Two Consecutive Weekends of LaZoom

My parents visited in November, and since they’ve now become something of Asheville regulars, I was looking for something new to do with them. A friend suggested a LaZoom Tour, which I thought wouldn’t be a bad choice, so we booked a Saturday afternoon comedy tour. 

I did a LaZoom tour once before with my friend Maura, literally three weeks after I moved to Asheville (I’ll never forget on that trip that Maura and I were in Jack of the Wood overhearing people talking about the then-contained-in-China covid virus and laughed about how those people were being dramatic—three weeks later everything was shuttered). 

I enjoyed it and was surprised at how candid and funny the tour guide was. LaZoom is billed as a comedy tour, but comedy tours are usually somewhat sanitized for tourists (and the secondhand embarrassment they give me typically makes me want to crawl out of my skin). This one wasn’t. I was impressed (and never felt that dreaded second-hand embarrassment comedians often bring out of me). Still, I haven’t been on one since because A) I figured I learned all there was to learn from these tours and B) at the time, it was a helpful way to see different parts of the city, while now, I was able to point out more banal aspects of our itinerary—“that’s the park where I play tennis” (Montford Park), “that’s where we ate dinner last night” (Strada)—to my parents. 

However, we had a great time! Well, my mother and I did. I think my father was partly scarred because, at some point, a man dressed in a bee costume who entered the bus as part of the tour (right outside Montford Park—I’ve become jarringly accustomed to seeing a grown adult man dressed like a bee hide in some bushes while playing tennis) stopped at his seat (my dad was unfortunately, sitting in the only seat on the bus with just one passenger), got in it with him, and pretended to “pollinate” him, which was essentially meant twerking on him  (you’ll have to attend a tour to understand the full context…maybe). I definitely noted that I would be back…I just didn’t think it would be the following weekend. 

I told my friends how much we enjoyed ourselves and how good of an activity LaZoom was for visiting parents, so my buddy Eric decided that’s the activity he’d take his mother, who was visiting the following weekend, on, and invited me to join. Thus, I took the same LaZoom tour two weekends in a row. 

Here are my takeaways: 

• I have to credit the tour guide, a lovely British fellow (I think? He played a British character, but his accent was too good for it not to be real). While the tour’s main content and talking points were the same, there was enough variation due to how he interacted with and played with the audience members to keep it interesting!
• I learned something new! Namely, that James Taylor once stayed in an infamous mental hospital in Montford, which makes Carolina in My Mind make a lot of sense (although, as the tour guide pointed out, he was there in person…not in his mind?). 
• The version of the tour I took in 2023 was more sanitized than the one I took in 2019, but not by much. They still really go there (if sexual innuendos make you—or, more importantly, your parents— uncomfortable, I’d maybe skip LaZoom). Still, the guide on my first tour brutally, brutally roasted us passengers. Looking back, that bus was barely full—it was mid-February—and the crowd was much younger, so that could’ve had something to do with it. 
• When I took the tour initially, the tour guide said I looked like “someone acquainted with roofies,” while this time, a different tour guide told me I looked like I “smelled like Axe Body Spray,” so I guess my ability to give off douchey vibes has not wanned. 
• In addition to being horrifically slow drivers, people from Georgia seem to bring a real theatre kid energy (cheering loudly, answering every tour guide’s poised question) to the proceedings. 

There’s something inherently fun about a party atmosphere on a school bus. In addition to the two-hour comedy tour (alongside several other offerings), LaZoom also does a three-hour band tour that consists of going to three breweries while a cover band entertains you on the bus, which I think I’m going to book next time I have multiple friends in town on the same weekend.