BOOK: I'm Dying Up Here: Heartbreak and High Times in Stand-up Comedy's Golden Era ~ William Knoedelseder
Very compelling read about a scene I knew little about: stand-up comedy in Los Angeles in the 70s, which was fairly insane. This “golden era” ended after the strike against The Comedy Store in 1979, with comedians protesting for compensated performances as opposed to the unpaid “workshop” in which they had been working for years. This book is a solid investigation of the decade from the POVs of the comedians (Letterman, Leno, Richard Lewis, Tom Dressden), the club owners (Mitzi Shore of The Comedy Store, Bud Friedman of the Improv), producers and others in the entertainment business. While it’s a small detail, I also appreciate that I’m Dying Up Here is carefully indexed, something I don’t find often enough in non-fiction books such as this.
