Dr. Bob Schwartz is salary-less, but not humorless.
“When I was a fellow,” he recalls of his early medical career in Mexico, “before I had the sex change, I guess, I used to go watch bullfights. Corrida, they’re called (a Spanish term for running or fighting bulls). It should be stopped. I love bullfighting. But it’s wrong.”
He’s kidding — about the sex change. Not about the bullfighting. The snappy line comes so fast on the tail of his “fellow” reminiscence that it takes a moment for me to realize: This is not a comedy club (the hallway outside is lined with people waiting to be treated for HIV or AIDS and maybe pick up a free breakfast, which is hard to laugh about), and Dr. Schwartz, who might have done standup routines in another life, is not one of those classic Jewish comedians like Lenny Bruce, whose lightning wit left audiences laughing while they bled…