COMEDY WEDDING

Published by Rick on Tagged Uncategorized

Comedy Day in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco has been a summer tradition since 1981, founded by the late Jose Simon, who was a fixture on the SF comedy scene for at least a decade before. Always held on a Sunday, there would usually be around 25-30 comics performing, all gratis, and frequently a star, usually Robin Williams, would close the festivities. By the mid-80s it was drawing audiences of several thousand, and was moved to a larger field near the ocean. I know Rick & Ruby performed, probably at the 1981 debut, when it was held at an outdoor bandshell. I don’t remember the first time I did it solo, but it wasn’t too long after I began my solo career, and though I lived in LA, I frequently came up to piggy back it with paid gigs.

I was also, whenever I came up there, in the house band (The Stupeds) that would play the comedians on and off, and we got very creative with our music choices, but eventually, it got to where we would ask the comics if they had a song preference. Anyway, in 1989, I was on the phone with the band’s lead guitarist, whose sister was getting married and the band was going to play at the wedding, the day before Comedy Day. I remarked how we had done the same thing in the previous year, i.e. a wedding the day before Comedy Day. He said, “Yeah, maybe you and Lisa could get married at Comedy Day.” Lisa Gold would eventually become Wife Number Two as a result of that suggestion. When she got home, I related the guitar player’s idea, and she said, “Oh is this a proposal?” I said “Yes I guess it is.” She did accept my proposal, and that part was done.

Since the wedding at Comedy Day was going to be a bit of a joke ceremony, we had a real ceremony on July 1, 1990 in Park La Brea, a large LA apartment complex with eighteen 13-story towers and 31 two-story buildings arranged in circles around large grassy areas. It was in one of those grassy areas that we had our real ceremony. About 100 people were there and the temperature was also about 100, a degree for each guest. That went well, we had a quick honeymoon at Catalina Island on July 4, and then it was time to prepare for Wedding #2, which took place exactly 36 years ago today.

We managed to get some interest from the local media in this undertaking, as our wedding would be kicking off the entire day’s activities. The San Francisco Chronicle ran an article with our picture in its Sunday edition the day of the actual event, with a headline that read “11th Comedy Day Goes Off With a Hitch.” The picture they published came out rather blurry to where Lisa remarked that she looked like the Shroud of Turin. We had also arranged for the ceremony to be done by a friend Ed Holmes, who was a member of the SF comedy theatre troupe I Frattelli Bologna. Holmes was an ordained minister, and took the name Bishop Joey of the Church of St. Stupid. For what we were doing, he seemed the best choice, though it wasn’t until at least a year later that I got the significance of his name Bishop Joey, that it was a play on the name of the veteran comedian Joey Bishop. Sometimes I can be a little slow.

My parents and my brother were also in the onstage party, as well as Lisa’s dad and stepmom, and my former stage partner Ruby. Lisa’s dad was in show biz, so he relished the idea of taking the microphone in front of the several thousand spectators to “give the bride away.” And what more appropriate line could he deliver than “Take my daughter… PLEASE!” I also sang the 1959 Lloyd Price hit “I’m Gonna Get Married” with full backing from The Stupeds.

It went off without a hitch, despite the Chronicle’s headline and the absurdity of the actual ceremony. The audience seemed to appreciate it from what I could tell. In Comedy Day lore (and Comedy Day continues to this day, though it’s held in September instead of mid-summer), I became a trivia question of “Who got married at Comedy Day, 1990?” It was a few years later moved to a smaller area more inland, and that area was christened the Robin Williams Meadow after his death. I was last there in the early 2010s, but only played with The Stupeds, with my last standup appearance there being in the mid-90s.

I wish I could say Lisa and I lived happily ever after, but we split in 1999. I jokingly said to her in the middle of the tragedy that usually accompanies divorce, “Why don’t we get divorced at Comedy Day?” That might have been worse if she had said yes.

July 29th, 2026



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