Lisick and Jepsen bring Bay Area sketch comedy to Sin City
December 11th, 2008
We don't know what to think, either.
San Francisco writers Beth Lisick and Tara Jepsen have been performing together on and off since both appearing on the 1999 Sister Spit tour. This weekend, they’re unveiling their comedic alter egos in Las Vegas once again with a sketch-comedy show called “Getting on the Ground Floor and Staying There” at Beauty Bar (517 Fremont St.) tomorrow night, Dec. 12, at 7 p.m. In case you’ve been living under a culture-less rock and aren’t aware of these two incredible authors, here’s the righteous skinny:
Lisick has penned two critically acclaimed popular alt-memoirs — Everyone into the Pool: True Tales and Helping Me Help Myself: One Skeptic, Ten Self-help Gurus, and a Year on the Brink of the Comfort Zone. She also spent eight years writing a nightlife column called “Buzz Town” for the San Francisco Chronicle and co-founded the Porchlight Storytelling Series (which has featured Las Vegas’ own spoken-word maestro and NPR commentator Dayvid Figler).
Jepsen, on the other hand, orchestrates the queer slam-poetry night, “K’vetch,” and helped create one of the more notorious rock bands in S.F. called Lesbians. Her work has been published in landmark anthologies such as Pills, Thrills, Chills and Heartache and It’s So You.
VEGASinsight had a chance to speak with Lisick recently, to get the lowdown on what we can expect from her and Jepsen’s Las Vegas appearance.
VEGASinsight: So what’s “Getting on the Ground Floor and Staying There” all about anyway?
Beth Lisick: The show is a tribute that Tara [Jepsen] and I are throwing for ourselves after working together for 10 years. Carole and Mitzi are lady comediennes who never quite get around to telling their jokes, because they’re easily sidetracked about topics such as what defines one as a lesbian, and how much their tub of pancake mix is going to cost them, and how dirty the steam room at the gay men’s bath house was the other night. They are the janitors there on the night shift, you see.
VI: Wow.
BL: Oh, we’ll also present Cricket and Jinx, two ladies well past 40 who are obsessed with being “rock ’n’ roll” and “edgy.” And also Don and Phil, a couple of gay silver foxes who have been together for more than 30 years and like to kindly educate their audience about art and architecture.
VI: Isn’t there a movie component? We heard there was a film of Tara’s and yours to be screened.
BL: Yes, we will also show our short film Diving for Pearls, which played gay film fests internationally. [Note: Lisick doesn’t like to brag. The film won the “Most Innovative Short” award at the Seattle Lesbian and Gay Film Festival in 2005 and was selected for the “Best of Newfest” screening at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.]
VI: You’ve been a comedian for 10 years! What does comedy mean to you?
BL: Well, I don’t consider myself a true comedian, though my character Carole Murphy is certainly one.
VI: So I guess you could say you only play a comedian onstage. Does comedy scratch a different itch for you than the one you scratch with the Porchlight series?
BL: Porchlight is a storytelling series that I curate, but don’t perform at. I just emcee the event with my partner Arline Klatte.
VI: You’ve done everything in Vegas — poetry readings, book festival appearances, dressed up like a banana for promotions, performed music — except for one thing: You’ve never worked in a casino. When can we expect that to happen?
BL: We will work in a casino this weekend if anyone wants to hire us!
But it’s the mind-blowing drinks themselves that will impress even the most been-there-done-that tiki enthusiast. Every drink is 8 bucks — unless you opt for a $20 souvenir mug, each of which is beautiful. And each drink listed on the menu has a skull rating, letting you how much power (or much of a hangover) you’re getting.