As some readers already know, I am currently growing a scraggly beard. This is not Facial Hair Of Emotional Recovery, however. There's no sadness or mourning with the Facial Hair of Personal Rejuvenation (FHOPR for short). This is not about personal growth; merely beard growth. It started four weeks ago, when I went up to Lake Tahoe for my sister's birthday, and figured, why pack my razor for a two-day trip? I also haven't cut my hair in 2008, so I thought refraining from shaving would go hand in hand.

As the beard has grown people have encouraged me to keep going. There's an informal beard-growing movement that has happened among local comics, though some have referred to it as a "pandemic". Comics with beards seem to be doing well these days. There's never been a more perfect time to hop on the beardwagon. Or is there?

Sometimes I suspect that the encouragement I receive is not actual advice, but rather a ploy to keep me looking freakish for as long as possible. It's the same reason Jim always says, "Absolutely, I do", whenever Dwight asks him to do something secretive on The Office: costs him nothing, might lead to great amusement. A friend of mine finally confessed to her hatred of the FHOPR after getting drunk, calling it "terrible", and lamenting that she'd ever encouraged me to grow my hair out in the first place, because of the abomination that resulted.

I am clearly doing a better job of growing facial hair than in the past, as seen by this photo from 2004.

Despite the general scraggly appearance of the FHOPR, the goatee part is doing fine. There's much heartier growth around the chin area now, and the goatee actually connects. This suggests two things. One, that some time in the last four years, I have finally become a man. Two, that some time in the past, I had a douchebag ancestor, probably from somewhere near Modesto. The improved chin growth has not gone unnoticed, especially from people who remembered my previous embarrassing forays into facial hair. Their comments are similar to what a female-to-male transsexual might hear:

"No, seriously, you look a little more masculine today."
"I think I can see a few new hairs on your lip. Good job!"
"I knew there'd be some signs of that testosterone eventually."

"Beard" FAQ

How long will you keep the beard?

Until the itching gets to be too much, or I start making children shriek at my hideousness, babes weep at my approach, and women cry out, "Dear God, what is that thing?"

Are there any economic effects of the beard?

I'm saving a lot of money on shaving cream, razor blades, and condoms.

Is this an NHL playoff beard

No, but Joe Tobin is growing one of those.

How do women respond to the beard?

They sense the beard's power, but I deny them my essence.

What does this mean for the future of The Baby Faces of Comedy Tour?

There's no plans for a Baby Faces sequel yet, but I will certainly answer the call is needed. In the interim, I'm considering putting together the Beardies of Comedy Tour, featuring all the best bearded SF comics, plus Beata in a fake Santa Claus beard.

A couple of weeks ago, I spent almost 48 hours in Arizona. As always, it was educational. Here's what I learned:

Tem-pee

"Tem-pee" is how you say the name of the city where Arizona State is located. "Tem-pay" is a high-protein, soybean-based cake. I had to be corrected a few times.

Technically, "Tem-pay" follows normal Spanish pronunciation more accurately than "Tem-pee". However, I am not a prescriptivist when it comes to pronunciation. For example, Ike's Place is at 16th and SAN-chez, not Sohn-chez, and, despite what my father says, the all-girls Catholic school in Concord, Carondelet, does not rhyme with "Chevrolet".

Tempe Town Lake

Tempe Town Lake is an artificial lake in the bed of the Salt River, near Sun Devil Stadium in Tempe. It has large rubber barriers which are coated with sunscreen during the summer so they don't crack in the 110-degree heat. The water quality is so bad that triathletes regularly get sick after competing in events there. Tempe plans to use water from a sewage treatment plant to fill the lake, and most people agree that it will be significantly cleaner.

My correspondent in Arizona tells me that the water smells like sewage already, particularly in the summer. Owners of the expensive homes that border Tempe Town Lake are particularly vexed by the stink. My correspondent says it serves them right for buying waterfront property in the middle of the desert. It didn't work for Lex Luthor and it's not going to work for you, nouveau riche of Tempe.

The Giants are going to be bad this year

Yup.

I'm doing my first Monday show at the Punchline on April 21st. The lineup is excellent. The adorably inappropriate Ali Wong hosts, and the headliner is SF sketch group Kasper Hauser. Kasper Hauser has some great stuff available on their site, including fake Craiglist personals, an in-flight catalog spoof called SkyMaul, and an amazing parody of This American Life.

Other comics on the bill include Moshe Kasher, Louis Katz, Cereus B.T. Kingsley, and Joe Tobin. If you can't wait until the 21st, or you live in the Cotati-Rohnert Park multiplex, you can catch Joe Tobin and Sean Keane (along with Kevin Munroe) at Sonoma State University on Thursday, April 17th.

Get your tickets soon, because these shows usually sell out. Fifteen bucks, two drink minimum, doors at 7, show at 8, hobnobbing with Sean whenevs. Just remember: High fives on the right, makeouts on the left.

In conclusion, here is a photo of Moshe Kasher riding a hobby horse in his underwear:

MUNI has been slow all morning, this the day of the Olympic torch relay through San Francisco. My train lingered at every station for a few minutes, as if security officials were scanning passengers for hints of subversion. I found myself looking around as well, wondering if there were any torch assassins among us.

"Why are we moving so slowly?" asked one woman, still wearing her iPod headphones.

I knew the Gavin Newsom-Peter Ueberroth propaganda was working when a businessman answered her: "Probably because of Tibet, his voice dripping with contempt for the Dalai Lama.

I wasn't sure what I should be looking for, in terms of anti-torch activity. Were the cops looking for monks? Richard Gere lookalikes? Self-loathing Chinese people? Evil Superman, affected by synthetic kryptonite? When we stopped at Van Ness, I tried to smoke out any stealth Tibetans by saying, "Pretty Woman is really overrated," but no one reacted.

San Francisco is definitely going all out, with three layers of cops on hand to protect the torch, along with countless other undercover officers scouting for suspects. One MUNI cop was checking transfers on the platform at Civic Center, but I couldn't tell if he was singling out Buddhists. With all the resources devoted to the relay, crackheads and petty criminals should feel free to break into cars with impunity during the run. Well, even more impunity than usual.

I got to work without incident, only to learn that the torch took MUNI too! I hope it didn't take the 30 Line, because, no matter where the games are held, old ladies from Chinatown will not hesitate to shove torchbearers out of the way on their way to the back door, or extinguish the flame with their pink shopping bags.

I also learned that the Olympic torch is not actually an ancient Greek tradition - it dates back to Hitler and the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. I was surprised to find this out, but it makes sense: organizers can't even keep the torch lit in 2008. What chance did the Greeks have? And that's the thing about torches for Chinese Olympiads - you think you're set, and then you gotta re-light the damn thing like an hour later.

Here's the best crazy anti-torch quote of the day, by anti-Communist protester Kevin Johnson:

"I know it sounds racist, but if they want the Olympics in China they should go back to China."

Unsurprisingly, Johnson got punched in the face.

There's a Whole Foods Market half a block from my office. Nearly everyone in the office goes there a lot, but we know it's expensive. Someone is sure to chirp, "More like Whole Paycheck!" when you walk back to the office with your groceries, which is a totally original thing to say. Whole Foods disputes that their prices are high. Here's a display I saw at the store:

In effect, that sign says, "Don't believe the 'Whole Paycheck' lie. Think for yourself." So I looked around until I saw a good example of their everyday prices. And here's what I saw outside:

Six ninety-nine for a hot dog. Even vendors at AT&T Park are shaking their heads in disbelief, while somewhere in Berkeley, a Top Dog employee feels a great disturbance in the force, as if a million jars of sauerkraut were all shattered at once. Would I ever buy a hot dog from Whole Foods? You can make up your own mind about that one.

Tonight at the Dark Room, it's Subterranean Comedy: Where the Buffalo Roams. This is Amir Malekpour's monthly showcase. Amir is the host and producer, and back in November, I interviewed him about the legendary Baby Faces of Comedy Tour show. The subterranean part is because this show is totally underground.

This month features headliner (and Amir housemate!) Jason Wheeler, who "delivers fork tongued humor for the masses", Joe Gorman, founder of the Baby Faces of Comedy Tour and bitter beyond his years, and Joey Devine, a rising star on the comedy scene who still lives with his parents in Alameda. Oh, Joey!

There's also a sketch group called Omar & Rodrigo and possible surprise guests. Tickets are $7-15 (sliding scale), and the Dark Room is BYOB.

I have some experience writing about buffalo, though it's mostly the football team, and in the context of the Music City Gambling Miracle. The song "Home on the Range" has made me sympathize with the buffalo, because of the false picture it paints of their relationship with the deer on the range. Supposedly, the range is the place where the buffalo roam, while the deer and the antelope play. But not with the buffalo, of course. Apparently deer only play with the svelte hoofed mammals. Some blame the excessive hunting of the 19th century for the American bison's near-extinction, but I think we have to consider the effects of negative body image issues on the buffalo population. Antelope aren't even native to North America, but they're still more acceptable than the fatties of the Plains. It's just sad.

I'm not sure the song is totally accurate, however. We know from Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer that deer are quick to exclude even members of their own species from playing reindeer games. If a red nose disqualifies a deer from playing, are we supposed to believe they're totally cool with hanging out with antelope? The line should be, "where the deer and the antelope play, in species-segregated groups, because deer are a bunch of assholes".

Finally, Buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo.

The Ed Forman Show tour comes to the Dark Room tonight at 8 PM. It's a live, '70s-style talk show, an era where it was perfectly acceptable for a motivational speaker to wear a shirt unbuttoned to the navel along with a chain that spells out, "Terrific" in diamonds. The show is a mix of sketches, standup, and interviews. guests include comics Brent Weinbach, Julian Vance, a journalist named Shaun King who is probably not the former Tampa Bay quarterback, a pickup artist named Dan McDonnely, and a standout shooting guard from Sf State named Alex Thomas. In addition, there's been talk of a round table discussion of basketball with assorted local comics, if you didn't find my sports commentary insufferable enough already.

Ed Forman is the creation of Aaron Ross, a Portland-based improv comic and creator of the one-man show, Al Gore Memorial High School. Ed is based on a real-life motivational speaker, the author of Happy, Healthy & Terrific, and Laughing, Living, Loving, and many other success guides. The show includes segments, In Bed With Ed (interview, taking place in a bed), QuEDstions (audience members ask Ed questions, I think), and A Match Made in ED, where Ed sets up two audience members on a dream date.

Honestly, I have no idea what this show is going to be like, but I am intrigued. Tickets are eight bucks at the door, and as always at the Dark Room, it's BYOB.