Chantel Williams

Chantel Williams Wharf Room Comedy

So he says to the girl. “You wanna introduce me?” This is what she looks like, holding a cocktail after telling everyone we won’t be having 2 hours of dick jokes.  Yeah that’s right; I was on stage with a vodka cranberry. Thank YOU Jennifer for the awesome cocktail.

Dr. Brian Castagnola's Wharf Room Comedy

So he says to the girl, “Did you see that?”
The girl says, “Babe, I’ve been standing by the bar with a drink in my hand all night long. I didn’t see shit.”

More to come later but this was an awesome night for Castagnola’s Innaugural Wharf Room Comedy. I’m tired, a little drunk and full of Denny’s French Toast Slam.  Thanks to Takeo Hope for the photos – I’ll be sure to wear more make-up next time. Oh, and I’ll lose 30 pounds.

The last week in my apartment has been like a Rocky movie stuck on loop. Honestly, I knew that running a restaurant is a full time job. But, I didn’t realize that it would include me expanding my skills into full time PR, Social Networking, Talent Management, Food Show and Event expertise. I have literally worn all of these hats and more in ONE week. That doesn’t include my daily management duties. At this point this is stuff we do, its all part of the job – its stuff we do in our sleep and as managers we forget that MANAGING A RESTAURANT is also our job.

This week is all about Dr. B. I’m a cheerleader, a manager, a corner coach in the boxing ring. I’m the skinny old dude from Rocky only younger and with boobs. I’m sitting in his corner, holding a sweaty towel, talking him up, slapping his biceps, fluffing his ego and, other things. Its my week too! I’m finally coming to terms with combining my personal and my work life. My colleagues and want to turn the restaurant into a destination and on Tuesday we take the turn. We turn from weekly entertainment to ORIGINAL entertainment. Something you can only find in a place where a woman with bright red hair and five inch heals can give you. Maybe I am just fluffing my boyfriend’s ego and slapping him in the face on a regular basis to keep him alert and excited but; I’m also doing it for me too! Consider this your official invitation. 

Yeah, I’ll be your manager Baby!!

My life over the last few months has transformed. What was once a life filled with every day annoyances and general recession level strife has turned into something of an entertainment factory full of bad comedy elves producing comedy available at recession level prices.

Dr. B has decided to be a comedian slash narcissist. That’s the thing about entertainers -narcissism is a necessary skill. A skill fit for those who have to recognize and identify their audience, asess nuances of individuals in the front three rows and then proceed to entertain them for a few moments. If you can’t entertain them with boob and pubic hair jokes then you better damn well be able to make fun of them. Whichever way you look at it I get it a hundred times worse. I also get to trapse all over San Francisco’s finest establishments any given night of the week to take in the spectacle that is a fledgling stand-up comedian.

Funny how one day I found myself sitting in a cafe/laundry-mat with a room full of purposeful – disheveled -hipsters and a comedy line-up of no less than 20. I made it through two glasses of house chardonnay, one fish taco, one Michael McDonald song sang by a very funny lesbian and, a 4 minute set by a man who claimed to have a 13 inch penis for 3.7 minutes of his set. Imagine 300 hundred pounds, track pants, a no-name rock band T-shirt, black plastic knight-rider aviators and busted, dirty white sneakers. Think about him having a 13 inch penis. Thank you.

Another evening I found myself in my own neighborhood in a little bar hosting an amazing yet very aged rock trio followed by a Tuesday night open mic.  Dr. B and I mildly anticipated a good night. The bar was partially filled with music lovers and comedy lovers alike. Unfortunately as soon as the band finished the bar emptied. There I was left in the center of the bar with a pint of flat beer. I was the last civilian standing. I was the ONLY non-comedian in the bar except for the bartender. Someone should have paid ME to sit there and make non-stop eye contact with the comedians. Someone should have bought MY drinks to kill the pain of listening to a psychotic back-pack wearing comedian recite his monologue like a pre-pubescent middle-schooler who doesn’t REALLY know what first base is although he’s trying really hard to make you think he’s gone “ALL THE WAY” at least once. Only to be corrected when a seemingly normal looking Japanese girl cutsie’d her way through her set wearing her back-pack. I could only deduce that the psychotic guy was just not really that funny and by wearing a back-pack all night long made him trendy. Thank goodness I have back-problems.

In between these exciting comedy adventures I spend my nights begging Dr. B to turn off his set so I can listen to the floor boards or hear the pop from my wine corks. Because not only does he listen to his sets after he’s finished with them. He listens to them three more times on the way home, three times when he gets home, three more times when he sneaks out of bed to listen to them and WAKE ME UP with the awful computer speakers on his laptop at 2 am and various other times when I’m in the bathroom running the shower and my electric toothbrush trying to block the repeated playback. I then get to talk about his sets, plan more jokes and then talk about them some more. Its all about someone else who isn’t ME right now. Yes, after I spend my days in a tiny office considering napkin colors and trying to translate english to chinese bathroom cleaning instructions. I come home and find a man with a doctorate in psychology standing in the living room shirtless practicing jokes whilst holding a stuffed snake for a microphone.

Will somebody send me a pair of stiletto’s and a tiara? Oh, and I’ve become a professional comedian’s promoter and manager and very helpful assistant for things like nagging and getting soda pops and show photography and video camera operator and flasher of my boobs because I NEED ATTENTION TOO.