Montreal 2002 Coverage

MONDAY, JULY 22, 2002, 12:05 PM

NEW JERSEY--We're back in the Garden state and we're trying to recover from the last five days. How many times did we hear someone say, "I only have three days in me!" (6 times) or "All the cool people leave on Saturday." (1 time, from Dave Beckey, after I told him we'd be here through Sunday) or "I've been here for 13 days and it was great!" (1 time, from Ron White)

This update is devoted to Saturday, the unofficial last day of the Festival. Sure, there was a gala on Sunday night (hosted by Mr. I'm Not Pissed Because My Show Got Canceled, Bill Maher) and there's the Bar Mitzvah show (hosted by Freddy Roman... or is it Norm Crosby--there's conflicting info out there) and a few other shows here and there, but everyone seems to pace themselves for a big, fat blowout on Saturday night, followed by a hungover plane ride home. It's a grueling treadmill of a festival but someone's gotta do it. (We slept for 12 hours last night and we still feel like crap! But back to Saturday.


		Prior to the kickoff of the 2002 SOTIA, ANDY KINDLER and ED CRASNIC troubleshoot the venue

		ED CRASNIC confers with KEVIN POLLACK just prior to the start of the SOTIA

The "S.O.T.I.A.!"

Back at the Power Table, we're uploading our updates and speaking briefly to the occasional passerby headed to a prime seat at Andy Kindler's State of the Industry Address (SOTIA). Nearly everyone attends (all "the cool people," maybe? We'll ask Dave Beckey!) and there was a rumor that this one would be different somehow... something about "multi-media."

The Designated Introducer this year was comic/writer Ed Crasnic (whose name we horribly mangled in a feature we did about a visit to the Friars Club in CA... Sorry, Ed) and it started about 1:15 AKT (Andy Kindler Time), which is right on time. It was a miracle: A function room filled talent and industry and media, laughing great, heartfelt belly laughs for an hour straight. For a business whose foundation is built on yocks, it's a darn shame that gatherings like this one are so rare.

There were a lot of changes in the Festival this year and the SOTIA made some changes as well. In addition to the focused pain of Kindler's traditional address, there was a pre-taped piece featuring Kindler talking to TV execs and an inspired and goofy and rollicking slide show presentation by Crasnic. Multi-media, multi-textured, it flew by in a shot (in plenty of time to accomodate the Industry-Talent Basketball Game). And it ended with Crasnic going into the crowd, reporter- in- the- field- style, and interviewing Kevin Pollack, Dom Irrera and Budd Friedman (who apparently owns a comedy club or something somewhere).

Kindler spent less time on each victim, hit more targets and tightened up his remarks, saving his most vicious beating for Robin Williams. His nearly line-by-line deconstruction of Williams' recent HBO "special" was tremendous and met with an equal amount of groaning and laughter (groaning at Williams, laughing at Kindler). Perennial target Jay Leno was largely spared (Hmmm...pressure from Fest organizers due to Leno's now two-year association with the Festival via his Tonight Show live remote segments? Who's to say...) Kindler also stayed away from an obvious target, his own association with the canceled show Raising Dad.

(This didn't stop Dom Irrera, however, from raising the subject of Raising Dad at least twice during the Festival! Both times with Kindler present, of course. He busted Kindler's balls on the subject even during SOTIA!) Many of the jokes are "inside." How inside? Crasnic managed to slip in a reference to the Charley Horse in Kingston, MA (a hell gig in the Boston market in the old days of the comedy boom). Kindler led off his remarks with post-9/11 material, getting perhaps one of his bigger laughs with a line about his attorney: "In order to combat domestic terrorism, the FBI has requested that we report any suspicious behavior that we might see. Last week my entertainment lawyer called me just to ask me just to say hello. He asked me how my summer was going." A few more patented Kindler tags and it was couging up blood funny.

The "Hooping"

With the SOTIA ending on time (Festival organizers actually asked Kindler to lead off his remarks with a plug for the basketball game!) we were off, shuttling to le Club Sportif MAA for the Gear For Sports Artist Vs. Industry Basketball Game. After arriving at the beautiful Peel St. gym, we were given T-shirts emblazoned with the JFL logo. (It was gray for the Industry and white for the talent.)

SHECKYmagazine.com Editor Brian McKim was the first to sign up, choosing to go with the Industry team, figuring he'd have more opportunity to play (and possibly network). Yes and no. "As it turns out, I played a lot of minutes, but nobody introduced anyone to anyone else and all the industry guys already knew each other. If it wasn't for Festival Buddy Dan Rosenberg (Big Shnoz Prods.) I would have been one lonely hoopster! (Insert sad music here)" SHECKYmagazine.com Editor Traci Skene and a knot of onlookers sat on the sidelines, keeping up a running commentary on the action. Many of the Talent team were New Face-ers and, as such, didn't know that it would have been much more advantageous to let the Industry team win! After two 20-minute halves, it was 39-33 Talent wins! Rosenberg quipped that "since we're industry and they're talent, we get 25 per cent of their points, so we won!" Skene observed that the whole affair looked like a father-son pickup game! She declared, with some alarm, that there didn't seem to be any defibrillators on hand for the aging Industry players. McKim countered that such precautions weren't necessary, as no one on the Industry side has a heart! Thanks! We'll be here all week! Try the veal!

While shaking hands with the opposing team one of them addressed McKim as "Kurt Rambis!" Verry funny!


		The Industry team poses for the team photo... it's hard to identify the individual players... maybe it's better this way.

		DERRICK CAMERON and TYRONE BARNETT flank Pat Wilson after the Industry/Talent brawl

BBQ/Gala/Final Party

We were welcomed to the Comedy Network BBQ by people giving away T-shirts. Counting the T-shirts that we got after the SOTIA and the T for hooping, and the T-shirt that the Comedy Network was giving away, we can proclaim this Fest to be the best, swag-wise. The Comedy Network also gave out beach balls, super soakers and bright yellow, foldable Frisbees which all too often doubled as oversized yarmulkes.

It doesn't pay to be fashionably late at these outdoor affairs, as that would make it difficult to get a table. It's hard to schmooze while standing (with a Labatt's in one hand and a plate of BBQ in the other).

We decide to forego a nap, even though it's been a coupla years since we played full-court basketball that hard. It seems nearly all the other b-ball participants decide not to nap, either, as they are all in attendance as well. Only time will tell if this is a bad decision. (Says McKim: "This resulted in a kind of catatonia, which may have been mistaken for rudeness, kicking in at about 4 AM that night. I would classify this as a classic bad decision."

It's at these afternoon blasts that folks decide where to go that evening and which shows to attend, if they're to attend any at all. Yesterday, we put in for tickets to the Saturday night gala, so I bugged out of the BBQ to see if there's been any progress. We were put on the "Someone must die for you to get tickets" list. It seems that no one expired, so the odds of us seeing the Gala live are slim.

The chances were none. We walked up to the Theatre St. Denis, but we were shutout of the show. We ambled on over to the Club Arthur, where VIP's and others are invited to watch the Gala on a huge screen while drinking and eating in air-conditioned comfort. We saw the Denis Leary-hosted show, featuring Chris Bliss, Patrice O'Neal, Ed Byrne, Eddie Brill, a tightrope walker, Lenny Clarke, Adam Ferrara, and a special tribute to Mike McDonald.

We shuffled back toward the epicenter, feeling the first wave of that oppressive, cumulative fatigue that threatens to stop you in your tracks if you remain still for any length of time. We envy the folks who are bragging about getting eight hours of sleep. How the hell are they doing it? Don't these people have a website to update?! We were averaging four hours each night. A cup of coffee and a chocolatine at the Cafe Presse staves off the crash for a few precious hours. We pack our bags at the Royal Vic, then head back over to the Delta.


		Ironman MIKE MCDONALD poses as only he knows how

		ANDY KINDLER with Steve Schirripa of Sopranos and Riviera Comedy Club fame (depending on whether you like to watch HBO or work in Vegas)


		COLLETTE HAWLEY (Confessing It) at the final Delta party

Fin

Folks filter into the Delta after either having watched a show or actually performed in one. The Delta fills rapidly starting at about 1 AM, since there are midnight shows on this night.

This year there didn't seem to be one show or one performer who made a splash to the point where it/she/it becomes the show/performer that is a must-see. The closest thing was the live Simpsons reading. (Celebrity Spot: Dan Castellenata was spotted walking through the Delta lobby many times. Mis-identified frequently as Hank Azaria. Oops!) Of all the Simpson-ites, only Julie Kavner didn't make the trek to Montreal. Probably a little self-conscious about her starring role in the second-worst film ever made about a standup comic, (This Is My Life w/Carrie Fisher, Dan Aykroyd, 1992, PG-13, available on VHS).

But who was this year's Chicken? The answer: Chicken! (They still talk about Chicken-- but not in a good way!) There was no buzz, organic or manufactured. No talk of someone signed to a development deal.

The Buzz King of 1999, he who was named after the barnyard fowl, was still mentioned three years after his personal hypefest even though he wasn't here! But there was no one to outhype him in 2002! The Buzz King of 2000, Orney Adams was listed as being here in the fest, but he was conspicuously invisible (now, there's a trick)! Shall we here at SHECKYmagazine.com take credit for this as well? We groused about the Chicken incident in our '99 updates and we took folks to task in 2000 (publicists and the reporters who allow themselves to be manipulated) for going along too readily with the hype machine (see "The Dangers of Hype" from our 2000 updates). So, who knows? Maybe people do read us and make changes. That's it: We're taking credit for everything! From this day forward, any changes in behavior will be attributed to the muddled scrawlings of the scruffy internet magazine dedicated to the glorification of standup comedy! Bow down before us. Okay, that's enough.

Grousing III: This was our fourth festival and we're beginning to detect a pattern (yeah, yeah, slow learners!)... Every year now for the past four, we've seen this scenario take place--The industry folks elbow each other out of the way to get on a shuttle to be whisked away to whichever venue is hosting New Faces. Hours later those same industry types are back at the Delta Bar complaining that only twenty per cent of the acts were any good and that the rest of the acts are appallingly bad. This happens every year. Out of 20 or so acts, they can only find 3 or 4 to say anything nice about. It is the same proportions each and every year. And they always conclude the same thing: The acts that meltdown or fail to live up to expectations (of both their "handlers" and the "industry") are ajudged to be inexperienced. Well, duh! (That's the last time we'll use "Well, duh!" We promise.) What do they expect when the whole object of the exercise seems to have devolved into finding people with less and less experience?! What do they expect when New Faces has become a magnet for people with fewer than 3 years' stage time?! They might as well change the name of the show to "Parade of Openers!" (We're sure they're all fine, fine people who will one day make fine, fine standup comics, but why put them through this now?) Remind us exactly who this is supposed to benefit! If you haven't any mercy on the Industry people, at least think of the poor audience members who actually paid money to witness this! If it's only about acting or development deals or movies and television, then short circuit the whole process and put on an acting showcase! Pack a room at the Delta, invite all the casting agents and studio wigs and have the new kids do scenes from The Crucible or American Buffalo or Neil Simon's California Suite or a Tom Stoppard play or anything! And leave the standup to the folks who know how to do standup. Is that asking too much? Knowing how to do standup well takes a bit of time, can we all agree on that? New Faces all too often turns into Red Faces.

And one more thing: Can the organizers of this festival please bring back the mascots?

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