Renegade Women: Unrepentant Men - Storytellers at the Monticello!

Renegade, unrepentant Arun from Mill Valley is a transplant from New Delhi. He invited me to go, along with a storytelling group to Santorini's Restaurant on O'Farrell & share a dinner of trout, saffron basmati rice, mixed veggies, baby spinach & retsina wine with him. What's the difference between tourist & traveller, he asked the table of 12 storytellers who meet weekly at Katherine's home in Mill Valley? Arun attributed the following saying to Henry David Thoreau: The traveller sees what he sees; the tourist sees what he has come to see! (www.brainyquote.com) It's actually a Br. writer Chesterton who said that. According to Thoreau who made sauntering into an art , IT'S NOT WORTHWHILE TO GO ROUND THE WORLD TO COUNT THE CATS IN ZANZIBAR. Ciaobabes!

Random Encounter: Cafe Laurel Heights - Russets from Ketchum, Idaho

12/27/06 Rich & Jean Russet, Ketcham, Idaho, the original potato heads were visiting SF. I turned to Rich (Jean was messin' with her laptop) & introduced myself.
-Have you made your new year's resolution yet?
-No. Have you?
-Yes. I'm perfecting the art of the put-down a la Groucho Marx.
They were intrigued. Of course, I has only half-kidding about the need to put down the enlarged egos in this stretch of Presidio Heights.
-We're not from here--we live in Ketcham. I found out they live next door to the descendants of Ernest Hemingway: Jack, Muriel, Muffy, Joan.
-I play tennis with Jack, the son?
-Isn't he dead, I asked?
But I guess the great thing about playing tennis with a dead man is you always win, right? We shared a laugh & the potato heads were out the door!
Happy 2007!

Yuet Lee Seafood Restaurant - Kung Pao Kosher Comedy

Yuet Lee Seafood Restaurant. (1300 Stockton at Broadway) Christmas night. Tim Yu, boyish, bulbous chef founder incessantly churns out hundreds of superior seafood meals daily (until 3:00 a.m.). Many nocturnal high-brows, wannabee chefs & recruiters chow down, so if you're fixin' to hang with the best & brightest in SF, plop your buddha butt, light an imaginary candle & don't be downhearted, because you've come to the right place. Gayle & Ralph Bernstein, MD (she's a coordinator at the Oakland Art Museum & he a hands-on stomach specialist at Highland Hospital) have been trekking here for 30 years. They ordered the tried-and-true sauteed clams steamed in black bean sauce, pepper & salt roasted prawns, spinach & garlic: superlative! Zontar, my friend, ordered beef with broccali. Me? I got sucker-punched with the so-called "fresh squids". Fresh? HELL NO! A deep-fried flop, in my opinion. Why do Chinese restaurants always deliver this sucker-punch? Heads up, Tim! An hour later, we raced out the door past the hungry, boisterous mob to Kung Pao Kosher Comedy. The good doctor shouted out a cheery "Have fun and I hope you laugh tonight."
Random Encounter #2 at New Asia Restaurant after the Kung Pao show. Headliner Cathy Ladman was fiddling with her videocamera. He had given us a sidesplitting show. "Comedy", she said, "is timing and luck." Fadeout into San Francisco fog.
Jewish comics at Chinese Restaurant on Christmas Day: Guaranteed to chase away the blues if you've got 'em!