Jun 8, 2010

LA Night Jam 3 - A Sexy Mystery

Following last years Night Jam, LA Night Jam 2, the expectations for this years version were sky high. Which is always a problem. You can read all about our love fest for LANJ 2 and set the scene via this thought, heading into last year we had no expectations of what was going to happen and were absolutely blown away. This year, having that experience in our back pocket, nothing could really live up to our own self-imposed expectations could they?

These are some of the mysteries that the CRB sleuthing team set out to uncover.

Well, the CRB staff loaded up our Chevette Pink Vespa with our usual assortment of cheap beer, cheese flavored crackers, the finest smoked meats and three packs of camel unfiltered and began our excursion to the paradise that is Bennets Ski School.

Which, to those of you who have never been, is a really really nice place. Now, most ski lakes are nice. But there is something different about this place, it seems to be both functional and sexy. Like...a girl wearing a tool belt. But, you come rolling in, park your slab, hop out and you cant even see the lake. Its sort of raised up, or you park below, either way, you walk up and come over the hill and pow waterski love all over the place! Its similar to walking in to Wrigley Field in Chicago, once you walk through the concourse area and you see the bright green grass and seats and everything for the first time its sort of breath taking, like, walking in to Bennets and seeing the lakes is something that everyone should do at somepoint in their life.

The event itself was great, but, we aren't here to re-cap the events, you could have checked out the CRB Twitter for up to the second scores and observations, or watched the webcast...shoot, if you are looking for accurate information and meaningful insight, well, your in luck..but in the wrong place. :)

Now, to fulfill our contractual obligations to the waterski gods here is a recap, rundown of the event.

1) It was full of amazing skiing
2) 100% of all skiers are better then anyone at the CRB
3) Freddy and June won.
4) Thats it. thats the list.

No, you come to CRB for our brilliant and witty writing style and subversive humor coupled with extreme dedication to junk food. One of the things we did this year was don sweet hats and smoke pipes. Sherlock Holmes style. We had some things to figure out, some mysteries to solve, and presented below are the seven, 7, mysteries that the CRB is pondering.

1) Expectations.

We noted this above, but, simply put, could our second night jam experience equal our first? This is a tough question to answer, as we don't really have a baseline to judge things and tend to just experience it without being filtered through any lens other then our own.

Meaning, we came into last years night jam with no idea at all what to expect and had an absolutely awesome experience, and this year, we were clouded with last years experiences in our heads. So, the mystery to us is this, was this year as good or better then the year before, and how do you accurately judge? Our baseline the year before was 0, and the event was 100. Which naturally set our bar this year at 100, and if the event was 100, was our experience the same?

The event was, we think, a 100. So, it was equal to last years in terms of skiing and production and general awesome, but, something was different. Could we be jaded by all the awesome this sport has? Did our experiences from the year before cloud anything?

Before we continue, let it be known, in terms of overall presentation, execution and wow factor, this year exceeded last years, it was spectacular, the only thing we are wondering is, selfishly, were we as blown away as we were the year before. We will attempt to answer this burning mystery later.

It’s different, we don't know exactly why. Hence, its a mystery!!

2) The Skiers - They are real people!

This is something that ODBF and I talked about the other day. One of the coolest things about our sport is that the skiers are normal people. That sounds weird, but, they are superhuman talented and the top level of skill in our sport. In all other sports these people are bigger then life and are treated as some sort of deity by the general population. I am one of these people, if I were to see Alfonso Soriano, or Drew Brees or someone out in public, I wouldn't know what to do...they are supposed to be in my TV not in the grocery store.

Lets set the stage a bit, the CRB team was hanging out in the vip area (natch) before the event started and Chris Parrish came walking in. No entourage, no bright lights and angels singing, just a dude coming to grab a beer and watch some skiing. We were a bit startled, as we were in the middle of discussing tort law reform or the middle east peace process or our solution to the oil spill, all of a sudden there was one of the best slalom skiers of all time standing about 10 feet away, getting his drank on (we think) and waiting to watch the fun.

I don't think you would see this in everyday life with other sports top stars. Further more, post event, all the skiers were hanging out in the beer tent area chatting away with their friends and the like, we even got to meet a few!

Now, ODBF believes thats whats cool about our sport that all the skiers are so accessible, and I tend to get star struck and not know what to say other then, "wow, your awesome" or "your awesome, wow" or something similar. Its weird.

You may be thinking to yourself, “That’s stupid, of course they are normal people, and you are a douche anyways”. Correct. However, in our defense, we are quite in awe of the abilities of these skiers. We have all skied a ton in our lives, and in most circles, are probably quite talented, but, in comparison to these people we are nothing.

Anyways, its probably something as simple as seeing them in magazines or online or whatever and sort of forming some opinion in your own head, whereas normally you meet people with no expectations, whereas here you sort of have a pre-formed opionion. Maybe? Who knows. That’s why it’s a mystery!

3) The Heat. And Humidity.

Being in the obvious peak physical condition that working at CRB HQ requires, obviously, we were not affected at all by the heat during the tournament. haha. Just Kidding. It was hot as hell during the day and we were miserable.

During the morning (mid-day crb time) it rained like a mofo. Which as anyone who has spent any time in the south, or maybe in a sauna, or the surface of the sun knows, it doesn't make it less humid, it just amplifies the sticky, sexy, awesome of the weather.

So, this mystery is more of a CRB specific item. Not really anything to do with the actual event. But, HOLY HELL we were dying for a few hours. Pretty sure that as a collective we sweated out the equivalent of small swimming pool. How do people deal with this???

Proper hydration and shade? HAHAHA. just kidding suckers, a few beers and swimming cured all our ills.

4) The sound.

Here was the only real issue we had with the event. But, also one of the things that made it neat. Let us explain.

For those of you who weren't physically present, there was a DJ guy playing music (Journey is always a good choice) and of course the awesome combo of Tony and Tadd rocking the mic like a vandal.

The issue that we had in our perch (not the fish) in the VIP area was we couldn't really hear Tony that well. This made us a little sad. Two reasons, 1) It hurt our ability to follow the action, what was going on. For example, there was original CRB girl Danyelle Bennett and another dude having a slalom big-dog style ski-off and we didn't know what was going on. and 2) We didn't get to hear Tony and his awesome accent.

Here is where the sexy mystery comes into play. We don't know if the mic volume was fixed later in the event, or the collective group of people started tuning in more or what it was, but, as the event neared its climax (hi-ooo!!!!) we started to hear Tony and Tadd at equal volume. We are pretty sure the volume was still a bit screwy or Tony was just yelling louder, but, it was awesome. Maybe this was not the case, but, it seemed to us that everyone there watching was really tuned in and engaged with the action on the water and as a group I wonder if that collective interest and everything helped.

5) Magnets. How do they work?


Special thanks to CRB I.T for totally screwing the pooch on both our video camera and regular camera.  You wouldn't think that it would be so hard to plug a god damn camera into the wall so it would be charged for the one day a year you actually use the crap that you buy.  No, so, whatever pictures and video we have were done from a damn iphone.  This isn't a mystery.  Just an aggravation.

6) The ratio of sexy in the area.

This may be something that most people are used to, but, to us it was surprising. The obvious answer to this mystery, why there is so much sexxxxy in the area, is that a bunch of waterski dropped in the area and when the CRB arrives it brings the heat.

Lets also get this out of the way, we love southern accents. No two ways about it, you could drop a southern accent into a broken down pick up truck and we would probably swoon.

Either way, we ate lunch at some joint called Sammys Grill before the event. The place is decent, nothing super out of the ordinary, but, the food was good, beer was cold and my god was there a sexy wait staff.

It would be fair to say that one of our staff was in love with a waitress. No, we don’t know her name and no we didn’t say anything to her. We were trying to be serious about our duties as trained journalists and we had no time to fraternize with anyone…even the smoking hot waitress. We will be back.

Moving along, the sexy on display at Bennets was a sight to behold as well. Guys and girls equally, if nothing else, it inspired us to get our ass back into the gym. Don’t like being blown out of the water like this!

Its funny, in a way, if you keep up with cheesy gossip websites or read crap like us weekly or whatever, and they all tell you who they think are the hottest people, or the sexiest people alive..whatever, they are wrong.

If you are rail thin and get a gallon of make-up applied, shot under the right lighting, and photoshoped to look hot, honey, you aren’t that god damn hot. If you can slap on a wetsuit, stomp the jump to pieces, put on some sweat pants and look hot? Your hot.

7) Night Jam 4 – Whats next?

Our final mystery, if you looked closely at this years event, it was larger, more people, more stuff, more awesome then the year before. What can the people do to make this event even better next year?

This year they had, at the end of the point, a stage set up and a couple bands were bringing the RAWK, the VIP area was nice, the skiing was awesome, the weather was cooperative, and more people were watching online!

These are all good, and maybe to answer our first mystery, yes, this event exceeded last years event, despite our unrealistic expectations.

A funny thing about trying to encapsulate or review things, you always tend to look forward to the next year and say things like, they should do this, they should do that.

We won’t try and input our stupid ideas into any discussion, there are things that seem to be perfect the way they are and you have to just go ahead and trust the people in charge to do it right.

Its like a vacation in one day, it’s a different area of the country, a different climate, much sexy, a professionally staged waterski compeition that should be the envy of any other tournament/event out there.

For that, there is no mystery; it equaled our absurdly high expectations, even with our skeptical glasses on.

Boom. Mystery solved. Next year we are bringing a camper.

1 comment:

  1. I liked seeing the pros signing autographs and the kids shirts. gives it that larger sport feel. good direction

    i also liked sammys waitresses...drool

    I did not like how we ran out of beer at 10. that made me cry

    ReplyDelete

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Its to Dang Cold!

Enjoy this weather you hot piece of ass! Dispatch from the CRB weather desk Guess what???  ITS COLDER THEN A WELL DIGGERS ASS OUT THERE KIDS...