russians

So there I was. Tuesday afternoon, I met with the furnace guys and they fixed the furnaces, I picked up some rent, and went home. Realizing that my vacation's end is imminent, and that I had nothing to do that night. I decided to drive to Branson, Missouri with my roommate to go see Yakov Smirnoff.

We left at 6pm. We took the Jeep and at about 2am we slept in a rest area for a few hours and by 9am we were at the Yakov Smirnoff Theater. Yes, he has his own theater, it is disgusting. Yes, the same Russian comedian you remember as the taxi cab driver from "Brewster's Millions" and from Night Court owns a huge theater. The show was fantastically horrible, and besides my roommate and I, there was, literally, only one other person in the crowd of 1500 (sold out) that was under 60 years of age. Yakov shined as he got the old folks rolling in the aisles and pissing their pants. He even had them crying at the end with some bullshit sad sack poor immigrant, nice americans Christmas story. Yakov, who generally does 2 shows a day, had the nerve to choke up and cry himself telling this god awful story.

So now the nearly 4 hour show (including intermission) is finished and Yakov announced he would sign autographs. Amazingly, the 1497 senior citizens were not interested in this, so once they were herded out the doors and into their buses, we got right up to the great man. After waiting for about 8 people to finish, we got our shot. I asked him to sign it "To Dave...." and he just gave me a blank, angry stare. So I then said "Brewster's Millions Rules!" Again I got the same look, but he signed it "To Dave....Yakov" anyways, then I had the photo taken that I have attached for your enjoyment.

Later we had the old time photos taken, took a nap at our hotel, ate a big buffet for five bucks, ate a big steak dinner, drank some Jack Daniels, sang karaoke (including Bust a Move in the country music-dominated shitty townie bar), and hung out with a bunch of women we just met while karaoking. We enjoyed some late night Denny's, then we crashed. So Thursday morning we take off and get back at 10:30 pm. Overall a great roadtrip.

I am officially starting work on Monday the 18th, so if anyone has any cool ideas of things to do this next week let me know. Or just take a day off and we can go to see Yakov again. Next saturday I am going to visit my old stomping grounds in Oshkosh to get drunk, see some old friends, and beat up some old girlfriends. If you want to come along let me know.

So long.
dave