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This week The Business is bursting, BURSTING I say, at it's imaginary seams with extra special guests from both "here" AND "there." Along with all the usual, adorable Businessmen (Bucky, Alex, Chris and Sean), check out who we got spitting hot comedy for you this week: W. Kamau Bell is no stranger to The Business by any means (necessary). This visit to our humble show he is hot o ff performing two nights in Oakland with his come ... dy compatriots that comprise Lau ght er Against The Machine, a powerhouse of intelligent and challenging socio-political comed y that is also FUNNY AS HELL. Matt R u by is a funny fellow fr om New York City. He performs hilarious stand-up comedy and writes about hi larious stand-up comedy on his blog Sandpaper Suit. He is also a show producer, a contributor to MTV, a maker of award-wining videos and a veteran of many stages and festivals. Dan Good man is a comedia n and show producer also from New York, not a loc...

BAP! BAP! BAP! Give it up! One Love for The Business this week as we welcome our two over-achieving guests Grant Lyon and Travis Irvine to the room so dark, they named it the Dark Room. SHABA! Grant Lyon gives it up all over this great land of ours, performing comedy with a hustle most other comedians could learn a few things from. He is a veteran of multiple clubs and festivals and has been a featured writer on the Huffington ...Post. Perhaps his drive comes from his collegiate soccer past? More likely it's because he is a solid stand-up comedian, sketch performer, writer and improviser with the common sense to make sure everyone everywhere knows it. Among other things, Travis Irvine has worked for Senator Charles Schumer, for entrepreneur and question mark enthusiast Matthew Lesko, been an instructor at The New York Film Academy in New York City, he ran for mayor of his hometown in Ohio in 2007, and last year ran for Ohio’s 12th Congressional District seat as a third party candid...

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo proposed a state budget yesterday, in an attempt to close a $10 billion budget gap. While the Governor decided to end the state income tax surcharge on the rich (taxpayers with incomes over $250,000), his budget imposes draconian cuts on the poor, through massive reductions in Medicaid and in state support for low-income school districts. But, despite his "no new taxes" pledge, the governor did manage to find a target from which to extract a little more revenue -- horse owners. Cuomo's budget (see pp. 70-72) proposes a 2.75% "fee" on gross purses earned at the track, with the money (some $3 million by my calculation, just from NYRA tracks; $7.6 million overall) earmarked for the support of the state Racing and Wagering Board. The Racing Board, which also charges licensing fees to everyone in the industry, reportedly has only a $2 million annual deficit , so it's not quite clear where the extra money will go. While Wall Street...

The Business kicks off the month of February by welcoming back comedian Andy Haynes! Andy has appeared on "Late Night With Jimmy Fallon," and at the Montreal Comedy Festival. He's also done two killer appearances on The Business in the past, and this week he returns to kill again. We've also got your usual Businessmen - Chris, Alex, Bucky, and Sean - and if Bucky sees his shadow, we'll have six more weeks of hilarity. I'm not saying you'll have to relive this day over and over again until you wise up and attend this show, but it certainly wouldn't hurt. Just ask Ned Ryerson. You know, Needle-Nose Ned? Ned the Head? 8 PM, five bucks, BYO-Taco.

Community radio in the U.S. received a large boost in January when President Obama signed a billed that will permit establishment of an estimated 800 to 1200 new local community radio stations About 800 of the non-commercial community stations are already operating and providing music, health, education, and local information, news, and sports. The stations are run by community organizations, churches, and other civic groups, typically staffed by volunteers, and dependent upon donations from organizations and listeners. Community radio operations tend to provide information about community and civic organizations that are overlooked by commercial broadcasting, focus on social issues in communities, and provide services to minority, ethic and immigrant groups. Programming on community radio is distinctively different from commercial radio and tends to be more local than, and providing alternative content to, that of public radio stations. The stations operate on low power,...

This week The Business releases regular Businessmen Alex Koll and Chris Garcia to other comedy duties, and welcomes three special comedy guests in their place: Mary Van Note, Andy Wood and Zach Coulter! Mary Van Note is no stranger to The Business, and she should not be to you either. She has stormed the city, the nation and the internet with her charmingly awkward and sexually blunt stand-up. She has her own web-series on IFC....com, and she is the owner of an impeccable sense of fashion: http://maryvannote.com/blog/ ...and that's just the tip of the Van Iceberg. Catch her prior to her SF Sketchfest show over the coming weekend. Andy Wood is truly Portland's Finest. As a comedian he has performed with the best around, including at the Bumbershoot Festival in Seattle and the legendary Bentzen Ball in D.C. As a producer and founder of The Bridgetown Comedy Festival, he has brought the best around to Portland for one of the best and well stocked comedy festivals in our modern wor...

UPDATE: When racing resumed today, after a snow day, the rails to the outer track remained closed while horse were on the inner track. Gotta give credit to NYRA for moving quickly once the problem was pointed out to them. With apologies to Bob: Yes, ’n’ how many deaths will it take till he knows That too many horses have died? The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind The answer is blowin’ in the wind Bob Dylan, Blowin’ in the Wind, from The Freewheeling Bob Dylan, Copyright © 1962 by Warner Bros. Inc.; renewed 1990 by Special Rider Music One unnecessary death of a thoroughbred is one too many. Yesterday at Aqueduct there was almost another one. Luckily, and no thanks to NYRA, the horse escaped injury. Since it was my – and my partners in Castle Village Farm’s – horse, I guess I take it personally. Here’s what happened. Our horse, Iguazu, was entered in Aqueduct’s 3 rd race, a $35,000 maiden claiming sprint on the Aqueduct inner track. Iguazu, a four-year-old by Smoke Gla...