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December
9, 2004 - Love and Marriage...
You
might be saying, "Well, look who finally decided to write a
blog? It‘s about time Paul Morrissey." That’s "MR."
Morrissey to you, pal! I did, in fact, go through with my wedding
in October and everything went smoothly. Our honeymoon in Bora Bora
was incredible and I am in the process of getting a "travelog"
of our trip on the website.
 What
else is happening? Well, at the beginning of November, I hit the
road again and had a fantastic week at Rooster T. Feathers in Sunnyvale.
The club and the crowds were great. I worked with Bruce Fine, who
was a very funny and talented guy. He is also a die-hard Red Sox
fan so I tried really hard not to hate him. Just kidding, he’s
probably one of the nicest guys I’ve worked with. Last week
I worked at Pepperbelly’s in Fairfield, CA, which is home
to the Jelly Belly jelly bean factory. As some of you know, my wife
Kimmy is what you might call a "factory tour junkie,"
so of course we had to stop in to see how the jelly beans were made.
I found it interesting that they didn’t make gourmet jelly
beans until 1976. Up to that time, the company produced regular
jelly beans and before that, they somehow made a living producing
Candy Corn, which might be the worst tasting candy ever. The funniest
part of the tour was the fact that our tour guide, an awkward looking
teenage boy, had an incredibly hard time pronouncing the words "jelly
belly." He cut off a syllable and instead said something along
the lines of "jowl bewly." The worst part is that the
job of tour guide requires you to say the words jelly belly a couple
of hundred times. Each time he said it, I found myself laughing
harder and harder. By the end of it, I was laughing so hard I was
near tears. I’m such a dick sometimes, but I couldn’t
help it. 
The factory wasn’t in production on the weekend but we did
get to see how the process works and it was pretty neat. President
Reagan was apparently a huge Jelly Belly fan, even had a few flavors
custom made for him, so they honored him with a jelly bean portrait
along with our current Governor, "Ah-nold."
 If
you’re like me, you’re probably asking yourself, "What’s
candy without alcohol?" Luckily, a Budweiser factory was across
the street, so we took our tour-junkie -asses over there and took
another tour. Notice in the picture that I'm pointing to the Budwieser
factory, so you won't have difficulty finding it in the picture.
We were all brought into a "tasting room" (also known
as a Bar). I’m Irish, so I was asked to help with a taste
test. I thought that was kind of racist that the tour guide would
ask me to do the taste test just because I’m Irish but it
was free beer so I said what the hell. I won’t go through
the whole testing process, but I will say that no one can taste
"fresh" Budweiser from "old" Budweiser.
As for the comedy club, we great crowds for all four weekend shows
and I sold a ton of CD’s with my good friend and one of the
two people who got me started in comedy, Mr. Del Van Dyke.
I want to backtrack for second and tell you about the drive. The
trip up from L.A. to San Francisco takes about 5 ½ hours
and it’s almost as boring as the drive from L.A. to Las Vegas.
There’s a strange section on I-5 that has come to be known
as "Cow-schwitz." You become overwhelmed by the smell
of manure about ten minutes before you actually see with your own
eyes the biggest pile of cows imaginable. It is, in fact a "pile"
of cows and it continues from the side of the highway to as far
as the eye can see. Cows piled on top of manure, on top of cows.
Cheeseburger anyone?
 The
only thing more disturbing than "Cow-schwitz" was this
interesting sight I got a few miles down the road. A helicopter,
hovering in place while holding a basket of three men by a cable,
to fix ELECTRIC WIRES! I don’t wish anything bad on anyone,
but I was certain that I was going to witness a horrific accident
any second. I’d be amazed if that was common practice. Didn’t
anyone write this down on paper and see how dangerous it was before
they tried it?
Electric wires + Low flying helicopter + 3 guys dangling from a
cable= explosions and death.
Was it safer to be in the helicopter or to be a guy like me trying
to take a picture of it out the window while driving a car going
80 MPH?
Thanks for Reading,
Paul C. Morrissey
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