn't overcompensate-- we have flashbacks to the mid-90s, when countless articles told of television talk shows and sitcoms that were disproportionately peopled by Ivy League grads. The diploma from Harvard went from being a curiosity-- enabling the odd writer to scramble onboard this staff or that-- to being a near-automatic ticket into the lucrative world of television writing. (This development was heralded by television critics and other pop culture vultures. At last, they crowed, Newton Minnow's vast wasteland would be lush, verdant and a laugh a minute. The plethora of Crimson staffers and Yalie show runners didn't result in an uptick in quality, rather it yielded a sameness and a predictability. It was the '90s-- Irony ruled, wit, inexplicably, drooled.)

We hope that the future doesn't see a "degree" from HCSUCS as a suitable replacement for seven or eight years on the road or in NYC or LA, doing actual standup.

An article in the Beaumont Enterprise attempts to sort out the issues involved in the shuttering of that town's only full-time comedy club, Comedy, TX. That club was co-owned by comedian Slade Ham, who is putting Beaumont in his rear view mirror and moving to L.A.

There's some disagreement over what killed the club-- was it the city's ban on smoking?

"There's so many factors involved when you own a business - there's taxes, there's employees and comics' schedules," said Ham, who spearheaded an unsuccessful effort last year to reverse the smoking ban by putting it on the ballot. "I won't miss anything about owning a business. It's the most overrated thing in the world. ... But the smoking ban, I don't know if it had an impact or not. Everyone that was confronted with it adapted. We adapted, we built a patio, moved our open-mic outside."

Or was it Ham's desire to move on to the big city? Either way, Beaumont and the comics who call it home are without a venue as of the show's end last night.

The Male and Female Halves of the Staff did the room twice and found it to be well-run and based on an interesting business model. (And it afforded the Male Half a chance to visit with his old college roommate.) The venue moved after Beaumont was ravaged by a hurricane or two. No word on whether Lee Melton will fire up a new club.

There's this, from a Reuters/Hollywood Reporter article on Drew Carey's ascension to the role of Price Is Right host:

The thing is, Carey doesn't maintain the kind of ironic distance from the proceedings that we'd expect from a converted stand-up comic. He dives right in with earnest zeal and truly seems to be having the time of his life. When he exults over the success of the already manic contestants, it feels genuine. The incredulous fits of laughter that escape his lips carry a certain "I can't believe I'm here-- this is so cool!" quality, as if he's stepping outside of himself to revel in the moment.

We expect ironic distance? Who is this we the author speaks of?

If we are interpreting this correctly, we expect "converted standup comics" to maintain an ironic distance and be somewhat less than genuine. Since when did ironic distance and inauthenticity become the default for standup comics? Has this opinion of comedians been unduly influenced by the likes of Demetri Martin, David Cross or Patton Oswalt?

That Howie Mandel, Jeff Foxworthy and Carey are perfectly suited to (and a large part of the success of) network game shows should come as a surprise to no one.

In pointing this out, do we appear hypersensitive? We shouldn't. We are being very practical. One of our missions has been to point out that comedians are varied and versatile and adaptable to a multitude of situations. If we read that comedians are inauthentic or haughty, it deserves our negative attention. If for no other reason that if allowed to stand (and/or fester), such a opinion might prevent a comedian or two from being considered for a wide range of gigs-- from network game show host to emcee at a local chamber of commerce banquet.

In an Arizona Republic article by Randy Cordova, the question of just why comics make great game show hosts is explored in some detail.

"When they wanted me, I wasn't flattered," Mandel says. "I asked them why they saw me as a game-show host because I simply didn't see it."

The reasons? Mandel says it was his ability to multitask. He could be funny, he could interview contestants and he could underline the drama inherent in the game.

"I would be a waste on Jeopardy," Mandel says. "Alex Trebek is wonderful at what he does. But if I were on that show, I would just read questions and they'd answer questions. There's no room for me in that format."

In many ways, what comics like Mandel and Carey do is no different from what Groucho Marx did on You Bet Your Life back in the '50s. There wasn't much to that game, either, but Marx's playfully naughty banter with contestants made it work.

Expect a similar story with Carey on The Price Is Right. The hourlong show gives the emcee plenty of room to goof around and get funny reactions from the contestants.

"Drew draws on material from all kinds of places," Blits says. " It's a wonderful fit."

Elon James White and Baron Vaughn, two NYC-based comics have started The Black Comedy Project.

They've "reached out to comedians across the nation to finally let the world know that there's very different voices within the community." The community of black comics, that is.

They've solicited essays on the subject from comics such as Baratunde Thurston, Dave Lester, Robin Cloud and Leighann Lord.

An excerpt from Lord's "Old School":

I started my career with the absurdly naive notion that I just wanted to be a comic; not a Black comic, but a funny comic. I wanted to be myself with all the complexities that implies. Why only tell jokes from just one facet of my experience when I'm blessed with so many? We all are. There's color, culture, ethnicity, nationality, religion, gender, sexual orientation, marital status, education, political stance, mental and physical health, height, weight, favorite color. Is any one these influences more important, valid or defining than the other? I guess it depends on who you talk to.

A club owner/manager/booker once said to me, "Leighann you're very funny, but can you be a little bit more black?" He wasn't suggesting I get a tan. He was telling me he'd be more comfortable with his stereotypical image of who a black person should be, rather than who I really am. I don't know what image of blackness he had in mind. Perhaps I should have asked him to give me an example. It would have been interesting to see what influences shaped his expert opinion. Did he watch music videos? Take a black literature or history class in college? Perhaps some of his best friends were Black.

Read the rest here.

Pretty much any time comics give other comics a chance to talk about/write about standup comedy-- over and above "who stole what joke" or "all comics are crazy/lazy/desperate"-- it's a tremendous thing. It's especially good to let standup fans, the industry and the media listen in on the dialogue.

After watching The Better Half on Bravo last night (in which Ardie Fuqua and Joe Matarese taught their better halves to do standup comedy), we are pleased to award Joy Behar with the Palme d'Or for Horse Manure!

Behar, who was a judge for the final segment, said, in her assessment of the performance of Matarese's wife, neuropsychologist Stephanie Cosentino:

"Women have moved beyond self-deprecating humor."

Where to begin?

First of all, self-deprecating humor is not something that should be or needs to be "moved beyond." It is one way to approach humor. It is one way to forge a standup persona. It is a time-honored way to present oneself. It is neither inferior nor superior to the multitude of other ways to craft a set, build a character, write a joke.

Behar and others are fond of saying that a comedian should (indeed, must!) reveal something of himself if he is to be considered an artist. Would not self-deprecating humor be revealing something? Foibles? Inadequacies? Insecurities, perhaps?

And what of the revered comedians of the past (and present) who have based nearly their entire identities on self-deprecating humor? Are we to believe that Woody Allen, Rodney Dangerfield, Wendy Liebman, Roseanne or countless other comedians-- male or female-- are/were incapable of "moving beyond" that mode? Or that they should be/should have expected to if they are to command our respect?

The message is somewhat unsettling. The clumsy combination of blowhardiness and feel-good feminism says that a female comic who approaches the funny by making fun of herself is a hack and is no doubt letting down all of womyn-kind.

To which we say: Horse manure.

We congratulate Cosentino and Matarese. Their collaboration resulted in winning the Better Half $20,000 prize.

The NYPost has a healthy slice of the upcoming book "Comedy at the Edge," which chronicles the rise of stand-up in the 1970s, by Richard Zoglin. Of course, since the excerpts appear on that paper's Page Six, the juicy, catty gossip is emphasized.

Maher trashes Belzer. Caroline trashes Boosler. Brenner threatens Robin Williams.

We were tickled by the incident involving Mitzi Shore.

Shore could be prickly, for sure. She told Zoglin that when a hot comic named Jerry Seinfeld came to her club in 1980, she practically turned him away at the door. "I didn't like his attitude. He didn't fit in," she said. For his part, Seinfeld recalled, "Mitzi Shore didn't like me... She told me to my face. She felt so many people liked me, that's not good for a comedian. She wanted me to seek her counsel. She was like the kid with drugs at the school-- if you want to be my friend, you'll buy drugs from me."

Yeah... it's never good for a comedian if so many people like you! This is the dumbest formula for calculating the potential of a comedian ever devised. The incident is entirely plausible, as many standup comics who auditioned for Shore in the '80s and '90s were often told by her that they were "too jokey."

Forbes.com's Lacey Rose has written "The Top-Earning Comedians," culled from the Forbes Most Powerful Celebrity List.

Note the ages of those listed-- Dane Cook, at 35 years of age, is the baby among them. Note also that the Male Half of the Staff, representing SHECKYmagazine, is quoted:

Another shift since the last comedy boom, which took place in the 1980s: The tools available for stand-up acts to cultivate their fan base have grown, explains Brian McKim, editor and publisher of online comedy source Sheckymagazine.

He said a lot more, but, we'll take the one line.

It is significant also that much of the dough earned by those on the list was gotten through actual standup-- hitting the boards and appearing live before an audience. (And peddling oodles of stuff to the throngs on their way out the door, too, of course.)

Of course, we make a mistake in assuming that any thinking was going on!

Patton Oswalt, in a recent appearance in Portland, did perhaps one of the dumbest things we've heard of in a long time. From the Oregonian review:

Although that interaction finally went a bit too far. Oswalt was sipping a fine single-malt scotch as he talked to some high school kids in the front row, in the all-ages seating area. Things were going so well, he started offering the young dudes sips of his scotch, eventually bringing the bottle onstage. Before long, a Roseland employee scurried out to put the kibosh on it, no doubt worried about what the Oregon Liquor Control Commission would think of it all.

"Don't boo the owner," Oswalt told the audience. "He could've come up here and Tasered me."

Indeed! Tasering would have been letting him off easy! We suspect that Oswalt got a stern talking-to from the Roseland owner. One should regard the Liquor Control Commission with the same mixture of respect and fear that one might regard the Mob. And if the "high school kids" had wrapped daddy's Explorer 'round a pole on the way home (with Oswalt's fine single-malt scotch mentioned prominently in the coroner's toxicology report), Oswalt's life as he knows it would have ended. And, as any attorney will tell you, the amount of alcohol would be inconsequential.

There is an interesting interview with comedian Teresa Roberts Logan in the Daily Press (Hampton Roads, VA). In it, she tells of the path she took from artist-writer for Hallmark to clean comedian in southern Virginia.

Her Hallmark gig sometimes required her to produce orientation presentations for new artists and writers.

Afterward, a guy from the humor writing department asked if I'd ever thought about doing standup. I said, "Once, when I was in the seventh grade or so." He said I should try it, so I ended up at an open mic night doing my little three minutes. That's how I got into it, and I started getting enough work that it was hard to work at Hallmark and do comedy, too, when you're out working until 2 a.m. So after about a year, I had to make a tough decision-- it really was tough — and I quit my job at Hallmark.

The 46-year-old comedian has found success in mainstream as well as Christian comedy (she's a featured comic on the Warner Bros. Christian comedy DVD "Thou Shalt Laugh.") and she produces clean comedy shows in Williamsburg.

We applaud Logan's entrepreneurship. But one quote gives us pause:

There are thousands and thousands of people out there who would love to go hear live comedy but they don't envision that it's for them. It's not that they're prudes. They just want to go and laugh and not worry about clapping their hands over their children's ears.

We don't mean to single out Logan. But we've seen "the kids" popping up in articles dealing with standup lately.

When did anyone get the idea that standup comedy was at all acceptable/should be acceptable for kids? (To put a spin on the popular rhetorical question, "Is nothing profane?") We have no problem if Grandma or the Parson or the Boss wants to see-- or present-- clean standup comedy. But why must children be considered in the equation?

So much of entertainment has been ruined or compromised because of an illogical and counter-intutive pandering to the children. Isn't part of the appeal (a huge part of the appeal) of standup it's adult nature, it's inherent maturity? It's something that is embraced by, understood by, appreciated by adults. Why can't it be exclusively adult?

The presence of little ones at comedy shows is a bad trend. Comedy is not for children. There should be a firebreak between standup comedy and kids. Offering clean standup for adults we have no problem with. But kids shouldn't factor into anyone's strategy. We should discourage this at every opportunity.

So many comics of today acknowledge that their earliest recollection of consumption of standup (via records, tv or otherwise) was clandestine, covert-- it was understood that standup comedy was for grown-ups. And, eventually, one would be mature enough to handle it, to consume it openly, in an adult situation, surrounded by one's peers. Comedy never reached downward, the consumer reached upward.

Doug Stanhope is gigging tonight in Delaware. Not exactly earth-shattering news, but the First State is one of four states that Stanhope has never played. He's got the other three coming up on his schedule. He will finally join the 50-State Club when he's finished-- a distinction that has eluded him despite 17 years in the business.

The Wilmington News Journal interviews him and asks him why he dropped his bid for POTUS:

The deal-breaker was the FCC. Sorry, I mean the FEC [Federal Election Commission.] It's usually the FCC. I couldn't talk about my campaign on stage without any of the money I made being considered a campaign contribution rather than personal income. Just minor violations of the FEC could be six figures. It was too risky. I [mess up] too much in a day to chance six-figure fines.

We welcome Stanhope to the 50-state club!

Both Halves of the Staff have been members for some time now. (The Female Half snagged Tennessee back a few years ago and the Male Half added Iowa to his schedule to complete the set in 2002 or thereabouts.) Most folks have trouble adding Alaska or Hawaii. Many have trouble collecting all the New England states. Adding Montana and the Dakotas is not for the faint of heart. You'll recall that the Hell Gig America boys did the deed in a mere 50 days. When Stanhope is done, it will have taken him 120 times as long!

Here's how Mike Duffy of the Detroit Free Press nutshells Bravo's new show in which one spouse teaches the other spouse how to do his/her job:

That's not funny, honey. Two women married to professional comics-- model Ciara and scientist Stephanie-- try to get in touch with their inner stand-up chuckleheads in time to perform before a packed house at a famed New York comedy club. Host Susie Essman (Curb Your Enthusiasm), a longtime standup comic, should be perversely amused. But do the husbands get to heckle?

Would it have killed him to mention the comics by name? (Joe Matarese and Ardie Fuqua) Would it have killed him to mention the last name of Matarese's wife? (Cosentino) Would it have killed him to mention the name of the club? (Laugh Factory, NY)

Matarese says the show was taped a year ago.

Essman blogs about the show on BravoTV.com.

It's Columbus Day (Observed!) and we're in the office!

There's nothing going on out there comedy-wise, so we're turning our attention to The Standup and Sling competition, going on right now at Slingbox.com (Click that to get to our entry in the contest... it's a minute long and it has a surprise ending!)

After you're done viewing our video (Or any of the dozens of other entries), hit the "Sign In" button, register and then VOTE FOR OUR VIDEO! We only need about 2,000 of you to hop onto the site, register, root around and find our video again, then vote for it! It'll only take a few minutes! (And, if enough of you do it, we'll win $10,000. We know-- that doesn't benefit you in the least! But at least you might get a chuckle out of the experience.)

We told you about this contest earlier, but we're always too humble or stupid to try to motivate our readers to actually expend the energy to vote for anything we do. Then we get all embarassed when nobody actually does anything to help us in our effort to dominate the world or win a contest or do whatever it is we're too humble or stupid to get done. But this time, we figured we'd make a last-ditch effort to drive a couple thousand readers to the Slingbox site!

The current leader has about 1,500 votes. All we need is for 2,000 of you from around the world to hop onto the video, register, get your password, hop back onto the site, find the video and then vote for our video. Watch it first, of course! It's only a short vid. And it includes the Male Half's second (partial) nude scene! (No, it is not a trend. Anything for art, we say!)

We've gotten a couple of positive emails from folks out there who've seen it! But so far, we have a pathetic SEVEN VOTES! We hope we don't wake up Thursday morning and find out we've totalled only eight votes!

C'mon, people! Do it for SHECKYmagazine.com!

SHECKYmagazine columnist and FOS Paul Ogata is the 2007 SFICC winner! He writes:

What a competition! In the end, I took first for the night, ending a whole week of first place finishes to get first for the competition. Here's the offical results for the whole thing:

1. Paul Ogata
2. David Van Avermaete
3. Mike Baldwin
4. Dennis Gaxiola
5. Kellen Erskine

Details will follow.

FOS Sean L. McCarthy won The Funniest Reporter Contest last night, held as part of the New York Underground Comedy Festival at Gotham. McCarthy, who writes for the New York Daily News and who blogs about standup comedy, was humble in victory:

These 'Funniest Reporter/Lawyer/Federal Employee/Fill in the Blank' contests can sometimes be brutal train wrecks, but at last night's show, all of the reporters managed to get at least a few laughs from the receptive audience at Gotham.

The same was true at last year's contest, which was emceed by the Male Half of the Staff (and judged by the Female Half).

For an account of the competition, click here.

Brian Donaldson, writing forthe UK website The List:

The state of TV comedy has been a subject of much negativity among critics, audiences and telly executives for a long, long time. Where's the great sitcom? What happened to the solid tradition of sketch shows? Will we ever see a programme which treats stand-up comedy with anything less than pity? Well, fair enough, there really hasn't been a classic show in any of those genres for a while now, but it really isn't all doom and gloom. The lunatics many not yet have taken over the asylum (in a good way), but there's enough very decent comedy on the box right now to at least put a smile on the faces of telly bosses.

That "negativity among critics, audiences and telly executives" on the state of TV comedy is frustrating, especially since the execs say what they say and claim to believe it, the critics repeat what the executives say (and actually believe it!) and the audience members repeat what the critics tell them the executives say, but don't really believe it. And thus you have your current