Tardy and cursory Wimbledon wrapup

Federer won.

Oh, you want more? I'm on borrowed time (literally - there are 10 minutes clicking away on my prepaid hotel Internet access) so I'll make this quick.

We attended the matches Thu-Fri-Sat, choosing to see two men's semis rather than the final, plus the women's semis and finals. It was a great experience all the way around. I've been lucky enough to attend the Australian Open and a number of U.S. Opens, but I'd never visited the hallowed grounds of the All England Club.

Like Sampras and Lendl, then, I now have three of the four Grand Slams. Of course, they won, I merely attended, but why split hairs? My parents, meanwhile, completed the career attendance Slam like that other married couple, Steffi and Andre, did by winning.

The tennis was generally good and the experience of attending it great. We were fortunate to attend. Not to be overlooked was the Wimbledon museum, an outstanding retrospective of the over a century of tennis history at the Big W. A highlight was the spectral hologram of John McEnroe narrating his personal tennis history at SW 19.

We saw the men's final in our hotel bar, which was nice as I was able to take a little nap in my room during the epic final. Pete Sampras said it best about Roger Federer: he's a stud. (Pete had a lot of other nice things to say but that one sums it up pretty well.) After Federer's historic coup, we caught the doubles final at Audley's Pub in Mayfair over a traditional pub dinner.

Last night I gave the neighborhood chaps a free (or should I say expensive) poker lesson at a local casino, then we took a day trip today to Cambridge. It was scenic and historic, much like Oxford, which I visited in '03. Loved them both.

Back to Chicago shortly. I used my digital camera so much that it completely died, and I didn't bring a charger along, so I'll post pictures in a few days. No time to edit this right now, so please forgive my incompleteness and typos. Cheerio!

Richard Williams wants Oreos

That's what I learned on the practice courts at Wimbledon yesterday. His daughter Venus was on a practice court warming up for her singles semifinal against world #1 Dinara Safina as I entered the hallowed grounds. Sister Serena was up first on Centre Court against Elena Dementieva, so Venus was having a little hit before her match.

Venus' practice session was a family affair, with mom Oracene Price, dad Richard and his new young wife all on court as Venus coolly clocked serve after serve into the same square inch past a blonde surfer-dude-looking hitting partner. (See above photo, with Venus serving, Dad supervising and Centre Court looming in the background.) It was apparent that Venus would only be in danger if Good Safina showed up, not Emotionally Fragile, Ball-Spraying Safina. Apparently it was the latter because Venus won easily.

As for the Oreos, Mr. Williams apparently hadn't had much of a bite to eat, because he was asking the family in front of me whether they had any more Oreos. No they didn't. But with a couple hundred million pounds to the family name, I'm sure he was able to manage a bite. Actually I felt bad for the guy because he was hobbling around so badly.

Anyway, his daughters both won, Serena despite hitting a net cord en route to winning a match point against, and Venus cruising. The tennis has been great here. I actually spent significant time on Courts 1 and 2 seeing some of my favorite doubles players: Leander Paes, the Bryan brothers (identical twins from California and world #1 team), and the clown prince of tennis, Iranian Mansour Bahrami.

Time to catch a bus. Cheers mates!

Beauty and the B

We were just walking through our London hotel lobby en route to breakfast when we encountered a group of identically dressed, radiantly beautiful, heavily made-up young women. I thought they looked like a high school cheerleading team.

Close, but actually they were the Tampa Bay Buccaneers cheerleaders, here to promote a game between the Bucs and the New England Patriots at Wembley Stadium in October. I couldn't believe they were pro cheerleaders because they were all so young-looking, not to mention short. (They were all about 5'1".) Apparently there are tall women on the full squad, but the advance team has a strict height requirement.

They're on a whirlwind tour of the U.K. Having just gotten off a plane from Florida, they're taking a nap, then heading to Scotland, then working their way back here for the weekend, furiously promoting all the while. They told us all about the game, then we wished them good luck and said goodbye. Five minutes later they were seated next to us at breakfast.

Despite their busy schedule, they insisted upon taking this photo so they could be immortalized on my blog. And now they are:

Background: Hyde Park, London
Foreground: Tampa Bay Buccaneers cheerleaders
Midground: some guy

London calling

I'm heading to London shortly to attend the Championships at the All England Lawn Tennis Club, better known as the Wimbledon tennis tournament. We'll be there Thursday, Friday and Saturday for the men's semifinals and the women's semis and finals.

With five-time champion Venus Williams, two-time winner Serena Williams and big-serving Andy Roddick still in the hunt, an American or two ought to go deep. In fact, the Williams sisters squared off in the final last year. Meanwhile, Roger Federer is playing for history as he attempts to surpass Pete Sampras' record 14 major titles. On the men's side, that is; Steffi Graf won an eye-popping 22 singles Slams.

With NBC always on the lookout for an American angle, plus the women's final being played this year on July 4th, I'm dutifully bringing a U.S. flag and wearing a red, white and blue tie in a whorish attempt to get on television. Of course, TV silliness aside, it's a huge thrill and privilege to be going.

Incidentally, NBC will broadcast several hours of Wimbledon tennis every day this week, plus a nightly highlight show after late local news. Then they pour on the live coverage of the singles finals on Saturday and Sunday mornings, with maybe some "dubs" thrown in if the singles matches wrap up quickly enough. (There's not nearly enough doubles tennis on TV. It's high-octane stuff at the pro level and one of the best things about attending Grand Slam tournaments. But I digress.) Check local listings.

Not sure how much computer time or access I'll have, so I'll post photos and write here about the Big W either during or after the trip. Cheers, mates!

Just asking

Isn't it odd, all this fighting over the presidential election in a country where a small group of fundamentalist clerics, answerable to no one, holds the true power? The Iranian people have the right to decide who answers to them. It reminds me of the recent Russian election deciding which head to screw onto Vladimir Putin's puppet.

Meanwhile, someone known as the Supreme Leader has offered a running commentary on the election. Something tells me the Supreme Leader never has to face the voters. It's like the Emperor commenting on the election of Darth Vader.

Millions of votes are cast in a hotly contested presidential election, but it's all mooted by a handful of people who get to decide whether the election was proper, and thereby effectively anoint a winner. Good thing that could never happen here.

In the name of love (pride)

Gay, straight, doesn't matter. The Pride Parade is everyone's favorite all-day party and today is Chicago's 40th annual. My Flavorpill preview is here.

Oh

I was momentary puzzled by this recent sub-headline in the Chicago Tribune until I realized they were going for the word "descent."

Memo to ESPN

Go ahead, keep promoting NASCAR telecasts during your live Wimbledon coverage, and get some Wimbledon promos on during the Brickyard 400 while you're at it. I'm sure auto racing fans are as interested in our sport as we are in theirs. (If it is one.)

If you C.K.

Has it really been a week since I posted here? It has. I blame the Just For Laughs Chicago comedy festival, which took over my weekend (well, that and the tennis and the poker and the supermodels).

Caught the Louis C.K. show on Friday night, which I previewed for Flavorpill here. Yes, Patrice O'Neal, Nick DiPaolo and Jim Jeffries performed too, but as far as I'm concerned, any show involving Louis C.K. is a Louis C.K. show.

The master at work:

Visiting royalty

Princess Diana at the Field Museum? Please. Queen Elizabeth in Grant Park? Whatever. Robert Smigel is in town and comedy connoisseurs are rejoicing. Smigel lives at the intersection of smart, funny, dirty, original and outrageous, and nobody does it better.

Casual fans know his Ambiguously Gay Duo and Triumph the Insult Comic Dog. Those with longer memories remember him as Late Night with Conan O'Brien's first head writer and the creative genius behind The Dana Carvey Show. Hardcore fans like myself loved his Comedy Central puppet show, TV Funhouse. But perhaps only his wife knew that he shot a late-nineties pilot for Fox television, a gonzo parody of Bozo's Circus that played less as parody than straight-up homage.

Smigel's here with longtime co-writer Dino Stamatapoulos for the Just For Laughs comedy festival, screening their never-aired Bozo pilot and other old gems, taking audience questions and performing some new material. They're doing two shows; I caught the first one this evening and it was a home run.

The Bozo pilot was fresh and funny throughout (check out Dave Hoekstra's nifty Sun-Times piece on the pilot here) even though one of its best bits was left on the cutting-room floor: a young, unknown Northwestern theater alum named Stephen Colbert as Grimy the Outhouse. It screened after the pilot to more big laughs.

What else did I learn? Much like the Bozo pilot might be deemed an even more obscure version of TV Funhouse, so did Smigel also once devise an even lesser-known Adam West vehicle than Lookwell, the celebrated pilot he and Conan O'Brien actually made starring West as an out-of-touch former actor.

Smigel's other dream West project, one he couldn't persuade a network to fund, was a show starring Adam West as a retired Adam West, but with the sensibilities of his old Batman show. When his agent calls with an offer for a commercial voiceover, West intones, Batman-style, "It's too... perfect." Then, after his fax machine jams up as the offer arrives, West clenches his fist and cries, "George Kennedy!" Cut to a gleeful George Kennedy, fax machine saboteur, shot diagonally like a Batman villain. Who wouldn't watch that show?

Smigel explained that his now-famous puppeteering was inspired by Edgar Bergen, whom he called "the biggest ventriloquist in the 1930s and '40s," and Stamatopoulos called "the only one." Bergen apparently used to perch a young Candace Bergen on one knee and Charlie McCarthy on the other and make them talk to each other. How old was his daughter at the time? "Young enough to be fucked up by it."

As for new bits, Triumph and Smigel just flew into Chicago from the Bonnaroo music festival, where they shot footage for The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien and performed with Bruce Springsteen. They also made the rounds, ridiculing every musician in sight. "So many white rappers these days. The Beastie Boys... Will Smith." And: "Flavor Flav wears a clock around his neck so he knows how far back he's setting the civil rights movement."

Throughout the evening, Triumph had been lying forlornly under Smigel's chair in a purple nylon duffel bag. But after Smigel screened and discussed the more notorious Saturday TV Funhouse cartoons he'd made for Saturday Night Live, including "Conspiracy Theory Rock" and "Michael Jackson 2," Triumph sprang to life, commandeering a makeshift puppet-show proscenium reminiscent of his early Conan days to close the show.

The canine Rickles wasted little time eviscerating everything in sight. Looking around the Lakeshore Theater, a beloved Chicago comedy venue, Triumph sneered, "Look at this place. I haven't seen a shithole this big since Kirstie Alley bent over to pick up a pie." And: "If these walls could talk. There's been more comedians in here than in Sarah Silverman."

It still burns Smigel that Comedy Central renewed Mind of Mencia rather than TV Funhouse. Or so you might have gathered from Triumph's Carlos Mencia-themed faux Wikipedia page, which informed us that Mencia is a "vagina-flavored comedian" who stars in a Comedy Central TV show called What If Dave Chappelle Was Retarded.

Triumph also treated us to the collected Twitter tweets of Oprah Winfrey, who's making everyone read the complete William Shatner TekWar space novel series, not to mention sleeping with everyone's wife, just because she can; John Mayer ("Woke up, had breakfast, went out and sucked for the rest of the day"); George Clooney's penis, which philosophically wonders whether it will be in Darfur today or somewhere less virtuous; and Lindsay Lohan ("Mmmgggllllzzzzhhh"; as Triumph explained, she's limited to 140 characters).

Robert Smigel and Dino Stamatopoulos appear again tomorrow evening at 8:30 at the Lakeshore Theater. My Flavorpill preview is here.

Double play

At least the washout of tonight's Cubs-White Sox game worked out well for someone.

Also scheduled this evening in Wrigleyville was the opening night of the Just For Laughs Chicago comedy festival, a preview screening of Harold Ramis' new comedy Year One.

Shortly after the game was called on account of rain, I was walking through that very rainstorm into the Music Box Theatre for the movie when who walks in behind me but Chicago Cubs television play-by-play man Len Kasper. He'd wasted no time making the half-mile trek from Wrigley Field, still sporting his blue WGN-TV polo shirt as we came in from the rain.

Unfortunately for some of us inside the Music Box, there was also scattered rain falling inside the landmark theater, but nothing we couldn't handle.

Year One

After pretty much conquering the Hollywood comedy scene over the past thirty years, Harold Ramis didn't want to raise his family in Los Angeles, so they moved back to Chicago. He set up shop on the North Shore, where he continues to work on film projects while staking a reasonable claim to the title of coolest suburban parent ever.

I've had the pleasure of crossing Mr. Ramis' path around town on a number of occasions, an Israel Film Festival here, a Second City reunion show there, and always enjoyed him a lot. His wry, brainy delivery in the film world is no accident because that's who he is, a sardonic wiseacre with a lot of heart. He's not only a huge comedic talent but an engaging guy you can't help but like.

At a recent appearance at a local high school's biannual celebration of the arts, Ramis screened the funny opening scene of his new prehistoric comedy Year One, then gave an interactive talk about how he goes about creating a film comedy: the overall point he wants to make, the tone he tries to strike, the actors he might prefer to use for different types of roles, and how to make the whole thing saleable to a movie studio. Kids of all ages were hanging on every word.

Harold Ramis will receive a lifetime achievement award at tonight's special preview screening of Year One at the Music Box Theatre to kick off the weeklong Just For Laughs Chicago comedy festival. My Flavorpill preview is here.

Very funny

I used to hit Aspen, Colorado every March to attend the HBO U.S. Comedy Arts Festival, an annual celebration of the funny in all its forms. It was a highlight of my year, every year.

Back in the prehistoric days before I had a blog, I wrote about the 2007 Aspen festival for the website of my buds in the comedy group Schadenfreude (links to the four installments are here) and chipped in some jokes to the comedy site The Bastion here.

Sadly, all good things must eventually end, and the Aspen festival was no exception; the 2007 go-round was the last one. The reasons for its demise were many, and once I did have a blog I wrote about them here.

The Aspen festival left behind a lesser remnant in something called The Comedy Festival, a November showcase of big-name standups in Las Vegas. Nice enough, but a far cry from the diverse array of sketch, standup, improv, film, panels, special events, reunions, and fresh faces (not to mention mountains) in Aspen, and not worth traveling for.

Enter Just For Laughs, the other 800-pound gorilla on the North American comedy festival scene. Proprietors of an established, successful comedy throwdown in Montreal every July, they're now planning a major expansion of their brand. They'd like to become the premier presenter of live comedy in the U.S. in the way that HBO is known for the best comedy on television.

This summer they're doing a trial run with a few weeklong comedy festivals in cities around the U.S. Chicago gets its turn this week with the Just For Laughs Chicago festival, which looks about a third of the way from Vegas to Aspen in its ambition and range. There's a lot of middle-of-the-road standup from well-known performers, but they've booked some more interesting talent as well. Plus you don't even have to get to Pitkin County, Colorado (although you do have to get to Chicago, jet-setting readership).

I'll be covering the festival this week for Flavorpill and presenting my picks here as the week wears on. But don't wait to hear from me, as tickets are moving fast and many shows will sell out. You can check out the full festival lineup and buy tickets here.

The five-timers club

Long before getting the "Tonight Show" gig, the great Conan O'Brien worked as a doorman at a little-known New York City social organization called the Five-Timers Club:

Saturday Night Live - Tom Hanks - 12/08/1990

There are other five-timers around us. Roger Federer, a winner of five straight Wimbledon titles, won the French Open on Sunday. Seated in the front row was another guy who'd won five straight Wimbledons, Bjorn Borg. Federer is also a member of the U.S. Open champions five-timers club along with Pete Sampras and Jimmy Connors.

Speaking of New York five-timers, Broadway legend Angela Lansbury won her fifth Tony Award on Sunday evening, this time for her supporting role in Noel Coward's "Blithe Spirit." I was happy for Ms. Lansbury and for FOBB&B Steve Traxler, who's a producer of the play.

Come to think of it, Steve's getting close to a five-timers club himself, the one for Tony-winning productions. He's won Tonys for "Monty Python's Spamalot" (best musical) and "Glengarry Glen Ross" (best revival of a play), and two of his actors that I can think of offhand have earned Tonys, Jim Norton in "The Seafarer" and now Angela Lansbury.

If Will Ferrell's Broadway debut, "You're Welcome America. A Final Night with George W Bush," hadn't been robbed by "Liza at the Palace" for the special theatrical event Tony, Steve would already have five Tony winners. Or maybe he's already a five-timer with all the hit shows he's produced.

Either way, congratulations to all newly minted and soon-to-be five-timers.

EDIT: Steve is a producer of "Hair," which just won a Tony for best revival of a musical, so he's officially a five-timer. "One, two, three, four, five. You're great!"

EDIT 2: Even under the stricter definition "producer of Tony-winning shows" (as opposed to merely "producer of shows with Tony-winning actors"), Steve is a five-timer. He also produced "The History Boys" and "August: Osage County."