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Montreal 2002 Coverage

FRIDAY, JULY 19, 2002, 12:05 PM

NOTE: By Monday, July 22, SHECKYmagazine.com will have posted four updates. Cycle through all of the updates by clicking on the links in the upper right corner or in the center of the navigation bar at the bottom of each page. Thanks!

MONTREAL--To summarize this day (Thursday) in just a few words: Raging Hangover, Garofalo Meltdown and Bill Hicks Tribute. We muddled through the update and hustled on over to the Delta to do upload.

While connecting, FTP-ing and tweaking, we were stationed at the long table way down the hall near the back of the mezzanine. One of those tables with the skirts on it that the radio station from Springfield, CT was doing their live remote broadcasts from. As such, we were frequently mistaken for people who knew what we were talking about and we had to field questions like "Which way is the pool?" and "Where do I pick up tickets for the galas." and "Is this the registration desk?" Who knew the Delta even had a pool?

 
 
 
 

   
Budd Friedman and STEVE WHITE make their way cautiously through the Delta gauntlet.

   

   
JOE STARR and FRANK SANTORELLI in the capacity-controlled Delta Bar.

   

"Reading Is
Fun-damental!"

Who knew that books and the printed word would play such a part in a festival about standup comedy? Our first order of business (after the upload, of course) was to attend a reading by Cynthia True. She read a chapter from her book, "American Scream" (which Traci Skene reviewed right here in the pages of SHECKYmagazine.com) in the Mozart Room of the Delta. The two dozen or so attendees were treated to the chapter about Hicks' aborted Letterman appearance. Folks were encouraged to ask questions afterward, but the party busted up after only a couple of queries. Then it was downstairs for Ms. True, to sign/sell some more of her books in the lobby.

We found out about the Bill Hicks Tribute that would be taking place later on that evening at the Centaur Theater, so we made arrangements to attend. (We learned it was sold out, but we did manage to secure a place in the seats only after Ms. True and Omnipop honcho Bruce Smith went to bat for us-- Thanks!) More about the tribute later!

We figured we'd kill two birds with one stone and try to catch most or all of the Reading It show, also at the Centaur that night, which promised five or six writers reading from their published works. Spalding Grey was rumored to be on the bill, but never showed!

With hardly a break in the action, we hustled on over to the Delta function room that would be the site of Confessing It, which promised five or six comics confessing (in what was dearly hope would be a humorous fashion) to some horrific or embarassing deed. Hosted and created by Collette Hawley, (who has put it togethe several times in Manhattan) this installment featured the confessions of Marc Maron, Margaret Smith, Patrice O'Neal and Robert Schimmel.

 
 
 
 
 

They nearly packed the room (mostly with industry and talent!) and the house lights were up, but the whole thing worked exceptionally well! Maron is a power storyteller, as is Schimmel. Both were wildly entertaining. Patrice O'Neal got the biggest belly laugh with his opening ("Seven years ago, I killed a bitch.") and Margaret Smith's rambling opus (featuring EvaKay, biker Dale and a two-legged dog named Meatball) was hypnotic, compelling and wildly amusing. Host Hawley was very appealing as she confessed more than once, vividly describing such adventures as practicing anal sex with her roommate's deodorant (ya hadda be there)!

Tight Controls

We mentioned in yesterday's update the mushy security criteria that the velvet rope boys were employing. We seemed to have no problem getting in and out of the Delta. (At one point, we even managed to get someone in--"Hey, man, can you let in Max Alexander?" Boom--he's in-- How the hell did that happen?) But on Thursday night, things seemed to tighten up and the knot of folks just on other side of the velvet was larger. They were a curious mixture of slightly disgruntled, hopeful and mildly annoyed at the lack of logic when it came to reasonable explanations as to why they were shut out. ("Fire Marshall... capacity... safety... " All very weird.) And it seems like they've tightened up access to the shuttles. You may recall last year that, midway through our stay here in Montreal, we learned that we had been using the shuttles day in and day out when we were not, in fact, entitled to do so. (We learned that we lacked the required "T" on our badges.) Well, this year it was formalized, and the process by which one gets a spot on board a van is arcane and confusing-- at least by comparison to years past. Which is why we ended up walking to the Centaur Theater for the 9:30 PM Bill Hicks Tribute. Fortunately, it was a beautiful Montreal night which took us past the garish, colored glass panels of the Place des Congres, the mammoth presses of the Montreal Gazette and several scruffy panhandlers. Don't step on any puddles, people, it probably just oozed out of the fellow curled up on the sidewalk over there!
 

   
Tony Comacho with GLEN FOSTER and HOWARD BUSGANG

   

   
Laugh.com's NEIL LIEBERMAN relaxes at the Delta Bar. He sure photographs well, don't he?

    
 
 
 
 

Packed House For Hicks Tribute

This tribute was staged in the same theater, on the same stage, with the same set as Hicks' performance of "Relentless" in the JFL Festival 11 years ago. Spooky, huh? And, just like eleven years ago, the music faded, lights went down, the smoke machine kicked out a cloud and... Andy Kindler came out... Kindler hosted this shindig and brought to the stage Hicks' childhood buddy Dwight Slade. Slade, half of a 13-year-old comedy team with Hicks when the two lived in Houston, spoke honestly and with humor in front of the projected image of "their first 8 X 10." (Slade noted that they were both going through their "Christy McNichol phase.") Each performer (from Dave Attell to Eddie Brill to T. Sean Shannon to Marc Maron) managed to touch on something different, there was no overlap. And each kept his/her remarks short and each told touching stories without getting maudlin. "American Scream" author True made a brief appearance. Janeane Garofalo came out and mentioned her experience mere moments before performing at Thursday night's Gala at the Theatre Ste. Denis (hosted by Wayne Brady). She tried desperately to make some sort of a connection between Hicks' iconoclastic style/outlook and her complete and utter contempt for that evening's Gala crowd. She described how she was backstage seething with anger because the crowd was laughing uproariously at the comics who preceded her. She said her anger was "white hot" by the time she got to the mike. Throwing in words like banality (2X!) and making disjointed and vaguely insulting points about the lowbrow audience members (and simultaneously insulting the comics on the bill, among whom was Joey Elias and Dave Attell) Garofalo wrapped things up by praising Hicks and summarily dismissing anyone who lives outside of a major East or West coast city as hopeless dullard, a fascist and/or beneath her contempt. The hopeless dullards, fascists and those beneath her contempt in attendance were understanably confused and uncomfortable. All in a day's work.

A glance at the front page of today's Montreal Gazette Preview page affords us some insight into Ms. G's experience. Gazette TV writer Basem Boshra, one of the folks who was invited to hold forth on the Gala, said of her performance, (under the heading of "Never want to see again") "A meltdown like Janeane's. You feel like you're intruding on what should be a private failure." Boshra and the others were especially impressed with Brady and Attell. (Attell: "Do I have a small penis? Or do I just have really huge legs?")

We skittered across the hall to catch the last performers of the Reading It show. We came in halfway on Mellissa Bank's touching chapter, we caught all of Maron's screed on corporate dominance, consumption and synergy (his "Visit to the Philip Morris HQ" chapter from "Jerusalem Syndrome") and we were nearly brought to tears by Schimmel's reading of his personal journal. Schimmel ("19 months in remission from non-Hodgkins lymphoma") related, in heartbreaking detail, how learned of his prognosis, how his son died of cancer and how he managed to make a gravely ill fellow patient laugh out loud. It was powerful and the contrast between the profoundly dreadful and the wickedly funny made for a wildly entertaining Tilt-A-Whirl. (Roller coaster references will never make it into this publication!)

   
Author of Bill Hicks biography "American Scream" Cynthia True at the Centaur Theater with Bill Hicks Tribute performer Janeane Garofalo

    

   
SHECKYmagazine.com Editor BRIAN MCKIM takes self-portraits with (top) writer and Reading It host DAVID RAKOFF and (bottom) comic JOHN HEFFRON (who was also born on July 18!)

    
 
 
 
 

To Summarize...

We gotta go. Interesting note: In today's Montreal Gazette, in the part where they invite three people to go on about the previous night's gala, we saw that one reviewer singled out one of the jokes he heard as the best joke of the night. Another reviewer named that very same joke as the worst joke of the night. This is what we're up against, folks. It would seem to even the most casual observer that comedy is subjective. Something to keep in mind when throwing around pronouncements like "It's true-- the people who show up at comedy clubs are the people without a sense of humor." (Kindler while hosting the Hicks tribute)

Programming Note: We're re-running the interview we did with Bob Dubac which ran in our March 2001 issue. Dubac's "The Male Intellect: An Oxymoron?" is running up here during JFL at the Gesu Theater. And you can also read the Marc Maron interview from our March 2002 issue.

Stay tuned for more updates, photos, etc. We will post them throughout the next four days. If you have any questions, feel free to send us an email! Thanks!
 
 


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