Stan’s Obligatory Blog

Today we had a small adventure out in the Valley. Cathy had seen a listing for a comedy improv show for kids and by kids. It was at the L.A. Connection in Sherman Oaks. Back in the ’80s they used to do a monthly “improvision” show at the Nuart Theater in West L.A. where they would show an old, bad movie with the sound off, making up new dialog along the way. It was great fun, so we thought that Lucinda might like the kids’ version.

They had twelve kids in the show. They do a class in the afternoon, with the show at the end after the class. They did a number of different sketches. They were pretty good. Lucinda liked the show, and she said that she wants to try taking the class.

We also found out that they are doing a new show on the 23rd with “Cat Women on the Moon“, which was the first movie I ever saw them do, way back in 1982. We may need to go to that.

Cathy saw an item in the paper this week about the Fiesta of the Spanish Horse. It was at the Los Angeles Equestrian Center in Burbank. I’ve been by there hundreds of times on my bike, but I’d never been inside. So we decided that this might be something interesting.

We don’t really know anything about horses, but it was interesting to see them close-up and see the riding demonstrations. Apparently, a big part of their training is teaching them the distinctive gait. It looks a bit funny at first, but we got used to it. And in the show, they did it a lot, along with other moves that made the horses look like they were dancing. So overall, it was an interesting thing.

Today we had a little adventure in Los Angeles. The Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising downtown had an exhibit of costumes from movies last year. This is the same place where we saw the “Star Wars” costumes last fall. We’d only seen some of this year’s movies, but it was still fun to see them close up. We saw costumes from “Harry Potter”, “King Kong”, “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”, and such. We also saw the figures that were used for filming “The Corpse Bride”, as well as the Vogons from “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”. It was a nice little adventure.

After that, we walked across the park to the Museum of Neon Art and saw the current exhibit there. MONA is still easily our favorite art museum of all.

The last part of our adventure was to go to West Hollywood for lunch at the French Market Place. This was Lucinda’s first time there, and she liked it. And we found out that, despite it being a big gay hangout, they have a children’s menu and crayons there. They also have koi pond inside the restaurant, and Lucinda liked watching the fish. So overall, it was a fun afternoon.

So I’ve been living here in L.A. for many years now, and I like sightseeing around the city. So I decided to put together a list of things I’ve seen that I think are amusing. Just to have it all in one place for future reference.

http://www.1134.org/photomap.php?xmlfile=sightseeing.xml

I’ll add new things to the map as I find them. And needless to say, Disneyland and the other usual ‘tourist’ things are not on my map.

This evening we went to see Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo. This is a an all-male comic ballet company. They perform classic ballet en trasvesty. The ‘ballerinas’ have faux-Russian stage names like Ludmila Beaulemova and Tatiana Youbetyabootskya and such. The actual dancers are all trained in traditional serious ballet, but they do this as a form of ‘ballet outreach’. A lot of the humor is based on sending up the traditions of classic ballet. Since we’re not that familiar with the conventions of ballet, we probably missed a lot of the jokes. Still, it was very funny and very entertaining. The ‘dying swan’ was particularly hilarious, with feathers falling out of her tutu all over the stage, followed by two very serious-looking janitors coming out to sweep up afterward.

I had seen the Trockadero ballet on PBS’ “Egg” several years ago. At the time, I made a note that we should see them if they ever came to Los Angeles. And we were not disappointed. It was a very fun evening. And Lucinda has a story to tell now that probably no other kid in her class will be able to match.

Today’s adventure was one that Cathy found. An afternoon with the Jumbo Shrimp Circus Academy. This was a three-hour session for the whole family, to teach basic circus skills.

At the start, they had us to a few group exercises for basic human interaction skills. Then we started out. The first was balancing a peacock feather. It’s not all that hard to do, but it does require a bit of focus. The people who got good at it were encouraged to try balancing it on their nose, or to try tossing and catching it while keeping it balanced.

Next was the spinning plate. They passed out plates and sticks for everyone, and we all had a go at it. The trick was to get it started. Once it was spinning, it was easy. But the people who mastered getting it spinning then had to try to balance the stick on their finger, palm, or nose, which wasn’t so easy. The room was filled with the sound of falling plates hitting the floor.

After a short snack break, we tried some new things. There was a tightwire, juggling balls, the diabolo and devil sticks. Cathy and Lucinda both did the tightwire, and I tried to learn basic juggling. Sadly, it’s not the sort of thing one can pick up in five minutes, or even a half-hour. I made some progress, but I’ll have to practice more. Lucinda did some more plate-spinning, and Cathy tried her hand at the diabolo and devil sticks.

The last part of the class involved some balancing and building a basic human pyramid. Cathy and Lucinda did some of the two-person balancing, and I got picked for the base of the first pyramid.

At the end, they opened up all the activities for anyone who wanted to try something again. I had to try the tightwire, since my father had made a tightwire when I was a kid. He strung it up between two trees and we used to practice walking on it. But the last time I walked on it was 1971, when I was 11 years old. So I was a bit rusty. The wire this time was a bit more wobbly than I remember, but that may be because I’m a bit bigger and heavier. Still, it was interesting to try it again.

This was a fun afternoon activity and Lucinda liked it a lot. We had been planning on having a circus theme for her birthday party this year, so this fit in well. We also bought some clown noses, plates, and juggling balls while we were there, so now we have activities for her party. So overall, it was a fun afternoon.

Also, we have this year’s obligatory ‘cute couple’ picture. Cathy and I were wearing sort-of-matching shirts today, so we had to get a picture.

Last night, we had a rare evening out. We dropped Lucinda off with Aunt Maggi and then headed over to Hollywood to see Varla Jean Merman’s new show, “I’m Not Paying For This!”.

We first went to dinner at the French Market Place in West Hollywood. We had a nice dinner and browsed a bit at our favorite gay gift shop, Dorothy’s Surrender. Then we headed over to the Renberg Theater at the L.A. Gay Center.

“I’m Not Paying For This!” is Varla’s new show, and it’s her tribute to the Seven Deadly Sins. She had a song for each, and it was very entertaining.

According to Varla, Lust leads to “guilt, a fractured tailbone, and a soiled clown suit”.

Varla also displayed a new talent, playing the theme from “Star Trek” on the theremin.

At the end of the show, she did one encore, singing “Girl With a Pearl Necklace” and also her “Schoolhouse Rock” medley.

Afterwards, we bought her new CD and she signed it for us. Overall, it was a very fun evening.

Her show runs through February 5.

Today we went to see “WAL-MART: The High Cost of Low Price“. This movie is like “Super Size Me” for Wal-Mart. We’ll never be able to go into a Wal-Mart again without feeling a bit sick. We were astounded by the arrogance and greed of the management.

The film talks about several different aspects of Wal-Mart’s corporate behavior, but I thought it was particularly impressive when they tied two of the threads together. They were talking about security problems in Wal-Mart’s parking lots and how the company doesn’t care about people being robbed and assaulted there. They told a story about a woman who was abducted and murdered from a Wal-Mart parking lot in Texas. The abduction was caught on a security camera. But nobody was watching the camera. Because the only reason that store had security cameras was so that management could keep an eye on union organizers. Truly breathtaking.

While it’s certainly not the ‘feel-good movie of the year’, it’s worth seeing.

Today we went to see Sandra Tsing Loh’s new show, “Mother on Fire“.

Sandra Tsing Loh and I have similar backgrounds. We’re both half Chinese and half German. We both got degrees in Physics from major universities. We both spent some time working in the aerospace gulag of Hughes Aircraft. But then she went off into performing arts and writing, while I became a computer nerd.

Her latest show is about parenthood, and particularly about the travails of trying to get her daughter into a good school in Los Angeles. Having just been through that particular crucible last year, we were primed for a good time. And she did not disappoint. The show was a hoot, with stories about the Los Angeles Unified School District, where the kids eat candy and are stalked by an obese mountain lion in the hallways, to a bidding war over a house in La Cañada and talk of moving to Utah. It was hugely entertaining and tremendously funny.

If you’re in Los Angeles, go see this show.

DiRT Gallery in West Hollywood is going to be showing “Skeletal Systems” by Michael Paulus. This is a series about what the skeletons of cartoon characters would look like. The show runs until July 23, and they are having an opening reception on June 10.