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[quote=Losfrisco;66006243]Did Bill Burr make it big on the Boston comedy scene?
Or did he have to move to higher tier cities that can actually sustain that kind of career?[/QUOTE]
Orlando Baxter doesn’t have to come home for Comics Come Home — he’s already here
Boston comic Orlando Baxter has more to celebrate this season than most of us. On Wednesday, he was scheduled to return from Zanzibar after a two-week honeymoon. Then he was planning a couple of days of club shows before performing on the biggest stage of his career. On Saturday at TD Garden, he’ll be doing stand-up alongside Pete Davidson, Bill Burr, Lenny Clarke, Alex Edelman, Rachel Feinstein, Robert Kelly, Marc Maron, Tammy Pescatelli, and host Denis Leary at the 27th Comics Come Home, the comedy showcase that benefits the Cam Neely Foundation for cancer care.
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he’s confident he’ll be fine on the Garden stage. He’s been a staple of the Boston scene for nearly 20 years and has performed in theaters as well as clubs. But it’s still hard to extrapolate from those experiences to a Garden crowd.
Every year, Comics Come Home reserves one slot for a comedian still working in Boston. The comics are scouted by Mike Clarke, Lenny’s brother, who once booked the legendary Ding Ho comedy club and currently operates Giggles Comedy Club in Saugus. Leary calls him “the Theo Epstein of Boston comedy,” referencing the former Red Sox general manager who assembled a championship team.
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The local comic spot is something we consider giving back to the Boston comedy scene we have all been so fortunate to start out in,” says Leary by email. “It really harks back to the early days when the big stars of the scene — Lenny Clarke and Steve Sweeney and Don Gavin — gave so many of us the chance to get stage time at their Ding Ho shows. Which were always sold out. And the audience came to see those guys, not us. But Lenny, Steve, and Don were really devoted to helping the new comics get better.”
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After Comics Come Home, Baxter’s schedule doesn’t let up for the rest of the month. On Nov. 11, he’ll co-headline two shows at Giggles with recent “America’s Got Talent” semifinalist Maureen Langan. The following Friday, he’ll premiere the pilot episode of an independent sitcom called “Hollywoo: The Show,” which he co-wrote and stars in with his friend Tommy Jay Dwyer. Conceived during the pandemic when Baxter and Dwyer had lulls in their schedule, “Hollywoo” is a series about a disgraced Hollywood actor who returns home to Worcester facing humbling career prospects.
I’ll play the anecdotal, “I’m from both” card (again) and say that the reactions I get for both outside of North America is similar. As in, people know what these cities are. Chicagos violent reputation permeated internationally years ago. So that’s something people are often aware of. Boston is on the East Coast, and is the nearest city to Europe.
My sense is that Boston probably has a better reputation in parts of Western Europe. I’d bet that Chicago has a better reputation in Eastern Europe. The rest of the world is probably, it’s probably splitting hairs.
I'm not "from" Chicago, but when I travel to places with limited ties to the U.S., the associations tend to come down to sports, representation in TV/Movies, and sometimes an institution or two. New York City and "California" (mostly LA/Hollywood, but also the general idea of California beach culture, images of San Francisco, etc. mixed in) sort of stand on their own. Those two are, in my experience, the places that people in regions of the world without U.S. connections associate with the U.S.
That's part of the reason I think Chicago is closer to Boston. People will recognize both from the success of their sports teams (Cubs/Bulls for Chicago, Sox/Celtics for Boston) and from occasional movie/TV references (of which Chicago probably has more). For Boston, Harvard is right up there with the Celtics/Red Sox when it comes to recognition. We were in East Africa recently and that's the first thing people mentioned when we said "Boston." Some knew the Celtics too. But that was it. And most people told us they wanted to visit NYC and California. I would imagine it's fairly similar for Chicago.
People will recognize both from the success of their sports teams (Cubs/Bulls for Chicago, Sox/Celtics for Boston) and from occasional movie/TV references (of which Chicago probably has more). For Boston, Harvard is right up there with the Celtics/Red Sox when it comes to recognition. We were in East Africa recently and that's the first thing people mentioned when we said "Boston." Some knew the Celtics too. But that was it. And most people told us they wanted to visit NYC and California. I would imagine it's fairly similar for Chicago.
I met people who were Xhosa and Zulu at a gym and at work in South Africa- they're favorite team was the Celtics. One of them had seen Good Will Hunting.
Hainan Airlines is starting BOS - PEK again, for the first tome since 2020. This means Boston will have nonstop flights to China, but Chicago will not.
I met people who were Xhosa and Zulu at a gym and at work in South Africa- they're favorite team was the Celtics. One of them had seen Good Will Hunting.
One thing about Africa is the median age is like 30 so the Jordan Bulls are like ancient history. Same with Family Matters or Sixteen Candles. As a culture the county ent is more in tune for post-2000 stuff since basically everyone is so young
One thing about Africa is the median age is like 30 so the Jordan Bulls are like ancient history. Same with Family Matters or Sixteen Candles. As a culture the county ent is more in tune for post-2000 stuff since basically everyone is so young
You guys are cracking me up. Football, what Americans call soccer, is king. Noone really knows or cares about basketball across the continent. Netball, a kind of basketball without dribbling and played by women is more popular. American football is even less relevant. The success of any US city's basketball team is going to have a very tiny effect on that city's reputation anywhere in Africa- from Cairo to Cape Town. Oprah is and was MUCH more famous than any basketball player or team. So edge Chicago there. LMAO at the basketball references
You guys are cracking me up. Football, what Americans call soccer, is king. Noone really knows or cares about basketball across the continent. Netball, a kind of basketball without dribbling and played by women is more popular. American football is even less relevant. The success of any US city's basketball team is going to have a very tiny effect on that city's reputation anywhere in Africa- from Cairo to Cape Town. Oprah is and was MUCH more famous than any basketball player or team. So edge Chicago there. LMAO at the basketball references
Basketball is big in Asia. Harvards more well known then Oprah
You think people in Africa and Asia know Oprah over harvard ?
You guys are cracking me up. Football, what Americans call soccer, is king. Noone really knows or cares about basketball across the continent. Netball, a kind of basketball without dribbling and played by women is more popular. American football is even less relevant. The success of any US city's basketball team is going to have a very tiny effect on that city's reputation anywhere in Africa- from Cairo to Cape Town. Oprah is and was MUCH more famous than any basketball player or team. So edge Chicago there. LMAO at the basketball references
I was wrong, the median African is 19 years old. They would have been 7 when Oprah went off the air. My guess is she really doesn’t have a huge impact on African perception.
The Advantage the Celtics and Harvard has is they still exist this new generations get exposed to it. If Ellen or Drew Barrymore and Dr Phil and the Kitchen and the rest built up a Daytime talk show industry in then Chicago would be well clear of Boston but that didn’t happen.
And even so if Chicago has the edge that’s fine because it’s not Boston vs Chicago. You think coasting on the 90s bulls and Oprah pulls Chicago closer to New York level?
I was wrong, the median African is 19 years old. They would have been 7 when Oprah went off the air. My guess is she really doesn’t have a huge impact on African perception.
The Advantage the Celtics and Harvard has is they still exist this new generations get exposed to it. If Ellen or Drew Barrymore and Dr Phil and the Kitchen and the rest built up a Daytime talk show industry in then Chicago would be well clear of Boston but that didn’t happen.
And even so if Chicago has the edge that’s fine because it’s not Boston vs Chicago. You think coasting on the 90s bulls and Oprah pulls Chicago closer to New York level?
The 90s Bulls don't still exist, but like the Celtics, the Bulls still exist. I think your point about the more ephemeral nature of some things versus others that are institutions makes sense, but I think putting those two statements together is a bit self-contradicting.
For an American celebrity, Oprah is probably relatively popular in parts of Africa but I reckon a good deal of that probably has to her charitable works in South Africa since she herself hasn't been in the spotlight much in recent years. It's unclear though if she's associated with Chicago all that much.
Probably the most recognizable global brand / figure based in Chicago though is McDonald's. Most people though, especially abroad, probably wouldn't know it's from Chicago. Another one would be, shared with Pittsburgh, Kraft Heinz especially Heinz Ketchup but there's a lot in there since Kraft Heinz includes a lot of fairly famous brands. The related company Mondelez International also based in Chicago also owns a lot of brands. Unrelated and also massive, though less international is ConAgra. On the beverage side, Molson Coors is also headquartered in Chicago. It's really in the food products where Chicago has the most reach, but it's also not something most people would associate with Chicago. It's odd though, because Chicago is often a jack-of-all-trades sort of economy where it does well on multiple fronts, but doesn't seem to have had a singular preeminent industry or sector for a while, but it actually stealthily built that up with food products going from agriculture holdings and processing all the way to consumer facing products.
I reckon most people around the world wouldn't know that Harvard is from the Boston area either. Harvard is a more globally well known school than the also prestigious University of Chicago, but I wonder if more people would know that UofC is in Chicago than people would know Harvard is near Boston simply by dint of the city being in the University of Chicago's name. I think people would know Bulls and Celtics, if they watch basketball, are in the respective city because it's essentially part of the name though probably most of the global audience wouldn't know much about either city.
Last edited by OyCrumbler; 11-12-2023 at 07:45 AM..
The 90s Bulls don't still exist, but like the Celtics, the Bulls still exist. I think your point about the more ephemeral nature of some things versus others that are institutions makes sense, but I think putting those two statements together is a bit self-contradicting.
For an American celebrity, Oprah is probably relatively popular in parts of Africa but I reckon a good deal of that probably has to her charitable works in South Africa since she herself hasn't been in the spotlight much in recent years. It's unclear though if she's associated with Chicago all that much.
Probably the most recognizable global brand / figure based in Chicago though is McDonald's. Most people though, especially abroad, probably wouldn't know it's from Chicago. Another one would be, shared with Pittsburgh, Kraft Heinz especially Heinz Ketchup but there's a lot in there since Kraft Heinz includes a lot of fairly famous brands. The related company Mondelez International also based in Chicago also owns a lot of brands. Unrelated and also massive, though arguably less international is ConAgra. It's really in the food products where Chicago has the most reach, but it's also not something most people would associate with Chicago. It's odd though, because Chicago is often a jack-of-all-trades sort of economy where it does well on multiple fronts, but doesn't seem to have had a singular preeminent industry or sector for a while, but it actually stealthily built that up with food products going from agriculture holdings and processing all the way to consumer facing products.
I reckon most people around the world wouldn't know that Harvard is from the Boston area either. Harvard is a more globally well known school than the also prestigious University of Chicago, but I wonder if more people would know that UofC is in Chicago than people would know Harvard is near Boston simply by dint of the city being in the University of Chicago's name. I think people would know Bulls and Celtics, if they watch basketball, are in the respective city because it's essentially part of the name though probably most of the global audience wouldn't know much about either city.
Idk about that Harvard Square is literally one of the regions biggest tourist attractions.
Universities have massive drop offs. Like in all of Europe, Oxbridge are the only schools with any international reputation. Imperial College for example is pretty much unknown despite being #3.
The difference between the Bulls and the Celtics are like the Patriots and the Cowboys.
One is tied to the league for a long time and has an indelible brand. The other was good for a while on the back of some guy.
I also think that HQs are less important that you think. Especially for non consumer based products that are part of a diversified economy. Because most people aren’t reading the WSJ. Like Unos Pizzeria is HQed in Boston but obviously associated with Chicago. Canadian Chain Boston Pizza is based in Edmonton but associated with Boston. Burger King is based in Toronto now Adams although I think everyone would consider it American. Or yes your average American wasn’t buying steel, but Pittsburgh was the “steel city”.
Chicago like Philly exceeds at very little but lacks very little and I think that hurts their international reputation. You’re right about Food Processing but to Chicagos detriment, those mega brands conceal the fact they are mega brands as much as humanly possible.
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