POCKET OPERA

Proud orange lint
fuzzy green lozenge
angry red cent
crumpled pink post-it
all share dread and respect
for
inspector
number
3

                     -------- Ed Kaz

From Friday's Asbury Park Press, here's my interview with veteran funnyman Jake Johannsen.

COMEDIC STIMULUS
Jake Johannsen will turn this economy around, one joke at a time.

By Ed Kaz !
Comedy Correspondent

According to his website, Jake Johannsen has been on The Late Show with David Letterman thirty-two times.  The show is taped at the Ed Sullivan Theater--on the very stage where the Beatles once stood--and the historical significance is not lost on the comic. "My last appearance was taped on the anniversary of the Beatles debut," Johannsen said, "There have been extensive renovations since those days though.  I looked for souvenirs but couldn't find anything.  Nothing is even black and white anymore.  It's all been painted in color."  Johannsen is live and probably in color this weekend at New Brunswick's Stress Factory Comedy Club.

KAZ!:  What is the worst ever comedy club restroom you've had to endure?

JOHANNSEN:  I think I must have blocked that information out but nothing really compares to the horror of a plastic portable toilet at the end of the day at an outdoor festival.

KAZ!:  At what point in your life did you think to yourself, "Hey! I can make a living doing this?"

JOHANNSEN:  That would be the day I quit my day job.

KAZ!:  Munsters or Addams Family?

JOHANNSEN:  They are both good but I have to say for me the answer is easy:  Addams Family.  If I have to explain then you will never understand.

KAZ!:  What is the absolute worst gig you ever had?

JOHANNSEN:  Bar in Comax Canada just out of the woods from a logging camp.
 
KAZ!:  What is the absolute best gig you ever had?

JOHANNSEN:  The one on the night I quit my day job.

KAZ!:  Do people always expect you to be funny even at moments when you are not supposed to be funny, like when you're on line at Target?

JOHANNSEN:  I am not sure what those people are thinking.

KAZ!:  If you weren't doing comedy, what the heck WOULD you be doing?

JOHANNSEN:  Either astronaut or waiter.

KAZ!:  Do you blame Yoko?

JOHANNSEN:  She is out of my life and we are both trying to move on.

KAZ!:  What's next for Jake Johannsen?

JOHANNSEN:  Turn this economy around one show at a time.  All I need is some people who like to have a few drinks and laugh for an hour.
 
----------------
Have a great weekend and please remember to laugh responsibly.

AsburyKaz@aol.com

www.edkaz.com

 
JAKE  JOHANNSEN
Friday and Saturday Night
Stress Factory Comedy Club
90 Church St. New Brunswick
Showtimes 8 & 10:30
Tickets: $22
Reservations:
(732)-545-4242
www.stressfactory.com
 
 

From Friday's Asbury Park Press, here's my interview with Vinnie Brand, Owner of the Stress Factory Comedy Club.  

STRESS MANAGEMENT
By Ed Kaz !
Comedy Correspondent

New Brunswick's Stress Factory is the proverbial Energizer Bunny of Jersey Comedy clubs: it keeps going and going and going.  I asked club owner Vinnie Brand to share the secret of  his success:  "We use the best ingredients: hysterical Comics, great food and awesome atmosphere," enthused the Middletown resident,  "Plus we pay off reporters for good, positive press coverage. Did you get your 'envelope"' this week?"  Uh...ahem. Vinnie? You weren't supposed to mention that, but yeah, thanks.  Brand is a hilarious comic in his own right and he's booked himself at The Stress Factory this weekend.

KAZ!:  Comedians are funny. Club owners are not. Yet you’re both.  How do you reconcile this dichotomy and what do you think of my big words?
 
BRAND:  Club owners aren't funny?  Tell that to Dangerfield; use a Ouija board of course.  I better sell this place because I'm hysterical.  By the way, your big words are my little words. Wanna play Scrabble?

KAZ!: Every comic I’ve spoken to has nothing but nice stuff to say about you. Andrew Dice Clay once rang me up and said “Vinnie says I gotta call you and I do whatever he says.” How do you manage to cultivate such loyalty?
 
BRAND:  First of all, years ago I started paying them in Euros, which helped.  As for Dice, I bought all of his troubled assets off his balance sheet. I still have his eight track collection and a pair of sweaty wristbands. I'm hoping the Government bails me out!
 
KAZ!: Who are some of your personal favorite acts to appear at the Stress Factory over the years?
 
BRAND: My favorite acts are Chris Rock, me: Vinnie Brand, Jim Breuer, me:Vinnie Brand, Lewis Black, me: Vinnie Brand, Jim Norton, me: Vinnie Brand, Brian Regan, me: Vinnie Brand, Jeff Dunham and Peanut, me: Vinnie Brand and of course, me: Vinnie Brand, with or without Peanut.
 
KAZ!: Who is on your wish list of comics you'd love to book at the club?
 
BRAND: I'd love to get Bob Newhart, Chris Rock (again), The Smothers Brothers, Ray Romano (again) and me: Vinnie Brand, again and again.
 
KAZ!: Addams Family or Munsters?
 
BRAND: The Munsters of course! Grandpa Lewis gave me a big break years ago at Grandpa's in Staten Island.  Plus, Marilyn reminds me of my wife.  I'm not sleeping with her either.
 
KAZ!: The Stress Factory has one of the cleanest rest rooms of any club I’ve attended. Why is a clean toilet important for comedy?
 
BRAND:  They're important because nothing is funny if you've been forced to use a bathroom that looks like the uni-potty at the Camden Sunoco. Sorry Camden, but I call 'em like I pee in them!

 
KAZ!: Your dad was a plumber. How did that influence your comedic sensibilities?
 
BRAND: Every time my dad went to work he'd point the plunger at me and say "What ever you do, don't do this for a living." He was the funniest guy I ever knew, so I just took his advice and did what he should have done!
 
KAZ!: You’re booked as a comic in your own club.  Is it tough negotiating the fee with yourself?
 
BRAND: It was.   I demanded a LOT!   Where the hell is that Limo anyway?  Where is my masseuse?  Damn it, that's not Cristal!  That's Dom.  So pedestrian!  Hello!  I asked for a room temperature Snickers bar with one bite taken out!  Get me a manager!

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Have a great weekend and please remember to laugh responsibly.
 
Asburykaz@aol.com

www.edkaz.com

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
VINNIE BRAND
Stress Factory Comedy Club
90 Church St. New Brunswick
Friday, Saturday & Sunday
Showtimes: Friday & Saturday 8 & 10:30
Sunday 8pm
Tickets: $15
(732)-545-4242
 www.stressfactory.com
www.vinniebrand.com

For nearly 150 years, a story has circulated that there is a hidden Civil War message engraved inside one of Abraham Lincoln's pocket watches.

Yesterday we learned it was true.

A watchmaker at the National Museum of American History opened the pocket watch and revealed the message which said:  "Jonathan Dillon, April 13, 1861. Fort Sumter was attacked by the rebels on the above date. Thank God we have a government."

Pretty darn exciting if you ask me.
 But guess what?
That's not ALL they found inside Lincoln's watch.

From the home office in Shell Pile New Jersey...

TOP TEN OTHER THINGS FOUND INSIDE ABRAHAM LINCOLN'S WATCH:

10.   First draft of Gettysburg Address where he calls Robert E. Lee a d*ckwad
  9.   Extended Warranty from the Shiloh Best Buy
  8.   Telegraph number of an Illinois Hooters Girl
  7.   Page torn from "Emancipation for Dummies"
  6.   Civil War era lint
  5.   A stick of Carefree sugarless tobacco
  4.   Economic stimulus ideas including the bailout of the corset industry
  3.   A note from Mary Todd saying "Don't forget to bring home milk and hardtack!"
  2.   Beard and eyebrow hair.  Lots of it.

AND THE NUMBER ONE OTHER THING FOUND INSIDE ABRAHAM LINCOLN'S WATCH:

  1.  Winding pinion, set lever, click spring--You know, junk you'd find inside a watch.

                                                                    ----Ed Kaz

Watch this.  You'll thank me afterward.

If you avoid these songs I guarantee your life will improve dramatically:

1. We Built This City on Rock and Roll -- Starship (Horrible. Wretched. A deliberate move to get your song played in every city by every rock station, which every rock station in every city did and it continues to this very day. Shameful.)

2. Emotional Rescue--Rolling Stones (I guarantee you they wrote this thing during a thirty-second break between coke and groupies. Mick figured a high voice would guarantee a hit in the wake of the Brothers Gibb flights of falsetto; Keith was too wasted to talk him out of it. Shame on you, Glimmer Twins.)

3. Kokomo--The Beach Boys (As much as I love and revere the Beach Boys, I loathe and fear this song.)

4. The Curly Shuffle -- Jump 'N' The Saddle Band (Because one's love of the Three Stooges should be a private spiritual thing; not broadcast all over the world via a "clever catchy cutesy" novelty song.)

5. Take Me Home Tonight -- Eddie Money with Ronnie Spector (Does this need an explanation? It's derivative, it's loaded with false bravado, it's EDDIE MONEY. And given all that, it's a catchy song that gets stuck in your head for the rest of the month. Shame on you Ronnie. Shame on you.)

6. Man in the Mirror -- Michael Jackson (The song, combined with the video, delivers what I like to call the Mr. Holland's Opus Effect: It deliberately and falsely manipulates your emotions.)

7. Sledgehammer -- Peter Gabriel (Smarmy cutesy derivative drivel.  This rewrite of "Them Changes" symbolizes everything that is wrong with '80s music.  Oh but isn't that video awesome?  Did you know how many edits are in it? Yeah, 18,473 too many.)

Dishonorable Mention: The entire Moody Blues Songbook, with the possible exception of "Go Now," because that was early and more R&B tinged and Justin Hayward had not yet treacled in...

                                                                    ----Ed Kaz

It's such a groovy place to talk and maybe watch a show
Down at the drive-in
                                                      ---Brian Wilson

On a gray October Sunday about ten years ago a friend and I decided to take a ride down to the Jersey Shore.  My friend had this real cool "large format" camera and was really into shooting modern ruins.  And let me tell you, if any place ever deserved the title of "modern ruin," it's certainly Asbury Park, New Jersey.  But that's a discussion for another time.

As we hit the Route 33 traffic circle (a few miles outside of Asbury) our "ruins radar" began picking up a strong signal.  Jutting out of a densely wooded area was a giant drive-in movie theater screen.  We skidded off the highway and hopped out to investigate.

Deep in the dense underbrush we came upon an entire abandoned drive-in movie theater.  The giant sign proudly proclaimed "SHORE."  This was the Shore Drive-In, one of the dozens of drive-ins that thrived in The Garden State from the fifties on into the seventies.

Back in my coming-of-age period (mid-seventies) many a lost weekend was spent at one of these open-air cinema palaces.  I have a fond recollection of being driven by a couple of pals to the Route 1 Drive-In, which just happened to be playing Roger Corman's Big Doll House.  Man, we really thought we were getting away with something.  It was the first time I ever saw breasts on a movie screen--15-foot tall breasts.

There was another drive-in over in South Amboy.  Apparently they were beginning to feel the economic pinch from the growth of the multiplexes, so they began running soft-core movies in order to survive.  There was a problem though:  The screen was in plain view to drivers coming over the Raritan Bridge.  I'd love to take a gander at those accident reports.

My main turf, however, was the Turnpike Drive-In on Route 18 in East Brunswick.  I learned how to make out at the Turnpike Drive-In.  My pals and I used to sneak extra kids in the trunk or sometimes we'd just jump over the fence.  Heck, why waste three bucks when you can rip your pants wide-open scaling a rusty wire barricade?  Or better yet, if money was tight you could pull into the department store parking lot across the street and enjoy the movie without sound.  What did it matter?  Brando just mumbled anyway.

Film-clips of my long-lost youth projected against my brain as I stood silently surveying what remained of the Shore Drive-In.   The door of the snack bar swung open and closed in the October wind, long having served its last soggy nacho, mediciney-tasting Coke, or rubbery hot dog.  The metal posts that held the car speakers were still there;  the speakers themselves long since pillaged.  A few spools of film were strewn on the rotted floor; the last reel from the final Friday night double-feature.

I sure hope all those modern condo-dwellers realize that they're living on sacred ground.

                                                                    ----Ed Kaz

Photo Credit:
Christian Hochenberger