There were a few false starts, but the grand opening of the Rrazz Room at the Hotel Nikko finally happened on St. Patrick’s Day. It was a real splashy event, and has, in one grand gesture, revitalized the San Francisco cabaret scene with a show that featured some of the best acts in the country: Mike Greensill at the piano, Andrea Marcovicci … Paula West … Sally Kellerman … Lainie Kazan … Mary Wilson … Freda Payne … Sharon McKnight … and Welsa Whitfield flitted on stage and dazzled – a carnival of canaries. Singer-pianist Tim Hockenberry provided a little male energy. The chantootsies, as Andrea calls them, took the stage by storm, and had a swell time. In the audience was another diva, Keely Smith, who later played four nights at the Rrazz. Club owners Robert Kotonly and Rory Paull are triumphant, as well they should be. …
    

Tom Wolfe, the concierge of all concierges at the Fairmont, has been out ill lately. I miss my regular fix of stories from him. Thanks to Tom, I got to meet Sir Edmund Hillary a few years ago, and got a chance to ask the man who conquered Everest if he was nervous reaching the crest of the formidable Nob Hill. I’m happy to say he was amused. Usually Sir Edmund’s trusted Tibetan sherpa, who made the climb with him in 1953, is overlooked, so I will mention him, Tenzing Norgay. One must not forget one’s sherpa. … It’s a great name for a zine, SubtleTea.com, which is carrying an interview with one of the City’s great characters, Cantara Christopher, who talks about the future of small press, 1970s theater, and the “Golden Age of Porn,” though I am not quite sure when that was. …
    

Pianist Don Asher has played with the greats, and these days he plays Sunday afternoon at the great Big 4. He apologized the other day for not being able to tear off his usual ragtime licks because his shoulder was hurting him. He’s got to be one of the few who has injured himself by bending his elbow playing tennis. Now into his 80s, Don still tears it up on the tennis court. An eloquent, classy, sweet man, one may not know that he has also published several books on jazz history, including a biography of Hampton Hawes. “Hampton was sentenced to 10 years for drug possession back in the 1950s,” Don recalls. He decided to write to the then-new first lady, Jackie Kennedy, and ask for help. I’m not sure how it happened, but six months later, Jack Kennedy issued him a full pardon. We think it may have something to do with Pierre Salinger, Kennedy’s press secretary, a gifted pianist who studied with Estelle Caen, Herb Caen’s sister, in San Francisco. It’s hard to imagine an act of enlightened charity happening like that today, where this president we have wouldn’t know Hampton Hawes from Hee Haw. …
    

Jack McShadow, aka John Harris, who appears in Zodiac, has been whooping it up these days since getting his first residual check from the producers, all of $47.05. John threatens to take it all to Reno on Emperor Norton’s birthday (aka Valentine’s Day), drop it on a roulette table, and let the chips fall as they may. John was chief barman and storyteller at Original Joe’s, the jewel of the Tenderloin, until a terrible fire shut down the red Naugahyde treasure last fall. Now the staffers and the regulars wait for the insurance check to arrive, which we hope exceeds the residuals a wee bit, and trust that the money arrives soon. It’s not true that vermicelli is a dish that’s best served cold. …

Bruce Bellingham is a columnist for the Marina Times and Northside San Francisco.  He invites bits, bites and pieces of bric-a-brac for this column.