When the production team at Lincoln Theater sidestepped a near-booking disaster last Saturday night, a new wine country venue was born.

Seems that there was not as much interest in "Hollywood Squares" veteran chatterbox Bruce Vilanch as initially thought. When only about 250 tickets had been sold for the one-man show by the long-suffering writer for television and the silver screen, the clever crew at Lincoln Theater came up with a marvelous solution. They turned the foyer at the refurbished performing arts facility into a cabaret, complete with tables, chairs and an efficient waitstaff dispensing cocktails.

After all, it would have been a disaster to put 250 people into a 1,200 seat hall for an act that essentially amounted to stand-up comic. Not only was the "foyer cabaret" much more appropriate for the turnout, a new cabaret venue was added to the inventory last Saturday night.

Would that I could provide you with an enthusiastic endorsement of the first booking at the new, ah, Lincoln Cabaret.

Alas, Vilanch doesn't rank too high on my list of favorite entertainers. Nevertheless, I must admit he can tell a joke.

However, his stream-of-consciousness style does get a bit monotonous after an hour -- OK, maybe 45 minutes.

Vilanch talks about everything, regaling all with tales of Paul Lynde of "Hollywood Squares" fame, of his VH1 fitness reality show, "Celebrity Fit Club," and about all the celebrities for whom he's written jokes and dialogue.

"I've written for everyone, from Abba to Zadora," he said as the "Almost Famous" show got under way the other evening. He informed all he's written for every cockamamie TV special there is, or was, even something built around "Miss Teenage Black Utah."

If you'd ever taken in a Bette Midler show, you could have figured out the connection between Vilanch and the Divine Miss M. Vilanch parroted every Sophie Tucker joke he'd penned for Midler's concert tours, as both Midler and Vilanch were big fans of the last red hot mama.

The crowd at the new Lincoln Cabaret seemed to be having a good time. I mean, they were laughing. But by the time Vilanch had delivered his 10th Sophie Tucker joke, I did what he would have done when things got a little stale on Hollywood Squares. I changed the channel.