Stan’s Obligatory Blog

This afternoon, Susan and I took Lucinda and her friend to the California Science Center IMAX theater to see “Under the Sea 3-D”. We’ve been fans of the 3-D IMAX movies since going to see “Sea Monsters” last year.

When we got there, Lucinda had to try lifting the truck at the lever demonstration exhibit in the parking lot. Today was the first time that she was big enough to be able to lift it.

The movie was good, although it was a bit odd, since it was narrated by Jim Carrey. I guess he’s trying to stretch his dramatic range a bit.

After the movie, we went into the museum. Lucinda and her friend wanted to try the rock climbing wall. Apparently, it’s harder than it looks, since they only made it about halfway up. We looked around the museum a bit more before they closed. Then we headed home, after the obligatory stop in the gift shop.

It was a nice afternoon, and marks the first time that Susan and I have taken Lucinda somewhere together.

Pictures are in her photo album.

Tonight was a little live-theater adventure. Susan and I went to Hollywood to see “Divorce! The Musical“. Since I’m part-way through this rather grim process, I’m ready to laugh about it. So I figured that this would be an appropriate outing.

The mood of the show covered the range from unspeakably sad to hilariously funny, which is no mean feat. The story is about Penny and Rich, married four years and getting divorced. There are therapists, lawyers, and dirty tricks on both sides. It’s all very true-to-life. It illustrated the emotional roller-coaster ride with songs like “Lawyer Letters”, “Winners and Losers”, and “There Were Good Things”. There are snippets of a few of the songs on the show’s web site. At the end, Penny and Rich sign their final agreement, which leads in to the very poignant final song, “Pennies and Riches”.

It was a very good show. Both heartrending and hilarious. It’s quite rare to find those two in the same place.

Given all that’s going on in my life right now, could this new show be any more timely? A card came in the mail the other day for “Divorce! The Musical“.

On the web site, they say:

There’s a great saying: tragedy plus time equals comedy. If you’ve ever been divorced, then you know this is true.

DIVORCE! depicts a journey many of us have shared– a journey through sadness, bitterness, irony and above all, that miraculous ability we all have to heal, forgive and move on.

And the Playbill article linked from the site says:

According to production notes, “Set in present-day Los Angeles, Divorce! The Musical takes us on Penny and Rich’s journey, as their fairy-tale marriage unravels. Denial, deception, and raw outrage collide with greedy lawyers, dramatically inclined family members, mountains of paperwork and out-to-lunch therapists. Divorce! The Musical reminds us that laughing in the face of tragedy can sometimes be the best way to move on.”

Musical numbers include “Till Death Do Us Part,” “I’m Living In My Parents’ Basement And My Friends Forgot My Name” and “Half.”

This sounds like a hoot. Even though my divorce process is nowhere near finished, I’m ready to laugh about it.

Tonight, Susan and I went on the Museum of Neon Art’s Holiday Lights tour. Being that it’s December, and the tour was after dark, it was cold by L.A. standards. We dressed warmly and brought along a couple of blankets, since the whole tour is conducted from the upper deck of a double-decker sightseeing bus.

It was a tremendously entertaining tour, but sadly, it didn’t transfer into photographs well. To take good photos at night, the camera has to be on a rock-solid platform to hold it steady enough. And the upper deck of the bus just wasn’t a steady enough platform. So if you want to see the lights, you’ll just have to take the tour. But it was certainly Great Fun.

This evening, Susan and I were supposed to go out to her friend’s boat in Marina del Rey to watch the light show there, but she decided against it, since it was going to be cold and possibly raining when we got there. So instead, we had a little adventure in the city.

We went to the IMAX theater in Exposition Park to see “Wild Ocean 3D: Africa Meets the Sea”. We saw the “Sea Monsters – 3D” movie last spring, and it was great fun, so this new one was on our list. As always, the photography was impressive and sometimes vertigo-inducing. There were lots of good 3D effects of fish and dolphins and such swimming out of the screen. Good fun.

On the way home, we stopped off in Chinatown for dinner. We had a 1/2 Peking Duck, along with some Chinese broccoli and some soup. That was nice. We also walked around Chinatown for a bit to see the neon signs. We will probably be seeing them again next week on the Museum on Neon Art’s Neon Cruise.

Afterward, we went home, opened a bottle of wine, and watched Julia Sweeney’s “Letting Go of God“. It was a nice evening.

Last night, I went to the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power Griffith Park Light Festival. I went with Juju, since we’d had originally planned on going on the Museum of Neon Art Neon Cruise, but it was canceled due to not having enough people sign up to rent the bus.

The first week of the festival is car-free, which is nice. We parked at the zoo, and just walked down and back and looked at the lights. The lights were almost all LED-based now, which is part of the DWP trying to ‘go green’ by reducing power consumption.

After that, we headed back to Silverlake and had dinner at Gingergrass, which was quite nice.

It was a nice evening out. And yes, it was a fun time.

Today I had a little adventure in the city. It was actually three somewhat-unrelated adventures, but each was fun in its own way.

In the afternoon, I met my friend Sherri at the Museum of Death. We had done the Dearly Departed Tour last spring, so this outing was just another foray into the world of death. We saw a collection of odd advertising objects for funeral homes, beds from the Heaven’s Gate house, Jayne Mansfield’s stuffed chihuahua, art by John Wayne Gacy, and other odd things. The owner also showed us a living conjoined turtle, complete with two heads, four front legs, and two back legs. It was a delightfully weird afternoon.

After my brush with Death, I headed down to Silverlake to meet up with an old online friend for dinner. We’ve known each other online for years, but never actually met in meatspace before. So, since we both had time, we decided to finally remedy that situation. We had a nice dinner at Lamill, followed by some wine at Silverlake Wine.

Finally, I headed up to North Hollywood to Yup, it’s that damn redacted text again party.

Overall, it was a fun day.

Tonight I went over to Griffith Park for the Tuesday night hike. We did the “Backyard Hike” route, which I guess might be named for the fact that we walked right by some people’s backyards in Los Feliz. It was pretty long and fairly hard as hikes in the park go. And it was dark before we even set out, so the trail part was a bit challenging. The parts on fire roads were easy to follow, even though there was no moon. There was a bench on the trail at one point, so I was able to prop the camera up on it to get my souvenir picture with the lights of Hollywood in the background.

Overall, it was a pretty good evening out. Beats the hell out of moping around at home.

On Friday night I went to Hollywood for the premiere party for “The Surrender of O”. This is the sequel to the 2006 feature “O: The Power of Submission”. I’d gone to the party for that one, too. This is because both were made by my pornographer friends, Ernest Greene and Nina Hartley. They were having the party at Boardner’s in Hollywood, and they invited me to come over for it. Apparently, Boardner’s is where they do Bar Sinister on Saturday nights, so I guess it’s an appropriate venue for this sort of thing.

It was a pretty amusing evening. Lots of familiar porn stars were there, along with lots more that I didn’t recognize. And of course I saw lots of my friends from the leather-and-chains scene here in L.A. So overall, it was a pretty fun evening. I kept thinking that I wish they’d had stuff like this back in 1983. I’d have been there every night if they did.

Earlier in the evening, I’d also stopped off at the Dresden Room on Vermont to join the Center for Inquiry crowd for their monthly Drinking Skeptically event. They were amused because I came dressed for the party, so I sort of stuck out. But I made a point of demonstrating the use of the vampire gloves I’d brought along, which was quite amusing.

But alas, the party was a ‘no cameras allowed’ event, so I don’t have any pictures. But there were a lot of photographers from the porn industry press, so if you’re curious, there are probably pictures out there on the net.

Tonight I went to do another night hike in Griffith Park. Since I finished painting the living room, I have more free time, so I went looking for a Wednesday night hiking group to join. We went up Mt. Hollywood, but by a different route than I’d done before. It was a pretty good time. The pace was brisk, but not punishing, so it was pleasant.

The views of the city lights are nice from the top, and we even saw a very bright green-tinged meteor while we were up there.

Overall, it was a good time, and a good excuse to get out of the house.