Grab your towel and swim in this pool of bile-- It's a ridiculous, delusional screed penned by Ron Rosenbaum for Slate.com. (It's dated November 2, but we didn't get around to reading it until yesterday.)

Rosenbaum bubbled over with white-hot rage as the "publicity-industrial complex began gearing up to force-feed us Jerry Seinfeld's sickeningly sweet 'Bee Movie'." So he used the occasion to rant against Jerry Seinfeld-- while promoting the "corruscatingly obscene, vicious, bitter, self-loathing, world-hating Rick Shapiro" as the anti-Jerry.

The first 242 words of the article set up "A Tale Of Two Cities" as the theme. It's a jumping-off point, an armature, a skeleton for his comparison of Seinfeld and his "brilliant, twisted, evil twin" Shapiro.

The rest follows perfectly the alt/indy template for pop culture criticism: Ours is great, so yours must suck.

Rosenbaum succumbs to that most piteous and hideous tendency: Denigrate before you elevate!

I was thinking about the two Dickens characters as I was preparing to see Jerry Seinfeld's massively hyped new animated film, Bee Movie, and comparing my loathing for everything Seinfeldian—Seinfeld the show, Seinfeld the world's worst stand-up comic, Seinfeldian "observational humor" in general, the Seinfeldian blanding-out of American comedy and culture, even the ridiculous Seinfeld Porsche collection—with the experience of seeing a far, far better comedian a few weeks ago.

A far, far lesser-known comic, the corruscatingly obscene, vicious, bitter, self-loathing, world-hating Rick Shapiro. While Seinfeld spends his billions buying up Porsches and producing insipid children's movies that are childish rather than childlike (more on Bee Movie anon), Rick Shapiro was killing (as they say) in a half-filled comedy club called the Cutting Room in Manhattan before heading off to a prestigious series of gigs in, yes, Alaska. Frozen out of the big-money, big-time, big-name recognition game.

Even Rosenbaum admits he has made a mini-career out of hating Seinfeld. But the intensity is embarrassing. As is the mangling of facts and history.

After weepily recalling the Steve Martin/New Yorker memoir, which talked about "the birth of a new, original kind of American comedy that he (Martin) and few others were exploring in the '60s and '70s," Rosenbaum spits out the following:

But suddenly almost all that died, and I blame Seinfeld and the so-called "sweater comics" he inspired for killing it off with their smirking frat-boy blandness. Their idiot "observational humor" made a religion out of self-congratulation. Most of the Seinfeld show's humor was about making fun of anyone who was in any way "different"-— immigrants, people with any kind of accent, any kind of idiosyncrasy, any kind of deviation from the Charles Darnay mold.

All that died suddenly? He blames Seinfeld? "Sweater comics?" "Idiot observational humor?"

Let's set aside the fact that he's totally confusing Jerry The Comedian with Jerry The Show. This guy is not up to speed on the facts of Standup Comedy in the Modern Era.

In the world of Ron Rosenbaum, "sweater comics" obliterate all others. It's a zero-sum game. Comics with "smirking frat-boy blandness" cancel out hip, cool alt comics. In a world where idiot observational humor succeeds, there can't possibly exist anyone who looks at the world with a skewed view. No! It's simply not possible! Rosenbaum lives in a world that is calculated to make him miserable. There's just one problem-- he's dead wrong.

Take a look at the opening of an article by Mark de la Vina in yesterday's San Jose Merc News, entitled "The Yin and Yang of Comedy in the Bay Area:

Talk about your comedy extremes.

Over the next few days, fans can sample the full range of the comic spectrum, from the stand-up-as-indie-rock flavor of the Comedians of Comedy to the arena-rock vibe of Dane Cook.

On Wednesday, Cook plays HP Pavilion in San Jose-- please read our coverage of the comedian in Friday's Mercury News-- with an "in the round" set-up that's more like a prog-rock extravaganza than a comedy-club show. But the show I'm excited about is the Comedians of Comedy at the Independent in San Francisco on Friday.

de la Vina doesn't like all kinds of comedy, but he acknowledges that some folks like this kind while others like that kind. And he is happy to live in a world-- in a market-- that accomodates all kinds. And he is more than happy to wax enthusiastic about his preferred humorists, while telling others, who may not be of the same mind, about theirs.

Sweater comics didn't ruin the comedy world. Market forces did. To be sure, some "daring innovators with a jaundiced eye and an unerring ability to speak truth to power!" had to go back to pumping gas or selling insurance back in 1994, but so did a bunch of the so-called "sweater comics" that keep Rosenbaum up at night. Comedy life sucked for almost everybody, Ron!

And Jerry Seinfeld may have served as a role model for a cohort of comics with "frat-boy blandness," but, at the same time, Steven Wright, Andy Kaufmann, Judy Tenuta and Emo Phillips were doing quite well, thank you very much. And they, in turn, inspired an entirely new generation of comedians who... are apparently coming to the Bay Area this weekend.

It's a big, diverse comedy tapestry out there. Rosenbaum sees nothing but blandness and injustice. He seems fixated on hype. His indignation at hype seems more suited to a 14-year-old. Why get so worked up about something so benign as hype? Dude! Turn the channel when Extra! comes on! Perhaps he thinks that the Seinfelds of the world benefit unfairly from hyperbole used in the service of entertainment publicity. (And, conversely, that his favorites dwell in obscurity merely because they enjoy no such advantage.) Oh, the injustice! (Perhaps Rosenbaum should save his hatred up not for Seinfeld, but for P.T. Barnum!)

Don't get us wrong. We've got no problem with Shapiro. It's Rosenbaum, and his cringeworthy, over-the-top (and totally misplaced) hatred for Seinfeld that's got our attention.

But even Rosenbaum can't say something nice about Shapiro without going and ruining the mood-- he winds up the essay with this sentiment:

That's the great thing about Rick Shapiro. He'll never be a billionaire, he'll always be Sydney Carton, whose fame is only posthumous...

We can't help but feel that Rosenbaum is not so subtly rooting for Shapiro's demise. The untimely death would make for a better story, no doubt, and he could blame the passing on Seinfeld. Why not? He blames everything else on Seinfeld.

(Thanks to sharp-eyed reader Vince Martin for sending along the link. And Ron Rosenbaum's other far more reasoned writing can be found here.)

This is a reminder to check out The Female Half of the Staff's new Blogspot blog Road Atlas Shrugged!

In just two weeks, she's upped 21 posts on topics as diverse as The Evil Goodness of Fiddle Faddle, Laptops for Tots, Mangroomers (!?) and Scientific Facial Exercises.

Stop by for profound analysis mixed with sheer idiocy! And goofy graphics!

Check out a preview of "Mr. Warmth, The Don Rickles Project"

John Landis-- the director behind 'Animal House' and 'The Blues Brothers'-- first met Rickles on a shoot as an 18-year-old gofer. Now, decades later, Landis shows the warm heart behind this famously cantankerous on-stage personality.

Then watch the whole thing at 8 PM EST on HBO. Check your local listings for show times in your region.

The XM channel, Laugh Attack (XM153), features mostly Canadian comedians. They are seeking CD's from "Canadian stand-ups and sketch comedy troupes," and promising "exposure to over 8 million subscribers (20 million listeners) across Canada, the United States and some parts of Mexico."

From a comment we found on our MySpace profile:

CDs only please. Unfortunately, we cannot download/take your tracks from the MySpace players and we do not accept MP3s.

Send your CD submissions to:

Laugh Attack XM 153
175 Avenue Road
Toronto, ON
M5R 2J2
Canada

But in a good way.

Brian Regan, Demetri Martin, Nick Swardson, Dane Cook, Mitch Hedberg, Lewis Black, Kathy Griffin-- these comics are featured heavily on Comedy Central. They are also among the comics cited as favorites by a group of youths that gathered recently for our most recent standup comedy seminar.

Two weeks ago, we held that seminar down the pike at the Ritz Theater in nearby Haddon Township, NJ. It was open to the Ritz' Junior Program participants, so the half-dozen kids who took advantage of the offer were high-schoolers. These were obviously not your average teenagers-- they are, after all, members of a theater group and they signed up for a seminar on standup-- but it is interesting to note what their preferences are when it comes to standup. And it is worth noting that they were somewhat knowledgeable about the state of standup comedy in the year 2008.

Considering that none were old enough to drink,, we weren't surprised to find that none had seen standup live. (Actually, two of them had seen live standup comedy on two very recent occasions-- They were present for the Oct. 24 Dena Blizzard/Mike Vecchione show and the Traci Skene/Brian McKim show two weeks earlier, both part of the theater's "Ritz Comedy Club" program.) But, their comedy tastes are driven mostly by Comedy Central.

We thought back to our early days and which comics we were familiar with and how. We concluded that, prior to cable, American kids got their standup predominantly through The Tonight Show, The Merv Griffin Show or other talk shows. Or, depending on how old you are, you got it through Ed Sullivan and the various variety shows and specials that dotted the television schedule back then. When cable came along and late-night television exploded, there were more talks shows that featured the occasional comic. HBO, Showtime, MTV and Comedy Central offered heaping amounts of standup.

There's been somewhat of a shakeout. Comedy Central stands out as the most influential among the adolescents.

For adults, it is influential to be sure. But the oldsters get their comedy from a wider variety of outlets-- Movies, DVD rentals, DVD sales, CD sales, live in the clubs, XM, Sirius and various local and syndicated radio shows that regularly feature comedians, either recorded, via phoners or live in-studio.

What about YouTube? YouTube's influence is overblown. There is precious little well-recorded, well-presented live standup on YouTube. Television still rules because of the quality and quantity of the programming and the convenience.

Comedy Central is doing the lion's share of the "training" of a whole new generation (or three) of standup fans. And the young ones we encountered had somewhat varied tastes and surprisingly sophisticated appreciation of the craft.

Here's a quote from a San Francisco Examiner article on Patton Oswalt:

Oswalt, who tours with comedians from The City, says, "The young scene that is coming up now is pretty fantastic." The scene includes Brent Weinbach, who will warm up the crowd at Friday's show.

These days, Oswalt is enjoying audiences across the country, which he says are growing and becoming increasingly aware about comedy in general.

"The crowds are a lot better," he says "They are better educated about comedy and they are real connoisseurs, so it's fun."

Roving SHECKYmagazine columnist Doug Hecox recently found himself in the Rockies, where he was able to witness up close that slice of the Denver comedy scene that is the Tuesday night New Talent Showcase at the Comedy Works.

There may be other clubs who do as Comedy Works does, but I have never seen anything like the attention given to new comics by seasoned professionals in Denver. The Mile High City is peppered with a robust collection of venues, ranging from small ones for traditional open mike shows to Comedy Works with its competitive approach to giving new comics time before forgiving, if not wholly enthusiastic, audiences.

A snapshot of a major U.S. comedy market. Read the rest here.

Earlier this month, USA Today ran an excerpt from Steve Martin's autobiography, "Born Standing Up."

I DID STAND-UP COMEDY for eighteen years. Ten of those years were spent learning, four years were spent refining, and four were spent in wild success. My most persistent memory of stand-up is of my mouth being in the present and my mind being in the future: the mouth speaking the line, the body delivering the gesture, while the mind looks back, observing, analyzing, judging, worrying, and then deciding when and what to say next. Enjoyment while performing was rare-- enjoyment would have been an indulgent loss of focus that comedy cannot afford.

There's more where that came from. Martin says he researched the standup period of his life as if it happened to someone else. And he recalls enjoying himself!

If the portion running in the paper is any indication, Martin's musings on standup-- the technical, the philosophical, the theoretical-- are some of most insightful and possibly the most useful ever committed to the page. (Thanks to reader Tom Bickle for the tip!)

Nick Zaino III writing last week for the Globe's Boston.com says that Stoughton's Bob Lazarus, recently diagnosed with leukemia, has a lot to be thankful for, mainly that...

...over his nearly 30 years in Boston comedy, he has made a lot of talented friends.

Many of those friends - Steven Wright, Lenny Clarke, Tony V., Mike McDonald, Don Gavin, Mike Donovan, Jimmy Tingle, Steve Sweeney, and Kevin Knox - will gather Sunday night at Giggles Comedy Club in Saugus for a benefit to help Lazarus, who has not been able to work since his diagnosis and may not be able to for another two or three months.

This one was on Sunday. There'll be another in March. We'll keep you posted.

An article from the Victoria (BC) Times Colonist details the efforts of mental health consellor David Granirer's efforts to start a new branch of his national Stand Up for Mental Health program in Victoria.

Granirer has also produced a documentary, "Cracking Up," that chronicles the story of his classes, in which schizophrenic, depressed or bipolar folks learn to become stand-up comedians. He tirelessly defends the mentally ill:

The way the mentally ill are portrayed in the media tends to promote negative stereotypes, added Granirer. He notes that Vancouver newspapers made much of a bipolar man shot and killed by police in August after he attacked them with a chain. Yet when "Cracking Up"-- a good news story about the mentally ill-- was aired the same month, the media virtually ignored it.

He jokes that if plumbers made national headlines every time they shot someone, then "you would be really afraid of plumbers."

Yes. Now let's look at what Granirer said two paragraphs earlier:

...many professional comics perceived as normal people suffer from mental illnesses. Not many regular folk are drawn to a profession that requires hanging out nightly at clubs in an environment that encourages smoking, drinking and drugging.

Here's a man who is upset with the way that the mentally ill are portrayed in the media and how it tends to promote negative stereotypes. Yet, when he steps up to that same media megaphone, he proclaims rather clearly that many standup comics are mentally ill. And that their work environment is all about smoking, drinking and "drugging!" (Whatever that is!?!)

And, to top it all off, he advocates taking a group of bipolar, schizophrenic and depressed people and teaching them standup, so that they might one day practice their art in dens of smoking, drinking and drugging. All the while, hangin out with other individuals, many of which are, according to him, mentally ill.

Sounds like a splendid plan. We're sorry we didn't think of it ourselves.

Oh, yeah. There's a comedy open mike contest, going on for two months, in Uganda. So says the article from AllAfrica.com:

The promotion, that kicks off at Punchline Bar in Kabalagala on Saturday, will set the stage for 'talented' Ugandans to do stand-up comedy for five minutes in selected bars.

There's a Punchline in San Francisco, a Punchline in Atlanta... and now there's a Punchline in Kabalagala.

Fifteen years of murder and mayhem, followed by twenty years of growth and stability produces a country and a people with enough security and perspective to laugh.

And, apparently, they like to drink beer.

Back on July 11, we posted the following, in a posting about a U.K. outfit that teaches standup to kids:

Can we stop putting children on legitimate comedy club stages? Please?

You're setting the kid up with unrealistic expectations. Kids have too much self-esteem these days as it is without putting them into a situation where they're going to get charity laughs (and nobody would dare heckle them). And it's embarassing for the real, adult comics who have to mount the stage after them.

Little did we know at the time, but there was kid, Trevor Hattabaugh, doing standup in Boise. The title of this posting is a quote from him in a profile in the Salt Lake Tribune ("He's only 12, but Trevor is as stand-up guy").

Trevor is so fearless that he can't wait until he gets his first heckler. He's come up with some comeback lines and he's salivating over the thought of using them.

Pardon us while we hurl onto the keyboard.

The article goes on to quote the tweener comic as wanting to do political humor. "I like politics," Trevor said. "I don't want to talk about boogers." Great. Not only is he arrogant, but he is pretentious as well. Now comedy clubs are going to subject their patrons to a 30-minute lecture from a 12-year-old on meaningful subjects. Is there anyone on the planet (besides a child psychologist or another 12-year-old) who can bear to listen to a 12-year-old for more than three minutes? We would wager that not even a parent could take more than five minutes... even if it were his own child's yammering he was forced to endure.

Please... stop. Please... we beg of you. Teach the kid to play the bassoon. Anything... just don't let him do standup. We're begging here. We mean it.

We extract this quote from an article the U.K. Independent on the dearth of female standup comics in Britain:

When I do a gig in this country, I'm usually the only woman. It's different when I perform in America, where there are so many female stand-ups. They have a far older and richer history of women stand-up comics than we do. Women here have been more orientated towards sketches.

("Orientated," btw, is the current accepted use in the U.K.)

We do have an older and richer history of women in standup. What is it about American females that they attempt standup so much more frequently than British females? Or is it the culture and not the people themselves? Perhaps it's television.

Starting in 1961, Phyllis Diller was all over the pop culture-- in movies, nightclubs and especially television-- so, if you place a lot of emphasis on the Role Model theory, she certainly provided one.

Prior to the explosion and dominance of television, Pearl Williams, Rusty Warren, Moms Mabley, Minnie Pearl, Gracie Allen and Mae West demonstrated quite clearly-- in movies, clubs, theaters and on vinyl-- that females could, if they wanted to, perform as standup comics.

Add to that the traditional American acceptance (or tolerance? or both?) of women behaving in this manner and you have the current situation where clumps of female comics are banding together and going on tours that feature nothing but comics with and extra X chromosome-- Brett Butler's Southern Belles of Comedy, Five Funny Females, Confederacy of Cunces, just to name a few.

In one of Michael Klein's recent Inqulings column
in the Philadelphia Inquirer is an item that details a suit filed by the owners of Atlantic City's Irish Pub. They're suing the publishers of A.C. Now, a publication that contained reviews of restaurants.

In the filing, they claim...

...The Irish Pub-- in business since 1972 and with two outposts in Center City-- was harmed by A.C. Now's dubbing it a "dive bar," lumping it with Tony's Baltimore Grill and the Chelsea Pub.

"Defendant characterizes the customers... as likely to be 'broken-down blackjack addicts and 'self-professed black sheep of the family, " the suit says, adding that the label will hurt the pub's chances at further expansion.

We are huge fans of the Irish Pub. It's just off the boardwalk and it's a ten-minute drive from the Borgata.

During the day, it's packed with tourists, regular folk, older couples and (from what we hear) off-duty cops. At night, there's the cops as usual, with a sizeable number of twenty- and thirtysomething revelers. (And on some nights, two or three comedians!)

A dive? We think not. It's more accurately described as a... pub!

We've tossed back many a beer with other comics after shows-- both during gigs at the Borgata and after shows at the defunct Catch A Rising Star at Resorts. And the specials during the day are worth the trip. The fish and chips are cheap and greasy-- just the way we like 'em! Is there anything better than a huge plate of battered and fried whitefish (or its equivalent), fat fries and a cold draft?

Not so, says the club's manager, Pat Mac. "Whether it's under the Funny Bone name or a different name, comedy is not leaving Boise," he said.

That quote is from an article in the Idaho Statesman, titled "Funny Bone files for bankruptcy," in which Bone owner Michael Kohn and attorneys for the club's landlord are quoted.

Kohn said he sought bankruptcy protection to allow the court to settle the issue. Normally under a Chapter 11 filing, unless the court rules otherwise, the filing party remains in control of the business while the business is reorganized.

We're scheduled to perform at the Boise Bone in March of next year, so we're going to keep a close eye on this situation.

From Left: Frank Barnett, Spins Nitely, The Legendary Wid at New Wave

We finished with our responsibilities at our gig in York, PA, and headed back into the city in time to catch the tail end of the revelry at the New Wave on Catharine St. in Philadelphia.

It's an annual event. The night before Thanksgiving, Philadelphia comedians converge on the New Wave and... drink? Give thanks? Catch up? Fall behind? All those things-- and more!

John Kensil (l) and Richie Redding

Paul F. Tompkins is the "lynchpin," the impetus, the driving force behind the gathering. (Although he modestly denies it.) We understand that as many as 40 comedians converged over the course of the evening. (When we arrived, at half past midnight, there may have been a quarter of that number.) It was a pleasure to once again celebrate with all those pictured here and with David P. Hardy, Big Daddy Graham, Dann Foxx, Mike Clements and Catch A Rising Star's Kevin Kearney.

Paul F. Tompkins (l) and The Female Half of the Staff

Above are just one of the many different varieties of "The World's Funniest Golf Balls" developed by Mike McDonald (Boston Mike McDonald, not Canadian Mike McDonald).

Comedy Golf (their motto is "Funny Game + Funny Balls = Good Time") is the company that is hawking Ex-Husband Golf Balls, Axis of Evil Golf Balls and Hit Man Golf Balls among others.

We realize most golfers stink, but that they still want to have a good time while hacking it around. So enjoy these balls like we do and buy a sleeve or three for you and your buds.

McDonald hatched the idea of Comedy Golf during a round of golf (of course!). He's obliquely promoting the line of balls via a series of wicked funny videos here.

This post, about how we have reached the 2000th post, is our 2,000th post!

That's right, 2,000 posts ago, we started posting. And 2,000 posts later, we have posted 2,000 times!

It is a glorious moment!

On June 4, 2004, at 6:08 PM, we posted about how we talked to Joel Haas at the Boston Comedy Festival and asked him how our readers might go about submitting files to XMRadio. We had just jiggered our front page and configured it to use Blogger technology. We had been inching toward this kind of format for some time. About two years earlier, we made our old Like We Care page (some readers may remember that!) our front page and we took to manually updating it whenever we felt like it. It was blogging before blogging was cool!

Since turning SHECKYmagazine into a Blogazine®, we've enjoyed amazing traffic, increased interactivity with our readers and wild increases in efficiency and immediacy.

We would like to take this moment to once again thank our many readers throughout the world and wish you a happy Thanksgiving and a healthy and prosperous holiday season!

The inboxes of Standup America have been clogged with breathless emails referencing an incident in which a comedian received a check at the end of his work week... which subsequently bounced. Bulletins packed with fiery rhetoric and clamorous calls to action continue to circulate.

There's a whole lot more to the story than just a rubber check, of course, but we don't feel it necessary to go into the gory details of what transpired when the recipient of the bouncy bank note tried to collect.

But we'll nutshell it: A comic worked at a club for a week and was paid with a check. The check doesn't cash (and shortly thereafter the club goes under) and the comedian's efforts to collect his wages are met with resistance, subterfuge and, at times, outright hostility. The wronged comic recounts, in excruciating detail, the chain of events in a lengthy MySpace blog posting.

We sympathize. We've been there. We've done that. And, in a case or two, we were met with the resistance, the subterfuge and perhaps some mild hostility.

Some comedians have taken the incident to mean that the business is falling apart. Some have also interpreted the incident as evidence that the comedy business is overrun with sleazy operators. Petty, underhanded. unscrupulous owners, managers and bookers outnumber the good guys, goes the narrative. The general tone seems to be that we're all just a Sunday away from ruin. Some emails implore us to storm the gates and start the revolution now.

But, like we've said, we've been there-- we've had five checks turn out to be "bad." Five. In 23 years. Five checks, and in all but one case, we eventually got our money-- after delays lasting from a week to maybe two weeks.

So, that leaves one check in 23 years that wasn't righted. (It is worth noting that in the case of the bad check, the issuer covered the bounced check... with another check that subsequently bounced!)

We can recount, in startling detail, the circumstances surrounding every incidence of hinky paper. Which might be an indication of just how rare it is.

So, it might well be that all this wailing and hand-wringing is somewhat out of proportion.

Perhaps it was the way in which the incident was brought to the public's attention (via the lengthy MySpace blog post and the strident and sprawling email blast campaign) that has magnified the injustice. But the melodrama that has ensued is precisely what has given us pause.

In the past, we've been scheduled to appear at this club or that, and we've heard rumblings beforehand that the fiscal health of the club is... shaky. Or on one occasion or another, we've stumbled upon information about questionable business practices at a venue that we've already been through. In such cases, we act in the following manner: In the former situation, we try to ascertain if the health of the club is so dire that it might result in delayed payment or worse, non-payment. Based upon that information, we then decide whether or not it is worth our time and effort to follow through with the date. And we determine if there is enough time to re-book it in a healthier venue. Is it easy to ascertain the information? Not always. Is it easy to subsequently evaluate the situation and make a decision? Certainly not.

If it's the latter scenario, we try to find out who is coming up on that venue's schedule and we make an effort to contact any of those performers that we know personally and apprise them of the situation so that they might make an informed decision.

Of course, there's also the other standby piece of advice: Never walk with a check. Easier said than done. We amend that to say: Never walk with a check unless you know and trust the issuer of the check and/or you're fairly confident of the soundness of the venue. And, if at all possible, try to clarify the method of payment prior to agreeing to the engagement.

Did someone say hindsight is 20/20? On this we can agree. It's easy for us to pompously pontificate on what should have been done or on what might have been done wrong. But that is not our aim. And we certainly aren't spinning out this advice to let the perpetrators off the hook.

But we're somewhat put off by the insistence that we (all of us, every comic man, woman and child of us) take up the fight and risk life and limb (or at the very least, future bookings) in order to right the wrong and bring the perpetrators to justice.

We have no quarrel with spinning out the tale, with bringing the details to light, with naming names and letting folks decide when and how to deal with the bad guys. This method, virtually impossible in the pre-WWW era, might yield results, might force potential bad actors to think twice before attempting anything that might be the slightest bit dishonest.

Indeed, we've often lamented the reluctance of the Pre-Bust Comedian to share information-- bad and good-- with his fellows. We've cited that reluctance as one of the things that accelerated the bust, that contributed unnecessarily (and tragically) to the isolation that most comics felt in 1992 and 1993 and in the few years that followed.

But, we are somewhat wary when we're asked to grab a torch and show up on the monster's doorstep.

We'd prefer to see the victim in this case pursue any and all legal recourse and get back to us all on how it turned out. We'd also prefer to see other comics add to the advice that we've pompously put forth in the above paragraphs. And we'd prefer to see comedians share information more freely so that folks can act proactively, in a pre-emptive manner, instead of retroactively. Would it not be preferable for comedians to act, en masse and intelligently, in such a way as to make the passing of questionable checks so much more difficult? Isn't that much better than seeking to enlist your fellow comics in the destruction of a major comedy chain?

And we're skeptical of the claims that this incident indicates some sort of systemic problem throughout the entire industry. Or that such practices are unique to comedy or to the entertainment industry. Ask a restaurant supplier if he's ever been stiffed. Ask a florist if bounced checks are part of the business. We would wager that more than one minister has been paid with a bounced check for performing a wedding ceremony. Does this make it right? Tolerable? Certainly not. Our point is that we should deal with these things calmly and intelligently and act proactively.

The Female Half of the Staff has created her own blog-- Road Atlas Shrugged, over at Blogger.com-- where she'll write about all those topics that just don't fit into the narrow crevice that we've created here at SHECKYmagazine.com.

Birthed at 9:46 AM on Friday morning, the new bouncing baby blog has already addressed such interesting matters as Rejected Fashion Police gags, muzzled Santas in Australia and Scientific Facial Exercises! (See illustration at left!)

The Female Half implores all SHECKYmagazine readers and their friends to check in, bookmark it and return on a regular basis.

Time magazine has a piece about the burgeoning comedy scene in Hong Kong ("How to Write a Joke in China"). Jamie Gong, "was always struck by the rarity of an Asian-American comedian," so when he moved recently to Hong Kong, he was struck by the rarity of comedy clubs in Asia. He started the TakeOut Comedy Shop.

Comedy works for both camps as a form of therapy to bridge Hong Kong's unique cultural gap, which, together with its everyday chaos, creates plenty of material. "The city's hungry for this," Gong says. "I know comedians in New York who'd kill for this kind of a crowd." And the crowd is growing: Three of the four shows comprising the Hong Kong's Funniest Person Contest sold out in advance.

SHECKYmagazine readers will recall that our own Paul Ogata wrote about his experience with Gong and Hong Kong back on September 12 of this year.

It was while performing in Hong Kong with TakeOut Comedy that I was witness to Jami Gong hatching his master plan for getting into the hugest untapped market of them all... China. The plan was simple, really: bring American-style stand-up comedy to the 1.3 billion Chinese. Except that it was pretty much a foreign concept there, since there was only one club which brought in comics from the West. And that was only once a month. No, to operate full-time, Gong realized he needed to have a stable of local comedians. (It turns out that airfare to Hong Kong from the US is a little pricey.)

SHECKYmagazine.com was quoted in the New York Times article on Louis C.K., (not Calvin Klein). Peter Keepnews interviewed C.K. on the occasion of his show tomorrow night at the North Fork Theater in Westbury, N.Y., and his recent sold out Town Hall appearance during last week's New York Comedy Festival.

So while America may not be entirely comfortable inviting Louis C. K. into its living room every week (although he is developing a new sitcom for network TV), he has built a following.

"Though not a mainstream success in the traditional sense," the veteran comedian Brian McKim, an astute observer of the comedy scene on the Web site sheckymagazine.com, said in an e-mail message, "he is a recognizable performer with a track record and a résumé that most comics would be ecstatic to have," who has made a mark without "softening his message or delivery or persona."

Which is good enough for Louis C. K. "I'm about as famous as I want to be," he said. "I get recognized a lot, and it's only by people who like me. Once you get really big, people recognize you who hate you. I don't want that."

That's us-- "The New York Times calls SHECKYmagazine, 'astute observers of the comedy scene!'" Quotes available 24/7!

There was a festival last week in NYC. And there's a festival going on this week in Las Vegas. We weren't/aren't at either one. We're weary of going to festivals on our own dime and incurring all sorts of debt. Some folks have been writing to us, asking us if we're going to be in attendance at the fests and we reply that we're just not keen on taking off a week from work and paying our travel and lodging expenses to cover another festival.

Camille, in Slate.com, interrupts her latest opinion piece to toss in this scathing paragraph about the two prominent comedians:

On the pop front, Ellen DeGeneres' cringe-making on-air meltdown over a dog, leading to her overwrought cancellation of several days of her show, should get a Raspberry Award for worst performance by a lesbian icon. Following Rosie O'Donnell's professional collapse amid lunatic rants and operatic kvetching, this has been a terrible year for Hollywood lesbians' public image. It's as if when the butch mask drops, there's nothing inside but a boiling candy kettle of infantile rage and self-pity. And now Ellen, the professed liberal, is narcissistically flouting the Writers Guild strike. Great going, gals!

Whoa! A "boiling candy kettle of infantile rage and self-pity!" That gal can write!

The mini-poster/flyer on Matt Markman's Myspace promotes Brandt Tobler's Backyard Comedy Festival, with photos of Brody Stevens and Morgan Murphy. And it exhorts attendees to "Bring a lawn chair." Hmmm... perhaps this bit about being a "backyard comedy festival" is serious.

We contacted Markman and it's true: He and comedy buddy Tobler are actually producing shows in Tobler's spacious backyard. Five minutes from the Strip. For real.

The other night they hosted Neil Hamburger and Pleaseeasaur. Friday night, they'll feature Murphy and Stevens. They're talking to other comics for future shows. It's ten bucks to get in.

Markman says the pair are "trying to build a more prominent comedy scene here in las vegas."

FOS Jim Mendrinos has co-written (with director Jason Summers) an off-Broadway musical review called "Growing Up 70s," described as "an interactive journey filled with colorful characters, disco, bell-bottoms, mood-rings, and unforgettable music." It opens tomorrow (Thursday) night and stars Barry Williams, aka Greg Brady. It's being presented at The Theater at Ha!, 163 W. 46th St., in NY, NY. Tickets can be purchased through Telecharge, or by calling (212)977-3884.

In a Variety article pumping his upcoming release "The Six Wives Of Henry Leafy," is the following quote:

Allen still hosts the odd charity event, but he says he doesn't get to return to his road-tour standup roots anywhere "near as much as I'd like. It takes so much prep -- as much as it does to do a movie." Plus, "A lot of my (standup) comedy came from being uncomfortable, and struggling-- right now, comfort has taken away a lot of that input."

December 8 marks the debut of Dave Attell's latest HBO special (schedule here) is his first for that cable outlet in more than ten years. It's entitled "Captain Miserable."

Robert Klein is working out new material for his upcoming special on HBO. Anybody psyched for a chance to see the comedy legend in an intimate venue should check him out at the Princeton Catch A Rising Star on December 1. The room at the Hyatt Regency on Rte. 1 formerly held 250+, but now holds about 100, so it should be a great place to see Klein.

It's the day we honor those who served.
Here's a picture (above) of the Male Half's father (that's him on the far left, US Army, WWII) and below is the Female Half's Father (US Army, 1954).

The Mitch Hedberg Calendar is "selected artworks inspired by the comedy genius of Mitch Hedberg." The limited edition 2008 calendar is available via the Mitch Hedberg Tribute Blog. It features art by fans of the late comedian.


Comedy writer Jeffrey L. Gurian and journo/author Tripp Whetsell collected "jokes so dirty comedians and entertainers only tell them to each other." It features gags from Alan Zweibel, Drew Carey, Tony "Paulie Walnuts" Sirico, Scott Baio and dozend more comics, actors and others.

The forward is by Paul Provenza and it's available via Kensington Books.








"Balls! An In-Your-Face Look At Sports" is "a lovely penalty shot to the crotch of an institution rife with overblown salaries, steroids and sex scandals." Written by comedian and Sports Illustrated.com columnist Steve Hofstetter, it's available via National Lampoon Press. Hofstetter asks, "Where else can you see a grown man play a children's game in a jumpsuit and complain that he's not getting paid enough!"








Judy Carter's Comedy Career in a Box is precisely what it says it is. It's the "definitive interactive guide for comics, writers, speakers, actors and anyone who wants to make money from being funny" and it comes in a box that contains three interactive DVDs with six hours of step-by-step comedy instruction. Carter authored The Comedy Bible, arguably the best-selling how-to book on standup, and her boxed set is a portable, multimedia version of her Los Angeles Comedy Workshop. It contains industry trade secrets from 18 of Hollywood's top managers, agents, casting directors, bookers and producers.

EDITORS NOTE: Shappi Khorsandi is a woman. We shall go change the "he" to "she" and the "his" to a "her". (Thanks for the tip from FOS Tanyalee Davis!)

"It could have been me," writes Shappi Khorsandi, a second generation London-based comedian. She recounts the ordeal of "Afshin," who "arrived in the UK from Iran 12 years ago, fleeing further persecution. He had a long history of opposition to the Iranian regime and was imprisoned and beaten many times before leaving the country."

Khorsandi contrasts Afshin's situation to her own:

My own experience as an asylum-seeker could hardly be more different. Like Afshin, I am Iranian, but my family first came to London because of my father's job, as a writer and comedian. This was shortly after the content of one of his newspaper columns had led the Ayatollah to declare my dad an "enemy of the revolution."

As a result, his office in Tehran was surrounded by a mob. After we received death threats, we had to seek asylum here. When a hit squad was sent to London to try to kill my father, we were actually offered police protection.

Enemy of the revolution? Pretty strong stuff! Sounds like dad hit a nerve. Sounds like he was among the many who opposed the 1979 Islamic Revolution. (It was in all the papers. It helped launch Nightline. We still hear about it once in a while.)

And it sounds suspiciously like what is happening in America today with an alarming and ever-increasing frequency! The slightest comedic opposition to the Bush regime brings blood thirsty mobs, death threats! Eventually comedians are forced to flee with their families to seek asylum elsewhere-- where you're sought out by hit squads dispatched directly from Langley! ...Or at the very least, people stop buying your CD or your book... and then other people start buying your book or CD because other people told them to stop buying it! And, maybe, in the extreme cases, you're forced to switch networks! The horror! (The Sarcasm Light is flashing.)

Toward the end of the piece, the junior Khorsandi says, "Since then, I've been able to follow in my father's footsteps and become a productive member of society (if you can say that about a stand-up comedian)." Yes! Yes, Shappi, you can! Remember: Not only was your father a "productive member of society," he risked his life trying to bring down a historically oppressive regime! (We know the statement is tongue in cheek, but just how thoroughly have British comedians internalized this "comedians are worthless" meme? The trend does not look good.)

(Papa Khorsandi's website is here and his writing is featured in Asghar Agha, check them out if you can read Arabic... then again, it might be Farsi... we don't read either, so we're not sure! And, as a bonus, here's the elder Khorsandi on YouTube, killing in Farsi!)

Here's a reasoned opinion piece on the recent change in venue of a monthly comedy night in Ottawa. The monthly show, on the University of Ottawa campus, featured "unconventional stuff that may involve props, physical movement, or experimental... more intelligent humour that the mainstream crowd just simply would not understand."

In "Sticking up for stand up," Tina Hassannia, writing in the University's student paper, The Fulcrum, examines the reasons for the location swap from 1848 to the Royal Oak.

Jason Collard, 1848's bar manager, said he cancelled the monthly show because of negative feedback he received from patrons, and also that it was a business decision to focus more efforts on building the campus bar’s business. Fair enough. Organizer Trevor Thompson has been able to move the event to the nearby Royal Oak at 161 Laurier Ave., so the show will go on.

The rest is an interesting snapshot of the comedy market in Canada's fourth largest urban area.

(We emphasize that it was probably "negative feedback" that forced the move. And, since it was a "campus bar," it's very possible that the negative feedback came from... students? It's not a slam dunk that college students dig the alternative comedy... or comedy in general.)

Back in the mid-80's, the Male Half was unparalleled among his peers when it came to predicting a downturn in the comedy business. He couldn't imagine that Big Comedy could sustain the growth he saw around him, the expansion that enabled him to leave his day job and travel the country as a full-time comedian. Somewhere around 1990 or so, he took his eye off the ball and stopped predicting doom and even allowed for a bit of optimism.

Then, in 1993, the business collapsed.

This posting is not meant to get into the reasons, the theories, the details. This posting is to talk about the present and about the current health of live standup.

It's good. In fact, we're going to risk angering the Irony Gods and say that it is quite possibly nearly as strong as it's been since just before the bust.

Some folks out there are saying quite the opposite-- we're seeing clubs closing right and left, they say. While that may be true-- we have heard of clubs closing in at least three four cities-- we hasten to point out that, in all but one case, the reasons for closing do not indicate that the business in general is in any peril or that the general business climate in those markets is somehow responsible for the shuttering of the clubs in question.

To put it another way: Some folks see a club close in their market (or in another market) and they conclude that the biz is sick, the Second Great Comedy Bust is nigh. What they ignore is that, in many cases, the club has foundered because of crucial errors made on the part of the owners. Or personal problems were a major factor (if not the only factor) in the dissolution of the enterprise. Or specific, isolated business matters, wholly unrelated to the economy at large, were in play. In these cases, the closure is in no way indicative of an industry-wide downturn.

We've cited recent newspaper articles that talk of new clubs opening with savvy game plans or old clubs being revitalized with new blood and enthusiasm. A reader sent us word of an article entitled "Northwest Comedians Are In Good Humor Now That Comedy Clubs Are Making A Comeback" in the Horizon Air inflight magazine. Sure, we hear about clubs that open and close in the space of six months, but we take each case individually and we try to discern exactly what occurred.

We have vowed to never again to make blanket statements based on vague feelings or assumptions. We monitor all facets of the business and keep our eyes and ears open. We've paid close attention for coming up on nine years, and we've been very optimistic for four or five years now.

And when we say that comedy is on the upswing, we have not arrived at the conclusion haphazardly.

None of this is license for club owners to slack off, to cease spending money on advertising or to sever the deal with the local radio station. And we're not telling part-time comedians that they should quit the day job, or that full-timers should relax-- it has always been our policy that comedians should try to develop as many different revenue streams as possible. But we are saying that folks should question any sweeping proclamation on the state of the business and subject it to a fair amount of scrutiny.

If you were watching the CBS series Without A Trace this evening, you probably saw a commercial for Geico, one of the series where they pair a celebrity to tell the regular person's insurance claim story.

This one used "the guy who makes those funny sound effects" (we paraphrase).

,It was none other than Michael Winslow standup comic and sound effects wizard who gained fame as Sgt. Larvelle Jones in the Police Academy series of films. Winslow has been headlining comedy clubs across America the past two decades. (And just reading his IMDB profile is exhausting.)

By virtue of his inclusion in the Geico series, he has joined such august company as Bert Bachrach, Little Richard and Dan LaFontaine.

Readers may have noticed posts appearing and disappearing, along with comments. Blogger was having technical issues which they seem to have resolved in the last 12 hours or so. The front page is intact. Enjoy.

We're not paraphrasing. It's in the Cox News Service interview that ran in the Kansas City Star.

The fact is, most comedians are ugly.

We wrenched it out of context. But it's not very pretty in context, either.

She weighs in on Kathy Griffin, Larry The Cable Guy, Dane Cook and others. Perhaps she was misquoted. Several times. We hope so.

Also noteworthy is the size of the pic that's running with the article. It's a giant headshot of Griffin... and below it are two fingernail-sized pics of Madigan and Cook. Regrettable editorial choice or HTML quirk?

For the record: If asked to name some ugly comedians, we can't come up with any who are all that hideous off the top of our heads. (No, this is not an invitation to list unattractive comedians in the Comments section. If anything, let's list the attractive ones... and, what the heck, let's boost Madigan's self-esteem and list her first.)

Tom Wilson is all over the tube tonight. He'll appear on House (Season 4, Episode 6) as "Lou." (He's "Thomas F. Wilson" now... Since his Biff Tanner days, he's elongated the first name and added the MI.) We'll be watching, as House is a favorite program here at SHECKYmagazine HQ. It's maintained its bite (maybe even kicked it up a notch) despite the fact that the creator has blown the show up and reassembled it.

And he'll also be on Boston Legal (Season 4, Episode 6, "The Object of My Affection"). We're not sure what his character's name is, as he wasn't listed in the expanded cast and credits. We won't be watching. DEK has blown this show up somewhat, but the new incarnation is awful and the writing and plotlines are shrill and beyond ridiculous-- even for this show.

Wilson will also be on Bones on November 27.

Busy boy!

Humor, it seems, can hurt. So say researchers whose experiments found that sexist jokes promote "discrimination against women." Participants were asked to imagine they were members of a work group in an organization and, after they read a bunch of dumb blonde jokes and other jokes (that weren't "sexist"), they were then asked to say how much money they would be willing to donate to help (an imaginary) women's organization.

The guys who guffawed at the jokes about broads became tightfisted. The others, we suppose, were overcome with a desire to open their wallets.

"We believe this shows that humorous disparagement creates the perception of a shared standard of tolerance of discrimination that may guide behavior when people believe others feel the same way."

Other subjects were shown sexist video clips and were then "asked to participate in a project designed to determine how funding cuts should be allocated amongst select student organizations." You can guess the outcome.

The credibility of social scientists hovers around that of Uri Geller or Chuck Woolery.

Denis Hamill interviews Richie Miniervini for the NY Daily News and they talk about the East Side.

Eddie Murphy, Ray Romano, Kevin James, Rosie O'Donnell, Paul Reiser, Jim Carrey and director Judd Apatow (of "The 40 Year Old Virgin" and "Knocked Up" fame) all made their comedy bones in the 1980s and early '90s in Huntington, L.I., at Minervini's legendary East Side Comedy Club, which closed in 1995.

Students of comedy history will get a kick out of the piece.

From an interview on 411mania.com comes this quote from interviewer Tony Farinella, in response to Victoria Jackson's statement that bad words are "just there for people who don't have good material.":

Personally, I've always found it rather lazy. I think it takes more talent and more creativity to get laughs without using bad words. I don't find the F word funny.

...It's hard to be funny.

Being clean isn't any easier/harder than being dirty. Good dirty humor isn't automatically any funnier/less funny than good clean humor.

It's hard to be funny.

Martinez died yesterday morning, of cancer, according to her website.

Fellow comics like Chris Rock, Andrew Dice Clay, George Lopez, Joe Rogan, Martin Lawrence, Carlos Mencia, Cheech Marin, Dane Cook, Pauly Shore, were all big fans of Marilyn. Cheech brought her on tour with him all last year, Martin Lawrence featured her on his First Amendment series for Starz this year and Paul Rodriguez had her tour with him for many years. She was one of Mitzy Shore's favorites and one of the Comedy Store legends. Most recently she co-headlined and was able to showcase her true uncompromised talent on Showtime, in the Original Latin Divas of Comedy.

Read the rest of the tribute from Scott Montoya here.

With few exceptions, we have never gotten into the middle of the Who Steals What From Whom controversies that have popped up here and there over the past two years or so. It's not our style. It's seems to be a giant waste of everyone's time. And we also have warned