Blog by Sumana Harihareswara, Changeset founder
Life, Drugs, And
Hi, reader. I wrote this in 2004 and it's now more than five years old. So it may be very out of date; the world, and I, have changed a lot since I wrote it! I'm keeping this up for historical archive purposes, but the me of today may 100% disagree with what I said then. I rarely edit posts after publishing them, but if I do, I usually leave a note in italics to mark the edit and the reason. If this post is particularly offensive or breaches someone's privacy, please contact me.
On Wednesday I performed stand-up comedy for a SAGE Scholars graduation ceremony/fundraiser. I did okay. They loved the immigrant jokes, not so much the satirical opening (clichéd quotes and axioms). I'd say that no one reads Yeats anymore, except lots of people in the blogosphere have the same poem on our minds: The Second Coming. Maybe we grope for meaning and find this bit of Yeats, as after the 2001 terrorist attacks we found Try to Praise the Mutilated World.
On Thursday I went to Cobb's and viewed Nick Leonard, Joe Klocek, and Brian Regan. As per usual (how quickly I forget!), the openers were funnier than the headliner. Mr. Regan has a gift for caricature, and he resembles Alton Brown, but I only laughed maybe 20 times in the hour he performed. That's 40 straight-faced minutes. Well, one man's meat.
Cobb's brands its Cosmopolitan (a mixed alcoholic drink) as "The Cobbsmopolitan". Next: Cobb salad, corn on the Cobb, a male swan as the mascot.
On Friday I met Leonard's old friends from the Clark campaign over dinner at Pomelo, which had more vegetarian entreés in my recollection than on the menu. The week had left me a bit jaundiced, but they handled my bitterness with good grace. I drank sake.
On Saturday Leonard and I left for Bakersfield to visit the Richardson/Whitney clan. Leonard's grandfather seems stable, which is good. I got to see A Day Without a Mexican, which sprawled but had several nice touches.
"Boomers," the Bakersfield minigolf/arcade, has a Disney-branded Dance Dance Revolution machine. Among other tunes, it plays "M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E" and "Macho Duck," a "Macho Man" derivative starring Donald Duck. Creepy.
Leonard and I came back to San Francisco, visiting some friends in Mountain View (evidently not a total wasteland) along the way. I checked on Betty, my one surviving goldfish. She seems fine. I wish she would poop in my presence so I could verify that her whole digestive system is working, but you take what you can get.
Today I am listening to KSCU and answering customer email. The Religious Policeman has posted several new items. I should get more tea. This week I will actually write that article I've been postponing for months. Life is okay.
