You’ve got a few last chances to catch a really funny and interesting show in the best little comedy basement in the city.

Underground comedy institution, The Business, is relocating yet again come September 18th, from Lost Weekend Video, to the Hemlock tavern. They moved earlier this year from their long-time home, The Dark Room, when it temporarily closed because those Spamalot dicks sent a cease and desist letter.

The reason for September’s move? Business regular Jules Posner says that they saw an opportunity to expand: “The Hemlock just happened to have Friday nights open up in the near future, and we thought it would be a great opportunity to step up to a higher capacity venue in a primetime slot.”

The venue is bigger and louder, but he promises the format won’t change, which is good news. The two big reasons I love this show: it’s got an incredibly loose format (something like The Benson Interruption where there is a second comic around to butt in whenever they feel like) and it gives the talented mainstays a unique opportunity to practice longer sets on a regular basis, so they can take their craft to the next level. Since there is another comic around to shoot the shit with, comedians can test weirder, newer material without getting marooned or losing step.

It’s a format that’s helping comics evolve. Former Business SF comics Sean Keane, Caitlin Gill, Chris Garcia, Chris Thayer, and Anna Seregina are establishing roots down south via The Business LA. The franchise has even extended to the East Coast. Original Business SF member Alex Koll (along with Jared Logan, Kara Klenk, and Michelle Wolff) launched The Business-NYC, which appears twice-monthly at The Stand.

Expansion is great for the comics, but the intimate, quasi-conversational style is perfectly suited for Lost Weekend’s tiny basement.

Catch it there while you can. Mondays at 8pm. The show is only five bucks.

Of course the city that recently ranked #1 on Rent.com’s list of best cities for singles (39% single adults?!? Are you fucking kidding me?!!) has a live dating game show. The updated take on the saccharine, hetero-normative classic has been playing at Z Space for the better part of a year now. The creatively named ‘Z Dating Game’ is set up like the old show: 1 single person interviews 3 others in front of a crowd of strangers. Features that make this version particularly San Francisco:

• Gay and Lesbian Rounds
• Interpretive dance of people’s embarrassing sex stories
• The venue is an old warehouse, repurposed as a theater/art gallery, because of course it is
• From what I can tell, everyone is drunk
• The press release is ironic: “Remember, the path to true love is always easier with hundreds of strangers vocally questioning your every step.”

This shameless exploitation of horny singles happens every couple of months. Z Dating Game is this Saturday, 8pm at Z Space (450 Florida St.). Advanced tickets can be purchased for $10 here, and are $20 at the door.

Sarah Slocum embarrassed her way into the national spotlight late last month, telling her questionable story of being assaulted for sporting Google Glass in Molotov’s to any reporter needing to fill airtime.  The fallout was swift: bars banned the tech, bars banned the victim, an employee for Molotov’s was fired, and the tech community walked away with another black eye they didn’t ask for and didn’t deserve.

But Sarah Slocum continues to grandstand, asking Google for free tickets to SXSW and racking up tens of Twitter followers.  So imagine our surprise to learn that two years ago, a judge granted Sarah Slocum’s neighbors a restraining order on the wearable warrior for “surreptitiously recording them with her smartphone.”

The LA Times reports:

In an interview with The Times, Jessie Lilley Campbell said she was sitting with her husband and their landlord in the living room of their Aptos, Calif., home on the evening of May 15, 2012, when she noticed that someone was holding up a smartphone to record the conversation through an open window.

Campbell said she opened the front door and spotted Slocum, who at the time lived in a cabin on the property. She confronted Slocum, who denied recording the conversation.

The next morning, Campbell filed for a restraining order. Campbell said Slocum later admitted in court she recorded the conversation but said Campbell had no expectation of privacy.

“I didn’t surreptitiously record anyone,” she reiterated in regards to the Molotov’s incident. “I only started recording after they threatened me. And I told them the second I started recording them.”  Of course, her own video contradicts that statement.  Whatever.  Pass the popcorn, because this unmitigated disaster keeps getting better and better.

[Photo: shimshang]

Proving that irony can still be found in the Mission despite the turbulent times, the second annual SF Fauxtest aims to amuse and bewilder with a protest designed to air petty annoyances, chant against chanting, and generally tease protest culture.  Maybe they'll even stuff flowers in the exhaust pipes of Google buses.

Things kick off in Dolores Park at 5:15pm on Friday, followed by a march down Valencia.  Should you want to participate, there are plenty of fine photos from last year's Fauxtest to comb through for inspiration, but we're partial to this set of semi-serious signage:

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