Cows, Rhinos, Whatever

Rockapella in Arroyo Grande

Saturday, November 17, 2018

Clark Center for the Performing Arts

Arroyo Grande, CA

Remember when I said this hotel had an electronic device instead of the standard binder for hotel information?  Here is what it said about today's weather:

That's right.  The weather is "Smoke".
Also, it's damn cold out there.

I met up with Weff at hotel breakfast, which included our leftover beignets.  Yum.  We packed up the car, and went to a nearby Walgreen's to pick up the prints I ordered.  We then made our way down to Arroyo Grande.  As promised, I brought games with me for us to play.  The first one was "Cows On My Side".  Whomever says "cow(s) on my side" whenever they see a cow on their side of the road gets a point.  If you see a cow on the other side and say "cow(s) on your side" before the person on the other side of the car, you get a point.  Weff are quite competitive with each other, so this was especially hilarious for me.  At one point, I think one of us (can't remember who) saw a rhino.  It was not a rhino. We also began to imagine cows were there when they were just big rocks that we nowhere near the shape of cows.  Wendy had planned on taking a nap sometime during the ride, but refused to do so when she realized she needed to be alert to spot the cows.  Sorry, Wendy.

We stopped at In-n-Out for lunch.  The only free tables were outside where it was a bit chilly, but we still enjoyed our food....because, hello.  It's In-n-Out!

Not surprised that JT liked my Instagram post from here

When we got back on the road, I introduced our second game (the cow game continued):  Mad Libs.  Yes, they were Rockapella-themed.  The one I did for this leg of the trip was based on a Rockapella song.  I think I'll share the actual MadLibs in another post because they're kind of long, and you know, I'm not behind enough on these posts, I guess.  ;)

We arrived in Arroyo Grande and checked out the location of the venue, figuring that we saw Rockapella's mode of transport in the parking lot since they would have been there for sound check.  On our way to the hotel, Wendy won the game by yelling, "GHOST COW!!!" when she saw a cemetery.  "Ghost Cow" means you get everyone's points!  It was an awesome end to the game because we were almost at our destination.

We saw a little cafe near the hotel and figured we could go there for dinner.  After we checked in and brought our luggage to the rooms, Weff realized that the cafe would close soon, so we drove down to 8575 Caffe Perfetto and I ordered a Mexican Mocha, an asiago panini, and this cute cookie with strawberry jam filling.

I heart cookies!

We ate our sandwiches in the breakfast area of the hotel because the cafe was just about to close when we arrived.  The lady in the cafe said that they needed to go bake for the next day, so we promised we'd be back in the morning, because we wanted to try more stuff.  Then we got ourselves ready for the show.

When we arrived at the theatre, we saw Karla and met her aunt Charlotte, whom illustrated a book about hippos that KP previously gave me, "Hurry Home Hippos".  We also took a look at the Christmas trees up for auction in the lobby before going to our seats in the front row, house left.  Yay!

Posse Selfie

The introduction video played, and I was finally able to take notes of the descriptions for each guy:

• Mitch = Mr. Energetic
• Bryant = Rumble Down Under
• Calvin = Smooth Like Butter
• Jeff = One With The Drum
• Scott = Goldilocks

Rock Around the Clock

Scott was wearing my favorite tie!  

When the song ended, Mitch was on the edge of the stage right in front of me, and sang "Sherry", and I was happy happy!  I may have squealed a little bit.  

Jailhouse Rock

I like the "Choo choo Whooo"s.

Scott, when we cheered because we had seen Rockapella before: "Oh, yeah, I recognize all you faces down there."

Dancing in the Moonlight

...and there goes Cal's mic pack.  

Bad, Bad Leroy Brown

Mitch raised his leg like he was going to pee on Calvin like a dog. (I was going to write "doggy style", but that seems wrong somehow.)

Satisfaction

I like the guttural "I try" from Scott.  Bryant comforted him with a hug for not getting any satisfaction.  During the Another Saturday Night portion, Mitch asked Lori if she wanted her 15 seconds of fame.  "No."

Mitch: Don't take my dream away, Lori.

Scott recognized Mitch as "The magnificence that is Mitch Rains."

Moon River

Scott:  Bryant is newly married to a California girl, whom is currently performing at Radio City Music Hall in their Christmas shows.  Hi, Hannah!  

Scott talked about records and said to Mitch: That was before your time, son.

Paper Doll

Rock the Boat

<Intermission>

I waved to Fred on my way to the lobby.  Some of the bathroom stall doors have plaques with the names of theatre donors.  Others have little quotes on them.  It was kind of like reading a message from a fortune cookie and ending it with "...in the bathroom."  When I got back to my seat, Wendy was playing a pretend keyboard on JeffEvs' hand, and emoted like Ross of "Friends".  These two never fail to entertain me.

The guys came back to the stage after they had "a little snacky snack", according to Scott.

Dancin' in the Streets

Aw, I haven't seen them perform this song in a long time!

L-O-V-E

This song makes me smile.  Scott attempted to position his body in the shape of an "E"

The Middle

Bryant sang "Baby" to me.  Hello!  

Commercials

Scott called us "the discerning Arroyo Grande audience".  After one of the "NBC" jingles, Cal was excited, and said, "Yeah!"  When Scott labeled Rockapella as the "Heroes of Capitalism", Mitch went into Superman pose.

Scott felt a coffee connection with April after not connecting with her friend.  "Is that a 'si'?  This is a bilingual show!"  April is from Atascadero and is retired from "whatever".  She sang Stand By Me with the guys.  Yay!  I like when they actually sing. 

Ain't Too Proud to Beg

April had a lot of fun with the guys, especially Calvin and Scott.  "You're a really good entertainer.  You should try out for Rockapella."

Macklemore

Bryant:  We are a fun band.  Come along with us.

Bryant talked about seeing Rockapella for the first time when he was 8 years old.  

JT:  I was only 10.

Bryant asked JT what he enters on his tax returns as his occupation.

JT: "Sad little clown".  No, "professional spitter".

They did their vocal percussion duet.  OK, I LOVE that it was different from yesterday.

Carmen SanDiego

Encore

Boogie Tonight

Yay!  Fun stuff.

Up On The Roof / Wonderful World

There is too much audience singing around me.  UGH.

(This blog post might be edited in the near future, after I figure why I wrote down "single family dwelling" in my notes.  Like, I can't read half of my notes tonight and I'm leaving stuff out, but I can very clearly read this phrase.  WHAT?)

Meet and Greet

While we were waiting to get in line, one of the usher volunteers talked to us about the differently-themed trees, and told us she really liked the tree sponsored by Menchie's.  APPARENTLY, she really likes Menchie's, and proceeded to tell us what she liked to put on her yogurt.  I don't remember her name, so I'm going to call her Menchie from now on.

We got in line to talk to the guys, and someone was talking to JT for a long time.  He saw us waiting, and apologized.  JT said to him, "That's OK.  They have all the autographs."

I gave the guys a copy of the picture from yesterday as a Happy Thanksgiving card.  

Scott:  You guys are so sweet, so nice and thoughtful."  

Scott told JeffEvs that he wasn't sure if Cal slept in the back of the car.  He just knew that Cal was quiet.

Calvin felt a lot better today.  I told him that it was noticeable on stage and off.  Wendy asked him why his girl is called "Provolone".  He said they had all decided to use cheese names for their video and he was the only one that actually did it.

Bryant showed his envelope to Mitch and said, "Mine says 'MISTER Bryant Vance'."

Mitch:  What?  Why?

Sher:  Because that's his married name.

Bryant:  You don't even get a last name.

Sher: You need a symbol, like Prince.

The guys were done with the autograph session, and stood up to talk to us.

My friends are wise and take pics of Scott's shoes with my phone
 because they know I obsess over them.

Scott asked what I was doing for Thanksgiving, and I told him that I would be making yams and baking pies.  He said that his place is tight and Natalie is living with them even though she doesn't want to and wants her own place.

Sher: Did you tell her that's expensive in New York?

Scott:  Right?  So we're thinking of making reservations for dinner somewhere.

I told him that would be nice, and about the one year that my Dad took us to a winery for Thanksgiving dinner, which was a nice change of pace.  

The guys took pictures with us.  Menchie full on got in Weff's picture, and JeffEvs looked at her like, "what the heck are YOU doing here?"  The picture of that moment is classic.  It wasn't on my phone so I can't share it with you, but just know that it was real.

Then when the guys took the picture with me, my friends and the ushers were laughing, and I wondered why.  They said, "You'll see.  You need to make it your profile picture."

...and my profile picture it became.

We were the last ones to leave, as usual.  One of the ushers, Ruben, led us to Chili's.  Actually, I think he tried to lead us, but we needed gas and stopped there, because we figured that he forgot about us and decided to go home because he went up some hilly street.  It turns out that we should have kept following him.  He probably wondered where the heck we went.  Ruben was really nice, and used to live in Southern California.  We thought he might actually join us, but he didn't, probably because he thought we ditched him.

At Chili's, I ordered a mango margarita.  It was humongous.

Bigger than my head, I tell ya.

They were out of baked potato soup, which JeffEvs ordered, so they comped him whatever food he ordered as a substitute.  Well, that was nice!  

We got back to the hotel, and I finally learned that I was having trouble opening my door the whole time because the door handle goes up and not down.  I must have tried opening that door at least 10 times during the one day we were there.  

The next morning, we had hotel breakfast, then went to Caffe Perfetto for drinks and pastries to go.  I had a hard time deciding on one of the teas because they had such a nice selection and they all smelled yummy, but finally chose the Berry Tea. I also ordered a pecan pie, "because you told me to yesterday", I said to the lady.  I also ordered a bacon cheddar scone so that I could pretend to have some protein.  

Grazie, Perfetto!  Ciao!

On the way home, we played another MadLibs, which was based on these blog posts.  We stopped for something to eat in Oxnard, where they had dolphin sculptures with speakers in their heads.  Or maybe they were water spouts.

So long, and thanks for all the fish!

We then traveled through the San Fernando Valley, which had also been hit by horrific wildfires.  We were lucky that they had opened up the roads, and saw a lot of burn areas.  It wasn't quite as smoky as it was up north, probably because it was later in the weekend and the wind had blown some of the smoke away.  

We stopped at my house to drop off my luggage before heading back to Ontario airport where we had left our cars.  Glenndy was about to deplane when we arrived, so I said my goodbyes to Weff and waited for Glenndy because I brought Cindy some biscotti from Caffe Perfetto.   

Well, that was a fun road trip!  I see during the time I wrote this that there was no road trip haiku.  Uh oh. I guess I was too busy at the time, so here you go, better late than never.

Wendy yells "Ghost Cow!"

Menchie really likes yogurt

Jeff T licks my head.