I dabbled in comedy tonight. It was fun, in that way that comedy isn’t really capital F fun for the folks doing it.

I really like some of the stuff from W. Kamau Bell, and I wished it was the kind of place you could have had an actual conversation with the other performers. Same with Nato Green.

It wasn’t, though. More of a come in, do your time get on the road kind of show. (With my road about 2-3 miles away, I could have stayed.)

When I got there, the bartender thought he might have met me before at the Rose and Crown nearby, which used to have a comedy show. I did it twice, moments after moving here. To say I sucked would be to grossly underestimate what amounted to the Orick challenge.

A couple of people showed up from a job in the early 90s. A couple of other people showed up from my current employment. I shall see if they make eye contact come the morning, or advert their gaze in that awkward afterwards of a comedy show that’s rather like a bad morning after with an intimate stranger. Hopefully, all don’t hate me.

And, as I prepared to go on stage, I remembered Dot and I devising our hosting strategy. I tried to live it all, and I tried to do all of the things assigned to me — passing the tip bucket, eliciting tips, introducing and generally keeping the show moving. I believe I met expectations. (In a perfect world, people would have been howling for more of me. Alas.)

One last thing checked off my personal to-do list. I should try this comedy thing more often. Next on the list will be to go to Asia.

(Video to come, maybe I’ll ask people to vote on whether I should try this comedy thing more often.)

M.’s aunt, uncle and cousin from KL were back in the Bay Area. Whilst here, they stay with a high school friend of the uncle’s, in a typical suburban family house that is much like my big bro’s own playhouse. A drive from the big city, well-stocked, comfy and with all manner of entertainment.

They brought along another couple with whom they are partnering in a business, who hadn’t seen any of the sights.  So, we spent the weekend eating Asian food, talking about the business venture, sight-seeing and eating Asian food.

Here’s me, I believe looking like some kind of famous bridge docent:

M.’s taking the picture.  What this picture really needs is a bit of a visual intro, but I missed the shot while thinking about it rather than taking it.  You see, the Golden Gate bristles with tourists on any given weekend, and a large percentage of them are from areas east of Europe and west of the California cost.  However many countries there are in Asia, they be representing bridge-side.

And, there I was.

While driving up and down, up and down, up and down and over and across the San Francisco Bay quite a few times this weekend, I finally finished my ballot. 

We are heading out and away from the primaries on Friday to the other side of the globe, so we will be absentee voters in this race.  While the polls are reporting and the counting goes on, remember us as they talk about the millions of “absentee ballots,” now re-branded as vote-by-mail, not yet counted in Cali next Tuesday.

(Here, where people make programs and computers for a living, voting by mail is pretty dang popular.  Somewhere, somehow, tucking a piece of cardboard colored in with black or blue pen, licking it shut, stamping and tossing it into a blue box on the corner seems safer than using a newfangled machine that hackers have proved oh-so-compromise-able.)

M. has already been researching how we can tune into the crazy wacky fun of Super Tuesday.  (By the way, note to all TV talkers every-fucking-where, calling it “Super Duper Tuesday” just sounds so fucking indescribably lame. Please stop.)

We should be in Kuala Lumpur, but I’m not sure.  When the last polls close at 8 p.m. PST Tuesday, it should be 12 noon on Wednesday in Malaysia.  I’m confused, as I think we may already be hopping into his aunt and uncle’s minivan and driving from KL to Penang, because Super Tuesday will be Wednesday, the eve of the lunar new year, when the Chinese New Year-ing festivities shall commence.

Starting the new year and trying to monitor the primaries is likely to drive M. to distraction.  To say he’s wrapped up in the race would be an immense understatement.  He’s obsessed.

Somewhere in Malaysia, there will be at least one “Barack Obama ‘08″ t-shirt, and my man will be sporting it on his back.

Cumulatively, we’ve watched days of hours of minutes of eternities of coverage, swapped news links, youtube videos, blog postings, read most major news stories and finally did our ballots yesterday and mailed them off to the county.  I was undecided until minutes before envelope sealing.

In the end, I listened to the fire in the belly of our former president, William Jefferson Clinton.  His passion, his anger, his parsing of words, like “rolling the dice” and “fairy tale.”  And, I voted against his wife.

As much as I want to see a woman get ahead, I am fucking worn out and tired by all of the bullshit and lies and grandstanding.  We’ve been doing that for eight fucking destructive years.  It’s easy to believe that old Bill and Karl Rove are spiritual twins.

Oh, and, ah, feminist-wise, someone relying on both her husband’s old job and his current-day bullying, is, ah, not the kind of chick that does it for me. I mean, Phyllis Schlafly has a following and a career and ovaries, and I wouldn’t give her the time of day.

Like a whole lot of people I want to believe that maybe there is something else.  I want to think change could happen as Barry Crimmins, who hasn’t drunk the Kool-Aid yet like me, wrote here. Caroline K. helped push me over the edge.  And today her uncle closed it.

I mean holy shit.  Ted Kennedy is speechifying all positive-like and forward thinking and inspirational.  There is something in the air.  Could be political shit, of course, but at the moment it’s smelling sweeter. Check this endorsement from the SF paper.

(Sorry to Dennis Kucinich.  I know you and I are kindred spirits, united on such things as policy and progressive ideals.  We were meant to be together, you and I.  Like a poor girl in a Dickensian drama, I went not with love but with strategy.  Barack has a chance of making history, Dennis, and selfishly I want to be a part.  Maybe we could each send him a pocket Constitution.)

There’s a whole lot of shit I haven’t written out and tried to make all funny haha.  But rest assured there are teeny little glimmers of ideas bouncing in the vast, empty expanse I call my skull.

The best I can do:

 - M. has taken to getting T-shirts altered to his particular likes. 
 - M. makes me laugh.  Very, very much, in fact too much, like myself he struggles with his individuality.  We both think we blend in a very low-key one of the crowd way.  We don’t.
 - It looks like folks from a few jobs ago, and number 2 entry in my spectacularly fired from workplaces trilogy, might show up at the show I’m hosting.
 - Oh yeah, did I mention I’m hosting a show.  Comedy.  Funny.  Come on by.
 - Next week we head to Singapore and Malaysia.  I’m beginning the obsessive compulsive phase of traveling.  It begins with list making in my head.  I also am quite concerned that my underwear is ready for the international challenge.
 - Apropos the item above, my guilt is sinking in.  I mentioned a desire to see the rain forest.  I believe this wish will be met, but that accompanying us will be a subset of M.’s clan.  I had no intention that my whimsy would result in forcing his mother to a long march in the jungle.
 - Since Chinese is way above my intellectual capacity to learn, I thought I’d try Malay.  I have one week to actually take the book off our book shelf and learn a language.  Good planning.
 - Our guide book to Singapore says the slang for white person is “Ang Moh” around that neighborhood.  I think it’s Hokkien.  I asked M. for the word for “fat,” and it sounds something like bu-yo.  I’m going to be listening up for “bu-yo ang moh,” because this visit I’m chubbier and whiter than before.
 - If I hear a universal “Holy Shit” when I get off the plane, I know the prior item is correct.
 - Finally, there’s a whole slew of shit about work I could bitch about.  Suffice it to say — People is C-R-A-Z-Y (and generally, they annoy me.  People, all of them, that is.)

For a few days now, I’ve been swapping around three laptops each running a separate OS.  Why?  ‘Cuz apparently I’m devoid of life’s fine sweet nectar.  By which I would mean sex or food.

The aim has been tweaking the teeny tiny Asus eeepc, digging into the command line (which is only a meaningful sentence for the unwashed and unfriended.  That would be me.)  I’m damned if I can’t figure out how to install the kernel headers that would make the Cisco VPN client to install.

(Not that I want to be able to tunnel into work’s VPN, but, like a some sort of puny, sad Everest, I want to be able to say I can.)

The old, shitty, slow-booting, sad, clunky, Windows XP Winbook laptop was helpful in making some tools and, with the help of these guys, made my legal collection of iTunes songs playable anywhere.  More than anything, it helped for when I crashed my new toy’s drive with too much crap and too much stupidity.  In some kind of meta-dork-techno moment, I used an old Apple shuffle as the USB flash drive to create a bootable restore drive on the Windows brick and fixed up the Linux machine.

Good fucking god.  I just read the above.  I am freaking dull.

 Here’s something vaguely amusing.  On Sunday, I had it in my head to buy some new prescription shades to wear when we wander down to a few clicks from the equator in a week and a half.  Not exactly a tough errand.  Only, I’m retarded.

(By the way, I’m writing this little episode down, because a certain maile friend with whom I live and sleep suggested I wouldn’t.  Something about my making myself godlike and infallible on this little web domain for which I pay the bills.  Oh, how he doesn’t know me and my awesomely humble, self-deprecating ways.)

So, there we are in the mall in the LensCrafters, and some chick wants to help me.  Her English wasn’t great, and her salesmanship blew outright, as she tried to upsell me to the notion I could get progressive lenses in sunglasses. (Well, yeah, honey, I get that I could have hip old-lady shades for my peepers that were also bifocals.  But, I didn’t see myself reading or computering while driving or sunbathing or do any number of things I tend to do in bright sunlight.)

Anyway, as she’s annoying me and we chat, I unfold and place under her nose the paper I took from my nightstand expressly for this moment.  The folded up sheet of standard white was meant to be my copy of my spectacle perscription. Only, again, I’m retarded.

She, in confused, stalling English, said she didn’t know what to do with what I gave her.  Impatiently, I looked over her shoulder and saw the printout of the online ticket to Kooza, the Cirque du Soleil show we went to the night before.

What lady?  You can’t make me some glasses based on a barcode and directions to the Canadian circus?  What kind of glasses place is this?

I apologized, we left and I got glasses the next day at another Lenscrafters in a whole ‘nother town.

Hillary and a lot of the second wave feminist kind of dialogue going on has me depressed. The reminder that sexism is alive and well and living here in the USA Today should have been the opposite.

I happily noticed Patti Smith as an “iTunes exclusive” artist on my magic internet connected computer thingie. A chunk of the reviews, who were clearly from people you gotta wonder how they stumbled there in the first place, took pointless, misogynistic swipes at her voice and her appearance and even her marriage. Yeah. That’s what it all comes down to, right?

A chick lives over 60 years on the planet, brings on passion and literacy and becomes iconic in rock and roll. And, on what is she judged? Raw emotion? The fact that once she ignited women like myself to pump their fists in the air and think FUCK YA ROCK AND FUCKING ROLL? Whether she still continues to produce art?

Nope. She should be prettier and her voice should be higher.

Technorati Tags: 2008_Campaign, Patti_Smith, rock_and_roll, sexism

In prep for actually getting off my comedic ass and hosting a show in a couple of weeks (That’s right, folks, Tuesday, Tuesday, Tuesday, Jan. 29, come on down), I figured I’d check out the room. It’s a pub (in the most sterile sense of the word) on the first floor of a center meant for students of a graduate persuasion. It was better than I had hoped, really.

Anyway, it reminded me of the cheapest reason I like the stand up. Or I like standing up, I guess. It’s the quasi-legit excuse to talk with strangers. So, I said “hi” to a couple of comedian folks I know. Not truly stranger chat, but that nice warm fuzzy non-commital “friend” with air quotes acquaintanceship fun. I imagine a lot of people go to church for that same sort of social intercourse. But, those relative strangers or graduated to a bit less than friend, which is pretty much everyone and anyone associated with the show and the bar putting on the show, are not the strangers I mean.

You see, if I might be so bold to throw in a meaningless phrase like “you see,” I am a bit of a flirt. Not a girlie-girl flirt. I fear I have never twirled my hair in the company of men, for example. More of the social discourse, Noel Coward/Truman Capote, look at me and love me kind of story-telling flirt.

In the back of the room, just observing the show and then leaving, I got my positive reinforcement. Two young men, the kind of men who at almost midnight on a Tuesday night, somewhere in American on a college campus, are very slowly and carefully articulating their words to cleverly discuss a tongue made awkward by the cheap, campus-subsidized beer. They wanted to know who I was voting for in the upcoming election. I amused myself by replying with salty language and obnoxious discourse unbecoming to my age and gender (but, of course, being my usual speech).

Surprisingly, the buddy of the one in the USMC sweatshirt with the super-short, possibly some kind of mandatory haircut let on the jarhead boy uses “liberal” as an insult. Really, a potential future marine standing on the campus of a major player in the military industrial complex fancies himself conservative? The dickens you say.

They asked if I was a student and wouldn’t believe my vehement insistence that I hadn’t been one in many, many years, in fact so many I could have been their mom. Ah, the kindness of moonlight.

When I said I was coming back, the taller, more earnest one (the non-jarhead coifed) is hoping I will come back having read some Ken Wilber. No doubt for a long philosophical discussion into the wee hours or some kind of hopeful bullshit.

I said goodnight and walked away and remembered why comedy cracks me the fuck up.

Technorati Tags: California, comedy, puppy, Stanford

A top of the day and a tip of my hat to Roger. Roger, sitting somewhere off in the fine state of Alaska that’s on my short list of places to visit before I die, did a google.com images search and unfortunately for him discovered one of my photos, labeled by me, a certifiable moron.

I love taking shots of nature thingies, like crawling, flying, creeping, walking, trotting, scampering things. I thumb through field guides and search shit on the internet. But, California and the west are like foreign countries. I just don’t know the flora, fauna or even the fucking language. (Although, I love the expression “hella,” which the natives say.) Between my eyesight and ignorance, I real should just say “bunny” or “ruminant,” because I just don’t know what shit is.

Enter Roger and his unsatisfying search. He ended up here on this dark hole of a website. His comment:

Those are NOT condors. They are Turkey Vultures.

I stand duly corrected and edified. And, sadly, I must say I’m chuckling to myself. Is it me, or does he sound angry? I sure as hell hope he’s a teacher or parent to set things right.

Technorati Tags: photos, images, snow, vultures

Playing with computers very much today. I’m getting a kick out of Baratunde’s Clinton Attacks on Obama wiki, mentioned here, possibly adding an air of legitimacy.

I’m biting my nails and wringing my hands and starting to yank out a few strands of hair over here. If Hillary keeps the undercurrent of negative shit (with the finesse of probable deniability, naturally), I see nothing good coming out of it. If she wins, it’s a personal gain at the expense of the party (which I think is supposed to get all unified and shit to win the presidency. I mean last I checked that was the goal.) If she loses, she’s laid a nice foundation for the GOP machinery to Swiftboat the shit out of Obama.

If I wanted an eat your own, win at all costs president, I would have voted for GW at least once. Hopeless, I know, but can we go back to some pre-Bill and pre-Rove kind of old-fashioned, old school campaigning without the throat-cutting nastiness?

Back to the world of computers, I’m obsessing on the possibility of technology. Sick. As usual, I lugged my laptop on my shoulder when I headed back to Boston. (Pretty much, if I don’t have instant access to a computer and at least one or three gadgets at arms length, I start to hyperventilate into a full-blown panic attack.) By the time I landed back at San Francisco airport I was just tired of the dead weight.

(How the fuck do people have children who need to be carried everywhere for like years after birth? I love my computer and that was 5-6 pounds of annoying after a while and it doesn’t cry or shit.)

We’re facing the 11+ hours to land in Tokyo, followed by the 7-8 hours to Singapore, so I’ll needs me some computing, I think. On top of that, we’ll be gone during Super Tuesday, so I’ll be looking for a CNN.com fix to my political junkie sick. Twenty hours back and forth and two weeks on the ground, I can’t imagine not having my ‘puter. I’m dreading the 5-pounds of connection digging into my shoulder and crowding out my extra bottle of water jamming up against my toes for thousands and thousands of miles, though.

Rumor has it all over the intertubes that Steve Jobs will be bringing out an ultraportable laptop at half the weight. How fucking awesome would that be? How much greater would that be if it were available with a quick swipe of plastic BEFORE I get on a jet again?

Technorati Tags: 2008_Campaign, campaign, Campaign 2008, comedy, elections, Hillary_Clinton, Politics, primaries, Apple, ultraportable, Silicon valley

Maybe I mean envy. I don’t know. How am I supposed to know what words mean.

Anyway, M. bought us tickets to see Joe Rogan tonight. (Incidentally, he might be one comedian destined to bring M. and me together, what with his love for the UFC and my love/hate for comedy.) Before that we met up with some friends for dinner. If I wasn’t a gigantic pussy or un-fucking-believably cool, I would have walked up to his table and said “hi” and shit when Joe, along with the other guys in the show, was sitting and eating dinner at the very same restaurant where we were eating.

It’s very likely we know some of the same folks and all, due to that comedy thing. Whatever. I will always work under the assumption that people aren’t really missing out if they miss out on a quick inane convo with me. (Why I should ever do it with a microphone is a question for another night.)

All of the above is beside the point.

The point is the comedy club was Cobb’s, which is in North Beach. North Beach is the part of San Francisco where strip joints slam against Italian restaurants, and both are haunted by the spirit of the Beats, who are now relegated to history and tourists. But, I love walking by the neon bright lights of “girls girls girls” all aglitter with themes like Larry Flynt’s Hustler club and the historic Hungry I (albeit historical for non-nude reasons). What I love best is the hustle from the doormen out front trying to get the foot trade walking by to come in for a spell.

We walked by the Hungry I, and there were a few guys working the door and checking IDs. I watched as a young guy walked by alone and got the street rap to come inside. I watched a young couple walk by unmolested. And, I swear to fucking god almighty that as M. and I eased up the stretch of asphalt sidewalk heading to the club, one of the guys smiling and joking said to another guy, “I’ll take her if you talk to ‘Tokyo.’”

Sadly, they let us walk by.

I love the rap, the hustle so much, but it ain’t never directed at me. Chubby, little, middle-aged, straight and female as I am. I’m not the target demographic.

At another club, as we walked by a friendly doorman chummily put his hand on a young man’s shoulder and stage whispered, “We got two girls and a dildo, man. You got to see it.”

Technorati Tags: California, Strip_clubs, comedy, Joe_Rogan, San Francisco