a Josh Kornbluth about town

Two Josh Kornbluth sightings in two days. What’re the odds?

For those of you who don’t recognize his name, Josh Kornbluth is the writer/director behind Haiku Tunnel, which for my money is funnier and truer than Mike Judge's workplace classic, Office Space. Mr. Kornbluth also performed a one-man show here in San Francisco, Ben Franklin Unplugged, which apparently wasn’t such an apt name. Jeff Ubois told me that he went to it expecting something biographical about Ben Franklin, and instead the monologue spins off from Josh Kornbluth's own uncanny resemblance to the canonical portraiture of history's most famous flier of kites.

To me, Josh looks a lot more like The Critic's Jay Sherman than he does like Ben Franklin. That's not pejorative either: I love that cartoon.

Anyway, the first sighting was in the line snaking up Castro Street in front of the Castro Theater, a historic venue right down the street from me. It'd be convenient if I were more of a movie buff. Then I would've been in line too. As it was, I just caught a glimpse of Josh Kornbluth as we passed by the Castro Theater in the car.

I turned to Mark and said: “Isn’t that Josh Kornbluth?”

He said, “Who?”

I said, “Josh Kornbluth. You know. The guy who did Haiku Tunnel.”

And he's all, “Which one is he?” as he glanced over at the throng of people waiting to get into the theater.

There was no way Mark was going to recognize Josh Kornbluth. Mark doesn’t even remember the few movies that we do see. This trait allows him to enjoy the same films over and over again, unspoiled by the repetition. We mostly don't let the movies that we rent run all the way to the final credits either. Somewhere amid the tension of the plot's climax, we both agree that the damned thing is making us nervous -- really nervous -- and we invariably turn off the movie. Click. Then Mark falls asleep on the couch and I start tap-tap-tapping on my computer.

Sometimes we even pretend we're going to watch the final half hour some other time, but now that movies are distributed on DVDs, we're not apt to even know where we left off once we've stopped the thing and taken it out of the player. The World's Fastest Indian sat in the DVD player for over a month, waiting for a particular viewing to be wrapped up. I finally stuffed it back in its red Netflix sleeve and mailed it back to the mothership.

By the time I could point Josh out to Mark – There he is! That's him! Standing in line for the Ken Burns film and personal appearance like every other history buff in town – Mark was already beeping the horn, distracted. The guy in front of us was dropping off a passenger, probably to join the growing line in front of the Castro Theater, well behind Josh Kornbluth.

We were in the white Honda, the little one, heading for neighbor Evert Grobbelaar’s art opening, which was somewhat peculiarly situated at Good Vibrations, "a diverse, woman-focused retailer providing access to sex-positive products." It's a mission statement that makes sex sound a lot like dental hygiene.

Evert’s art opening, though, is an event we'd been anticipating for some time now. We’d heard the preparations for the opening for weeks. It seemed to involve lots of nighttime pounding, drilling, and sawing. At 2 am. At 3 am. At 4 am.

“Those people never sleep,” I’d say to Mark, who at this point was invariably just a snoring hillock under the covers. I often repeat pronouncements like this to Mark several times, knowing full well he’ll neither wake up nor remember me talking to him by morning.

Even without the artistic thumps and whirs coming from next door, Lumpy and I are insomniacs, padding around the upstairs in the dark, hoping sleep will eventually overtake us. Actually, only I am hoping sleep will overtake me. Lumpy is hoping beyond all hope that I’ll consider offering him a fifth or sixth post-midnight snack. A cat can get mighty hungry in the middle of the night thudding up and down the stairs and clawing the Ikea sofa to shreds.

The noise next door turned out to be connected with the construction of frames for Evert’s photographs, not with the production of the photos themselves. The photos were mostly nudes, mostly men who I’d seen around the house for the last year or so. The photos have a surreal quality created entirely from pre-photography effects, not post-photo photoshopping. He’d paint his friends, literally, using their skin as his canvas or bathe them in textured multi-colored lighting, and get some odd and interesting effects.

So we were driving to Evert's opening, Mark at the wheel, me with my toes gripping my socks and sweating from the nausea that accompanies prolonged fear. No time to focus on whether or not that was really Josh Kornbluth in line to see Ken Burns. Better to focus on, say, a last will and testament.

We're not going to make it.

Mark’s driving really does scare me. Like most couples I know, we can’t drive anywhere together. As wasteful as it is, we’d be a lot better off taking separate cars.

“Evert’s opening goes ‘til 8.” I said. “You don’t have to drive like this, Mark. Really.”

“Fuck that guy. Why're you stopping there? Drive, mister! Fucking tourists!”

“You’re scaring me. Fuck! Watch that taxi! There's a pedestrian! Why aren't you turning on Franklin?”

And with that, we entered one of those spatial discontinuities that are so prevalent in San Francisco. Four right turns won’t get you around the block. And there seems to be no way of getting back to where you want to go. It just heightens the tension.

It’s heart-stopping riding with Mark. Honestly it is. It's always a relief to get to get to your destination intact. The ride always overshadows the event.

The art opening, incidentally, was like most art openings I’ve been to, especially the ones where you like the artist’s work, but don’t have much to say about the genre. I’m awkwardly recognizing that some of the subjects are here in person, staring at the nude photos of themselves. They look pleased. The photos are pretty cool. I kind of wished they were in a regular gallery with good lighting, not in the back room of Good Vibrations.

It smells funny in the Good Vibrations back room. And not funny in a good way.

Behind me a girl is saying, “Yeah. I mixed the white wine with some of that fizzy cranberry stuff. It was warm!” And I turn around to catch her making some kind of face.

“When’s my turn?” her companion calls out to Evert. Most of the models are men, and I think she wants to make sure she's at least in the queue. This is no Ken Burns documentary; the seating is limited.

The thing about art openings is they only last until the wine is gone. But by the time we hit the streets again, enough time had elapsed that the traffic had subsided and Josh Kornbluth had disappeared into The War.

San Francisco isn’t Manhattan. There aren’t GawkerStalker-quality celebrities in this town. You gotta take what you can get. If you recognize someone you’ve never been introduced to – Josh Kornbluth, Bruce Vilanch, or even Willie Brown – you've got to think of it as a major sighting.

Of course, it’s not as bad as College Station, where when we spotted the local KBTX TV weatherman at Garcia’s Mexican Cafe, we got all excited.

"Look!" I said to Mark. "Over there! Over there! Doesn't that guy look familiar?"

Every hair was in place. Perfect.

"Yeah. That's the weather guy from the 6 o'clock news!" Mark's enthusiasm matched my own. "Wonder what he's having. Probably the catfish with green salsa."

That said, I’d completely forgotten about Josh Kornbluth by the time Jeff Ubois and I walked into the Fertile Grounds Cafe on Shattuck the next day. We’d just listened to Peter Brantley, the new head of the DLF, talk about all kinds of interesting things, including digital preservation, our shared interest. The plan was to hang out with Art Medlar, an old friend from Xerox and the Internet Archive, and drink coffee and eat middle eastern food.

There are lots of coffee places in Berkeley. Lots. And each one has a better pun in its name than the last. You wouldn’t even consider going into that Starbucks on Oxford.

“I’d rather eat No-Doz,” I told Jeff as we passed the Starbuck's. I didn’t want to explain about the pink caffeine pills or Wal-AWAKE or any of my other favorite caffeine supplements, the ones that you take if you're not getting enough caffeine in your normal daily diet.

I’m not afraid of getting my nutrition from a pill. Bring it on! So convenient.

When we walked into Fertile Grounds, it was as quiet as a library. It was much, much quieter, in fact, than South Hall, the old library school building at Berkeley where we’d just come from.

Students occupied almost every table. Each had a Macintosh laptop propped open on the table, earbuds in their ears, and long-emptied beverages beside their keyboards. It was quiet-quiet. Only a vague hint of music leaked from any of the earbuds.

“Is the kefir cheese made out of goat’s milk?” I asked the counter guy when I ordered. My voice almost the echoed, the way it does when you talk too loud in a library. I don’t like goats’ milk. I don’t like the imagery it conveys; I don’t like the taste; I don’t like the smell. The counter guy said something back to me; I’m not sure whether he was speaking in English, but he said something back to me about "sandwich." I asked again about KEFIR CHEESE. He re-answered SANDWICHES? Then he pointed at the rack of potato chips.

These miscommunications are funny on SNL; not so much so in Berkeley cafes.

If I hadn’t just shut up and pointed up at the menu, I might’ve ordered TWO broiled tractor sandwiches with goat, hold the crushed-up BBQ chips, instead of kefir cheese, tomatoes, and pita bread. Several students had looked up from their laptops in a mix of irritation and curiousity. What were these odd strangers doing trying to order food and beverages in a café?

Jeff and I started talking and eating. Art arrived soon afterward. And we were yakking it up, much to the annoyance of the other, uh, patrons. The curly-haired guy at the table next to us gave us the ol' evil eye and moved to a quieter corner.

But then who walked in but Josh Kornbluth. He had an enormous backpack on his back, the kind that students carry. He sat down at the table next to us.

Two Josh Kornbluth sightings in two days. I mean, what’re the odds.

A friend joined Josh Kornbluth too, and the two of them were yakking just like the three of us were yakking. They’d send a look of annoyance our way every once in awhile when we became particularly raucous. I was so engrossed in our own conversation that I never even eavesdropped on them.

This is not normal for me.

Even if we were bothering them though, they couldn’t have moved. Every other table was full. One student, one laptop, one empty coffee glass. Tap-tap on the keypad. Some small local indy band on the iPod. Berkeley. So Berkeley. How Berkeley can you be?

As soon as one of the students left, Josh Kornbluth and his friend stuffed themselves around a smaller, one-person table. Perhaps to get away from us, or perhaps to get out of direct range of the draft that was blowing through the place through the front door transom. Who can tell?

After they’d moved, and Jeff could stand on one of their chairs – the one right by the front door – to close the transom himself, a move which summoned the catatonic counter guy. He came quickly when he noticed what Jeff was doing. That’d really be the way to order something – just go behind the counter and start making it yourself.

With the transom shut, I was pleased to note that the café was warm and we were the noisiest people there. The kefir cheese was actually quite good and didn’t smell at all of barnyard. I’d showered recently, so nor did I.

I’m not so sure that Josh Kornbluth was as pleased with situation as I was, because he left soon afterward. Maybe he was finished with his conversation. Maybe I hadn’t showered as recently as I thought. Maybe he isn’t interested in digital archiving.

Hard to tell.

“Was that really Josh Kornbluth?” I asked Art and Jeff after he’d left.

“Yeah. That was him.” Neither Art nor Jeff seemed particularly surprised that he’d been sitting next to us in the café.

“I went to see him in that Ben Franklin Unplugged thing. I was disappointed.” Jeff said. “I thought it’d be about Ben Franklin.”

We all decided we admired Ben Franklin.

“But it was about Josh Kornbluth’s neurotic family instead.”

It was a Being John Malkovich moment. I savor these things.

Today I told my brother I’d seen Josh Kornbluth twice in two days.

“Josh Kornbluth. Yeah. That name sounds familiar.”

"I think he’s got a show on PBS.” I said helpfully.

“Oh. Right. I associate him with doing dishes. I always listen to NPR while I’m doing the dishes,” my brother said.

I told him about the line of people in front of the Castro Theater, all waiting to get in to see the latest Ken Burns documentary and asked him if he knew what the documentary was about.

“Ken Burns does documentaries about nouns. Sometimes proper nouns like Thomas Jefferson. And sometimes just regular nouns like baseball. Maybe he should do a documentary about lunch.” That was my succinct brother's analysis of Ken Burns's oeuvre.

I thought that was a dandy idea for Ken Burns to produce a documentary called (simply but eloquently) Lunch. Perhaps it could even star Josh Kornbluth. We'd surely review it in our scholarly journal Lunch: an international journal of the midday meal.

Two Josh Kornbluth sightings in two days. What’re the odds?