We can hardly believe the awesomeness of today's palate cleanser, which comes to us straight from the airwaves via Buzzfeed. On the latest episode of the reality show Joan & Melissa, Joan Rivers and her buddy Lynne score some medical marijuana and then, like a couple of teenagers in Lynne's Scion, go find a quiet cul de sac in which to smoke out. more ›

First up is "Survivor," because nothing much happened in regards to Yau-Man this week. His team won the immunity challenge, and they went off to be their super-favorite selves for most of the episode. more ›

-- The Shining (1980): "Honey, I'm home," "Here's Johnny!" etcetera, etcetera, Kubrick, and so forth. (No one wields a baseball bat like Shelley Duvall. So awkward. Also, what ever happened to her?) Screens at midnight (okay, 11:55 p.m.) at the Clay. more ›

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-- Lavay Smith and Her Red Hot Skillet Lickers: Not only does this "Basie-esque" outfit perform lush jazz and blues tunes, but the chanteuse is pretty funny in between songs. Check them out tonight at 7 p.m. at the Top of the Mark, InterContinental Mark Hopkins Hotel, One Nob Hill, (999 California); $10. more ›

-- The al fresco SF Mayoral race debate, featuring full frontal. Gosh. What madcap wackiness will they unload on us next? [SFBG] more ›

This week's offerings represent the Bay Area's diversity. If that's too PC for you, go for the ones with a touch of taboo. more ›

Last Friday night, Kathy Griffin, star of the Bravo reality show "My Life on the D-List" and heir apparent to the Sandra Bernhard/Joan Rivers style of snark and dish comedy -- without the singing and the dead husband -- brought down house at the Warfield with her second sold-out San Francisco show.

Onstage doing standup, Griffin is energetic and totally comfortable, with a loosely structured conversational routine that could seemingly go on forever. Her Robin Williams-like manic energy leads the audience on a frenetic, often disjointed, but always piercingly funny walkabout through American pop culture.

There's a vaudevillian quality to Charo -- the laying on of audience flattery, her slapsticky persona, jokes you can see coming from miles away, and all that glitz and innuendo. It's a style you might call Vegas-kitsch -- well, Reno-kitsch, at least. Flashing lights! Backup dancers with heaving bosoms, both male and female! Not-entirely-topical jokes about Joan Rivers' plastic surgery! Sounds like fun to us. And after our delightful chat with the eccentric, guitar-playing spitfire a few days ago, we couldn't wait to see her Saturday evening performance at the Herbst. more ›