Mark Weiss at Philz Palo Alto downtown in May, 2012 doing his Harbaugh bit while the lovely and talented duo of Remi and Chloe wait their turn to sing that song that they used to know.

Two weeks in a row I have done my Harbaugh monologue at the Friday open mic at Philz.

The gist of it is that although he is or was an excellent athlete and a successful coach, I have not been able to shake my first impression that Jim was so into himself that he was a displeasure to play against (I was on the Gunn basketball team while he was on the Paly basketball, football and baseball teams –I have been carrying this feeling around for thirty years).

In spring of 1982, we the Oracle student newspaper at Gunn put out a fake Paly Campanile — The Crapanile -that played on the fact that the real Campanile used pictures of Jim for their Winter Wrap up AND their Spring Preview. We parodied this by writing ad nauseum about “Jim Harbarph” under the headline OUR BOY JIM DOES IT AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN.

As I have admitted to people my misgivings, even as a Stanford and 49ers fan, people added to my rap by offering their own “Harbaugh hater” moment or story.

It’s beyond the Gunn-Paly thing, although come to think of it Jim Harbaugh may be the first blue chip Paly athlete who actually lived closer to Gunn. (And for instance, Paly’s top three athletes right now all live within a few blocks of each other in South Palo Alto…and that famous world-changing, Dirk-facing, billionaire in the making point-shooting guard, guess where he was supposed to go?)

Jim can make amends and save himself by quitting pro sports and learning to play hand-drums with a reggae or world beat band; believe me, this will heal him.

Until then, I am entitled to my opinions.

A comedic monologue is not stand-up comedy. I don’t tell a joke and wait for a laugh or not. I talk on and on for about 9 minutes — although I have about three hours of material — then a couple hours later you go “hmm..that was kind of weird!”.

Thanks to Shelley Barnea Smith for taking this photo.