For those of you that have been following Spinning Platters since it’s inception (Hi, Mom!), you may recognize one of the two names sharing authorship of the book Bay Area Stand Up Comedy: A Humorous History. Yup! Our one-time comedy editor, OJ Patterson, has graduated from the world of volunteer blogging to become an actual published author! I’m so very proud!!! (I’m actually weeping a little. Don’t mind me!) I’m also very sad that, within his bio within the book, there is no mention of our little pocket of the internet. I won’t hold that against him, however. Because he, along with fellow Bay Area stand-up comic Nina G, has gifted the world with something that we’ve desperately needed: a written history of the highly influential Bay Area stand-up comedy scene.
The book is great. Go buy it. Review over.
Kidding. I do have something to say about this book.
Despite not actually referencing Spinning Platters, this book does, indeed, stay true to the spirit of Spinning Platters. As our tagline is “A Community Of Bay Area Music Nerds,” the book itself immediately dives into the deepest, nerdiest piece of trivia about comedy that someone could look for. They actually trace back to the first-ever stand-up performance! It was a man named Artemus Ward who would show up at gold mining camps to perform humorous lectures in the 1850s.
That’s the kind of gold, pardon the pun, that you will find in this book.
The first 2/3 of the book or so is a pretty tight chronological history of the Bay Area Comedy Scene, beginning in earnest with Charlie Chaplin coming to Niles, an unincorporated town located near Fremont, to work at Essenay Film Manufacturing Company. This was where the classic short The Tramp was filmed. It follows through the North Beach scene of the 50s, covering all of the most important names of that era: Herb Caen, Carol Doda, Phyllis Diller, Mort Sahl, and Lenny Bruce to name a few. We also learn about one of the earliest LGBT bars, Mona’s 440, and how hard their owner, Mona Sargent, worked to keep her clientele safe from police raids. It’s also pretty tragic to realize that there are people alive and active today that were alive when it was illegal to be “gender nonconforming” in the Bay Area.
I could simply keep naming names and places, but it’s really worth reading the book. The chronological history portion follows the city through the 70s and the legendary Boarding Room scene, the 80’s and the Holy City Zoo, the opening and moving and moving again and moving again of Cobb’s. We hear the big names that went on to do big things like Steve Martin and Robin Williams. We learn about the locals that few people outside of the Bay Area knew, but really helped cultivate the scene: Larry “Bubbles” Brown, Alex Bennett, Jon & Ann Fox’s Bay Area Comedy Competition, etc. There is really no part of our history that’s ignored.
The final 1/3 of the book takes us on a bit of a left turn and deep dives into the different smaller scenes within the Bay Area Comedy world- there is a full chapter devoted to Queer Comedy, spotlighting local activists Robin Tyler and Tom Ammiano, and somehow is the first place Whoopi Goldberg is mentioned. There is a chapter devoted to Black Comedy, giving ample time to Tony Sparks, a man who elevates anyone that he comes in contact with. Another chapter is devoted to untraditional spaces like Brainwash, the laundromat that Sparks would host his open mic at, and Cinecave, George Chen’s comedy club found in the basement of a video store.
The only part of the book that I can genuinely say I didn’t like was the chapter on SF Comedy’s “Pandemic Years.” Maybe because we are still living through it, it was just plain hard to read. Not that it wasn’t well written, but it’s all a little too close to home, and I really don’t want to sit in the darkness that is being trapped at home by a virus and only connecting through screens. That’s still happening and I hate it.
Bay Area Stand Up Comedy: A Humorous History is an excellent document of an important part of our local history. Kudos to Nina G & OJ Patterson for finally giving us the document that such a vast and robust history deserves.
