DIRTY ROTTEN CERRITOS, CA

I gotta say, I really, really like California. I've been here before, several times, and I've always enjoyed myself, but spending so much time here now, I realize that it just feels good here. I guess that's why the population of the state is 38 million.

Most of us enjoy a day of thrills at Six Flags, which is really nothing but a park for coaster junkies. My voice is hamburger from screaming all day. The new X2 coaster, first of it's kind in the world, is RIDICULOUS!!! I think I actually saw my life flash before my eyes. What makes this ride unique is the fact that they've put the seats out in space beside the track instead of above or below it. ...And the fact that seats rotate. You make the initial climb to the top going backwards but then your seat suddenly pitches forward so that you plummet toward the earth in your first gut-wrenching drop FACE DOWN! I think I liked it, but I was too terrified to be sure. The string of profanity pouring out of my mouth during the ride prompted the guy next to me, at the end of the ride, to lean over and calmly ask, "First time?"

The final ride of the day was Goliath that I rode with Mike Donald. Because there's no up-side down sequences, the ride doesn't have an over the shoulder harness, just a lap bar. The initial climb is stupid.....twenty stories! Mike and I are in the second seat of the first car. As we are about to go over the top into the almost-straight-down descent, the random girls in front of us turn around and say, in unison, with saucer-eyes, "Guys, seriously?". Then there is only screaming.

After our last two hotels, the Marriott in Norwalk (not the virus place, that was Ohio) feels like the fuckin' Ritz-Carlton and we are very glad to arrive. Time begins to change our opinion though....

-I am given a key package that says "Greves/Brown on it. I go to the room and assume that Michael hasn't had time to check in yet. I call Michael and he says, "Um...don't you see my stuff all over the room?" It seems they have given each of us a room, even though we are sharing. I also find out later that no one can find me (us) because we are apparently listed as a person named Greves Brown.
-The lounge, which looks beautiful, doesn't ever seem to be open when we are around, even closing at 10:30 on a Friday & Saturday night. It's not open at all on the Sunday because the bartender phoned in sick and no one covered the shift.
-The restaurant which, again, looks nice, has appalling service. Michael has to eat his breakfast as someone is vacuuming around him.
-Room service is always, always busy. Anyone who tries to reach them over and over again eventually gives up and calls the front desk to have their order walked over to the room service phone.
-On returning after our show on Saturday night, none of our room keys will work and we all have to stand in a line-up at the front desk to have them re-programed while Tyler yells at the desk clerks.
-Oh, and for some reason, there is only one, yes one, lonely lounge chair by the pool. Weird.

But the rooms are clean, the beds are comfortable and no one seems to care how late you stay in the jacuzzi (as those who stayed in it until 4 a.m. getting drunk and naked will tell you).

The Cerritos Center for Performing Arts is amazing. Stunning design, brilliant in it's execution, and mind-boggling in terms of the different configurations it can assume. It's worth a visit to the site to see this outstanding example of architecture. (The library that is part of the same civic complex is also amazing, containing a gigantic aquarium at it's center. Here is a video of the library and the theatre as it re-configures itself.) One of our truck drivers tells me that the local crew at this theatre is such a well oiled machine that they have our two trucks unloaded in 26 minutes!!!

The audiences, over the course of our 4 shows here, never really get rolling. They remain quite reserved and quiet across the board, though the blame for their silence during our Saturday matinee lies squarely on us as the pace of the show is slower than Bush doing calculus. I will miss my beautiful dressing room that had it's own private balcony where I could sit and read in the California sunshine.