Stan’s Obligatory Blog

Recently, Kathleen and I have watched a number of documentaries about the revival of roller derby. And it looks like something fun to go see. The L.A. Derby Dolls recently changed their policy to allow all ages to come to their bouts, so asked Lucinda if she wanted to go. And tonight we all went to see the show.

Getting there turned out to be a big ordeal, but that was just because of some problems on the road, and ordinarily, it’s not all that bad of a trip. We got there just before they introduced the skaters before the bout started. Next time, we’ll plan on getting there earlier. They had a whole vendor area, as well as food trucks outside. Truck Norris was even there. Inside, they had the banked track set up, with sort of standing-room bleachers set up around it. The regular tickets are general admission, and there are no seats. But because of the way the platforms are set up, it wasn’t a problem. We found a little bit of space along the railing and let Lucinda and London take that, while we stood behind them. So we could all see just fine.

At the start of the match, they explained the basic flow of the game, so it made some sense. And there was a lot of fast action. The announcer said that at least one of the jammers is a speed skater in her other life. And it showed when they got going. It was a lot of fun to watch. At half-time, they had a bout a 30 minute break, with a band playing in the vendor room. Lucinda and London went and bought themselves some shirts. It looked like they had a good time there.

All in all, it was tremendously entertaining.

Tonight, Kathleen and I went to Westwood to see “Red Hot Patriot: The Kick-Ass Wit of Molly Ivins“. This is a one-woman show, with Kathleen Turner playing the part of the late Molly Ivins, talking about her life and experiences. I was familiar with Molly Ivins from my time in Texas. There are, in fact, liberals in Texas. They’re not plentiful, but they do exist. And Molly Ivins gave voice to them. She was very witty, and was something of a national treasure to the liberals, while the others still respected her, since she was a Texan, and you don’t talk ill about your family. So overall, she was an oddity, but an oddity who is sorely missed now that she’s gone. And Kathleen Turner did a very good job bringing her back to life on stage. This was a great show.

Last week, I saw a review of “Pulp Shakespeare“. This is a play that is a ‘re-imagining’ of “Pulp Fiction“, if it had been written by William Shakespeare. It had been years since I’d seen “Pulp Fiction”, but this sounded amusing. And since we’d seen “Hamlet” and “The Merry Wives of Windsor” last summer, we were relatively ‘up’ on our Shakespeare. So I got tickets, and we sat down and watched the movie again before going. And yes, it was truly hilarious. All the dialogue had been reworked into faux-Shakespeare, and they worked in a lot of well-known Shakespeare quotes in the mix. But the story and characters were pure “Pulp Fiction”. They even adapted the music, so the show had a lot of the same music, but reworked into an appropriate style to maintain the 16th-Century Elizabethan feeling.

All told, it was a great show, and I recommend it highly. We may have to go back again before it closes.

Since today is a holiday, Kathleen and I went over to LACMA to see “California Design, 1930–1965: Living in a Modern Way“. We’d seen a little bit of this last fall when we saw the Tim Burton exhibit, and we’d been meaning to come back to see it.

We went there a bit early, just on general principles, and that turned out to be a good thing. Today was a Target Free Holiday Monday, so the museum was free, and it was packed. Still, we had a good time looking at all the odd objects in the exhibit, from the Airstream trailer that looked like an aluminum lucha libre mask, to a 1938 digital clock. We also saw a propaganda poster that looks just like things we see today, an original 1959 Barbie doll, and a video with Walt Disney demonstrating how a nuclear bomb works with mouse traps and ping-pong balls. It was a weird assemblage of stuff.

After that, we wandered around the rest of the museum. We went looking for Magritte, since I like surrealism. We also saw the big “Metropolis II” installation. That had little cars and trains zooming around the giant model city. It was kind of hypnotizing to watch, although it was kind of loud.

It was a fun afternoon.

I told Lucinda we could go to Disneyland once before school starts up again next week, so today was the day. There were five of us this time. Myself and Kathleen, Lucinda, and Kathleen’s daughters, Trinh and Melissa. As you might expect, once we got to Disneyland, Kathleen and I were on our own, and only saw the girls a couple of times in passing throughout the day.

Our day was fun. It was a bit on the crowded side by our standards, but we still managed to ride Space Mountain twice, Thunder Mountain four times, Matterhorn twice, and over at California Adventure, we rode California Screamin’ twice together, and I did it three more times in the single-rider line. Which brings my total up to something like 86 rides on that roller coaster. Nope, I still don’t believe it either.

At one point, California Screamin’ broke down, and we got to watch them evacuate the train from the top of the big hill. I’m glad we weren’t on it then. I don’t mind riding the train down that hill, but I think walking down it on the steps would give me the willies.

At the end of the day, we met up with the girls, and we went for our usual dinner at the Jazz Kitchen. From the sound of it, they managed to do a lot today, too. So overall, the day was a success.

Since we’d spent the morning going to see the horses, afterward, we took a walk over to see the floats. They park them down the street from my house, and they’re on display for the afternoon after the parade, and the next day. Since that generates a lot of traffic, the parade people give everyone in my neighborhood free tickets to go see them.

One of the floats had a little replica of Mt Rushmore, complete with Washington, Jefferson, Teddy Roosevelt, and Elvis. Hmm. That doesn’t sound right…

The RFD-TV float had Trigger and Bullet prominently displayed. The Paramount Pictures float had the classic USS Enterprise. And we got to see the La Cañada float with the flying pigs that we saw on last Sunday’s bike ride. And finally, we got to see the big Natural Balance Pet Foods float with the wave tank and the surfing dogs.

It made for an amusing afternoon.

So today was the Rose Parade. Which means we’re on virtual lockdown here.

We began the day by going outside at 8:00 to watch the B-2 fly over the parade route. That marks the beginning of the parade. Since we’re at the end of the route, the actual parade doesn’t get here until about two hours later.

When 10:00 rolled around, we took a walk out and around the neighborhood. The horses in the parade all end up here, and they bring the horse trailers here to pick them up. So we got to see the little miniature horses, the Wells Fargo wagons, and several cowgirl groups. And of course, the cleanup people with their shovels and rolling trash cans. I even saw one horse with an on/off switch. Wonders never cease.

So here we are at the end of the year again. It’s been a fun year, so we decided to return to the place where we began it last year. Takami in downtown Los Angeles. This is a very nice Japanese fusion-culinary-mashup place on the 21st floor of 811 Wilshire Blvd. Right across the street from the Aon building. Our table was on the semi-enclosed patio, so we had a great view of downtown, and since there was a radiant heater above our table, we weren’t cold.

We ordered a whole bunch of different things off the appetizer and robata menus. Everything was very good, and we finished with the semi-molten chocolate cake. It was all good, and we had a good time.

It’s that time of the year. Time to go back and see what we’ve been up to all year. And then cram it all down to one side of one sheet of paper.

Kathleen and I took a trip to Disneyland today. We’d planned this a couple weeks in advance. What are the odds it’s going to rain? Note that that statement is a close cousin to “How hard could it be?”, like I say before all my stair climbs. So today it rained. Not the hardest rain we’ve seen around here, but enough that it was very wet, and it was quite cold by SoCal standards.

On the other hand, this meant that there weren’t that many people there. So the uncomfortable cold and wet was offset by the lack of lines. It was a lot like the very wet day we spent at Universal a last year. Note the picture of the queue for California Screamin’. I’ve never seen it that empty before. We were able to just walk up and get on. And I did just that. Seven times. On one of them, the sky opened up and it started raining hard right in the middle of the ride. Getting hit in the face with raindrops when you’re going 60mph on a roller coaster is a uniquely unpleasant experience.

One of the good aspects of Disneyland is that there are a lot of indoor rides. We rode Space Mountain four times, and the longest wait was about 15 minutes. So that wasn’t bad at all. Even the line for the newly-revamped Star Tours was only about 20 minutes. Kathleen even got me to go to the Tiki Room. She said it was something that fascinated her as child, and I could see why. Although I found the singing flowers to be a bit nightmarish.

We finished the day off with our traditional dinner at the Jazz Kitchen. It was a day of tradeoffs, but all around, it was fun.