San Francisco Bay Guardian

Yuppies love jokes about homeless people.

Consider that a telling, if ancillary, lesson I learned at last night’s Conan O’Brien “Legally Prohibited From Being Funny on Television” tour, which continues tonight, Fri/23.

In the wake of O’Brien’s sacking from his late night gig at NBC earlier this year, the show marked a return to relevancy for the comedian. His comeback seemed to resonate with the younger, upper middle crowd at the Nob Hill Masonic Center, many of whom are no doubt fighting to maintain their own $79.50 comedy show lifestyle in the face of economic shittiness and uncertain employment. Read more »

Today's Look: Bryanna, 20th Street and Valencia

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Last night, Yann Martel, author of Life of Pi, and the new spectacularly panned follow up effort Beatrice and Virgil, took the stage at Kabuki Sundance Theater to speak with fellow writer Laura Fraser.

One can almost hear the semi colons when Martell speaks. “What makes life go well is not just external success; it’s how you feel about it.” It’s well and good that he seems relatively undisturbed by reviews of his work, because otherwise he might be a little ruffled these days; despite the phenomenal triumph of Life of Pi, the New York Times reviewer Michiko Kakutani heads up a long list of unimpressed critics, calling the new book “disappointing and often perverse.” Read more »