Friday, March 11, 2005

Catlanta, Second City, Jon Stewart

They don't call it Catlanta for nothing!

The University of Kentucky Wildcats handily defeated the Tennessee Volunteers at the Georgia Dome with a score of 76-62. It was the 3rd game of the quarterfinal sessions.

Speaking of the Wildcats, this is interesting:
Jon Carlson, a 40-year-old health care worker, watched the meeting and already favored private accounts. He wondered how many Kentuckians were paying attention to Bush, since the University of Louisville Cardinals and the University of Kentucky Wildcats were playing in televised basketball tournaments.

"President Bush picked a bad time. Basketball is No. 1 now," Carlson said.
According to former Ambassador Nancy Soderberg, Jon Stewart is cooler in person than he is on television.

Second City write-up:
many ways represents the face of American comedy in the post Red Skelton television era. Alums include John Belushi, John Candy, Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Eugene Levy, Gilda Radner, Mike Myers, Chris Farley and dozens of other famous names.

Does that put any pressure on the current generation of Second City actors? Ghosts on the stage?

"People like to talk about the stars of yesterday, and the stars of tomorrow, and speaking to the actors working with us it is sometimes daunting," she admits. "But they have a specific love for the work, and a specific job to do, and they go out and they do their very best. They are part of a very elite group of people and they are prideful of the alumni list."

Because Second City alumni have had remarkable success in television and film after their turn treading the City sidewalks, it is easy to think of the troupe as something of a comedic minor league. Kligerman disagrees with this characterization.

"Second City is not a 'feeder' by design, but it is perhaps unintentionally, by accident," she says. "When my receptionist takes a call, or when I am talking to people about auditions, or internships, you get the opportunity to talk to a young person who is interested in comedy. And if they say 'I want to work for you because I want to be on Saturday Night Live,' that's when you turn and walk away. That just proves they don't have much understanding for what we do here, nor do they have an understanding for what kind of journey these people take, and how elite this group of people truly is."

Second City is very serious about comedy. As the late actor Edmund Gwenn is reputed to have said to a friend who asked him on his death bed whether dying was tough: "Dying is easy. Comedy is hard."

Take a trip to the City. It won't be that hard.
I know that SNL is not a realistic goal...but hey with all the connections I have, I can get my own show.

The latest on Jon Stewart and family affairs:
The Daily Show's Jon Stewart makes light of public figures' personal lives and mishaps five days a week, but when it comes to his own family's affairs, he'd like them kept quiet...According to Stewart's spokesman, the whole arrest was just a big mix up, as McShane's license was suspended due to the fact that her payment of a ticket got lost in the mail. McShane, a veterinary technician, was initially pulled over for driving down a street that has been closed to traffic.
Okay, that's some good news.

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