A Long, but not Lost, Weekend

Published by Rick on Tagged Uncategorized

This past weekend had a dubious start to it, which I’d already hinted at in a Facebook post. I try not to be a snob, but I felt I was given a bum steer on this gig at Castagnola’s in Fisherman’s Wharf. This is a legendary San Francisco restaurant that’s been in the same location since 1916, and had been doing several nights a week of comedy shows for much of the last year. I had the foolish notion that I was going to be paid for my labours, and maybe get a drink or a meal thrown in. No, no, and no. About the only break I got was being able to find free street parking a block away since the meters were only enforced until 7PM. Not only was I being treated the same as your average open-miker, but I was also expected to stand outside the club and try to drum up business. I said a flat no to that, since I was always embarrassed for the performers at Edinburgh Festival that had to do the same thing. At least those people were hyping their own gig, I sure didn’t need to whore myself for someone’s gig I had no stake in.

So the meal for my date and me cost $70, and a glass of wine in the showroom cost an additional 7. I rationalized “Fuck it, I’m on holiday.” There I was, in the middle of a line-up of 8 acts, each doing ten minutes, each seemingly hell bent on topping the previous for lewdness. Before me there was an Englishman probably my age, and I’m sorry, when you’re my age, it’s just wrong to be making jokes about coming on someone’s face. Directly before me was an openly gay comic who closed his set with a graphic description of various stimuli used to fully enjoy the experience of anal sex. Oh, did I mention the audience was almost all tourists? Nice! Then it was my turn. I got a chance to use the line I often used whenever I worked The Comedy Store and had to follow a Dice Clay wannabe: “Sometimes the transition from (sucking cock or any other sexual variation) to music is a difficult one, but I’m certainly up for the challenge.” The audience appreciated it, but I found in my ten minutes that they laughed the hardest at the moment when I hinted at the C-word without actually saying it. Odd that no other comic used the word the whole night. Butt-wrenching, eating pussy, coming on face, that’s fine, but the C-word is where we draw the line!!

What a contrast to the next night, when my longtime musical collaborator J. Raoul Brody and I, along with a drummer, were hired to play the comedians on and off with appropriate music at the Other Cafe 30-year Reunion Show. This was at the Palace of Fine Arts in the northern part of San Francisco, a 1000-seat venue. The Other Cafe evolved from its origins as a folk music club/vegetarian restaurant in 1976 to a well-respected full-time comedy venue by the early 80’s. I used to play there a lot in the late 70’s with Rick and Ruby when the club was somewhere in that transition. This was to be a gathering of some of the comics who were part of that same transition, some of whom got international fame. Robin Williams was there, along with Bobcat Goldthwait, Dana Carvey, and Paula Poundstone. None of THEM talked about anal sex or vibrators or blowjobs!

Only problem was the length of this show. When I saw the line-up posted, and by most names was written “5 minutes,” I remember thinking “Yeah, in your dreams!” Some spent five minutes talking about how they haven’t done stand-up in many years and couldn’t remember what they did in their act, but then it came back to them magically once they were on for a minute or two. The first half of the show was projected to be about 90 minutes; they were only off by an hour! A show that was supposed to last from about 8:00 to 11:00, even though it actually started before 8:00, ended just before 1:00, and that was only because Robin kept it mercifully short at the end.

What was really most pleasant about the whole evening was how egos were almost non-existent, and I found it just as easy to get in an involved conversation with Paula as with anyone else there, famous or not, performer or not. This sort of camaraderie doesn’t happen often, but it’s a lot more likely to happen in San Francisco than in LA. I still remember a conversation I had once in LA with someone I hadn’t seen in a few years, and when I asked “How are you doing?” his response was a laundry list of career accomplishments, some of which were nothing more than call-backs on commercial auditions. Then when I found a place to jump in, I repeated the question, “So how are YOU doing?” and he was a bit surprised that I cared about his health, well-being, and state of mind more than his career. There was one comic at the Other gig who sort of went that direction, which was odd since he was pretty much out of show biz!

On Sunday, I played with Raoul at his wife’s birthday party in Oakland, and it was another chance to see even more people I hadn’t seen in several years. There’s always an eclectic mix of singers and musicians at a Raoul gig, but it made the workload much easier for me, since so many of the guest performers went on solo. Still, a long afternoon/evening, getting there at 3:30, finally leaving at 11:30, and singing my ass off, wondering how the hell it was that I used to work 3-4 hours a night, and as many as six nights a week. Also got to sing some tunes with Ruby, something we hadn’t done in several years.

My throat is completely wrecked this Tuesday morning as we had a dinner party last night and wound up singing even MORE songs. On this, my seventh day of being here, I think I’ll do what God supposedly did about 10,000 years ago (according to the ever-growing anti-evolution factions in this country) on his 7th day after creating the heavens and the earth and man and woman, etc…. I’m going to watch a Giants game! Ok, maybe that’s not what the Bible said..

September 28th, 2010



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