Category Archives: Comedy

Coming around again

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Egret in flight

My central career story makes no sense any more. In the early 2000s, I was essentially fired for blogging. There was a time, back in the days before the Twitter president, when writing on the internet was novel and new and unknown and confusing. I jumped into the fray.

The short version is that I had been writing quietly. Journaling. Typing out the odd piece. Tucking it in a pile in my room and wondering if I would ever share.

I took an adult ed class on standup comedy to try to get out of my head and tackle my inner shyness. Ultimately, I took two standup comedy classes, because even though I did OK after the first one, public speaking still made me sick. Sharing my own words filled me with dread (and nausea and a little bit of a thrill, or I wouldn’t have tried again and again).

I actually had a boyfriend who after going to a comedy show said to me, “you’re funny, but you’d never have the guts to do what they do.”

Years later, I did it. I did it a lot. I went on stage. Sometimes I succeeded, sometimes I failed, mostly I got better. I definitely made some lifelong friends. I did, mostly, get over my intense fear of public speaking.

Blogging was something I heard about, and comedy friends had started writing in the brave new wilderness of the worldwide internets. I joined the nascent movement and wrote comedy vignettes and what I thought were amusing observations.

I ranted and opined and wrote a couple of funny things to an audience of like 20 friends.

Meanwhile, I was also a “career gal.” I had what seemed at the time a fantastic 9 to 5 gig (actually more like 7:30 to 7:30+). I managed grants and budgets at a research center and helped manage office space at a building that was slated for destruction. I had people reporting to me. I trained people. I signed off on things. I had a salary. My director encouraged me.

Let me back up, though. Before this job, I had had another one. I was at the quintessential in-between job (which I didn’t realize was bookended by two gloriously epic firings from ostensibly great jobs).

I was managing all of the research budgets and research and grant activities for a craptastically mismanaged collaboration of teaching hospitals. I think the CFO may have been cooking the books. The lead scientist seemed unengaged, at best. The worst was one crazy scientist who wouldn’t follow any guidelines for safe handling of tissue, tumors, animals, needles, pretty much anything that required safe handling.

Ain’t nothing like a call from building maintenance asking if those were your mice in the dumpster.

I persevered, but I knew this wasn’t my permanent solution.

Enter C. We’ll call her C., because it doesn’t match her real name and no reason to implicate her with my rambling.

C. worked at one of the nearby hospitals that collaborated with the center where I worked. She told me about an opening for a grants manager at her hospital. I applied, I got it, and C. and I became co-workers.

C. is younger than me. At the time, it was a ginormous age gap, as she was in her 20s and I, like Methuselah, was in my 30s, wizened and wise. We talked a lot, and she credits me with teaching her everything she knows about grants. She also credits me with dropping work philosophy gems, like “Don’t thank your employer for paying you or giving you a raise. That’s what they are supposed to do.”

Then, one day, my blog got me a visit to HR.

As the HR rep read through printouts of my comedy writing–pages and pages of printouts–she focused on a particular story where a disgruntled office administrator “shivved” a coworker over office supplies. AKA, high comedy.

I had been reported to HR as a risk for workplace violence. The notion was that these writings were my diary, and I was a burgeoning unabomber.

Sparing all of the details, what happened next involved my passing a psych exam, an informational chat with a counselor (who wanted mostly to talk about radical comedy and Lenny Bruce), lawyers, paperwork, anguished phone calls (off the record) with the director, who said I was ruining my life, faxes, more calls and finally a mutual agreement with my now former employer.

What I left behind was a messy office and a lot of work, but also processes and documentation. My colleague, C., who helped me find the job, picked up where I left off. Ultimately, she not just took over my stuff, but she became the center manager that I would have likely been had I not imploded. (There’s a whole backstory there with a wealthy donor and planned construction, which I would have helped implement.)

The person who reported me, as it turns out, actually was gunning for me. Or, in line with the story that sunk me, had intentionally shivved me in the back. He looked for flaws in my work, and failing that found my personal, comedy life. I believe, if I understood the ironic twist correctly, he had forgotten how much I had done for him at work, and he lost his job without my input.

Ultimately, I moved west and put the chapter behind me.

I didn’t know about my backstabber or C.’s career until she also moved west. We had a coffee and chat here in California and caught up on a decade or more of seeing how the story ended. Not only did she pick up my work, her career blossomed, and she developed a deep relationship with the director who once supported me. She honestly deserved/deserves it all.

One thing we’ve both shared in our careers is a reluctance to lead. Since moving to California, I’ve mostly managed to avoid managing. I was incredibly happy to take a job in which I would not have to manage people and had less responsibility and was really a 40-hour week not a 50, 60, 70-hour week.

C. came out here and ostensibly tried to also limit her management, but she’s failed at not succeeding. Despite what she claims is her best efforts to lay low, much like the work she inherited from me long ago, she keeps getting promoted.

Now here we both are about 20 years later. We are not the young career gals we once were. I’ve mostly steadily worked and mostly steadily avoided management. C. is a director at a major Silicon Valley place that funds research.

As of today, I am back working in the world of scientific research grants. As of today, I report to C.

It’s a story of redemption. Or it’s a story of relationships. Or it’s a story of burning bridges with organizations but not people. Or it’s a story of moving west like the Joad family, weathering twists and turns and ending up somewhere in California.

It feels like a wheel. And, maybe this time I’m spinning above the motion not under it.

This post is intended to insult your intelligence

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Here I am, quietly home alone.  OK, not so quiet, considering the Rolling Stones are playing.  And, I haven’t quite nailed Virginia Wolff’s:

A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.

For a few hours it is a room of my own.  And, with my lemon trees in constant bloom and fruit, fluttering with birds, it is a room with a view.IMG_3768

The last few weeks of my employment have brought me closer to the employment of others, or their aspirations thereof.  Yeah, less pretentiously, I’ve been interviewing eager hopefuls for a job.  Not all that eager in truth.  Here are some minimum requirements to keep the conversation not the potentially fruitful side:

  • Know the name of the company that is on the phone or inside of which you sit
  • Know the name of the department, as above
  • Have some kind of vague notion of what it is we do and, therefore, what might be asked of you
  • Don’t make me cry with boredom.

The last one is actually much simpler than you might think, even if I am a bitch.  I love stories.  I love imagining myself in other shoes.  I love picking up tidbits of humanity as I chug along.

I only pretend to hate people.  But I just might be the one who smiles at you and shares conspiratorial chatter in a long grocery line or unruly crowd.

In a job interview, I really, really, really want to like you.  I’m incentivized out the ass — there’re piles of work of both the shit and not shit variety that I’m meant to be covering, because we haven’t met you yet.  I already have a full-time job, so doing yours alongside my own is just the reason I want to hug you and squeeze you and bask in the salvation and glory that your hire will be.

I need you for my very sanity.

It’s a pretty minimal bargain this boredom thing.  A low bar, in fact.

But, I’m not going to write about my experiences.  The universe knows that the gods of Google have not always smiled warmly upon my face and shoulders, so I will leave the above as guidelines only.  As they say in movie land, any resemblance to real people and real anything really is coincidental.  My thoughts from my head.

However, I will mention an experience told to me.  In comparing notes with another person doing an entirely different job search, she mentioned a phrase that has stuck with me for weeks.

In response to the worn, tattered, clichéd intro question “why are you looking to leave your current position?” the person’s response was just the kind of philosophical conundrum that rolls inside my echoing skull for hours of navel-contemplation fun.  The reply about her current gig, and despite the quotes, I wasn’t there, so I’m either paraphrasing or making it up:

It’s OK, but some days it’s like it’s just an insult to my intelligence.

Let’s leave aside that this statement was uttered in a job interview.  While I tend to do well enough I suppose in a conference room full of interrogators (well enough to get jobs, it would seem), I’ve said enough monumentally stupid things in the workplace to not feel like casting the obvious stone.

Instead, what’s killing me, the riddle I can’t fucking solve or information I ain’t parsing — What the fuck really is an insult to one’s intelligence?

OK, OK, reader thus far, there is my prose.  I’ll give you that.  Although, it’s less of an insult to your intelligence and more a cry that you could have done so much better with your synapses and your time than to have read this far.

Earlier today, I put spoons and knives and toast plates and coffee mugs into the dishwasher.  It did not challenge me.  The thoughts inside my head were dull and plodding not glimmering and profound.  Was filling the dishwasher an “insult to my intelligence.”

At work some days I tick little boxes.  I collate.  I answer phones.  I do things for other people that I don’t feel like doing for myself.  I remember things like telling my boss that we should have cookies for a festive little reason.  I buy plane tickets.  I cancel plane tickets.  I spent ungodly amounts of time in Outlook calendar moving squares around in infinite patterns.

Some days I ab-so-fucking-lute-ly hate it.  I have to remind myself that the first world joy of office work is M&Ms and sodas, mini-cupcakes and the internet.  Dear, sweet, timewastingly infinite internet.

And, there are assholes.  Insulted I have been.  But my intelligence, she is still there even when the assholes try to shake my convictions.

So, if you got this far, do me a favor.  Give me an example of what might in the glare of fluorescent lighting and computer screens be an actual insult to your intelligence.

I cannot rest until I know.

I guess the song is right

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Bette Midler and others have sung about you gotta have friends, and you know Bette’s a sharp cookie. The New York Times also has this ‘blog item floating around on the Interwebs, most especially in my Facebook feed, which got me thinking.

The other things that have got me thinking are our bonanza of visitors this year and a goofy talk with a current buddy. That last bit might be the amusing part of this whole entire stupid thing I’m writing right here and now, in the here and now.

I might be lucky or I might have the personality of a serial killer. Hard to say.

Lucky because I’ve always had some friends around. People who you could maybe call if you needed a jump start or bail posted. Folks who would let you cry on their shoulders, both of them. And, enough acquaintances that I could find something interesting to talk about or do, on those seldom occasions when I’ve felt like leaving the couch.

Social media is an extension of both. In some cases it’s an, albeit light, touch or tenuous hold to people who have been important to me in the past. Episodes of life that will never be forgotten, even as other events, meetings and distances have pushed them physically in another direction.

I might be a serial killer, because I don’t know that I have ever had that one single defining friend through thick and thin that has remained immutable. It all ebbs and flows, and at the risk of shallowness or being feckless, besties have come and gone.

Like lovers, I kind of just assume friends ebb, flow, appear and disappear, as you need. I take the existence of both lovers and friends for granted, that they will be there in some form or another. Foolhardy and arrogant for sure, but for going onto five decades, something’s always worked out, even when I have only ever wanted a hermit’s garret on an isolated island.

I’m probably a big, fat douchebag in that I look back on some people, and it is as hard to pinpoint what brought us together as it is why we drifted apart.

Although, there’s a whole group of folks I found as I was finding myself in a time when I needed the cliché of “finding myself” the most. Grieving, unsure of my future, unhappy with my current life, I discovered my tribe. Writers, performers, artists, musicians and fools. The people I picked, and they picked me, although our only common bond is entertainment.

M., despite not actually going on stage, is part of that tribe for me. He, his energy and his unstoppable optimism and grandiose plans share the ethos of everyone who has ever tried to create.

In truth, I am the worst, and perhaps the most awkward about maintaining and cultivating and reaping and sowing and any other gardening metaphor that group of friends. However, they are the ones who post the most interesting things on the webs. And, they are the ones with whom, if they show up on my doorstep, I feel an instant flow. No time or distance is between us in those moments.

I tested that early in the summer when a working actress crashed a couple of days at our place, while filming in San Jose. The conversation and the wine was easy.

Other friends challenge me.

Have I changed, here in the more frequent sunshine and moderate temperatures of a California coast town? Am I, as my native California friends have mockingly claimed, now more native than they are, barely a transplant, grafted to a foreign tree? Apparently, every time I choose spinach over fried anything a little bit of Massachusetts cries.

Or, have my friends back in my native, birth state changed?

Maybe it’s neither. Maybe the alchemy of time and place is too ephemeral. Remove time or place and the gold changes back into another element. See above and the possibility of my emotional depth as akin to a serial killer.

In all of the wondering about my own shallowness and reading the NYTimes about how other people struggle with friendships, I did have one interesting realization. This section is the possibly interesting and amusing part.

At every stage of my adult life, or adult-ish, I’ve always, always, always had at least one male friend upon whom I thrust any responsibility for my imbibing of frothy, malted, hops-filled beverages. Those might be the friends I love the most, because nothing is too difficult when you have beer money and know how to use it.

I deny responsibility for my own control of sobriety, because the best thing about all of these friendships is my susceptibility to peer pressure. Some nights of laughing and talking would ideally never end, and I happily will get talked into “just one more” to see if time might stop. Although, in more recent years, I have been known to skip a round or two to save my head and growing wide body as long as the jokes still continued.

In high school, it was the nerdy group who later all came out of the closet. Among the players was Jimmy, perhaps my first sexual crush, who served his beer-serving role twice in my life. As kids and into college summers, and then again, we met up years later coincidentally working in the same profession, to people watch and entertain ourselves at an annual convention.

In college, it was Al. Everyone pushed us to date or assumed that we were, but we just talked into the wee hours.

Early post-college, it may have been Kevin, the American version. He’s my longest in years and endurance friend, since we met in junior high and bonded on the 8th-grade field trip to Washington, DC. Apart from a handful of rocky years, we’ve generally been able to enjoy a cocktail and amusing conversations. He too was of the nerdy pre-gay high school group.

Then, late 80s into the 90s, it was the Brits. Biologists, postdocs and beer drinkers unparalleled. Kevin, the British version, and I had game plans and essential daily checkins on how to drink, when to drink. We always kept our eye on the ultimate prize — getting laid. If it were not for his Mephistopheles qualities, several local drummers may not have gotten laid so easily. There certainly would not have been a renaissance of balloon-animal making in pubs, bars and clubs across Cambridge, Boston and Somerville.

The new millenium brought comedy clubs into my routine. Comedy clubs have no shortage of young men willing to hang out, tell jokes, talk, people watch and drink. I couldn’t list all of the drinking buddies I met in my years of hitting Boston comedy clubs hard. And, in those years, some of the guys who shared beers were also women, proving to me I wasn’t a freak of beer-drinking nature.

Today, it’s my co-manager of our company softball team. It is insane and improper and all sorts of things that have to do with decorum for a middle-aged woman like me to hang out in a city ball park once the lights have been turned off and cradle a cold one. But, it’s a comfortable place to be with shadows of summer evenings and nostalgically remembering sporadically mispent time.

Fortuitously, as a work event was under-crowded and they opened the food and drinks up to the rank and file, my current peer-pressurer beckoned me over with an ice chilled bottle on a warm day. As others sat down, it was one of those moments on one of those days where friendship is as hard as swapping stories and reveling in simple, good times.

If I’m emotionally stunted and shallow, at least I find time to unwind. Isn’t that what friends are for?

 

 

What the hell am I?

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In a timely coincidence, this image has been making the meme rounds in Facebook and whatnot:

 

I don’t know the exact source of this version of the list, but it comes from this article by Linda Kreger Silverman.

It’s timely because I just got the results back from a Myers Briggs personality assessment. Happy to say this time around it was paid for by work, but I’m still all working and employed and shit. Unlike the last official “personality assessment” on my permanent record this one was all warm and fuzzy.

Anyway, turns out I have a personality. Of sorts.

Here’s the timely of the timely part — heretofore, I tested as INTP. I totally have thought of myself as a giant, big old, introverted “I.” I love being alone. I love processing shit my own way in my own time. Better a couple. of great friends than a crowd, yada, fucking, yada.

Then, round about a decade ago, probably longer, I decided to come out of shyness with a vengeance. Now I totally dig that Carl Jung wasn’t saying introversion is the same as shyness, but I never got “my energy,” as the pop psych crowd would have it, from crowds. Holding back seemed like a fine response to life.

Only thing was, I had journals and private writings. I had words I wanted to say, thoughts rattling in the brain pan. The older I got the more I realized that the world was going ahead without me.

Like a terrible version of the crazy that was G. Gordon Liddy overcoming fear by eating a rat and tying himself to a tree in a lightning store, I took an adult ed class in stand up comedy. To overcome a fear of public speaking, to bring my writing public, to speak out, to shake my own personal status quo, to step up and out, I thought going on stage would be a good idea.

I almost puked and shat myself the final night of class, when we stood behind a mike at an actual comedy club. I didn’t try again for two years, when I screwed up the courage and took another class.

Ultimately, I whacked away at it for a while and got comfortable(ish) on stage. Comfortable enough to combine most sane people’s two biggest fears, getting naked and standing alone on stage with nothing but my jokes. The butterflies and/or gurgling fear of evacuating my bowels stopped.

I have no scientific proof, but I feel like I took the skills acquired on stage to other settings. The stage and writing cliche is that I found my voice.

Turns out that voice had other things to say besides jokes. When I moved west and interviewed for a job, I was outspoken and direct and more outwardly reaching than I remember being back east. Whatever made me get in stage sunk in and stuck

So the other day, I fired up the interwebs in my workplace and took the Myers Briggs dealio on account of some professional coaching I’m doing. Well, I’m not coaching. I’m subjecting myself to a little coaching action on account of wanting to be a better person and cog and all.

Lo and fucking behold, my trusty reliable “I” is now and extroverted “E.” This time around the test says I’m ENTP.

I don’t know how the hell it happened, but I turned into somebody else.

 

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At the rate I’m gong on the karma wheel sort of spinning and shit working out, by the time I’m at death’s door everything will be just jake. OK, I don’t know what jake means, well I guess I do now, on account of looking it up, but yeah, I didn’t.

The point is, the longer I live the more shitty people just seem to right themselves right into their own shittiness, or they redeem themselves or otherwise I just keep on keeping on and everything works out OK. Here’s what I mean. I moved across the fucking large North American continent. Drove right to left over the landmass and ended from one ocean to another. I got a new life, springing out of the old one, I didn’t like dye my hair black and change my name, and I got a job and I commenced to living.

A few months into the new job, I was guarded with the new folks with their own earnest, Northern California culture. I remember the anxiety and the gut-level fear when I realized I’d be going to a foreign country on something they called a “retreat” with my new co-workers. Holy shit. Trying to be the mousy one who blends (my new, incognito life change persona I had fantasized) would be tough whilst sweating out whether to drink the water (not) and actually eating the bugs on tortilla chips my new boss ordered up at the restaurant.

Nervous I was, and nervous I stayed. But there was seismic shifting (you know like on those loose tectonic plates among which I now live and work). Just the year before I came out here, I was sitting in serial visits to a Human Resources freak and a psychologist’s office trying to explain the world-wide interwebs and the not yet felt in those corners the burgeoning weblog phenomenon. No one with whom I worked knew what the fuck I was talking about, so like fearful peasants everywhere they grabbed up the pitchforks and went a-witch-burning.

So, there I was, literally marching up the side of a mountain toward an ancient Aztec pyramid, of which incidentally between the steepness of the path, the altitude and my pussiness I never saw the top, worrying about new people and still not having shaken the ignorance of computers and web technology that assaulted me and lost me my last job. Minding my steps. Only, in this new world, well, I guess not so new, as we were walking where the Aztecs and Toltecs and whatnot had trod, I happen to be talking with a true, dot.com, trend-setting California entrepreneur. Not only is the company he founded web-based, but it has legions of rabid, dedicated fans and supporters, buoyed up in the blogosphere, word of mouth and technological grassroots. Seriously wired.

How the fuck does someone fired for a ‘blog end up in Mexico talking with a dude who is prince of the technorati? (Even now, I realize I’m being a complete wuss and not linking to his popular site. Don’t want to be that one degree closer to the bill-paying gig I need to go to every day.)

But, none of that set up is what I really mean to be talking about, or typing about in my customary ramble.

Nope, it was that one chick on the trip that had me thinking. Now, this chick has been referred to here obliquely, and it was she that has had me itching, aching, dying, beating myself into submission to not full on vent and rant. The birthright radar that Pat gave me to spot a bad egg, and just fucking know in some gut place that a person sucks, full on blasted party-fireworks-red when I met her. She was DEFCON 1.

It was the uncomfortable shift, which I learned about in status games in improv workshops, that signaled me. I was “low,” and she was “high,” and in our first couple of conversations, she spoke to me in the slow, patronizing, patient tones usually reserved for children, rascally puppies and dimwitted, 19th century servants. In my head and heart, I declared her a bad egg and stayed on my guard. I also made a point to sparkle to the top of my Noel Coward wit and intellectual depths whenever I engaged with her.

Here’s the magical part. The part that makes me believe in karma. The part that makes me mostly like living and keeps me laughing.

Not only have I worked on through to a place where this particular nemesis can’t touch me, I’m helping in the recovery of others who came to the bad egg conclusion on their own paths. So today, in that aftermath, someone evoked a movie scene that moved me deeply.

It was just the kind of workplace fantasy, albeit a movie scene, I would have evoked myself before inhibition got a hold of me and the fear of losing an income. I mean, what does one say, shell-shocked as I am when someone at work, in confidence and CLEARLY in jest, conjures up a blade and a rib cage?

I’m pretty sure that’s what you call full circle.

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Just don't make me call you daddy

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The generally wonderful M. is getting a tad too comfortable now that he is a suburban white-picket fence homeowner. He’s turning into a veritable Ward Cleaver, but I ain’t his little Beaver.
http://tvphotogalleries.com/data/657/1lb06.jpg

While I was still in Boston, he had my car for a couple of days after Christmas. He veritably stole it and whisked it away to be fully detailed. When I returned, the seats were slippery. All of my automotive tzochkes, wires and spare change were put in plastic bags. An ironic (on account of my obsession with our backyard trees) essence of lemon scenting hung in the air.

Tonight, he was back in my car for the first time in a last little while.

Sniff. “Do I smell coffee? Did you spill coffee in here?”

Yes, of course, I had and will likely continue to do so. Having discovered the joy of Mickey Ds drive thru sliding me an ice coffee as I commence my commute, I fully expect there will be more spillage in my future. Not to mention the mountainous curving road that is Sharp Park, the LeMans section of my commute. It’s a drivers’ thrill and a spillers’ hell.


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He left the car sniffing my seatbelt and tsking in disgust. I sure hope he doesn’t plan on spanking me.

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With a microphone and everything

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I haven’t been seeking comedy shows, but I’m open to them falling out of the sky into my vicinity.

So, come the fuck on down to San Francisco on Friday, November 17, and see me. Here’s the promo:

FRIDAY NIGHT COMEDY @ The SF Comedy Club
50 Mason Street, San Francisco – between Market and Eddy – 1 block from
Powell BART/MUNI station
Hosted by Eric Peterson – 8 pm – doors open at 7:30
Headliner on Friday, November 17: Rob F. Martinez
Plus!
Brian Geraghty
Dee-Rob
Ben Temple
Corey Largent and
Sean Keane
NO DRINK MINIMUM!
Info/Reservations: 415-398-4129 or http://www.TheSFComedyClub.com/

ROB F. MARTINEZ was born and raised in the Mission District in San
Francisco. His brand of comedy moves people in different ways, like the time
when he performed at a hospital benefit show. He made sure everyone had a
good time – yes, even the patients in the front row who drifted in and out
of consciousness during his entire set. His hard work and tenacity have
earned him respect from his peers and landed him appearances on NBC11 and
KGO Radio. Rob was awarded the prestigious SF Punchline Dan Crawford
Memorial Scholarship in 2004 and has performed with Brett Butler, Robin
Williams, and Richard Lewis. From drunken bedtime stories to the homeless in
San Francisco, he weaves personal experiences with oddball stories and
exaggerations. http://www.robfmartinez.com/

“The home of underground comedy in San Francisco” – SF Chronicle
“Best Place to Enjoy Comedy for the Price of a Movie” – SF Guardian

Come get some laughs at “50 Mason” and find out why it’s called the “home of
underground comedy in San Francisco” by the SF Chronicle and the “Best Place
to Enjoy Comedy for the Price of a Movie” by the SF Guardian.

The San Francisco Comedy Club at 50 Mason is a great place to meet up with a
group of friends for laughs or for a date. Each week, Friday Night Comedy
delivers some of the best, funniest and hottest standup comedians from the
Bay Area and beyond.

Citysearch Editorial Profile — By Joanna Currier
“Up-and-coming comics and seasoned pros test their material at this lively
comedy club.”

Black leather banquettes and round cocktail tables fill this upscale Union
Square performance lounge, and most nights find the house packed. A familiar
brick-wall backdrop and a single microphone sets the stage for local and
national comics to do their thing, with showcases of up to eight comedians
and one major headliner each night. Theme nights include female-only and
improv comic events. Cover charges range between $7-10.”

CitySearch user reviews:

“A great way to spend a weekend night!” —– I had my birthday party here
and it is a great place for a large group. The comedians were hilarious and
definitely worth the $10 admission. I have already been back and had just as
good of an experience as the first. Probably the best value for money comedy
club in the City. Pros: Fun, Inexpensive, Talented Comedians Overall user
rating: Highly Recommended”

“Great Price for Comedy in the City” —– “Yes, this place is in the
Tenderloin, but don’t let that scare you. For only $10, a few months ago my
friends and I saw a comic that was on Last Comic Standing along with many
local unknown comics. Since there is no drink minimum, the price truly is
$10. Some clubs you walk in and pay $35 for comics you don’t even enjoy. My
friends and I go on the weekends about once a month.
Pros: Inexpensive, Fun
Overall user rating: Highly Recommended”

Laugh off the steam from your week and get your weekend started…

Who: Frigging funny comedians!

Headliner: Rob F. Martinez http://www.robfmartinez.com/

Host: Eric Peterson – http://www.epeterson.com/ – Eric Peterson started the
legendary Uptown Comedy Open Mike in San Francisco 3 years ago (Of all the
open mikes I went to, I liked the Uptown the best. Eric does a great job
there.” – Tommy Craggs, SF Weekly). He then began hosting Fridays at the San
Francisco Comedy Club (“The home of underground comedy in San Francisco” –
SF Chronicle). In 2005, he left California and performed in the USA, Canada,
Thailand and at The Comedy Store in Tokyo. Eric has worked with Robin
Williams, Will Durst, Will Franken, Rene Hicks, Larry Reeb, Mark Gross, Bill
Santiago, Johnny Steele, Scott Capurro, Jasper Redd, and Joey Guila. He is
glad to be back in San Francisco hosting Fridays at The SF Comedy Club.

Where: San Francisco Comedy Club, 50 Mason Street (between Market / Eddy)

When: Friday, November 17 at 8 pm (Doors open at 7:30 p.m.)

Admission: $10 (No Drink Minimum!)

For reservations, call 415-398-4129.

Transportation/Parking: One block from the Powell Street BART and Muni
station. Parking garage conveniently located across the street from 50 Mason
and a ‘discount’ parking lot next to Hotel Bijou.

Just down the street from Hotel Nikko and just a few blocks from Union
Square, The Hilton and other hotels. Great Indian on the same block, Thai
right up Mason Street and other restaurants nearby. Feel free to bring food
in to your table or booth.

Mapquest Map:
http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp?formtype=address&country=US&popflag=0&l
atitude=&longitude=&name=&phone=&level=&addtohistory=&cat=&address=50+Mason+
St&city=San+Francisco&state=CA&zipcode=94102-2806

For a real evening out – go to the legendary Original Joe’s – read about
this famous SF restaurant here:
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/chronicle/a/2003/08/13/FD249336.DTL

For restaurants nearby see:
http://maps.citysearch.com/location?latitude=37.7839&longitude=-122.409&loca
tion=50%20Mason%20St%20San%20Francisco%20CA%20&miles=5&gcats=f2&sort=dist

For bars nearby see:
http://maps.citysearch.com/location?latitude=37.7839&longitude=-122.409&loca
tion=50%20Mason%20St%20San%20Francisco%20CA%20&miles=5&gcats=f5&sort=dist

SF COMEDY CLUB @ 50 MASON
50 Mason @ Eddy
San Francisco, CA 94102
415.398.4129
http://www.TheSFComedyClub.com/

God, I got nothing

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The world is shit.  I'm stressed at work (but this too shall pass).  I have a beau who's fun to tease and I got nothing to right about.

I'm taking it as a good sign that I left Boston, because Bill O'Reilly's been doing the Factor from there.   I'm a little disappointed that some of the right wing baiters I know from comedy haven't disrupted the proceedings.  Speaking of O'Reilly the Wall Street Journal or some shit that came through to me on a newsfeeder had a story about his calling himself a "T Warrior" and a "Culture Warrior."  Fucking douche extraordinaire.

He's traditional and cultural in the same way any fucking celebrity stands up for the little guy.  Where was the traditional culture that focused on screaming shit at someone and calling it discourse?  I missed that one in anthropology class.

Oh, and I'm definitely voting Hugo Chavez in the midterm elections.  Rock on, Hugo.  Who hasn't wanted to call Bush the devil in a public forum.

On a personal note, this is the kind of thing I get sent at work by the boy-o during an average day.   You know, some people send smilie faces and queer little ASCII roses. –<-@

It's a study that worries me on two fronts.  One issue is that Asians live long time.  Long time.  Somedays, I really like M. and other L. words.  But, man, I want term limits.  A good thing about being a chick in general is you tend to outlive the guy.  But, me, I gotta get a completely fit, zen motherfucker, insert your racist rice-eating slur here.

Not only that, but the second issue is that by the looks of the pretty colored picture maps ('cause I don't have time for actually reading), it looks like if I had stayed in the land of the bean and cod, I'd be living for awhile.  The Mass. Bay to the Cali Bay Area color shift says I'm going to die.

He clearly invited me out here so my life expectancy would dwindle.

Oh, by the way, related to my racial slurring of my SO, I had a weird moment of racist/non-racist awareness last week.  For the folks reading in Mass. or the UK, you really can't grok the melting pot that Cali is.  It's the Golden State, because lots of people tan well.

So, where I work someone was showing off their incredibly adorable grandkid.  Really good looking baby.  The parents don't hale from the same clan or continent, if you catch my drift.  

In a stunningly risky moment of potential cultural ignorancy and insensitive, I say something about mixed race babies and their cuteness.  D'oh.  I say it to a woman from Mexico and another born in South Asia.

I either intro'd or backpedaled an awkward cover to address the potential loaded dice I could have possibly rolled in this the politically correct Bay Area.  Inside my head, as the words came out in slow motion, I thought "Jesus Christ, I sound like my mother, I'm channeling Pat and her opinions on colors and babies and the world, what the hell am I saying."

The woman who was born in Northern India of India parents launched in about what her mother would say.  Her mother sounded exactly like my mother, as it turns out, talking about how if you stay in the same village idiots and ugly people evolve and sometimes you need to freshen the gene pool with outsiders, and that mixed race babies are the cutest.

What the fuck?  Pat's parochialism ain't no thang it turns out.  Either all moms is the same and cool, all commenting on the same shit, because that's what moms do.  Doesn't matter skin color or vicinity.  Or all moms are rottenly Klannish, even with skin color and vicinity.

I'm feeling all sunshiney and hopefull for humanity so I'll pick the moms are alright. 

Nostalgia in my fair city

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Three folks from my small, place of employ are attending a certain institution in Cambridge that's been around since it was called Newtown and people wore pointy hats and pointy shoes.

I wrote up the following as my farewell and nostalgic dump of what I miss:

RANDOM THINGS TO DO IN CAMBRIDGE

MIT has had a list on the Internet before the web of area restaurants and menus, you can check it here:  http://web.mit.edu/wchuang/www/menus/

If you go by the subway map, there’s basically four major neighborhoods (or squares), which kind of align on Massachusetts Ave. (known only as “Mass. Ave.”).

Porter Square
Arguably more upscale than other parts of Cambridge, but you can’t tell by looking at it.  Northwest of Harvard, roughly, heading toward Davis Square in Somerville, which is pretty cool. 
o    24-Hour Dunkin’ Donuts:  At least it was when I left.  Fairly unfrightening, for a late-night place near a subway station.
o    Tags Hardware:  EVERYONE buys their flashlights and household whatnots here.  It’s part hardware store, part house wares.  You can pots and pans and nuts and bolts.  Generally affordable and easy to get to by subway.
o    Shaw’s supermarket  (Was Star Market, which was a better name to hear the Boston accent):  One of the bigger supermarkets around, and the only one next to a subway stop.  It’s also open 24 hours, and there is a 24-hour CVS Pharmacy nearby.
o    The Elephant Walk:  Cambodian and French fusion.  Nice date type restaurant.
o    Christopher’s:  Bar/restaurant that served possibly the first veggie burger in town.  Pretty good and reliable without breaking the bank, and there’s a tiny acoustic music club next door called Toad.
o    The stretch of Mass. Ave. between Porter and Harvard:  There are many neat, little stores and restaurants, sadly the witchcraft store closed.  The Lizard Lounge/Cambridge Common is fun and you can get a decent pub meal.  There’s a couple of overpriced Mexican places that will make you realize you are far from the west coast and good guacamole.  The Half Shell has great “sub” sandwiches that are huge and other deli/pizza joint food.

Harvard Square
Dominated by, um, well, you know the place.  Locals bemoan that it used to be very funky and hip with tons of independent, small stores, especially bookstores.  Now, it’s pretty mall-like with Tower Records, The Gap, etc.  Most of Cambridge’s homeless tend to end up in Harvard Sq., especially the younger ones, who tend to hang at ”The Pit,” the courtyard brick space adjacent to the main subway station.  Here’re a few spots worth checking out:
o    Au Bon Pain.  It’s big, right next to the Holyoke Center where some Harvard offices are and across from the main T-stop, it’s a convenient, centrally located place to meet up.  Awesome people watching, especially outside near the chess players because of the parade walking by.  They also have one of the rare public toilets in the neighborhood.
o    Colonial Drug:  Expensive but great place to get cosmetics and high-end, French-milled soap and stuff.  Say “Hi” to my friend Dot if she’s working there.
o    The Comedy Studio at the Hong Kong Restaurant:  They have a website at:  http://thecomedystudio.com.  This club is basically the “alternative” comedy club where there’s a showcase that could be a mix of rank beginners and pros who drop by.  On Thursday nights, the show is hosted by Dan Sally, who is funny, a friend of mine and used to live in SF, if you are homesick.  On Friday night, some other friends, the Walsh Brothers, perform.  (You’ll see I mention them below.)  The scorpion bowls are deadly, and the bar on the second floor is a total meat market.
o    Peet’s Coffee:  There’s one on Mt. Auburn in the heart of the Square, if you are longing for Bay Area java.
o    Border Café on Church Street:  Lots of people love the food, and there’re usually long lines.  Kind of Cajun/Tex-Mex.  Westerners may very well find it lacking.  But, the margaritas rock and it’s a good meet up for the movie theater across the street.
o    Passim’s:  Folk house with a history dating back to the 60s that still features up-and-coming singer/songwriter types.  Adjacent café serves vegan cuisine.
o    Toscanini’s:  Awesome ice cream.  But, the original storefront is down the street between Central and Kendall Squares.

Central Square
A lot of the independent places that couldn’t afford Harvard Square rents moved down the street to Central Square.  It’s more diverse and eclectic, has far fewer tourists and higher crime rates than Harvard Sq.  But, the restaurants and clubs are generally more fun, and there is a lot of ethnic (Ethiopian, Chinese, Middle Eastern, etc.) food.
o    Middle East:  When I was your age, this place was just a middle-eastern restaurant that let bands play in its basement.  It’s grown physically and by reputation and is now a pretty established rock club.  It’s horrible and dank, but hosts a lot of especially harder rocking bands.
o    T.T. the Bear’s:  Another rock club, which has an pretty funky, eclectic history.  It’s the kind of club where someone quasi-famous might show up and jam with friends. 
o    Phoenix Landing:  Pulls an honest pint and has good pub food.  Gets weird some weekend nights depending on which DJ or type of music is playing.
o    1369 Coffee House:  One of two independent coffee houses with the same name.  (The other one is in Inman Square.)  Nice place to hang with WiFi, underemployed hippies, the usual things to see at a café.
o    Picante:  Burritos.  OK, but you’ll miss the Mission.
o    The Plough and Stars/The People’s Republic:  Two bars on the stretch between Porter and Harvard.  The Plough crams as many people as they can in to see bands, and The People’s Republic has possibly the latest close time of any bar in Cambridge.  It’s where many people go to get drunk and/or lucky.
o    Whole Foods:  There’s a very cramped and small Whole Foods grocery store, which is where to get your high-priced organics.
o    Harvest Food Co-op:  More affordable place to get organic food, etc. than Whole Foods and nearer to the subway.  But, usually has a smaller variety.
o    All Asia Restaurant:  Sometimes overpriced and sometimes poor service, but I know the owners.  It’s a very kooky, family-run place that hosts a lot of different kinds of open mikes and theme nights and Marc and Patty, the owners, are nice and crazy.

Kendall Square
Why would you go to Kendall Square?  It’s where MIT is and they are your rivals.  Just in case, though.  Most of Kendall Square is on Main Street, not Mass. Ave, but MIT’s main entrance is on Mass. Ave.  (i.e., the dome which is a mildly famous victim of assorted MIT “hacks” or pranks.)
o    One Kendall Square:  A courtyard that is actually about a half a mile up the road toward Inman from the Kendall Sq. T Station.  Lot’s of restaurants/bars and a few stor

es
.  While some of the stuff changes around as businesses fail and are replaced, there are a couple of anchors:  The Cambridge Brewery, the only brewpub in Cambridge and one of the first microbrewery restaurants anywhere, and Flattop Johhny’s, a place to play pool on red-felt tables that caters to crowds from MIT and the various nearby labs and pharmaceutical companies.  If you are lonely for Genentech-type people, go here.
o    Emma’s Pizza:  East coast pizza is usually greasy and tasty and not the least bit gourmet, unlike in California.  Emma’s is where to go if you want wafer-thin crusts and goat cheese and arugula.
o    The Cambridgeside Galleria:  The mall.  It’s a mall.
o    Toscanini’s Ice Cream:  The original and best ice cream place around.  This is how ice cream should be, and I miss it terribly.  It’s made on the premises, and usually they have unusual flavors on the menu that you will never have seen before, like Jack Daniels.  Open to midnight, I think.
o    Cinderella’s Pizza:  The opposite of Emma’s and “real” pizza.  Although, I think their management changed and the last time I was there I was a bit disappointed.  Still, this is the kind of pizza I miss from backeast.
o    Pu Pu Hot Pot:  Cheap Chinese take-out, run by the brother of Patty at the All Asia
o    Kendall Square Cinema:  The non-mainstream, art-house movie theater.  Great place to see limited release, independent “films,” not movies.
o    Legal Seafood:  Expensive, but this restaurant sets a high standard for fresh and good sea food.  A bit touristy, since they also sell lobsters at the airport, but their chowder is quite tasty.

The other square which is not accessible by the subway is my old neighborhood.

Inman Square: 
Arguably one of the least gentrified neighborhoods in Cambridge, it still has a lot of independent restaurants and stores, because the rents are not as high.  There are big communities of Portuguese (mostly from the Azores) and Brazilians in this area.  So, there are some interesting restaurants and shops, and you hear Portuguese being spoken.  I really miss Inman Square.
o    Midwest Brazilian Barbecue:  It’s an all you can eat buffet, where waiters walk around with various meat products on giant skewers and carve them at your table.  If you’ve ever wanted to see a row of chicken hearts on a stick, this place is for you.
o    1369 Coffee House:  The more or less original 1369 café, which supposedly is the address where some really amazing old jazz club used to be in the 60s or 70s.  Coffee drinks and unwashed intellectuals with laptops.
o    Ryles Jazz Club:  Been around for a long time, and it’s where people have gotten their start.  There’s a cheaper, more intimate room upstairs, although it’s tricky and sometimes has stuff like “Lesbian Dance Night.”  You never know.
o    S&S Deli:  Major venue for weekend breakfasts.  It gets crowded, but it’s big so it usually moves quickly.  Not the best place in the world, but reliable.  It also has a full bar, which is surprising, since it looks like an IHoP.
o    Christine’s Ice Cream:  It’s not Toscanini’s but it’s good.  It also stays open pretty late.
o    Bukowski’s:  Good burgers, hotdogs, and other comfort-type foods.  Great fries.  Has food specials, like cheap grill cheese sandwiches.  Also has an extensive and changing bar menu.  Pretty cool place to hang out, but they tend to keep the music pretty loud, and they have a kind of hipper than thou ethos.
o    East Coast Grill:  Sometimes the food is great, including an ultra-fresh raw seafood bar, but the prices can be high.  They have special “Hell Nights” with hot-sauced soaked barbecue and other spicy dishes.
o    Ole Mexican Grill:  Overpriced, but I think they might have the best guacamole in a town without great guacamole.
o    ImprovBoston Theater:  I have spent more hours of my life than anywhere here, well almost.  They have improv shows Wednesday through Sunday, including long-form theater improv, Theater Sports, improv comedy and musical improv.  They also have workshops.

HOWEVER, they get special mention for being the venue of my favorite comedy show bar none, which is run by two of my friends, Chris and Dave Walsh, also known as the Walsh Brothers.  Thursday nights at 10 p.m. at the ImprovBoston Theater, they host the “Great and Secret Show,” which is a mix of comedy sketches, videos, stand-up and story telling.  The show generally starts on the street with them carnival barking (usually in costumes) for audience members to come in side.  They are incredibly funny and total pranksters, so it’s worth going more than once to see what’s new.  They sometimes let new people do stand-up comedy or try sketches, but they might interrupt them or break it up if it’s too painful.  Recently, they got an agent and are in talks about a sitcom or sketch show and moving to LA, so this might be a chance to say, “I saw them when….”

Not really in any square, but noteable:

o    Dali’s Restaurant:  Spanish, including tapas.  Fun date venue, as well as large groups into tapas, with good sangria.  The owners (an older husband and wife) tend to wander around making it like their personal party, and they might sit down and start up a conversation.
o    Alewife:  A subway station that doesn’t really have a very walkable square or anything.  But, there is a larger Whole Foods near here in a strip mall that also has a large Staples and Toys R Us.  There’s also Jasper White’s Summer Shack, which has great seafood.
o    Cambridge Street:  Starting behind Harvard and going all the way through Cambridge to the Charles River near Lechmere Street/Train Station and the Cambridgeside Galleria, it’s a real city street with stores, restaurants, and whatnot all along its length.

Of course, I am missing all sorts of great things.  But I’m old, and I forget stuff.

**********************

Then M. reminded me of some other shit I forgot, so I sent this:

Addendum:

 

I forgot to add two places my boyfriend just reminded me about:

 

In the middle of Harvard Square, right next to Harvard Yard is the Out of Town News Agency.  Newspapers and magazines from around the world.  There was a line there when the Unabomber’s manifesto was published.
 

Between Harvard and Porter there’s Changsho, an upscale Chinese place that is pretty nice and slightly more authentic then most Chinese restaurants.  It’s more linen napkins and hushed tones than other Asian places.
 

Porter Square is also the home of the “Porter Exchange” building (which was once the Sears building).  In the bottom floor, there is a Japanese food court with little noodle places, etc. and Japanese shops and a market.  There’s also a major Japanese bookstore in that neighborhood.

(Yes, I did write to future H. grads, "two," and then I listed three.  It's good;  Starts them off thinking they are smarter than other people.)

Hating on the left

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I went to the movies last night and went to bed pissed off at my compadres in liberalism .  I saw Who Killed the Electric Car?

I dunno, maybe I’m cranky.

Maybe I’m obsessed with this guy.  I met the Media Nipple dude at the Beyond Broadcast Conference at Harvard, and I was completely refreshed.  He was a kook and a crank and the perfect foil (and antidote) to all of the self-congratulatory intellectual masturbation of the sweethearts of the “blogosphere.”

Maybe I was reminded of the Media Nipple guy because of this thread on the bad place.  The bad place is now so chockful of splooge from newbies and wannabees and a bunch of folks I never met that have no apparent gift for visual, written or spoken communication.

The point is in a multi-media world, visuals matter.  I’m angry at the electric car flick for forgetting that and making a standard, boring, preachy and completely uncompelling and unsatisfying documentary.

Al Gore got it right in An Inconvenient Truth. You watch what is essentially his slide show, and it works.  A movie of a dude doing a slide show.  That’s it.

But, in the electric car flick, they could have had good visuals.  They could have had the Hollywood faces in love with their EV1s doing what they do and performing.  Instead it was static, old-fashioned and for fuck’s sake, if the movie is about cars, and people who loved their cars, why couldn’t you get some interesting shots?