David Fewster

MY COMEDY STORE CAREER: ITS UPS AND DOWNS

I was an 18 year-old college dropout who had

just run away from home and traveled by Greyhound

3000 miles to become a famous comic folksinger,

with no specific plan on how to achieve that goal.

While crossing the Arizona border,

I picked up an LA Sunday Times (8/7/1977)

and the Calendar section's lead article

was about the Comedy Store's Monday open mike.

"That's for me!" I exclaimed,

and after a night in a downtown $10 hotel room,

there I stood on the threshold of fame.

Due to miscalculations, I had gotten off the bus too soon

and had to walk the last mile, hauling

my suitcase with my life's possessions

and my hollow-body white Gretsch

with its broken case tied with a bathrobe sash,

so I was too tired to balk at paying

the $30 to stay at the Sunset Hyatt.

I was in plenty of time for sign-up.

Performers under 21 were put on at the very start of the show,

with the provision that they leave right after their set

due to liquor laws.

In a flash, I was standing in the spotlight

singing "Go Lamby Go", my song about

an Iowa farmboy having sex with sheep

vaguely set to the tune of "Johnny B. Goode."

This number was the keystone in my campaign

to conquer Hollywood.

Anyhow, it got a couple of laughs, and then, like a fool,

I did what I was supposed to do and went back to the Hyatt

instead of sneaking into the bar

and trying to meet someone famous.

The coda to this story is that a week later

I was sitting at the counter of Sambo's on

Ocean Ave. & Pico in Santa Monica over

a cup of coffee and a stack of silver-dollar pancakes

drenched in boysenberry syrup (which, ironically,

would become my major source of sustenance for the next 9 months)

when this young couple comes in and the guy says

"Hey, weren't you at the Comedy Store last week?

We're in town for a vacation. You were pretty funny."

"Gee," I thought as they left

"they must tell those stories about how hard it is

to make it in the big city just to scare people away.

It's turning out to be easy!"

Flash forward 2 years.

It turns out the apartment complex in Mar Vista

(a seedy neighborhood somewhat redeemed by

its relative proximity to the ocean)

where I ended up also housed

a budding comic songwriter three years my senior--

a pianist who had composed a mini-rock opera about his sister

entitled "Robin the Disco JAP",

which I learned stood for "Jewish-American Princess."

For a Presbyterian from a hick town in upstate NY,

this seemed like pretty sophisticated stuff,

so we decided to pool our resources

(me with my bestiality bit, Howard handling the ethnic angle)

and make a go as a duo.

But, as veterans of the scene by this time,

we knew we were going to have to up the ante

and come up with a cutting-edge number that

would set us apart from the pack.

We'd both seen "Lenny" about 20 times,

we knew the score.

This was the year of the Comedy Store strike,

brought on by the greed of the club's owner, Mitzi Shore,

who was sort of a cross between Leona Helmsley and Col. Tom Parker.

On June 1, a young comic named Steve Lubetkin leapt from the top

of the Hyatt House (the very place I stayed 2 years prior)

after being fired from the club as a result of his part in the strike.

Six weeks later, the Sunday Times Calendar section

ran a huge front page feature on his life and blighted career.

"This is what it takes to get famous in this town--

You gotta kill yourself?" we fumed

as we pondered the article, filled with envy

for that lucky bastard Steve Lubetkin

who was getting all this free publicity.

For a couple seconds, we considered

the pros & cons of following in his footsteps,

but being hedonistic potheads we quickly rejected that route.

Instead, we wrote a protest song.

The first and last verses should suffice

to give one the general tone of the endeavor:

1st:  I'm looking down from the 14th floor

        I see a vision of Mite Shore

        Saying "You'll never play at the Comedy Store"

Last: I'm looking up at the 14th floor

         All the angels look like Mitzi Shore

         Life is Hell, and Death is the Comedy Store

And, just in case we were being too subtle,

we entitled the song "Crucify Me."

The very next Sunday, armed with my Gretsch and a little Pignose amp,

we hightailed it to the Improv's open mike to debut our masterpiece.

This was back in the day when Budd Friedman, the owner,

actually attended these Sunday night cavalcades

of losers, wanna-be's, and mental defectives.

When we finished our epic, to a smattering of stunned applause,

Budd called out from his table.

"I imagine you boys won't be doing

that number at the Comedy Store."

We were stunned. Budd Friedman had spoken to us.

Nothing like this had ever happened to us before.

It must have been like that for Moses

when God said "Hi! Like what I did with the bush?"

Blushing like schoolgirls, we chirped

"We sure are, Mr. Friedman. Tomorrow night!"

and completely overwhelmed, beat a hasty retreat.

True to our word (and no doubt still brimming with hubris

from the Budd F. acknowledging we existed thing)

there we were the next night

at the Comedy Store (Westwood Annex.)

We got a spot fairly early in the evening

(as opposed to being with the riffraff without friends or connections

they put on around 1AM after everyone had gone home,

which is where we usually ended up.)

This may have seemed like a good omen.

But it was not.

We barely got thru the second line of the song

when the MC's voice boomed over the intercom--

"THAT'S IT. YOU'RE DONE. GET OFF THE STAGE

AND LET'S GET SOME REAL COMEDIANS UP HERE."

We didn't even have time to pack our gear

as we made a hasty exit down the aisle,

clutching half-open cases and trailing cords,

as the pock-marked toady MC screamed

"YOU GUYS ARE BANNED FOR LIFE.

STEVE LUBETKIN WOULDN'T HAVE LAUGHED"

while a small posse of his henchmen stood behind.

You could see in their eyes that they had all started to think

"Gee, if I show Mitzi my fists covered with their life's blood,

maybe she'll give me that opening spot in the Belly Room Thursday night..."

(although I remember my main fear was they would break my guitar.)

We made it out to my girlfriend's '66 Ford Falcon unscathed

and drove a circuitous route home in case we were followed.

Back in Mar Vista, rattling a shoebox lid

to see if there was still a half-bowl of dope

nestled in all the seeds, we came to grips with

the realization that our comedy careers were over.

After a short PTSD beak,

we remade ourself as a folk/punk act

called "The Rummies"

which also ended badly, but that's another story.