The Comedy Store

During a recent visit to LA we spent an evening at The Comedy Store to see some stand-ups do their thing. That night they had a lot going up for about 15-20 minutes each so there was a lot of variety. It didn't start well: the first guy (whose name we didn't catch) was making jokes about Kato Kaelin and the second guy started with a Rodney Dangerfield impersonation. He made a joke about being out of material for the last 10 minutes and I was tempted to suggest that it was actually 10 years. A 'no heckling' sign gave me restraint.

The evening was saved by Bobby Lee, who we had seen back at Rutgers many years ago but here he could do a greater variety of material. Al Madrigal, who followed him, was also good but from there it was downhill for me. I won't name the rest of them but I have to say how lame and pathetic Charles Fleisher was up there, doing some quasi-Robin Williams thing without actual jokes. I actually began to doze off but knew that one of the lame-os on stage w/o material would just make fun of me if I put my head down. I understand where a 'no heckling' sign can keep the jerks in the audience from ruining everybody's night but it does have the downside of not giving the loser on stage more reasons to improve their material. Then again, what should I expect of the place the unleashed Pauly Shore on the world?