Mrs. V. surprised me with a belated birthday gift this weekend. I didn't know what it was until we got there.
She told me to keep this weekend free, leaving Friday midday and returning to LA Sunday morning. Driving distance, no passport, some general weather - that was it. So we got in the car and headed south.
A few hours later, we were at the Balboa Theater in downtown San Diego, waiting for none other than Craig Ferguson to appear on-stage! He is a comedian who hosts the late-night talk show after David Letterman. My friend Suman from New York switched us on to him (quite literally - after telling us about him, he left an episode on our DVR) and we've been avid fans ever since. So a few months ago, she saw the tickets online for his show in San Diego and bought them.
She tried to do the same surprise in May, nearer to my actual birthday, when Ferguson was in Las Vegas, but I had planned to go to Vegas three times in May, and that was the one weekend I was planning to be in LA. Plus, at that point I had accepted the summer internship offer to work for Harrah's, so I knew I would spend a lot more time in Vegas after that.
Needless to say, she was extremely disappointed.
And also needless to say, he saved my proverbial bacon last night by being at his absolute best last night.
I was laughing so hard for most of the show that I nearly lost my breath. His style is very similar to his monologues on his TV program, but more ebullient and with less restrictions on material. He started off by saying he was going to tell a joke, rambled into many different topics - including a fantastic impression of Ellen DeGeneres, what it's like being a clarinet player in a heavy metal band, and a description of the sex education class he had to sit through in school ("Mr. and Mrs. Toad..."), -- and built up that one two-sentence joke which he shared at the very end. And which was hilarious, I thought.
(No, I'm not going to share this with you now because (a) I won't do it justice, and (b) it's completely inappropriate for a blog focused on UCLA Anderson.)
(But mostly because of the former).
It was a fantastic night and a great weekend in San Diego - definitely one of the highlights of my UCLA Anderson experience.
-- Sreesha
