Comedians in the Family

Before Comedian Auggie Smith was “Auggie,” he lived downstairs from his uncle on Burnside in Portland’s Laurelhurst neighborhood.  (I’ve known his uncle since 1980.)  Uncle Tim encouraged the boy to give comedy a try, and we watched him at the open mic at a Silver Dollar Pizza on NW 21^st.   Since then, Auggie’s hit all the comedy clubs and many colleges in the U.S. of A.  In 2010, he won both the San Francisco and Seattle comedy competitions.

Last night, it was good to see Auggie headline and kill at the Helium Comedy Club in Portland.  Satire, irony, and current events are his stock in trade.  Wild-eyed rants are his vehicle.  He’s married now,  and they settled down in Los Angeles last year.

Now, my niece Rachele is giving comedy a go.  She’s hosting at the Laugh Factory in Hollywood, CA next weekend.  Which begs these questions:

At the laugh factory, do Chinese comedians sleep upstairs in triple-high bunk beds and toil every day cranking out jokes?  “Did you hear the one about the Beijing Barber who . . . ?  So Confucius, Buddha and a Shaolin Priest walk into a sooty bar in Jiangsu Province . . . .“ Are there suicide nets to catch the jumpers from the Laugh Factory sweat shop? 

Which reminds me of one of my dad’s jokes, “Did you hear that 1 in 4 children born in the world is Chinese? So, my wife and I stopped at 3 kids.”

Okay.  I’ll stick to serious law and forget comedy, except in a cheerleader role.

Heeeeeeeeeere's Rachele Friedland on Youtube.

and heeeeeeeeeeeeere's Auggie: