It was anti-climactic.

Dave seemed weak, almost hoarse during his monologue. (Perhaps it was the HD TV we watched it on, but he seemed weary and older. We haven't watched the show in some time, so maybe it was just that we forgot what Dave looked like.)

We have a theory: The bit that got Hicks' set yanked wasn't the anti-Pro-Lifer bit (that was actually pretty innocuous, when you analzye it), but the opening joke, the one where he advocates hunting Billy Ray Cyrus down.

Folks sometimes forget that when the show moved from NBC to CBS, it also dropped down from 12:30 AM to 11:30 PM. There was much fretting about whether Letterman's humor and style would play well in the new time slot-- and conversely, it was said that Letterman's style was better-suited to the later slot. (In similar fashion, so do folks worry about Conan O'Brien's new timeslot.)

The new time slot was probably the most important factor in the decision to cut the set. You can put a shotgun in someone's mouth and pull the trigger at 1:24 AM (maybe), but you can't put a shotgun in someone's mouth an hour earlier. That was a Late Night set, not a Late Show set.

The images, the suggestions, are rather violent (even though they're clearly meant as a joke), but folks get antsy when a comic advocates such violence. (And Hicks added the extra graphic details--"...catch that fruity little ponytail of his, pull him to his Chippendale's knees, put a shotgun in his mouth and 'pow'")

Perhaps whoever vetted the set failed to make the adjustment-- an hour's difference is significant when it comes to standards and practices. The set should never have been approved in the first place.

It's not a stretch to think that the folks who represent Cyrus (and the other celebrities targeted in the opening bit-- Markie Mark, M.C. Hammer, Michael Bolton) had some "input" into the decision-- explicitly or implicitly. Advocating the brutal murder of three or four of the biggest-selling recording artists of the previous four or five years might make a giant firm like ICM or William Morris a bit... testy. And you don't want to alienate them if you're a new show on a new network. (By October of '93, Vanilla Ice was well along his way into oblivion, so we figure no one spoke up for him.)

Or was it the "Daddy's New Roommate" bit? Political correctness had reached a peak at just about the time Hicks's 12th appearance on the show was taped. It's possible that the bit, though far from "homophobic," could have conceivably make some flinch in 1993, such was the sensitivity at the time.

Hicks had made quite a name for himself tweaking those who might squirm-- on both the left and the right-- so it isn't a slam dunk that his set was axed because of the pro-life bit or the Easter bunny bit. It might well have been a collision of commerce, violence, ideology and hyper-sensitivity that precipitated the decision. (And, in any event, we would argue that what took place cannot be described as "censorship." A calamitous series of bad decisions by several parties, perhaps, but not censorship.)

After seeing the set, and keeping in mind the context, it's completely understandable why it might have been excised from the broadcast. And again it's totally baffling that the set was vetted in the first place.

Re-running it might have been a bad move for the show. Letterman looked weary last night and viewers might have gotten the idea that perhaps he wasn't as cutting edge as we all thought 15 years ago when the incident originally took place.

Dave says he felt guilty. We would say that he had little reason to feel guilty because-- as was pointed out on the show last night-- Hicks had been on the network showcase 11 times prior. Letterman may have done more than anyone to certify Hicks as a comedy star. And, had Hicks lived, the bumped routine would have added to his legend and cemented his reputation as a rebel. (The fact that he died soon after the incident is something that Letterman could not have foreseen and is something therefore that could not have been factored into the decision.)

We would have preferred to have seen the set presented in the context of a tribute to the artist, a celebration, perhaps, of a comedian who had appeared on the show multiple times in the space of eight or nine years. And we could have done without the apologies-- we're well aware that Hicks was allegedly crushed by the exclusion from the show, but we're inclined to believe that was the cancer talking, a classic case of displacement, perhaps. After all, Hicks wore such slights as a badge of honor. The 39-page letter that Hicks sent to The New Yorker reporter seems out of character for a guy who called for genocide for the whole of humanity and called Hitler an underachiever.

Putting all that aside, watching the performance of a man who died 148 days later was quite dramatic and tragic. Knowing that he knew that he was staring death in the face made it all that much more bizarre and poignant.

And Hicks' mom, too.

And they'll show Hicks' last set on the show-- the one that was bumped. (Hicks died at age 32. Next month, it will be 15 years since he passed, so there'll be lots of retrospectives and tributes.)

It's mysterious as to why they would re-run the set. The official explanation for not running it in the first place was that "was new at CBS, was riding high in the ratings, and didn't want any trouble." (That's according to Aaron Barnhart. In the same article, Barnhart also calls Virginia Heffernan's argument in Slate that the bumping of the set was not censorship. He calls her assertion "high-handed." She cites Stanly Fish's piece from the Chronicle of Higher Education. Read all three to be totally prepared for tomorrow night's spectacle. Regular readers of this site can pretty much figure out where we might come down on the matter.)

Perhaps it's the flip side of Letterman's situation 15 years later-- He's been at CBS forever, and, in June of this year, Hollywood Reporter said that Late Show tied its lowest-ever adults 18-49 rating." Is it cynical to conclude that perhaps now the show's producers want to actively court a form of "trouble" radically different from that which they were avoiding in 1993?

But will it work? Will it cause trouble (the kind of trouble that translates into ratings?)

Judging from this letter, in which Hicks describes the set almost word for word, it's a long shot. Although there has been a lot of buzz on the WWW.

The true mystery is how the set got approved. How it made it all the way to taping. If the set was that controversial, surely the talent coordinator (Bob Morton) would have known that it was unairable. Perhaps it was just a simple case of a coordinator messing up. It's happened before.

Ugh! Sounds vaguely dicey.

Although the recent "miracle" on the Hudson gives us great comfort, The Male Half is wigged when anticipating an airplane ride. The Female Half is positively placid, even during violent turbulence or "bumpy air" as the veteran flyboys call it.)

So it helps to have all the data. Click here to see a swingin', animated map of the U.S. that shows which areas of the country the pilot will be required to observe Visual Flight Rules, Marginal Visual Flight Rules, Instrument Flight Rules or Low (or Limited) Instrument Flight Rules. And it's in real time almost!

(Click on the "Aviation" tab to check out the "Upper Air Observations" are at various altitudes-- a good indicator of whether your flight will be smooth or bumpy... or maybe it's best just to fly ignorant!)

In the space of 5:40, we'll go from the sleet, snow and ice pellets of the NE U.S. to the 61 degrees and 21 per cent relative humidity of the Phoenix desert.

Jimmie Walker, interviewed in the Toledo Blade:

Q: What does having the first elected African-American president mean to you, and to your comedy?

A: It seems a lot of white comedians are still feeling their way around what kind of jokes they can make about Obama. I never thought I would see [the] day in my lifetime. The people most shocked by a black president are black people!!! But regardless of race, the president is the president and he is in the news and if it is in the news it is in the act. The terrorists and the Republicans aren't gonna give him a pass, so neither can comics. He will come into the office at a very difficult time but we can’t abdicate our right of freedom of speech. Humor is very important to Americans and the American way of life.

Blade staffer Kirk Baird also asked who influenced Walker:

Dick Gregory, Godfrey Cambridge, George Kirby-- people today don't remember them but they were some of the greatest comics of all time. Lenny Bruce, only because of the phenomenon around him-- I have never worked "blue" it's not my style. And the classics: Bob Hope, Jack Benny-- I liked their timing and work ethic, and the fact that they were successful in many mediums, radio, TV, and movies.

I would like to be like Myron Cohen and Flip Wilson and tell stories where the journey is more fun than the final destination. It's a style of comedy that I enjoy and respect, but I always felt other guys did it better.

It's in Memphis... we did it last year, in February. It was a nice venue, great crowds (when there wasn't the threat of an ice storm. Thank you very much, local TV weatherdouchebags!) and good food. Owners Sammy Martin and John Marks ran the room based on the format that was developed by the folks who ran Comedy TX.

We heard a rumor that it was closing. We called. Sammy Martin answered and confirmed that it will remain open through the last weekend of February.

The future is uncertain. Martin said that he and Marks my try to produce one-off comedy shows at other venues in Memphis. Stay tuned.

It's the editors and reporters who are.

There are two more articles. The Republican-American's "Obama: Bad news for comics" offers some hope in quotes from comic Tina Giorgi. But Mark Eaton, a performer and writer with the The Capitol Steps, calls Obama a "pretty even-keeled, cool guy," and adds "I doubt he will give us the kind of material Bush or Bill (Clinton) did."

Amid the fretting about "ethnic attacks" and "star(ing) down the potential lack of presidential material," Brad Axelrod displays the most sense of anyone in the article:

Brad Axelrod, chief executive officer of Treehouse Comedy Productions, which operates comedy clubs in Danbury, Stamford, Stratford and other towns, said comedy will benefit from the opportunity for new material.

"Funny is funny. As long as you are dealing with contemporary issues, there is something to poke fun at," he said.

Meanwhile, in the Baltimore Sun, Mary Carole McCauley's "Comedy in black and white" asks the question, "Is Obama's rise already shifting the bounds of racial comedy?" McCauley gets quotes from one black comic, Larry Lancaster, and one white comic, Mickey Cuchiella and tosses in a few quotes from the occasional egghead or media analyst.

But it's more of the same.

And might it not be getting a bit embarrassing for the media now? Way back before the internet, these editors could commission these pieces and they'd run in the local paper-- with nary a chance that the article would be seen by anyone outside their distribution circle. Now, however, it's getting a bit ridiculous as the count rises-- it's at about four or five dozen now-- and folks around the country (around the world!) can read the same idea flogged over and over again. A fine example of the media echo chamber.

It doesn't show any signs of abating.

"I guess, when Obama says this stuff, I don't think he really means it... and that's what gives me hope."

Odd part is, Stewart's audience is laughing and cheering. A reversal from their reactions during the campaign. Maybe it's easier to make Obama jokes than he thought.

Try this free test.

We found out our download is 741 Kbps and our upload is 133 Kbps.

From the Broadband Report:

As of June 2008, 96.47 per cent of US workers connected to the Internet with broadband, up 0.52 percentage points from the 95.95 per cent share in May. At work, 3.53 per cent connect at 56Kbps or less.

We suspect the folks who connect at work at the pokey 56 Kbps speed do so because broadband isn't necessary-- All they need it for is email or other low-bandwidth apps.

Also:

US broadband penetration broke ninety percent among active Internet users in June 2008. Broadband jumped to 90.5% in June, up 0.53 percentage points over the previous month.

Nielsen Online defines an "active internet user" as one who has logged onto the internet in the last 30 days. They estimate there are 151 million aiu's in the U.S.

And, again from the Broadband Report, news of a significant move by the FCC:

The FCC has approved the regulated use of the "white spaces" between and among the unused analog TV channels, for unlicensed devices. With the transition to digital television by February 2009, the soon to be empty analog channels can be used for other purposes. Some estimate that wireless providers could use the lower frequency TV spectrum to provide universal broadband access for every household in America for as little as $10 per month (Calabrese and Scott 2006).

FCC head Kevin Martin said that the approval of rules authorizing the use of TV white spaces spectrum "is a significant victory for consumers... Opening the white spaces will allow for the creation of a WiFi on steroids."

We've taken the Twitter plunge. We're not sure why... but we'll "tweet" on occasion and we exhort all you readers to "follow" us, via Twitter. (There... we think we have the terminology down.)

We've configured our cell to tweet. Maybe we'll tweet a bit during our upcoming trek to Phoenix and Los Angeles.

To follow us, go to http://twitter.com/sheckymagazine (and dig those crazy test-tweets)!

From the Miami Herald comes this, on the occasion of that town playing host to the South Beach Comedy Festival:

Admit it. When you hear the words "comedy festival" you think stand-up comedy.

And that's OK. Over the years, your assumption would have been right.

But since change is the theme of the day, it should come as no surprise that the fourth annual South Beach Comedy Festival, which runs through Saturday, is breaking tradition in terms of how it presents the funny.

Anyone else feel a chill go up the spine upon reading the introductory clause in paragraph three?

Change? The theme of the day? What kind of change do you have in mind?

There's a clue in this, from Fest Director Raul Mateo:

"There will be traditional stand-up comics. They will probably always make up a majority of the acts," says Raul Mateo, festival director. "But this year we have people who are not traditional comedians doing shows. We have comedy theater from a well-known playwright. We have variety shows. And we have shows in Spanish to be more inclusive with the Spanish-speaking community.

Now go back and read the part that's in bold using Eeyore's voice.

Translation: I guess we'll always be stuck with standup comics.

Every festival director for the past six or seven years has said this or a variation of this.

So, admit it: When you hear the words "comedy festival," you think standup comedy. Well, shame on you.

The Gothamist interviewed FOS Paul F. Tompkins on the occasion of his move to New York.

Tompkins is in the big city because he's the host of Best Week Ever, the pop culture and entertainment snarkfest on cable outlet Video Hits 1. (Do they even call it that any more? Probably not, as they don't even bother with music videos any more... do they?)

On the topic of Best Week Ever and the "backlash":

People have been very dismissive of it even when talking to me. "Oh you're on 'I Love the Whatevers.'" It's like no, it's not 'I Love the Whatevers.' It's a specific show and it's called Best Week Ever and it's not just, "Hey remember the Rubik's Cube?...Yes, now moving on to the next thing." I think that's why our show lasted throughout the different changes in VH-1 programming. By having to talk about what happened in the week, it gave our show more substance than just nostalgia. Because it was things that just happened, people got a bigger charge out of it.

And now there are still people that are snobby about the show. There are people that assume that I am embarrassed about the show or am just doing it for a paycheck, like it's inconceivable to them that I would actually be proud of the show and that I would really enjoy doing it. Which I do and which I am. So people can say whatever they want.

When asked if shows like his are irrelevant or redundant, now that everyone has the ability to broadcast their own snark via Twitter or Facebook, he responds:

In a world where everybody has the ability to comment in a public forum (i.e. the internet) on things that are happening in the world, we're trying to say, "But here's what happens when people get paid to do it. It's maybe a little funnier.

Read the whole thing-- especially his reply to "Does there come a point where you stop waiting for your big break?"

From a phoner, recounted on TCPalm.com:

With 22 chart-topping singles, six platinum albums, a beautiful actress wife and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, what else could Clint Black possibly want?

The country music icon answered that question last spring with an appearance on CBS’ “Secret Talents of the Stars,” trying his hand at standup comedy.

"I had to write my own jokes, and go work out in comedy clubs in Nashville and L.A., to try to come up with two minutes of 'A' material," Black said in a phone interview. "It wasn't easy; I was wishing I could use somebody elses jokes."

That's the title of an article by Jason Heidemann who wonders, in an article in Time Out Chicago, if homophobia is "the reason Chicago lacks a thriving LGBT stand-up culture."

He cites as homophobia the case of "a straight comic (who) talked about the intimidation he felt around a big, burly guy at his gym-- that is, until he found out the guy is gay."

In the next paragraph, local comic Adam Guerino says that "When gays go see a show, they may worry, and justifiably so, that they'll find themselves the butt of jokes."

To which we reply: When anyone goes to a show, they might find themselves the butt of jokes. Why? BECAUSE IT'S A COMEDY CLUB!

Who, we ask, would go to a comedy club and not entertain the possibility that they might find themselves the butt of jokes? Who would expect to be exempt from such treatment? What might that say about someone if they went to a comedy club and expected to be excluded when it comes to being made fun of? Further, if someone goes to a comedy club, subsequently finds himself to be the "butt of jokes," and is offended and identifies such jokes as indicative of irrational fear and hatred, might it not be reasonable to assume that the person in question is horribly misinformed about the nature of a comedy club and/or wildly self-centered?

Indeed, might not that person be horribly misinformed about the nature of humor itself? Might not that person be, dare we say it, humorless? Overly-sensitive? There may actually be evidence of irrational fear here, but we're not so sure that it's the straight comic mentioned in paragraph one.

The rest of the article has some sane, reasonable quotes from another comic in Chicago's "LGBT stand-up culture," Cameron Esposito. But quotes from Bill Cruz and Guerino were a bit over the top-- we suspect that the prosecutor (Heidemann) was leading the witnesses in an attempt to create a hook for the piece or reinforce his own notions about the state of queer comedy in Chicago. (And in an attempt to make his case, he couldn't resist a gratuitous slap or two at the straight comics in that town.)

We're not convinced, as Cruz says, that ""Youll find antigay sentiment at a lot of stand-up. There's a certain amount of homophobia you can express that's accepted. Sometimes there's a lot of gay- and women-bashing."

Perhaps it's a matter of language and perception. One man's "antigay sentiment" is another man's joke that makes a goofy point about the guy at the gym. One person's "gay-bashing" is another person's broad (but ultimately harmless) joke about Lance Bass.

But, once again, straight comics are portrayed in an article as homophobic troglodytes. The occasional "fag impression" by the inexperienced open-miker (or by Robin Williams in countless late-night talk show appearances) and the next thing you know, we're a network of good ol' boy of knuckle-draggers looking for the next Matthew Shepard. (Exaggeration? You'll allow us just a bit of, to even things up.)

Esposito says something very interesting:

"There's always this process of coming out in front of your audience. You don't have to do that with a queer crowd, but [LGBT] audiences are tougher because having a queer event automatically politicizes it."

We've always maintained that politicizing comedy is death to comedy. If one is politicizing comedy (at an LGBT event or at the local Chuckle Hut), one is thinking too much. Parsing, analyzing, extrapolating-- all are activities that dampen the exchange between comic and audience member.

That might partially answer the question Heidemann poses in his article's first graf.

There's AP article on the wires about George Carlin's FBI files. (Carlin's daughter conveniently turned them over to the press in time to promote the Feb. 4 PBS broadcast of the Mark Twain ceremony.)

Turns out there wasn't much in the file to get excited about, aside from a couple angry letters from folks who took a dim view of his jokes about the FBI on two sets on The Jackie Gleason Show and The Carol Burnett Show.

There's also a letter from Hoover himself thanking one of Carlin's critics for defending his honor, and an internal FBI memo that quotes the director as asking: "What do we know of Carlin?"

Not much, as it turned out. The memo notes the FBI has "no data concerning Carlin" other than the two letters from his critics.

"Which kind of disappoints me," laughed Carlin's daughter, Kelly Carlin McCall, who provided the file to The Associated Press. "It doesn't really cover any of his more radical 1970s stuff."

Carlin obtained the file "years ago" after making a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.

Oddly, AP reporter John Rogers opens the article with this:

Talk about irony. George Carlin spent decades pushing the bounds of free speech by saying the seven words you can never say on television, but not one of them made it into an FBI file on him.

The FBI investigates foul language? It's news to us. That would be the purview of the FCC.

We suppose the author bought the meme that Carlin was "subversive." But he was only so in matters of culture, not politics. John Lennon, on the other hand, had a 281-page FBI file, but he was in the thick of the anti-war effort, hanging out with Yippies and Black Panthers and such. (Hardly indictable offenses, but understandable that it would draw the attention of the feds, considering the tenor of the times.)

"No Line On The Horizon" is the title of the new U2 CD. (Why do we care? Really. Why do we care? We're not big U2 fans here at SHECKYmagazine.com HQ. The Male Half saw them live at the Tower, probably at a show to support the release of "War," but he hasn't cared a whit about them since.)

We care because of the title of track 7:

1. "No Line On The Horizon"
2. "Magnificent"
3. "Moment of Surrender"
4. "Unknown Caller"
5. "I'lll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight"
6. "Get On Your Boots"
7. "Stand Up Comedy"
8. "Fez-- Being Born"
9. "White As Snow"
10. "Breathe"
11. "Cedars Of Lebanon"

For a few days we were fearful that the CD would be called Stand Up Comedy-- Oh, what havoc that would cause with folks searching for decent information on the WWW relating to standup comedy! Trust us, anything U2-related would swamp anything else on the web. It's the demographic.

Perhaps that's why they named their last CD "How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb." Perhaps they wanted to suppress information about nuclear devices and the people who might stop them from detonating.

Which group is capable of doing the most damage to the business of live standup comedy?

The comedians?

The club owners?

We'd have to say the owners. For it is they who determine whether or not the comedian ever gets onto the comedy club's stage. (Hold any emails that argue that it is the club's booker or manager that determines such things-- the booker or manager serves at the pleasure of the owner, so it all goes back to him/her.)

Please note that we say, "doing the most damage"-- for even though a club owner has the ultimate say in who gets on his stage, the comedian can and does share some of the responsibility.

There is a general feeling in the land that this nation is facing hard economic times (although, judging from the dense traffic around the Deptford Mall this past Saturday, the misery has yet to hit Southern New Jersey!), and that comedy club proprietors will soon be forced to take stern measures to ensure their club's viability.

What's the first way to save big bucks? Cut back on the budget for talent!

(We've seen this tactic employed in prosperous times... what makes anyone think that some owners won't try it now?!)

Where's the most likely place to start saving money when it comes to talent?

If you answered "the emcee spot!" you are correct. (And you are probably an emcee!)

Where's the worst place to start saving money when it comes to talent?

If you answered "the emcee spot!" you are also correct. (And you are probably a headliner who has just suffered through a weekend of shows with a horrendous emcee... or you are an audience member who endured a show hosted by someone who should not even be allowed to park cars, let alone hop onto a weekend stage to host a professional show.)

How many times have we heard (before the show even starts), "The opening act always sucks!"? This has become a truism among many a comedy fan. Of course, it's not true. But the public has "caught on" to the set of ideas that the emcee is paid poorly, is the least experienced act on the bill and, therefore, is most often the person on the bill who is least likely to actually make people laugh, keep the show moving and avoid embarrassing moments.

The folks who book the emcees bear some of the responsibility for the popularity of this concept. For although the emcee spot is one of the most important on the bill, it is quite often one of the most neglected.

So, when people start cutting corners, they follow this disastrous formula: Take an open-miker (who only has five minutes) and make him an emcee (which requires him to do fifteen minutes). Then take a comic who was formerly an emcee (and might have twenty minutes if he's lucky) and bump him up to feature act and have him do thirty.

The result of such cost-cutting is that a paying, weekend crowd will suffer through not one, but two acts who are in over their heads. By the time the headliner has hit the stage, they've sat through an excruciating 45 minutes.

And all because, in an effort to keep expenses down, you've figured out a way to pay the emcees nothing and a way to pay the features what you formerly paid to the emcees.

Congratulations! You've hit upon a formula that will result in complaints, cancellations, terrible word-of-mouth and, inevitably, empty seats.

At the same time, comics bear some of the responsibility for this train wreck. Early on we all need to take certain risks and "move up to the next level." But, we all need to be acutely aware of exactly what we're capable of doing. We must be aware of, but certainly not slaves to, our limitations. If you've only ever done seven minutes, don't agree to do 15. (How many times have we had an open-miker look us straight in the eyes and say, "I have two hours of material in my notebook."? No. You. Don't. You know who has two hours of material in his notebook? Brian Regan. The list pretty much ends there.)

Is there a solution to this standoff? There are a few. Not the least of which is a more hands-on approach to the open mike night. (If the club even has one.)

If a club's manager or booker or owner even has to ask a local comic "How much time do you have?" then he is probably not paying sufficient attention to his local talent. (And he probably deserves to be lied to!)

The open mike, staged and used properly, is the lifeblood of any comedy club when it comes to a constant supply of competent comics who can host a show, get the intros right and not offend anyone. Clubs that don't even have an open mike night are going to have a rough time finding talent for that important opening slot. And are probably going to end up paying more for that position.

The person responsible for talent should pay close attention to the weekend shows as well. Too many club managers or owners don't even watch the shows. If you've got an emcee who is agitating for a feature spot, watching him over the course of two shows can pretty much tell you all you need to know. If you really want to be certain of his skills, have the emcee do two different shows one night. If he melts down and reverts back to safe mode, he's probably not ready.

It's quite the feat to book those first two spots on a show. If a club owner thinks he can solve his problems by bumping an emcee up to the feature spot and grab a random open miker to host the weekend, he's got big problems.

(And if you think that paying your headliner $10,000 will make the audience forget those excruciating first 45 minutes, you are mistaken.)

Here's an item from the website of Extra (that's the ghastly product placement orgy produced by Warner Bros.) that says that John Mayer is going to host a variety show on CBS.

Back in June of 2006, we commented on Mayer's dabbling in standup:

We actually do think that, of all the H-wood standup dabbler types, Mayer could could actually make a go of the standup thing. We stumbled upon his VH-1 show (John Mayer Has A TV Show) a couple times and found it to be wildly funny. Mayer was likeable and seemed to possess a genuine sense of humor and the tools with which to effectively wield it. A master of self-effacement, seeming to be at times embarassed/amused by the degree to which his fans adored him.

FOS Sharilyn Johnson has a lengthier and more timely post on the subject at her blog, From The Back Of The Room.

The long-running rumors that John Mayer would host a new variety show were confirmed by CBS last week, and immediately, venom spewed throughout the internet. He's a sell-out, he's a douchebag, he needs to stick to music, and so on. In short: "that's enough, John Mayer."

I disagree. Walk with me...

Walk with her here.

Fortunately, though, Whitney Matheson (the blogger behind USAToday's Pop Candy), remembers such things. And on Tuesday, she reminded her readers of the flamboyant prop comic's birthday with this posting. We excerpt it here:

I'm not sure when I first witnessed Rip Taylor's crazed, pun-filled confetti act, but I know I was pretty young, and I also know that I found it absolutely hilarious. At 75, the comedian still works and maintains a website, where he often posts updates for fans. The notes are charming and personal, and reading them makes me feel like I know the guy. (He should think about getting a Twitter account.)

That Rip Taylor website is here and it is bookmarkable if only for its frequent and extravagant name-dropping-- Did someone say Ruta Lee? Who else would (or could?) mention Chita Rivera and Green Day in the same website?!

Here's a piece of a letter to the editor of the Lehigh Valley (PA) Express-Times that ran in today's edition, from comedian Alex House:

After witnessing the performance by the five top comedians, I hope those who attended got a little dose of reality when they realized that the winner of this last season, Iliza Shlesinger, was not in fact the funniest or strongest comedian of the show.

It gets better.

The Female Half got an email from a fellow comic who saw the LCS road show in another venue. He said that, he hoped she wouldn't take this the wrong way, but he didn't think Shlesinger was funny.

It's that preface-- "I hope you don't take this the wrong way..."-- that is a pre-emptive strike, a warning that the recipient shouldn't be offended by what's to follow. He's making it clear that he's not going to judge all female comedians by the performance of one. And in so doing, he's allowing for the possibility that The Female Half will think he might be capable of doing so.

Of course, the Female Half takes no such umbrage.

But it's safe to say that had one of our readers written to the Male Half to say that he found the performance of Jeff Dye or Jim Tavare to be subpar, he wouldn't have dreamed of prefacing his remarks with, "I hope you don't take this the wrong way..."

White male comics do not face the same prejudices as female comics or minority comics (of either gender). Female (and minority) comics are conditioned to expect such prejudices. People who address female and minority comics with critiques are conditioned to preface their comments with various disclaimers. We're all conditioned, it seems.

When we saw Shlesinger win, we feared that she would not be ready. We had no doubt that, with time and hard work, she'd represent the show (and comedians in general and, if you insist, female comedians specifically) ably. However, it is very difficult to headline a show following four or five other comedians who have far more performing experience under their belts. It seems our worst fears have been realized.

Turns out that the show has done a disservice to Shlesinger, to all comics and perhaps to female comics. Should any of us be surprised?

On August 8, 2008, we wrote:

But getting back to McHale's Standup Soup presentation-- he quite vividly demonstrated the show's inexplicable lack of a sense of humor. And when he showed the montage of Shlesinger clad variously in her underwear and a bikini, he threw another shovel of dirt on the show's credibility.

Indeed, after seeing that montage, Shlesinger herself should be embarassed. Regardless of whether or not she won, she will, for the foreseeable future, mount the stage with the knowledge that a significant number of her votes were motivated not by a genuine fondness for her humor but by a momentary and primal lust for her body parts.

You do what you gotta to win. But, for those folks who are prone to extrapolate and try to determine the larger socio-cultural implications of Shlesinger's victory (Bellamy himself was quick to bellow about her being the show's first female winner), it's a sorry moment.

Sure, she showed a certain minimal level of "toughness" in fending off the challenges (if you want to call it that), but we will always wonder (as will the general public) what the outcome would have been had she not colluded with the show's producers to engineer the cheesecake clips in the house segment of the show.

Does anyone know of any sites that host audio files for free? (And don't arbitrarily take those files down at an unspecified time, without telling the person who uploaded the file, thereby leaving the person who uploaded the file without the ability to provide clients with an audio clip?)

We had a couple audio files on our Electronic Press Kit (convenient for radio stations who want to promote our upcoming engagements), but the goofballs at (Website we'd rather not give any publicity to) took them down sometime in the past few weeks/months and didn't bother to tell us!

We Googled "free audio file hosting," and got the creepiest, sorriest bunch of broken links and busted ventures we've ever seen.

Does anyone out there host audio files for free and do so reliably? All we need is a site that offers to let us park our (relatively small) audio files on their site and link to them so that folks who visit our site can download the files to use in a radio broadcast, radio commercial or whatever.

We'd appreciate any assistance on this. Thanks in advance.

Frazier Moore, writing for Associated Press, kicks off his summary of the PBS series, "Make 'em Laugh, The Funny Business of America" (which debuts tomorrow night), with a pretty good insight.

The funniest people don't take no for an answer -- at least, they don't without a fight for their audience's yuks. Their policy has never been "invite 'em to laugh." It's "make 'em."

This never-say-die zeal (and the laughter that results) is the unifying spirit of "Make 'Em Laugh: The Funny Business of America," PBS' six-hour, century-spanning showcase of the nation's leading laugh-getters.

Hosted by Billy Crystal and narrated by Amy Sedaris, the series blends history with performance and taps the expertise of more than 90 comedians, writers, producers and comic scholars.

We were totally unaware of this series. (Hey! Who is running the p.r. department at PBS? How about a press release or two?) We were watching... something, can't remember what... on PBS a coupla weeks ago and we saw the promo starring Billy Crystal. We forgot about it and then a couple of sharp-eyed readers reminded us. (One of 'em saw the book in a bookstore-- Ya gotta love that synergy!)

Moore (who we trashed in a previous posting when he bobbled an analysis of Jon Stewart's Oscar hosting stint in '06) may have redeemed himself with that simple observation. We hope it was his and not lifted from the intro to Episode One, which is described thusly:

Kicking off at 8 p.m. Wednesday (check local listings), the series asks, "Would Ya Hit a Guy With Glasses?" as it celebrates comedy's nerds, jerks and oddballs. The outsider has always been a source of amusement, the series observes. Examples range from bookish Harold Lloyd of silent films through Phyllis Diller and Steve Martin to the goof ball heroes of Judd Apatow comedies.

Stay tuned. We'll try to view it live or at least tape it and view it later.

We don't expect to like all of it... or relate to it-- one of the episodes devotes some time to the Three Stooges. (We're having trouble appreciating the Stooges on even an intellectual level these days.)

Check your local listings for airing time. Check out PBS's page on the whole affair. Jim Lehrer on Comedy? Huh? Wha?!

We've been hearing about how Facebook is surging in popularity. How it's leaving MySpace in the dust and how folks are abandoning MySpace at an alarming rate and there's wind whistling through the cyber halls of that venerable social networking site.

We weren't convinced.

Well, if you need any proof that MySpace is over, look no further than MySpace Comedy, the "Official Channel For Comedians On MySpace."



That's right-- providing support to Featured Comedian Robert Schimmel this week (as one of the "More Comedians,") is Brian McKim, The Male Half of the Staff!

Are we ungrateful? No, not at all. We're thrilled, actually. But, we're feeling very Eeyore-esque around SHECKYmagazine HQ this week.

Pardon us, while we sort through the thicket of New Friend Requests (a total of ten so far!) and deal with the press inquiries!

In a totally unrelated note, did anyone notice the ad in the upper right corner of all the MySpace home pages?

You might be eligible for spelling lessons as well!

It's a scam-ular enterprise from one Kevin Hoeffler who "went from being broke to completely paying off my debt in 30 days by spending a few minutes filling out a form online that qualified me for a Free $12,000 Financial Aid Check from the US Government."

This would make him the Matthew Lesko of the new millennium!

Now, if he could only spell... or use some of his new-found cash to hire people who can.

Have you noticed the vote totals on ComedyCentral.com's Comedy Showdown? They swing wildly. The Female Half was logging on regularly to watch clips and vote for a friend here and there. Some of the contestants would surge. Nothing extraordinary there-- a radio appearance, a high-profile shot on a television showcase, maybe a large theater show.

But then she noticed that some of the contestants started to lose votes.

What is up wit dat?

We're not a big fan of online, interactive polls that determine the winner of this or that. Because we've faired poorly on a handful of such competitions? No. Not really. We have, to be sure, been massacred whenever we've found ourselves at the mercy of internet voters, but we never actually expected to do well in the first place. So it's not that.

We just think that, at the very least, when you open things up to interactivity (using the wonders of the WWW!) and you leave it up to the fans and viewers to choose their favorites, you should at least try to create the illusion that the folks on the backend of the website know what they're doing and there's no hanky-panky. Elsewise, the folks who vote will think they're wasting their time. (Oh, certainly, a lot of the core audience have nothing but gobs of time-- as they're not employed or anything, or their trying to avoid studying or, in rare cases, they're avoiding their boss-- but some folks take offense at having their time utterly flushed down the cyber toilet due to some sort of "voter irregularities.")

And, since they've been conducting such cyber-plebiscites for about five years or so (an eternity in internet years!), you would think these people would either have figured out a way to make them totally legit... or refused to conduct such farces in the first place. Surely there has to be a better way of using the website, the internet, this interactivity nonsense in an exciting yet responsible way.

Is the bloom off the interactivity rose? Perhaps.

Or so he tells the NYPost, by way of ContactMusic.com:

I wasn't always a big guy. Stand-up ruined it for me. I would be sitting at dinner at 2 in the morning after a show, and I wouldn't wake up until 3 o'clock the next afternoon. That set a pattern that wasn't great for my metabolism.

James is hitting the bricks to promote his new movie, "Paul Blart: Mall Cop," which, judging by the trailer, has plenty of goofy, physical humor and a semblance of a plot. (And his co-star is a Segway!)

We're not going to see it in the theater, but we might actually get it from the Redbox some day. We think James' work on his series was underrated, underappreciated.

We're at a lost to explain any of the hostility out there that's directed at him. Witness the film geek for the Lancaster (PA) weekly giveaway entertainment rag:

Behold, the thing that $5 DVD bins at Wal-Mart are made of. Kevin James plays a Segway-riding New Jersey mall cop named Paul Blart. Furthermore, he's an unfunny turd. In a one-month-too-late plot twist, the mall is taken over by a mall Santa and his helpers and it's up to the 'stached loser to save the day.

That's right. He's an unfunny turd!

We suppose it's tough to stand out in Lancaster, PA, so being outrageous substitutes for actual analysis and commentary.

Have a peek inside the head of Mikita Brottman, Ph.D, as he explores the mysteries of laughter in a piece he wrote for FilmInFocus.com back in September, entitled "Laughter Is The Worst Medicine."

...I do enjoy comedies, but I enjoy them quietly. This usually means watching a DVD in the peace and calm of my own home, where I am not disturbed by other people's laughter. You've probably noticed that it's almost impossible to sit through a blockbuster comedy in a movie theater without being assailed on all fronts by public yelps and hee-haws. In my case, this laughter inevitably draws attention away from the film until I find myself focusing entirely on the laughers around me, like an ornithologist identifying various birds by their song.

He's the author of a book entitled "Funny Peculiar: Gershon Legman and the Psychopathology of Humor." It appears that it is quite possible to write a book about humor while utterly lacking the ability to laugh or tolerate the sound of your fellow man's laughter. It's a peculiar personality disorder.

Doctor Killjoy concludes:

Finally, anyone who thinks I should just lighten up and relax ought to bear in mind that there have been times when for a civilized person to crack up in public would have seemed as rude as public spitting (or smoking) today. In 1774, Lord Chesterfield, a connoisseur of proper social etiquette, advised his son: "loud laughter is the mirth of the mob, who are only pleased with silly things… A man of parts and fashion is therefore only seen to smile, but never heard to laugh."

This cat needs to lighten up and relax-- regardless of what Lord Chesterfield said. Or have a drink or three.

We just hope he despises comedy clubs as much as he hates going to a funny movie. He's the guy who sits in the front row and doesn't crack a smile the entire show.

H/T to Brothers Judd Blog.

Comedian George Braithwaite dropped us a line to let us know that a year-end wrap-up show in Quebec, Bye Bye, has stirred up some controversy (and awakened the busy-bodies that hectored comedian Guy Earle) over some comedy sketches that dared to feature U.S. president-elect Barack Obama (and use the controversial word nègre!), but we're hard-pressed to figure out exactly what's going on!

Sorting the entire matter out is devilishly complex, as it involves Canadians, French people (who speak French), black people (who speak English and French!), language, mores and humor. And nationalism. And separatism. And pseudo-judicial agencies that like to stick their noses into everyone's business. Oh, and a wire communications regulator (in this case, the Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Commission) that makes the FCC look like the Howard Stern Fan Club.



Without exactly understanding the details, however, we are prepared to come down on the side of the comedians and writers under fire. (Although we're somewhat disturbed by the side story that has the producer and hostess of the show greenlighting a sketch on Nathalie Simard. That sounds like a clear conflict of interest to us.)

The last thing we want to do is tell a club owner how to conduct his business.

Well, maybe not the last thing. Ask any comedian and he'll tell you that there are certain things about even the greatest gigs that could be improved-- a tweak here or there in the sound system, a better hotel room, seating the patrons closer to the stage, a tad more freedom with regard to the comp policy or a couple degrees higher temperature in the green room. And there isn't a comedian alive who hasn't had the occasional owner "suggest" a tweak here or there in a comedian's act. So each side is guilty of meddling in the other's business. (But, as we said in the past, who would win this contest: Take a bunch of comics and have them devise a plan to book and run a comedy club, then have a bunch of comedy club owners and have them write one of their own a comedy act. Pencils down, the test is over!)

So, it is with humility and the best intentions that we make any suggestions to the folks who own and or operate America's comedy clubs on just how they might weather any economic downturn, locally, regionally or nationally.

And, even though we would never dare to tell a comic how to tell a joke, we have, for the past ten years, been pretty free with our opinions regarding the art, the craft and the lifestyle that is standup comedy.

But recently, we've been pondering the business end of things. All this pondering of dollars and cents and closings and openings have got us to thinking about the history of the business and how it went all to hell in the first part of the 1990's. So, we've been recommending that comedians do-- or refrain from doing-- certain things so as to avoid making imprudent decisions and repeating some of the mistakes that might or might not have contributed to The Comedy Bust.

We approached the subject in a general manner last week in a post entitled "If your mother says she loves you check it out.". In that lengthy post, we talked about the importance of making informed decisions, of not acting on bad information, of not acting out of desperation or fear.

And we also talked about the unreliability of the Mainstream Media. When they write about our business (indeed, any business), they tend to approach the task with a predetermined set of ideas, a notion of just how the story will turn out, a template if you will. Part of this is out of necessity, part of it may come in the form of marching orders from the boss (The Editor!), part of it may be plain laziness or prejudice. Often, the reporter takes a considered, rational approach that results in a thoughtful article. Sometimes, however, he/she doesn't and the resulting article only serves to muddy the waters. And, due to the small news hole that some publications have to deal with, most articles are necessarily short and therefore they tend to raise more questions than they answer.

We know the folks in the news biz read this website. We know this because, as happened this very morning, we got a phone call from a reporter and we were asked our opinion on matters relating to standup comedy. We try and take this responsibility seriously and we try to give quotes and opinions and anecdotes which, it is hoped, are illuminating, singular and carefully phrased.

In a roundabout way, we're saying that, in order to thrive and prosper over the next few months, folks from the comedy club side of the business and the performing side of the business might consider sharing what they know-- both across the aisle and among their colleagues. And they might consider being as scrupulously honest as they can be. And we might also be just a bit more careful when dealing with the media.

As for this magazine, we want to make "Avoiding The Second Comedy Bust" a regular feature of this blog. We want to post our opinions and the opinions of our readers regarding how best to maintain a cool head, to deal with any economic aberrations.

Our inbox is always open. And the comments feature is useful, too. (But, again, we discourage anonymous comments. It's a simple matter to register, via Blogger and it only takes a few seconds.)

The Miami Herald has a piece on the South Beach Comedy Festival. (That link takes you to the stubby article on the UPI.com page. Who even knew that UPI was still around? The larger Herald story is here.)

The headline?

"Obama a questionable comedy target"

No question mark at the end. It's a fact, dontcha know.

At least one comedian has... balls:

Lisa Lampanelli said while most TV comedy writers appear hesitant to poke fun at the incoming head of state, she and her fellow stand-up comedians are fully prepared to dish Obama dirt at the South Beach Comedy Festival this month, The Miami Herald reported Sunday.[...]

"I'm not scared to make fun of anything. And I don't think any comic should be."

What's this? We're lauding the chutzpah of the woman who was once our mortal enemy? The woman who called SHECKYmagazine "a bunch of ass-lickers?" (It was 1999. It's so long ago, it's almost like it never happened. And, since a lot of our first three or four years were wiped out by a worm in August of '03, it's like it never happened!)

The short excerpt ends on this note:

Comedy Central Director of Talent JoAnn Grigioni suggested to the Herald that some comedians' hesitancy to target Obama is due to the Democrat's lack of overly apparent flaws.

Amazing, what? The Director of Talent for the foremost purveyor of standup in all of cabledom says that our president-elect has no "overly apparent flaws." Jaw-dropping.

He's a carbon-based life form. He's a human being. He has flaws. Many of them (if you're paying any attention at all) are apparent. Hell, even Jesus H. Christ himself had flaws!

Let's try to outline this dilemma yet again. By proclaiming that someone-- a man, a woman, a president-elect-- has no flaws and therefore is exempt from teasing, there are certain unavoidable side-effects. Not the least of which is that it implies that anyone who does find a flaw (and who subsequently exploits that flaw in the name of comedy) is (fill in the blank-- Insensitive? Racist? Mean-spirited?). Is the "skunk at the garden party" effect, to use the vivid metaphor.

Of course, comedians don't need permission to joke about someone. They never have. As Ms. Lampanelli points out, she's never been "scared to make fun of anything." And, for the most part, comedians have dealt with such proscriptions by going at them head-on-- In fact, the easiest way to get a comedian to joke about something is to tell him that it's sacred!

But we're sensing far too much acquiescence out there in Standupville. And, oddly, these days, the proscription is coming from inside the camp-- comedy writers, comedians and cable television execs are saying that this Obama fellow is a tough nut to crack. Such talk has a slightly chilling effect on the rest of us. If you deny that, you're living in a dream world. (And if you think that, once again, we're overstating things, note that Ms. Lampanelli used the word "scared" in her statement to the Herald. Indeed, the reporter, James H. Burnett III, cites "fear of a politically correct backlash" as one of the reasons for the dearth of Obama gags.)

But, as so often happens in the world of humor, it could go either way: When such talk prevails, it's not a stretch to imagine that anyone who makes fun our new leader might be regarded as a pariah... or perhaps a genius (for finding humor where none was believed to reside).

Stay tuned.

We were supposed to show up with a headshot this weekend.

We have several beautiful, color headshots printed up on matte finish, photo stock-- a few of The Male Half, a few of The Female Half and a handful of the "composites" that show the Halves side-by-side-- and they're in a nice manila envelope... that we left at home.

So... what to do when you're in Lancaster, PA, and you need a headshot, preferably color, and you don't want to/can't possibly return home to fetch one?

Go to Staples.

For $0.49, plus $0.03 tax, they'll print out a nice, serviceable color 8 X 10, suitable for posting outside the comedy club.

We've got wireless here at the hotel, and we had a thumbdrive, and we have downloadable hi-res, color headshots up on the website at all times, so minutes later we were walking out of Staples with an emergency color pic. (We assume that Kinko's-- excuse us... FedEx Office!-- would offer the same service for a comparable price. Just don't try doing it via their online component, unless you have too much hair and you'd like to tear it out in clumps. It's best to just show up, in person, with the necessary file on a chip or portable media of some kind.)

And we would caution folks to not depend on the hotel wireless. For, although it worked out this time, we recommend having the press kit essentials-- headshots, bios, schedule, maybe even a short video-- on a thumbdrive dedicated solely to an electronic press kit. Have it with you at all times and you'll not be dependent on an internet connection. The price of a 1 GB USB thumbdrive has plummeted in recent months-- $10, maybe?-- so it's well worth having one.

Color headshots in minutes for a half a buck.

We live in a great world.

That's the headline of the Hartford Courant article that we were hipped to by FOS Guy MacPherson.

"Now is the time; the economy is so bad that if ever there was a time to laugh, it's right now," says John Calash, entertainment director at Joker's Wild.

Which is just one of the ways of looking at the current live standup comedy resurgence... at least the one in Hartford, CT.

The article contains lots of speculation, some horse manure and a lot of good, specific information on the Hartford market. William Weir, the author of the piece, needed a hook. The burgeoning scene in central Connecticut was it.

Should we take it as confirmation of a bulletproof standup business? Or should we disregard it as a fantasy? Neither. Regard every bit of information in it on its own merits, identify any opinion as just that-- opinion-- and don't get caught up in trying to construct a narrative. This whole roller coaster is going to go on for some time, so folks should be leery of orgasmic optimism just as much as Eeyore-like pessimism.

Editors note: Sometimes we're sloppy. Case in point-- we didn't link to Paul Ogata's website when we posted this item.

Yes, writes roving correspondent FOS Paul Ogata:

Remember back in the day when it seemed Showtime was really committed to stand-up comedy? They had the Showtime Comedy Club Network, The Comedy Club All-Stars and all kinds of comedy specials. Then what happened? I don't know.

But they're back.

On January 18/19, Showtime will be shooting a bunch of programming at the El Rey Theatre in Los Angeles. And I'll be doing one of the shows! They're calling it the LOL Comedy Festival.

Among the tapings:
* Hot Tamales Live - a showcase of female comics
* Indian Comedy Slam - Native American comics
* SlantEd Comedy - Asian comics
* Russell Peters Presents - Russell and 4 of his favorites
* Pauly Shore Presents - 4 funny friends of Pauly's
* Angelo Tsarouchas - his 1-hour special

Guess which show I'm on. SlantEd Comedy tapes on Monday, January 19, at 3:30pm. Wish me luck!

More info at LOLComedyFestival

How much more info could there be? Mr. Ogata has nutshelled it well.

Any time a major cable outlet starts/resumes its affair with standup comedy, we brighten up. Television killed standup? Don't make us laugh.

Nick Zaino's BostonComedy blog is reporting that Bob Lazarus has lost his fight with leukemia. "Laz" was diagnosed with the disease in the summer of 2007. As usual, the comics in Boston and surrounding area put on a few benefit shows to help out with the medical bills.

We knew him from having done a bunch of one-nighters with him back in the '80s and '90s.

He leaves behind a wife and daughter.

In our May-June 2003 issue, he was the subject of a Question 21. Here's #10 from that interview:

10. In the "It Occurred Offstage" category, what Bob Lazarus story is most often retold by you or others?

Oh, there's way too many. I had to consult Bill Braudis on this one and he has yet to give me his favorite, but he told me it would have to involve my driving exploits. So, I'm going to go with the time I was driving up to the white mountains with Paul Kozlowski, back in the days when I still smoked cigarettes. I was smoking a butt, while I was driving, and I went to throw it out the window when I was done. I know that's littering, which I abhor, but when I smoked, I felt it was dangerous for someone like myelf to look down for a split second to find the ashtray. So, in the spirit of safety, I hurled my butt out the window, and it went out fine, but the head of the cigarette blew back through the window into my ear. And I didn't know what had happened until I smelled burning flesh, which was my ear. As I screamed out in pain, I started whacking against my head and ear to get the fire out. Paul, meanwhile, was in the passenger seat, and had no idea what was happening, but he saw burning embers coming out of my head. He thought my brain was on fire. But, then, I'm sure that's happend to most of your readers who smoke.

Services will be held at the Stanetsky Memorial Chapels in Canton, Ma on Tuesday afternoon. We're sure there'll be plenty of stories like that above being told early into Wednesday morning.

The Rainbow Room is closing. Right? Wrong.

The Rainbow Grill is closing. So, what's the difference? Here's the difference, from Jossip.com:

...High atop the 65th floor of the Rockefeller Center building is the Rainbow Room, the storied restaurant-bar-ballroom that it's always worth telling NYC's visitors to stop by instead of the Empire State Building. And now, it is closing.

Well, not exactly.

Don't get confused: Citing everybody's excuse for failure-- "the economy"-- owners the Cipriani family are on Jan. 12 shuttering The Rainbow Grill, the less price-y restaurant on the 65th floor, which sits adjacent to the more formal dinner-and-dancing Rainbow Room, which will remain open. So, too, will the bar area.

Why are we running this item on a blog about standup comedy? To illustrate a few things that are pertinent to the world of standup and those who inhabit it.

1. Many of the members of the MSM-- from WNBC to the Associated Press to the New York Daily News-- got the story... wrong, sort of. They seem to have deliberately led the public to believe that the storied Rainbow Room is disappearing, when in fact, it is the far less famous Rainbow Grill that is shutting down. It's an important distinction that many news organizations failed to make clear. One might get the idea that they actually want folks to believe that the larger restaurant is doomed-- indeed, the art accompanying many of the stories was a photograph of the Room, not the Grill! They probably think that it makes for a much better story.

2. They seem to be emphasizing the fact that it is "the economy" that is to blame for the restaurant's demise. The owners of the Grill, the Cipriani's, insist that's the reason. A good case could be made that it is indeed hard economic times that is contributing to the failure of the eatery. But many of the stories bury the fact that the landlord is upping the rent from $4 million to $8.7 million. So... on the one hand, we have the owners of the restaurant saying that the poor economy is hurting business. And on the other hand, we have the landlord (Tishman-Speyer) re-appraising the property and charging more than double for the space (and, we suspect, fully expecting to get it). The economy for the Cipriani's is supposedly bad. The outlook for Tishman-Speyer seems pretty robust. Which is it?

At any given point in time, it is "the economy" that keeps a business thriving. And, at any given point in time, it is that same economy that causes that business to go under.

So using "the economy" as an excuse for the failure of your business tells us absoulutely nothing.

And so we shouldn't read this story as a portent of things to come.

"The sky is falling," has passed into the English language as a common idiom indicating a hysterical or mistaken belief that disaster is imminent. (Wikipedia)

The same thing goes when we hear that a comedy club has gone under. Over the past 18 months or so, we have heard of at least six comedy clubs closing. Of those six, three of them have re-opened-- one in a new location, one in the same location, one in a different venue, with different owners a new name and the same managing partner as the old venue-- and a fourth will re-open in the same location, but with new partners.

The remaining two are probably disappeared for good.

At one point or another, we have had people email us about these closings and tell us that it was a sign that the economy (locally or nationally or both) was faltering or that the comedy club business in particular was in bad shape. But, in every case of which we've had direct knowledge of the particulars, the reasons for the club's demise was entirely unrelated to the economy, locally or otherwise.

In one case, personal problems contributed to the closing. In another, illegal activity. In still another it was a change in the venue's business model that left the club in the cold. And in another case, problems in the parent corporation, problems unrelated to the economy at large, were a factor.

In almost all cases, the venues were thriving.

Of course, this doesn't stop some people from gathering up the disparate facts and assembling a doomsday case that the comedy club business is heading into a situation reminiscent of 1992, when the first signs of The Great Comedy Bust started to appear. By 1994 or so, the business had bottomed out. It was a husk compared to what it had been in 1989.

Of course, this could be 1992 all over again. But then again, it might not be.

We are counseling people to not panic. We are advising everyone to take each bit of information and regard it carefully and with cool logic. Panic is everyone's enemy. It makes people make bad decisions. It makes people say dumb shit to the press. It plays into the hands of those in the MSM who have a template for a story and are determined to write it over and over again.

If you stumble across a bit of info, an anecdote, a news story, compare it to your own situation and see if it adds up. If it runs counter to what you know and can verify, discard it or at least regard it with skepticism. In nearly every story on the bad economy (especially in electronic journalism), an interviewee will concur with the reporter's premise-- the economy is bad. Yet, in a surprising number of those items, the interviewee, when questioned about his own circumstances, will say, "Me? I'm doing good. But everybody else is in bad shape..." Of course, he has nothing to base this on, other than the dozens of stories in the media that tells him it is so. And, again, it is counter to his own experience. He nonetheless is convinced that things are bad "out there." And he makes decisions based not on his own observable experience, but on some vague, gloomy, manufactured story line.

Are we in denial? No. Are we panicking? Certainly not. Are we concerned? Only a moron would not be.

We've heard about two more clubs closing in just the past week. Two in one week! Such news makes the heart beat faster, causes the palms to sweat. Or, if we consider what we know and we don't let our imaginations run wild, we can slow things down a bit and regard the situation calmly.

There's an email circulating that comes from Mike Diesel, a comedian who, for ten years, booked Wiseacres at the Best Western in Tyson's Corner, VA, and is now announcing the closing of the club.

I regret to inform everyone in the comedy community that Wiseacres Comedy Club will be no more as of Jan 2009. The owners of the hotel and the club, Ditmar Corporation, felt they wanted to renovate the club and shut it down for Jan and Feb and they think they will re-open in March, but most likely, not as a comedy club.

Diesel closes the email by saying that there "are some other possibilities for me to open another room or rooms in other locations."

In another instance, we were informed that a room in Ocala, FL, Jokeboy's, is closing. No reason was given. The club's website is a dominated by a "Thanks for the laughs" message and, under that, the cryptic "Keep your eyes and ears open" and "The laughs aren't over yet." If the club went under due to poor economic conditions in central Florida, one would expect bitterness and resignation, not the optimism displayed here.

So, what at first might appear to be more grist for the doom rumor mill turns out to quite possibly be business as usual. Clubs close all the time. It is too easy, however, within the context of the larger narrative-- that the economy is cratering-- to take this news as indicative of a horrendous trend. But a bit of research yields information that isolates the events.

We lived through the bust. (We refuse to refer to it as "the first bust.") And we saw the toll it took on the business and on some of the comics in particular. After the dust settled and the business was somewhat back on track, we talked to many comics and discovered that one of the worst aspects of the downward spiral was that comics felt isolated. They felt that the all the bad stuff was happening to them and to them alone. Further exacerbating the situation was a tendency for comics to indulge in "happy talk."

whistle past the graveyard

1. (idiomatic, US) To attempt to stay cheerful in a dire situation; To proceed with a task, ignoring an upcoming hazard, hoping for a good outcome.

We suppose we're proposing a happy medium between whistling past the graveyard and abject terror.

Back in the early '90s, no one had the Internet or WWW. We got the majority of our information by talking to other comics. Quite often that information was second- or third-hand or was garbled or augmented or distorted in some way. In 2009, there's not much of an excuse for basing one's assumptions on third-hand accounts.

We would advise comedians against operating out of fear or desperation. (And, if we may be so bold, we advise club owners in the same way.) Be skeptical of information picked up in a green room. Be doubly skeptical of hasty conclusions.

"Trust but verify."

--Phrase attributed to Damon Runyon and popularized by President Ronald Reagan

We want to keep the discussion open. We want to keep a handle on what's going on out there. MySpace, Facebook and SHECKYmagazine could be valuable means to prevent all comics from feeling isolated and detached. We invite everyone to use them responsibly.

From left to right: Eric Lyden, Chris Monte, Alex House, The Female Half, The Male Half (not pictured: Joe Starr)
We trekked to Alex House's house yesterday to belatedly celebrate the new year and Christmas. Comics in attendance are picture above.

We've notice chatter here and there on the internet regarding Kathy Griffin's outburst on CNN the other night that suggests that some folks are dazzled by her quick wit and inventiveness in using the "I don't go to where you work and (fill in second half of vulgar/non-vulgar analogy here)" heckler line.

The line is at least a quarter-century old. And it's probably older than that. We recall comics from NYC and Long Island using it frequently in the early '80s. We suspect it predates that. The version that Griffin used was the most popular. Clean versions (e.g.: "I don't go to where you work and slap the mop out of your hands.") abound.

It never occurred to us to point out just how old the line was. We figure, out of all the websites out there, ours would have a readership that had heard the line at least once and would know instantly that it was ancient. Then a reader named "a" commented on our post and called the retort "hack." And, of course, we saw the many comments on various sites that applauded Griffin for her creativity.

"a"is quite right. The line is old. And one might think that Griffin would come up with something more creative. However, out of her element (and being harangued by drunken beasts while trying to do a live broadcast), perhaps she felt justified in bringing out the big guns.

We suspect also that Griffin is not accustomed to hecklers.

Excuses? No. Explanation? Maybe.

During the Anderson Cooper's NYE celebration, co-host Kathy Griffin interrupts The Coop with this screechy tirade:

"Shut UP! You know what, screw YOU! I'm working! Why don't you get a job, Buddy?! You know what? I don't go to your job and knock the dicks out of your mouth!"

She sounds a little drunk, but she is legendary for not drinking. Who would blame her? It was right as they went to commercial, so perhaps the little red light was off. Perhaps it was the warm sleepiness that envelopes those who are succumbing to hypothermia.