Start Strong: DC Improv manager and principal of the DC Comedy School Allyson Jaffe was profiled last week in The Washington Post Magazine’s “Making It” column. She’s overcome a lot to get where she is. Nice props.
New Material: The Arlington County Gentrification Juggernaut Rolls On. Apparently the approximately 1.3 billion condos already existing in Clarendon aren’t enough, because Elm Street Development has plans to build more in the area — which automatically invokes the first law of condominium gravity: before some overpriced Bauhausian monstrosity goes up, something else must come down. The victim this time? Just Dr. Dremo’s, one of the best dive/sports bars in the area, and home to one of the liveliest open mikes on the DC Comedy scene. By April 2008 Dremo’s will be gone, and we have a feeling that the open mike will be gone before that. So get your stage-time requests into Curt Shackleford now.
Speaking of Curt, he sent an e-mail out recently indicating that he’ll be enforcing a new rule at the numerous open mikes he hosts: “If you’re drunk or stoned you won’t be allowed on stage. I used to do both so I can tell. There are too many other comics who treat stage time more seriously. Your stage time will go to a standby who is sober and ready to ‘work’. By the way, the ‘look at me I’m a drug-addicted booze-doomed tortured artist’ persona is only charming after you’re dead from an overdose. While you’re alive it’s just annoying and unprofessional.”
Hmm…is Curt saying that he would have prevented someone like Mitch Hedberg from taking his stage? I mean, after all Mitch is — oh, wait: Mitch is dead. Drug overdose. Two years ago this month, in fact. Depriving us forever of one of the greatest talents this medium has ever seen. Perhaps Curt has a point, if only because it allows talent to stick around a little longer (i.e., George Carlin).
Personally, The SetList would much rather see a moratorium on alcohol/drug humor than on the alcohol/drugs themselves. “Where my drinkers at?” [insert gratuitous audience-wide “whooo-hooo” here].
Later…
