San Francisco is very amusing.

Friday in San Fran:

We passed this alien riding a hamburger near Mission on our way out of the city. We checked out of our hotel and drove to San Anselmo which, to quote my Dad, is a town "so cute you want to pinch it's bottom". We checked into a Bed and Breakfast that was full of wacky kitsch like this Chicken Lamp:


The zaniness continued when we scampered up to Mill Valley for fancy deserts and coffee at a trendy Italian restaurant before a special comedy show staring Dick Gregory and Mort Sahl


These guys were great. Between the two of them they seem to know at least one embarrassing story about everyone who has been a part of US modern history. As an example Dick Gregory talked about the day that Bob Hope died at 104 years old. Mr. Gregory was awoken at 3am with a call from Entertainment Tonight asking for his comment. His comment?

"I thought he was already dead."

Then he said, "Don't print that. Let me say this instead..."
"The family of Bob Hope should go up to Chicago and shake Jesse Jackson's hand. Because for the past few decades Jesse has been encouraging mobs of people to scream, 'KEEP HOPE ALIVE!' and clearly it had been working."

Mort Sahl was not only clever and informative (he related some very funny John Kennedy stories) he also had just suffered a stroke two weeks ago that left him blind in one eye. Not that you would notice if he hadn't mentioned it. Tony maintained his unblemished record of excellent Q&A participation by asking Mr. Sahl a question about retroactive immunity for telecom companies that helped spy on Americans. The audience went "Oooooo!" for so long that we couldn't hear Mr. Sahl's answer.

To be honest the audience at this show was just a tiny bit self satisfied. They kept applauding, not at the jokes but at political points that they wanted to claim as their own. Also the dude behind me had his knee wedged into my back for most of the show. Since I am pregnant and my back always aches I used the situation to sneak in a covert massage.

Dick Gregory at one point told the crowd he was shocked by the number of pampered dogs he saw on the sidewalks of Mill Valley sporting wool sweaters. Mr. Gregory accused the crowd of mostly former hippies turned yuppies that they would probably do nothing to stop the war even if the draft were re-instated. Unless of course the draft included their dogs.

Everybody laughed.