I went to the Torrance Oktoberfest at Apline Village (largest and longest Oktoberfest in SoCal(they say…)at the suggestion of my friend Nora. She sold it to me by saying “You’ll never see the variety of people that you’ll see here all having a great time together” She was right. Apparently, listening to a Bavarian brass band , sitting on large benches under a massive white tent, and drinking beer crosses all nationalities and over-21 age groups. The website boasts “Bavarian brass-oom pa pa band from Germany, German dancers, contests, beer brewed at the alpine village and Authentic German food.” This makes me laugh, because the featured “dancers” was a single large 55 year old German lady wearing a frilly pink dress walking around stage and bouncing for 4 hours while holding out a German and American flag in the air. Rumor has it she drank a 32oz beer at the top of every hour.
At one point, two young hotties went on stage and started dancing to the polka music, within seconds the large, pink, lady was clear across the stage ordering them off. This stage is for professionals!! And frolien pink german went back to moving up and down without taking her feet off the ground. Like little kids do before they know how to jump. That way they dance with their feet planted but they kind of squat and unsquat walk a step or two, squat and unsquat. It was that for 4 hours. And we loved it.
Port-o-potties are one of the big cons in the should-i-go-to-a-place-where-everyone-will-be-drunk equation. We expected Feces in urinals and the toilet paper rolls to be covered in urine. While, nothing reached the expected level, the sticky floors and scattered TP was enough was plenty enough to make you wish we lived back in the times when anything we couldn’t see with the naked eye didn’t exist. During our third trip of the night, Nora walked up to a P-O-P, opened the door, and stood quietly and unmoving with the door grasped in her left hand. After the little zebra spent 5 beats of her healthy zebra life staring blankly ahead into the American Serengeti, a grizzled young man 4 people back in the P-O-P line yelled. “YOU CAN DO IT”!!! And gave some enthusiastic hand motions of encouragement. Nora laughed sadly and went in to enthusiastic cheering from the P-O-P line. Immediately after, I turn to my right and see a Potty with a green switch, glad that I’m not going in the stall to puke instead of pee, I confidently open the door only to see the full moon of a 40 year old man with his pants pulled down to his mid-calf. Being my second-best potty peep show of the night, (The first was some female frontal nudity), I was unimpressed and shut the door before I had used up the full quarter’s worth of time. The P-O-P line all cheer’sed me, and they drank to harry-man-bottom.
Throughout the night, we drank lots of beer, (including the 2 inches we were given as a gift from the friendly gay man who accidently splashed some of his beer onto our lady feet. He said. “It wasn’t me,” looked into our cups, glanced up with an expression of pained sadness, and quietly poured Nora and I a generous portion of his two new 32oz Budweisers before wordlessly walking away into the crowd.) …continued from previous comma, joined a congo line, ate Polish sausage, and danced uninhibitedly on stage to the chicken dance THREE TIMES!
All this and more for only an 8 dollar admission and 20 dollars for food and beer (btw. it doesn't take a lot to feed and inebriate the pair of us, so take the 20$ with a grain of salt in the 90% of people who is larger and more experienced at drinking and eating then the two of us).
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