That Fabled Hairy Bird

[(In which the diarist complains about his silly part-time job instead of studying for the Bar. You may be assured that every time he does anything, from earning a little extra money, to finagling the rare sexual interlude, to writing here, he should be studying for the Bar instead. Selah.)]

[In his introduction to Harlan Ellison's short-story collection Stalking The Nightmare, Stephen King (of all people) writes:]

["And if the cult of celebrity sucks (and you may take your Uncle Stevie's word that it does indeed suck that fabled hairy bird), it sucks because it's as disposable as Handi-Wipe or a Glad Bag or the latest record by the latest Group of the Moment."]

[Passing lightly over a few salient points (the unjust negative connotation the often pleasurable activity of sucking has gained in today's vernacular; the fact that much that is worthwhile in life is transitory; and the irony of someone like Stephen King writing the above), he's right. Celebrity can kiss my Assportative Intent.]

[In the year-plus I've been involved in one way or another with the Cute Victorian Hotel Around the Corner and the attached Friendly Neighborhood Cabaret, I've had fun throwing a very thin veil over the place, its management and employees, and the FNC's performers. Anyone with the slightest interest and brain could easily have gone to the FNC's website, maybe seen a show or two there (if they happened to be in San Francisco), become acquainted with the friendly (even slutty) staff, and my never-serious attempts would have been foiled.]

[Before new owners took the reins of management last September (when, coincidentally, I quit working on the hotel side to "concentrate on my last year of law school" (and to scrape together my required complement of apprenticeship hours so I could graduate), Celebrity's presence at the FNC was of a distinctly B-minus caliber, and we liked it that way: Rita Moreno was the biggest star who performed there during that period, but she was the exception; the occasional, low-key Willie Brown and Armistead Maupin were the biggest names in the in the audience (though they never attended together); and we liked it that way.]

[Sure, the room was losing money; sure, the management and employees were complacent if not nonfunctionally alcoholic; sure, the paying audience for Ye Olde School Cabaret (showtunes, primarily, of the most hackneyed variety) was dying off faster than Donald Rumsfeld's present options. Clearly, for anyone owning the hotel and showroom, it couldn't last. Something Had To Be Done, and when I compare today's FNC with yesterday's, I understand that the old regime was untenable. But it was charming. It was unpretentious. Sometimes even the most tired performers surprised and delighted. And it was (mostly) not the most unpleasant place "where everybody knows your name," to work and to have a social network.]

[Last night, dear Patti LuPone gave her antepenultimate and penultimate FNC performances. I doubt you were there, but if you were, I was one of two hosts frantically trying to seat 130 reservations in a room that sort-of-comfortably holds a maximum of 115. (Yes, it's a small room for La LuPone; this is part of the problem). The wily and long-lived president of California's Senate, John Burton, was there. (He was quite nice.) Local theater entrepreneuse and real estate magnate-relative Carol Shorenstein Hays was there. (After the federal, state and city/county governments, I think the Shorensteins own more property in San Francisco than anybody.) I assume Bruce Vilanch with half the cast of the San Francisco production of Hairspray eventually showed, as did Olympia Dukakis, with Two Guests. (I left before either party finally sauntered in.)]

[We peons had been warned ahead of time that Patti was postponing coming on until Olympia (who's appearing in a new adaptation of a Chekhov story here) and the Hairspray contingent had arrived, unavoidably late. (Their own shows had to let out, etc.) This made no one happy, since the paying customers had been told long ago that the show was to begin at 10:00. They'd paid double the usual cover to be crammed in to see Patti not sing any of the Broadway songs she made famous or famous again. (And for a whole HOUR...woo-hoo! Note to stars: your hits may bore you, but they're what the vast majority of the people who ultimately provide your livelihood want to hear, and in a set of respectable length.) By 10:45, when Patti herself actually took the stage to explain, the mood had turned ugly and ominous.]

[OK, the idea of a bunch of cabaret mavens wielding their martini glasses in revolutionary fury may seem like a stretch. (Andrea Marcovicci, remarkably, does not have "Yankee Doodle," "The Marseillaise" or "The Internationale" in her large repertoire.) However, this crowd isn't used to the inconveniences I gather big city audiences put up with. "Oh, we're waiting for Celebrity X and Celebrity Y to arrive avec entourage. Sure, 70 minutes after we've been seated, we're being forced to order yet another round of overpriced cocktails so the room can make any money because the star has such a large guarantee. It's perfectly understandable. No problem." As New York and L.A. never get tired of reminding us, we're neither New York nor L.A., and we don't care. San Francisco just wants the goddamned show, already.]

[The new management of the FNC seems to be more concerned with making Important People Happy than they are in satisfying the few remaining loyal customers and the potentially large new pool of attendees they've tried to attract by booking the Big Names (and more are to come.) They're more interested in overbooking reservations (often comp'd to people whose asses they think success requires they and we kiss) than providing a comfortable, entertaining experience for a reasonably sized crowd in what really is a small room. They're more interested in the Business than the Show, and I think they're blowing both.]

[This is not what I've loved about the place, and (once again) I'm not sure how much longer the pittance I'm making will keep me there...]

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