It's been more than three days since I last plugged the one-Marx show that my friend Frank Ferrante does here, there and all around the nation. (It's actually one impersonated Marx and one long-suffering but very fine piano player named Jim Furmston. That's Jim in the photo, dressed in a rented tuxedo he's had out for 14 years now.) Frank magically transforms himself into the great comedian and tells stories and sings and dances and I've seen him leap over a couch and heckle every single person in the audience before they could heckle him.
Wanna know why I'm always suggesting you go see him? It's because I keep getting these messages from people who did and wrote to thank me for the recommendation. He really does go beyond just doing an impression of Groucho in his prime. I've seen him many times and I always enjoy what I see…and the expressions on the faces of those I drag along.
Seeing him has not been easy, by the way. He tours the U.S., rarely pausing for more than one performance in an area. He is usually not in big cities and my home town of Los Angeles is among the big cities he's not usually in. So I've seen him in Brea and in Redondo Beach and in La Mirada and in Riverside and in Rancho Cucamonga. You've got to really like an act to drive to Riverside or Rancho Cucamonga. If Jerry Garcia were to suddenly turn up alive and he was doing a concert in Riverside, there are Deadheads who would decide it wasn't worth the trip.
Here is his calendar, now extended through the first half of '13. He'll be in Europe for the first two months and then it's Green Valley, Arizona and New Philadelphia, Ohio and Greenville, Kentucky and so on and so on. If one of those venues is near you, go and then write me an e-mail about what a good time you had.
But here's the big news for some of my friends: Frank is going to be in Long Beach, California — not quite a Bataan Death March of a drive for some of us — for an afternoon performance on October 14. It's at the Carpenter Center (as in "Karen and Richard Carpenter") on the C.S.U.L.B. campus, a very nice hall indeed. You can order tickets here. You might want to do that soon because I think I'll be bringing about half the people I know…and I know an awful lot of people.