11,832 stories by "Trav S.D."
Filed under: Comedy, Contemporary Variety, PLUGS, Stand Up
I have been remiss in not informing you about a project I think my readers will find very important. My friend Kevin Fitzpatrick, founder of Marxfest and the Dorothy Parker Society, has star…
We would certainly be remiss if we didn’t lay down a few words in honor of the late Mary Tyler Moore. As I tweeted yesterday, she influenced many of us not just as a comedienne but as …
Today is the birthday of Geoffrey Kerr (1895-1971). Kerr was the son of character actor Frederick Kerr, best known perhaps today for playing Frankenstein’s father in the 1931 film. …
Trump’s Executive Orders authorizing a travel ban on Muslims from certain countries and initiating the building of the wall on the Mexican border, prompted an emergency rally at Washin…
Filed under: Burlesk, Contemporary Variety, PLUGS Tagged: Cardone, Church of Satan, Nude Witch Revue, Slipper Room
This new series of posts came out of the realization that I have relatives and roots in all 50 U.S. states. My ancestors lived in 14 of them (all on the eastern seaboard or adjacent), and I …
Filed under: Comedy, Italian, PLUGS, Women Tagged: Cutting Room, Danny Aiello, The Italian Chicks
Originally posted on Chaplin-Keaton-Lloyd film locations (and more): Looking south, the recently demolished Vitaphone Studios (yellow outline) in relation to many of Roscoe’s filming s…
Today is the birthday of Mary Mulhern (1908-1925). Originally from Newark, NJ, Mulhern was the daughter of Irish immigrants, her father a traveling salesman. When she was only 17 years ol…
My experience of the Women’s March in NYC was both unremarkable (i.e., “not unique to me”) and completely remarkable (i.e., “I’ve never experienced anything lik…
Today is the 100th anniversary of the release date of one of Charlie Chaplin’s best known and best loved comedy shorts Easy Street (1917). Easy Street was made and released at…
Today is the birthday of Samuel Spencer “Samri” Baldwin (1848-1924) . Originally from Cincinnati, Baldwin became inspired to become a magician by studying the Davenport Brothers,…
Travalanche was dark yesterday in observance of the National Tragedy. Rather than rubberneck at the slow motion car wreck in Washington we opted to go to our nearby Brooklyn Museum, where th…
Just hitting the stands now in the Villager/ Downtown Express/ Chelsea Now, my feature on AdA: Author Directing Author, opening at La Mama later this week. Read the article here.  For …
I am a big fan of witty illustrator R. Sikorak, who is especially adept at aping the styles of classic era comic books. Tomorrow night from 6 to 8pm he will be one of the thousands providing…
Today is the last day in office of the best President I will probably ever see in my lifetime — certainly the finest man to serve as President. The Right has a weird tendency to speak …
Filed under: BROOKLYN, Contemporary Variety, Music, PLUGS Tagged: Barbes, Charming Disaster, Curtis Eller
Filed under: BROOKLYN, Burlesk, Contemporary Variety, PLUGS, SOCIAL EVENTS Tagged: Freddy's Brooklyn, Nasty Women and Bad Hombres, Planned Parenthood
Today is the birthday of Providence poet, essayist, Transcendentalist and Spiritualist Sarah Helen Whitman (nee Power, 1803-1875). I first learned about this fascinating person from our frie…
Tomorrow at 7:30am (EST), Turner Classic Movies will show the Wheeler and Woolsey comedy Cockeyed Cavaliers (1934), directed by Mark Sandrich. This is rated one of the team’…
Today is the birthday of Daniel Webster (1782-1852), statesman, constitutional lawyer, Congressman, Senator, leading figure of the Whig Party, Secretary of State, and three time Presi…
Today is the birthday of Margaret Irving (1898-1988). Those Baby Boomers who remember Irving as an old lady on television will be astonished to know that she started out as a Broadway Beauty…
Today is the birthday of Olga Isabella Nethersole (1867-1951). The daughter of a London solicitor, Nethersole arrived on the professional stage in the English provinces in 1887, making her W…
Three cheers for Winnie Lightner: Tomboy of the Talkies, historian David Lightner’s new book about the stage and screen star who bears his name (if not his genes). As David put us righ…
