Saturday, August 28, 2004

Remembering Larry McCormick

Veteran KTLA Anchor Larry McCormick Dies Larry McCormick (1933-2004)Larry McCormick, a longtime television journalist and one of the first African American newsmen in Los Angeles, died Friday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center after a lengthy illness. Throughout his 43-year broadcasting career, McCormick hosted musical programs, radio and television talk shows, TV game shows, and did football play-by-play. He wrote, narrated and produced television and radio documentaries. He was 71. Larry McCormick Obituary (Video) Southland Pays Tribute to McCormick (Video) LA Times story Photos More Video Message Board for your comments Larry Receives his Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame

Curiosa!

Earlier this evening, within minutes of me reading that Fran was going with Kei th to the Curiosa Festival tonight, a friend of mine, J, IMed and asked me if I was a fan of The Cure and if I wanted to go to the concert tonight. I practically jumped up and down in front of my keyboard and ran to ask Yoshi if we could spend our date night at The Cure concert. Since it was last minute, we had to go meet up with someone to pick up the tickets and brave Friday evening traffic to get down to the Home Depot Center in Carson, but we did... even stopping off in Gardena at a Hawaiian fast food place to pick up dinner. Anyway, we missed all the other bands, but got there just in time to watch the main event. I honestly don't know The Cure's new stuff very well, but there was enough old school stuff to make me happy. Play me some Lovesong, and I'm good. Incidentally, I never even knew the Home Depot Center existed. Going down there was an experience in itself. So I put up a few pictures and now I have to go to sleep so my ears will stop bleeding.

Here's a photo of myself during the concert. I took it in the dark,with only the light from the stage on my face. This is photographic proof that I simply wasn't goth enough to be there, but I went anyway.
Thanks again to J for hooking us up for a great date night.

Saturday, August 21, 2004

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!

The 'Lion King' firework finale.  Photo courtesy jozjozjoz.Thanks to the concert we attended last night at the Hollywood Bowl, I have that famous Mary Poppins song embedded in my head today. One of my favorite things about living in L.A. is being able to enjoy summer nights at the Bowl. A few months ago, I won a pair of tickets in an office lottery and I elected to go to Friday night's concert featuring the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, The Great American Concert with Fireworks - Walt Disney: 75 Years of Music. It was a good mix of Disney musical repertoire, sometimes accompanied with interesting Disney animation, but the highlight of the show was the incredible roster of guest artists. They included a special appearance of Dick Van Dyke singing selections from Mary Poppins, Mary Costa (the original voice of Sleeping Beauty, who narrated a special arrangement of "Bambi"), Jodi Benson (voice of Ariel), Judy Kuhn (voice of Pocahontas), Paige O�?Hara (voice of Belle), and Alan Menken (composer who performed a medley of his music for Disney). But that Dick Van Dyke... what a living treasure. And the fireworks were fun, too. The audience seemed to want more even after three encores. John Mauceri gave his annual State of the Union Address from the point of view of the Mauceri Family, tying in amusing anecdotes about his family's visits to the Magic Kingdom. My favorite line was when he described the best road sign he'd seen all year from his home state of New York. It was a sign at a highway offramp which said: "This exit is closed. Please use previous exit." (That is almost as good as the roadsign Teebubble saw in Montreal.) Even *I* am willing to put up with the annoying audiences (people who can't carry a tune... or know the words... who insist on trying to sing along), the not-so-perfect performances, and of course, the lines at a sold-out event such as this one... just to enjoy a fun evening at the Bowl. This was also the first time that I've been to the Bowl since the recent completion of the Hollywood Bowl Shell Project. I must admit the orchestra looks less crowded on stage, but I miss the spheres that used to hang inside the shell... and the "sonotubes" will take a bit of getting used to... but I can't wait to go back again soon.

Thursday, August 12, 2004

A little milestone

I had to run a quick errand to Home Depot yesterday. It was the first time for me to go to Home Depot by myself (without Yoshi) and I am happy to report that I made it out alive. I even used their self-checkout station to pay for the item I bought. Thank goodness for that self-checkout station, too. First, they had "temporarily closed" the aisle where my item was located because they were using a forklift waaaay on the other end of the aisle. The "DO NOT CROSS" barrier was close enough to the item so that I could stand on the other side of the barrier and look at it, but far enough so that I couldn't reach it. I tried to move the barrier over so I could get at my item and the Home Depot dude at the other end yelled at me, so I walked around for a bit until they were done with the forklift. A little slice of heaven in Home Depot Here is a photo I took of a little slice of Home Depot heaven. It's the air-conditioning section and I stood there "testing the samples" while waiting for the forklift dude, wishing we had A/C at home. Actually, I wished I had a row of air conditioners, kind of like this one, but mounted prettier. Anyway, if it wasn't for those self-checkout stations, I would probably STILL be in line at the cashier. I had originally stood in a regular line before trying the self-checkout. When I walked out the door, I saw the person in front of me in that first line standing in the exact same spot. Doh.