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The Purple Onion
The Purple Onion was a celebrated cellar club in the North Beach area of San Francisco, California, located at 140 Columbus Avenue (between Jackson and Pacific). With an intimate, 80-person setting, the club was a popular influence in local music and entertainment during the Beat era of the 1950s and '60s. History The Purple Onion originally opened in 1952 under the management of Keith Rockwell. His sister and brother-in-law, Virginia "Ginnie" and Irving "Bud" Steinhoff would frequently work weekends at the club until 1960 when they took over management. Bud Steinhoff managed the Purple Onion until his death in November 1983. Virginia Steinhoff continued to operate the club until 1989. First-wave comedy and performance Notable entertainers who either got their starts or played the California club in the 1950s and 1960s include Bob Newhart, Lenny Bruce, Woody Allen, Alameda housewife Phyllis Diller (making her stand-up debut in 1955), Richard Pryor, Maya Angelou, The Kingston Tr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of California cities by population, fourth most populous in California and List of United States cities by population, 17th most populous in the United States, with 815,201 residents as of 2021. It covers a land area of , at the end of the San Francisco Peninsula, making it the second most densely populated large U.S. city after New York City, and the County statistics of the United States, fifth most densely populated U.S. county, behind only four of the five New York City boroughs. Among the 91 U.S. cities proper with over 250,000 residents, San Francisco was ranked first by per capita income (at $160,749) and sixth by aggregate income as of 2021. Colloquial nicknames for San Francisco include ''SF'', ''San Fran'', ''The '', ''Frisco'', and '' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Phantom Surfers
The Phantom Surfers are a surf rock band formed in 1988. Members Current (latest album) *"Swell" Mel Bergman: guitar *Mike "Mouth" Lucas: bass *Maz "Spazz" Kattuah: guitar *Russell "Junky Johnny" Quan: drums *Johnny "Big Hand" Bartlett: guitar Previous *Johnny "Big Hand" Bartlett: guitar *Mel "Frostbite" Bergman: guitar *Michael "Daddy Love" Lucas: bass *Maz "Tender Pants"/"Good Knievel" Kattuah: drums *Trent Ruane: rhythm guitar and organ on Big-Screen Spectaculars LP *Fred again First *Johnny "Big Hand" Bartlett: guitar *Mel "Frostbite" Bergman: guitar *Michael "Daddy Love" Lucas: bass *Danny Seelig: drums Discography Albums Eighteen Deadly Ones! LP (Norton Records, 1992) #Pleasure Point #20,000 Leagues Under the Surf #San Onofre #Horror Beach #Monster From The Surf #Sewer Peak #Surfin' With The Vy #Legend Of The Phantom Surfer #Wave Hog #Palincar #Sandtrap Stomp #Slots O'Fun #Stiletto #14 Miles To Gotham #Theme From Dead West #Twist Off #Jalama Burger #Banzai Run Pha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zach Galifianakis
Zachary Knight Galifianakis (born October 1, 1969) is an American actor and comedian. He appeared in ''Comedy Central Presents'' special and presented his show ''Late World with Zach'' on VH1. Galifianakis has starred in films including ''The Hangover'' trilogy (2009–2013), ''Due Date'' (2010), '' The Campaign'' (2012), ''Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)'' (2014) and '' Masterminds'' (2016). He has also voiced characters in animated films such as ''Puss in Boots'' (2011), ''The Lego Batman Movie'' (2017), '' Missing Link'' (2019), ''Ron's Gone Wrong'' (2021) and ''The Bob's Burgers Movie'' (2022). Galifianakis currently hosts the Funny or Die website talk show ''Between Two Ferns with Zach Galifianakis''. He starred in the FX series ''Baskets'' and was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series in 2017. Early life Zachary Knight Galifianakis ( el, Ζαχαρίας Γαλυφιανάκης; , ) was born in Wilkesboro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Greg Proops
Gregory Everett "Greg" Proops (born October 3, 1959) is an American actor, stand-up comedian and television host. He is widely known for his guest appearances on the U.K. and U.S. versions of ''Whose Line Is It Anyway?''. He has also voiced the titular character on the U.S. version of ''Bob the Builder''. Early life Proops was born in Phoenix, Arizona, and raised in San Carlos, California, a suburb south of San Francisco, attending San Carlos High School. He attended the College of San Mateo and spearheaded the comedy duo "Proops & Brakeman". Later, he took courses in improvisation and acting at San Francisco State University, though he never finished college. Career Improv comedy After college, he joined an improv group with Mike McShane. Both Proops and McShane impressed producers Dan Patterson and Mark Leveson, who put them on their show, ''Whose Line Is It Anyway?''. He frequently instigated jokes concerning various idiosyncrasies and differences between British English an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mort Sahl
Morton Lyon Sahl (May 11, 1927 – October 26, 2021) was a Canadian-born American comedian, actor, and social satirist, considered the first modern comedian. Sahl pioneered a style of social satire that pokes fun at political and current event topics using improvised monologues and only a newspaper as a prop. Sahl spent his early years in Los Angeles and moved to the San Francisco Bay Area where he made his professional stage debut at the hungry i nightclub in 1953. His popularity grew quickly, and after a year at the club he traveled the country doing shows at established nightclubs, theaters, and college campuses. In 1960 he became the first comedian to have a cover story written about him by ''Time'' magazine. He appeared on various television shows, played a number of film roles, and performed a one-man show on Broadway. Television host Steve Allen said that Sahl was "the only real political philosopher we have in modern comedy". His social satire performances broke new ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
David Owen (author)
David Owen (born February 14, 1955) is an American journalist and author. Education David Owen grew up in Kansas City, Missouri, and graduated from The Pembroke-Country Day School in 1973. He attended Colorado College before transferring to Harvard University, where he was an editor of ''The Harvard Lampoon'', as was his future wife, Ann Hodgman. He graduated from Harvard in 1978 with a degree in English. Journalism Owen has been a staff writer for ''The New Yorker'' since 1991 and a contributing editor of ''Golf Digest'' since 1995; previously he was a contributing editor of ''The Atlantic Monthly'' and a senior writer for ''Harper's Magazine''. For six years he was a regular columnist for ''Home'' magazine. He was also a contributing editor and columnist for ''Spy''. Owen won an Alicia Patterson Journalism Fellowship in 1984 to research and write about standardized testing in the American education system. Personal life Owen lives in Washington, Connecticut with his wife, Ann ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tom Rhodes
Tom Rhodes (born January 14, 1967) is an American comedian, actor, host, and travel writer. When Comedy Central began in the early 1990s, Rhodes became the first comedian spokesperson they signed. Much of his commercial success came during this time. He was later the star of NBC's Mr. Rhodes, Dutch Yorin Television's '' Kevin Masters Show starring Tom Rhodes'' and '' Yorin Travel''. In addition to venues in the United States, Rhodes has also performed in Hong Kong, Tokyo, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, Beijing, Shanghai, Jakarta, Bali, London, Berlin, Munich, Zurich, Lausanne, Vancouver, Stockholm, Sydney, Melbourne, Basel, Geneva, Copenhagen, and Toronto. His podcast ''Tom Rhodes Radio'' often features other comedians or people he meets while traveling. He writes for the ''HuffPost'' destinations section and often documents his travels on his YouTube page. He has released three comedy albums, the most recent being '' Colossus of Me'' in 2012, and two DVDs which feature hi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jim Short (comedian)
Jim Short is a stand-up comedian from San Francisco. Originally from Australia, he moved to Texas in 1979, and over time his faded accent has caused some controversy, which he often jokes about. Jim has made numerous television appearances, including ''Shorties Watchin' Shorties'', ''Late Show with David Letterman'', ''The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson'', ''Late Night with Conan O'Brien'', '' John Wants Answers'', and Comedy Central's ''Premium Blend''. Jim was winner of the 200San Francisco International Stand Up Competition Jim performed at the 2004 Montreal International Just For Laughs Comedy Festival, where he was deemed one of the "Talk of the Fest" performers. Jim tours regularly throughout the United States. His act comprises a mix of personal observations on pop and social culture, world media and history, and television and music references. Jim co-hosted along with Margaret Cho Margaret Moran Cho (born December 5, 1968) is an American comedian, actress, LGB ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paul Krassner
Paul Krassner (April 9, 1932 – July 21, 2019) was an American author, journalist, and comedian. He was the founder, editor, and a frequent contributor to the freethought magazine ''The Realist'', first published in 1958. Krassner became a key figure in the counterculture of the 1960s as a member of Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters and a founding member of the Yippies, a term he is credited with coining. He died on July 21, 2019, in Desert Hot Springs, California. Early life Krassner was a child violin prodigy and was the youngest person ever to play Carnegie Hall, in 1939 at age six. His parents practiced Judaism, but Krassner chose to be firmly secular, considering religion "organized superstition". He majored in journalism at Baruch College (then a branch of the City College of New York) and began performing as a comedian under the name Paul Maul. He recalled: While in college, I started working for an anti-censorship paper, ''The Independent''. After I left college I starte ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robin Williams
Robin McLaurin Williams (July 21, 1951August 11, 2014) was an American actor and comedian. Known for his improvisational skills and the wide variety of characters he created on the spur of the moment and portrayed on film, in dramas and comedies alike, he is regarded as one of the greatest comedians of all time. Williams began performing stand-up comedy in San Francisco and Los Angeles during the mid-1970s, and rose to fame playing the alien Mork in the ABC sitcom ''Mork & Mindy'' (1978–1982). After his first leading film role in ''Popeye'' (1980), he starred in several critically and commercially successful films, including '' The World According to Garp'' (1982), ''Moscow on the Hudson'' (1984), ''Good Morning, Vietnam'' (1987), ''Dead Poets Society'' (1989), ''Awakenings'' (1990), ''The Fisher King'' (1991), '' Patch Adams'' (1998), '' One Hour Photo'' (2002), and ''World's Greatest Dad'' (2009). He also starred in box office successes such as ''Hook'' (1991), '' Aladd ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dan Dion
Daniel James Dion (born December 11, 1970) is an American photographer and comedy producer. He is best known for his location portraiture of comedians, and was the house photographer of the legendary San Francisco venue The Fillmore for twenty years. Early life Dion grew up in Kenwood, California. He attended Santa Clara University, where he was the campus comedy director, producing shows such as The Second City, P. J. O'Rourke, and Greg Proops. Upon graduation, he moved to San Francisco to work for political satirist Will Durst at his comedy club, the Holy City Zoo. Career In 1993 he was an assistant photographer for the San Francisco Giants, and became the house photographer for The Fillmore and The Warfield venues as a staff shooter for Bill Graham Presents. His location portraits of comedians have spawned ongoing exhibitions at Gotham Comedy Club, The Punch Line San Francisco, the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater in Hollywood, as well as an annual show at the Montrea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Guitar Wolf
Guitar Wolf ( Japanese: ギ タ ー ウ ル フ) is a Japanese garage rock power trio founded in Tokyo in 1987. They coined the phrase "jet rock 'n' roll", which they use to describe their musical style. The band is signed to Sony Music Japan's Ki/oon Records division. Guitar Wolf has released thirteen studio albums internationally as well as a live album, numerous singles, and a retrospective compilation called ''Golden Black''. The band members have also been featured in two B-grade science fiction horror films: ''Wild Zero'' and ''Sore Losers''. A collection of Guitar Wolf's most popular videos and live performances have been compiled into a limited-edition DVD titled ''Red Idol''. History Formation Guitarist Seiji was born in Nagasaki Prefecture but moved to nearby Shimane Prefecture while he was still young. Upon graduating high school, he moved to Tokyo, where he became lead vocalist for the band Far East Punch. With a strong desire to play guitar, Seiji dedicated ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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