comedy
Friday, November 5, 2010
comedy November 6: Sandra Valls at San Geronimo Community Center
Posted by Gabe Meline on Fri, Nov 5, 2010 at 9:01 PM
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Who is Sandra Valls? This much we know: in her lifetime, she’s rapped with Charo, joked about costumes with Lucy Liu and buttered up Uma Thurman. She’s been a regular at Los Angeles clubs like the Laugh Factory and the Comedy Store and appeared at LGBT pride events all over the country. The Nebraska-born, Texas-raised comedian survived the red states of her upbringing to make it in California as the West Coast’s premier Latina lesbian stand up gal, where her side-splitting theories about the female ass inspire the audience to fall in love with her every night. Count the U-Haul trucks outside when Valls performs on Saturday, Nov. 6, at the San Geronimo Community Center. 6350 Sir Francis Drake Blvd., San Geronimo. 8pm. $16–$20. 415.488.8888.
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
comedy October 29: Rob Schneider at Wells Fargo Center
Posted by Gabe Meline on Wed, Oct 27, 2010 at 1:35 PM
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When I first noticed that Saturday Night Live alumnus Rob Schneider had scheduled a show for late October, I couldn’t help but think: O ye of little faith! Schneider, a dedicated Giants fan often seen at the ball park, apparently could not have predicted his team would be in the World Series. Wouldn’t it have been funny if his show in Santa Rosa fell at the same time as a game against the Rangers? As it is, Schneider got very, very lucky, and he’ll be cracking jokes onstage during a travel day for the ballplayers. You’ve seen him in those ridiculous Deuce Bigalow movies and reciting a weirdly contagious line in The Waterboy; now see him live when Rob Schneider yuks it up on Friday, Oct. 29, at the Wells Fargo Center. 50 Mark West Springs Road, Santa Rosa. 8pm. $15–$30. 707.546.3600.
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
comedy September 26: Handcar Regatta at Depot Park
Posted by Gabe Meline on Wed, Sep 22, 2010 at 10:59 AM
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Unless you’ve got tickets to see the pennant-racing Giants play that day, there is no understandable reason for missing out on the fantastic Third Annual 2010 Great West End & Railroad Square Handcar Regatta & Exposition of Mechanical & Artistic Wonders, otherwise known as the Handcar Regatta. For the uninitiated, the Regatta is the region’s foremost cultural hodgepodge of all things wildly imaginative, including but hardly limited to art, music, costume, magic, vaudeville, marching bands and sculpture. The Regatta’s raison d’être is ostensibly the foot- and hand-powered vehicles of all crazy design barreling down the railroad tracks, but the carnival atmosphere surrounding the races is worth the price of admission alone. Oh, you hadn’t heard? Yes, the Regatta is charging admission this year. Here’s the great thing: it’s only $1. Don’t miss it on Sunday, Sept. 26, at Depot Park. Railroad Square, Santa Rosa. 11am–6pm. $1. www.handcar-regatta.com.
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
comedy September 5: Lewis Black at the Uptown Theatre
Posted by Gabe Meline on Wed, Sep 1, 2010 at 11:28 AM
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Remember when comedians were actually worried about Barack Obama’s election? Remember when they’d make jokes about how they wouldn’t be able to make jokes anymore, when George W. Bush wouldn’t be providing them with a constant supply of material? Well, the joke’s on them! There are even stupider morons in the country now! Some are even angry about a proposed cultural center with a basketball court and swimming pool on the exact site of the former Burlington Coat Factory in lower Manhattan! Most of them think Obama is a Muslim! As long as tea partiers continue to loudly hate our freedom-hating socialist al-Qaida president, comedians like Lewis Black will have no end of material. Hear him sear the Palinites and worse on Sunday, Sept. 5, at the Uptown Theatre. 1350 Third St., Napa. 8pm. $65–$80. 707.259.0123.
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
comedy July 4: Will Durst at Silo's Jazz Club
Posted by Gabe Meline on Tue, Jun 29, 2010 at 1:39 PM
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When we see that some guy named Durst is playing town, we always have that same knee-jerk: Fred Durst?! Nooooo!!!! What sublime relief we find, then, in discovering that’s it’s almost always comedian Will Durst. Being mistaken for the goateed bro from the constipated gurglings of rap-metal losers Limp Bizkit isn’t a compliment—although Durst, as usual, would surely mine the situation for comedic gold. The satirist’s main quarry is politics, and what with teabaggers complaining about BP’s $20 billion escrow fund to clean up the oil spill, Carly Fiorina’s anti-abortion stance touted as “new feminism” and a popular Facebook group to nominate Werner Herzog governor of California (why the hell not?), Durst will be on fire when celebrating our nation’s independence with blues band Top of the Top on Sunday, July 4, at Silo’s Jazz Club. 530 Main St., Napa. 6pm. $50. 707.251.5833.
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
comedy June 26: Comedy Benefit at Toby's Feed Barn
Posted by Gabe Meline on Tue, Jun 22, 2010 at 4:01 PM
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Who among us hasn’t wanted to feed the yen for laughter while feeding one’s cows and chickens? Before the show of hands, let it be known that hilarity is promised when three comics take the stage hay bales at Toby’s Feed Barn this weekend in what’s being billed as a Benefit to Benefit the Benefit. To wit: the Far West Fest, thrown annually by KWMR to benefit West Marin nonprofits, needs a little funding itself. In step five comedians to put the West Fest’s stress to rest. Among them are two-time San Francisco Air Guitar Championship winner Alex Koll, Sarah Silverman Show alum and West Coast Cannabis publisher Ngaio Bealum, creator of the standup comedy game show Get It Joe Klocek and clean comic Carla Clay. Beer, wine, food and burlesque are on hand at the 18-and-over laugh fest on Saturday, June 26, at Toby’s Feed Barn. 11250 Hwy. 1, Point Reyes Station. 7:30pm. $20. 707.663.1223.
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
comedy May 14: Smothers Brothers at the Wells Fargo Center
Posted by admin on Wed, May 12, 2010 at 9:06 AM
It’s hard to imagine a time when only a small handful of channels comprised the television landscape, but in 1967, there weren’t hundreds of networks dedicated to every political view under the sun—which makes the Smothers Brothers’ sly political commentary during national tumult all the more brave. David Bianculli’s recent 400-page book Dangerously Funny: The Uncensored Story of ‘The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour’ covers in excellent detail the Smothers Brothers’ subtle infiltration of network television and, ultimately, the clashes with CBS that led to their firing; it’s a definitive and often nostalgic guide to the hurdles Tom and Dick Smothers faced. In a rare performance, the pioneers in topical comedy appear on Friday, May 14, at the Wells Fargo Center. 50 Mark West Springs Road, Santa Rosa. 8pm. $40-$50. 707.546.3600.Gabe Meline
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
comedy May 11: Dave Barry at Book Passage
Posted by admin on Wed, May 5, 2010 at 11:15 AM
In a long line of books about wrestling with age comes journalist/comedian/everyman Dave Barry’s latest, titled I’ll Mature When I’m Dead: Dave Barry’s Amazing Tales of Adulthood. Could it be true? Could the Pulitzer Prize–winning humor columnist, who still plays in rock bands, doesn’t believe in God and talks like a pirate, actually feel the need to join the ranks of the normal grownup world? Hardly. Even though Barry ceased writing his column in 2004—causing the economy to tank, he likes to joke—he’s still a child at heart, pondering the simple things. Why do men leave the toilet seat up? Why do women have so many shoes? How can we keep the dog from crapping on the sofa? These deep insights and more are explored when Barry does the reading-from and signing-to thing on Tuesday, May 11, at Book Passage. 51 Tamal Vista Blvd., Corte Madera. 7pm. Free. 415. 927.0960.Gabe Meline
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
comedy Jan. 23: Mort Sahl and Dick Gregory at the 142 Throckmorton Theater
Posted by admin on Wed, Jan 20, 2010 at 12:54 PM
Jay Leno’s getting a bad rap these days; he can’t help it if his network is clueless, and the stirring resentment over his mere presence is spilling over into unwarranted attacks on his style of comedy. The same might be said for Mort Sahl back in the day. Hailed as an influence by Leno, Lenny Bruce and Woody Allen, Sahl in the 1960s dressed in a casual sweater with a newspaper in hand, and delivered jazzlike, stream-of-consciousness zingers about racial politics, free love, misguided wars and whatever snapped into his sharp, quick mind. Usually, it riled the masses, but that didn’t stop Herb Caen from urging him to run for president of the United States. Dick Gregory, one of the first black comedians to address civil rights issues to a white audience, actually did run for president in 1968; he now calls the U.S. “the most dishonest, ungodly, unspiritual nation that ever existed in the history of the planet.” The two comedy legends appear Saturday, Jan. 23, at the 142 Throckmorton Theater. 142 Throckmorton Ave., Mill Valley. 8pm. $38–$48. 415.383.9600.Gabe Meline
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
comedy Jan. 9: Brian Regan at the Wells Fargo Center
Posted by admin on Tue, Jan 5, 2010 at 5:55 PM
Brian Regan is the anti-George Carlin. He won’t say any of the seven words you can’t say on television, he won’t speak in antagonized tones, and he doesn’t criticize the government, religion or the status quo. In fact, the status quo is Regan’s feeding ground; his most famous skits revolve around doctors, food labels, Little League, telephones and, of course, flying. Having now starred in two of his own Comedy Central specials, Regan brings his everyman form of clean humor to the lily-white crowds of wine country this weekend in a show that won’t cause nervous wincing while sitting next to the kids. If your family outings usually mean driving the Suburban to Costco for a $1.50 pizza and soda dinner combo and renting Ishtar from Blockbuster, then Regan’s your comedian. Laugh it up on Saturday, Jan. 9, at the Wells Fargo Center. 50 Mark West Springs Road, Santa Rosa. $39.50–$43.50. 707.546.3600.Gabe Meline
