An Izzard's Tale*

What an adventure! We took BART to San Francisco to attend the dvd signing by the rocking, hilarous, "executive transvestite", Eddie Izzard. The event was held at the Borders in Union Square. It was scheduled for 4pm, but M. Izzard requested that the gig be moved up an hour. And, oh the problems begin.

Like I said, we took the train to avoid the parking nightmare that is San Francisco. We mapped it out and determined our best bet was to get off on Montgomery and go up Post, stopping at the Kate Spade store along the way to pick up my 2003 agenda refills (the woman from Nordstrom never called back).

After quickly getting what I needed at KS (no need to look at what one cannot have), we stopped and had a quick hotdog at a street vendor (we skipped breakfast, as it well, went bad). It still wasn't yet 3pm, so we figured we would continue on another half block and go to Borders and get a good spot. WRONG!

We walk in and the sign announcing the event has as "X" over 4pm, and 3pm has been written in. We race up the escalator to the third floor only to discover that we are not alone. In fact, the end of the line is now on the other side of the store from where Eddie Izzard is, in the children's section! And because of the holidays, the shelves with the calendars are blocking the view completely. There is no microphone, so we can't hear what he is saying. We can barely hear the laughter of those lucky enough to be that close.

I kid you not, we stood there for over an hour without budging two feet. We took turns going to see what was going on, but couldn't figure the hold up. By the time the event was scheduled to begin, they had people zig zagging in and out of the stacks. They were warning people who showed up after 3:45pm that there was no guarantee that they would make it to the front.

We were entertained by four women friends in front of us. One of them picked up the book, Click Clack Cluck, and read the entire thing aloud. They reminded me of something out of Bridget Jone's Diary.

After almost two hours we had barely moved one row of books. And I almost think that was due to people giving up and leaving.

When we finally got to the front of the line it was nearly a quarter to six. My feet hurt and my shoulder hurt from hold my bag with the camera. One of the people running the show made a comment about how the line seemed to move faster now that they were letting groups of people go up. You got it -- they had been sending people up one at a time to meet M. Izzard!

Even after all that, I must say it was worth it. He was very nice and did take time to answer questions and sign things. I told him about all the women in Texas who were big fans. He said that he spends most of his time while in the US doing shows in LA or NY. He doesn't come to San Francisco as often as he would like. One of the people running the show (and I must use that term very loosely) was good enough to take our picture. We'll see how it turns out.

And, in case you were wondering, he was wearing a bright red velvet jacket. Under it he seemed to have a white ruffled shirt. Not too much makeup.

We pretty much headed back home after leaving Borders. The city looked pretty cool all lit up. Macy's has a neon wreath in each of what must be at least 50 windows. Saks (I think) has a Nutcracker theme, with animated puppets telling the story of the sugar plum fairy. Neiman Markus has its tree lit up and decorated (it starts at the cosmetics counter on the first floor and ends at the top floor where their cafe is located -- and you can view the whole tree from outside). Of course, Union Square has a giant tree in its center, complete with protesters. There was also a giant billboard on the side of a building which read "Welcome to California, the non-smoking section of the country."


* If you don't know who Eddie Izzard is, you really must run (don't walk) to your nearest dvd seller and pick up a copy of "Dressed to Kill". Or, set your Tivo to record the next showing on HBO.