Katrina

A tragedy like Katrina causes us all to pause and hope for the best.

It is probably natural to think immediately in terms of that which you know the most about. For some this may mean contemplation of similar personal experiences, for others it is probably thinking in terms what you do for a living. As a lawyer, I quickly think of the variety of legal issues an event like this causes. Physicians probably think in terms of medical issues.

Comedians start thinking in terms of material. In some way, it is true that humor is going to be an important part of the process. Those of us miles away cannot joke about it, but I assure you that those up close and going through it - they are finding humor in something.

It is one of the most basic coping mechanisms.

Private Party

We had a nice event for the folks with Academy Financial.

Myself, Steve Wilson and Scotty K were the performers.

They had some constructive comments after the event, that I will share with you in the coming weeks.

Awesomely Bad Tornados

We did a thing for the Weather Channel this week. They are putting together a clip show related to weather and asked that we get some comedians to talk about the weather in certain cities.

This show is to air in November, and we'd like to thank Alice Jankowski, Scotty K, Matt Davis, Carl Rimi, Pat Brown, Mike Speanburg, and Special K for their help with this project.

The team from the Weather Channel was great to work with.

An Unexplained Absence.

This has been one of those weeks that somehow seems to get away. I'm back and will be posting like I should.

A quick recap: Pablo kicked a#%*!

Monday Morning Quarterback.

Here it is Monday again the routine refreshes.

Ricky Kalmon was our headliner, and he was supported by Jason Kantor. I like both Jason and Ricky, so it was nice to see them.

Not that you asked, but interestingly a club's per head food and beverage is typically lower when you have a hypnotist because there is more activity on the stage and as a result people are watching their friends perform and don't eat or drink as much.

We also marketed some shows a little differently to better reflect the content. Based on the response to those shows I think it was a smart decision.

We have Pablo this weekend and I would recommend you get your tickets early. It is a great show and we are looking forward to seeing our friend.

Finally, you may have seen that Peter Jennings died over the weekend. I am an avid consumer of news, often watching all three national news broadcasts in the evening (tivo assisted of course). On a personal level my thoughts are with his family at this time. When I heard about his cancer diagnosis I emailed his producer an essay about cancer survival entitled "The Mean is Not the Message." If you or someone you know is facing a potentially terminal diagnosis, I suggest strongly your read the piece. We are currently battling internally about how many no smoking shows to have in a given week. In case you are counting votes, I am casting mine for only two - the last show on both Friday and Saturday. The rest of the time I think that we should be non-smoking, and I believe that it is what the market wants as well.