Tuesday, December 30, 2003

Funny Place

My favorite place to see stand-up comics in the Los Angeles area is not in the Los Angeles area. It's the Comedy and Magic Club in Hermosa Beach. That is not as far as it sounds. The room is friendly, the prices are reasonable and the food is decent. Only the parking is sometimes a drawback, especially on the kind of days when folks flock to the beach.

Jay Leno, who can obviously play any comedy club he wants, chooses to bypass at least a half-dozen that are closer to his home and play the Comedy and Magic Club most Sunday evenings. When he does essentially the same act in Vegas, it's sixty bucks a seat with no opening act. In Hermosa Beach, it's around $25 and he has two comics on before him, one of whom is usually the wonderful Jim Brogan. If you're looking for a good place to take outta-town visitors (even older folks), you can't do much better. Here's a link to the club's website.

And here's a real tip which isn't up on the site yet. February 4th, 5th and 7th, Lewis Black is performing at the Comedy and Magic Club. I think he's the sharpest of the "newer" comedians and even though I saw him just last August, I have reservations to see him again. If you want to go, don't wait until they post the information. They'll probably be sold out before they announce his appearance, but they are selling tickets if you phone the club. Black is doing one show on Wednesday, one on Thursday, none on Friday, then two on Saturday. (I'm guessing he's doing Bill Maher's show on Friday night. Or something like that.)

If you're not familiar with Mr. Black, here's a link to a recent commentary he did on gadgets for The Daily Show With Jon Stewart. And while you're over there: Here's a link to a very funny Jon Stewart spot about Strom Thurmond's illegitimate daughter, or click this one to see him discuss the news coverage of Saddam Hussein's "spiderhole." I don't know about your TV set but it's the cleverest show on mine.

• Posted at 8:22 PM · LINK

Briefly Noted...

Lex Passaris suggests I link to an obituary for Dick St. John, who was one half of the musical act, Dick and Dee Dee. The obit lists their main hits but somehow omits the fact that they performed the infamous song, "Bupkis," written by Rob Petrie and "Sticks" Mandalay. It was originally credited to Buzzy Potter but this was corrected on later pressings.

• Posted at 11:24 AM · LINK

The Best and the Brightest

As noted, Comedy Central recently aired a marathon of what they claimed were the "50 best" episodes of Saturday Night Live as selected by visitors to their website. They never posted the actual list anywhere but someone sent me a rundown of which episodes were run.

As expected, there were none from the first five seasons since Comedy Central didn't have the rights to those. There were none from the last three for the same reason. There was one from 1980, one from '82, one from '86, one from '87 and one from '88. The vast majority were from the years 1996-2000, with eleven episodes from 1997 alone.

Now, this may be because the viewing (and voting) audience on the Internet is younger than we think and inclined to favor the years when they first discovered SNL. It may be that Darrell Hammond voted a few thousand times. Or it may be that the voting was kind of a sham and the folks at Comedy Central just put on whatever they felt like showing. My natural suspicion of polls conducted on the Internet leads me away from the belief that there's a substantial number of people who really assessed all the choices and came to the conclusion that SNL has never been better than it was a few years ago.

Then again, look at who we elect in this country.

• Posted at 10:56 AM · LINK

Museum News

For some time now, a major frustration in the comic strip community has been the failure of Mort Walker's International Museum of Cartoon Art. Walker started it in 1974 and it moved about before settling into a beautiful and permanent (Mort thought) home in Boca Raton, Florida in 1992. But tourists didn't flock to the place in sufficient number and it closed in 2002. Since then, the collection has been in storage while Mort and the other operators tried to unload the Florida building and find a new location.

Dirk Deppey over on the ¡Journalista! site is reporting (here's the link) that arrangements are being made to house a human rights museum in the Boca Raton structure...so that presumably means Walker is out from that financial encumbrance. And I hear from another source that they're close to announcing a new venue where the collection of rare and exemplary comic strips can be made available to the public...a very tall structure in New York that all by itself attracts tourists and that once housed a couple of comic book companies, including Timely (Marvel) Comics...

• Posted at 3:27 AM · LINK

Leaving Las Vegas

Years ago, I was a serious player of Blackjack, usually in Las Vegas. The way I played it, I usually won but it required a helluva lot of time, study and concentration, and it eventually came to feel not just like work, but work that I did not enjoy. At the time, I was way ahead but well aware that if I continued to play, at some point my luck would turn bad and I'd give back all my winnings and maybe more. I knew that if that happened, I'd feel compelled to keep playing until I got ahead again, which would be even less pleasant work.

So just like that, I stopped playing. Gave it up. I continued to go to Vegas because I like Vegas but my last dozen trips, the only gambling I've done has been a few bucks in slots, just to see how some of the new model machines worked. And I never went for Craps or Roulette or any of the others in the first place.

If I hadn't retired from Blackjack back then, I might do so now. Several of the casinos have quietly changed their rules, generally on single deck games, so that a "natural" (Ace plus a 10-value card) no longer pays 3:2. Now, it pays 6:5, which may seem like a teensy change but really isn't. This article will explain why it's harder to come out ahead now than it used to be. Since they seem to be getting away with this, you can expect more rules and payoffs to change in the house's favor.

Creeping exploitation is occurring in many areas of the town. There are still cheap places to stay and eat, but buffet prices are rising and a lot of the newer hotels and fine restaurants are amazingly expensive, given that it's Vegas. Meanwhile, most of the major showrooms are continuing with an unofficial policy of sneaking ticket prices upward. The best Lance Burton tix are now $66 each, the Cirque du Soleil show at the Bellagio is $99-$150, and Danny Gans, whose show consists of one guy on a stage backed by a small band, charges a hundred bucks a seat. A hundred is what you'll pay for the worst seat to Elton John's show, which has a top of $250. So far, the price increases do not seem to be hurting attendance at most ongoing shows so the hikes will probably be ongoing, as well.

A few years ago, the conventional wisdom was that with so many casinos opening all across the country, Vegas might be on the cusp of extinction. Now, even without Bill Bennett's money, the town is doing better than ever and a dozen new "megaresorts" are planned. What may be extinct is good, cheap shows and buffets. That, and winners at Blackjack.

• Posted at 12:29 AM · LINK

December 31, 2003 • Current • December 29, 2003