It's (The Funnier) George Wallace

Comedian George Wallace first came to national notice in the early '70s when the other George Wallace was governor of Alabama and a presidential candidate. The immediate gag was that George Wallace the politician was white and a known segregationist and George Wallace (his real name) the comedian is black.

One would have thought the comic's career would crash when the candidate was literally shot down. It didn't happen that way. The gov survived and the comic got bigger. This year, George Wallace the funny man won the award for "Best Male Stand-up Comedian" on the American Comedy Awards. It was his fourth time nominated and a deserved win.

Wallace will be at the Showbox tonight through Sunday doing what he does: making wry observations and telling tales. He isn't the conventional setup and punch line comic; he prefers to play the audience, letting it lead him. He also does a pretty clean show. He's been on countless television programs, appeared in movies and plays, and does about 300 club dates a year. He's also pitching his own TV pilots. He considers Jerry Seinfeld his best friend, but would still try to kick the TV star's butt if they landed in the same time slot.

Wallace thinks your work should be your hobby, that it should be fun. His is for him and it's infectious.

-- Texas comes to the Backstage Tuesday and Wednesday courtesy of singer-songwriter Tish Hinojosa's Border Tour, which also features fellow Tex-olians Don Walser, Butch Hancock and Santiago Jimenez Jr.

Tonight the 'stage has Apollo Creed, tomorrow Des'ree (sold out), whose "You Gotta Be" has been on Billboard's Hot 100 singles chart for 30 weeks and is still in the Top Ten, and Sunday the Courage Brothers courtesy of the Mountain for a mere $1.37 advance, $2 at the door.

-- At the Tractor Tavern, the annual B.B. Awards for blues music will be presented 7 to 9 p.m. Sunday. Tom McFarland and Little Bill and the Bluenotes will play.

-- No, the band Bettie Serveert is not named after a band member. It actually means "Betty Serves," the title of a tennis instruction book, and Bettie Serveert is the biggest thing out of Holland since the bullet hit the bone of the Dutch band Golden Earring. The folks in Serveert fail to see the connection, other than national, as Bettie Serveert makes different music, sometimes spare, sometimes languid, sometimes loose and most often effervescent; it's rock that wears well. The new release, "Lamprey," named after a kind of eel-shaped fish, is a well-rounded collection of the band's preferences, none of which have anything to do with "Radar Love." Bettie Serveert is at the Moe tomorrow night.

Moe has a series of interesting shows coming up. Tonight, it's Best Kissers in the World; Tuesday, the Moe B Movie Series continues with "Psycho Circus A Go-Go" along with Salon Betty; Wednesday, it's Simian Bonney, a former Australian punker (Crime & The City Solution) who now plays highly Americanized folk rock; and Thursday, Moe gets Moist, the band not the condition.

-- Where has chanteuse Nora Michaels been of late? Portland, where else? However she triumphantly returns to Seattle tonight and tomorrow lead-vocalizing for the Jim Mesi Band at Larry's. With her from New Jersey will be special pal, R&B singer Paul Whistler. Welcome back, Nora.

-- Dr. John - the night tripper, the high priest of gris gris, brain salad surgeon and swamp boogie piano man extraordinaire - returns Tuesday to Jazz Alley for six days. If you've never seen the Doctor, your life is in danger. Go.

-- And another cantankerous piano man, Commander Cody, with his Lost Planet Airmen, is at the Detour Tavern in Renton Sunday.

-- Guitarist and painter Paul Speers has an exhibition of some of his paintings at the Summer Song Gallery, 600 19th Ave. E. Speer will perform at the gallery at 8 tomorrow night, playing songs from his aptly titled album "Music + Art."

-- Comedians Chris and Amy Alpine, husband and wife, will do a "Battle of the Sexes Comedy Show" at the Comedy Underground at 8:30 p.m. Sunday. Audience members are encouraged to participate in the proceedings, which usually turn into screaming matches and then hopelessly disintegrate. Audiences are not allowed to participate in the Alpines' kiss-and-make-up sessions. If that changes, we'll let you know.