So, last week my friend Erin and I (this is a real person by the way, not someone I made up and unimaginatively gave my own name to) went wine tasting in Temecula.  I guess in the last 10 years or so Temecula has become a hot new microclimate and wineries popped up all over the countryside, with a sprawling new township to support them.  So what were a couple of silly young girls doing in suburbanite paradise?  I was visiting Erin two Sundays ago while her mom was on a trip to Chicago.  Erin pointed to an empty bottle of wine on her cat’s furniture.
“We have to go to Temecula.  See that bottle?  That was my mom’s wine and I drank it, so we have to go to Temecula and replace it,” she declared.
“Are you serious?  Where is Temecula?!” I had had enough beer at this point to consider her offer.
“It’s happening Wednesday,” was the answer.
On Wednesday, I woke up late so there was a late start to the adventure.  “Oh well,” I thought.  “We’re only going for one bottle anyway.”
Erin picked me up and we made the hour or so drive with no problem.  We found the South Coast Winery and Spa with ease.
“It’s just down this road on the right.”  Erin had a great sense of direction.  I did not.
“Wait!  Isn’t that the way in?!”  I said, pointing backwards.  I started blurting out directions after she made the correct turns.  “I think we’re supposed to go left,” I’d remark after she turned right and passed another large sign saying “THIS WAY TO WINE COUNTRY.”
At the winery, we went wine tasting for the first time.  You pay $7, and you get 5 shots of wine.  Literally, a shot of wine… the bottles have speed pours on them.  We tasted the bottle we were going to pick up for her mom, and then decided on a few more for us.  The lady was very placating, everything I said she ended up agreeing with.
“This would go great with lamb,” I said after trying a nice Cabernet.
“Oh yes!  Very good with fine red meat,” she echoed.
“I’d like to make up a cheese platter for this one,” I nodded to my taster of Sauvignon Blanc.
“Indeed!” she said cloyingly.
“Horse buttholes would be delicious with this one!”
“Naturally!  I eat them everyday!”
I made that last part up, but everything else is essentially true.  It was too late when we realized she didn’t actually like buttholes, she was just angling for a tip.  I ended up buying one bottle, while Erin bought five.  Stolling out to the car, already with a mild buzz, Erin and I decided $7 for 5 shots was a pretty good deal and we should see what the other wineries had to offer.
We became the Goldilocks of Temecula.  One winery looked too ghetto, while another was too “busy,”  and still another was only good for its porta potty, (which Erin used, baffling an onlooking landscaper).
Two wineries were satisfactory, however.  One guy decided we should try every wine they had even though we didn’t pay for it.  I spilled a full taster on his bar to show my gratitude.  The next place had a real witch for a server, and Erin loudly observed that fact several times and spilled a glass of wine for emphasis.  We ended up with a few more bottles and decided we should get back to town and drink some more.  A few martinis and a couple of beers later, our adventure in wine country had concluded.
It may not have been executed with the class or grace typical of what one would expect in Temecula (the people staring at us as we laughed hysterically in one of the parking lots proved that), but it was fun.  And that makes for a good Wednesday in my book.

So, I was minding my own business, cocktailing in my stupid floral shirt, when my manager asks me to go and give the upstairs bartender a break.  I pack up my money and head to NFL, the bar behind security near the United gates.  It’s a little busy, so I’m rushing around trying to remember where everything is and a guy walks up and asks for a Sam Adams. This guy looks exactly like Jerry Rice, I think to myself.  “14 or 20 ounces?” I say, trying to look like I’m not impressed by the greatest receiver of all time.  He looks at his watch.  “Better make it the 20.”
He pays, leaves a good tip, sits at the back counter and gets on his phone.  I start doing dishes while staring at him stupidly.  Two girls come up and ask for his autograph.  He obliges politely. I wish he had paid with a credit card.  I would’ve framed the slip.  No, he’s a bajillionaire.  He wouldn’t need a card.  Stop staring!  Did I just break that glass? Other patrons chime in with what they think.  We all agree, he’s smaller than one would imagine.  He asks for a cheese pizza.  I bring it to him with piles of napkins and ask if he’d like ranch or parmesian.  He laughs for some reason (possibly at Mt. Napkin) and declines.  I tell him his pizza looks like shit and I’d be happy to exchange it for another one.  He laughs again and says, “No thanks, babe, I think I’m fine.  How much is it?”  He again leaves a good tip, and I decide he’s a nice guy and proceed to finish the break and go back downstairs to turn in my bank, telling everybody who will listen that I just met Jerry Rice… or at least a guy who looks exactly like him.  Good enough for me!

If I never move back to Fresno, when I turn 36 I’ll have lived as long out of the ‘No as I did in it.  36 years old!  Almost half my lifetime… I don’t know if I’ll ever live in another city for that long.  Just makes you appreciate where you’re from and how long that environment had a chance to shape your comportment.  There’s no place in this state quite like the Central Valley (except maybe the Salinas valley, but that’s way nicer and smells like garlic), with its ridiculous heat and killer fogs, its increasing car theft and decreasing farm land, and its unique “friendly yet jaded, gangster meets prep, isolated traveller” citizens.  Except in Bakersfield.  Fuck Bakersfield.  My great-uncle can tell stories about before Friant dam was put up, the river-bottom out by Sanger used to flood and he sat on his roof and watched furniture and cows float by.  I loved taking the MG and driving out to Sanger or Kevin’s old house in the summer when, at dusk, with your windows down and that fading orange light over all the vineyards, you can really pretend you’re in southern Europe somewhere.  I get one of two reactions when I tell people where I’m from:
1) “Oh!  Fresno!” (They have no idea where it is.)
or
2) “Oh.  Fresno.”  (They’ve at least driven through it.)
So here’s to the city that people look upon with either pity or ignorance.  I think it’s good enough to miss.

An email I wrote from New Orleans about 1/2 of my trip for Mardi Gras.

Of utmost importance now is speed.  I am presently being raped in my anus by a large internet cafe dildo and don’t have the time to correct errors and/or bother to make any damn sense.  Here’s what I’ve been up to:

THURSDAY
Got off the plane.  Met a gay man who shrieked when he even smelled turbulence and a woman who was born in New Orleans and loved her dog more than her son.   Proceeded to take 2 hour taxi ride with several guys insisting I had to flash them or risk angering the “Boobie God.”  Laughed nervously and told the driver to hurry the fuck up (the taxi continued at a snail’s pace despite my telepathic aid).  Met up with my cousin Chelsea and our friend from Colorado, Dustin.  Got drunk and saw some parade.  Details are sketchy at this point.  Went to a bar and took shots out of waitresses tops. Dustin about shit himself with glee.

FRIDAY
More drinking and parades.  Ended up on Bourbon street.  Lots of people.  Aided Dustin in snagging a
Girls Gone Wild Hat.  Looked at some stuff.  Saw more parades and drank a lot of rum.  Was separated from my friends.  Ended up getting really smashed and talking to strangers in various accents.  Ordered a pizza and carried it down the street giving slices away in an English accent.  The people, they loved it.  Saw someone piss in the hotel lobby.  Rejoined Chelsea and Dustin, who were incredibly baked and saying nasty things about the Olsen twins respectively.  Again, details are sketchy, at best.

DRUNKDAY
Three parades.  Shittons of beads.  My neck was practically bowed.  Seriously, I understand how
rappers feel now.  Even more than in the sense that they are my fellow pimps. Got hit in the face with a sack of beads.  Excellent parade.

TODAY
Got up before God Himself to go to a brunch.  Turns out it’s this huge Bacchus brunch deal and Elijah Wood was elected or kidnapped to be Bacchus.  So he shows up and throws coins and shit at us, and the girls went crazy.  I got bored when he couldn’t figure out his digital camera.  He’s pretty short, too.  Was close at first but didn’t have my camera, so the pictures I did take are from further away and his hobbit ass may not show up too well.  Dustin wanted to scream out, “Frodo!” and run away, but we decided to walk out smoking with our sunglasses on instead.  Chelsea was too drunk to be reached for a comment.  So now I’m in the mall, looking for shoes for some fancy ball business tonight.  Honestly, I just want to get my ass to the Bayou and wrestle some alligators.  Mmmm.

All the food here sets my pants on fire.  I sucked the brains out of a crawfish today.  Fine cajun cuisine.
Thanks to those who wrote me (my favorites!) and sorry for being a douche and not personally responding.   I’ll get in touch with you when I can.

There is no good segue into this story so I’m just going to go balls out on it: Yesterday, I was on the Price is Right.  Not just in the audience, but on the show.  30 something of my housemates and I got on a Green Tortoise bus and went to LA with group reservations for the show.

Before I go on, let me tell you about this bus.  Green Tortoise buses are hippie busses with bunk beds instead of luggage compartments and huge mattresses instead of seats.  The driver will make liquor stops whenever you want and share his Cherry Garcia with you. The upholstery smells like sweet, sweet hashish and there’s a compartment in the back with a door for sweet, sweet scrumping.  We left at about midnight, and I had just returned from Santa Cruz so I had just enough time to tear my room apart looking for my passport, trip over my roommate’s stupid chair, and run out to the bus holding my sweet, sweet shin.

Fast forward many long hours and it’s Casa Zimbabwe in LA.  We split into two groups for the two tapings of the day and I (of course) fell into the later group.  We walked to Melrose, had breakfast.  I had an enormous cup of coffee (black, like the devil made it), and we stolled around aimlessly looking at the funny SoCalians.  Back at CBS studios, we entered the golden years of our lives waiting in a five hour processing line.  The highlights of the wait were making up dances with my mate Ben, listening to Dustin sing about “pizza rakes,” and screaming the lyrics to “We are the Champions” before the interviewer told us to shut up.  So we wait, get nametags, wait, sing, wait, run to Quizno’s, group sex, wait, get interviewed, wait, FINALLY get into the studio.

It’s a lot smaller than I thought.  So, we’re sitting there clapping like trained monkeys and this announcer comes out (not Rod, he’s dead), and starts making dirty jokes.  Not impressed.  We’re sitting there, applauding the applause sign, and they start filming.  They call out names.  The third name they call is mine.  “Capn Nobear” is what he actually called, but if Ms. Nobear had gotten up to contest my spot, I would’ve shot her face off.

The next part is a little hazy.  I remember looking back to my group, specifically this guy Keith, for help, and not being able to hear shit while I was bidding.  I eventually was the closest when I bid on an exercise bike, and ran up onstage and stood next to the man himself, my personal god, Bob Barker.  He asked if I was excited and I think I said “Yes.”  I might have slipped and said, “I just wet myself with joy,” but you can’t prove that.  Then Bob said, “You’ll be more excited with this!”  And all I hear is “A new car!”  I remember seeing a truck and a big board with some numbers roll out.  I remember guessing the price of the truck.  I also remember dancing around like a fucking idiot and hugging Bob Barker.

I’m a little tired and, as always, lazy, so I’ll be brief: I filled out forms, spun the wheel, creamed my jeans, smoked a ton, drank a shitton at a bar where they gave me ice cream, drank on the bus, arrived at home and called my dad.  I came away with a Dodge Dakota, an exercise bike, $95, a year’s supply of Alka-Seltzer, and an autographed picture of Bob.  And they let me keep the signs with my name on them.  You can see me act like a greedy fool on December 24th, around 3pm.  I am out of my mind right now.  My sister didn’t believe me, either.

This weekend, Blair came to visit me because there was a party at my house.  Thus begins the saga/epic tale/porno of this weekend…

Saturday
Our house made about $930, and at $3 a person… that’s a shit-ton of people that came.  Blair and I pre-partied with a beer a piece and a bottle of wine.  This was her bright idea, not mine, because I was already almost at the point of being wasted.  Let me illustrate “almost”:

Actually being wasted:
Blair- (Brings plate of spaghetti from kitchen) I made this for us.
Erin- Yaaaay!  Baaafftime!  (Dumps spaghetti on own head)

The degree of wasted I was:
Blair- Want some spaghetti?
Erin- Nah, I’m good.  (Takes enormous swig of beer and puts on really smoov sunglasses)  I don’t need to eat to survive, I get all my nutrients from the finest hops and barley.

Saturday was a dance party for Blair and I- and the rest is drunken infamy- I mean history- HISTORY!

Sunday
I was leading Blair to Zebra, my piercing parlor of choice on Telegraph Ave.  When we arrived, Blair needed to step outside “for air,” and then proclaimed an urgent need to “sit down.”  Taking “this” as a sign of the apocalypse, I began the trek “home.”

“I need a place with a bathroom.”  Blair looked around anxiously.  At the crowded corner of Bancroft
OK?” “Do you need a cab?” or “What the fuck is going on here?  This is my pukin’ street!”  Least of all, me. and Telegraph, before the light could change, Blair opened her mouth and vomited in the street.  After crossing the street, she did it again… silently opened her mouth and expelled buckets of puke.  This was the most hardcore, punk-rock thing I had ever seen.  No one bothered to stop and ask her “Are you

After that highlight, Will wanted to rent Kung Fu, so off to Blockbuster it was.

The rest of the day was yak-free.

So, I watched a lot of football today.  A LOT of  football.  Now, while it was not a good day for football, it was an excellent day for insobriety.  While in my transcendental state, I had an idea.  Bear with me here.

Have you ever actually listened to what the announcers have to say during a football game?  While drunk?  Well today I did, and it occured to me: “What are the wives of the players thinking about what the annoucers say?”  Probably something dirty.  To illustrate my point:

Example the first
Announcer: “That was some of the best play action I’ve seen in a long time.”
Wives: “You weren’t around last night!”

Example the second
A: “What a huge drive for the Raiders.”
W: “That’s not all that’s huge!”  -Suggestive winking-

Example the third
A: “They just can’t keep their hands on it today!  What is with these greased palms?”
W: -Silence-

Example the fourth (true)
A: “Look at his plays today.  He seems a little tight. No wait, that’s not the right word at all.  Intent.”
W: “You have no idea…”

You get the jist.  I would have a field day with these comments.  Wait a minute, I did have a field day with them.  Mission completed.

-Captain “Put it in the EndZone” Nobeard

Well, my formerly glorious red color was fading fast, so I took it upon myself to play goddess of the
strands. I bought “sable cove” hair dye (dark brown was printed in male right below that).  45 minutes later, my hair is BLACK.  B-L-A-C-fucking-K.  It is jet-black inside, and black in the sun.  Brown never entered this dye’s vocabulary.  I had black hair and black tears running down my black face.  Except for the tears part, it’s all true.  Will’s first reaction was to compare me to a witch, while my roommate
laughed hysterically.  Ha ha.

I think some of you might have a vague conception of anger.  Some of you may have been really mad at one point in your lives, but none of you have ever been SO DAMN MAD that you were thinking of writing a letter of complaint.  That’s right!  It will be something like:  “Brown?  Black!  Mother-fuckers.”  The very foundation of the company will be ROCKED.

My plan for the rest of my life is to wear a hat- every day, all day, forever.  Some of you might say, “Aw… it will grow out.”  Well, wienerheads, you are WRONG.  May I direct your attention to the “permanent” clause on the label?  That means FOREVER.  (Note: For security reasons, the actual length of forever may
vary from 6 weeks to 6 weeks and a day.)  FOR-EV-VER!  I have no intention of ever dying my hair again
unless I become a rock-star and it’s important for my message or I change my mind.  I might try to lighten it soon, but that would probably lead to me buying more hats.

Before I lose power to my machine, I must hastily pen this message to my co-agents to warn them of this new impending danger: BLACKOUTS.

Last night at around 5 o’ clock I was taking the elevator up to my floor, minding my own business, peacefully thinking about recycling and adopting a highway, when all of a sudden the elevator goes dark, and I’m suspended in this creepy, dark dorm limbo.  My reaction of course was, “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!”  This went on for about a full minute until the lights turned back on and the upward motion resumed.  I was extremely grateful for this, because my thoughts at that point were “Ah!  I’m alone in here!  I have no one to eat!”  After this long, perilous trek to my floor, I finally arrived at safety… or so I thought.

The power over the ENTIRE campus was out.  Everyone in my hall was either freaking out or deciding this was a prime looting opportunity.  (“This apple was legal, but this banana is ALL contraband, baby.”)  We were left in the dark all night (a blessing for some), and some classes were canceled this morning.  My roommates COULDN’T HANDLE IT and bailed, fleeing against my cries of “Fine!  Leave!  I will sink with the ship like a TRUE CAPTAIN!  AAAHAHAHA!”

I brought out my camera, and Will’s response to my “do something cool” was “Let’s dress up like Duff-man!”  Will didn’t exactly look like the man himself… he was perhaps better.  Grrr.  We went out to ice-cream and he ordered as such: “Duff-man is thrusting in the general direction of raspberry.”

Overall, I thought it was a fairly cool experience.  A room to myself, shadows to hide in, cosmic trips, prime looting time (Dorm pirates!)… excellent.   Next time the power goes out at your place, try dressing up like Duff-man.  And send me the pictures.