Zzzz....

So very tired....

I Believe I Can't Fly

Phone call I received at 12:20pm during work today

ME: Hello, this is Chris.
LADY: Hello. I’d like to talk to you about an opportunity. You have the choice of receiving a $50 meal gift certificate from your choice of Red Lobster, …, or able to stay for 4-days/3-nights at a resort when you come down to our office to check out our resident offers. You’re in no obligation to buy anything; you can just come down and look around if you’d like. Now, do you have a significant other?
ME: Um, no.
LADY: Well are you, (hesitates) 25 or older?
ME: Nope.
LADY: Okay, is there anyone else at your residence I can talk to?
ME: Well, this is an office…
LADY: Oh. *click*

I was so thrown off at hearing this sort of sales pitch at work that I don’t even remember where she called from. Too bad, maybe someone around here could have used a good meal.

Last night Jess and I went to the Fox theater to go see the “Vince Vaughn Wild West Comedy Show.” As it were, Vince Vaughn was in Bakersfield emceeing a comedy event featuring four stand-up comics who have been featured on television in different scopes and capacities. The comics, in the order that they performed, were Ahmed Ahmed, John Caparulo, Bret Ernst, and Sebastian Maniscalco. The evening as a whole was both rather funny and rather, um, interesting, at least from my perspective.

Let’s start with the comics. All four were very funny, and it was a shame that towards the end of the night, I was feeling tired because it was getting past my bedtime. Ahmed Ahmed talked about his troubles trying to fly places (“You guys have to show up at the airport, what, 2 hours in advance. I have to show up 6 weeks in advance now.”) followed by John whose voice reminded me of Clint Howard’s. Bret somehow ended up talking about the countries of the world being the different types of people in a club (“North Korea’s alone at the end of the bar there looking at us and thinking, ‘I could take him.’ Germany and Japan step in a say, ‘Believe us it’s not worth it. Come on buddy, you need to sober up now.”) and ended doing a funny impression of those roller rink “studs”. Sebastian ended the show by talking about today’s un-macho guys from sandal guy (someone who shouldn’t be wearing sandals but does everywhere he goes) to the guy who complains about not getting his coffee sleeve at Starbucks. Each comic had their own styles of jokes, so by the end of the night I felt we covered most of the gamut of humor. They all were great.

The interesting part of the evening took place mainly between Vince Vaughn and drunk audience members (yes, they were selling alcohol there and everyone kept going back for more) shouting things out. I keep forgetting that I’m in Bakersfield and not on a college campus, where even though we might not consider ourselves polite, it is far more subdued about these sort of encounters. I dunno, maybe it’s because USC is in LA and people are more used to seeing celebrities and don’t feel the need to shout out stupid things (“Brad Pitt sucks!”) during the show (not to say that college kids can’t be wild or unruly). So after the fourth person yelled out “You’re so money, Vince!” he just stopped talking and said, “All right, lets get it all out of the way now. Um, ‘Earmuffs’, ‘You’re so money, baby’, ‘What'd you do? You motorboat 'em? You played the motorboat… *phhhttbbbbbb*’” and just went on to throw out there several of his one-liners. He brought out Peter Billingsley (the boy from “A Christmas Story”) between comics and they re-acted out a scene from an after-school special they were in about steroids use. That was funny, except for the stupid people still shouting stuff out. Then later in the show he brought out Dwight Yoakam. Now I may live in Bakersfield, but country music escapes me. I don’t know anything about it and I don’t listen to it, so I don’t even know who Dwight Yoakam is, but as soon as he came out the entire audience exploded like he was Elvis or something. I just sat and clapped in bewilderment and then looked around at everyone going wild while he was performing. I’m sure if I were more like my fellow Bakersfieldians I’d have been more enthused, but it was fun, nonetheless, and he got Vince to sing along to “The Streets of Bakersfield” (which I found out was a song). The show ended with Vince doing karaoke with the audience to Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline”.

Like I said, the evening was fun, but it was a startling reminder that I was indeed back in Bakersfield, surrounded by country music lovers and generally the sort of individuals I tend to avoid.

Looking At It Sideways

When I started this online journal about 20 months ago, it was driven with the intention of relaying the random events of my life. The purpose was to provide my friends and family the opportunity to see what I was doing while away at school, while also allowing me to share some of my creativity and random web-browsing finds. As time went on, this site evolved to encompass all of these things with different magnitudes and mixtures. Recently, however, the site has run dry of those elements that I truly enjoined and creative/amusing posts have been replaced by sporadic summaries of weeks (or even months) passed. The obvious reasoning behind the idling of the site has been my recent employment, which has kept me occupied during the day and restrained from the internet at night (not technically, but the impact is evident). I look forward to the day when I have my own place to live with an internet connection that I can use to get back into the mix of things. The other reason behind the sporadic posts is that I no longer need to update to inform people of my activites. Now that I see most of my dedicated readers on a daily basis, the obligation to post seems almost moot. Between these two factors, progress has been slow, but if people keep up with the comments, I will try to post a bit more often.

There is one last issue that seems to be more of a challenge than a hinderance (or what they refer to at the office as “opportunities”), and that is finding something unique to post about. Most of what goes on can usually be summarized in Rachel’s, Robert’s or Rebecca’s own accounts. This means I have to be a little craftier in what I post so as to not reiterate topics. A good case in point of this is the camping trip that we took this past weekend. While Robert and Rebecca (and hopefully Natalie soon) have given their own abbreviated versions of the entire trip, I will try to impart some more detail on specific aspects of the trip. Like I say, it’s a bit more challenging.

We indeed were in “Sideways” country over the weekend, passing through Solvang, Los Olivos and Buellton. We saw some of the more familiar landmarks such as “The Hitching Post” and seemed to stumble on a few unbeknownst to any of us. While looking at a map of the wineries (which would have been helpful the first day) I saw a winery called Sanford. Somehow this sounded vaguely familiar, and anyone who knows my family knows how often random bottles of wine pass through our doors. So it seemed worth checking out as we took the Santa Rose Rd. and drove up to a very secluded but very crowded winery. The instant we walked in I suddenly recalled where I recognized the name from: we were at a “Sideways Winery”. The wine tasting lesson that Miles gives to his buddy Jack occurs at this winery and looking around I gathered a sense of familiarity of the place. The pourer in the movie was also there, outside behind a table swarmed by wine junkies. It was a neat little tourist stop, but we immediately left because it was not worth the wine tasting ($10 per person seems a little steep).

The last winery we visited for that day (Kalyra) was also crowded, but after eating lunch there, we managed to squeeze in during a slight lull in the excitement. Like the aforementioned winery, this one had a big “Sideways” poster on the wall, but the atmosphere was not as distinct. I debated whether it was in the movie, until as we were leaving saw some photographs on the wall of the cast members. Okay, so it was in the movie, but it seemed too unique not to remember. When I finally got home from the trip and unloaded most of my gear, I put in my copy of the film to see where exactly we had been. Looking at it, I could definitely identify Sanford from the outside and even the road leading up. As I continued to move on, I did indeed see Kalyra in the movie. It’s the winery Sandra Oh works at and she even mentions the name of it later on. The reason I could not recognize the place was because the interior shots were very tight and omitted most of the Australian themes. Even the exterior shot of the place was missing their big Australian flag. Nevertheless, it seemed rather amusing to just unintentionally end up at two of the more familiar wineries featured in the film, and then to go back and watch those parts now knowing about what they actually look like. I guess that explains why they both were crowded. Only one was worth staying at, and I think this “Sideways” business has gotten out of control. One winery sported a sign saying, “Not in the movie Sideways”.

I think I can summarize this trip with the phrase Veni. Vini. Vino: I came. I saw. I drank wine.