Nina G - Bay Area Stand-Up Comedy: A Humorous History

Published by The History Press

Charleston, SC

www.historypress.com

Copyright 2022 by Nina G and Charles Patterson

All rights reserved

Front cover, top, left to right: Phyllis Diller. Courtesy of San Francisco History Center/San Francisco Public Library; Michael D. Booker performing at Comedy Day at its height. Courtesy of Michael D. Booker; Purple Onion building in 1964. Courtesy of San Francisco History Center/San Francisco Public Library; Mort Sahl holding the San Francisco News. Courtesy of San Francisco History Center/San Francisco Public Library; bottom: Golden Gate and Bay Bridges with the Transamerican building in the background. Photo by Josh Denault.

First published 2022

E-Book edition 2022

ISBN 978.1.43967.446.8

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021950581

Print Edition ISBN 978.1.46714.988.4

Notice: The information in this book is true and complete to the best of our knowledge. It is offered without guarantee on the part of the authors or The History Press. The authors and The History Press disclaim all liability in connection with the use of this book.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form whatsoever without prior written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

DEDICATIONS

From Nina G:

In my junior year at Alameda High School, I turned in Badaboom: An Anthology of Comedy and Humor for an English assignment. For the purposes of this book, I would like to borrow the same dedication I had for that:

To all the future, present and past comedians because their art is a big part of my life.

Nina G

From OJ:

For Mel; I love you.

Special dedication to Mom, Dad, Mr. D., Ken, Ortavius, Caleb, Damien, Joe, Jan, Ed, Jesse H., Jesse M., Rocio, Sahra and anyone else from the before times who came out to my bringers, open mics and showcases. Extra special acknowledgements to David Cairns and Kelly Anneken for saving my life with their love and support. Shout-out to the comedy folks as well. All of them.

CONTENTS

PREFACE

NINA G

My family introduced me to stand-up comedy when I was about four years old. It was the height of Steve Martins fame as a stand-up comedian. Im almost positive there is a picture of me as a small child with an arrow through my head out there somewhere. My parents did not censor what I watched or enforce much of a bedtime. As a result, I would stay up watching classic Saturday Night Live episodes that led to me naming a favorite stuffed animal Gilda as well as a sock puppet in second grade that I named Edith Ann after Lily Tomlins character. Even though I learned that Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny were a farce when I was seven years old, I didnt learn that Father Guido Sarducci was not an ordained priest until I was at least ten.

Cable TV helped feed my early love of comedy. There, I was exposed to stand-up as well as multiple runs of movies like The Jerk and Caddyshack. After school, I would take an afternoon nap just so I could stay up to watch The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson and, more importantly, Late Night with David Letterman. In third grade, I was identified as having a learning disability. This was about the same time I started to stutter, and I despised almost every aspect of school (Catholic school in the 1980s!). Knowing this, my mom let me play hooky at least once a month for us to go to the movies. This is where I saw films like Richard Pryor Live at the Sunset Strip when I was nine.

Throughout my childhood, I found solace in stand-up. Part of that was finding a feeling of superiority over my peers for not knowing the comedians who appeared on Letterman the night before. As I approached middle school, they started to identify with musicians, hanging pictures of their favorite bands in their lockers or in their bedrooms. Comedians were my rock stars. While other thirteen-year-old girls were writing fan letters to music groups like New Edition, I wrote fan letters to comedians like Emo Philips, who responded back with an autographed picture that still hangs in my kitchen.

I am lucky to be a fifth-generation San Francisco Bay Area native. I was raised in Alameda and San Leandro and was exposed to the San Francisco comedy scene early on. As I approached adolescence, the stand-up comedy boom was exploding, and I was on the sidelines watching it. After church on Sundays, my family would sit for hours at Oles Waffle Shop in Alameda with my aunt and uncle. I was so bored! To occupy myself, I would study the Datebook section of the San Francisco Chronicle, examining the comedians and clubs that I hoped to attend one day. As we lived half a mile away from Tommy Ts Comedy Club in San Leandro, my comedy fantasies had a focal point. I so wanted to attend shows and then go hang out with the comics afterward at the Lyons in the same strip mall. I couldnt wait until I turned eighteen years old so Id be able to go to Tommy Ts, followed by turning twenty-one and attending shows at the legendary Holy City Zoo. Sadly, the Zoo literally closed on my twentieth birthday. I saw names of comedians performing at the Zoo who I saw on Comedy Tonight and later heard on the radio on The Alex Bennett Show. Larry Bubbles Brown, Will Durst, Warren Thomas, Paula Poundstone, Steven Pearl, Dan St. Paul, Ellen DeGeneres, Tom Ammiano, Marga Gomez, Whoopi Goldberg, Bobby Slayton and Al Clethen were all names and faces in the milieu of San Francisco comedy in the 1980s and I dreamed of the time that I could see them in person. However, as I got older, my comedy nerd tendencies morphed and mutated into career ambitions.

There were two distinct windows of entry I had into the Bay Area comedy scene. The first was a joke contest I won when I was eleven years old on a KGO radio show hosted by a woman who also played Ms. Nancy on Romper Room. I told a joke that I stole from a recent appearance of Pee Wee Herman on Late Night with David Letterman. The special guest judging the jokes was Will Durst. The prize was free tickets to the Other Cafe to see him. Durst awarded me first place, and I was so excited to go to my first comedy club experience! That night, my parents, as they often did, ran late. When we got to the club, parking was scarce. We could see the opening act performing in the window on the corner of Carl and Cole. My parents said we were not going to go in because they didnt want to be made fun of for coming in late. As we drove down Haight Street, I was in tears because I would not be able to see the show. I would not get to the Other Cafe until I was fifteenafter I confessed my crush to Barry Sobel during his appearance on the Alex Bennett Show that same week. Previously, I had seen Sobel on Rodney Dangerfields Young Comedians Special. Finally, I had someone I could focus my emerging hormones on. I happened to be sick that day from school and spent the day at my grandparents. Using their rotary phone, I eventually got through to the Alex Bennett Show