Get Your Funny On!

The Greg Wilson: We Concede Nothing!

2008-06-04T10:56:00.000-07:00

Hillary Clinton continues her refusal to concede that Barrack Obama has more testosterone in his system. “I have the popular vote and the cajones!” Clinton vowed to a startled group of men in a Manhattan steam bath, Wednesday morning. “Besides, I am married to the first black President! Michelle Obama will never be able to say that!”
While most Democrats have accepted that Barrack Obama will be the party’s candidate this fall, Clinton continues to suggest that the party might have some regrets later on. “John McCain was seen coming out of a Toastmasters meeting just days ago,” Clinton campaign officials noted,” if he strengthens his oratorical skills, the fall campaign could be over…”
Senator Clinton let it be known that she is available to serve as a vice presidential nominee for whatever candidate wins her heart. She says she needs to win a job in Washington that will give her husband “something to do,” to make sure “he ain’t misbehaving…”
“I think John McCain and I share an experience of being tortured — he by the North Vietnamese, I by the pundits of the American Press,” Clinton declared. “It’s time that we can pay back that torture to this country.”
If you’re ready to pause from the torture of the current presidential campaign, perhaps you might want to have a moment of introspection with “The Greg Wilson.” Wilson appears for five shows this weekend at the Mainstage Comedy and Music Club — 8 pm Thursday, and 8 pm and 10:30 pm Friday and Saturday. The Greg Wilson will not only demonstrate his “cajones” you’ll leave a better man — even if you came in as a woman.

Open Mic: The Night They Raided Comedy

2008-06-03T10:38:00.000-07:00

As US Marshalls raided local strip clubs in a surprise Monday evening “racketeering” probe, other Marshalls privately raided Seattle comedy clubs in violation of a Bush administration signing statement outlawing anti-Bush jokes. “We like a good joke as much as anyone, a federal officer told reporters. “However, we don’t think it’s funny when folks misunderestimate the language capacity of our fearless leader.”
When asked what “proper” humor is, the US Attorney for Western Washington pointed to what he termed a “hilarious” statement by Vice President Cheney on in-breeding in West Virginia Monday evening. “It’s no wonder the Vice President has been headlining Republican events for decades,” the US Attorney noted.
Marshalls were apparently given false information in making their raids. That became apparent when they raided a local Pioneer Square comedy club that was rumored to have a Monday evening gathering of “enemy combatants” telling “unsuitable” jokes about the Bush family history. No comedians were found in the building closed for remodeling. That was not as embarrassing as the raid on a second club in Seattle where no comedy was found.
Marshalls say they have heard there is a third comedy club in Seattle where funny anti-Bush comedians are frequently given sanctuary. Sources say this third club serves up comedy open mics every Tuesday evening at 7 pm, and then quickly poses as a place where musicians can beat out tunes at 9 pm . The US Attorney says they have not yet pinpointed the location of this club across from Key Arena that is said to rhyme with “Rain Gauge.” If you are not a federal officer and are simply looking for a free form evening of music and comedy on a “mainstage” simply knock twice, buy a beverage, and say the secret password: “That’s Funny!”

Open Mic: Mariners Need Public Displays of Affection

2008-06-02T10:46:00.000-07:00

A week after a controversial kiss between two women became the most dramatic moment in this Seattle Mariners most lost season, the team is apologizing for chastising the two women involved. Consequently, by popular demand, the entire Mariners team will be replaced by a hot, young, softball team made up entirely of lesbians hitting better than most of the Mariners. “In the words of our management,” a Mariners spokesman said, “if the team can’t bunt, it’s time to go * ^{[*word that rhymes with bunt]}.”
At the same time, the team will add a “Bobbleboob” night to its marketing ventures to draw both gay and straight fans to an evening of baseball to remember. Both lesbians and gay men will be invited to perform “public displays of affection” in the seats that are guaranteed to bring thousands of spectators that have never seen a “ball” game before. With the Mariners struggling in last place during a season when many predicted they would be fighting for their first-ever World Series, Mariners management is apparently ready to experiment with whatever will sell a ticket or a bottle of beer. “Given some of the decisions we’ve made in player personnel in the past few seasons,” Mariners President Howard Lincoln remarked, “we have to look at whatever we can do to increase our ERA (Earned Revenue Average).”
If a struggling baseball team is not your cup of tea, try a profile in courage in comedy or music. Every Tuesday evening a new face steps in front of the crowd at the Mainstage Comedy and Music Club to pitch a new joke, or make a sacrifice to music. It’s an evening of over-achievers and under-achievers, and enough fun to make Tuesdays a night to idolize new American talent. See new and used comedians at 7 pm. At 9pm, you can see if the talented or struggling musicians have any strings attached to their career hopes. Feel free to show your public display of affection.

Geno Bisconte: A Grand Old Twin Cities Party

2008-05-30T14:34:00.000-07:00

Seattle residents are apparently blessed that the city did not pursue the Republican National Convention this year. While the twin cities of Minnesota cheer the financial rewards of hosting 45,000 people that will cheer America’s progress under GOP rule as they sit at outdoor café’s where a major highway bridge collapsed a year before, ordinary residents may face more discomfort than Idaho Senator Larry Craig did at the local airport.
Although the convention is still some 90 days away, Minneapolis vegans are already being infiltrated by the FBI for any signs that they might throw rotten eggs, interrupt a steak dinner, or impugn the reputation of America’s dairy producers. At least that’s what local law enforcement wants them to believe is the reason for their search for informants to creep into the infidel’s pot-luck dinners.
In the meantime, draconian restrictions on mass protests have been imposed by local authorities to make sure that those who believe Saddam Hussein personally led the September 11 attacks are not discouraged by local unpleasantness. Protestors must register six months before the start of the convention under rules demanded by GOP officials. This means that protests can begin immediately after Election Day.
Still, there is one bit of good news for both residents and those attending the convention. Minnesota’s legislators have approved plans to keep bars open two extra hours for the duration in case anyone is driven to drink by the GOP gathering. If you’re a Republican in a Twin Cities bar at 3 AM, expect a phone call from Hillary.
Geno Bisconte is a serious comedian, who you won’t find in a bar at 3 AM unless there are laughs to be had. Bisconte serves up a full menu of jokes, pratfalls and zingers all weekend at the Mainstage Comedy and Music Club. Join him at 8 pm and 10:30 pm Friday and Saturday night. Be sure to register with security if you are a vegan.

Geno Bisconte: Flush With Excitement

2008-05-29T10:25:00.000-07:00

International space travel is a moving experience. It is a billion dollar enterprise of technology, courage, and rudimentary plumbing boldly flushing where no man has flushed before.
Until now.
Astronauts living in the claustrophobic confines of the International Space Station report the most vexing problem in the history of the space time continuum. If a plumber is called to fix a toilet in the far reaches of outer space, where Mondays and Sundays can pass faster than a can of out-of-date chili, does he bill for weekend hours?
NASA’s Roto Rooter division is breathlessly awaiting the answer to this problem as astronauts and cosmonauts become increasingly P.O.’d by the absence of a working toilet in the space station. In a world of zero gravity, plumbing failures are never a minor obstruction. It doesn’t help that the failed toilet was built by Russian engineers who have been unable to find suitable relief for the station’s inhabitants.
Thus, the Shuttle Discovery is poised to eliminate more waste than a library of Bush administration tell-all books as it prepares to carefully plunge into the space station this weekend, one ballcock at a time. Of course, if NASA had any Vulcan logic or at least had a feminist thought, there would be more than one toilet on the space station.
But then, whoever said there was intelligent life on Earth?
If you have any misconceptions about intelligent life on this planet, Geno Bisconte will discount them. Be sure to join Geno this weekend at the Mainstage Comedy and Music Club for shows at 8 pm Thursday, and 8pm and 10:30 Friday and Saturday. The Mainstage Comedy and Music Club has good, patriotic American toilets. Most of the time, they work.

Geno Bisconte: The Naked Truth

2008-05-28T10:42:00.000-07:00

Until now, America had never talked about it.
It was one of those unkind things you never say in a political campaign, like how Senator Robert Kennedy’s 1968 California victory ended tragically. For many Americans it was a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside the perfect abs with which they once shared a desire to “have a beer.”
As the President of the United States shadowed his heir apparent away from a a sparsely attended, scheduled interlude at the Phoenix Convention Center, the media lights — powered by a former sage advisor — accentuated the moment. Fortunately, an adequate venue was quickly found at Sky Harbor Airport. The chief executive and his remaining faithful jammed into the men's room to watch an impromptu performance put on by the Republican Senator from Idaho. "I am glad someone in our party still has a wide stance," Mr. Bush said.
Still, even in this joyous moment, the truth was revealed for all the world to hear:
“The Emperor is wearing no clothes,” yelled out a veteran campaigner who had followed George W. Bush from Austin to Washington, DC. Scott McClellan, who had assured America that its investment in George W. Bush included only the highest quality fabric, was now pointing out the obvious. Mr. McClellan noted that the emperor he served had not even worn the basics. “If only, his vestments had included a lying sack of crap, I wouldn’t be this ashamed.”
Even the host Senator from Arizona, who had once been dressed to the hilt, had now been divested of his once non-gay apparel. His straight talk was just a memory as his mentor cast aside invisible cod pieces in his direction. “Friends,I feel fabulous,” McCain said in a high pitch voice, as he turned to the naked chief executive and noted “you light up my life.”
Geno Bisconte will do just about anything to make you smile. If it means criticizing your fashion sense, then so be it. Geno lights up the Mainstage Comedy and Music Club stage this weekend for five shows, at 8 pm Thursday and 8pm and 10:30 pm Friday and Saturday. Come, enjoy the end of the lusty month of May. But, please be sure you aren’t wrapped in the Emperor’s clothing.

April Macie: A Grand Slam Performance

2008-05-22T13:57:00.000-07:00

A growing movement formed in the doomed public toilets in downtown Seattle is blocking demolition teams from removing one of the city’s most recently condemned landmarks. “Save Our Denny’s,” protestors shouted out as they marched in front of the currently vacant structure that once housed Ballard’s treasured gastronomical attraction. “Just because the Seattle Mariners aren’t hitting a lot of grand slams these days, doesn’t mean we can’t have Denny’s Grand Slam breakfast,” a rotund protestor remarked.
Just hours before, the city’s Landmark Preservation Board allowed the building’s owners to demolish the building despite its earlier decision to preserve the spot for history. Countless former Ballard seniors treasure their free Birthday breakfasts and their first selections from the landmark Senior Menu. “We know that the Denny’s management appreciated Ballard back in the days when our faces were all Scandinavian White.”
Now, however, the milestone eatery will join the Doggie Diner, the Twin Teepees and other long-forgotten 24-hour greasy spoons in the Cuisinart of Seattle culinary history. The Googie kitsch from vinyl booths to its coffe-stained carpets will die a quick death in the modern beams and skylights of still another condo project. Somewhere, a grease-stained laborer will cry tears stained with tobacco sauce.
Protestors forming the “Save Our Denny’s group had planned to break for French fries after their exasperating five minute rebellion, however, the snack bar at Ballard’s Sunset Bowl was also no longer there.
April Macie comes from the Northeast where lunch counters and street-corner pretzel vendors still survive. This weekend she brings her own flavors to five shows at the Mainstage Comedy and Music Club beginning Thursday evening. Macie, performs at 8 pm Thursday, and 8 pm and 10:30 pm Friday and Saturday. Come share April Macie’s sense of humor and a Mainstage menu that will make you forget Denny’s. You don’t even have to bring your own tobacco sauce or public toilet.

April Macie: It's Not Over Until It's Over

2008-05-21T10:13:00.000-07:00

“Happy New Year!” Senator Barrack Obama shouted to crowds at his stunning victory party in Des Moines, Iowa, as his spiritual advisor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright looked on in admiration. “Before these cold, snowy days of winter break into a glorious Pacific Northwest climax on the banks of the Willamette River, let us bring together the working people of Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and all the way to Kentucky and West Virginia!"
Movie Producer Harold Ramis, serving as campaign advisor to Obama admitted that the moment reminded him of Groundhog’s Day all over again. As Republican frontrunner Rudy Giuliani told CNN cameras that the Obama victory in Iowa would be as temporary as Democratic control of the Congress, other Republicans chopped their lips hoping for a Clinton victory in New Hampshire.
Cable News directors looked puzzled at the snowy Iowa scene, on an evening where it seemed like the Democratic Primary season had ended just the day before. Perhaps a low-hanging technician had forgotten to load a fresh disk into the control room video center, and instead pushed rewind on an old VHS system that was still flashing _12:00. At any rate, the thought of a “fair and balanced” rewind of a campaign that sent the cable news channels into Halliburton-style uplift, could not be argued. If it was good enough for Senator Hillary Clinton, Groundhog’s Day — Election 2008 Edition was good enough for the cable networks. “Even if it is a repeat, it’s almost summer time anyway,” a cable producer noted. “If this campaign season ends now we won’t have anything to do until the end of August.”
Supporters of Senator Hillary Clinton hoped that the latest run would end a little differently, noting that the former First Lady plans for some “minor revisions” of her part in the replay. Senator Obama, however, says plans for Senator Clinton to escape sniper fire from the forces of Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee at the NRA convention may be a bit too much.
You can escape the sniper fire of every day work this Memorial Day weekend as you relax and enjoy the comic musings of April Macie at the Mainstage Comedy and Music Club. Macie, based in New York, has appeared on television’s Last Comic Standing, and will haunt you with her stories of growing up in Pennsylvania. If you love her show, Thursday, attend again Friday, or Saturday. If you like her at 8pm, attend again at 10:30 pm. You might enjoy this more than rewinding through the current campaign season.

Open Mic: Mariners Are Finally OK

2008-05-20T15:47:00.000-07:00

In an unexpected move, all of the Seattle Mariners have been traded for the would-be Oklahoma Supersonics. Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels says he was able to convince owner Clay Bennett that the current Mariners share a distinct position with the Sonics — last place in their division. “Instead of a mere five starting players that Oklahoma gets with the Sonics,” Nickels says, “The Mariners come with a starting nine — giving them more bang for their bucks.”
Some local observers say it is the absence of bangs for the big bucks the Mariners have paid to players in the past several seasons that made them an attractive resource for outsourcing. City officials, however, say their Oklahoma travelers — or agents — merely convinced the local folks that the Mariners could do in the NBA what they have been unable to do in Major League baseball. “They seem to be able to win only in extensive heat, such as the heat we had in Seattle last weekend,” the mayor noted. “Seattle just don’t have that kind of climate, Oklahoma does. “
The departure of the Mariners from Safeco Field will finally provide the Sonics with a much larger arena and extensive luxury box facilities. In addition, Safeco Field has a retractable roof that will permit the Sonics to play throughout the basketball season — except when wintry windstorms blow through the Northwest and temperatures go well below freezing.
The Mariners, of course may feel a bit cramped playing in Ford Arena, in Oklahoma City, but the facility is still bigger than their Arizona spring training park. Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig remains uncertain about whether club owners will approve the shift of the Mariners to Oklahoma, but he says Oklahoma City could become a hitter’s park “where the wind comes sweeping down the plain.”
Do your jokes come sweeping down into plain? Rehearse them Tuesday evening at the Mainstage Comedy and Music Club open mic. Or just watch other comedians do their best to give performance a whirl, and watch the best of the best give new material a try. There’s no cover charge for open mic, and it’s usually more satisfying than watching the Mariners.

Open Mic: Appalachian-AID

2008-05-19T11:51:00.000-07:00

In a continuing effort to outperform the Obama bandwagon, Senator Hillary Clinton today plans a rally destined to attract the entire populations of the states of West Virginia and Kentucky. Following in the footsteps of Senator Barrack Obama who held a massive rally on the banks of the Willamette River in Portland, and Obama’s expected return to Iowa to declare victory in the state where his success began, Clinton plans a rally on the shores of the Big Sandy River — the border between West Virginia and Kentucky — to mark her expected victory in the Bluegrass state Tuesday, and thank her West Virginia voters for her massive victory last week.
Signs reading “Free Meth^odology” were posted throughout the two states’ Appalachian communities. Clinton campaign spokespeople refused to comment on whether Clinton had subscribed to some new political ideology or if the signs meant something else. Some observers noted that the banners were not large enough to fit the entire slogan, and the phrase “odology” had to be scratched on the sign in small print. “This is not over, “said a member of the Clinton campaign as she stepped out of the massive “mess tent” that appeared to hold hundreds of camp stoves. Secret Service officials declined to comment on the large number of bomb squad vehicles parked near the tent.
In order to attract the “working class white Americans” she expects to boost her to ultimate victory, Clinton has invited her Arkansas friend, former governor and former GOP presidential candidate, Mike Huckabee. Huckabee was a “last minute choice” that just came to Clinton after he expounded on his “vision” at last week’s NRA convention. “I think it’s time to trigger a bipartisan vision that will be best for working class white America,” Clinton told reporters.
If you have a vision beyond traveling to the camp stoves of Appalachia, you just might enjoy the laughs at the Mainstage Comedy and Music Club every Tuesday night. Open Mic comedy can be a lot of fun as both a participant and an audience member. See would-be fools become comedians, and see comedians become fools. Who knows, if you’ve ever thought about becoming a comedian, you might find you’re a better funny man than Mike Huckabee.

Chris Porter: Appeasing Audiences All Weekend

2008-05-16T09:02:00.001-07:00

Just a day after denouncing certain politicians in the United States seeking “appeasement” with terrorists, George W. Bush landed in Saudi Arabia to mingle with Osama bin Laden’s “home boys.” Sources close to Bush say the US President is prepared to offer the Saudis certain undesirable parts of the United States in order to prevent another attack like the one Saudi Arabians led on September 11, 2001, and at the same time reduce oil prices until Senator John McCain can be safely elected to succeed Bush in November.
Admiring Saudi Arabia’s misogynistic rule of its homeland, Bush said he was willing to turn over America’s “Sudatenland” which is today known as “California.” After California legalized gay marriage Thursday, Bush says, the state needs the fatherly guidance of a Saudi Arabia to “put it in its proper place.” The state is a well-known refuge for “uppity women” that not only are allowed to drive, but actually are sent to Washington, DC to serve in the Congress. “It’s no wonder there are so many gay men in California,” Bush says. “Men just aren’t permitted their rightful place. Being a part of Saudi Arabia will cure that problem.”
Senator Joseph Lieberman meanwhile, denied reports that he and McCain are having a secret affair on the Straight Talk Express bus. “I am just assisting the Senator in keeping his bearings straight,” Lieberman says. “The fact that we are parked here in the San Francisco County Clerk’s office waiting for it to open this morning is just a coincidence.”
Senator Barrack Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee for President says he doesn’t mind Bush giving back formerly occupied territory to another imperialistic country. He, however, suggested that there are country’s that already have the kind of “bitter” people who might be more comfortable being in Saudi Arabia. “I think the Saudi’s already have regular scheduled air service to Texas and West Virginia,” Obama suggested.
If you’re a misogynist or a feminist chances are you’ll appreciate the musings of comedian Chris Porter on the differences between men and women. Porter, who has traveled the mean streets of Kansas City to “Last Comic Standing’s Live at Gotham,” has some unique perspectives that politicians in Washington and Riyadh rarely understand. See him this weekend at the Mainstage Comedy and Music Club in two shows Friday and Saturday at 8 pm and 10:30 pm. See him, while gas prices are still low.

Chris Porter: Hillary Holds a Grand Old Party

2008-05-14T15:53:00.000-07:00

Senator Hillary Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, announced plans for a hostile takeover of the declining Republican Party. “Our hostile takeover of the Democratic Party does not appear to be working, “Mrs. Clinton admitted to a passing pundit, “We believe the GOP has been devalued sufficiently among political observers that only a hostile takeover by our organization can save its historic significance. “
Market experts say the Republican party is so devalued that the Clintons may be able to pick up the pieces for less than the recent acquisition of Bear Stearns. The offer came less than 24 hours after Clinton’s massive victory among West Virginia’s conservative voting base while even more conservative voters in Mississippi rejected a Republican candidate for Congress for the third special election in a row. The Clintons promised that West Virginia — dozens of miles from the Washington Beltway — could become the focal point of a new generation of political thought. As Mrs. Clinton met with the current presumptive nominee of the existing GOP, Arizona Senator John McCain at her new West Virginia double-wide, she showed off a new toothless grin. “Welcome to an entirely new Right Wing Conspiracy,” she told reporters. “the Republican Party under my leadership will truly be “almost Heaven.” My husband and I will erect an even bigger tent — an erection that would put even Barrack Obama to shame. “
The Senator hinted to McCain that she would be happy to accept the nomination of the new GOP as McCain’s running mate. She even agreed to call McCain every morning at 3 AM and let him know if his bearings were in working order. If she found them inoperative, she noted, that as Vice President she would know what to do. “I can’t imagine a better future for Senator McCain’s beautiful bearings than to have them rubbed every morning by Senator Clinton,” says Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman.
Comedian Chris Porter remains too young to lose his bearings. This weekend he will take you on a guided tour of his life that has taken him from the mean streets of Kansas City to “Last Comic Standing’s Live at Gotham,” that airs this summer. In the course of the trip, that begins Wednesday at 8 pm at the Mainstage Comedy and Music Club. The laughs continue Thursday at 8pm, and again Friday and Saturday evening at 8 and 10 pm, you’re guaranteed to break all your funny bones. You have been warned.

Open Mic: Idaho Toilet Proposal Stalled

2008-05-13T10:10:00.000-07:00

Idaho Republicans apparently can’t stop thinking about toilets.
Walt Bayes, a candidate for the state House of Representatives has taken a somewhat narrower stance on gays in public restrooms than his fellow Idaho lawmaker in Washington, DC, Idaho’s US Senator Larry Craig. Perhaps noting the senator’s outing in a Minneapolis airport restroom last summer, Mr. Bayes opined that the trend is obvious. “We’re going to have to do something if there’s going to be a considerable number of our people who are going to go that way (homosexual),” Bayes said. “We’re going to (need) some kind of separation.”
Bayes, an anti-abortion crusader who demands human status for unborn fetuses, fears an intimate vulnerability should impressionable young high school students be forced to ward off possible homosexual approaches in public bathrooms. The retired farmer and “blue collar worker” last achieved publicity when he went on an unsuccessful 59-day hunger strike to end abortion. He compares the potential for gay groping in public restrooms to his own youthful wonder lust. It would have been "an absolute catastrophe” for him to have showered with girls, he says.
Senator Craig was not immediately available for comment on the Bayes proposal.
The Mainstage Comedy and Music Club Open Mic does not separate comics by gender, sexual orientation, or even experience. Every Tuesday evening at 7 pm you can try your hand at comedy even if the only joke you’ve ever told was to say “I am a United States Senator” to an undercover cop. At the same time, you can be in the company of greatness as some of Seattle’s best comedians try out their new material and perhaps demonstrate their imperfection. It’s all done for laughs for less than a song. If it’s music you need, stick around for the 9 pm music open mic.

Open Mic: Keeping Your Shipoopi Private

2008-05-12T14:25:00.000-07:00

We’ve got trouble, right here in Rain City….
It’s starts with “T” which rhymes with “P,” and stands for “Pool.”
Yes, the naked truth has been revealed in the heart of Ballard, where traditions stand longer than landmarks destined for condo-conversion. Here in the midst of what was once Seattle’s most formidable enclave of Scandinavian formality, bare naked men and women display their privates in private.
Yes, the Ballard pool has been reserved on a limited basis for the unreserved, those who believe that underwater gyrations are healthy for adults and other living things. The practice has come under the watchful eyes of City of Seattle Parks and Recreation officials who now declare that the required lifeguards at the public drink must be at least old enough to consume alcohol before engaging in the recovery of an exhibitionist. Most city lifeguards are only old enough to smoke cigarettes, get married, or be called on multiple tours of Iraq, thus making the career expectancy of the average City of Seattle lifeguard slightly longer than that of the average 21^st-Century encyclopedia salesman. Consequently, the number of 21-year-old lifeguards in the city is minimal.
City officials say that a 21-year-old lifeguard, coming home from having a couple of cool ones with his friends after beating his young bride, or facing a terrorist, might be mature enough to deal with the distractions coming from a pool full of octogenarians shriveling in the water. “Shipoopi,” say the organizers of the nude swim in another Music Man reference, “this city is playing hard to get.”
Whether your idea of comedy is a bare naked exposure of one’s inner “Shipoopi,” or a series of surprises cloaked in mystery, chances are you’ll experience both in a collection of comedians gathered for open mic every Tuesday evening at 7 pm at the Mainstage Comedy and Music Club. If you’d prefer to have your own kind of music, perhaps you’ll want to participate in the music open mic that follows at 9 pm. Do remember, however, that at the Mainstage, clothing is NOT optional.

Slade, White Sox and Elephants — the Socks Are Off!

2008-05-09T11:10:00.000-07:00

It’s now official. The Clinton campaign is over. The word came not with a bang or a consolation, but a “Meow!” Socks Clinton, the former first feline — fresh from the funeral of her benefactor, Baskin-Robbins co-founder Irvine Robbins, and sporting a memorial pralines and cream moustache — pointed to his litter box when asked where the Clinton campaign goes from here.
While some reporters expected a pussy-whipped answer from a one-time beloved member of the Clinton family, Socks expressed no bitterness about being abandoned by the Clintons and sent to live with former White House Secretary Betty Currie. Socks, now approaching age 18, purred quietly on his throne as his spokesman dealt with reporters. “Not only is he not bitter,” Currie said, reminding reporters of Senator Obama’s remarks on the Pennsylvania campaign trail, “he has not sought spiritual aid or help in sharpening his claws.”
There was indeed satisfaction on the lips of the best-selling children’s author and White House canine terrifier. Currie noted that Socks is currently in negotiation with Random House, Simon and Shuster and a number of other major publishing houses attempting to win rights to his final memoirs. “Socks will probably net more from his memoirs than Bill and Hillary combined,” Currie offered on his behalf.
If you’re looking for a night away from the cat house this weekend, look no further than the Mainstage Comedy and Music Club. Friday, it will be a rare evening of comedy AND music, with Dwight Slade providing hilarity at 8pm, leading up to a late music show featuring the White Sox (no relation to the Clintons) a group including members of Yes, Journey and Queen in a benefit concert for MusiCares at 10 pm. Saturday night, Slade performs two shows at 8pm and 10:30 pm.
Need a few more animals in your life? Check out another special comedy show on Mother’s Day, Sunday evening at 7pm to benefit Friends of the Woodland Park Zoo Elephants, with the ever-talented comedian Cathy Sorbo AND your weekend headliner Dwight Slade.

Dwight Slade: Stand By Your Party

2008-05-08T11:46:00.000-07:00

In her continuing effort to shore up her support in the “white working class” communities, New York Senator Hillary Clinton gave out pseudoephedrine-inclusive samples of Sudafed and an Internet recipe on how to formulate methamphetamine. “Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and cauldron bubble,” Clinton snorted, showing off a newly missing tooth. “Hey Lurleen, listen to this!.”

Sometimes it’s hard to be a woman
Giving all your love to just one smarty party
You'll have your victories
No longer an inferiority
Doing things white folks understand
Being mother superior no need to con
Even when the face of darkness carries on

Officials at the Clinton campaign blamed the number on the tiring Democratic Primary campaign that has last 15 months and is apparently on its final, exhausted legs. They said Clinton’s earlier appearance at a Klu Klux Klan rally was simply an effort to expand the Senator’s reach into diverse minority audience. “She really felt like she filled out that sheet to its maximum,” the campaign official said. “When old man infidelity came a’ knocking at my door, I stood by my man,” Clinton told the robed gathering. “ I didn’t go black. Now, I want to make sure the entire country doesn’t go black. If it does, it will never come back!”
Clinton says despite her declining chances for victory, she will do whatever is necessary to pick up the remaining pledged and super delegates she needs to reverse her fortunes. She is already planning a duck hunting trip to Montana with Vice President Dick Cheney just before that state’s June 3 Primary. “If I shoot first, and ask questions later, I could still win this thing,” she says.
You too could be a winner, without taking your life in your hands. Plan on laughing yourself silly this weekend at the Mainstage Comedy and Music Club — unlike Hillary Clinton you have every chance of reaching your goal because this weekend we feature Dwight Slade Thursday through Saturday at 8 pm. Saturday evening, enjoy an extra late show at 10:30 pm. We provide all the stimulants you can legally enjoy —Robes and shotguns are discouraged.

Dwight Slade: Delegating Authority

2008-05-07T16:52:00.000-07:00

In a last-ditch effort to “count all the votes,” Senator Hillary Clinton today demanded that she be granted “half” of the delegates given to her husband when he became the Democratic nominee in 1992. The New York senator says that under community property laws she is entitled to “half of everything her husband owns.”
On the morning after a disappointing showing in North Carolina and Indiana, Mrs. Clinton struggled to put the arithmetic together that could get her the nomination. Since Mr. Clinton was nominated by “acclamation,” at the 1992 convention, the Clinton campaign would garner more than enough delegates to put Mrs. Clinton over the top. Senator Barrack Obama reached at a North Carolina basketball court says his lawyers assure him that Mrs. Clinton has “a better chance of getting delegates out of Florida and Michigan,” than claiming any of the former Presidents’s nominating glory.
Meanwhile, Senator John McCain separated himself further from the Bush administration by blasting the incumbent’s handling of the Spanish Armada after the attack on the USS Maine in the Havana harbor. “When was the last time Mr. Bush remembered the Maine?” McCain said at a gathering of the Daughters of the American Revolution. “I can assure you that I am ready to become commander-in-chief and that the next time it rains in Spain, it will rain on McCain!”
McCain aides immediately assisted the secretary to his afternoon nap place.
If you’d rather go see live comedy than your nap place this weekend, make a point of visiting Dwight Slade at the Mainstage Comedy and Music Club. Slade performs shows Wednesday through Saturday at 8 pm. Saturday evening, enjoy an extra late show at 10:30 pm. Remember, if you are married, all tickets to weekend shows become community property — so bring your spouse!

Open Mic: A Viaduct As Sound As Its Name

2008-05-06T15:23:00.000-07:00

The City of Seattle never likes to find itself looking up to San Francisco. Consequently, the City Council is considering changing the name of the cursed Alaska Way Viaduct to the Dick Cheney Viaduct. The name change proposal comes as San Francisco voters are being asked to change the name of the city’s primary sewage plant to the George W. Bush Memorial Sewage Plant. “I feel the pain of sewage workers in San Francisco, who already face an odoriferous challenge — not to mention low self esteem when visiting drinking establishments — having to explain that their workplace is named after the most disastrous chief executive in the history of our nation,” says Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels.
The Mayor says naming the currently doomed Alaskan Way viaduct for the Vice President of that same administration will remind drivers to use the endangered expressway as if Mr. Cheney was waiting to shoot them in the face at every turn. “Imagine the instant reduction in road rage incidents, not to mention traffic on the viaduct,” Nickels added.
Governor Christine Gregoire has ordered that the viaduct be demolished by 2012, and seismologists predict that the viaduct could come down before that date in the event of another earthquake. Consequently, city officials say, the dubious memorial to the current administration will be short-lived.
Open Mic night at the Mainstage Comedy and Music Club is your opportunity to see talent that is both long and short-lived. You can hear experienced voices try out new material or humor-challenged, first-time comics attempt to gauge their viability one punch line at a time, every Tuesday at 7 pm. Stick around for a music open mic that follows at 9pm or try your voice in song. Who knows, you might have a viaduct named for you one day.

Open Mic: We're Entitled to Old Fashioned Politics

2008-05-05T09:44:00.000-07:00

On the eve of primaries in North Carolina and Indiana, Senator Hillary Clinton continued her “sugar and spice and everything tax-free” campaign for President with a demand that working class Americans unable to buy their first home be given a “principal” holiday during the summer home buying season. Clinton says she would pay for the proposal by having the housing industry pay for the homes of the poor. “Why should we limit federal bailouts to corporate welfare recipients like Bear Stearns?” the senator told an enthusiastic crowd at an Indianapolis homeless shelter. “Every American deserves a home, and if I have to buy it for you with housing industry money, by God, I will.”
Marketing officials within the housing industry did not immediately balk at the Clinton proposal. Officials say if the federal government wants to infuse the struggling housing industry with new tax revenues, they would gladly respond with the required steps to make free homes available for the poorest Americans. “America’s homebuilders will be glad to lift up the Habitat for Humanity torch and have poor Americans build their own homes, which will save some construction costs. Presumably, the government will provide us the necessary construction materials — perhaps those extracted from an asbestos removal program," the Housing Industry spokesman says. "In addition, if the federal government will throw in some land grants with its tax revenue, our executives will be able to live comfortably on their multi-million-dollar bonuses as long as the new homeowners pay a $5,000 monthly homeowners association fee. “
Senator Clinton’s primary opponent, Illinois Senator Barrack Obama, noted that there might be some weaknesses in the former first lady’s plan. “I think the average poor person has a better chance of profiting by sending his or her bank account information to a generator of an email from Nigeria,” the Illinois senator says. Still, polls show working class Democrats polled by Fox News say the Clinton plan will push them to mark their ballot for Hillary.
You too can be rich overnight by simply embarking on a rewarding career in comedy! Imagine, you are free to step on the stage at the Mainstage Comedy and Music Club any Tuesday evening at 7 pm and telling all the jokes that inspire the folks at work go back to their desks and be more productive when you try them out at the water cooler. Go ahead, come on stage, be paid TRIPLE what your jokes are worth! * (Not valid for jokes worth more than $0.00)
Join Derek Sheen and other funny folks any Tuesday! By Wednesday, you’ll be ready to try your hand in politics!

Lamont Ferguson: Politics is Deeper Than Blood

2008-05-02T14:01:00.000-07:00

Rumors are circulating that still another key Clinton super delegate is prepared to flip to the Obama bandwagon, despite some setbacks for the Illinois senator. Sources close to Hillary Clinton refuse to acknowledge reports that former President Bill Clinton will join former DNC party boss Joe Andrew in switching his support to Senator Barrack Obama. “I really think it’s time that America had another black President,” said Senator Clinton’s husband, recognized as America’s first black President.
Mr. Clinton, wearing several band aids on the back of his head where he may have suffered some “frying pan concussions,” was overheard saying that after listening to Senator Obama speak for months, he is convinced that America is not yet ready for a woman president — especially his wife. “She has this mean streak that I have not seen in any other woman that has favored me,” he said hurriedly ducking, as sniper fire erupted from the back of the curtain.
Like Mr. Andrew, and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson — who had joined Senator Clinton’s husband to watch the American Idol finals at a strip club near Mr. Clinton’s Harlem office — the former president noted that it is time that the Democratic Party came together behind a single candidate, someone that has widespread support of millions of voters and can play a mean game of “one-on-one.” Sniper fire erupted anew after Clinton was heard saying “may the best man win.”
This weekend, take the opportunity to see one of the best men in comedy. Lamont Ferguson lights up the stage at the Mainstage Comedy and Music Club Friday and Saturday evening at 8 and 10:30 pm. Ferguson, an intelligent humorist with a diverse view of the world, has appeared with Bill Cosby, George Lopez and George Carlin.

Open Mic: Obama Goes for Hillary´s Head

2008-04-28T02:10:00.000-07:00

BADEN-BADEN, GERMANY — Illinois Senator Barrack Obama surprised observers today when he agreed to engage New York Senator Hillary Clinton in a 22nd debate, in this playground of kings, emperors, and 13th-century bad boys. Obama called for the debate to take place in the "Älte-Schloss," a historically restored castle from a 13th-century royal.
The castle, now a tourist attraction sits some 500 meters above Baden-Baden, high above the Black Forest. Among its features is a complete dungeon that offers visitors a traditional "last meal" as given by the resident "hangman" before the removal of one´s head. Senator Obama says the setting is perfect for the kind of "one on one" debate demanded by Senator Clinton prior to the Indiana primary on May 6. "I think the loser should offer his or her head on a platter, at the end of the debate, have one last meal, and good German beer, and that would be the end of the nomination campaign,"Obama says optimistically. "There should be no more misunderstanding... once it´s off with her head, the superdelegates are mine."
Obama confidently offered the Clinton campaign the 60 Euro admission to the Ält-Schloss dungeon, "if she´s particularly strapped."
There´s been no immediate response from the Clinton campaign, but sources say if the campaign continues much longer, both Democratic candidates may lose their heads to the Baron John McCain.
If you are in a mood to offer your head, or at least the thoughts within, don´t forget that Open Mic comedy happens every Tuesday evening at 7 pm at the Mainstage Comedy and Music Club. Go ahead, throw yourself in our delightfully funny front and center dungeon and try to hold on to your head. It´s free to get in, and free to offer your head. Save your €60 for your last meal.

Brian Malow: Sparing Euros for US Congress

2008-04-25T02:25:00.000-07:00

Once again, Congress has sensed the will of the American people. As the US economy continues to fall apart, and the American dollar sinks to new record lows, Congress is preparing to take bold steps. With the summer tourist season ahead, Americans traveling to Canada and Europe face some startling economic realities. The US dollar that once was as sound as — well — a dollar, is now the toilet paper for the rest of the world.
Outgoing Idaho Republican Senator Larry Craig says Congress must take a wide stance on protecting the American lawmaker. As a result, Craig introduced a bill that would pay members of Congress in Euros, instead of dollars. He says Americans don´t want their Congressmen to suffer when they go on discovery tours around the world. "I was in an Amsterdam toiletten recently, tapped three times and showed a $100 bill, and the guy in the next stall thought I was tapped out," Craig says.
Louisianna Senator David Vitter, a fellow Republican co-sponsored the Craig bill, noting that the price of ladies in the evening is out of control "even in the Paris suburbs!"
Former House Speaker Dennis Hastert, chimed into the debate from a remote location inside a Heidelberg biergarten. "Sauerbraten? Hell, you can´t even get a decent fleish-kässe for less than $10 bucks American!"
A special delegation from the Republican Congressianal Caucus will travel through the European Community in the next month and report back to the Congress after being checked for STDs.
If you like your science with a cup of funny, don´t miss the hillarious Brian Malow at the Mainstage Comedy and Music Club this weekend. Malow is an unusual sort of comedian, he can be just as funny standing on the stage at the National Academy of Sciences as with an audience of drunken Germans who believe fleish-kässe is a gift from God. See him Friday and Saturday night for two shows beginning at 8 pm and 10:30 pm. Best of all, the Mainstage will still accept your US dollar for now...

Open Mic: Take A Bite Out of Seriousness

2008-04-21T09:13:00.000-07:00

Pennsylvania-based Hershey Chocolate has quietly sweetened its role in Tuesday´s primary by offering a new "bitter-flavored" dark chocolate bar in honor of Barack Obama. The Illinois Senator says the new candy bar could take a bite out of his opponent´s campaign. The sudden announcement of the new "Yes We CANdy" line comes at the end of a long-fought bitter campaign in the Keystone State. Senator Clinton says she is disappointed in the demonstrated bias of a company that once "charmed me with a kiss."
Clinton supporters in Pennsylvania are furious. "We had hoped that the company might consider a "Bosnian Sniper Bar" filled with cherry-red imitation fruit that people would clearly remember years after eating one," a Clinton campaign spokesman said. Campaign officials were in a last-minute negotiation with executives at of Philadelphia´s famed Tastykakes bakery to create a rich "lady fingers" surprise made of "sugar and spice and everything nice."
Senator Obama says campaign workers will storm the state overnight distributing a free bar of "Yes We CANdy" across the state before polls open in the morning.
If you are looking for a sweet experience or a way to take a bite out of seriousness, head for Tuesday´s open mic at the Mainstage Comedy and Music Club. It´s your chance to say "Yes I Can," and let the audience chew on your humor without rotting their teeth. Comedy Open Mic begins at 7pm Tuesday, singers and songwriters begin at 9 pm.

MIKE MARINO: And you vil like him!

2008-04-18T09:31:00.000-07:00

The Department of Homeland Security has ordered an exchange of Germans this week as the German Pope travels to Washington, DC and New York. “We have reached the maximum number of Germans permitted under a 1917 US law, a DHS bureaucrat noted, “ thus we had to remove at least one German native prior to admitting the Pope.”
After a nationwide search for a useless German within the United States, officials turned up an insignificant, non-Catholic, unrepetant comedian that was deemed no longer useful by authorities.
The German-American comedian working out of Seattle was last seen writing a certain blog that has been known to make fun of US authorities. As punishment, she has been directed to return to Germany as long as the German Pope is occupying US air space. As the Pope entered the country on April 15, the Seattle comedian was quietly removed by a battalion of Homeland Security personnel based in Idaho. She was placed in a carpet and duck taped to an Airbus passenger jet bound for Frankfurt ”I regret that I have but one joke to tell for my country,” Barbara Sehr said as she arrived on a caravan deep in the Black Forest.
As Barbara attempts to find her way back to the Mainstage Comedy and Music Club, come hear New Jersey Bad Boy Mike Marino tell you tales that will make the Garden State spin. Then come back Saturday evening and hear comedians Tony Daniels, Joey V, and Dean Oleson put together a very funny show for the amputee soldiers gathered at Ward 57 in Walter Reed Hospital.
Then again, if you´re hard up for Germans, the Pope will be at Yankee Stadium…

Open Mic: Torture is Taxing

2008-04-15T09:08:00.000-07:00

Vice President Dick Cheney revealed today that he deducted more than $500,000 from his 2007 tax bills for “bullets and devices.” The deduction he says is necessary because more and more members of the public demand that the vice president take them out on quail hunting trips. “Inevitably, I have to shoot someone in the face so they can go home and say ‘I took a bullet from the vice president.’
Cheney says the bullets are legitimate deductions because they are demanded by American taxpayers who hound his office in an effort to have their faces shot. Cheney says he has receipts printed by the US Treasury department and the Bureau of Engraving for each and every bullet he shot. “These expenses are as authentic as the aluminum tubes from Africa that Saddam Hussein used to import uranium,” he declared.
Cheney admits that some of the expenses for “other devices” might fall under suspicion, as they were installed in the basement of the Vice President’s mansion at the Naval Observatory in Washington, DC. These devices may or may not have included instruments meant to impress foreign nationals who were not sufficiently impressed by similar devices at Guantanamo, Cheney says. “Sometimes these folks appreciate my personal touch,” Cheney said, laughing a sinister laugh.
If you find your own calculations on this Tax Day torturous, perhaps you need some comic relief? Tonight, after you put that return in the mail, check into open mic at the Mainstage Comedy and Music Club. They’ll make you laugh, they’ll make you sing, and if you say “thank you sir, may I have another,” they’ll introduce you to the vice president. This weekend, you’ll be ready for comic Mike Marino, who plays Thursday and Friday evening.

Open Mic: An Elite Serving of Bitters and Arugula

2008-04-14T09:49:00.000-07:00

As the Bush administration matter-of-factly admitted its history of torture, as Wall Street continued its plunge, and “bomb-bomb Iran” became a mantra within the Beltway, sniper fire continued in the Democratic primary campaign with a serving of bitters. “You have no friends in Pennsylvania, Barrack Obama, “Senator Hillary Clinton shouted out rolling down her bullet-proof window as she rode in her motorcade,”you are an elitist Emperor of a corps of effete, impudent snobs!”
Senator Obama interrupted his negotiations with Israeli Premier Ehud Olmert and representatives of the Hamas party on his cell phone as he helped an elderly disabled woman across a busy Philadelphia expressway. “Could we all just put down our lattés for a moment and think of what is unfolding on our 50-inch, high definition screens as our Hummers run out of gas?”
Just moments before, he had rescued the woman’s cat from the catwalk on a roof of a 52-story office building, and had helped complete brand new homes on behalf of Habit for Humanity that would house 50,000 refugees from Darfur in New Orleans’ once-destroyed Ninth Ward. Unfortunately, representatives of the media had caught him dining on his favorite Spinach and Arugula salad at a neighborhood Applebee’s. Cable news tickers immediately flashed the ominous headline across America’s information highway: OBAMA REFUSES TO CONDEMN ARUGULA: WOULD YOU DRINK A BEER WITH HIM?
It was left to former President Bill Clinton to insert one last stab into the Illinois Senator: “When the President of the United States answers a phone call at 3AM, what would you rather he or she be eating — a Big Mac or Arugula?”
Are you an effete, impudent snob who loves to crack up at the idiocies of life? You might be just the type to attend an open mic at the Mainstage Comedy and Music Club. Imagine the opportunity to grin, cry or throw arugula at the musings of would-be and professional comics attempting to humor your laugh muscles. Maybe you can do better? Here’s your chance! Open Mics are set every Tuesday at 7 pm, followed by singer and musician open mic at 9 pm. Go ahead, laugh until you’re bitter, or cry me a river… hey, can I write the songs or what?

New York Comedians of New York: Seeds of Conflict

2008-04-11T11:33:00.000-07:00

For the next five days, Seattle will light up its environmental and surrealistic lights as it enters 120 hours of Zen during the Seeds of Compassion Conference led by the Dalai Lama. In a city fraught by whispers of wrinkles on its neo-tech surface, the enlightenment of his holiness may bring us pause from the heaviness of posturing, politics, and sitting on our posteriors. Then again, it could just bring road rage as thousands of orange-robed would-be believers jam traffic on its way to Saturday’s Mariners game at Safeco Field.

The presence of the Dalai Lama — far from the Olympic torch-lit Tibet battle fields of Paris and San Francisco — may bring attention to Eastern religions in the West as next week’s papal visit to Yankee stadium brings attention to Western religions in the East. Of course all is not necessarily about colorful robes and brotherly love —especially if the brothers are under 21, as in the case of some religious leaders serving unexpected prison ministries. It is a time to raise expectations, a time to manifest our greatest hopes — not only will the Mariners win the World Series this year, but they will never move to Oklahoma City.
The torch has been passed to a new generation of expectations. Let us hope that we will all be able to touch a tiny part of the rainbow this weekend that will shine all the way from headquarters of Beijing’s occupying Army in Tibet to Clay Bennett’s office in Key Arena.
May the Force be with us.
Meanwhile, if you need a way to reach a higher state of Zen than the Dalai Lama and the Dave Matthews band can provide at Key Arena tonight, come instead across the street to the Mainstage Comedy and Music Club to visit with the New York Comedians of New York. Jeff Glasse and Jason Good will meditate in a constant state of high comedy as performed in the tombs of Manhattan. Tonight, walk, run, or levitate to an evening of comedy at either 8 pm or 10:30 pm. Rinse, repeat, and return Saturday evening for more of the same at 8 pm and 10:30 pm.

New York Comedians of New York: Hillary At the Summit

2008-04-10T12:45:00.000-07:00

Presidential contender Senator Hillary Clinton announced today that she would personally take the Olympic flame up Mt. Everest in May, despite the closing of the mountain to non-Chinese climbers. Clinton, who had called upon President Bush to join other world leaders to boycott Opening Ceremonies of the Olympiad in Beijing on August 8, says she will make the dramatic run with the Olympic torch to demonstrate her strength as commander-in-chief. She expects to arrive at the Everest base camp on the day before the Oregon Primary on May 20, and will reach the summit at 3 AM, Pacific Time, hours before the polls open.

Clinton denies her public plan to sneak up the nearly 30,000-foot summit was scheduled to counter some discrepancies regarding her tales of heroic sniper fire at a Bosnian airport. “Shame on Barrack Obama for hinting such a thing,” Clinton says. “Senator McCain has climbed through a North Vietnamese prison camp, and soon, I will be in a Chinese prison. Despite his use of drugs as a boy, Senator Obama has never been in prison.”
There are hints that the senator’s husband, former President Bill Clinton, may use his friendship with the incumbent’s father, George H.W. Bush, to spring his wife from her expected incarceration. The senior Bush, a former CIA chief, may have some close contacts with Chinese authorities.
If you want to climb the stages to laughter, you don’t need to carry a torch. This weekend you can enjoy the New York Comedians of New York, as they land on the stage of the Mainstage Comedy and Music Club, blintzes, kosher ham sandwiches, and shares of the Brooklyn Bridge in hand. New York Comedians of New York, Jason Good and Jeff Glass will perform at 8 pm Thursday, and 8 pm and 10:30 pm Friday and Saturday. Who knows, with Seattle preparing for its LamaPalooza, you’ll experience Olympic memories without breathing a bit of Beijing Air.

New York Comedians of New York: Up A Tree

2008-04-09T10:49:00.000-07:00

After weeks of attempting to foreclose on a “double-super-secret” tree house in Seattle’s upscale Lake Union area, public officials have foreclosed on the cozy, rustic, northwest fixer-upper. Real Estate officials say the tree house built by a homeless carpenter might net as much as $5 million — despite the declining local real estate market. “With neighborhood development continuing to proceed at historic levels, and the diminished availability of affordable property, the tree house may become the subject of a rare bidding war in this economy,” a local agent says.
This may explain why neighbors of the homeless carpenter pitched in to replace the tree house with a gift of $500 used RV. “All the tree house needs is some basic plumbing, perhaps some more southern exposure and a garage, and we’re looking at a chance for a $50 million dream home for someone who needs to be near a cancer center and TGI Friday’s,” one neighbor said.
Despite the roar of the traffic on Interstate 5 above the tree house and the difficult ladder climb to the hidden front door, real estate agents say they will have no trouble moving the property. “It’s in the Northwest, and it’s made out of wood, stupid,” the agent said. “Need I say more?
Jeff Glasse and Jason Good are the New York Comedians of New York who wish they could afford a tree house in Manhattan. They compensate for their lack of affordable housing by treating audiences to an unimaginable evening of confrontational comedy. They’ve made it in New York, and now will see if they can make it on the stage of the Mainstage Comedy and Music Club. Support them Thursday evening at 8pm, Friday and Saturday at 8 pm and 10:30 pm. If you’re a carpenter, perhaps you can build them a tree house?

Open Mic:The Wavin' Wheat Can Sure Smell Sweet..

2008-04-08T10:11:00.000-07:00

More than seven years after the Ash Wednesday earthquake of 2001 that tested the viability of Seattle’s Alaskan Way Viaduct, the City Council agreed to ship the 1950s structure, lock, stock and seepage to Oklahoma City as a “going away gift” for the Seattle Supersonics. “There are some who have suggested we simply drop it on the doorsteps of Oklahoma City Hall, set fire to it, ring the doorbell and run,” May Greg Nickels says. “No, we are kind Seattleites, we want Oklahoma to recognize our gift for what it is.”
While Seattle/Oklahoma Supersonics fans say the Viaduct may be the better Seattle import to Oklahoma, there are some die-hard fans who believe the viaduct will not be as beautiful in the plains of Oklahoma, without the view of the Olympic Mountains. “However, the existing concrete, rotting pillars and layers of dust will fit right into the prairie atmosphere,” one Oklahoma observer said. “All we need is a few tumbleweeds down the center lane.”
Oklahoma, "where the wavin' wheat can sure smell sweeet" is also far away from any earthquake faults, making the Viaduct a potentially better experience for curious Oklahomans seeking to experience a major league traffic jam. “Besides, if by off-chance a seismic event occurred here, the number of people caught in the movement would be far lower,” the Oklahoma observer said.
If instead, you want to experience a rite of passage in the stages of major league comedy, experience an open mic at the Mainstage Comedy and Music Club at 7pm every Tuesday evening. If there’s a funny bone bothering you, why not take a step in front of the microphone and let it bother an entire audience? When was the last time you moved an audience?

Open Mic: Sniper Fire in the Raw

2008-04-07T14:26:00.000-07:00

Sniper fire was heard outside the Washington, DC headquarters of the Hillary Clinton campaign. The noise was heard shortly after the New York Senator answered a 3 AM telephone call from a would-be Florida delegate. “Shame on you Barrack Obama,” Mrs. Clinton told reporters several hours later, “ if you had any judgment you would have warned me that Mark Penn was not an effective voice for my campaign.”
Penn had a preponderance of influence in the Clinton campaign, and reportedly constantly told the former first lady that the “pant suit” she was wearing was not only flattering, but made up of an “aura” that would put her on a fast train to the White House. Penn refused to let the Senator see campaign staffers who wanted to show her press clippings that pointed out she was campaigning in the raw.
In the midst of poll numbers that dropped in every community in which Clinton campaigned, persistent campaign staffers finally cornered Penn as he was preparing to send Clinton “naked” to a traditional Pennsylvania Amish community barn-raising. “It’s time that the senator saw Mr. Penn naked, instead of vice versa,” a campaign staffer said.
When you visit the Mainstage Comedy and Music Club in Seattle, you won’t see any naked politicians. Still, at the regular Tuesday night open mic for comedians — led by Derek Sheen — at 7pm and musicians at 9 pm, you’ll hear naked stories, some of which may make you blush. It might even make you blush enough to avoid a political career.

Kermit Apio: Oklahoma is NOT OK

2008-04-04T10:58:00.000-07:00

Seattle Sonics owner Clay Bennett says he will acquire the $26 million ferry boat rejected by the Washington State Ferry System in order to make the team more comfortable in Oklahoma City. He says the state of Washington continues to let money get in the way of making decisions to make the area more attractive for “Okies.”
The state ferry rejected a Todd Shipyard bid this week for a replacement ferry to sail from Keystone to Port Townsend. The only bidder asked more than $9 million above the system’s planned budget. “Once again, the public refuses to pay a little extra for a recreational offering that my neighbors in Oklahoma City will enjoy,” Bennett says.
The new ferry boat will traverse the majestic Oklahoma River (formerly known as the Canadian River) as it makes its way through downtown Oklahoma City. Up until now, the river could accommodate only rowboats, but Bennett believes he can convince the city to pay for a $500 billion excavation project that will make the Oklahoma “a major league river.”
Bennett says he continues to look around for other area landmarks to bring with him to Oklahoma City. Rumors are that he is now looking at picking up the newly historic-designated former Ballard Denny’s to the land “ where the wind comes sweeping down the plain.” Bennett says he can’t imagine a more suitable landing for the Ballard Denny’s than in downtown Oklahoma City, right near the Ford Center where the Sonics will soon play. "For some reason, I can visualize a Broadway musical being staged on the decks of the ferry boat,” Bennett added.
Kermet Apio will sweep your decks clean of all memories of Oklahoma, and instead will give you a more tropical perspective from his Hawaiian background. Apio appears at 8 pm and 10:30 pm Friday and Saturday night at the Mainstage Comedy and Music Club. Unlike Oklahoma, he is far more than OK.

Kermet Apio: Bagging the Good Ones

2008-04-03T10:06:00.000-07:00

The proposed tax for picking up bags at Seattle grocery stores is entirely unfair! We, the old bags of Seattle, object to this misogynistic approach to global cooling. Firsts of all, I don’t think the term “old bags” is very nice. Just because I haven’t had a date in 20 years, my face is wrinkled, and I hang out around the “Depends” aisle, doesn’t make me an old bag!
I used to be beautiful! I used to be brilliant, in fact, I have a college degree, and I read everything from Schopenhauer to Erma Bombeck. I love animals and children — not to mention rainbows and unicorns. I am not a prude, I will even watch football on TV and visit strip clubs in Portland.
So, just because I also have dark side that begins with my taste in chocolate, and ends with my thought that every man should have their pubic hairs ripped out one by one while having knitting needles poked into his tender areas — just because I think all men are dirt — I should have my match.com membership revoked?
So I’ve put on a few hundred pounds and I haven’t seen a dentist since I was in college. Does that give the city the right to put a tax on my head? I resent the label old bag!
What’s that? OH! The bag tax in Seattle is on PLASTIC or PAPER bags?
Never mind.
Whether you pick paper or plastic in your love life, you must see Kermet Apio this weekend at the Mainstage Comedy and Music Club. Kermet will send you into laughter without taxing your sensitivity. See him Thursday evening at 8 pm, and 8pm and 10:30 pm Friday and Saturday. You’ll be glad you came — even if you have to put a bag over your head.

Kermet Apio: Aloha to April Fools

2008-04-02T10:21:00.000-07:00

As the NBA governors prepare to meet on the future of the Seattle Sonics franchise, multiple efforts are being made to prevent the Emerald City’s sputtering roundballers from following the trail of tears into Oklahoma City. While there was a lot of attention on a plan by group of Microsoft millionaires to rebuild Key Arena in keeping with NBA dreams, and a brand new plan that would put a privately owned billion-dollar sports palace with retractable roof on the Seattle waterfront, there was a far more likely plan put forth at a late April 1 news conference held immediately after the regular Tuesday night comedy and music open mic at the Mainstage Comedy and Music Club.
The three principals at the lower Queen Anne club that has changed the look of the local comedy scene in more ways than one, announced a plan for a spectacular renovation of the club and Key Arena directly across the street. An artist conception of the Patti Allen Arena — named for one of the three founders of the rare women-owned comedy club — shows a dramatic 100,000-seat thunderdome suitable for NBA basketball, a Willie Nelson Farm-Aid Concert, or a Microsoft post-mortem product manager meeting. At one end of the stadium a standard standup microphone will tower at a height just below the Space Needle. A house sports jacket, draped over the microphone — complete with a Sonics logo — symbolizes the sense of fashion the Mainstage has given the Seattle comedy scene. “The elevated microphone standing in front of the Space Needle will allow the Space Needle restaurant to double as an intimate comedy club,” Allen noted, chewing on the remains of her April Fool’s Day birthday cake.
At the other end of the arena, a huge Diamond Vision screen will allow NBA fans to watch their choice of six other games if the future Sonics franchise gets too depressing. Fans that are severely depressed will have an opportunity to tune in to a tape of the 1979 Sonics NBA championship game. Also, fans will be able to listen to live comedy — including a comic play by play of the current game — from headphones installed at every seat.
The gathered press from publications such as the Queen Anne Monitor and the West Mercer Independent Living Center Monthly Newsletter raised a number of major questions about the project, such as its costs and financing for what some fear could run into many billions of dollars. However, Mainstage owner Julie Mains says comedians have offered hours of their precious sober time to help on construction of the clay building that may take some time to cure under the Seattle sun. For that reason, construction may require the lifetime of several generations of Seattle comedians.
Still, the final cost may be far less than the billion-dollar waterfront plan. “If we can get some help from the Queen Anne Elementary School finger painters, we can probably get this done with our three economic stimulus checks that we’re getting from the government in May,” Mains estimates.
If you’re unwilling to wait for the planned 22nd Century completion, you can join the hilarious Kermet Apio and his gentle, but diverse Hawaiian humor at the Mainstage this weekend. Apio will perform at 8pm Thursday, and 8pm and 10:30pm Friday and Saturday. After you finish drinking and laughing you might want to sign up for our construction team.

Open Mic: April Fools is No Joke

2008-04-01T10:42:00.000-07:00

President Al Gore apologized to the world today for one of the world’s most regrettable — if bipartisan — April Fool’s hoaxes. “It sounded so great at the time, “ the Nobel Laureate, Emmy, and Oscar winner told a stunned press conference Tuesday. “Everyone always accused me of being too damn serious.”
Gore says he and members of the Clinton family — along with members of the United States Supreme Court, Congress and the New York Times — conspired to “put the Republicans out of business forever” by pretending to have “the worst kind of GOP President” take office in 2001.
Gore says his initial objective was to stop the long string of elections in which America was divided, by appointing someone “so incompetent” that the American people would impeach him “in his first months of office.”
Senator Hillary Clinton had hoped by the time she ran for President in 2008, her election to succeed President Gore would be “a natural.” Gore said he assumed that he could let the American public “in on the joke” before the 2004 election, in time for his own re-election. “No one had any idea that Mr. Bush’s incompetence would reach the level it did,” Gore admitted. “ By the time he got us stuck in Iraq and made some of the appointments he did, it was becoming clear that we could never reveal the details of the joke. Everything just backfired on us.”
Gore says he is coming clean to make sure that no other politician ever tries a similar stunt. “I could just imagine what would it be like if someone put in some scary old man who wants to keep the war machine going,” Gore said. “Imagine what would happen if America missed a chance for hope and change.”
Open mic at the Mainstage Comedy and Music Club is no joke. Well, actually, it is “a joke,” sometimes even two or three. On April Fool’s Day, it is a night of the Living Fools getting up and attempting to make you laugh. You could laugh at this attempt at comedy or face four more years of the current joke in Washington, DC…
We thought you might see it our way. Be there, at 7 pm Tuesday evening for comedy or 9 pm for a music open mic.

Open Mic: Opening Day for Season of Hope

2008-03-31T09:34:00.000-07:00

It’s that wonderful time of year when you stop thinking of spirits past, scary dreams and even scarier realities.
But enough about George W. Bush
It’s opening day of the baseball season here in Seattle — a time when George W. Bush’s Texas legacy arrives to show local fans that, YES Virginia! There is a team with a worse history than the Mariners! While the Mariners talk of punching their way through the season to become appetizers for the ravenous Red Sox Nation in October, the Rangers face the indignity of having their name changed to the “would-be Rangers from the Dallas-Fort Worth suburb of Arlington.”
Yes, the Mariners are following George W. Bush’s strategy and mounting a “surge” with fiscal insanity rarely seen on this side of Iraq. The team has opened the season with what owners expect to be the league’s best pitching rotation. The new squad will be motivated with big salaries, the finest in video game entertainment, and paychecks made out in Euros. Like Hillary Clinton before them, the Mariners believe. So does Seattle. Only nattering nabobs of negativism, or maybe the Los Angeles Angels from the suburb of Anaheim, California, could keep the Seattle Mariners from their Inaugural World Series. Even Arizona Diamondbacks supporter Senator John McCain says he sees a Mariner World Series just ahead — even if it takes 100 years.”
Is this a time of hope for you? Do you have the right stuff for comedy? Join Derek Sheen and a gang of comic athletes that could make the 1977 Mariners look deep every Tuesday evening at the Mainstage Comedy and Music Club. Make comedy at 7 pm or make music at the 9 pm musician open mic.
Just don’t make war. Just don’t wake up the Texas Rangers.

Josh Wolf: Governating From Your Femine Side

2008-03-28T14:46:00.000-07:00

If President Hillary Clinton is not in the offing, could Governor Hillary Clinton become possible? The state of New York appears to be preparing itself for a governor without a penis, after suffering through a prostitution scandal with Elliot Spitzer, and an admission by Spitzer’s successor that he has had numerous extra-marital affairs.
Although there was an immediate fear of the name “Clinton” among ravaged New York voters, DNC Chair and former Gov. Howard Dean, who once ran the scandal-free neighboring state of Vermont says New Yorkers might adapt to Mrs. Clinton as their chief executive. “Sure, the Senator has some negatives, but none of these negatives are of a sexual nature,” Gov. Dean says. “We even have a promise that Future President of the US, Barrack Obama will dedicate his primary campaign efforts in 2010 to campaigning on her behalf.
Senator Clinton would not immediately comment on the reports that she might abandon her presidential run in favor of the governorship. However, her husband noted that he believes the “fringe benefits” of being in the governor’s office in New York might make the idea worthwhile.
In Seattle, meanwhile, the city is considering replacing its 21st Century toilets with a compost alternative to serve homeless populations downtown. “In a city of dot com’s, I think we should be able to find a place for dot compost,” Mayor Greg Nickels says.

Has your sense of humor been composting for too long? It’s time to take a seat at the Mainstage Comedy and Music Club where Josh Wolf will do more than howl at the moon. Let his comedy be your personal call of nature. He is joined by Seattle favorite Jeremy Greenberg both Friday and Saturday night at 8 and 10:30 pm. Join them, and be glad you’re far from Albany, New
York.

Josh Wolf: More Than A Bucket of Spit

2008-03-27T16:50:00.000-07:00

Senator Hillary Clinton is said to be considering an invitation by presumptive GOP nominee Senator John McCain to join his ticket in the fall. The unprecedented bi-partisan ticket could be the final accomplishment in her boost of McCain throughout her protracted debate with her Democratic rival Senator Barrack Obama. “I know Sen. McCain, Senator McCain is a good friend of my husband and I, and I know that unlike my husband, Sen. McCain is the faithful type.”
Clinton would be in a good position to succeed McCain either at the end of what is likely to be a single McCain term ending in January 2013, or even earlier if the 72-old Arizona senator should go to his sunset before four years are up. McCain was reportedly once considered as a running mate for John Kerry in 2004. The former first lady has ties to the GOP in her work as a “Goldwater Girl” for another Arizona senator in 1964.
Senator Barrack Obama encouraged Clinton’s defection to the “dark side,” and immediately complimented her. “I believe she would make a far better Vice President than the incumbent,” Obama noted.
Mrs. Clinton, however, would not make an immediate comment on the VP speculation, saying her Washington, DC headquarters was currently besieged by “sniper fire,” from some of her own campaign staffers. The McCain campaign meanwhile is dispatching former Special Prosecutor Ken Starr to whisk away the Clintons on a Whitewater rafting trip during which McCain’s offer will be outlined.
When you come to Seattle’s Mainstage Comedy and Music Club you’ll never be subject to sniper fire, or raging Whitewater. Whether you’re a potential Vice President, or you consider yourself worth more than a bucket of spit, you’re guaranteed a fun evening with comic Josh Wolf this Friday or Saturday at 8 and 10:30 p.m. There are worse things to be than vice president of the United States. Just ask Wolf's children. Wolf will tell you all about them. You may forget Dad, but you'll never forget his kids. You don’t even have to look at the pictures in Wolf's wallet.

Josh Wolf: Scraping the Chewing Gum Off Your Pradas

2008-03-26T09:58:00.000-07:00

Does your chewing gum lose its flavor on your Prada’s overnight? Perhaps you’ve spent enough time in the multiplex hearing the snorts of the unwashed masses as they sit on the edge of their seats peeing their pants while watching the latest remake of Smokey and the Bandit?
Somehow the glitter of the latest Oscar de la Renta fashion is lost on your compatriots at the neighborhood movie theatre. These ne'er-do-wells may even feign disinterest in your latest Tiffany’s investment.
Still, sitting at home in your mansion’s audio-visual presentation room is not quite the same as achieving a peer review of your Oscar-night finest while enjoying the latest large-screen, larger-than-life theatrical epic. That’s why an Australian entrepreneur is betting that American audiences of abundance will flock to a uniquely twenty-first century,gated-community alternative to the common movie theater.
The bar at the door will be in the form of a $35 ticket price — a consideration perhaps just a little more than the average Christmas tip for your valet — but enough to make Mr. and Mrs. John Q. Public reconsider their desire to spend a virtual evening with Pauli Shore.
The experiment will take place in high-income communities of fashion such as Seattle’s own suburb of Redmond where low-income populations are outlawed.
Seattle’s Mainstage Comedy and Music Club does not limit itself to the privileged few. We ask only that you love comedy, support your local hungry comedian, and tip your wait staff. In return we offer you magnificent LIVE entertainment such as Josh Wolf, your headliner Thursday, Friday and Saturday night this week. Josh is hungry enough to put a zing on that Prada-crusted chewing gum.

Open Mic: Save The Toilet Humor

2008-03-25T10:14:00.000-07:00

As the forces of gentrification continue to ravage across what was once a sleepy little Boeing company town, another series of city landmarks appear headed for elimination. Seattle’s historic, early twenty-first century, homage to compassion invited visitors and colorful local residents in Pioneer Square, Capitol Hill, Pike Place Market and other locations to “just do it.”
Now, Seattle’s once-“space age” public toilets appear to have lost their effluence. The city says it is simply doing “what comes naturally.” Public utility officials say the city has already spent more than $4 million or about $20 per flush on the organic devices. Law enforcement costs to discourage close encounters of the Elliot Spitzer kind add to the city’s concern that the program is not fit for the city’s bottom line.
Still, this is a city that saves similar natural landmarks such as the Ballard Denny’s that take up more space that deserves to be replaced by penthouses. Is Seattle really that squeezed by the Charmin folks who answer the call of nature? Perhaps city planners should put their attention on a different moving experience — like what happens to the Alaska Viaduct after the next moving experience?
Are you moved by your potential as a performer? Do you like using words like “poopyhead?” Maybe you should move yourself to a Mainstage open mic with Derek Sheen any Tuesday evening at 7 pm.
Or maybe you’re one of those who just likes to watch? At the Mainstage Comedy and Music Club at least you won’t be arrested.

Open Mic: You'll Thank Us Later

2008-03-24T16:59:00.000-07:00

Black America has been awakened by the call by Patrick Buchanan to make Senator Barrack Obama’s discussion a two-way street. “America has been the best country on earth for black folks.” Buchanan writes. “It was here that 600,000 black people, brought from Africa in slave ships, grew into a community of 40 million, were introduced to Christian salvation, and reached the greatest levels of freedom and prosperity blacks have ever known.”
From housing projects in Chicago to stock brokers on Wall Street Black America drew collective “Hosanna” at Buchanan’s words. “It was Whitey who drove us to masochism,” one Greenwich Village black poet paraphrased Comedian WC Fields, “and we never had a chance to thank him.”
The owner of a Kansas City barbeque noted that there is no record of blacks ever tipping the wait staff on the cruise ships that transported Black Africans to ports of call ranging from Jamaica to Boston. “What can I say, most of us were cheapskates,” the restaurant owner said. “Perhaps we should collectively contribute to scholarships for privileged Ivy League students.”
Meanwhile, leadership in the Native American populations says they are grateful to the European invaders who laid the foundation for their community’s current casino-related wealth. “Perhaps we should pay reparations for the costs of all the White Man’s bullets fired into our ancestors,” a Native American said near the Dick Cheney mansion in Wyoming. In a related development the Independent Order of B'nai B'rith announced a fund raiser to build an Adolf Hitler Memorial Museum at Berchtesgaden to honor the work of the German Chancellor who did so much to feed and house Jewish people during the Great Depression in Germany in the 30s.
Whatever your ethnic background — whether you are thankful or depressed — you can say thanks to an instant audience at the Mainstage Comedy and Music Club every Tuesday. Derek Sheen leads the laughs starting at 7pm. Stand up, be counted, become a slave to comedy. You’ll thank us later.

Eric Blake: A Moving Experience

2008-03-21T08:59:00.000-07:00

H
A moving economy apparently will not take the time to treasure one last resting place — even if it is a 24-carat monument to regularity. But Hang Fu Jewelers in Hong Kong now threatens to flush away its holdings in an infamous toilet within its flagship store, one ball cock at a time. The jewelry giant seeks to stand and deliver its toilet wealth to massive expansion across the Chinese mainland. Spokesmen for the company say the once-unfathomable thought that a solid-gold toilet is a royal waste has now moved to the thinkable as gold prices approach £500 ($1000 US) an ounce.
Preservationists are likely to poo-poo yet another loss for mankind’s basic needs. The crapper intimidation is now listed as the #2 threat among the world’s historic monuments. Our own Ballard Denny’s is right up there with the royal crapper as evidence that world developers will stop at nothing to wipe out evidence of our natural essence. Is nothing sacred anymore?
Eric Blake’s funny is more than 24-carat gold. His stories will move you, his head is flush with stories that you’ll want to digest and gently process. Best of all, you don’t even have to go all the way to Hong Kong to reflect on his glimmer. You can see him all weekend at the Mainstage Comedy and Music Club. Shows begin at 8 pm and 10:30 pm Friday and Saturday. Sorry, the Mainstage Comedy thrones are all made of porcelain.

Eric Blake: Birds gotta Swim, Fish gotta fly...

2008-03-20T16:08:00.000-07:00

The city of Seattle has joined the city of San Francisco in banning the distribution of bottled water at City Hall or at city-sponsored events. The environmentally conscious move comes just weeks after an Associated Press study found contaminants in the tap water of major cities across the country — including sex hormones in San Francisco.
Some scientists have discovered female fish undergoing a radical change in sexual characteristics because of the hormone deposits. This has set off a number of instant E-bay enterprises offering San Francisco tap water to transsexual persons attempting to avoid sometimes dangerous and often pricey surgery. Seattle water did not include large amounts of sex hormones, but was apparently heavy in caffeine.
Reports say Democratic presidential candidate Senator Hillary Clinton may be shipping large supplies of San Francisco water to her campaign office to maintain her increasingly visible cajones.
Should you want to see true diversity in Seattle, you need look no further than the Mainstage Comedy and Music Club this weekend. Eric Blake the star of BET’s Comedy View and Galavision’s Que Loco is on stage for shows beginning at 8 pm this evening, and continuing Friday and Saturday night at 8 and 10:30 pm. See Eric and his special flavor of comedy, and pretty soon you’ll start singing to yourself: “Birds gotta swim, and fish gotta fly, why is that cow up in the sky?”

Eric Blake: Love Your Mother

2008-03-19T16:41:00.000-07:00

Just a day after Illinois Senator Barrack Obama gave a major address on race, Arizona Senator John McCain quickly fired back with an address on aging. The remarks came just hours after McCain was found wandering around a Dubai shopping mall and reflecting on the great improvements that have been made on the Iraq marketplace he and Senator Joe Liebermann visited in Iraq last fall. “Look, they’ve got air conditioning now,” McCain said as he was found licking a raspberry fudge cone from a Coldstone Creamery store in the Dubai center.
He noted that as he prepares for his final days, he needs to reverse his maverick image before God. In order to do that, he needs to surround himself with an entirely new group of spiritual advisors such as John Hagee and the Rev. Rod Parsley. The two controversial pastors have made “divisive” statements regarding Catholics, gays and Islamic Muslims. “Even if I denounce their controversial statements, I could no longer separate myself from them than I could separate myself from George W. Bush who I love dearly even though he once accused me of fathering a bastard, non-white child during the 2000 primary season. “
McCain says his own aging 95-year-old mother washes out his mouth with a soap product that made me cringe” regularly and sometimes can’t remember to vote for him for the US Senate. Even with all that, he says, he still loves his mother.
Eric Blake not only loves his mother, he loves comedy audiences who see his diverse act of improvisational comedy. Eric will have five shows this weekend at the Mainstage Comedy and Music Club, at 8 pm Thursday, 8 and 10:30 pm Friday, and Saturday. The graduate of BET’s Comedy View and Galavision’s Que Loco will delight even your aging senators lost in the Middle East. Come and be healed.

Open Mic: Opponents Race After Obama

2008-03-18T10:26:00.000-07:00

Sen. John McCain said it was a “senior moment” that had caused him to accidentally endorse his potential opponent in the fall’s race for President of the United States. He told Fox News reporters that his eyes were actually filled with sand pebbles from the Iraq desert when he was photographed “in tears” during Senator Barrack Obama’s Tuesday morning speech in Philadelphia on race. McCain said he shared some of Obama’s hopes for better race relations in the future, “I think it’s about time that we give colored men the right to vote, “he said. “I just hope they don’t waste it on some Democrat.”
Obama’s opponent in the Democratic primary notes that black folks simply don’t know how to answer the phone at 3 AM, since many of them are not near a telephone booth at that time. “I’ve had my own Princess telephone since I was a little girl,” Clinton said, “and I will be able to answer the phone from someone who is white, black, or Martian purple, right from Day One.”
Meanwhile, the incumbent president says he has been on the forefront of racial relations in this country throughout his career. “When I ran the Texas Rangers baseball team, I was always fair to the negroes that I bought and sold within Major League baseball.”
Comedians are at the forefront of racial progress in America. Since comedians are rarely fed or paid, they share a lot of the pain and anger that can be heard from kitchen tables to halls of worship across America. Sometimes that anger can be painful enough to make folks break out in laughter at the Mainstage Comedy and Music Club every Tuesday night. Seattle is ready to feel your pain. Step up to the microphone any Tuesday evening at 7 pm and tell your story — just try and make it funny. Or, wait a couple of hours and you can sing it out loud at the singer/songwriter open mic at 9 pm. Isn’t it time we all had a more perfect voice?

Athol/Media Debate: An Open Mic for Surrogates

2008-03-17T11:28:00.000-07:00

After a full two weeks without any debates between the presidential candidates, the campaigns have authorized a new Media/Athol debate between campaign surrogates of the Clinton/Obama/McCain camps. Already, cable providers are lining up to get “pay-per-view” rights to broadcast of what should be a firestorm of unprecedented verbiage in US political history. The debate is scheduled at high noon on April 1, at the auditoriums of Athol Senior High in Athol, Massachusetts and Media Senior High, in Media, Pennsylvania.
Surrogates participating in the debate include Clinton dropout Geraldine Ferraro, (D-Black Privilege) Obama athletic supporter, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright (D-Cajones) of Chicago’s Trinity United Church of Christ, and McCain hatemonger, the Rev. John Hagee (R-Texas Tease).
Each of the campaign insiders will be focused on the issues that stand on the precipice of the American future. Should God “damn America?” Should the Catholic Church get out of the escort business or should Elliot Spitzer be appointed its new Pope? Are black Americans spoiled too much in America?
The mayor of the Northern Massachusetts host city of Athol, says this is the biggest moment in the history of that community since it became the third city in the state to name itself after then-incumbent Gov. Edmund Peabody — following Peabody and Marblehead. The mayor of Media was unavailable for comment.
If you find yourself particular inspired by the Athol/Media debate, remember that April 1 is a Tuesday this year. You might want to be a surrogate for the candidate of your dreams on that very night. Bring your friends, or bring your enemies and put yourself up front and personal at the Mainstage Comedy and Music Club open mic. Break into a song at 9 pm or break into a deep political message at 7 pm. It doesn’t matter, it’s Open Mic night. It’s your opportunity for your five minutes of fame. If your message doesn’t come across, yell out “April Fools,” get yourself a drink from the bar and consider moving on up to Athol.

Heneghen: A Dream Ticket

2008-03-14T10:18:00.000-07:00

The Democratic race for President took on a new twist today, as Hillary Clinton announced the formation of her bi-partisan “dream ticket.” The junior senator from New York says she will pick the senior center from Arizona, John McCain, to be her running mate in the fall election. “I want to thank my friend and fellow Senator, Joe Lieberman,” Clinton said in making her announcement. “He worked hard in the background to make this dream ticket possible.”
The announcement came just outside the US Senate cloakroom, as all three major presidential candidates gathered back in Washington, DC for what was described as an “otherwise mundane session.” McCain was not immediately available for comment after Clinton’s announcement, but was seen in the Senate Men’s room, washing off a large amount of lipstick. If McCain, the presumptive GOP nominee for President, agrees to run on a proposed Clinton ticket, it could set back the Republican campaign to retain the White House.
Clinton said the proposed ticket would make her a shoe-in for the Democratic nomination in the eyes of the super delegates that will ultimately decide the ticket at the party convention in Denver this summer. “When that red telephone in the White House rings at 3AM, the only qualified people in the entire country will be there to answer it — myself, Senator McCain, and my husband.” Clinton noted. “Imagine those terrorists quaking in their boots knowing that there are three well-equipped leaders lying next to that bedside phone.”
Sen. Barrack Obama also had no immediate comment on Clinton’s selection. Aides say the Illinois senator has not yet selected a potential running mate, but he is considering an older white executive type who has a warm relationship with members of the opposite sex. Although former New York Governor Elliot Spitzer is currently available, the aide declined to speculate on a name.
James Heneghen is on everyone’s short list for a comic relief ticket. While Heneghen has not been publically committed to a candidate, there are some who speculate that he should be committed. What’s your position on Heneghen? Be there, at the Mainstage Comedy and Music Club at 8 and 10:30 pm Friday and Saturday night and make up your mind. This show is everyone’s dream ticket.

Heneghen: Rising Above Government Crap

2008-03-13T09:52:00.000-07:00

Florida, the home of drive-by beaches, ignored Democratic delegates, and butterfly ballots, has a problem. The state faces a wipe-out!
Fortunately, the state never sits on an urgent problem. A Republican legislator has come to the two-ply relief of all Florida restaurant patrons by demanding ample toilet paper in the state’s commercial rest rooms. In a typically troubled year in Tallahassee, the legislature has at the very least demanded that when “everything comes out OK,” relieved Floridians can squeeze the Charmin.
The bill may soon get bipartisan support as Democrats in Florida search for a means of setting up a low-cost election to replace the disgraced January Florida presidential primary. “Floridians have an intimate relationship with voting and their nether regions,” an elections official noted, “what better way to express their presidential sentiment and their intestinal fortitude at the same time.”
While some call the pending bill a “piece of crap,” others expect the state Legislature to move quickly on the legislation.
Meanwhile, here on the other end of the continent, King County diners on their way to being wiped out by that second piece of white chocolate peanut butter truffle cheesecake will soon be able to determine whether or not they need to order a Diet Coke or a reduced-calorie hot buttered rum chaser when the Weight Watcher drums are restless. The County Council has ordered local iterations of chain restaurants to post the “nutritional information” of food selections on menu inserts or wall-mounted boards. Since the state of Washington remains without its own toilet paper regulation, some King County restaurant customers could become irritated by this development.
Jim Heneghen is guaranteed to irritate your sensibilities when he headlines the Mainstage Comedy and Music Club for five shows this weekend beginning tonight. If you are regular around the Seattle comedy world, you may have initially dismissed Heneghen as a victim of irritable vowel syndrome. But as you listened more closely, you were amazed at how Heneghen could cleanse the seriousness from your most sensitive plumbing. Join him tonight at 8 pm or Friday and Saturday nights at 8 and 10:30 pm. We promise we’ll stock enough toilet paper for all the cheesecake consumers in King County.

Heneghen: Oppressed and Laughing At It

2008-03-12T10:49:00.000-07:00

A former candidate for vice president, Geraldine Ferraro (D-Bucket of Spit), has finally revealed the existence of a Black Illuminati that controls the power structure of the United States. “If Barrack Obama was not black, he would not be in the position he is in today,” Ferraro told a California newspaper.
In the un-redacted version of her interview with the Torrance, Calif., Daily Breeze, Ferraro notes that a “jive version” of Yale University’s noted Skull & Bones exists offshore on the Cayman Islands. This group controls history books, government regulators and cocktail party conversations to make sure that America gets a distorted view of so-called “black oppression.” The group began at the first Constitutional Convention in the 18th Century where dyslexics were responsible for incorrectly counting blacks as “3/5th humans.” Rather than correct the error to “5/3 human” the founding fathers figured this would be a good way to keep hidden the natural advantage black Americans are given. “White Americans might get upset if they knew how far down the food chain they were,” a founding father noted.
Black American males especially were known for their sexual prowess, and Southern women would literally bid for their attention. “White women would bid thousands of 19th Century dollars for the services of a black man, and sometimes black men in return would demand that the white women pay room and board for their entire families,” one historian recalled.
Sleeping with homely white women seemed like slavery to the powerful black men. They formed an underground railroad, that would give them breaks with prettier women in LA, before going back to collect their wages of sins. Ultimately, black men could no longer live with white women, so they fought a civil war for emancipation. For a century afterwards, the otherwise unoccupied tongues of white women were forced into denigration of their black lovers on an increasingly popular Web site known only as JimCrow.com.
This weekend, enjoy revisionist history at its finest as the one and only Heneghen takes the microphone stand for a weekend of hilarity at the Mainstage Comedy and Music Club. Jim Heneghen will beguile you with his stories about growing up as an oppressed white man in a world run by the unshaven Illuminati. Be there at 8 pm Thursday, and 8 and 10:30 pm Friday and Saturday.

Derek Sheen: Laughs in a New York Minute!

2008-03-11T09:06:00.000-07:00

In his second news conference on the subject in two days, New York Governor Elliot Spitzer announced “I am not gay, I have proven I’m not gay, and I think my wife now knows I am not gay… I love my wife, and just about anyone else who has a vagina.”
Spitzer says he decided to take a wide stance on the prostitution issues that confronts his political future in order to maintain his credibility from Albany to Boise. He blames his sudden plunge into extra-marital sex on his continuing slumming through the New York State sewer system as attorney general and governor. “I was forced to plunge deep into every cavity I saw before me,” the governor explained. “When I investigate a new opening, I throw myself into my work. “
Asked if he might resign, Spitzer answered, “I’ll have to sleep on that.”
Meanwhile, a group of billionaires tempting the governor and this state’s entire state Legislature says it will hold its breath and perhaps spend its available billions on high-priced prostitutes in Oklahoma City unless it gets money for a fancier rec room by April 10. The group of billionaires led by Microsoft Chair Steve Ballmer says it is ready to save a group of underprivileged homeless orphan athletes by pumping in hot and cold running bourbon in the Key Arena training rooms. However, the state must offer to pay $75 million to enable the regular shipment of executive-level, high-priced prostitutes from Albany, New York, into the same facility. The City of Seattle, meanwhile, will pay another $75 million for regular testing of the athletes for sexually transmitted diseases.
If you are wondering where you will get the money for your own high-priced prostitutes, or hot and cold-running bourbon, perhaps you might consider a career in comedy. Open Mic before a friendly crowd at the Mainstage Comedy and Music Club can make you into a star within a New York-minute or a 100 dog years — whichever comes last. Ask Derek Sheen — he's back from Albany and he keeps a smile planted firmly on his face. See him tonight at 7 pm and stick around for some orphaned, low-priced musicians. Support them now, while they're just a governor or two away from a career engagement. Even if you’re just looking for something to get away from the pressures of busting crooked Wall Street types, take a break for a laugh — before you break entirely.

Open Mic with Derek Sheen: Treatment for Your Tricks

2008-03-10T11:43:00.000-07:00

Seattle’s Better Business Bureau has come down heavily on a local escort who cheated a male customer in search of “fun.” The BBB will fine the escort $50 for failing to live up to her contract, and will enter the complaint on the escort’s “permanent record” at the bureau. "There are mitigating circumstances in the public record, " a BBB spokesman says," the escort expressed open concern for the practice of safe sex prior to fleeing the premises in search of a condom."
The traditionally quiet transaction became part of the public record when it was reported in a local daily newspaper.
The man reportedly paid the escort $170 for services prior to the delivery of said services, according to the BBB. The customer discovered an advertisement for the services in the Stranger, a reputable newspaper that takes pride in its services to Seattle readers in search of “fun.” The Stranger’s publishers say the newspaper is immensely distressed by the failure of harmonic convergence between the escort and her awaiting client. “We at the Stranger are particularly invested in the accuracy of our advertisements,” a spokesman says. “We have yet to publish an imprecise telephone number or for that matter any indication that an escort service might engage in phony ‘tricks.’ ”
The BBB says the escort service in question will have to publish a public warning notice that "not all transactions may be consumated."
Meanwhile, Illinois Senator Barrack Obama is reportedly seriously considering Iowa Republican Congressman Steve King as his running mate in the general election. The extreme right-wing King might balance the Democratic ticket against Sen. John McCain, Senator Obama’s advisors say. While there is some thought that King might decline Obama’s invitation — especially after noting that “Islamic extremists might dance in the streets upon Senator Obama’s election — political insiders say the jackbooted fearmonger might be flattered into accepting. Some observers, however, prescribe another motive to the rumors. Floating the possibility of a three-term supporter of waterboarding, unhealthy children, and cockfighting as his running mate, might turn some voters in Iowa’s Fifth District to reconsider the Congressman’s sanity. It might work better than locating the number of Mr. King’s personal escort service.
If you’ve experienced setbacks in your life — perhaps something more than being ripped off by an escort service — you can turn those negatives into positives on the comedy stage. Audiences love finding out that there are people living more miserable lives than their own. Take a chance any Tuesday at the Mainstage Comedy and Music Club. The fabulous Derek Sheen will guide you through those initial scary moments. Go ahead and laugh. There are worse things than being ripped off by an escort service. You might find yourself being Vice President of the United States.

Todd Sawyer: Sweeping You Off Your Feet

2008-03-07T09:53:00.000-08:00

Men, does your sex life at home suck?
It’s time you learned how to use a vacuum cleaner.
This does not mean you should use Mr. Hoover’s invention in the traditional kinky manner, but in the new post-feminist awareness sense. It seems that by simply powering up the vacuum, dusting a few spots, or even mopping the kitchen floor, you can sweep your partner into the bedroom. If you get the kids asleep in the nursery first, your chances are even better.
A new report by the Council on Contemporary Families concludes that as more women work full-time jobs, more men are beginning to realize that 15 minutes of dusting is cheaper than 15 minutes with a divorce attorney. In the most startling finding since another study found that beautiful people are more successful at job interviews, the study determined that men are frequently rewarded for their increased domestic duties by a happier sex life.
If by now you are reading four-letter, mono-syllabic words into the report that are not in the original transcript, it is my hope that you are not in Pasadena, California. That Los Angeles suburb has declared itself a “cuss-free zone” as the result of a campaign by a 14-year-old leader of a junior high “no-cussing” club. Perhaps the $%#@$ little pervert needs to redirect his #$% time to more important issues. Is that dust I see on that proclamation?
Of course this blog never judges anyone. We leave that to folks like Todd Sawyer who brings his issues to the Mainstage Comedy and Music Club for two shows Friday and Saturday evening at 8 pm and 10:30 pm. Todd will sweep you off your feet, dust the seriousness from your frown lines and then tell you to make your bed and lie in it. Go, see him. Especially when he is performing this far from the Pasadena city limits.

Todd Sawyer: Your Laughs Count!

2008-03-06T11:00:00.000-08:00

Barrack Obama says he will allow Clinton delegates in Florida and Michigan to be seated, if the New York Senator approves a do-over election in California and New York. Obama, riding a national momentum of delegate strength that led to 12 straight victories prior to Clinton’s wins in Ohio and Texas, says he could turn around his losses in the two big states on Super Tuesday, more than making up for any Clinton delegates seated from Michigan and Florida. Obama added that he will consider other ways of adjusting the credentials of Michigan and Florida delegates. Among those are:

Counting votes in Michigan and Florida by early 20th-Century standards — meaning only male property owners would count.

Counting only the votes in Michigan of those who received a free car during a taping of the “Oprah” show..

Counting only the Florida votes of those who can figure out a butterfly ballot.
Meanwhile, in the state of Washington, initiative guru Tim Eyman is reportedly considering a measure that would bar the counting of any ballots cast by Democrats on a Tuesday. Asked if that was constitutional, Eyman responded “of course, especially under the post-Bush constitution.”
Do you have a regular weekend constitutional? Are Friday and Saturday nights a time to break out of the workday prison that surrounds you? You have the right to remain silent — except for bursts of laughter, and anything you emote or yell out at a Mainstage Comedy and Music Club show may be broadcast live on the Internet through synclive.com. This weekend, it’s time for a Todd Sawyer do-over at the Mainstage — five shows over Thursday, Friday and Saturday — that will delegate your work thoughts to a parallel universe far, far away. Remember, your laughter counts here — even if your votes do not.

Todd Sawyer: Lobbying for More Stories

2008-03-05T16:02:00.000-08:00

A day after winning all the delegates needed to assume the Republican nomination for President, Arizona Senator John McCain went to the White House to receive the official endorsement of the incumbent President George W. Bush. McCain’s campaign says Thursday, the septuagenarian candidate will begin looking for an assisted living facility near the White House. Friday, McCain will admit his love affair with Vicki Eiseman, a Washington lobbyist, and the pair will be seen together in his Las Vegas casino suite, where he is vacationing with the help of millions of under-the-table dollars taken from other lobbyists. “We hope what happens in Vegas will stay in Las Vegas,” the Senator remarked with two fingers raised directly behind the head of the incumbent President.
Campaign aide say McCain’s moves are designed to prove just how far the Senator can become “ a Comeback Kid.” Since the GOP campaign began more than a year ago, Arizona’s senior senator has come from being left for dead in financial bankruptcy to the achievement of winning more than 1,100 delegates to the GOP Convention in Minneapolis late this summer. Some observers, however, believe that McCain is attempting to become history's last GOP presidential candidate as a form of payback to his one-time rival, George W. Bush.
Meanwhile, in Seattle, Boeing has announced that it will change its corporate lobbyist in Washington, DC , after its failure to get a controversial government aerospace contract. “We believe Ms. Eiseman is at the top of her game right now,” Boeing executives say in a press release.

Are you tired of listening to politicians who tell you stories? Maybe it’s time to listen to Todd Sawyer tell you some of his time-tested stories from two decades of comedy. You’ve seen him all over the comedy dial, from Comedy Central to You Tube. This weekend you can see him Thursday, Friday and Saturday at the Mainstage Comedy and Music Club. He’s younger than John McCain and a whole lot prettier. You don’t even have to be a lobbyist for him to talk to you.

Open Mic Welcomes Rough Riders

2008-03-04T18:50:00.000-08:00

Sources in Oklahoma City say a ballot issue being voted on today — designed to bring the Seattle Sonics to Oklahoma — may not generate enough funds to get the Sonics all the way to Oklahoma City. Sonics owner Clay Bennett says he will attempt to bring the franchise somewhere in between Oklahoma City and Seattle — perhaps Jackson Hole, Wyoming. “We think that might be the best of both worlds, “Bennett says,” since real NBA fans are quite prepared to pay more for parking and a cup of beer than what it takes to commute to Jackson Hole for 81 games.”
Seattle Mayor Greg Nickles says the Sonics must stay in Seattle “even if we have to expand the Seattle city limits into Wyoming.” Oklahoma City Mayor Mick Cornett says even though Oklahoma City has cheaper gasoline than Seattle, the city’s roughnecks are likely to object to traveling to Wyoming unless they can be assured of making the trip without worrying about a DUI.
Meanwhile, Senator John McCain, assured of enough delegates to become the presumptive GOP nominee says he welcomes the endorsement of the current President of the United States — even though the latter’s poll numbers are among the lowest for an incumbent in history. McCain says he shares a lot with the current holder of the office, “not the least of these is Teddy Roosevelt’s successful environmental record, and his military precision as a Rough Rider.”
Do you think an open mic night is pretty rough riding? Perhaps you’ve thought about giving it a try in front of the majestic warmth of the Mainstage Comedy and Music Club. Whether you “Remember the Maine” or don’t remember what you had for breakfast this morning, the evening’s host Derek Sheen will guide you through the bells and whistles of an open mic any Tuesday on which you show. If you’re obviously from Oklahoma City, however, you might want to be careful crossing the street to Key Arena.

Open Mic: Try Your Hand at Fear

2008-03-03T10:29:00.000-08:00

In a 60 Minutes interview, New York Senator Hillary Clinton tells correspondent Steve Kroft that Barrack Obama is NOT the illegitimate love child of George W. Bush and Margaret Thatcher… as far as she knows. She says she feels for the Illinois Senator because she has experienced the effects of vicious rumors herself, like those reporting that she dreams of waking up at 3 AM seeking to resolve a terrorist crisis. “Even though I have read reports on the Internet that Dubya had unhealthy three-way sex with world leaders when he was teenager snorting cocaine, I don’t believe them for a moment, “ Clinton said, “Seconds — perhaps — but not a moment.”

Meanwhile, the sunny Seattle real estate market continues to be blazing hot, as the remainder of the country settles into a dampened, cloudy future for home sales. Just hours after the ashes of a number of Street of Dreams model homes near Woodinville cooled from the effects of a fiery arson blaze, hopeful buyers flocked to the sales office to sweep up the remains at a slightly discounted price. While the homes once might have sold for $10 million each, buyers could procure ashes for a mere $2 million to $3 million. An agent in the sales office remarked buyers were looking at the ashes like “moon rocks,” and lining up to get a trace of their own private dream. Public relations people were busy cataloguing and labeling the ashes to give them a measure of authenticity. “I never thought I could buy a piece of a “Street of Dreams” home,” one satisfied buyer said as he left the office. “Now, I can tell my kids that I own a piece of Woodinville history!”

Sometimes the comedy at an open mic can be blazing hot — especially if you’re watching the greats like Derek Sheen who hosts the regular Tuesday night open mic at the Mainstage Comedy and Music Club at 7 pm. Sometimes comics will make an “ash” of themselves” in preparation for greatness. But you, the audience provides the combustion and the chemistry for a night of quantum leaps into humor and delightful retreats into still life. Warmed with laughs, and chased by the percussion of a musical open mic that follows, you might feel ready to move forward in the world. At 3AM the next morning — when the phone rings at the White House — you’ll be ready to solve that crisis, or at least roll over and snort.

Tom Simmons: Security in Comedy

2008-02-29T10:32:00.000-08:00

It’s 3 AM, your children are safely in bed after you’ve bailed them out of the county jail on another drunken driving charge. Meanwhile, the red phone rings at the White House, signaling a security threat to America. America’s first gentleman, Bill Clinton has been caught unzipping the burqa of a staff member at the Iranian mission to the UN in New York. Iran’s ambassador addresses the United Nations Security Council to denounce President Hillary Clinton and declares an immediate Jihad. Suddenly, you think about why that phone is ringing, and why you hope the Canadian Army will soon invade the state of Washington, sometimes known as Baja British Columbia. Where is George W. Bush when we need him?
Meanwhile, Seattle’s expansion NBA franchise, the NEW Seattle Supersonics — made up of a geriatric pickup team practicing at the nearby 24-Hour Fitness Center — routs the Oklahoma City Old Supersonics on the way to the playoffs in their inaugural season. The New Supersonics take advantage of a high definition technology advance in the remodeled former Key Arena (now the Google YouTube Arena). With the three dimensional technology, the New Supersonics can virtually take on the characteristics of Wilt Chamberlain, Michael Jordan, Elgin Baylor, and other basketball greats after drinking a new blend of limited edition Starbucks coffee created by Starbucks CEO and former Sonics owner Howard Schultz. “I was staying up nights trying to think how I can improve my legacy within the city of Seattle,” Schultz says. “Reviving the Sonics in more ways than one, will work — I think.”
Before the work begins at Google YouTube Arena, make it your mission to follow the comic stylings of Tom Simmons. There’s sports, there’s child-raising, and there’s philosophical thinking throughout. He appears all weekend at the Mainstage Comedy and Music Club, directly across the street. Shows begin at 8 and 10:30 pm, Friday and Saturday night. Women and children can feel far more secure in the surroundings of Tom Simmons than in the neighborhood of America’s potential First Gentleman.

TOM SIMMONS: Rising to a Point

2008-02-28T10:08:00.000-08:00

The official Klu Klux Klan Web site has forcefully denied that it has endorsed the election of Barrack Obama for the office of president of the United States. The site says despite rumors to that effect on a “National Enquirer” – like Web site, the KKK has decided against violating its tradition of supporting good Christian white men who cannot trace their genealogy to the African continent. The Klan says there might have been some mix-up when its governing board sent its congratulations to the anti-Semitic OSAMA bin-Laden.
Meanwhile, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer has reported that even here in Obasmic Seattle, people of color who have a close encounter of the local law enforcement kind are far more likely to be charged with “obstruction of a police officer” while nursing injuries from that encounter. The newspaper says the “contempt of cop” charge” is eventually dropped after police complete investigations of suspects. Senator Obama, who was released 24 hours after he objected to fire marshalls closing the doors to Key Arena to thousands of additional people wanting to get in, says he appreciates his ultimate release from the King County Jail to continue his campaign. Obama says he will not return to Key Arena during the fall campaign and will move his Seattle campaign office to Oklahoma City.
Tonight, Tom Simmons moves his comedy performance to the Mainstage Comedy and Music Club — directly across the street from Key Arena. Whether you are a Grand Kleagle, a good Christian, or you use your Bible to store envelopes containing illegal substances, you’ll find that Simmons comes to a point — just like the headgear of those Obama-loving Klansmen. Come to the Mainstage Comedy Club beginning tonight at 8 pm, and continuing at 8 and 10:30 pm, Friday and Saturday. If you are a person of color, however, be careful that you don’t block the fire exits.

Tom Simmons: A Nutritious Wide Stance

2008-02-27T14:42:00.000-08:00

Are you a bad boy? A nasty, nasty, bad boy? Do you love your wife, and are definitely NOT gay? Then you might be just the candidate for an intern position in Washington, DC. None other than Mr. Wide Stance himself is advertising for interns to serve the people of Idaho and the interests of its senior US Senator, Larry Craig. It is important that you love the roar of politics, the smell of the plumbing, and know the identities of undercover airport police. To apply, tap three times at an airport men’s room near you.
Do you really want to know how many calories there are in a Big Mac? Do you want to know the nutritional value of that super venti, skinny, caramel, Frappuccino? The good shepherds of King County had plans to force every server of edible products to clearly state the contents and nutritional information of every meal, but apparently the foam has risen among Eastern Washington gastro control libertarians. They sense a measure that could soon reach its ugly tentacles all the way to the Applets & Cotlets society. Consequently, the state Legislature has told King County to retain the mystery surrounding what we eat until it is defined in our death certificate.
There is no mystery around the comedy of Tom Simmons. His comedy is the kind you love to chew on. And folks around North America have experienced a philosophical renaissance that makes them reach beyond the typical applets & cotlets of entertainment and enter a more cerebral digestive experience.
You can experience Tom Simmons Thursday through Saturday at the Mainstage Comedy and Music Club. The doors are open, there’s no need to knock three times.

Tom Simmons: It's Deja Vu All Over Again

2008-02-26T10:28:00.000-08:00

Seattle continues to gentrify from its working class, tree-hugging origins to the upscale, world class, espresso-sipping country club that it has become. Still, it is good to know that there is still room for mixed use. In between the multi-million-dollar “cozy” penthouses going up downtown, a little bit of Seattle heritage is quietly being squeezed in to make sure that all of Seattle’s Nuevo Rich will have a place to get their jollies. Yes, right there between the Federal Courthouse and a fancy new condo tower, will be a brand spanking new Déjà Vu Club and its 50 beautiful girls — and three ugly ones. Presumably the strip club’s motto won’t be mistaken for a feature list at the condo — or the courthouse.
Meanwhile, presumptive Republican presidential contender John McCain is hot under the collar about a picture circulating through the Internet from sources allegedly tied to the Barrack Obama campaign. McCain admitted that the picture showing him in a Civil War-era Southern confederate war uniform is authentic. He says, however, that he “was very young at the time of the war,” and he did not consider all the implications of joining the Confederate Army.
Chances are the topical humor you will experience with Tom Simmons this weekend won’t be as old as John McCain’s Civil War uniform. Imagine someone as fresh as Comedy Central, as world class as the Laughs Comedy Festival in Montreal, and someone with the courage to make soldiers laugh in Iraq.
You won’t find him at the Déjà vu — this weekend you’ll find him at the Mainstage Comedy and Music Club. His attention will be on you.

2008-02-25T10:40:00.000-08:00

What’s wrong with your average Washington millionaire? The same upscale crowd that will bid $10 million for a Medina fixer-upper, $8 million for a lock of hair from the departed Kurt Cobain, or $6 million for a week’s supply of kosher, baby goat cheese freshly flown in from the jungles of Bangladesh, won’t even point their browsers at eBay long enough to ponder a former Washington State passenger-only ferry.
The Washington State Ferry System reported no takers in its attempt to sell the MV Chinnook for $4.5 million on eBay this past week. Imagine 350 of your friends being able to moon the common people requiring common heavily carbon-fueled on the 520 bridge as you escort them across the water aboard your very own $4.5 million muscle boat. It would be like seventh grade at Lakeside School all over again! If every upscale resident of the East Side had their very own ferry boat, the state wouldn’t even have to build a new floating bridge. The state might even have to consider widening Lake Washington all the way to Snoqualmie Pass.
Meanwhile, the Democratic race for President is heating up again, as Hillary Clinton attempted to interrupt Oscar Night in Hollywood with her bid to gain notice for her most recent Ohio campaign ad, called “No Country for Old Bitches.” In it, she berates her opponent Barrack Obama for not growing old on the campaign trail. “Shame on you Barrack Obama,” Clinton told a worldwide television audience of three billion people, “this is right out of the Peter Pan play book.”
Every Tuesday evening, you can watch up and coming, and still to come comedians taking the Mainstage to perform their art. Comedy has no predefined playbook and only the jokes sometimes grow old. If you’re tired of that same old Bangladesh goat cheese in your diet, perhaps you’ll want to take a bite out of your three to five minutes of fame? Open Mic comedy night at the Mainstage Comedy and Music Club begins at 7 pm every Tuesday and is hosted by one of Seattle’s best, Derek Sheen. Give it a shot — on stage and from the bar — as you stew over your performance. If you’ve got a song in your heart, you might want to try the musical open mic immediately afterwards. If you’re a success at both, could I get a ride on your new ferry boat?

Straight outta Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm - Barry Diamond

2008-02-22T19:47:00.000-08:00

Barry Diamond sat in the Holiday Inn's diner, eating bacon, after a very successful romp on The Bob Rivers Show. He waxed poetic about the years he was coming up in comedy with the names we love to hear: Jerry Seinfeld, Robin Williams, Larry David.

Old school, New York, with a very eclectic but hilarious act, Mr. Diamond put on quite a show for the thinking person's comedy lover.

If you missed him, his archived show can be seen on our website as brought to you by our partner, SyncLive.com

www.mainstagecomedy.com/BarryDiamond.html

Cathy Sorbo: Sparing Some Change

2008-02-22T10:05:00.000-08:00

Democratic Presidential contender Hillary Clinton was frogmarched out of the University of Texas auditorium in Austin, Thursday night shortly after debating Barrack Obama before CNN television cameras. Secret Service agents say the New York senator is suspected in an international counterfeiting ring that has been “creating change you can Xerox.” The Secret Service says Clinton may be the brains behind the clever development of a 21st Century Xerox machine that produces prints of individual US state quarters on ordinary slugs. “This is not public information, “ the agent revealed, “ She must know about this technology or she would not have brought it up during the debate.

Clinton says she deeply regrets using the line in the debate. As she was handcuffed and escorted out of the building she admitted that she was “being tested.” Still, she says, she knows that the American people — especially coin collectors — will suffer more.

Meanwhile, in Olympia, a measure to expand this region’s Sound Transit agency into a larger behemoth died shortly after a group of un-bathed homeless people entered the Capitol platform and the driver of the legislation was unable to get them to turn down their boom boxes.

Comedian Cathy Sorbo has many stories to tell about her adventures on local transit that are guaranteed to give you a pleasant ride without additional medication. Be prepared to stop, laugh and listen to a veteran of the Seattle comedy scene that tells her stories in her own words — unless one of her self-built characters puts words in her mouth.

See her this weekend at the Mainstage Comedy and Music Club in two shows both Friday and Saturday nights at 8:00 and 10:30 pm. Be there before you encounter Hillary Clinton asking for spare change.

http://www.mainstagecomedy.com/CathySorbo.html

Cathy Sorbo: A Landmark weekend

2008-02-21T11:18:00.000-08:00

Ballard’s kitschy, late, great Denny’s restaurant that sits as the Gateway to the traditional Scandinavian neighborhood has been declared a historic landmark. Developers seeking to turn what one observer described as “a soup can on LSD” into still another high rise condominium are seething in their Prada boots. Apparently, the board decision came after a local historian noted that the restaurant distinguished itself by going beyond the chain’s national reputation of rendering slow service to people of color. The Ballard Denny’s reportedly was the only Denny’s nationwide to snub German Lutherans.
Elsewhere, the aging presumptive Republican presidential nominee, Senator John McCain has fired his secret weapon in preparation for the possibility of going against a very young senator from Illinois in the fall. McCain has enlisted the help of the New York Times in passing rumors that he is sexually active. His “Straight Talk” express trip to the Viagra Dad vote seems contrary to his efforts at reforming the close relations that Washington politicians seem to enjoy with lobbyists. This may, however, be another effort by McCain to appeal to GOP conservatives by likening himself with the late South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond, who married a 20-something while in his 80s, and then bought a home near an elementary school.

Cathy Sorbo is all about landmarks and making history. She recently wept openly about the loss of another Ballard landmark in her weekly Seattle Post-Intelligencer column. Her comedy skates beyond the headlines and the daring feats of her beloved Rat City Rollers. She is a Seattle landmark herself, and refuses to be gentrified. This weekend she puts her game face on in five shows at the Mainstage Comedy and Music Club. Isn’t it time you lobbied that special someone in your life to roll in the aisles together? Even German Lutherans are welcome.

Jen Adams - Superstar!

2008-02-17T19:17:00.000-08:00

Anyone who believes chicks aren't funny should have been at the Mainstage this week...

Anyone who believes chicks are funny should have been at the Mainstage this week...

Trust us, go watch online http://www.mainstagecomedy.com/JenAdams.html

Ari Shaffir - On Our FIRST ANNIVERSARY!

2008-02-03T19:20:00.000-08:00

We were a little nervous about bringing in such a contraversial comedian to headline our first anniversary, but our friends at KISW were adamant that he was tremendous, and they were right.

"The Amazing Racist" tore the house down. So much so that our broadcast partner, SyncLive, decided to put a clip of him ripping on the Space Needle on YouTube. That's right, YouTube.

We were smitten. We hope he will come back soon!

Duane Goad and friends rocked the house!

2007-11-19T07:29:00.000-08:00

Wow! Was it the comedy? Or was it our audiences? All we can say is... *WOW!* Packed houses for every show - so much laughter that it is surprising we didn't wet ourselves.

Mike Wally Walter delivers the BIG FUNNY!

2007-11-12T08:09:00.000-08:00

Our audiences were thrilled by the crazy comedy of Mike Wally. And, we were thrilled to have him back on our stage.

Did you miss Dean Oleson? Then you missed out...

2007-11-05T08:12:00.000-08:00

We've waited 10 months to get Dean on our stage - and, it was worth the wait! Funny, funny, funny. There is a lot of funny in that package... No matter what the size...