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Saturday, November 7, 2009More Vegas BloggingMark (that's me) had a fine time today at the Valley Vegas Comic Book Festival. Nice room. Nice turnout. Fun panels. Otherwise, not a lot to report. My pal Tom Galloway and I had a dinner at a local casino called Ellis Island, which is famous for ridiculously cheap food. The place was packed because of it and because of some sort of Star Wars fan gathering that was dining there — lots of folks who like to dress up like Storm Troopers plus "little person" actor Felix Silla, who I guess played an Ewok in something. Anyway, Tom and I had Ellis Island's famous steak dinner which for $6.99 gives you soup or salad, a piece o' beef about the size of Felix Silla, garlic string beans, your choice of potato and beer or root beer brewed on the premises. I don't drink beer or root beer and for allergy-type reasons, skipped the soup or salad and the green beans. Even passing on those, it was a fine meal. In fancier places, I've paid four times as much for shabbier meat. It's almost Midnight here. I've been writing for three hours so it's time to go out and take a walk. See ya later... • Posted at 11:57 PM · LINKRecommended ReadingFred Kaplan on what it meant when the Berlin Wall came a-tumblin' down. • Posted at 2:57 AM · LINKVegas BloggingI hereby take back every nasty thing I ever said about Southwest Airlines. A near-perfect flight. Even though it left 15 minutes late, that was due to air traffic controller stuff, and we only arrived five minutes late, which was more than made up for by the fact that my suitcase was the first one down the chute at Baggage Claim. On the flight, I read — and am thus now recommending — William Knoedelseder's book, I'm Dying Up Here. It's a history of the stand-up comedy scene of the late seventies when you could go up to the Comedy Store on a given night, as I did back then, and see up-and-coming kids named Leno and Letterman and Dreesen and some new, hyper guy named Robin Williams. There were others who either didn't make it or did but not for long, and this is the story of many of them and in particular, the 1979 strike at the Comedy Store in which comics who'd been working there for free thought it might be nice to be paid. The book has a few unfortunate errors...things like misspelling comedians' names and referring to Tom Snyder's post-Carson NBC show as Late Night, rather than Tomorrow. But I was a sidelines witness to an awful lot of what Knoedelseder reports and what he writes matches what I saw and heard. Not only does he get the history right but he understands the emotions and personalities that shaped it. Comic/ringleader Tom Dreesen rightly comes off as the hero and there's a lot about Steve Lubetkin, the comic who committed suicide not long after the strike was settled. One issue that comes up in the book — and is not directly addressed because the players in the drama seemed unable to address it — is how much you owe those who help you. If someone does something that is beneficial to you — say, if you're a beginning comic and Mitzi Shore, proprietor of the Comedy Store, lets you play there — you owe that person something. But how much? And what do you do when what they think you owe them is considerably more than what you think you owe them? I'm sure this dilemma pops up with some frequency in every venue but it's often front and center in show business where people help (and by "help," I sometimes mean "exploit") those who are new and/or needy. At some point with some people, you have to say, "I think I've more than paid you back." That was more or less the story of the Comedy Store strike...a very ugly but probably necessary chapter in the history of stand-up mirth delivery. You might enjoy reading about it so here's an Amazon link to get a copy of this fine, necessary book. • Posted at 1:43 AM · LINK |
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November 8, 2009
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© 2009 Mark Evanier Hosted by Dreamhost |
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