The Laughs Foundry

OK, an idea. Inspired by the works of my friend and 60's bandmate the late Jose Simon and his friend the late Robin Williams. Jose was a bass player (and a very good one), but it was really more just his "day job." Very funny guy. Our little North Beach band was a riot. Given that we were comprised of a Mexican, a Black, an Italian, and me, the Irishman, we named it "Four of a Kind." We also called ourselves "The Spic, the Spook, the Wop, and the Mick" (can't say that any more).

Jose's true passion was comedy (he loved to play cards and play the horses too, a Jones that helped keep him out of the 1%, lol). He went on to manage comedy clubs, and then went on to establish "Comedy Day in the Park," now in its 34th year. I'd moved on, first to Seattle, then Alabama, Tennessee, Las Vegas, and now, back to the Bay Area since retiring from my day gig last year (I gave up playing music for a living in 1986, after getting my first degree at the age of 39).

About Comedy Day in the Park

It was 1975, and comedian Jose Simon had a dream. Barbra Streisand did it. A number of rock 'n' roll bands had done it, too. Even the symphony gave it a go. Free outdoor concerts were becoming more commonplace in music. So, why not one featuring comedians? A free outdoor performance in The City that is considered the cradle of civilization for comedy would be a great way for local comedians to say thank you to their fans...

Since returning to the Bay Area, I've come to know, through my friend Joes's widow Gail,  the principals in the "3 Still Standing" documentary project.

I've done some photography of their recent Mill Valley fundraiser performance, and also took shots at SF Comedy Day 2014, and, most recently, their show at the Mill Valley Film Festival.

Below, my daughter Danielle and comic Margaret Cho at Comedy Day.

When I first learned of the 3 Still Standing project and its core story of artist struggles in a market gone south, my initial reaction, to be candid, was "yeah, welcome to the club. We musicians have been there, done that, for an equally long time." Our family joke is that, when I was a gigging performer, my wife told people that "my husband works in the non-profit sector."

Nonetheless, I have the greatest respect for stand-up comics. I'm an old pro (if now nominally retired) musician/singer/songwriter, utterly comfortable in front of a mic and a crowd of any size. And, I know how to get a laugh when I need one. I think I write some pretty good sendup songs: e.g., here, and here -- YouTube "music video" now in the oven for the latter.

But, the idea of just me and a mic and my wit onstage, getting over with an audience, well, I don't think I could do it. I'd have my first ever stage fright. 

At best, I could be a set host, an emcee. That I could do, no sweat.

Which is what I might try to get going in support of our comedians, in my late friend Jose's memory. I've been thinking lately about finding a venue to do a "singer/songwriter night." I've done some in Vegas as a performer. They were great fun.

But, how about such a night expanded to standup? Straight-out comics and musicians who write great funny songs? I own an excellent PA, and stage lighting. I know how to set up a room and run/manage Front of House. We could turn any pub into an episodic Comedy Club.

BTW: One of my long-time favorite books is Steve Martin's memoir "Born Standing Up."

I was, frankly, a bit surprised at the lack of mention of Steve in 3 Still Standing. He was in San Francisco early on, much closer to my time there.

to wit:

[D]oing comedy alone onstage is the ego’s last stand.

The comedian’s slang for a successful show is “I murdered them,” which I’m sure came about because you finally realize that the audience is capable of murdering you.

Stand-up is seldom performed in ideal circumstances. Comedy’s enemy is distraction, and rarely do comedians get a pristine performing environment. I worried about the sound system, ambient noise, hecklers, drunks, lighting, sudden clangs, latecomers, and loud talkers, not to mention the nagging concern “Is this funny?” Yet the seedier the circumstances, the funnier one can be. I suppose these worries keep the mind sharp and the senses active...

ON A HUMID MONDAY NIGHT in the summer of 1965, after finding an eight-dollar hotel room in the then economically friendly city of San Francisco, I lugged my banjo and black, hard-shell prop case ten sweaty blocks uphill to the Coffee and Confusion, where I had signed up to play for free. The club was tiny and makeshift, decorated with chairs, tables, a couple of bare lightbulbs, and nothing else. I had romanticized San Francisco as an exotic destination, away from friends and family and toward mystery and adventure, so I often drove my twenty-year-old self up from Los Angeles to audition my fledgling comedy act at a club or to play banjo on the street for tips. I would either sleep in my VW van, camp out in Golden Gate Park, pay for a cheap hotel, or snag a free room in a Haight-Ashbury Victorian crash pad by making an instant friend. At this point, my act was a catchall, cobbled together from the disparate universes of juggling, comedy, banjo playing, weird bits I’d written in college, and magic tricks. I was strictly Monday-night quality, the night when, traditionally, anyone could get up to perform. All we entertainers knew Mondays were really audition nights for the club.

I walked past Broadway and Columbus, where Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s ramshackle City Lights Books was jam-packed with thin small-press publications offering way-out poetry and reissues of long-ago-banned erotic novels. Around the corner on Broadway was Mike’s Pool Hall, where bikers and hippies first laid eyes on each other, unsure whether they should beat each other up or just smoke pot and forget about it. Steps away was the hungry i, a nightclub that had launched a thousand careers, including those of the Smothers Brothers, the Kingston Trio, and Lenny Bruce, but I had to trudge on by. Just up Columbus, I passed the Condor, the first of a sudden explosion of topless clubs, where Carol Doda, in a newfangled bathing suit that exposed her recently inflated basketball breasts, descended from the ceiling on a grand piano that was painted virginal white. This cultural mélange—and the growing presence of drugs— made the crowded streets of North Beach simmer with toxic vitality.

The Coffee and Confusion was nearby on Grant Avenue, a street dotted with used-clothing stores and incense shops. I nervously entered the club, and Ivan Ultz, the show runner, slotted me into the lineup. I lingered at the back, waiting for my turn, and surveyed the audience of about fifteen people. They were arrayed in patchwork jeans with tie-dyed tops, and the room was thick with an illegal aroma. In the audience was a street poet, dressed in rags and bearded like a yeti, who had a plastic machine gun that shot Ping-Pong balls, which he unloaded on performers he didn’t like. I was still untouched by the rapidly changing fashion scene; my short hair and conservative clothes weren’t going to help me with this crowd.

Ivan introduced me. My opening line, “Hello. I’m Steve Martin, and I’ll be out here in a minute,” was met with one lone chuckle...

Martin, Steve (2007-11-20). Born Standing Up: A Comic's Life (pp. 1-8). Scribner. Kindle Edition.

I roamed those very streets. This book is a wonderful, candid, often painful read...

So, how do we proceed? I could find and fund a solo location myself (I'm thinkin' Walnut Creek for starters, close to where we live now and where my wife works: BART convenient Bay Area wide). But, beyond that, Kickstart/crowdfund a larger effort, perhaps to do Four-Wall deals around the country? A grassroots, from-the-ground-up "America's Got Comedy Talent"?

In this contentious, stressful world, we can certainly use more laughs, and the best of their creators have to start somewhere. What might be a win-win-win business model?

More questions than answers at this point. Seems like it might be fun to pursue.

BTW, remember this movie?

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