San Francisco Chronicle Arts & Entertainment - Spoken Edition

Big surprise: two days before Aidan’s English test, he admitted that he hadn’t read a single page of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol.” What’s a good father to do? Went to the basement and found the George C. Scott version of the film. As an added bonus, the next day took him to the Dickens Fair. The Dickens Fair is held at the Cow Palace.

I got attacked by a dermatologist last week. He seemed like a nice fellow, giving me friendly advice about wearing sunscreen — and then he shot me in the face with liquid nitrogen multiple times. “You’re going to look kind of rough for about a week or so,” he said, as I attempted to recover from the onslaught. “But once the scabs fall off, you’ll look as good as new.” A lot of people might have gone into hiding, but not me.

9th Annual New Year’s Eve Stand Up Comedy Showcase With Karen Rontowski, Brian Kiley, Ronn Vigh, Maureen Langan. 7:30 p.m. $29.50-$69.50. Marin JCC, 200 North San Pedro Road, San Rafael. www.marinjcc.org \ Beach Blanket Babylon NYE Guests receive Champagne and truffles. Late show followed by dancing. 7 and 10:15 p.m. $65-$210. Club Fugazi, 678 Beach Blanket Babylon Blvd., S.F. (415) 421-4222. www.beachblanketbabylon The Claypool Lennon Delirium, Beanpole Live music. 9 p.m. $75. The Fillmore, 1805 Geary St., S.F.

At the Stonestown Olive Garden, where salad or soup are unlimited and free if you order an entree, Alan Briscoe overheard a woman complaining to her server, “My friend got a big bowl of salad, and I only got a little bowl of soup. That is not fair.” And to that server, God bless us one and all and Merry Christmas. The name of the new leader of the German Christian Democratic Union is Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, which gives Markos Kounalakis reason to smile.

I’m proud to announce that I have just entered my 27th year of trying to lose 5 pounds. Not many fatties have the perseverance to keep trying to lose 5 pounds, and failing, for 27 consecutive years, but I do. In honor of this milestone, my wife bought me a Fitbit wristband, which miraculously monitors how many steps you take each day. And as a bonus, among other things, it also lets you know how long you sleep at night, including light sleep versus deep sleep.

Ask my husband. I’m not the kind of guy you pick to face down a coyote. Which brings me to Naturebridge. Aidan’s in seventh-grade now, and Mr. B. takes his class every year to Fort Cronkhite on Rodeo Beach, where his students are “immersed in the wonder of science.” Every mother volunteered to chaperone, but fathers, not so much. So Sister Shirley called me into her office: “You know why you have to go.” No, I had no idea why, but I was raised Catholic.

Perhaps you have noticed, in this holiday season, that the snap on your wallet is getting worn out and that your credit card rarely gets cold between usings. Whatever you’re spending, it’s small potatoes, pals. Rent.com reported a few weeks ago that the most expensive rental apartment in San Francisco was going for $49,528 a month.

One night, my husband came home with an announcement: he’d adopted a drain. I paused before reacting. Well, this is something, I thought. Large businesses and wealthy people adopt schools. Suburban dwellers adopt trees. If we lived in a house in the East Bay, my husband might come home one night and tell me he’d adopted a pet. But we live in multifamily housing in San Francisco. Under these circumstances, a drain is probably the best we can do.

The sign outside Tony Nik’s on Stockton Street has seen better days. The curves of each letter have darkened, and it’s tricky to make out the “Nik’s” at all; the word was painted in a patchy white rectangle on top of the original “Nicco’s” when longtime bartender Charles Lavagnino — known to everyone as Butch — purchased the bar from its original owners, Angelina and Antonio Nicco, in 1951.

Doug Harvill was having a blast. As senior VP and market manager for the CBS Radio group in San Francisco, he led the cluster to the heights, with stellar ratings for KCBS, “Alice” and KMVQ (“Now”). But when CBS merged with Entercom last November, with the latter taking over the managerial reins, Harvill, who’d steered the stations for 12 years, was the odd manager out. Harvill, 63, knew he’d be back, somewhere. And, six months later, he was.

In South Ozone Park, Nurse Vivian and Pop took Christmas cards seriously. The day after Thanksgiving, the Paulsons drove to Great Eastern Mills out on Long Island to pick out Christmas cards: mostly nativity scenes, a few snowmen, one box of foil-lined envelopes to impress Aunt Rita. One box of “Season’s Greetings!” for all of Nurse Vivian’s Jewish friends from Kings County Nursing School.

The sweetest woman in the world is dying. As I write this, she’s lying in her bed in a nursing home 45 miles north of Montreal. Her family, including my wife, is beside her, waiting for her to die. She’s not eating, and she can’t hear or speak. But she can see, and she feebly waves her hand when a family member comes into the room. She is not going to get better, and the end will come any day now. She’s my mother-in-law, and she’s 95 years old.

1993 Dec. 8: The troubles of legal gunslinger Melvin Belli continued to grow when a bank announced that it would auction off the famed Belli building to cover a defaulted loan. Home Savings of America said that Belli is in default of a loan secured by the building, which housed his law offices until it was damaged by the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. In an interview yesterday Belli said the sale announcement stems from “some machinations of former wives.

The patrons are young, and they’re descending from all angles. They traipse over from the 7-Eleven on Miller Avenue in Mill Valley, stopping to finish soda bottles with questionable contents. A group of three spills out of an idling Mercedes, thanking someone’s older sister for the ride.

Amanda and I met when we both volunteered at the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force in the autumn of 1982. She has seen me through disastrous boyfriends, including the cowboy and the Mafia guy, and I have seen her through disastrous girlfriends, including the runaway circus clown. We’ve patrolled the streets as Pink Panthers, taken the bus to D.C. to protest presidents we disagreed with, and set up ironing boards on Christopher Street to collect money for the first national AIDS hotline.