Shut Up! Echo Park loves ‘The Show Won’t Go On’ event featuring comedy podcasters

Rock 'n' roll electrocutions, Siberian nightmares and the most dangerous occupation in show business were the hot topics at Stories Books and Cafe on Sunset Boulevard last night as the hosts of Eagle Rock's popular podcast Shut Up I Love It gave another grilling to the authors of The Show Won't Go On.

Sasha Feiler and Steve Cohen had hosted authors Jeff Abraham and Burt Kearns on Shut Up I Love It last month. On the show in which guests defend unpopular or controversial pop culture figures and works.  Jeff and Burt spoke movingly about their idol Jerry Lewis and his (unfairly, they insisted) maligned film, The Day The Clown Cried.  This time, onstage at the iconic independent bookstore in Echo Park, the topic was the acclaimed new book about "the most shocking, bizaatte and historic deaths of performers onstage.”

It was an informative, often funny show that featured actual fireworks when a colorful, awesome display went off in the sky just a block away from the patio on which rows of theatre-style chairs have been arranged for the book event.

Feiler and Cohen were as witty and charming as they are on their podcast.  Sasha Feiler took the topic to an intimate level when she spoke of growing up in Siberia, and how the death onstage of a Russian movie star had haunted her since childhood and led to a special interest in death and celebrity.

Haunting Sasha

(Following that revelation, Jeff and Burt went to their volumnious archives. "Sasha was most likely talking about  Andrei Mironov," Burt tells us. "He was a movie star who was the leading man in popular Soviet films including The Diamond Arm, Beware of the Car and Twelve Chairs.  He was also a singer, and performed onstage. On August 14, 1987, he was at the Riga Opera Theatre in Latvia, performing the lead role in The Marriage of Figaro, when he collapsed onstage.  He died in a hospital two days later.  He was 46. Cause of death? A cerebral aneurysm. The LA Times reported that 'scores of thousands' of Muscovites turned out for his funeral."

Thanks, Burt -- "Closer to home, the classical pianist Mikhail Klein actually died onstage in Siberia two years ago.  He was performing with the Irkutsk Philharmonic Orchestra in Irkutsk.  I don't want to add to Sasha's trauma, but Klein was playing a jazz number he wrote called 'This Is All Russia' when he slipped from the bench and wound up in a heap at the foot of the grand piano.  Heart failure at 72.”

Musician Andrew Haworth wrote and performs the Shut Up I Love It theme and has a new album, Simple Man

Comedy Store legend Steven Alan Green wrote and starred in I Eat People Like You for Breakfast, a one-man show about his traumatic experience with Jerry Lewis 

Another poignant highlight of the evening was Burt's tribute to Stories Books and Cafe as "one of the last literary temples" in Los Angeles, and to influential author Nick Tosches, who died over the weekend.  Tosches was a friend to the folks who run the literary website, PleaseKillMe.com. Burt and Jeff are frequent contributors to the site, and one of their stories, The Death of Cathy Wayne, an outtake from The Show Won't Go On, was a topic at last night's event.

Burt puts at least one listener to sleep

The group discussion was recorded and may wind up as a bonus episode of Shut Up I Love It. We'll keep you posted on that and the next stop on the roadshow for The Show Won't Go On: the Most Shocking, Bizarre and Historic Deaths of Performers Onstage.

Courtesy: Raquel Queen of Bail

UPDATE: THE STORIES BOOKS DISCUSSION 

IS NOW A SPECIAL BONUS EPISODE

OF SHUT UP I LOVE IT!

(CLICK TO HEAR)

Only in Hollywood: Dearly departed performers from 'The Show Won’t Go On' take center stage at the iconic Dearly Departed Museum

The Dearly Departed Artifact Museum was the liveliest place in Hollywood yesterday afternoon as The Show Won't Go On roadshow made its latest stop on a stage that included remnants of the late Tiny Tim and the cremains of Ken Weatherwax, who portrayed Pugsley on television's The Addams Family.

Hollywood legend Scott Michaels of the Dearly Departed Tours and Museum
introduces the authors of The Show Won’t Go On 

Yes, it was that kind of afternoon in the coolest, most fascinating and most deeply Hollywood museum in the world, let alone that mythological section of Los Angeles.  While movie fans queued across Santa Monica Boulevard for a screening at the Hollywood Forever cemetery, Dearly Departed founder Scott Michaels, an acclaimed pop culture expert and author in his own right, introduced authors Jeff Abraham and Burt Kearns, kicking off a dramatic yet often hilarious discussion of performers who walked onto a stage... and had to be carried off.

Is Jeff breaking into song? No... well, maybe.

Burt makes a point, with Karl Wallenda looking on over his right shoulder.

The Show Won't Go On: The Most Shocking, Bizarre and Historic Deaths of Performers Onstage was published in September by Chicago Review Press.  The book has been praised by the publications as diverse as Vanity Fair, the UK Telegraph, the Daily Mail and Vanish magic magazine  (*****), while Abraham and Kearns have lit up many radio shows and podcasts (including one dedicated to their shared obsession with Jerry Lewis -- more on that later).  

The deadly duo have also led discussions and book signings at various venues in Southern California, including the landmark Book Soup on the Sunset Strip and the horror haven Dark Delicacies in Burbank.

A portion of Ken Weatherwax’s cremains are on respectful display at the Dearly Departed Artifact Museum

But no site was more fitting than the Artifact Museum, ground zero for the very popular Tragical History Tours of Hollywood and beyond, and the Charles Manson-themed Helter Skelter tour (given a great boost by  the popularity of Quentin Tarantino's Oscar-touted Once Upon A Time in... Hollywood, the film on which Michaels was a consultant).  

The museum includes displays that include rare, valuable, and significant memorabilia from Manson victim Sharon Tate, the cremains of Michu, the late "world's smallest man" (which is how he fit into the Alf costume on television) and the car in which fifties sex symbol Jayne Mansfield lost her wig (but not, as legend has it, her head) and her life in 1967.

The book event took place in the museum's front room, with a seating arrangement similar to that of wake, with Abraham and Kearns placed in the spot where a casket might be placed, flanked by a display of Tiny Tim (who died after an onstage tumble in 1996) and a framed photo and autograph of circus legend Karl Wallenda  (who famously said "To be on the wire is life," and found that to fall from the wire into a parking lot is death).

 

Wayne Federman, who will be starring in the final season of Silicon Velley on HBO.

Celebrities in the crowd included popular comedian, actor and podcaster Wayne Federman and the entrepreneur, writer and most significantly, bondswoman known and treasured by Hollywood's finest as "Raquel, Queen of Bail.” 

To the left of the photo of Scott Michaels with Burt & Jeff's pal Bruce Vilanch is a shot of Scott with Jack Russell, 
whose tragic gig with his Great White band at The Station nightclub in Rhode Island is featured in The Show Won't Go On.

The Show Won't  Go On  book tour rolls on this week with a special appearance at the Stories Books and Cafe in Echo Park.  This discussion promises morbid fun, as it will be hosted and moderated by comedy hotshots Sasha Feiler and Steve Cohen, cohosts of the popular Shut Up I Love It podcast (the  one that featured the instantly-historic episode on which Jeff and Burt defended Jerry Lewis and his maligned yet unseen film, The Day The Clown Cried).

Next stop... Tuesday

Acclaimed photographer Donato Di Camillo opens first solo exhibit October 29 in Brooklyn courthouse

The acclaimed photographer Donato Di Camillo is presenting his first solo exhibit, somewhat fittingly, in a federal courthouse.

Di Camillo, who famously went from a prison term to acclaim as one of New York City’s top street photographers, is now considered one of the finest documentary photographers in the country.  His very first solo show opens on October 29 at the United States District Court on Cadman Plaza in Brooklyn.

The exhibit in the Hon. Charles P. Sifton Gallery will take place in the same building in which Di Camillo was indicted many years ago for crime family-related activities. He was invited back by United States Magistrate Judge Robert M. Levy, who considers Donato Di Camillo to be one of the justice system's greatest success stories. Di Camillo learned photography during his prison stay.

Find out more about Donato Di Camillo here, and find another reason to visit a courthouse by his photo exhibit.

Authors Abraham & Kearns’ 'Show Won’t Go On' roadshow rolls into Hollywood & Echo Park October 19 & 22

The show is most definitely going on in Los Angeles later this week for the pair Vanity Fair has called  “show business and pop culture savants.”  Jeff Abraham and Burt Kearns, authors of The Show Won’t Go On, will be out and about in Los Angeles for more unpredictable, informative and often hilarious discussions and signings of the book about “The Most Shocking, Bizarre and Historic Deaths of Performers Onstage.”

The pair takes their show to the Dearly Departed Artifact Museum in Hollywood on Saturday afternoon, October 19 at five p.m.  Museum founder Scott Michaels, an author and celebrity in his own right, will host the event amid a unique collection of celebrity death memorabilia, from “The Jayne Mansfield Death Car” to the cremated remains of Michu, the little star of Big Top Pee Wee and Alf.  Michaels is best known as for his Dearly Departed Tours, which offer essential tragical history tours of Hollywod from star's homes to death sites.  

On Tuesday, October 22 at 8 p.m., Abraham and Kearns will meet the crowd at Stories Books and Cafe in Echo Park. The event at the book lovers’ oasis and literary hotspot will be hosted and moderated by the podcast stars of Eagle Rock.  Improv performer and comedy writer Sasha Feiler and comedian Steven Cohen host the popular Shut Up I Love It podcast.  Abraham and Kearns were guests on the show in September, defending their hero, Jerry Lewis, and his unseen yet often-maligned film, The Day The Clown Cried.

Cohen & Feiler of Shut Up I Love It

The Show Won't Go On, published by Chicago Review Press, has received great acclaim from the likes of Vanity Fair, the UK Telegraph and Daily Mail, National Public Radio — and Gilbert Gottfried.  The book, audiobook and ebook are all available at bookstores, Amazon and other online bookstores -- and through the website, TheShowWontGoOn.com.

Watch this space for the latest on events by The Show Won’t Go On team.

JEFF ABRAHAM AND BURT KEARNS, authors of The Show Won't Go On: The Most Shocking, Bizarre, and Historic Deaths of Performers Onstage:

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 19 at 5 pm:  DEARLY DEPARTED ARTIFACT MUSEUM, 5901 Santa Monica Blvd, HOLLYWOOD

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 22 at 8 pm: STORIES BOOKS & CAFE, 1716 Sunset Blvd,  ECHO PARK 

Rock ’n’ roll legend Willie Nile gives a shout-out to 'The Show Won’t Go On’! (video)

Willie Nile is a self-proclaimed soldier with a guitar, a critically-acclaimed singer-songwriter and a bonafide rock ’n roll legend.  So it was a thrill when he gave a shout-out onstage last night to Burt Kearns and Jeff Abraham’s new book, The Show Won’t Go On: The Most Shocking, Bizarre, and Historic Deaths of Performers Onstage.

“You're not in it!” someone in the crowd shouted out.

“Not yet, I’m not,” Willie replied. “Wait, the night is young! I could be in it by the end of the night. And there would be worse places to go!"

Coincidentally or not, Willie Nile has recorded a version of Jim Carroll’s People Who Died.  It’s a highlight of his high-energy rock 'n' roll set.

Bassist Johnny Pisano is a star in his own right with his Punk Pizzeria

Burt’s sister Anne Fers is friends with Willie and his band. She got Burt and Jeff to send personalized copies of the book to Willie and bass player Johnny Pisano. So they’ve both got some reading to do!

Click here for Willie Nile’s website and his tour schedule.

Wilie Nile is a man who’s lived onstage for decades.  Here's hoping his show goes on for a long... long... time!

The New York Post recommends ‘The Show Won’t Go On’!

Subway riders, other commuters, and executives getting ready for the day got a special recommendation to go with their bagels, coffees and Trump news this morning from New York City’s venerable tabloid,  the New York Post: The Show Won’t Go On!

The book about The Most Shocking, Bizarre, and Historic Deaths of Performers Onstage has been doing gangbusters wherever books are sold, as authors Jeff Abraham and Burt Kearns sweep the nation via exclusive radio interviews, sweep the worldwide web as top podcast guests, and are sweeping rave reviews in an ever-increasing number of rave reviews and laudable articles.