INTRODUCTION
Nothing too disgusting or personal here guys, just some nice clean stories about when my friend Johnny came down to visit me in California. And yes, if it sounds like I was in California for about four months, since I have so many stories about being in California, that is because I was in California for about four months. Anyway, Johnny works for the Forest Service, and gets laid off every winter, so I convinced him to join me for two weeks. The following covers some of the amazing things we did.
IT WAS WORTHWHILE, DESPITE NO CAR
The first thing Johnny and I tried to do was get on “The Price is Right.” After getting our first set of tickets I did a little research, where I learned to be in the audience Johnny and I needed to show up to the studio early. We needed to be early in order to get our second set of tickets, after which we needed to have bubbly personalities or great hooks in order to “come on down.” To get on a 4:00 pm showing of “The Price is Right,” however, you apparently have to show up at 6:00 am, because our arrival time of 12:00 pm was far too late. Johnny and I did meet some cool fellow rejects though, and we and pretty much everyone else who Drew Carey turned away went onto “The Craig Ferguson Show” later that day. Interestingly, Johnny now watches “The Craig Ferguson Show” religiously, and not long ago Craig Ferguson joked that his audience is all people who were “late” for “The Price is Right.” That seems pretty accurate to me.
AND EVERYONE KEPT ASKING US FOR SLUSHIES
Before going to California Johnny thought the state was full of crazy people. But, for the first week of Johnny’s visit we never saw anything too off the wall. That was, however, until we went to Venice Beach, an area which is like its own planet. Imagine four miles of oceanside sidewalk covered by one big cloud of smoke. Medical marijuana vendors are everywhere, and all of them are the extremely high-pressure-in-your-face type of people, like the Las Vegas free porn street vendors. Hippies that even Portland would reject have set out blankets on the sidewalk, selling junk like punctured basketballs, dirty cups, and microscope parts, there are out of shape body builders walking around in thongs, there are very bad street artists, artists that I could paint better than, and sprinkled at even intervals are odd stores, like ones that just sell fur hats, despite Venice Beach being a warm, sunny beach. Ultimately, I think Johnny’s opinions were reinforced.
JUST WANTED TO FERTILIZE THE BUSHES
On another day Johnny and I went to Six Flags. Johnny claims he had a blast there, but I am not sure if he is telling the truth because the roller coasters made him throw up twice. The first time this happened we had just got done with a ride and were still strapped into the seats. Johnny was next to me and he looked very pale. I asked him if he was ok, and he answered by putting a hand over his mouth. Knowing what was up, I tried as hard as I could to get away from him, but since the ride attendants would not come and un-strap us we were both trapped. Now, I bet Johnny thinks those few minutes of captivity were the longest minutes of his life, but I think it was worse for me. It is one thing to think you will throw up, but it is another thing to think you will be thrown up upon. To Johnny’s credit, however, he did make it, and the moment he had his freedom he ran to some greenery. I doubt he could not have waited a second longer.
SHE WAS ALSO TINY, SO I WASN’T WORRIED
At another point during Johnny’s stay we went to San Diego. To quickly talk about something different though, the previous time I had been south of Los Angeles I did not have a passenger to split gas with. So, I went out on an adventure and found a Craigslist rideshare. The girl I rode down with was named Charlene and she was a ball of fun; her favorite activities seemed to be drunk 4-wheeling, high 4-wheeling, getting into fights, and at a rest stop she showed me how to knife fighting. Also, she stopped a few times to buy and put more oil in her jeep. Charlene seemed to think that all vehicles burn oil, claiming every single one of her family’s cars needed oil added on an almost daily basis. I tried to convince her that no, most cars just require periodic oil changes and that is it, but she never believed me. Still, she was fun enough that I caught a ride back with her so I rode with her twice, and since she was not on drugs at any point it was all fine.
Johnny and I’s drive to San Diego was not nearly as interesting. We had a fun time once we got there though, kicking off the trip by going to UCSD where we were test subjects. My friend Lindsay runs psychological tests at UCSD’s lab, and amazingly the tests pay so Johnny and I actually made some money off of the trip. Johnny’s test involved reading nonsensical sentences and then answering questions about them. My test involved being hooked up to a cap that read my brain waves while I made decisions. In the end I believe Johnny aced his test and my brain waves showed that I was the smartest test subject they had ever had. Finally certified as geniuses, we then went to the San Diego Zoo, hit up some restaurants, and then went back to Lindsay’s apartment and played with her pet birds. Except Lindsay’s birds are not friendly, so they really just bit us. I did not mind so much, but poor Johnny; my aunt and uncle’s dog bit him too.
CONCLUSION
The last thing I should mention is that while in California Johnny and I got lost quite a bit, much to his derision. What I do not think Johnny understood though, was that when driving around cities like Los Angeles or San Diego without something like a GPS, you are pretty much bound to get lost. It’s a fact of life and you just go with the flow and ask people for directions. Once it did almost come to blows though, when Johnny picked me up after I had an endoscopy and had been sedated. Though we were not at Venice Beach in that case, I blame the quarrel on the drugs.
PICTURE
Me proving to UCSD I am the next Albert Einstein.
