Here's the Page Six item.
Ye olde wrecking ball, ye know not what ye take...
Liza had her first legal drink at the Tripple. Freddie Prinze started hosting and doing comedy there when he was 16. The Beatles hid out there before their Ed Sullivan appearance. Larry David started there (and then came back with HBO and chickened out and ran before he was supposed to do my show). Rita Rudner & Jeffrey Ross did comedy for the first time there. But really everyone performed there... I couldn't even begin to list all the names. Heck Chairman and CEO of Home Box Office Chris Albrecht and Bob Zmuda performed there. From a google cache I found this:
ALBRECHT: It got 'em rockin'. We, actually, were probably the only act to ever get thrown off stage at the Tripple Inn for obscenity, or as it's called, 'Ye Olde Tripple Inn'.
HIGGINS: Ye Olde Tripple Inn, yes. Oh, I've been there. They don't have comedy there anymore.
ALBRECHT: They don't? Well, there's a reason for it.
(cache here)
But more importantly, for 6 years I produced and hosted a show there. Lewis Black was nice enough to do my first ever Tripple show in 1997. What the Zmuda generation doesn't know is that so many of the young comics who did that little booked show of mine from 1997-2003 (and died a thousand deaths on that little bar stage) are currently Emmy-Award winning TV writers, mega-successful performers and incredible comedians who have gotten better with each year. More importantly, they are my friends. And they always understood that doing a show like the Tripple was better than whoring themselves out to bringer shows at comedy clubs.
Originally the Tripple was slated to close July 1st. So at the end of June I had a huge comedy blowout. I then posted this fabulous original Tripple Elegy that was written and performed by M. Sweeney Lawless. It's so wonderful. So I'm posting it again.
Elegy for Ye Olde Tripple Inn
Followers of my blog know Ye Olde Tripple Inn is being sold to make way for luxury condos. The following was written for and performed on 6/28/05 at my last-ever Tripple Inn comedy show. by the immensley talented (and widely-published) M. Sweeney Lawless.
28 June 2005
Elegy for “Felber’s Frolics” and Ye Olde Tripple Inn
263 West 54th Street New York, New York 10014
by M. Sweeney Lawless
Come, o yellow backhoe
Dig deep the gully along which shall run
The bathwater of bankers
And what becomes of a three-star Michelin dinner.
Here were a thousand comics launched.
(Long live Ye Olde Tripple Inn)
Paxton’s Crystal Palace, Ebbets Field,Live on in endless tribute.
But what will become of the hallowed memory of the place
Where once Liza Minelli and the Beatles and Freddie Prinze
All came – not at the same time, of course – and the drink prices were not unreasonable?
(Long live Ye Olde Tripple Inn)
Arise, o infants of professionals, and howl
Vomit and get out of school
The reek of flop sweat gives way to waft of microwave pizza.
The rows of celebrity photos rolled over by Sherman Williams;
I only hope the construction crews are union.
(Long live Ye Olde Tripple Inn)
Seek, o denizens of New Jersey and Long Island!
Seek, ye folk of Queens, Brooklyn, and the Bronx!
Wander up and down, swear it was here that time you came to the City with your cousin.
Curse the Google search that told you we would still be here.
Damn the Internet, where advice never dies.
(Long live Ye Olde Tripple Inn)
Yankees games on the big screen will give way
To the Yankees games on roughly 40 big screens -- flat screens with High Definition.
But when the men in pinstripes ever score a run,
There will be no back-slapping or clinking of glasses;
Nay, 20 women and 20 men will raise a Lite beer and nod, each in their own blue light.
(Long live Ye Olde Tripple Inn)
Let us all meet here in one year’s time to see the empty lot.
In two years’ time we’ll come to watch the flick, flick, flick of all those TV sets.
Ten years from tonight, let us meet outside the condo at midnight, and before the doorman calls the police who used to come here to throw darts,
We will bow our heads and observe a moment of silence
Marred only by the thought of 40 pairs of Yuppies quietly humping.
(Ye Olde Tripple Inn is dead. Long live Ye Olde Tripple Inn)
Link to her original posting of this here.
Note: M. or Meg, performed at my 2nd-ever show at the Tripple, in January of 1997. The more I read this, the more I love it.
*The Tripple is closing to the public after tonight. Tomorrow they are having a party for friends and then they are auctioning off everything in the joint on Monday.
UPDATE: At lunchtime I went by there for one last burger and learned there's is a website dedicated to the Tripple's demise, put up by a loyal regular. It's called the "Tripple Inn Refugee Internet Portal" or T.R.I.P. for short.
UPDATE 2: For posterity, here's an article about Kid Rock doing my show at the Tripple, just before anyone knew who Kid Rock was. Limp Bizcit was also there and the Atlantic Records musicans were way nicer than this piece lets on. As for all the celebs who came to my show mostly by accident, (other than Penn of Penn & Teller fame, back when I was a sucky comic and a sucky saw player) I am too tired to mention them. Sure, we had celebrities a plenty at that little divey bar, but mainly, I loved the regulars and the tourists and the tourists who were semi-regulars. Our mixed up audience, who happened to wander in to a totally wonderful crazy scene. If you qualify as one of those, I can truly say I adore you.
Update 3: HOW in the world did I miss this gem? Christian Slater Tripple Inn drama from July '05.
