We all have hometowns and we tend to think they are unlike any other place on earth. Whether you label yours the coolest, lamest, prettiest, or most depressing, you’ve still decided that in some way it is special. And it is. Because it’s where people know you. Now, if you lived in a town as small as mine, there was a sort of love/hate relationship with being known by everyone. I went to the biggest college and now live in one of the most densely populated cities, all in an effort to gain some anonymity. That ability to retreat in to the background granted some amazing freedoms—freedoms that I have really stretched to the extreme over the past year. I didn’t go anywhere I didn’t want to be or talk to people to which I had nothing to say. I felt in full control of my life, even if I were becoming a complete recluse in the process. I like being alone and I get along quite well that way, but the days come when I just want someone to know me. It happens in moments, when out of habit, I reference an old boss or acquaintance. The empty expressions yielded tie my stomach in to knots. A clean slate, indeed. A lack of history is the greatest loneliness. The last month or so has been quite a trial for my life here. My lease is up. I’ve fulfilled my year commitment to the company. I realized there was literally nothing binding me to this place, save for the cost of moving somewhere else. I missed my friends, knowing backroads, and being somewhere people understood who I was and from where I came. I genuinely love San Francisco and I’ve made some good friends here, but that didn’t silence the voice that was second-guessing why I was still here. And on top of all that, I miss comedy. I think about being on stage everyday. I think about how I found something that scared me to death but brought the most intense euphoria I’ve known and how I just walked away from it. Not to mention, during my last days in Indy a fellow comedian made me look him in the eye and promise I’d do stand-up again, just once. I always keep my promises.

And so begins the tale of last night’s adventure to Fairfield with Cerra, Tim, & Emily in tow. We waded our way through I-80 traffic, piled in Holiday [my MINI] and taking in some Grizzly Bear. The landscape morphed from scenes of cities to empty rolling hills draped in golden grass. For a time, it looked like we were headed nowhere. Fairfield greeted us with glimpses of classic suburbia, but soon, an arch over the street welcomed us downtown and the streets were lined with trees & blue lampposts. It was looking just as I had hoped. Then I saw the sign, a marker noting we were on Historic US 40. I gleamed, “Guys, this road would take us straight to my hometown! Road trip??” I already liked this town. Our destination, Pepper Belly’s Comedy & Variety Theatre, was up on the right. We parked in the back lot and walked toward a parked motorcycle seemingly standing guard over the open back door to a bar. I half-expected to walk in to the Thirty-Six [hometown bar] and hear someone yell, “McCutchan!” Instead, we found ourselves in Harry’s Sportman’s Lounge. We walked by the pool tables and headed toward the bar where a line of men in leather lined the bar stools. An older woman in a tie-dye tank top walked up and said, “What can I get you?” We ordered our 4 drinks, handed her a 20 and marveled that she brought back change. We settled in around a bar-top game display. Tim slid in the first dollar and thus began our approximate 10-15 game run of the sexy girl version of “what’s different?” Basically, the same photo of a scantily clad girl was shown side-by-side. You had to find what was different in the photos. The idea is that you’ll be too distracted by the nakedness to notice a different floral pattern on a pillow. It’s kind of genius. What we didn’t know is that Tim never backs down from a challenge, and so destiny called him to defeat the top score of 785,000 set by some guy, Ali. We played up until we had to head to the comedy club and immediately went back to play more when the show was over. I can’t say with any certainty how many times we played, but our name filled all but 3 slots on the top 10 score list by the time we left. We left, cursing Ali, as we never surpassed third place. Actually, Tim was cursing him and we were laughing at Tim. I believe that by the time of our return visit, the regulars in the bar either hated us or were totally intrigued by what game was holding our attention for so long. I saw a few try to casually stretch and look at our screen. The photos were ridiculous and even with the number of times we played, we never got the same photo twice. One lady had such a “frontal presence” that Tim just said, “wow”. It was the wow heard round the world. The rest of us just started cracking up and screamed to focus. The rest of the bar turned to stare but let us be. We were pretty obviously out of place just by being there, but I had faith Cerra could talk us out of any fights. She was rocking out to the Iron Maiden and other metal classics hitting the jukebox. She was our street cred.

When they seated us at Pepper Belly’s, they took us straight to the front. It was the early show and clearly they weren’t expecting a big turn-out. The four of us exchanged frightened looks and settled in 1 row back. We ordered our over-priced mediocre food and drinks and waited for the show to begin. Much to my surprise, the emcee was a girl, probably about my age. She was not that great, but Cerra & I had spoken about the rough life of this job, so I knew she would join me in giving more laugh than the jokes deserved. I felt like a jerk for thinking it, but I thought, “damn, I think I’m funnier.” I kept laughing while simultaneously getting pissed at myself over abandoning my comedy. She got funnier as the set went on, though. The feature, Geoff Keith, comes out and he’s hot. You don’t often get hot & funny in the same package. Cerra kept shooting me looks, and I knew what she was implying. So the guy mentioned doing a show in Indianapolis, and before I consciously thought about it, I found myself doing a little silent clap which he totally saw. I so got heckled. Shit. And even though it was a story about a lady with a mullet and I got called out for being “one of those people,” I couldn’t help but marvel over the coincidence of the reference. He was an asshole after the show, but I did confirm Crackers as his Indy club. Strange. He had some of the best crowd work I’d seen. There were probably only 20-30 people at the show. It had all the makings to be a tough crowd, but he worked it out. I was taking mental notes which I’ve since forgotten.

Brad Williams was the headliner. Now, I had gotten 4 free tickets to the show of my choice. I watched all the comics coming through this month and this guy was the funniest. It was just a bonus that he was a dwarf. I knew that would increase my chances of getting people to weather the hour drive up north. Naturally, Cerra had no hesitations. In fact, she yelled at me for even asking; I should have demanded her attendance. Brad was amazing. His act was so physical that I needed a nap just from watching it. I hadn’t laughed that hard in such a long time. It was full on belly laugh, like laughter erupting from my insides. It felt so good. He had a bit about running down the stairs of his house in his boxers with two samurai swords, screaming “get the hell out of my house!!” at the man who had just broken in. The burglar said something like, “man, what kind of fucked up security system is this?” I didn’t think I could laugh so hard. Cerra promises to make a t-shirt of this scene for him. A part of me wanted a meteor to crash in to the club, so I could die with that hilarious image in my head. Cerra bought his “i brake for little people” shirt and we thanked him for an amazing show. He was a really nice guy. I got details on the club’s open mic. If I show up, it will mean I really want it because I’m gonna have to work harder for this one. There’s no sign-up. I gotta drive 3 hours round trip and just pray I get a spot.

Oh yeah, and Brad ended the show by giving a girl in the audience a lap dance on stage. Talk about “wow”. Even if he does it for every show, it doesn’t make it any less amazing.

As I mentioned, we went back to Harry’s after the show, where we found a new waitress, one who carded us, and played more “what’s different?” There was talk of finding a casino which evolved to finding an In & Out. Luckily, there was one nearby, which happened to involve a short trip on Rockville Rd, which probably leads to Rockville, CA, just like the Rockville Rd in my town lead to Rockville, IN. A red vintage VW bug parked next to us. I recognized it from the club parking lot and mentioned someone was following us. The guy got out and said, “wow, I never park by a car smaller than mine.” Sure enough, he asked if he’d just seen us at Harry’s. We were already locals in Fairfield. After our amazing meal it was time to head back to the city. Cerra popped in Fleetwood Mac’s greatest hits. The ride home was fairly silent as everyone was drifting in & out of sleep. I was tired, too, but I was so happy to be driving home late from some far off adventure with a group of really cool people that it wasn’t an issue.

After dropping off Tim & Emily in Castro, I thought my evening was coming near to a close. However, the mile distance to Cerra’s somehow turned in to 6 miles of navigating the winding roads of Twin Peaks. Cerra thought she knew a better way to get to her place, which it would have been, had there not been a sign saying that only buses can turn on that road. Well, we tried obeying the law and kept going. From there, neither of us can really explain how we got where we did, but at one point, we ended up on a hill with an amazing view of the city lights. I saw all kinds of new parts of the city, so I didn’t mind the detour. I tried mapping our route when I got home and when I got it finished, I just started laughing. It’s the most ridiculous route I’ve ever seen. We seemed to make sensible decisions, but it seems those slight curves in the road were curving us a bit more than we realized. In fact, here’s a screenshot. Had Cerra not recognized 7th Ave, we might have had to hit the Pacific before we realized where the hell we were. Yes, I could have gotten out my iPhone and cursed the slow map loading, but where would the fun have been in that? Throughout the night, we’d made jokes about being on a double date, so when we arrived up at that look out area with the city view, Cerra just turned to me and said, “Looks like we did go on a date after all.” Good times.

My head hit the pillow at 2am. What an adventure. Without even planning it, I’d managed to have a night out in my hometown away from home, complete with laughs, inside jokes, learning back roads, and a late night drive home. This night just happened to have In & Out instead of McDonald’s and a couple bridges that we had to pay to cross. And no one knew our names but the tie-dye shirt bartender shouted a friendly goodbye as we left the bar. It was about the closest I’ll probably ever get to having a hometown night from 2,500 miles away. Thank you, Fairfield, you came about just when I needed you most. I’m sure I’ll be visiting again soon.

Just a couple other quick mentions before I call an end to this weekend. Tuesday night I hung out at the Ronald McDonald house cooking dinner for the residents with a few other folks from the office. It was a really fun time and it felt great to finally do something helpful for a stranger. Here’s our group photo from the night:

Also, after avoiding it for years, I started Lost this week. I’m already 1/4 in to Season 2. Yeah. I was warned it was addictive. I started Jack Kerouac’s On the Road the same day. It might go without saying that my dream that night was quite the little epic with photographing rainbow skies while single pilot aircrafts crashed toward me, all before trying to drive my family cross-country but barely getting out of town before turning around out of frustration. Yeah. heh. On the Road is great so far. He stopped at some of the same places I did, like Central City, CO, so I get to hear descriptions of them 50 years prior to my visit. The best part is how our reactions and curiosities were quite the same.

And lastly, I must close with mention of my most pleasant encounter at Starbucks today. After dropping off a bunch of stuff at Goodwill (freeing my apartment of even more clutter), I walked the 4 blocks home from my garage. It was such a warm & lovely day, a perfect day for a strawberries & creme blended beverage, so I stopped in to Starbucks. A tall, slender man with a weathered face and gray whiskers took my order. He would be a no-questions-asked walk-in for the role of “Wild Bill” Hickock in any Western, further confirmed when he asked, “What might your name be?” in a soft but gruff voice. He was just about the nicest, most easy going gentlemen I’ve ever seen grace a cash register. I left him a nice tip, even though there was no horse tied up to the post outside like I secretly hoped.