Spoiler Alert: They don't make Brown look good.

Hot on the heels of Stephen Colbert's Tuesday night bit on Missouri's destined-to-fail "Don't Say Gay" bill, Jon Stewart sent Aasif Mandvi to the Missouri House to speak with Rep. Wanda Brown (R) for a bit that ran last night. The topic? Civil rights, namely Brown's law protecting gun owners from ever being fired from their job for owning guns. As noted earlier this week, our legislature may not always accomplish much but they sure do entertain the rest of the country.

Video after the jump.
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As we reported last week, the "Don't Say Gay Bill" -- proposed by Missouri House Republicans and designed to severely restrict discussion of homosexuality in public schools -- is still in committee. No hearing has been scheduled. It has zero chance of passing anyway. But our lawmakers have achieved at least one thing: They've rendered our state a national laughingstock:

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St. Louis native Kathleen Madigan

Kathleen Madigan -- native St. Louisan, former Houlihan's server and now one of the most successful comics in the country  --  recently reflected on her home state in an interview with Boston Magazine:

Ninety percent of us in the Midwest don't come from someplace "cool" that we feel attached to, so we don't have an attitude about it. We don't have that kind of crazy state pride like, there was this guy in Texas who right before he was executed, yelled "Go, Cowboys!" There's no way that anybody from St. Louis, right before you kill him, is going to yell "Go, Rams!" It's just not going to happen.

Correct. "Go Cards!" -- maybe.

By the way, to all you comedy nerds trying to revitalize the St. Louis standup scene by hosting open-mics in weird venues: Have you pulled it off at Taco Bell yet?
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Photo by Nicholas Phillips

Erik Anker (left) with his trophy (right)

The room was packed to the gills and the competition fierce, but on Sunday night we crowned a champion in our inaugural RFT Standup Throwdown: Mr. Erik Anker!

The sold-out crowd at The Maryland House and our two celebrity judges -- KMOV Channel 4 news anchor John Knicely and Sixth Ward Alderwoman, Kacie Starr Triplett -- all put in votes in the final round that handed Anker a 2-1 victory over funnyman Kenny Kinds.

"I've lost more contests than I've won," noted Anker, who was disgustingly humble about the whole thing. "But I couldn't have had a better time."
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​Update: These were some very tight races, but at last, we have our Final Four. Congrats to Kenny Kinds, Kris Wernowsky, Shaun Arredondo and Erik Anker!

We hope to see the rest of you, and the voting public, at Brennan's on April Fool's Day for the Final Four show!  Details to come.

Original Post: You, dear readers, locked in your votes last week to choose the "elite eight" aspiring standup comics in our Standup Throwdown contest.

But who among them will advance to the Final Four, and thus, perform live at Brennan's on April 1st? Only your votes will decide.

Voting will be open until 5 p.m. on Thursday. Vote now!

By the way, to level the playing field, we asked them this question: "What's mind-blowing about you?" Here's what they said.

Erik Anker v. Zack Stovall

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​Update: Congratulations to Ryan Haynes, Shaun Arredondo, Kenny Kinds, Jr Moore, Erik Anker, Kevin White, Zack Stovall and Kris Wernowsky for making the elite eight.

Thanks also to everybody else for entering, and all you readers for voting!

Original Post: It takes an extraordinary set of balls - metaphorically speaking - to even attempt standup comedy.

Normal folks balk at slicing open their heads and hearts to let strangers decide if they like what's inside.  But dozens of St. Louisans climb up on stage to try to get laughs, almost every night of the week, at open-mic events around town. These "open-micers" think they're funny - do you?

Here begins our first-ever RFT Standup Throwdown. Sixteen aspiring comics will battle it out on this blog, March-Madness style, over the next two weeks (see bracket here). And YOU, dear readers, will be the judge of who's funniest. The final four will perform at a special live RFT show on April Fool's Day, where we crown the champion (details to come).

So without further ado, onto round one! We asked all sixteen contestants to finish the thought, "Here's what's funny about St. Louis...." This is what they said:
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Sean O'Brien is, in some ways, the clown ambassador for St. Louis

​Comic Sean O'Brien is a big, burly, fast-talking loudmouth -- and he must be, for in his post as emcee at The Funnbyone in Westport, he's the cheerleader, clown ambassador and authority figure for the club, and in a sense, for the entire local scene. We caught up with him last week.

Daily RFT: One of your tasks as emcee is to chauffeur around celebrity standups when they come into town.  Got any good stories?

Sean O'Brien: I always tell people this one. I don't know how well you know Norm Macdonald. But whatever protocol is, he goes against that. 

So we're at KTVI Fox 2. It's Friday morning.  There was this bubbly kid - I think it was Tim Ezell. And this was live.

So this kid's like, 'So Norm, how's Los Angeles?'
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Standup Marc Maron

​For comedy nerds, standup Marc Maron needs no introduction; for the rest of you, he's one of the artform's leading intellectuals, a "Dostevskyan cut-up" (writes James Wolcott), who is "angry, probing, neurotic and a vulnerable recovering addict" (says the New York Times).

But most importantly for our purposes here, he's a parable of DIY success: With few prospects in 2009, he launched a podcast called WTF, done mostly out of his garage. Now, more than 200 interviews later, it's become "the definitive comedy podcast of record," (quoth Ira Glass) and resurrected his career.

So it seemed like a fairly big deal yesterday, when Maron called out a St. Louis comic, Rob Durham, who recently wrote a how-to book on how to break into standup the traditional way:

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Photo by George Rodriguez

Standup Jeremy Essig is recording his fourth CD this weekend at Brennan's

​Standup Jeremy Essig put in seven years as a road comic, recorded three CDs and has opened for the likes of Zach Galifianakis and Jeffrey Ross.

By  2009, he was sick of it. All of it. 

So he enrolled in journalism school at Mizzou. He also landed a political reporting gig in Jefferson City.

But soon, cult-favorite standup Brian Posehn asked Essig to tour for a bit. So he did a couple shows, got slightly high with some audience members, ate a burrito, and realized he never should've left. 

Once described as a purveyor of intelligent cynicism, Essig is somehow both cerebral and emotive. He's candid about his inner feelings, not to mention politics: he once ignited a gig-ending shouting match after cracking wise about President George W. Bush's invasion of Iraq.)

Essig is recording his fourth comedy CD this weekend at Brennan's.

How would you sum up your gig as a statehouse reporter in Jefferson City?
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New book by Rob Durham, St. Louis comic guru

​Rob Durham teaches. Both by nature and he literally substitute teaches in the Clayton and Rockwood school districts.

In addition, he's been trying to school newbie comics as of late on how not to humiliate themselves. (And yes, he's also trying to make fat coin by selling a book, "Don't Wear Shorts on Stage.")

Durham has definitely earned the right to offer advice: A ten-year veteran of the industry, he spent two years as a club doorman, put in lots of road time, and has emceed and featured for big headliners such as Bob Saget and Maria Bamford.

He's opening for Dan Cummins at the Funnybone tonight through Saturday, and for Jimmy Pardo at Soulard Preservation Hall on March 16.

Daily RFT: So. Whence this book?
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