…with “The (sing-along) Sound of Music“.  Yes, it’s that time of year again.  Our annual viewing of Rodger’s & Hammerstein’s classic, The Sound of Music, which won the Best Picture Oscar in 1965, the year I was born.  It was a perfect night to be at the Hollywood Bowl.  To learn more about the show and what goes on there, check out my blog entry from last year.  Here are some photos and a video from tonight.

Hooray for Hollywood!

The costume parade started at 6:00.

July 1, 2007 & September 19, 2008.  Look how much Hannah has grown!

Hannah is so smart she could even say (and remember) Vivek’s name!

Hannah liked my brownies better than the dessert her Mom brought!

And liked to feed me!


Nighttime falls…

The third place winner in the costume contest was a lady name Sue (who was nice enough to comment on my blog) and this little boy.  They dressed as the mountaintop field from which Julie Andrews sang the title track; and the helicopter that filmed her!  Pretty clever!

The 2nd Place prize in the costume contest went to Austin & Sophie, who were dressed adorably as “A needle sewing thread…”  (Austin’s Mom is a fellow Xangan who found my pictures through Google and wrote to me.)  That’s Charmian Carr on the right.  She played Liesl in the movie and she still looks great.  She’s is 65, going on 66.

And the grand prize went to these cuties dressed as the notes, Do, Re, Mi, Fa, So, La, Ti, Do.  They won a cruise on the Mexican Riviera. 

What a doll!

Grrrr, why can’t strangers ever hold the camera steady?

This guy’s costume was great!  He was dresses as Christopher Plumber.  LOL.  Get it?

I thought this was cute…a father and son holding hands.

Best of the rest…

There are 3 parts to this video.  The first part is the end of the costume contest and the introduction of the movie.  The second part is the opening song (“The Hills are Alive”) with Julie Andrews doing her thing.  Part 3 is “Edelweiss” where 18,000 people hold up their cell phones in the dark and it’s quite a sight!

Last year when I went to the Sound of Music at the Hollywood Bowl, I posted this photo:

Soon after, I received this message:

HelloCarey, I am a CareyGLY blog reader and I have always enjoyed yourwriting. I was very surprised when you posted the pictures fromthe sound of music sing along night at the Hollywood Bowl.  One of thepictures you posted of someone in the crowd was a person I dated tenyears ago!!  I am so very surprised that you have become the messenger; ) Thank you!! Daniel from L.A.

The guy dressed as Maria in the photo above, was the guy Daniel had dated.  He didn’t do drag at the time, though Daniel suspected there were tendencies.  Long story short, Daniel and I ended up meeting and the Xangaverse got a little smaller!

My houseguests finally ended their star studded weekend at the H.C. and returned to Phoenix.  (Actually, the only star we saw this weekend was Tito Jackson driving his Rolls Royce on Rodeo Drive yesterday, LOL.  Cameron Diaz was at The Getty while we were there Saturday, see below.)  Yesterday we had breakfast at the famous Roscoe’s Chicken & Waffles, then traipsed about Beverly Hills before heading to the Hollywood Bowl with Amos to see Gilberto Gil. For those of you unfamiliar with Brazilian music, Gilberto Gil is anational treasure there.  He’s akin to John Lennon here, and nowtravels the world as Brazil’s Minister of Culture, reporting directly to the president.  That’s all for now.  Tonight I’m having dinner with someone even more famous than Cameron Diaz and Tito Jackson combined! 

Roscoe’s famous Chicken & Waffle House

Tori, channeling Ashleee Simpson, plastic surgery and all.

 
At first I thought the driver of thisRolls was Al Cowlings.  Come to find out, it’s Tito Jackson, Michael’sbrother.  There was a homeless guy in a wheelchair who asked him formoney at the stop light, and Tito saw that I had my camera, and gavethe man money.  It was the homeless guy who told us it was Tito.  LOL

Where’s LaToya?

Gianni, we hardly knew ya!

 
Tori, Daniel & Amos at the Hollywood Bowl

You can just barely make out the Hollywood sign in this picture.  Amos got some great ones that I’ll post tomorrow.

Best of the rest…

If you’ve never been to the HollywoodBowl, here’s a short video to show you what it’s like.  It was prettydark when I shot this, but you can barely make out the Hollywood signat the end, and Amos taking pictures of the crowd.  The first thevideos in this set are of Gilberto Gil, and the last one is of DevandraBanhart who opened for him.  At the end he says “Muito Obrigado” orthank you very much.

Here’s a quick photoblog.  We started the day with brunch on the Sunset Strip, and then headed to Book Soup.  The Getty Center was next on the agenda, and it couldn’t have been a more perfect day for that.  Deep blues skies, a nice breeze and 80°.  For dinner we headed to historic Chinatown for its 70th Anniversary party and had a great time.  Tomorrow we’re off to the beach.  Now, I’ll sleep. 

Best of the rest

The Hotel Careyfornia checked in four more guests today.  2 humans, and 2 more canines, making for a total of four dogs and three people in a 900 square foot condo.  (That’s OK, we once slept 21 here!)  My best friend Daniel and his daughter Tori arrived tonight for their annual visit.  For dinner we went to the grand opening of a new “interactive” restaurant at Hollywood & Highland called uWink.  They had a red carpet there that Tori got to walk, which was neat for her.  The celebrities were minor though, to say the least.  The owner of the place is the guy who invented Atari, Nolan Bushnell.  The restaurant lets you order from touch screen kiosks at your table and play interactive games with other tables.  It also features a 12 ft long interactive multi-touch bar that literally brings the bar top to life, letting customers use fingers, hands and drink glasses to conjure up digital flora and fauna, digitally paint the bar top, play a game of pong and ultimately order food and drinks from a digital menu. 

Tori & Dad on the Red Carpet

Interactive touch screen at our table.

Look Ma, I can use a touch screen.

The inventor of Atari

Garbo, Ruby, Abbie, Nina & Daniel

ON THE LIGHTER SIDE
“There was an interesting study released today which says that people
who live here in the state of California are less convinced that there
is a God than the people of any other state in the country. On an
unrelated note, more than 800 wildfires here in California are
currently burning out of control.  They were started by a series of freak lightning storms last weekend.”  –Jimmy Kimmel

Oreo, circa 1985

Twenty years ago, my roommate Daniel and I were fresh out of college and living in a small house in Chicago.  We both worked at different banks and we had been sharing a car for a year and it was getting unmanageable.  One day the bank he was working for had a “repo” or repossessed car that they needed to sell to recoup the loan money.  The reason the bank had repossessed the car was that the car’s owner was dead.  Her name was Sarah, and she had committed suicide……IN THE CAR.

Now, as creepy as that was, we were recent college graduates, sharing a car, and living in Chicago.  We really needed a 2nd car but couldn’t afford one.  The car that Sarah killed herself in was a Mercury Cougar in mint condition, save for the driver’s side window that had been broken to retrieve Sarah.  We were told her death was by carbon monoxide, but that’s really all we knew.  The bank offered us a deal; pay off the remainder of the $1000 loan and the car was ours.  So we split the money, (actually I lent Daniel his half), and picked up the car “as is”.  (By the way Daniel, you STILL owe me $500…I know you’re reading this too…so PAY UP, or your 4 kids won’t be getting anything from me for Christmas this year, LOL  )

So, after obtaining a copy of Sarah’s death certificate (which I still have by the way, I’ll have to scan it one of these days), we picked up the car from the bank’s parking lot and drove it home.  We were both a little freaked out, because the windows still hadn’t been fixed, and all of Sarah’s things were still in it.  For whatever reason, no one took the time to clean it out.  So there we were, with Sarah’s Kleenex, Sarah’s lipstick,  and something else of Sarah’s, but more about that in a minute. 

As soon as we got in the car, my dog Oreo started whining and wouldn’t stop.  As soon as we drove out of the parking lot, we heard a screeching noise coming from the right front wheel well.  We turned a corner and heard it again.  We had no idea what it was, but figured it was something wrong with the alignment and didn’t worry too much (what did we know?).  We were late for a movie or something, so we dropped Oreo off, drove to the theater, parked the car, and went in.  Two hours later we came out to a note on our windshield.  It read simply, “What kind of SICKO are you?  There’s a cat under your hood!!!”  (I think I still have that note somewhere too, LOL!)

Sure enough, there was a cat, not under the hood, but in the wheel well between the tire and the hood.  We couldn’t see it, but we sure heard it every time we turned the wheel.  We took the car to the police, and they told us it was the damnedest thing they’d ever seen, but they couldn’t help us.  We took it to a mechanic, and they said it would cost us $200 to try to get it out (alive).  Finally we drove the car (with as few turns as possible) to Daniel’s brother in law, an amateur mechanic.  He spent 2 hours taking the front end of the car apart, and finally pulled out a full sized adult cat.  The first thing the cat did was go up to my dog Oreo and start playing with him.  Oreo loved cats, though they usually didn’t love him.  This cat was different though, and they got along splendidly.

I wasn’t as allergic to cats then as I am now, so we decided to keep her.  We named the cat “Sarah” in honor of the car’s former owner.  Daniel’s last name was Herrera, so the cat was Sarah Herrera.   Where Sarah came from and how she got into such a “spot” we never knew.  We suspected she was a stray and found the car in the parking garage the morning we got it, after taking it out for a test drive.  It was a cold Chicago winter morning, and we think maybe Sarah climbed up into the wheel well to stay warm, and then somehow got stuck and couldn’t get out of the small opening.

Of course the other theory was that the cat was really a reincarnation of the car’s owner, Sarah, and perhaps the human Sarah was a dog lover, and that’s why the feline Sarah and the canine Oreo got along so well.  Regardless, Sarah and Oreo had a great relationship.  Sarah died a year later of a kidney ailment.  She was the first and last cat I will ever have, but I have fond memories of her

Daniel’s daughter Tori, a Sarah Herrera lookalike & Oreo – circa 1996

I’ve told that story before, but was reminded of it this Memorial Day after reading this story recently about Iraqi war widows.  One of them, Sabriyah Hilal Abadi, now sleeps with an AK47 next to her bed to protect her children.  She says, she was optimistic during the days after the invasion. Her impressions of Americans, shaped largely by a news story she saw on television, gave her hope. The story was about an hours long effort to rescue a cat stuck in a sewage pipe.  “If those people are so good to the animals,” she said, “I was expecting good things.” 

Nearly 1 million women in Iraq are widows or divorcees, or their husbands are missing, according to Samira al-Mosawi, a Shi’ite member of parliament who heads the women’s affairs committee.  Let’s not forget about them this Memorial Day.

Also, here’s a link to Haider’s story on This American Life which was re-broadcast last week.  It’s poignant and worth your time.  Download the free podcast and listen the next time you’re stuck in traffic.

Speaking of the catfights and war, this classic clip is worth watching again.    I’m posting it for Eva & Jessie, as we were discussing it this weekend.  It starts to get really good (and really bitchy) at about 4 minutes 20 seconds.  I hope everyone had a peaceful holiday.

Tyson used to blog about this sushi chef named Taka who owned a wonderful, cheap little sushi hole in the wall in Santa Monica.  We went there the day before Christmas Eve last month after seeing Juno.  Sadly, Taka couldn’t afford to keep his restaurant open and it shut down shortly after Christmas.  Taka had a very loyal clientèle though, and it didn’t take him long to find work, this time as the head sushi chef at Kaizuka, in Culver City.  We went there last night and it was wonderful.  As soon as we walked in Tyson knew all of the people at the sushi bar, as they were all of Taka’s customers from his old place.  As the evening progressed, more friendly faces showed up and the people were constantly buying sake and beers for Taka and his young apprentice.  What a convivial atmosphere!  The sushi was to die for (I even accidentally ordered the yellowtail twice.  The first time, Taka’s apprentice made the roll and it was great.  The second time, Taka made it and it was amazing.)  I highly recommend the Hiko roll (albacore and crispy onion) and the spicy tuna on crispy rice.  I ate so much, but I’m fat and happy!

 

Tyson, Taka & me

---

Afterwards I came home and ended up playing (wasting time) on Facebook for like 3 hours.  I must admit I’m addicted to that silly Friends For Sale application.  I’m still relatively cheap and poor, but I’m coming for you Jad!!  I also updated my profile pics and added some videos and montages.  Why would anyone ever pay a lot of money for something like match.com when Facebook can do all of that?  Speaking of that…I found a great group to join.  This pretty much sums it up, LOL:

He pokes her, she pokes him, they poke each other back and forth. (Or he pokes him, he pokes him back)
Cut the shit already, I want it, you want it, we’re not fooling anyone…

Enough with the poking! Let’s just have sex.

Seriously. People don’t understand why “poking” exists on facebook. It’s pretty clear that it’s facebook’s classy way of flirting, none of this “I was just thinking about you” bullshit. You want to have sex, so you poked me. End of story.
Be realistic, how often are you poked by a member of the same sex (or opposite sex if you’re gay)?

–THE TEN COMMANDMENTS OF POKING–

I) Never poke someone you dont know and haven’t spoken to, simply because you find them attractive. Stop being obvious and gross/stalker-y.

II) Don’t poke anyone you don’t want to have sex with. You’d just be an asshole giving them the wrong message. If you “just want to say hello”, then IM them or comment on their profile etc, and actually say hello.

III) Don’t return any pokes to the person who poked you if you dont find them attractive. You’ll just be leading them on. It’s not cool to break unnecessary hearts.

IV) Straight men don’t poke other men. It is never appropriate. End of story. Gay men however, can and do poke straight men all the time…and love it.

V) DONT OVER-POKE! If you’re poking more out of routine than to display real affections, you’re poking too much. Limiting the frequency with which you poke helps retain the value of a single poke.

VI) If your poking is becoming too frequent, you need to have sex already. Once you’ve been poking back and forth for a few days, it becomes time to take the poking from the internet to the bedroom…or shower, kitchen, main lounge, attic, museum, airplane, fast-food restaurant bathroom, Chuck-E-Cheese’s ball-pit, etc.

VII) Be careful when you decide to hide your pokes. Hiding a poke is the same thing as a rejection, and you don’t want to send the wrong message to someone you might be interested in. If you are attracted to a person but don’t want to be bothered with constantly poking back and forth, just leave the poke up there, it doesn’t bite.

VIII) Poke wars are retarded (see #6). The process of poking isn’t fun. You’re just clicking a friggin’ button. The sex that comes afterwards is the fun part. Two people competing over who “gets poked last” or who “pokes the other the most” or whatever is the most ridiculous concept I’ve ever heard. It’s like two people sitting across from each other saying “I want to have sex” back and forth but with neither of them actually doing anything. They poked you, you poked them. Now stop the poking, and go have sex.

IX) If you like being an elusive, hard-to-get poke, don’t give it up too soon! Sometimes, witholding that poke for a few days can intensify the relationship. Or, if you like subtly letting others know you’re angry, take a long time to return their pokes, or hide their pokes altogether. Internet poking is as mental, as real poking is physical.

X) The last, but certainly not the least important Commandment: PRACTICING SAFER POKING.
It was already stated in the First Commandment that it’s wrong to poke those you dont know that you only have physical attractions for, however, creeps are out there, and it happens nonetheless. DON’T POKE PEOPLE YOU DONT KNOW. You never know who that mysterious person poking you is. You never know who they’ve poked, or even if they were safe pokers themselves. Unsafe poking can lead to stalker-esque relationships, both in and out of Facebook. And you never know who might give you a virus (be it spyware or herpes). Neither of us want that. Two ways to poke safer are: to completely abstain from poking (this is the only 100% safe, religiously appropriate way), and to only poke people you know. Also, putting up sexy, cute, or marginally attractive profile pictures that non-friends can see might lead to unwanted poking. Be wary…and slutty/hoish at your own risk. I recommend neutral profile pictures of puppies, flowers, or famous athletes. Doing anything else might attract attention and end disastrously!

If you were: a victim of a poke-and-run, poked anyone without protection, a forced-poke victim, or gave accidental drunken pokes to that “less-than-par” sorority girl, please contact your local teen crisis hotline, police station, health center, school counselor, or any trustworthy adult.

–Get the word out!–
Invite your friends, but in particular, invite the people that you’re always poking, so that they can FINALLY get the real message you were trying to convey.

 

As any regular reader of this space knows, I despise paper.  I think it is a completely useless 21st century product.  If a service provider requires paper in order for me to do business with them, I’d rather not do business.  At Christmas time however, I have a dilemma.  I’ve always sent a lot of Christmas cards.  My travels have afforded me good friends all over the world, and long before email, Christmas was always a great time to catch up with people I  rarely got to see or talk to.

I know it’s hard for you “young’ins” to imagine a time before email, but believe it or not it’s only been in general use about 13 years.  Even before computers and the Internet, I was always very organized regarding my Christmas cards.  In the height of my traveling in the early 90′s my Christmas card list topped over 250.  I kept meticulous records (and still do) about who I sent cards to and who I received cards from. 

I have codes and everything!  Some people come and go over they years and there are others who are always on the list.  It’s tradition, whether I receive a card from them or not.  There are some people I’ve been sending cards to since 1983.  Some of my friends may even be able to pick out their names on these photos!

The hand written lists go back to 1983 the year I started college.  Back then, I kept the list in my yearly planner.  Starting in 1991 (the list below right), the real fun began.  The more countries I visited, the more people I sent cards to.  There are 5 people on this year’s list that I’ve only met once in my life.  There are kids I used to babysit for, who now have kids of their own.  It’s fun to receive cards too.  My favorites are always the ones with pictures of the kids.  I save all of my cards from past years, and it’s great to look back and see how the children have grown!

  

Another tradition I’ve had since 1988, is that my best friend Daniel has always drawn a picture of Oreo to put in my cards. For example, the year Oreo was shot, Dan drew a picture of Santa going up the chimney and leaving Oreo a bullet-proof vest. 

After Oreo died (many years after the shooting), the drawings became the template for my annual Christmas message (not your typical cheesy Christmas letter, I might add!).

 

I have friends with kids who have all of these drawings from over the
years hanging in their rooms!  So you see, as much as I’d like to sever
my ties to paper 100%, this is the one time of year I don’t think I
can.  Talk to me in 3 hours though, once the writer’s cramp has settled
in, and I may be singing a different tune!  Finally, even though I
despise snail mail.  It it nice to have decorations for my bookshelves
at Christmas.   Good night…I have a lot of cards to write.

We drove home from San Diego yesterday and this morning I flew to Phoenix to attend my best friend Daniel’s surprise 40th birthday party.   It’s late and I’m tired, so I’m just going to post a few pics and will write more tomorrow.   Peace.

On the way home, the border patrol stopped traffic and caught three people being smuggled in.

And took them right back to Mexico

Guess who was on the flight from LA to Phoenix??

Sophie & Nina

Mia & Lemony Snicket

Daddy & Gabriel

Carey & Sophie

Sophie & Abby

Daniel looking surprised

Daniel & his hero, James Joyce

Channeling Mick Jagger

Laura Smiles World Premiere
at the MUSIC HALL 3

“Sharp dialogue, idiosyncratic characters and a wickedly brilliant structure that subtly derails expectation make LAURA SMILES a rarity among mellers. The most unjudgmental view of sex and the suburbs since Kim Novak sought solace from the nearest warm body in Strangers When We Meet . . . feature traces the quietly psycho, often hilarious disintegration of an American housewife (a Tippie Hedren-perfect Petra Wright) . . . LAURA could become an indie American Beauty.” (Variety)

Daniel and I went to another “red carpet” world premiere tonight (sorry Pat).  The movie was called “Laura Smiles“.  It starred Petra Wright, in a star making turn, as Laura, a beautiful yet troubled woman struggling with her demons.  The movie also starred Jonathan Silverman of “Weekend At Bernie’s” and “The Single Guy” fame.  It was was invitation only, and when I arrived I walked into the theater and found someone holding the invitation list.  I told him my name and he instantly handed me 2 tickets.  When he looked for my name on the list however, it wasn’t there.  Apparently he thought I was one of the actors, as he was holding the actor’s list.  When he found out that I was a mere mortal, he quickly snatched the tickets back and sent me to the back of the line.  Turns out he was the director of the film.

Daniel wasn’t particulary enthralled with Laura   

All in all it was a good movie.  It dragged a bit in the middle, but the performances were solid, with a surprisingly strong performance by Mr. Silverman, who has not always been treated kindly by the critics (or the years for that matter).   To wit:

After the movie, there was supposed to be a Q&A with the director and the stars, but when the lights came up, the Chariman of Laemmle Theater Group got up to say that he had some bad news.  Apparently, after the movie began, the director had a bad seizure in the lobby of the theater.  He fell and hit his head, and was taken away by ambulance.  The star of the movie rode in the ambulance with him, so we were left with Jonathan Silverman and the Cinematographer, LOL.  Apparently the director is going to be fine

After that we went to the famous Canter’s Deli; probably not the best dessert choice at 11 PM on a Monday in LA, but oh well.  At the table next to us, sat the eccentric radio personality Rodney “on the Rock” Bingenheimer:

Snapped Rodney unwittingly on my cell phone.  His hairstyle hasn’t changed in 40 years.

Bingenheimer arrived in Los Angeles in 1965, and he soon became so well known around Hollywood that actor Sal Mineo (**see below) dubbed him “The Mayor of Sunset Strip”. He formed close friendships with the cream of the LA social scene including many top pop stars of the day such as The Byrds and Sonny & Cher. In his own words, Bingeheimer “became the talk of the town because I had the perfect Brian Jones ‘do’ (hairstyle)”.

Many events and incidents contributed to Bingenheimer’s notoreity — he and Sonny Bono were reportedly asked to leave the Hollywood restaurant Martoni’s because of their hippy appearance (prompting Bono to write the song “Laugh At Me”), Bingenheimer brought Brian Wilson to the legendary recording session for Tina Turner’s lead vocal on the Phil Spector classic “River Deep, Mountain High“, and he was namechecked in a song by the all-girl band The GTOs on their Frank Zappa-produced LP Permanent Damage.

In the late Sixties he was hired by Nik Venet to do publicity for Linda Rondstadt‘s group The Stone Poneys, but he became so disenchanted by the LA music scene during this period that he moved to London. It was there that he discovered the nascent British glam rock scene and met emerging stars David Bowie and Rod Stewart…

We also sat behind an up and coming Hollywood hunk.  Can you guess who it is from these grainy cell phone pics?

We also noticed a strange accoutrement in our deli booth.  The restaurant opened in 1931 and must have been quite advanced for its time, give the state of the art telephone connection in our booth.  I’ll be back when they get Wi-Fi

Daniel showed his fondness for restaurant telecommunication

** Incidentally, when I moved into my condo here in West Hollywood, I learned an interesting bit of neighborhood lore.  Sal Mineo, who played James Dean’s best friend/obsessed love interest in Rebel Without a Cause was murdered right on the corner of my very street.  Stabbed to death in fact.  Sal, we hardly knew ya!

Song of the day