Since I have been coming back and forth to California once a month for the past few months, my friends here in LA have been lobbying for me to move to Cali full-time.  The reasons they give for living in Los Angeles are wide-ranging and not without merit.  “It’s cheaper than in NYC, and you get much more for your money.”  I can’t argue with this.  $2000 will get you a barely livable one-bedroom in Manhattan but a full-fledged goddamned palace (almost) anywhere in Los Angeles.  I could essentially move from an apartment above an Italian restaurant filled with 500 Chinese neighbors (in the remaining seven apartments) to a loft overlooking the Pacific Ocean in Marina Del Ray or somewhere in the South Bay.  But you do have to get a car in LA, which is not only an added expensive, but a major hassle.  So for me, the cost of a car and insurance – several hundo a month –  and the mess of dealing with traffic equalizes the perceived lower cost of living in LA.   

“Look at the weather! Practically year-round you can spend your morning at the beach and your evening in the mountains!”  This is also true.  But anyone who knows me, or even sees me, can tell that I’m neither a beach nor ski bum.  I like the beach to the extent that I like to go out on a boat and sit there and drink beers and pee off the side.  I like the mountains to the extent that I can go to a cabin and sit there and drink beers and pee outside in the snow.  So trying to convince me to move to California by arguing the merits of the beach and the mountains is like saying I should stay in New York because there are plenty of opportunities for me to practice my Russian.

“Have you seen the women out here! They’re gorgeous!”  Another valid point.  But just as if I were to move to LA I couldn’t properly enjoy the beach and the mountains, I couldn’t enjoy the women here either.  As I’ve said before, I like going out in NYC because, even though I’m no Steve McQueen, I can still feel confident that I got it going on, in my own way.  Whereas when I walk into a bar in LA, I’m immediately in the bottom 5% or 6% in terms of looks – and I was one of People’s 50 Hottest Bachelors for Chrissake (three years ago, but not much has changed since then).  I’m a big believer in odds – that eventually, if I keep going out and surrounding myself with beautiful women in an alcohol-filled environment, something has to break my way (read: my bird, two fake boobies, several weeks of one-sided regret in the aftermath) – but consistently being the third or fourth ugliest guy in the bar is not how I want to spend every Friday and Saturday night. 

“There’s so much to do around here! Not just in LA, but in the surrounding areas!”  This is not a bad one at all.  Part of the reason why I love NYC is because I can be home with my friends and family in Philly in an hour and twenty minutes on the train, or getting bombed with my buddies in Boston in three hours and thirty-two minutes via the Acela.  Once every five weeks, perhaps more frequently, I take advantage of this and am in either of these cities.  But though I love visiting Boston and Philly, as I’m getting older, I find myself filled with wanderlust and seeking out new experiences and travels.  And I know that Boston and Philly (and New York, even) will always be there – I’m not only 98% sure that I will settle and put down roots on the east coast, but I will always have friends and family and thus a reason to visit these cities.  So if you want to convince me that LA is the place to be, this here is your strongest argument.

To that end, the last time I was out here in LA my friend Selena suggested that we go wine tasting, as part of the “Jason Mulgrew Experience Southern California Living” tour.  Let’s backtrack a second: I like wine.  I also like tasting things, preferably with booze, sugar or cream in them.  And one of the most important lessons I’ve learned in 28 years on earth is that if a woman asks you to take a mini-road trip with her, drink (literally) all day long, and stay at a hotel, you say yes.  Quickly, too, before she realizes what a mistake she’s made and changes her mind.  So on Saturday morning, I got up early, headed over to Selena’s, and we were shortly driving on one of the 4412 freeways in Southern California out to a town called Temecula. 

I had never been wine tasting before and consider myself much, much more of a beer person.  To be honest, I only like to drink wine when I’m smoking pot.  Otherwise, I could live without it.  But for the reasons mentioned above, I welcomed the idea of wine tasting: something different, something fun, something with a girl who wants to spend the day drinking.  

But the experience of wine tasting was totally, totally awesome.  Even though I had to wake up early and take a potentially traffic-filled drive, the weather was great and the drive was scenic and traffic-free.  Even though I was concerned that the tour would be filled with rich snobs who’d see right through my rich-and-yuppie veneer (“His combined parental income isn’t even close to six figures – let’s stone him!”), Selena and I met wonderful people.  And even though I was far too full of wine and food by the end of the day to create some sort of awkward environment with Selena, it was still nice playing the rare role (for me) of “Date Who Doesn’t Fart Explosively, Freeze in Place, and Then Say ‘Somebody, Quick – Get Me Some Paper Towels!’”  Four things I noticed about wine tasting:    

- One thing that immediately struck me at the first vineyard was the incredible lengths that people will go to to create new and different ways to get fucked up.  As I mentioned, I’m a beer guy.  I like my beer like I like my women: cheap, American, and hissing when I crack ‘em open (please read this reference sexually, and not murderly).  For this reason, I think I’m simple when it comes to drinking.  But in reality, a lot of work goes into making that beer.  The barley is planted, then harvested, then, I don’t know, put in a vat and the beer is made.  Then it’s canned and shipped to my local bodega in NYC, which charges me double what the rest of the country is paying.  Then into my belly and out my bird.  It’s the cycle of life, and it’s beautiful.

Because I (obviously) know so little about beer-making, I was surprised at how much work goes into making wine.  I thought that you grabbed the grapes, threw them in a barrel, stomped on them, and then drank up.  Not so, my friends.  It was at the first vineyard when we were drinking something called ice wine that I was struck by how much work goes into producing wine, especially just picking the grapes, which for ice wine must be frozen within a specific temperature range, and the lower the temperature, the sweeter it is (the more sugar it contains), and if the frost comes late, the crop will be lost, but if the frost is too long, then no juice can be extracted, then there’s a special yeast one must use, and on and on and on.  Halfway through the explanation, I wanted to say, “Jesus, lady – you’re killing my buzz.  Pour me a glass, take off your top, and put a smile on Uncle Jason’s face, ok?”

So as I sat there drinking this wine, which went through such a process that just hearing about it me tired, I thought that those farmers in South America had the right idea: cut a coca leaf from the soil, chew on it, get high.  That’s what I’m talking about.  When I’m getting messed up, I don’t want to think about how what I’m drinking has worked out more than I have.  Give me a plant, light it on fire, and let the good times begin.  I’m just a simple, simple man.

- Guys, a suggestion: get a bunch of buddies together and go wine-tasting.  Only two types of people go on wine tastings: couples and groups of women, either for birthday or bachelorette parties.  Every tour group had five or six couples, then a group of six to eight girls getting fucked up.  There was not a single (or uncoupled) straight guy in sight at any of the five vineyards we visited.  Not one.  All you need is you and two buddies and you almost can’t lose.  The only potential disadvantage is that the wine tastings end around 4pm or 5pm, which means you have to face a mortal enemy of mine in the realm of seduction: sunlight.  But the sheer numbers speak for themselves: dozens of girls drinking all day and looking to have (consequence-free) fun versus zero unattached guys.  I mean, c’mon.

(In a related story, I’ll be in Cali again next month and if any dudes want to go wine tasting, let’s do it.  And yes, I realize how gay that sounds on paper.  But trust me.  Focus on the numbers.  It’s almost a no-lose proposition, because at least you get drunk in the process for fairly cheap.) 

I thought I was a genius when I suggested that my friends and I, instead of hanging around our pseudo-hipster bars and striking out with local girls, should start hanging out in touristy spots to pick up girls from out of town, looking for a good time.  Of course, this didn’t work because, long story short, my friends and I are ugly.  But I really think I’m onto something with this wine tasting thing.            

- Temecula is a quaint little town with a main street fashioned and flavored by Old West influences.  There’s lot of cowboy stuff for sale, which I could understand, but also a lot of motorcycle stuff, which was less understandable.  But during the course of the day, I learned something else: Temecula = motocross.  Or is it “motorcross”?  Either way, it’s a stoner getting on a dirt bike and jumping off a ramp or mounds of dirt.  Sweet.  Apparently, this “sport” was founded in Temecula, and you can see mounds of dirt in the open spaces as you drive along the road and as Selena and I discovered later, every person in town between the ages of 13 and 30 not there for wine has that alternative/motocross look to them, like they listen to the Bravery and wear wristbands and wallets chained to their pants (for girls, it means dark hair with streaks of blonde or vice-versa). 

(By the way, I have no idea what the Bravery is or sounds like.  I’ve never heard a single song of theirs.  It just felt like the right thing to say.) 

I don’t mean to hate on motocross; if I lived in a place like Temecula, which seems lovely to visit for a day or weekend but rather boring to live in, I would probably be riding my dirtbike off a mounds of dirt too.  And I won’t disagree that it’s impressive – you need balls the sizes of small moons to do this.  But I don’t know if I’d call this a “sport.”  Riding a dirtbike very fast over several mounds of dirt or off a giant ramp is cool and ballsy and there is a degree of athleticism involved, but I like my sports a little more complicated than this.  If motocross is a sport, I’m going to invent a new one: At Houston and 2^nd Ave, I’m going to hand you a bag of leaves on fire, and you have to run and throw it in the East River before it burns your hand off.  That’s it.  There’s your sport.  Let’s call the X Games.    

- The wine tasting wrapped up around 5pm, leaving me and Selena with a nice buzz and little else to do.  The hotel receptionist directed us to a bar called the Barley House.  So we cabbed it on up the road and were dismayed to see the bar was in the strip mall.  Terrific.

However, this bar was pretty f’ing awesome.  There we were, seemingly in the middle of nowhere, in a bar in a strip mall, and it had one of the more impressive beers lists I’ve ever seen, which was a welcome change from drinking wine all day.  Not only that, but they have these appetizers called crispy corn nuggets, served with ranch sauce, that were amazing.  Girls, you know how in high school or early college you thought you were having orgasms with your boyfriend, and then you started dating a new guy or f’ed a guy who knew what he was doing and you popped off for real for the first time and were like, “Yeah, ok – that’s an orgasm”?  Well, that’s what eating these corn nuggets were like.  That is delicious fucking food.  That’s the only way I can explain it.         

If you live in the area, I highly recommend this bar – the corn nuggets and beer list would be enough to keep me coming back over and over again. 

(That’s another thing I like about LA – there seem to be a lot of low key “brewing company” type bars that I would never go to in NYC, because I’d look down upon those who do as tourists/meatheads/morons, but in LA are perfectly nice and have a diverse crowd of all types dining or eating there.  I feel like every bar in NYC is loaded with so much association – hipster bar, frat bar, shitty sports bar, faux dive, meat market, dbag lounge/club, etc – that as soon as a friend tells me where he/she is going, I think, “Oh, no way.”  So maybe it is time for me to move on.  Or maybe I should just be less judgmental.  Whatever.) 

******

All told, wine tasting was excellent and not so much unlike a wedding.  You go out of town, drink the whole time in as classy a manner as you can, keep your date company, meet other nice couples, take a shuttle to and from your hotel, and then pass out before any funny business can happen.  Unlike a wedding, there’s no dancing and no love, which I always thought were overrated anyway, but you can wear what you want and it’s much cheaper than a wedding.  Advantage: wine tasting.  Finally, a significant reason to live in Southern California, one that relies not on my weakest asset (my physical in-shapeness and prettiness), but my best (my ability to consume alcohol and corn-products).