Sunday, May 18, 2008

A San Francisco Experience

Last night Jon, his brother Jeff, my friend Natalie and I went out to dinner and a play. We started off the night at Lingba, a Thai restaurant in the Potrero district. They had a great drink menu and Natalie and I shared the "Bowl of Monkeys" which was basically a vat of rum and some sort of juice. You know you're drinking something special when the purchase of your beverage comes with a Polaroid photo.

The food was yummy too, I had Chicken Himapan which came with cashews and a few other delectable ingredients. When asked for an official, on-the-record review of the place, Jon says "it was good."
It was easy for dinner to be overshadowed however, because once we finished our bowl of booze we headed over to a "playhouse" called the Xenodrome. I can say "house" because that is pretty much what the place was, a converted San Francisco house with high ceilings, a port-o-potty and a lobby equipped with a bar that specialized in what appeared to be only Tecate canned beer. It was also a BYOB sort of place and we chose to take that route.
The play Point Break Live is a hilarious, interactive and awesomely low budget rendition of the movie starring Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swayze. The director of the film, Kathryn Bigelow, actually announces and plays a part in the show. Because no one could ever do justice to Keanu and his efforts in this role of Johnny Utah, undercover police officer turned surfer, a different audience member is chosen from a one line audition to play the part every night. Last night Johnny Utah was played by a man that was there for his bachelor party. He was a very un-Hollywood version of Philip Seymour Hoffman and his nickname was BEEF. As the crowd became more and more raucous we would yell in deep loud voices "BBBEEEEEEEFFFFF."
Whilst drinking Natalie managed to lose one of her shoes, her purse and I think its safe to say that she is the one that lost the coca-cola chaser, all down the back of the bleacher like seating and into the "prop room". Luckily the actors that were waiting "offstage" for their moment to return to the spotlight were able to rush in and pull each one of them out.

I could not possibly capture the hilarity of the show in a summary of it here. All I can say is that it was a true "San Francisco experience" as we had heard it would be, completely unique and loads of fun.

I woke up this morning feeling slightly more under the weather than I have in a long time, but it was definitely worth it. Nat and I went to breakfast and some eggs benedict and hasbrowns sopped up the hooch good and proper. When I got home I laid on the couch and slept....yeah, pretty much the whole day.