Full Moon at The Other Café

My first night working at The Other Café – coffeehouse by day, comedy club by night – Robin Williams was in the house. I was in the kitchen learning to salt the chili so customers would drink more, when he grabbed me and tango’d me around the crowded floor — crowded with cooks, comedians, waiters, industrial stoves, and a freezer. “I like this job,” I thought, and could not stop laughing.

I had quit a lucrative bank position a month ago, and the “help wanted” sign in the window of my local caught my eye. The Other Café was around the corner from my flat on Parnassus, and I had participated in their Miss Haight Ashbury Beauty? Pageant two years running. (Inspired by Pebbles Flintstone for one “bathing suit competition,” I wore a faux leopard skin bikini and an arm bone through my platinum topknot, the skeletal hand still attached.)

After training was complete, the owners put me on mornings. At first light, I rolled off my futon, splashed water on my face, grabbed the keys, and jogged to the venue at Cole and Carl to prepare for the commuter rush on espresso. My co-worker Patrick Winningham soon showed up (talented musician, brother to talented actress Mare), and we cappocino’d, hash brown’d, omeleted, and juiced oranges for the crowd. The torrent of customers lasted hours, with folks sneaking lattes on the N-Judah, the streetcar downtown.

Occasionally I worked nights when they were short staffed. One such night, Rosaleen and I were closing up when we heard raucous hooting. Looking out the plate glass window, we were surprised to see two pale heinies glowing under a streetlight: Robin on the left, Bobby Slayton on the right. How did we know whose moons? As soon as they heard our explosive laughter, they zipped up, turned around, bowed, and zipped away. Cackling.

Mooned by Mork. Can you dig it? I knew that you could.

Mr. Williams and I crossed paths a few more times, but he kept his pants on (a must at the airport back in the day). One night he came to the flat on Parnassus. Rosaleen and Deirdre were also there, celebrating my and Deirdre’s graduation from American Conservatory Theatre’s Summer Training Congress. He took one look at the three of us and turned tail. Three sassy women? No. “Booty call,” opined Rosaleen. But maybe not. Maybe he was just lonely. Must be hard to be an alien, everywhere you go. Nanu nanu.