Fine Dining - BONUS EPISODE: The LA County Fair (1-Hour Patreon Preview)

Episode Date: June 21, 2023

So much to do and only 12 hours to do it! Michael & Garrett hit up the LA County Fair for some crazy deep-fried food and a carny atmosphere They cover the history of the LA County Fairgrounds, which has an upsetting role as the site of a Japanese-American concentration camp during World War II and an Italian/German P.O.W. camp afterwards The boys get their palms read Garrett seeks out a Christian puppet show Seductive snakes bare it all at The Shed PIG RACING!

Hello, and welcome back to the fine dining podcast, the search for the most mediocre restaurant in America. I'm your host Michael Ornellis and I'm your host, Garrett's work. And this week we did something a little bit different. We're on Technically in off week since we are a biweekly podcast, but we went to the LA County Fair And we wanted to do this episode for Patreon, but we experienced just so much that I think we're going to have a lot to talk about. So we're actually going to give the first hour of this episode for free. If you want all the rest of it, go to our Patreon.

That's patreon.com slash fine dining podcast for $5 a month. You get an exclusive episode. You get our Yelp from Str strangers segments uncut every single time. You have a direct line of communication to us. I don't know if that's a selling point. Don't you want more of us in your life? We're like a zoo exhibit, Garrett. You feel safe when there's glass in between.

Don't get too close because don't make a feces throwing joke. No, I was gonna make that's TD joke, but that's not a part of a zoos. Okay, anyway, the kind of zoos are you going to? I am not going to the same type that you are apparently. This is the show where we go to restaurants and evaluate them based on their atmosphere, based on the service and based on the food. Yum. And we do this often.

We're always looking for different chains. We've gone to over 30 at this point. We've gone to so many different chains. Still haven't found the perfect 5.00 out of 10. No. The measuring stick of mediocrity, the litmus test against which you can compare all other restaurants

to determine, are they better or worse than mediocre? This week we went to the LA County Fair. We went to a place where it is just deep-fried, the entire place is deep-fried. You literally have to like walk through a wall of batter to even get in. There's just this protective layer. Protective is an inaccurate word. I don't know if anything is protected at the L.A. County Fair. But you slide on through this goo of grease trap, fried dough, and you emerge inside of this embryonic state of chaos.

And that's a really good way to put it and carny and all those things and boy did we experience a lot of things finding party of doom we will tell you all about them but in the meantime our table is ready Better to get in breast, servant pancakes and ribs I recommend this spaghetti, we're here to serve this fine not to impress Your table is ready, complimentary butter and bread These walls have growth signs, make neck cowboy hat, They're like a alter graphic art, some crap from your city Behold the trusty of me, be up ready I'm dining, yes I'm dining, fine dining I'm dining. I'm dining. Two letters on the sign are shining.

You know, I'm flickering irregular timing. I identify the perfect five. She's about to 10. I'm dining. I'm dining. First impressions. But, by dining! First impressions. So we pull into a big fairground, and it almost feels like a six flags. There's a big awning, a huge parking lot, but we can't really see the fair.

That's how massive the parking lot is, that you're really far away from the actual fairgrounds. We didn't even know where the fairgrounds were until we were like, oh, Ferris wheel. Okay, all I knew for certain up until we got to the entrance way was that this fair was sponsored by O'Reilly's auto parts. That's all I see. We came with a group of four and then it later became a group of six and Aubrey, your girlfriend, made us turn back as we got to

the entrance because she had weapons on her. And like self defense stuff. This is the second time this has happened in two weeks. Really? Yes. We went to Warner Brothers the other week and we park, we go through the entire structure, we get up there and then she's like, oh wait, I've got a knife in a taser. She's a dangerous woman, ready to fight for her own at the LA County Fair.

So we go in, no tasers are allowed at the LA County Fair. No tasers are allowed. So we turn back, try it all again, get to the front entrance way, and all there is is just a stand for mobility help. If you want a scooter, you can pay 65 bucks. I almost bought a scooter. Honestly, with the way this whole experience went, you probably could have used it. Oh, I fully regret not getting a scooter,

but come on, 65 bucks over a scooter? Yeah, you were physically just gone at the end of this whole experience. By the end of it, I was literally almost requiring a wheelchair to get back to the car. It's not an exaggeration, you were depleted. And then the other thing they had at the front was they take your photo and then they give you

a little claim number and they ask if you want to claim it later, which we did, we didn't even check them at the end. I feel like we took enough pictures. You know what else we got in addition to the claim tickets? What? A very handy piece of information.

Which we'll talk about in service later. Oh yeah, yeah. A helpful hint. The guy who took our photo, we told him we were here for a podcast and we were looking for delicious fair food and he was like, delicious. I would rather go to a Denny's or an I hop than the food here. And I was like, oh, why?

And that's what we'll tell you later. But yikes. Yeah. There's a lot of yikes here. First big yikes. We walk in, we go underneath this underground tunnel. We emerge on the other side, Garrett true to form needs to use the restroom. There's a portapoddy. There's a girl eating an ice, like a soft serve ice cream cone right next to the portapoddies, which just for sanitary reasons seems like maybe the last place you wanna like, huddle up and eat an ice cream? I don't think that's the hint of flavor

you want on your ice cream cone. No, but you really struggled. They had a little hand washing station. That looked like something you would like craft in tears of the kingdom. Like it looked like this little just thrown together contraption that was like condiment pumps. Like, you know, the little ketchup squatters that you do,

they turned that into a hand washing station. And then you were trying to figure out like how to make it work and you were like trying to hit down on like the ketchup pump and it wasn't working. Like I've never used this weird ass rubigold burga of a sink before like is this a thing that exists in the world? I have never seen this before. Well you forgot to answer the riddles first because that was the requirement. It's just finks too. No, there was like a foot pump that was almost like like a plunger without the stick and you just like push down on it a bunch

and that gets the water pumping. And then eventually it comes out and you wash your hands. Why would you have a weird kick pedal sink? Watching you struggle with this immediately, it was like, oh, is this the kind of day we're in for? And it was the kind of day we were in for. Yeah. So right as we enter, there's a few areas.

Like there's themed sections in the park. One of them is the farm and one of them is Plaza de las Americas, which is kind of like their little Mexican style, like there's a little bit of like Dia de los Muertos feel. So it's like you're going to spend a Friday night in TJ, but it's family friendly. Yeah, though, you still never know who might have a knife and a taser in their purse, so yeah, you still get the danger Nice What I am noticing very quickly is just how sprawling how large this fairground is gonna be There's like a directory up front and before we dive into that

I kind of want to know the history of the place Garrett. I know this isn't a restaurant per se, but have you gathered up some Resty facts? Oh yes, these fairgrounds do have a place in history. Oh boy, well let's hear about it in this week's Resty Fact Roundup. Now as we know, my mom does not really care for the whip noise that we traditionally use to round up rusty facts. But it's also been brought to my attention that your mom does like the whip noise. She thinks it's appropriate because how else are you gonna round up all these facts?

How else are they going to stay in line? They're not gonna round themselves up. They're not gonna do that. So we're not a podcast that plays favorites and with this new information, now we have to balance between what my mom wants and what your mom wants screw it or this week's rusty fact roundup We're playing the whip but also beneath the whip. We're gonna throw in some carnival noises What about the sound of a screaming child?

There were lots of kids screaming the entire time and I hated it throw it on the pile We'll just make a whole bunch of sounds and it'll sound like a kid being whipped. My instinct right now is to be like, yeah! Let's whip the kids. Bad impulse. Whoa! Whoa! The LA County Fair has been operating on a yearly basis

except for a few years for World War II and COVID since 1922. Oh, so we just missed the centennial. Yes, the centennial was last year. Oh man man. Well, still 101. That's pretty neat. Some of the original sales boots at this fair included toothpaste made from oranges and a $300 Ford Model T. Teeth paste made from literally the last thing I want after brushing my teeth is orange juice. What kind of madman is making that into their toothpaste flavor?

Judging by some of the vendors we encountered, this is it's on brand. Yeah. In the first year in 1922, there was an exhibit featuring 30 lions from the farm that would in two years birth the official MGM lion. You're referring to the farm section of the LA County Fair? Oh no, there's a lion farm in LA County. Is that actually true? A lion farm. That's insanity. This is like Tiger King, like you're not supposed to have them. Is it a rescue? No, it's a lion breeding farm. Horrible.

It makes sense, it's out here. It's four movies in TV. Like, how else do you get your lions? Ah, like, I've got a guy. I've got a lion guy. And this is like the original MGM, intro lion was from this farm. That's kind of neat.

Sad, but neat. I feel like sad but neat might be the honest, best way to phrase this whole fair. So, here's a different fact. Different, not better, very choice word. All right, how downhill is this gonna go? Now, I'll save the downhill stuff for later. Glad to know it's there.

Almost every year since 1948, there have been over one million people attending over the course of about a month, right? Yes. Okay. Yeah, I mean, here's the thing. It felt crowded when we went on a Friday. I'm very glad we didn't do a Saturday or a Sunday.

It felt very full, but I never felt so overwhelmed. I did. Yeah, but you have like an anxiety issue around people. Like that's just a thing about you. I didn't feel like my movement was hindered. That's when I start to get... Oh, my movement was hindered. Well, not many little kids I almost ran over.

Yeah, but your movement is hindered even if you're by yourself. Yeah, and I can't really come to quick stops without pain. And there's nothing more unsettling than having something that's waist higher, shorter, just run in front of you. That's fair. So as I said, every year having at least a million people, 2022 was one of those years that did not have a million people. Is this because of the pandemic?

Yes, so 2022 only had around 600,000 people attend after two years off because of the pandemic. Yes, so 2022 only had around 600,000 people attend after two years off because of the pandemic. But main reason they blame for this is the heat wave. That is true. Last year was miserable. Their 100 year anniversary was one of the hottest years ever. How many years have they taken off? Because if it's their 100 year anniversary, I don't think it was the 100th fair. What have they done there? That's got to be in one, like don't think it was the 100th fair. What's the 100th? That's gotta be in one, like, two years from now, three years from now? They took somewhere between six and eight years off

for World War II, and then two years off for the pandemic. So 10 or fewer years. About 10. Yeah, okay. For context, 2022's two highest attended fairs were both in Texas, and each one had about 2.5 million attendees. What were they?

They were the State Fair of Texas and the Houston Livestock Show and Exhibition. The Texas State Fair does not surprise me at all. As a native of Texas, it's a wild place. The current location in Pomona, now known as the Fairplex, has been the site of the fair since its inception in 1922. I can't really think of another event that for the past 100 years has remained in the same location.

Things that have been going on 100 years in and of itself are already very rare. Even major sports teams, they've had different stadiums built, they move locations. Right. But this fair has stayed here. It began as a 43 acre beet field donated by the city of Pomona. Now the space is 543 acres. What did it started? 43. So it's grown. It has has grown 500 acres. Yes, so of this 543 acres half of this is parking lot really yes I mean yeah, that's it and it has space for 30,000 vehicles that's so much Additionally, there are 325,000 square feet of indoor convention space, 12 acres of carnival grounds, a quarter mile drag strip auto race track. There's a literal drag strip there. There's also a fully

functional farm into 244 room hotel that opened up in 1992. It's just one of the many big buildings there. Yeah, yeah, big building wouldn't necessarily stand out, but yeah, this place was so sprawling that I'm honestly not surprised that I didn't notice some of these things. You know how I was talking about bad things that happened and how it's just gonna get worse? Yeah. Well, here we go.

Great. The fairgrounds were the former location of a concentration camp for Japanese Americans during World War II. That sucks. Yeah. Whatever law slash bill that made Japanese Americans enemy of the people, when that happened, no place to store people was built yet, because obviously they thought through this.

Of course. So they have this law, they have no idea where to put all these Asian people. I'm really uncomfortable telling this story. I'm uncomfortable listening to an Asian person tell me about this story. It was filled with temporary and quickly built housing to be used as a staging area to store the people before they were shipped off to other camps. Mm-hmm. Oh, God, I don't like this.

No, no, no. After all, the Japanese Americans were shipped off to other camps from this location, and no other trace of this existed at this site, they used it for German and Italian prisoners of war. Huh. Hate it. After the war, the fair swiftly adopted

a cute pig mascot, Thrummer the Pig. Hold on, you're giving me whiplash. You can't just jump into that. Hey, the POWs. Anyways, here's Thrummer the Pig. Do you know why I did it that way? Why? That's what happened in real life.

So literally right after the war, they announced this cute pig mascot, hoping everyone would forget about the concentration camp. Yeah. That's literally what they did. They're like, oh, here's a cute pig mascot. Uh-huh. Hahaha.

Hahaha. Hahaha. In 1955, the creators of the original Frisbee purchased its manufacturing rights from a vendor at this very fair. That's kind of neat. Yeah. That's much better than POWs and

Stop bringing me back to it. We just moved on to Frisbee, stay in Frisbee. Let's just end this off on a positive note. Here are some food stats from 2022. Now mind you, this was a down year. Yeah. One of the food vendors, actually the biggest food vendor there, chicken Charlie invented the deep fried Oreo in 2001. I don't know why I thought the deep fried Oreo would go back further than that. They also sold over 10,000 frog legs.

Last year, last year, 100,000 Oreos, 10,000 pounds of chicken, 7,000 years of corn, an entire truckload of oil, and 3,000 gallons of coolade. Honestly, the only thing that surprises me is that it was only one truck of oil. Oh, they'd recycle it. Oh. They'd use the same oil the whole run. Yeah, okay.

Tastes like it. Another vending company, Midway Gorma. In 2022, they sold 20,000 pounds of both potatoes and turkey legs. 800 pounds of chopped garlic for garlic fries, an entire field of corn, and an entire orchard of apples. I love those measurements. It's very scientific. Yeah.

This is my favorite one though. 4.5 miles of sausage. That's actually what they called me in college. That was my nickname. Four and a half miles of sausage. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Nice. I was the meat market. You were four and a half miles of sausage. Because I'm so well-endowed, Garrett. That's the joke. I think if we had to put it to a percentage, it would be so minuscule if we're measuring it in miles. Let's do some math. How many feet are in a mile?

I mean, we're not measuring in feet either. There are 5,280 feet in a mile. So that means, my is 110,560th of a mile. Oh, God. 10,560th of a mile. Hahaha. Hahaha. Oh, God. Well, two more food facts. They used 10,000 pounds of sugar and 10,000 pounds of popcorn.

And their kettle corn tastes like it. Yeah. So, yeah, after learning that and the size of your member in miles That's been your rusty facts were this big that's been rusty fact ground up, baby So there's just so much to take in here and there's no way we're seeing it all But we covered quite a bit of ground, I thought. Many, many, many acres of ground. And we saw some weird stuff. We saw, I mean, first of all, the vibe of this place, it's just very carny. Everything you're seeing is

kind of decorated, big, bright signs, lots of neon, lots of over the top signage. It feels like a staple that you can only get here or at a fair. Yeah, fairs and carnival. Carnival. Have this extremely gaudy, ostentatious, super flashy, lighted signage. And I'm gonna be honest, I love it. I really love it.

It's so tacky, but the opportunity to, like I just, I love a good sign. I mean, we've got the Chachki of mediocrity, which is super gaudy, our little scoreboard that tracks all our restaurants. So that speaks my language. Right off the bat, there's a semi-racist-looking Asian guy. It is a caricature of an Asian guy, which is,

yeah, it's a literal hand-drawn stereotype. So naturally, you felt the need to get your face in a little cut out wooden thing that has artwork and you stick your face in and oh yeah, like I want to be the dude with the rice hat. And you were. So that was just Eddie's Asian inspired cuisine and there's just a picture of you

with the rice hat and chopsticks, and I was just like, well, that feels like a hat on a hat. Lots of big signs like that. The first one that really grabbed my attention, just a big flashing lit-up Australian battered potatoes. Oh, yeah! Which we ended up eating.

We'll talk about later when we get to food. The first thing I noticed was the smell, not the smell of the food, the smell of the animals. We did walk in by the barn. I just get this big whiff of barnyard, the second I walk in, which I would almost say, my biggest regret honestly is that we didn't go into the big red barn.

They had cows, pigs, they had all sorts of stuff. And I think I just wanted to get into the fair, and it was so close to the front that I was like We'll work our way back and by the end we just it was just too much But we didn't have the energy We did a lot we were there 11 and a half hours. Yeah, and they're only open 12 So we covered as much ground as we could we did as much as we can also another thing that was happening there You know there are all these kids just everywhere running around, coming up to you.

They're not like, excuse me, sir, could you spare a nickel? Yeah, no, they do all that stuff without the words. All of a sudden there's this ankle-biter standing in front of you and you have to either stop or move so you don't just bowl this thing over. Thing. Yeah, okay. You should acknowledge their personhood, Garrett. Something that was funny.

There was an entire building dedicated for lost children. Well, of course there is. I mean, there was bound to be a lost child or two every day at these fairs. Are there enough to build an entire building to house them? Well, it's not housing. How do you know they don't live there? What happens to the child if it's not playing?

It's a place for the kid to be like, kept safe while the parent treks back. The parents need a place of reference. How else do you get more future carneys? But you just take the lost kid, you know, put him to work. You're one of us now. Put him to work. Hey kid, you wanna learn how to juggle? Because you all know, put them to work. You're one of us now. Put them to work. Hey kid, you want to learn how to juggle?

Because you all know, carneys don't reproduce. No, lost kids just drift into the lifestyle of carney. Yeah. What amused me is right next to this building for lost children, there was like a t-shirt stand that had closed for kids, but they were so not for kids. Like my favorite was just imagine a shirt, the size that would fit like a five year old girl

and on it in like that tattoo font just says white girl. What? Like the type of font it was made me expect the wearer White girl. Yes. Yes. Uh, what? Like, the type of font it was made me expect the wearer to have tattooed on eyebrows. Yeah, it was which isn't happening with five year olds. It was like one of those like juicy booty pants. Yes, but in a short form. Yeah, please don't put those on kids.

I hope they don't make those. I hope that they have a size minimum on those. But, no. Whatever your follow up to that is, I'm not gonna hear it. I was just gonna say fully grown adult human beings, aged 18 and older, do come in different sizes. So it is possible for a fully grown 18 year or older adult to fit into a smaller piece of clothing.

I guess that's fair, but this was so clearly for kids, because the other shirts around it were like, I heart my Nina, my grandma rocks, my grandpa rocks, grandma is my home girl. That's cute. Yeah, but I'm just like, who were these four? These are definitely for the parents to like get further kid and then smirk. I bet like the cash me outside girl or this stuff is a kid.

Now this whole section where the shirts were was kind of like the kids ride section. You could buy tickets to ride rides and then they had ones that cost fewer tickets because they were for kids and ones that cost fewer tickets because they were for kids, and ones that cost more because they were adult sized rides. And I mean, the only one I did here is they had a thing called clown house, which was a mirror maze. Yeah.

And just the word clown house, I was like, well, that amuses me. It's like you're expecting some clowns to like jump out of the mirrors and attack you or something. But in this situation, you are the clowns because it's just your reflection of that. And I'm going to be honest, I didn't really feel present in this because I was so focused on trying to just win the mirror maze. My head was straight down because I realized that if I look at the creases on the floor tiles, I could tell which ones had mirrors on them and which ones didn't.

So I managed to navigate this thing perfectly without ever bumping into the wall while Steven's, you know, a few steps in front of me just bumping into the wall constantly. So you optimized all the fun out of it. I managed to optimize the clown house. Hahaha. Yeah. There's something wrong with my brain. When I play games, I am just like, all right, how do I optimize this experience to win efficiently?

And that's me when I drive. How can I optimize this experience to shave one to two minutes off? And skyrocket your blood pressure in the process. Oh yeah. Now, another house that they had, this is right after we left the farm area, they had a snake house. It was a snake house, I didn't see that. Yeah, there was a snake house. It was literally just this elevated trailer, like a star wagon, you know, like a,

you know, they're talking about the place where celebrities go to their trailer. Yeah, basically. So yeah, just an elevated trailer that had an entrance and an exit and a bunch of snakes, like photographs of snakes wrapped on the outside of it. And it was like real live snakes enter here,

like strip club vibes, like live nudes and have live snakes. And they're all like shedding their skin like a strip club. shedding their skin like bear it all. The shed is the premier of the Italian Gentleman's Club in the greater Los Angeles area. Bumper! The enemy speaks in so we'll really know how to get that cobra dancing. Bumper!

This sultry snake jammers are worth sinking your teeth into slivered on down to the shed for more tail in your face than in all boroughs. Does she had? Must be 18 human years old or two to four snake ears to dive into our snake hole. No video phobia will be tolerated. Here's the picture of the snake house. What the- Isn't that just very suspicious?

Okay, if this were a picture of a human instead of a snake, this would 100% be porn. Ha ha ha ha ha ha. Like I said, live snakes. X x x. It's eyes are so seductive. He's just like staring into my heart. He's undressing me like,

yeah, that snake has sex eyes. You see? Look at it. That snake says, I want to tenderly cradle you. Great. Garrett, I don't see snakes as sexual options for me. So I guess I'm not having these thoughts in my head when I see a snake.

But you do, you man. I'm not here to snake shame you. I blamed the early days of the internet for this. What, your sexual attraction to snakes? Is that one? No, that's disgusting. I don't know. I'm not saying the one who's saying it's a snake. It's a seductive snake. Hey, that snake wants to be sexually attractive. It doesn't mean we are sexually attracted to it. I don't know. You're making a case. Garrett, you're full of sin, which leads us to the next little booth that we spent a little bit of time at. Thanks to you. We got roped into a Christianity presentation. Is that the best way to put it?

A pitch meeting for God? Yes, it was a pitch meeting for God. So recently we had our Medieval Times episode. So it was almost medieval themed, but in a way that it would be at your vacation Bible school. So to paint a picture, we're walking out of an exhibit hall and we see a tent and The inside has like that fake stone look. Yeah, to where it looked like a medieval castle And there was a divider. It looked like a castle wall. There was actually a knight in armor there too

Now keep in mind this is like vinyl tablecloth party material by all of this at party city Yeah, yeah, yeah, like this is a very cheap castle themed look that didn't fit thematically with the presentation at all. No, so when you see this, what is the first thing you expect? What's the first thing you expect, Garrett? A puppet show! I wanted a puppet show so badly that you were willing to sit through this pitch meeting. Yes, I saw the setup. I'm like, this is the perfect setup for hand puppets. And what we got was the wordless book. This guy gave us a presentation that had basically pieces of construction paper in a book,

blank pieces of construction paper, found together like at Kinkos and just kind of telling us what these colors mean as far as getting to heaven. I guess white means pure. What was it? Black was sin. Black is the sin in your heart. You have to go through red, the blood of Christ to get to the gold, gold, which is what the streets of heaven are lined with. And then green was in there somehow. I don't really know. He kind of skipped over the green. The green was like there was an overall growth theme to the fair.

It was like spring something. I don't remember what it was, but I think it tied into the fair theme. And so we kind of sat with this guy for a little bit. I felt the very weird, very uncomfortable. I didn't like, this was kind of like my childhood. I grew up in a very religious environment. Yeah. This didn't seem odd. I mean, I went to a school and stuff like that, but it felt odd to be there. It felt inauthentic in a way. This man, I could tell, he cared about people.

He wanted to spread the word of God. He felt bummed that not that many people seemed that interested in attending his tent. So in that regard, I'm glad that he got to give his presentation. This guy just seemed to have a really pure simple heart. Yeah, and as he threw his half eaten peanut butter sandwich into the bag of bread, that he offered it to us because we were,

we mentioned that we were there. He was like, oh, free publicity, we just have to feed you. Review my peanut butter sandwich. And then he didn't make me one. I actually, if you would have handed it to me, I would have eaten it too. I don't care if he just bit off it. It didn't look like he had any disease.

Oh, I wouldn't have seen this. The one that he just, I totally would have. He didn't look like a diseased man. Wild. Anyways, once we left here, I immediately was like, we need to balance the scales. Oh no. Do you want to get a palm reading? And so we went to this psychic tent where they offered palm readings, tarot card readings, whole life readings. I forget, I don't really know what the difference was, but money. Each one was $10 more than the one before it. We opted for the cheap one.

$25 each for a palm reading. I wanted to go in with you and she was like, no, no, no, I'll get mixed signals between you guys. And in my mind, I'm like, we both know you're just making this up, right? Like, yeah, we know this is bullshit. Why are we pretending? But, do we? They took it very seriously.

So, do you wanna tell me about your experience? Cause we had to go in separately and experience this differently. The first thing she told me when she looked at my palm was that I'm going to have an extremely long life. I'll live to be over 90. Yeah. Bullshit. With the way we're eating?

Yeah, like, with our diets. Maybe you plus me. Maybe she already mixed up our signals. The sum of our final ages will be in the 90s. As you've described me as Cosmo Cramer, always in pain. Yeah. My body is falling apart. My diet's terrible. Honestly, my mental health is a shambles.

So like how? Is A shambles. Yes, that's the proper way to use the word. There's no chance in hell I'm gonna make it to 90 right I just want to say what mine said about the same topic mine looked at my palm Is like you have a very long lifeline. You'll probably live into your you know mid to late 90s as well But these marks here means you're gonna be riddled with health issues Diabetes heart disease cancers, but all these things

can be managed if you go see a doctor once every year and get checkups. So just make sure you do that and you'll be fine. I was like, did you tell me I'm gonna be riddled with it, which by the way, she opened with the first thing she said was, you may not like the things I'm gonna tell you, it's not personal. Wow, I never got any of that.

Oh yeah, she opened with that. And then I mean overall said some very good things. Anyways, continue. So she went from the length of my life down to my wrist where they were some like, swerly lines? I don't know. She described it in a way that I have no idea. But she said, I have a lot of the chosen one. You've got the mark of the hero on your wrist. Yes, you're the protagonist, but you're actually kind of right.

Yeah. She said, I have a lot of latent psychic ability, like a lot of latent psychic ability. Remember way back when Jeff Dwyer, psychic and paranormal investigator came on the show. Yeah, I do. Episode three, the haunting of the old spaghetti factory. How could I forget?

The way she was talking, my psychic ability is on his level or more. Wow. So you form attachments and stuff like that. And you know how to talk to the other. And she's like, you have a lot of deja vu experiences. Do you?

Maybe I do. I think it's just because a lot of the times I'm stressed and I dissociate. That's what I actually think it is. But yeah, yeah, it could be that. At least I've apparently had many past lives. And I am saddled with knowing this version of you. This is the most evolved version of me that's existed.

This is your blastoist form. Oh, God. Also, she said I'm a very empathetic individual, which I actually am. I do feel and adopt the emotions of those around me. I just don't always care. That sounds like you. She basically said, I have too many friends. I do too many things and I have way too many toxic people in my life.

You don't have many people in your life at all. Exactly. You're one of the most selective people I've ever met in terms of like who you'll spend time with. Exactly. It's like she was saying, oh, I'm about to go and cut out a lot of toxic people in my life. No, she accurately described my early 20s.

Right. Yeah, when I had a crap ton of toxic people in my life. That or I'm so toxic for you that I account for multiple. Yeah, you're just like a dozen people worth of toxicity. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Also, I bet she tells everyone this. 2023 is my year for financial success. I got told that too and we had different ladies. But yeah, she was like, what do you do for work?

I was like, I do a podcast. She was like, keep doing that. And I was like, I mean, I plan to, but lucrative, I don't know. Yeah, like, she made it sound like we're about to make a bunch of money doing this. Well, you can get the second half of this episode exclusively on our Patreon. That was basically the gist of it.

I'm gonna be a long, living, empathetic psychic rich man. I love it, but what about your love life? Oh yeah, living, empathetic psychic rich man. Right, but what about your love life? Oh yeah, okay, this was weird too. She said, I don't have any luck in my love life. I have too many one-night stands. Those are not good for me. I shouldn't do that with my type of personality.

And you've been in a relationship for what, 10 years? 12 years. 12 years. And to be fair, she did, again, accurately describe my early 20s. Right. When, yeah, I wasn't good with Lauren. Are you a ghost? Are you like a six sense sort of situation where like, I know you and think you're in your 30s and you don't realize that you've been dead. Yes. And you think you've been aging, but you're really walking around as your old form. I don't know. Do I look

like a man slut to you? I don't know. blue light answer this. With your hair down, yes. How does having my hair down make me look like a man slut? When you have your hair down, you look like the type of guy who just is like, do you need a massage? Like you'll just walk up to someone un-solicited and be like, do you need a massage? And then you just put your thumbs on them

and then it leads to things. With your hair down, that's the vibe I get. I'm not saying that is you. I'm just saying I can see how that appearance would give off that vibe. You look like you would have just a bottle of lotion and a fanny pack that you carry around. Yeah.

Do I look like the type of person that has a sex toy drawer? Yes. Absolutely. Abs so freaking lootly. And like the ones that are kind of like lame, like starter sex toys, like, ooh, a feather. Ooh, a kinky dice, like, you know, stuff like that. Or it's like, ooh, let's spice it up.

I feel like she got me right now only 50% correct. And early 20s me very correct. What about you? So I don't buy it personally so it's just kind of a lot of swings and like I don't know she was telling me stuff like you're very closed off and no one understands you you need to find someone who does and when you do cling to that person I was like I'm an open book like she was kind of making it sound like I suffer in silence a lot. And I am so open about what I'm feeling at most times. And I feel like I've got a lot of people who understand me. Like I'm a very social guy. You and I are super opposite in that regard. We're like, I love going out, being around people, constantly inviting people over, stuff like that.

And you're like, ah, do we have to record? And it's like, you psych yourself up to come over to record an episode. Like, we're just different. Yeah. So yeah, she just made it sound like I'm this person who's like suffering in silence. And for mine, she actually asked if I'm seeing someone.

Yours just took like a wild stab in the dark of like you're a manslaughter. And with me, they had me like say her name and then she would go on to like say stuff about the relationship. She said good things over all the money thing. She said she sees a move in my future this year, not because I have to but because I want to. And I don't foresee moving unless it's like

into a new place, but I don't know. I would have to have a pretty large windfall of money to go get a new place. Which is kind of funny though. She told me that soon I would have great financial success in the Bay Area. Interesting. I felt like the psychic really missed the mark,

you know, said some vague things, said some stuff that tapped into my hopes. So I want to say that she's right. Like, I want this podcast to be my sole source of income and be the thing that I can really devote my time to. Because I'm loving doing this thing. And having a psychic kind of reinforce that pursuit, it feels nice, but that doesn't mean she's right.

No, she reminded me of that drunk guy at the college party that's just trying to connect with her. Oh yeah, so you're a Virgo? Hey, do you want a massage? The last thing the psychic told me was that this would be a year of change and stability. Those are opposites. Yeah. Like when you're just swinging blindly,

just say vague oxymorons, and I guess you'll technically be right because someone will find meaning in that because of some big change happens. They'll be like, oh, the psychic said there would be change. And if everything stays the same, I can be like, oh, but they said there'd be stability. Like what, you cannot be more on the nose

that you're bullshitting than when you say, this will be the year of change and stability. Dumb. I came out of it and was just like, all right, whatever. I'm gonna be riddled with health issues for my long life. No one understands me, even though everyone kind of does. I'm an open book. Yeah.

It's whatever. 25 bucks wasted. I don't think it was wasted. It was fun. And I mean, it was worth like eight bucks to me. I was like, I would comfortably throw away eight bucks to do that. 25 bucks is steep.

We did walk out of an Expo Hall once and we saw just a big car show, like a bunch of low riders, big on Mexican culture. These were some cool cars, but a lot of them had a phrase that said, just memories on them. And I was like, this seems weird, like in almost like in memoriam thing, maybe.

Yeah, and they were like, child dolls. So that's the one that really got me, is like across from a low rider in memoriam thing, maybe? Yeah, and they were like, child dolls. So that's the one that really got me is like across from a low rider that had just memories on the grill. There was this like, almost like Annabelle Chucky-esque horror nightmare doll with one milky eye, and it's on like a low rider tricycle type situation

or like a side car or whatever it was, and it creeped me that hell out. And I was just wondering, what's going on over there? Michael, what's going on over there? Garrett, I need you to brace yourself because I don't think you're gonna like receiving this news, but it's the only thing that makes sense. Braced, ready.

Just memories. Milky eye. This is the ghost of Milk Steve the Cream Lord. What? What happened to him? That I can't answer. I want to say an automobile accident. A hydraulic car just came smashing down on him a man so milky Definitely spent time around low-writers. Oh, I know what happened what you can't replace the hydraulic fluid with cream

It doesn't operate the same way now for those of you who are a little lost right now milk Steve the cream Lord was Now, for those of you who are a little lost right now, Milk Steve the Cream Lord was the stuff of legend, maybe the best other patron that we have ever witnessed by far. When we were at the old spaghetti factory, the guy sitting at the table next to us, ordered Milk with his Fettuccine Alfredo and just ridiculed his date for not also getting Fettuccine Alfredo because he wanted to finish hers.

This dude loved cream. He ridiculed his date for not also getting Fettuccine Alfredo because he wanted to finish hers. This dude loved cream. If anyone had a passion for all things cream and milk, it was milk Steve the cream Lord. And I think this doll is so cursed and yet it's I still went milky. That's the power of milk. It's the power of milk Steve. It's suppressing the demonic red eye that was the other eye. And in time, that will become milk as well. And it will purify the soul of this doll. It'll purify

the souls of all those lost to hydraulic low rider accidents. Oh man. So milk, Steve, the cream lord, the patron saint of low riders and warding off the evil spirits at the county fair, which might be them running in all directions is why maybe our readings got mixed up at the psychic. And the psychic told me I had psychic powers, so those little bastards attached themselves to me. Yeah, it's also why the guy thought our soul needed saving and why he didn't wanna pull out a puppet show cause it would remind us of this creepy doll.

It all adds up. Yeah, Milk Steve the Cream Lord is watching over us, keeping us safe and free from curses, even if it's mixing up our signals a little bit. At the LA County Fair, I think that's it Garrett. I think that's what's going on over there. What's going on over there. So there were actually three concerts going on while we were there. One was like a country music one.

There was a giant stage that was the live performer. That was the one where you'd buy like separate tickets, which we didn't do. There were two smaller stages with just music playing on a screen. That's right. There might have been live performers earlier, but by the time we set up that... Well, when we went by the rabbit barn, there were like country performers,

and they were actually pretty solid. Yeah, I heard them from a distance. I was like, yeah, okay, they're talented. We went into the little barn area where there's just a bunch of bunnies. We didn't go into the bigger barn where all the livestock was kept, but little bunnies, little chickens.

Sure, but this was all just killing time. For honestly, it was probably the main event of the whole, the main event of the evening. This was awesome. Pig races. Yes. Folks, you don't know what you're missing if you haven't seen pig races,

because I am not a folksy man. I am not a country man. I may have grown up in Texas, but I grew up in Austin. I grew up in like a city. So the farm life never been for me. But these pigs, these sheep, these ducks, all these goats, these races that they did. And the lambs were so adorable, so cute.

Like, little scarf necker chips that are color coded because there's four different colors in the stands and like when they ran They didn't run they like bounced and hopped with varying levels of enthusiasm Wanted to win and you hear like the little Like it's so Adorably cute and they're easily distracted to like one of them just didn't find the end gate He just kept wandering around looking for food. Yeah, that would be me Yeah duck races adorable pig races the cutest thing goat races. Oh my god so cute the guy hosting nice little country Charismatic guy had excellent Spanish. Yeah spoken spoken Spanish a couple of times, just a real gentle, southerner vibe cowboy hat

and then at one point he put on trolls hair to sing a song from the trolls animated movie. You reminded me kind of if Hank Hill had a hobby of being an auctioneer. Yeah, the dude had a very smooth tongue, a very slick way of speaking. Honestly, the right choice to be a presenter, an entertainer at a county fair. If I'm just giving a rating to this fair off of the pig races, it's a high rating. Oh yeah, I mean, this was so cute.

There's so much more to... Yeah, it warmed my icy heart. It warmed your icy heart and maybe even cleared out some of the grease. Our team did okay, I think the orange, we were the orange section and I think orange only flat out lost one time. We won once and we came in second a whole bunch.

Which, that's fine. Yeah, I'll take it. Our animals were the cutest. All right. All the animals were so adorable. Just the way, like, a duck's butt waddles as it runs. Now, right outside the pig racing section, there was a place to get your face painted,

which I was hell bent on doing. But then I realized there's only one person working, and there was a line of, like, three other kids in front of me, but I totally wanted to get, like, a panda bear on half my face from the beard up. Yeah, they were so little you could have easily pushed them out of the way. Again, Garrett, not how society works. I noticed as the day went on, it got darker out. The crowd increased in size just a little bit. The music got louder and louder and louder. It also may have been your tolerance for music weakened.

Possibly that too, but by the time evening rolled around, it was just unbearably loud. It was very for people who have a problem with like over stimulation with noise, I can understand how that would be a panic inducing atmosphere. That plus the flashing lights, plus the crowds, plus the things that we had

already put in our body that are just, we are still feeling it. I want to let the audience know that it has been six days since we were at the fair and I just feel like down, like all of my body movements are just bottom heavy. I just feel, I feel like sludge. I compared you to blast toys earlier. I feel like muck. I feel like the physical embodiment of the Pokemon muck. I am just a pile of sludge at all times.

And that's how I still feel. And my face is much greasier than usual. It's, I feel grease just oozing out of my pores. Still, to this day. I don't feel that. For me, it's just an energy sap thing. I've just been so low energy this whole week. I'm always low energy, so.

So what do you do when you're low energy? You go inside. You want to escape some things. And this fair had a lot to offer inside just as much as it did outside. There are expo halls, exhibition centers, there's a science fair, there's a petting zoo, there are stores, and we went through as many of these buildings as possible. One of my favorite ones you walk in and there's a 24 hour fitness booth right there.

With aggressive people. Aggressive. Huge like this chick with just the most toned quads I've ever seen in my life. And we're literally looking for a place to get out of the shade to split a fried s'more on a stick. And she's approaching us like, do you guys want to work out?

And I'm like, now's not the time. And I thought it was great. It was appropriate to have this in front of the 24 hour fitness booth. Yeah. Your girlfriend made a big show out of like, I want to eat this in front of them. I felt like one, I told them I already belong to a gym and then they started like, yeah, which one? Like chill. I'm'm not gonna convert to your religion, okay? Okay.

I didn't come into this experience to change, okay? It's the year of stability. But you know why they were so aggressive though, because they saw the fried, it's more honest-ick. No, they're all on steroids. Oh, that's true. Look at them. They did have roared energy.

Okay, how can any human naturally achieve the bodies that we saw? Cheating. Cheating's the only way. P.E.D.s said the guys who go to a fair and eat fried everything. What do we know about muscle acquisition? Exactly. It all must be impossible if you're not cheating.

Pushy salespeople were juicing. Oh, speaking of juicy pushy salesman, literally a guy pushing the juices of his product out into the world. The wafting fan. Oh my god. We went and got hot sauces, right? There was a hot sauce stand. I'm a sucker for hot sauces. So if you have a hot sauce stand, I'm going there. I want to try stuff. I want to sample stuff. And I'm probably going to get one, which I did. And we spoke to this guy, Matt, and he's giving us the whole spiel,

but also on the right hand side of his booth is like on a George Foreman grill. He's got a hot plate and he's cooking some chicken with onions and juices and just all this and just all this pungent, but in a good way, smelling stuff, and then a fan, like an oscillating fan, rotating to push that smell out towards people to draw them there. He's not selling chicken, he's not selling onions, he's not selling this thing he's cooking, it's literally just to get your attention.

It was an effective strategy to draw me over, and honestly, it saved me as like a lifeline from those 24 hour fitness people. I smelled this, I was like, ooh, that smells good, I'm gonna walk over here, and they were like, where are you going? And then they like flipped a car aggressively, I don't know, I kind of lost track,

but the roid rage was kicking in. Yeah. It was good hot sauce. Yeah, it was good hot sauce. It was like a Vindaloo flavored one, like an Indian curry. Oh, it was really good. That was a good one.

They had like a spicy hot garlic jam. That's what I got. It was a spicy garlic chili sauce. And it is so good. I'm still putting this on most of the food I eat. Yeah, and I just got the basic starter sauce, just kind of like his original. Yeah, very, very good.

Now we go further into the Expo Hall. Now, keep in mind, we went into a bunch of these Expo Halls. I'm not gonna remember which one is which, so I'm not really gonna divide it. But we saw a vibrating, boogie board. Yeah, massager thing that you just kinda stand on and it vibrates and it's supposed to be good for your back muscles and stability and stuff like that.

But all it kinda did was just vibrate my junk around. We all got different things. Me, it was my nuts. You, it was your... And one of the others we came with, I'm forgetting who said that they just felt like they're butm... So this thing was basically just a genital mover machine. Yeah, I felt like you could learn how to twerk on this machine. Which I tried to do. And looked magnificent. Hahaha.

With all of these things, there were so many big ticket items. Like mattresses, entire mattresses. Oh, that's right. Every single expo hall had a large portion devoted to mattresses. Like, I go to the LA County Fair for my mattress needs on a yearly basis, don't you? One of the Expo Halls had a giant area devoted to bulk candy. The way they gave people baskets and like they would kind of go up and down the rows, it seemed like agricultural like tomato pickers or something,

but you're just going through the rows picking up actual diabetes. Like, hey, do you want this industrial-sized box of nerds? No? Well, we have it. It was so much candy that I got sick looking at it. My blood sugar spiked being close to it. Which is why they had the mattresses. You should have to go over and take a nap to recover.

Or if you don't recover, they had a coffin for sale, a casket. Forrest Lawn, it's down the road from us. Yeah, it's a cemetery near us. And they had a casket open with a Los Angeles Dodgers logo on it. And on the note, it said, coffin not for sale. Can you imagine wanting to be sent

into the ground for eternity, rocking a logo? Like I don't want to be defined by that. Can you imagine I have an open casket wake and everyone's just staring at how much I love outback steakhouse? Like that sounds amazing. That would feel so weird. Like why are you defining yourself by your fandom?

I don't know. Maybe I'm just like needlessly shitting on people. I mean, we didn't see any actual person. No, we didn't see this thing. No, we did not see a body in the casket. Okay, what if you live your entire life? The most interesting thing about you is your love of baseball. I mean, that is the case.

That's the, here's the thing. I know someone like that. He is such an angel's fan, and that is the only interesting thing about him. Yeah. Yeah. I guess that casket should be for players for the Dodgers, coaches, owners, whoever invented the, like, that's owners, whoever invented that, like, that's who should get that casket.

If you put a fine dining logo on my casket, even then I would think it was really tacky, but okay, I might sign off on that. That's the thing that I had a part in the creation of. So, am I coming across as judgy, like you need to be buried with the thing you created and stuff, you're just taking a very strong viewpoint of an extremely specific thing.

You're just getting a Dodgers casket. A Dodgers fan? I know, I very much gather that, but it's just, I don't know, it just seems a certain way to me. The thing that seemed a certain way to me was the conversation I had with this woman. So I kinda wanna know, why do you have a boot at the county fair? So, I pretty much asked her just that.

And she, like, do you sell a lot of burial plots here? She explained to me the importance of locking in the price and planning for your eventual demise. Dumb eyes. What a word choice. And then I asked her, I'm like, okay, so what's the actual conversion rate on customers you get from this fair?

And she's like 50%. No way. Which is absolutely insane. No, that's amazing. That's amazing. That people you talk to purchase items from your mortuary? Yeah, that just feels made up, right? Or like half the people she talked to eventually die.

The other half are. Actually, 100% of the people you talk to eventually die unless it's the ghost of Milk Steve, the cream lord. One of the sales people that we encountered was a t-shirt vendor. A t-shirt vendor with some very obvious political leanings. Yeah, you saw this guy and then you came over and found me and you're like, hey, I was like, you got to see this guy.

Gary, you got to see this specific t-shirt. There's a guy who has a Clarence Thomas shirt. We shields very passionately about Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas, which, okay, that's fine. Be a Clarence Thomas fan, but making Clarence Thomas merchandise which, okay, that's fine. Be a Clarence Thomas fan, but making Clarence Thomas team dice, like, yeah, what are you gonna do? Make a Clarence Thomas themed coffin for your funeral? Hahaha.

Can you imagine any of the t-shirt designs that this guy had being like what he had on his casket? Hahaha. Oh, man, it was funny. When you were talking to him, he's like, okay, I had being like what he had on his casket. Oh man. It was funny. When you were talking to him, he's like, okay, this table of shirts here, these are political. And these ones over here, they're for everyone.

And I was like, oh, so when you say political, you mean you're only representing one side? Yeah, so I was talking to this guy, kind of like, it was shop talk. Yeah. He designs and sells his own t-shirts. We design and sell our own t-shirts. We do.

So I'm like, hey, we're kind of in the same business. Yeah. You're my competitor, bro. So just for this month, you can get an exclusive juicy junior pineapple clearance Thomas crossover. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. But if you do go to our website, find DiningPodcast.com'm kidding, I'm kidding. But if you do go to our website, find DiningPodcast.com

and click on that merch tab. We've got all sorts of fun shirts. We've got a Bob's Big Boy, but Fussy Little Boy, parody shirt, that's one of my favorite. Both of them are Fussy Little Boys. Both of them are Fussy Little Boys. Baby, it's both of them, my fossil little boys. Both of them, my fossil little boys.

Ah! I actually got a compliment on this shirt a few hours ago. Yeah, it's a great shirt. We've got a pizza hut shirt that's like a 90s style, almost like laser tag colors, and it's all the cars that crash into pizza huts if you listen to our pizza hut episode. Yeah, we've just got the classic logo shirt too.

Go on over there, we've got some fun shirts for you, and maybe we'll design a new one sometime in the near future. Yeah, it will have nothing to do with Clarence Thomas. No. So there was one salesman that stood out above all the rest, and uh... and that is time, that is the first hour of this Patreon exclusive episode. Now we did open up our Patreon to where you can actually get a free week to sample the goods before committing your pledge. So head on over to patreon.com slash fine dining podcast and check out

everything there. The second part of this episode will be posted before the end of the month. Thanks for checking it out. Thanks for listening, and have a fine day! And hey, while you're at it, why don't you go ahead and make it five stars? Come on. Follow us on TikTok, the same on Instagram, all the socials at Find Dining Podcast. We have a website Find DiningPodcast.com Buy our T-shirts, then put them on. And don't forget, you can always suggest where we go next. Okay, we're going to find it. Media-crafting, the search continues See you next week

I heard my throat a little Have a fine day