Qesh Me Lot

Arci Munoz Confesses Her Love Live Is Adversely Affected By Her Being So Busy In Several Movies And TV Shows

<br /><span style="background-color: white; color: #646464; font-family: "verdana" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQfPeYr9OEvsbvoHs8AvqkMp3exwq2gto8w-jJ6L5SVKiWBxRGhBNp8YesnEAwl6NTCkdsu-uxhsLc7ObJBTqfaeK6YXveEPU3-ijpIRundTkckzj3Cu1JQh6InjbTZS3Y-2Vsv0SEccMV/s320/arci-munoz-next-big-celebrity.jpg" style="background-color: transparent;" />ARCI MUNOZ is the busiest among her co-stars in “Camp Sawi” where she’s paired with Rico Blanco. The other stars of “Camp Sawi” are Andi Eigenmann, Bela Padilla and new comedian Kim Molina. Aside from this, she’s also in a new teleserye with Jericho Rosales, “Never Say Goodbye”, and she’s doing another movie, “Extra Service” for Star Cinema, co-starring Coleen Garcia and Jessy Mendiola, directed by Chris Martinez.</span><br /><br style="background-color: white; color: #646464; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #646464; font-family: "verdana" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px;">Of course, she’s ecstatic about the beautiful opportunities coming her way. She likes her role in “Camp Sawi”, which is helmed by new director Irene Villamor and filmed in scenic Bantayan Island in Cebu. “Camp Sawi is a special place for people who are nursing a broken heart,” she explains. “Mabait akong girlfriend dito kay Rico Blanco. Kung anong gusto niya, kung anong trip niya, sinusunod ko, naga-adapt ako. Pero sa kabila noon, he dumped me.”</span><br /><br style="background-color: white; color: #646464; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px;" /><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="more" style="background-color: white; color: #e69138; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px;"></a><br style="background-color: white; color: #646464; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #646464; font-family: "verdana" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px;">How is it working with Rico? “He’s fun to work with. Actually, the role was meant for Kean Cipriano dapat, na band vocalist din like Rico, pero sobrang busy ang sked niya, so si Rico ang kinuha and he turned out to be a very good actor. Magaling talaga siyang umarte. I enjoyed shooting the movie in Cebu kasi nag-bonding talaga kami ng co-stars ko and Direk Irene Villamor is very good in handling the material tungkol sa mga babaeng nasawi sa pag-ibig.”</span><br /><br style="background-color: white; color: #646464; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #646464; font-family: "verdana" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px;">In real life, her BF is also a band member, Badi del Rosario aka Bones Frankenstein, lead vocalist of the band known as Mr. Bones and the Boneyard Circus. She admits their relationship is somewhat adversely affected by the successful turn in her career now.</span><br /><br style="background-color: white; color: #646464; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #646464; font-family: "verdana" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px;">“Masyado akong naging busy dahil sa dami ng projects ko,” she says. “So wala kaming masyadong time to see each other, but he understands it naman.”</span><br /><br style="background-color: white; color: #646464; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #646464; font-family: "verdana" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px;">Has she been brokenhearted before? “Yes, about five years ago, sa unang boyfriend kong non-showbiz. It took me sometime to move on kasi nasaktan talaga ako. But I’ve now gotten over it. Lesson learned na lang yun for me.”</span>

Arci Munoz Confesses Her Love Live Is Adversely Affected By Her Being So Busy In Several Movies And TV Shows

ARCI MUNOZ is the busiest among her co-stars in “Camp Sawi” where she’s paired with Rico Blanco. The other stars of “Camp Sawi” are Andi Eig...

Search Prince Stefan Reveals 'Ligawan Stage' with Gym Buddy Paolo Amores!

Qesh Me Lot 0 10:40

<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;"><b>Starstruck </b><span class="IL_AD" id="IL_AD5" style="background-attachment: scroll; background-color: transparent; background-image: none; background-repeat: repeat; border-bottom-color: rgb(216 , 65 , 137); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; color: rgb(216 , 65 , 137); cursor: pointer; display: inline; float: none; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1px; position: static; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">alumnus</span> and Kapuso hunk actor <b>Prince Stefan </b> is now revealing his real identity in the public after sharing different <span class="IL_AD" id="IL_AD2" style="background-attachment: scroll; background-color: transparent; background-image: none; background-repeat: repeat; border-bottom-color: rgb(216 , 65 , 137); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; color: rgb(216 , 65 , 137); cursor: pointer; display: inline; float: none; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1px; position: static; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">photos</span> together of his friend and gym buddy<b>Paolo <span class="IL_AD" id="IL_AD6" style="background-attachment: scroll; background-color: transparent; background-image: none; background-repeat: repeat; border-bottom-color: rgb(216 , 65 , 137); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; color: rgb(216 , 65 , 137); cursor: pointer; display: inline; float: none; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1px; position: static; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">Amores</span></b>!</div><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;" /><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">Prince and Paolo are proud sharing their 'sweet' photos together in their instagram accounts. They were together in many activities from hitting the gym, enjoying night parties together, travelling together, and eating together in <span class="IL_AD" id="IL_AD4" style="background-attachment: scroll; background-color: transparent; background-image: none; background-repeat: repeat; border-bottom-color: rgb(216 , 65 , 137); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; color: rgb(216 , 65 , 137); cursor: pointer; display: inline; float: none; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1px; position: static; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">restaurants</span>.  </div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;"><br /></div><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">The two even recently visited <b>Hongkong</b> and enjoyed the different tourist spots.</div><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;" /><br /><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; clear: both; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBfuChho6w82ld6LWGgmr-3bFBfDF31JYQkEmxKxVu5utRf5ZEhQMNWeMfGDg65Y9tjGVqgqHY-lur7NtIk1pH5KQ-ArX7hMBNq9gaOyjBcLdIhLawYcZPl5KYo4NvtHwmxNL74gn63cJj/s1600/Prince+Stefan+and+BF+Paolo+Amores.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="border: 0px; color: #c83746; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 1em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBfuChho6w82ld6LWGgmr-3bFBfDF31JYQkEmxKxVu5utRf5ZEhQMNWeMfGDg65Y9tjGVqgqHY-lur7NtIk1pH5KQ-ArX7hMBNq9gaOyjBcLdIhLawYcZPl5KYo4NvtHwmxNL74gn63cJj/s1600/Prince+Stefan+and+BF+Paolo+Amores.jpg" style="border: 0px;" /></a></div><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;" /><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; clear: both; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhg7Z0-auHA9k-mdBeyWzcmWoRNmB-6tkdxDGCcXflXMNiYnUnuESGZXmm1Pvx5D8vqM-ofhn3wPM1tMP50lB1HQrLAAks9ms1NadMjpg8xnrhx1Dt7K0erVDgFTXpIsNln9Xbzn7DX5itu/s1600/Prince+Stefan+and+Paolo+Amores.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="border: 0px; color: #c83746; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 1em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhg7Z0-auHA9k-mdBeyWzcmWoRNmB-6tkdxDGCcXflXMNiYnUnuESGZXmm1Pvx5D8vqM-ofhn3wPM1tMP50lB1HQrLAAks9ms1NadMjpg8xnrhx1Dt7K0erVDgFTXpIsNln9Xbzn7DX5itu/s1600/Prince+Stefan+and+Paolo+Amores.jpg" style="border: 0px;" /></a></div><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;" /><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; clear: both; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEhcyXoc_cItZg7Y_ogOqSnOWDaz6JLDT3kcm4FPB8QpNS6m-Mt4wwF2QANcLK3zR8_nknoEvfNtJO9aqd6LEnEqRd86A-iWHSPWqWhbjotVi4UQxlz2bv6n_A2zNlNL5H-i6i_gS18JeG/s1600/Prince+Stefan+Boyfriend+Paolo+Amores.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="border: 0px; color: #c83746; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px 1em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEhcyXoc_cItZg7Y_ogOqSnOWDaz6JLDT3kcm4FPB8QpNS6m-Mt4wwF2QANcLK3zR8_nknoEvfNtJO9aqd6LEnEqRd86A-iWHSPWqWhbjotVi4UQxlz2bv6n_A2zNlNL5H-i6i_gS18JeG/s400/Prince+Stefan+Boyfriend+Paolo+Amores.jpg" style="border: 0px;" width="387" /></a></div><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;" /><br /><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">In an interview, Prince finally ended the speculations on his real identity and his relationship with Paolo! He and Paolo is currently in a <i>'ligawan stage!'</i></div><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;" /><i style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;">"We're not there yet. Getting to know stage, or adjusting period pa kami,"</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , "times" , sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;"> Prince revealed.</span><br /><br /><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">Prince even added that they are just enjoying their time together -- <b>"no rush, no label, no commitment."</b></div><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px;" /><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, Times, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline;">Well, let's all wait for the <span class="IL_AD" id="IL_AD7" style="background-attachment: scroll; background-color: transparent; background-image: none; background-repeat: repeat; border-bottom-color: rgb(216 , 65 , 137); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; color: rgb(216 , 65 , 137); cursor: pointer; display: inline; float: none; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1px; position: static; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline;">announcement</span> of Prince and Paolo on the coming days that they were on a relationship status! <i style="font-weight: bold;">#LoveWins</i> as they say! <b><i>(TV Series Craze)</i></b>  </div>

Search Prince Stefan Reveals 'Ligawan Stage' with Gym Buddy Paolo Amores!

Starstruck alumnus and Kapuso hunk actor Prince Stefan is now revealing his real identity in the public after sharing different photos...

They All Like to Fly, Not I

Qesh Me Lot 0 07:45

<br /><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFQXEq4ayn_kW07G44C23IJETa-GfBmP6eWyH0qMj6QXQroFb8PFLYcAVG2qLHNTRsjCb48j0oE3_4-7QFfFFXWWA-ZAUxUSIio_NI8AL20GMFtNfU27C3IaQjBTPvgrzbr2OXAroCne8/s1600/David+Lisa+Debbie+Kathy+sf+4-19-15.JPG" /><br /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">There I am, on a perfectly delightful San Francisco afternoon, with niece Lisa, right, my sister Kathy (both from Luray, VA), and my other niece Debbie (in from Phoenix), last Sunday,outside the Cliff House.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">How much the weather reminded me of being raised down the street in the park, in the windmill tender's house.  Of being serenaded, day after day, by the roaring gloom of the ocean forever rushing to reach the mean grey icy cold sand.  We are not in Santa Monica!</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">We had a great time, nonetheless.  All of the "girls" love to travel, and in the air.  Lisa was a flight attendant.  Debbie has worked for years booking travel for American Express members, and Kathy once, while a resident of South Pasadena, was employed by Sigmund Travel.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">Even my mother, bless her fearless heart, once harbored fragile dreams of piloting an airplane.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">So how did I end up so grounded?  Blame it on a few bad flights, and leave it at that. But with my vow not to ride Amtrak across the country anymore, I may have to fly again,  Or take the bus.  Or roller skate.</span>

They All Like to Fly, Not I

There I am, on a perfectly delightful San Francisco afternoon, with niece Lisa, right, my sister Kathy (both from Luray, VA), and my other n...

Joy in Oakland -- Almost! The Hoop Circus Knocks Another Win for the Hometown Boys ... I'm Feeling Giddy and Glorious

Qesh Me Lot 0 07:34

<div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDxDdqncbVC5Lil9TFvEpEJw8X_uLgKfoMvw1UfJKB-uoFv5KCMlDuwVlAtg4d4APbMPscXmDFlavRoj8yihtvO8l6CQvAK3c9G3upPjtVgzh2-538_Obzgc2NweRuAklOUBAft1r8ND8/s1600/Oakland+lake+at+night.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="color: #cc6633; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDxDdqncbVC5Lil9TFvEpEJw8X_uLgKfoMvw1UfJKB-uoFv5KCMlDuwVlAtg4d4APbMPscXmDFlavRoj8yihtvO8l6CQvAK3c9G3upPjtVgzh2-538_Obzgc2NweRuAklOUBAft1r8ND8/s400/Oakland+lake+at+night.jpg" style="border: 1px solid rgb(187, 187, 187); margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 4px;" width="316" /></a></div><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">But sometime after they are over, I hear about it on the news.  Just now, this AM, learned about it on TV.  Three games down, one to go! </span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">Yes, right here in my own backyard.  Exciting to anticipate positive coverage, for a change.  Don't know how it's gone, at all.  You might have been shown views of lovely Lake Merritt, around which I have walked probably hundreds of times.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">If you see an old three-story Victorian, edge of the lake, with three turrets on the roof, I once lived in a third floor studio just under one, and there I wrote my first book, </span><i style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">Behind the Big Top</i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">If you happen to see the old Oakland Auditorium, on the south end of the lake,  that was the best place to see, indoors, the Ringling show.  It sat around six or seven thousand at the most; perfect size; would be ever better today than watching the show in the oppressively huge and dark arena, where the NBA finals will begin.  So dark and night cluby in there, I hate the place.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">Doubt I'll be watching the hoop-diving stuff. Not a fan.  </span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">But what a high, getting the kind of coverage this town deserves -- if, in fact, that happens.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">It took East Coast Eyes  -- The New York Times, a few years back, to come out here and be very impressed and call Oakland the "Brooklyn" of the Bay Area.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">I'll take that.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">Even over in "The City" (San Francisco), we are getting a little respect.  SF seems to live in fear of its lofty status being knocked down a peg or two.  Not likely.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">Did I show a snide lack of respect up there?  Gradually, it is nesting in my noggin that these basketball players, whomever they are, are one terrific tribe.  Maybe they will decide to remain in Oaktown, as the local boys call it, rather than defect to a new arena promised them by a much  bigger city -- Yes, the one incessantly in love with itself, where to live there, you have to be either very rich or very poor -- across the bay.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><br /><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWHSysi6i8S-ZMX7b_eeRLtqwmWstYg3lF2y2r7EydCjfa8KOA7NzGLHdoC6Iduqu6uoMYdXtp5FWLHLZqha5NCcqmZ1dYaSqolWRqC6txwia82QDN6b99KrHcG2EXtE-FWH40W5zftCU/s1600/figure+at+path+to+lake+good.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="color: #cc6633; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWHSysi6i8S-ZMX7b_eeRLtqwmWstYg3lF2y2r7EydCjfa8KOA7NzGLHdoC6Iduqu6uoMYdXtp5FWLHLZqha5NCcqmZ1dYaSqolWRqC6txwia82QDN6b99KrHcG2EXtE-FWH40W5zftCU/s400/figure+at+path+to+lake+good.jpg" style="border: 1px solid rgb(187, 187, 187); margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 4px;" width="400" /></a></div><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">I took this picture several years ago.  The one above is not mine.</span>

Joy in Oakland -- Almost! The Hoop Circus Knocks Another Win for the Hometown Boys ... I'm Feeling Giddy and Glorious

But sometime after they are over, I hear about it on the news. Just now, this AM, learned about it on TV. Three games down, one to go! Ye...

On the (Provisional) Fall of Cole Bros. Circus: Some Immediate Thoughts About the Man at the Top

Qesh Me Lot 0 06:04

<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">For Harry and all Cole Fans, the show has put up a very nice website.  It geneally alludes to the show's history.  So, shall we say that tomorrow never dies?</span><br /><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px; text-align: center;"> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUOozsA2MmXBA1GDhyDkeYBF664oAcyGE9t8hrAX52jrRnkp8ihsT8PhPGh15b6b2-4Axxb8R4ykhpHaD3glojiExMXQ5Vb2YSoltknn3G-nFotNJbjWitxBbaDVy_kuJB34qN49xCkYA/s1600/John+Pugh+2008.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="color: #cc6633; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUOozsA2MmXBA1GDhyDkeYBF664oAcyGE9t8hrAX52jrRnkp8ihsT8PhPGh15b6b2-4Axxb8R4ykhpHaD3glojiExMXQ5Vb2YSoltknn3G-nFotNJbjWitxBbaDVy_kuJB34qN49xCkYA/s400/John+Pugh+2008.jpg" style="border: 1px solid rgb(187, 187, 187); margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 4px;" width="400" /></a></div><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">There is an almost abstract sadness about the wordless sudden demise, or so it would appear, of Cole Bros. Circus.  Words point to a season not to be.  </span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">It was there for years, one season after another, the solid stolid show. The one guided by Johnny Pugh, a Class Act all in himself.   Season after season, the show threw up its tents,   gave a good show, sometimes a very good show, and sustained an old tradition that is gradually dying before our disbelieving eyes.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">Pugh’s management style extends back to the old Ringling-Barnum A team.   In a manner of perception, the Cole Bros. Clyde Beatty saga completes of an arc of inevitable change and decline traceable  back to Pittsburgh, 1956, when John Ringling North struck the big top for the last time and opted into the arena market.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">Only a few months later, Clyde Beatty Circus hit the skids,  faced bankruptcy, and was reorganized under new ownership, key players from the old Ringling tent show regime.  Beatty-Cole kept the big top. Pugh stayed with the show and eventually purchased controlling ownership himself.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">North's move indoors proved a smart one.  But today, filling up the seats in an arena has become virtually impossible. Circuses no longer attract the same size crowds.  Under our tents, which have grown smaller, circuses still struggle to fill up fewer seats.  Need I do more to explain it away than drop the word Digital?</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">In its early years, what I valued most about the Cole show, even though I saw it only maybe once every seven to ten years, was how it sustained, symbolically, a residual Ringling legacy.  The 1961 edition, which I was lucky to catch in Richmond, VA, sparkled in its own more modern manner with top line talent, direction and music.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">When Johnny Pugh removed his elephants about 10 years ago, buckling under to the mounting demands of the animals rights movement, he was onto something.  Open to change as is any smart showman.  His patrons were not so open, not then, not yet. And so, a season or two later, he brought back the elephants.  </span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">But You Tube and PETA and court room testimony only intensified.   And then Ringling-Barnum did what Pugh had done. By summer’s end, all of its elephants will be gone from the ring(s).</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">Ringling gets all the national publicity.  And Ringling will now stand for the Norm.  Look for other shows to gradually follow suit.  </span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">Cole was rumored ready to hit the trail this year without animals.  Basically, the right move. But to go Vargas — no animals at all — is a self defeating measure that makes no sense at all.  </span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">After the last Greatest Show on Earth under canvas sixty years ago, the nation wept.  Nobody talked down performing animals, or scary daredevil flyers, or creepy clowns.  They cried over the death of the tented city, over the grand arrival of the circus train at dawn. </span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">In 1956, nobody went to a circus with “issues.”   Everybody went to a circus for guilt-free fun. </span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">Today is a very different today. Today is no longer innocent or guilt-free. One by one, the circuses most powerful features have been talked out of existence by a public so very very different from America sixty years ago.  You fill in the rest — if you can spare a free moment away from your iPhone or iLife.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">You might say that the soul of the old American circus followed a path into the soul of Johnny Pugh.  </span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">One less Johnny is a big loss.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">His presence on the lot will surely be missed.</span>

On the (Provisional) Fall of Cole Bros. Circus: Some Immediate Thoughts About the Man at the Top

For Harry and all Cole Fans, the show has put up a very nice website. It geneally alludes to the show's history. So, shall we say that...

Revived Cole Bros Circus Hits Road with "Last Chance" to See Elephants; Also with Camels and Horses, Flyers -- and Tumbling Finalists from America's Got Talent

Qesh Me Lot 0 06:03

<div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHNt8ptaCpceqiJmGZ8fCo123HRKr2HY7VQe8-sZs73G_rd77ahT7EFZiPZObgKHwyolKBDpZ2zr-aCn9Zmv3-wb3iQFmLZFxjBulqv2qFT8JPSnQvWd7MVqNz66hyI4UKWFfs5OgoSCs/s1600/cole+back+in+business.png" imageanchor="1" style="color: #cc6633; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHNt8ptaCpceqiJmGZ8fCo123HRKr2HY7VQe8-sZs73G_rd77ahT7EFZiPZObgKHwyolKBDpZ2zr-aCn9Zmv3-wb3iQFmLZFxjBulqv2qFT8JPSnQvWd7MVqNz66hyI4UKWFfs5OgoSCs/s400/cole+back+in+business.png" style="border: 1px solid rgb(187, 187, 187); margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 4px;" width="400" /></a></div><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><i style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;"><b>UPDATE UPDATE, 5/21, am, PST:  Ho, Ho, Ha, Ha! Yes, I'm becoming addicted to this strange stumble out of the barn.  Try connecting to Cole Central via the telephone number on their website.  You will be quickly transferred through to Ma Bell suggesting you hang up and ... yes, you know the drill!  </b></i><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><i style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;"><b>UPDATE, 4:36 pm PST</b>:  </i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">I have learned that Branchwater Productions, which appears on the website as the operator, would probably be John and Brigitte Pugh, for they live on a street named Branchwater Bend in Deland.  A search for Brancwater brings up a tape-distribution company n Sarasota.  The currently observable fact that "Big Top Circus" has not replaced the Cole Bros. title suggests, and I stress suggests, that Johnny is still somewhat if not completely in charge.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">Yes, this  has become a rather amusing guessing game that just keeps on guessing!  So beware, my  speculations below may prove to be just that.  I am close to placing a moratorium on  myself for coverage of the Cole Bros. saga for a certain period of time.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">******************************************************************************</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">In some ways, fresh new compelling poster art seizes on the elephant act issue by promising patrons a "last chance" to see them.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">Early dates look to follow traditional routing -- only, says Agent X, who raced me the news, </span><span class="thread-snippet" id="yui_3_16_0_1_1463674465202_10240" style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;"> "just uncharacteristically late in the season!" --</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;"> </span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">It will likely stir some increased business from those wishing to have that chance, especially with kids in tow going to their first circus.  And, even more so, by the presence of the Chicago Boyz, a familiar act off  the popular television show, seen by millions.  Shrewd marketing, I'd say.  </span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">How will it stir the dissidents?</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">Yet to be seen. True blue activists cheered the earlier news that Cole would NOT be going out with any wild animal acts.  Will they play nice and let circus lovers have one last season with a complete traditional big top?  Or make life even more difficult for the troupe?</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">Hard core protesters will claim a promise made not kept.  And, technically, they will be correct.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">And so, they may intensify their harassment out of a paranoia that this circus -- especially when they get wind of the sale -- has no intention of retiring its performing pachyderms.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">Considering that Dick Garden, when last I heard, was in charge, it could be a suicidal season in more ways than one. But I do think, in poster art, he's off to a blazing good start.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">And, yes, you heard it from me.</span>

Revived Cole Bros Circus Hits Road with "Last Chance" to See Elephants; Also with Camels and Horses, Flyers -- and Tumbling Finalists from America's Got Talent

UPDATE UPDATE, 5/21, am, PST: Ho, Ho, Ha, Ha! Yes, I'm becoming addicted to this strange stumble out of the barn. Try connecting to Co...

MIDWAY FLASH! ... Cirque du Soleil Lands Another Bomb on Broadway---Critically Speaking ... Show Looks Like Another Spiderman On Stage, But With Superior Circus Action ...

Qesh Me Lot 0 06:02

<i style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">"<b>Cirque du Soleil’s Paramour is crashing and burning on Broadway."</b></i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">screams </span><i style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">The Globe and Mail </i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">in London, "</span><i style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;"><b>and there’s no point in calling the paramedics. No team of show doctors could cure this bafflingly bad show set in the Golden Age of Hollywood."</b></i><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">In Gotham, site of the carnage, early reviews just in for Cirque du Soleil's </span><i style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;"><b>Paramour</b></i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">, from </span><i style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">Wall Street Journal</i><b style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;"><i> </i></b><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">to </span><i style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">New York</i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;"> </span><i style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">Times</i><b style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">,</b><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;"> point to a big floporama, with some great acts that only make the sub-mediocre musical this thing is supposed to be seem and feel even more dreary and second rate.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">That's what I glean here in front of my PC in California, surfing critical reaction.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">A mixed review from AP finds similarities between Paramour and Spiderman,  the latter having opened at the same theatre, where it enjoyed early popular favor but ultimately crashed and burned, to a colossal loss.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">But Cirque's visual feast may hold an edge over Spiderman's in that, as AP notes, Paramour "has the ability to astonish."</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><b style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;"><i>From Vulture.Com: </i></b><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 18.915px;">"<span itemprop="articleBody"><span class="s1">Some things just don’t belong together, and you’d think that Cirque, having failed so miserably with New York productions of <i>Banana Shpeel</i> and <i>Zarkana</i> to force this unwanted conjugation, would by now have understood that, or <i><b>at least have chosen better models and hired a team familiar with the workings of real musicals. It’s an especially arrogant form of carpetbaggery to think that, with enough money, you can do anything.</b></i> <i>Paramour</i> was capitalized at around $25 million. That’s twice the cost of <i>Hamilton</i>, which admittedly does not include even one drone-controlled lampshade. That must be its problem."</span></span></span>

MIDWAY FLASH! ... Cirque du Soleil Lands Another Bomb on Broadway---Critically Speaking ... Show Looks Like Another Spiderman On Stage, But With Superior Circus Action ...

" Cirque du Soleil’s Paramour is crashing and burning on Broadway." screams The Globe and Mail in London, " and there’s no ...

Big Tops on the Brink: Ringling Puts Circus on Ice ... Big Apple Passes the Hat ... Cole on a Slow Roll to the Bitter End?

Qesh Me Lot 0 06:01

<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">Show to go out as </span><b style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">King Cole</b><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;"> in July, opening in Jacksonville NC and offering more rides, food and pre-show activities in a "fun zone."  About the latter, you heard it first here from Agent X, on the posting below.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><br /><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizMCNYKdcH9N2ZCeTEj2i4D1mHjvu0dCW2NjSLWrR1hWNKTD3PDqe6-hUByeOF4lH9-J_rN_wSZO1Fgy284RYPBk2MOBJXvCKmiS2O4n1hmQZS3zheyUCHiRU7GslVLMbp1_5bO5MYfAg/s1600/out+of+this+world.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="color: #cc6633; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="236" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizMCNYKdcH9N2ZCeTEj2i4D1mHjvu0dCW2NjSLWrR1hWNKTD3PDqe6-hUByeOF4lH9-J_rN_wSZO1Fgy284RYPBk2MOBJXvCKmiS2O4n1hmQZS3zheyUCHiRU7GslVLMbp1_5bO5MYfAg/s400/out+of+this+world.jpg" style="border: 1px solid rgb(187, 187, 187); margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 4px;" width="400" /></a></div><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><b style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">Revolutionary Rambles:</b><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;"> iRingling down in Florida putting the cast on ice in rehearsals for its new post-pachyderm gamble, says AP story advanced my way by</span><b style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;"> </b><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">Ken Dickinson</span><b style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">.</b><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">   The</span><b style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;"> Felds</b><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">, struggling to recapture iPhone junkies, plan to lure them into the show with apps allowing for broadcast of selfie sharing during the performance and interactivity between patrons and performers.  Ice skaters and motor sports into the mix. It’s a new world, says </span><b style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">Alana Feld</b><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;"> to the press, promising what looks to be a radical departure from all other amusements; I mean, would you prefer attending a musical, play, or movie while others around you are fiddling with and jabbering over their  the gadgets in hand? ...  It’s the over ice part that gives me grave pause.  Then again, that misty white sheet does open one’s imagination to the outer space theme.  Show heads for the cosmos down in LA, mid July.  I’m tempted to be there for the launch.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">.</span><br /><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px; text-align: center;"></div><b style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">Johnny Pugh’s Cole Bros Circus,</b><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;"> now owned by </span><b style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">Dick Garden</b><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">, is holding firm on common ground.  The status quo stubbornly on parade, what with wild animals returning.  The Garden free ticket blitz may improve on crowd size.  Question may be, how weaker might the actual performance be?  Poster art promises more Pugh than Garden.  Maybe between the two disparate souls, there may be a decent middle ground.  Affordable mediocrity is not such a bad thing, not that is, to the eyes of a toddler tickling to a circus show for the first time. And, yes, the writing of this feels totally hollow, given counter currents pointing to a Dead End, as witness what follows ...</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><br /><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirvgWPZ8ZtZup-cbRbbHhe18Z90VYVkTbhlUkGOPV_bYmclfQKZPbpQa-CPjNS9KUg5igrrAAyHYu_bZkfyn8teZls8MdVbthe3MhdAGukP6psU02RocDYcyKerl4aqmBy3A3MPnYamsQ/s1600/cole+tickets+on+line.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="color: #cc6633; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="273" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEirvgWPZ8ZtZup-cbRbbHhe18Z90VYVkTbhlUkGOPV_bYmclfQKZPbpQa-CPjNS9KUg5igrrAAyHYu_bZkfyn8teZls8MdVbthe3MhdAGukP6psU02RocDYcyKerl4aqmBy3A3MPnYamsQ/s400/cole+tickets+on+line.JPG" style="border: 1px solid rgb(187, 187, 187); margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 4px;" width="400" /></a></div><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvziT2M3LzOJhb8niu81FZDq00lL7-I4cRBL8suJstMu6WzWClC4vbtJwwm3ySDJt_gG1MpESZdKaSTUIJdqU8MW19U_rUq_86rgeNL9jxNlGaRe4sl0_htdPcShJ6rZAWjfNySFexPdQ/s1600/John+Pugh%252C+1971.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; color: #cc6633; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvziT2M3LzOJhb8niu81FZDq00lL7-I4cRBL8suJstMu6WzWClC4vbtJwwm3ySDJt_gG1MpESZdKaSTUIJdqU8MW19U_rUq_86rgeNL9jxNlGaRe4sl0_htdPcShJ6rZAWjfNySFexPdQ/s320/John+Pugh%252C+1971.jpg" style="border: 1px solid rgb(187, 187, 187); margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 4px;" width="320" /></a></div><b style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">Facing the Truth on Facebook?</b><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">Here's what you will find on Facebook's</span><b style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">Clyde Beatty and Cole Bros. Tribute Page: </b><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">"A</span><b style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;"></b><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">historic page that pays homage to an iconic show that no longer exists.  Please mo messages that are negative and </span><i style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">no more questions about a route. </i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;"> This show is gone but not forgotten.  It still lives in our hearts for those who lived it and loved it...Thank you..The Management!</span><b style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">" ... </b><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">Now this touched me.  You'll find plenty of photos that will bring back favored memories of your days at the show.  Here's one of Johnny Pugh in 1971.  Oh, we were all young once!  </span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><b style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;"><br /></b><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;"></span><b style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">The last Grand Tour for Big Apple Circus? </b><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">New York's own begging for 2 million bucks from private donations in order to keep its date at Lincoln Center, the rental tab alone a  harsh half million.  </span><b style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;"><i>New York Times </i></b><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">bleeding bias in advocacy reporting, story pushing BAC charity angles and art purity — show favoring “artistry over vulgarity.” (Guess whose – read on).  Reporter </span><b style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">Ginia Bellafanote</b><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;"> failing to come clean on actual attendance figures, fewer bodies in the seats?  That’s another issue too unpleasant perhaps to report. But what gives away blatant NYT bias is </span><b style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">Bellafante’s</b><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;"> implicit pitting of Big Apple's nobler artistic standards  against “</span><b style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">the mayhem of Ringling</b><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">,” the latter show owned and operated by, in case you do not know –  “</span><b style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">billionaire</b><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;"> </span><b style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">Kenneth Feld</b><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">.”  Mayhem?  Really?  Ringling and Big Apple go for the same world class acts , but Ringling manages to pull in thousands more customers for a typical show.  Does that make Ringling “vulgar”?    I’ve yet to hear of Ringling begging for public donations or working Wall Street’s greedy TICS (Thieves-in-Chief--yes, you heard it here first) for funding bail-outs.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><br /><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibE95hga7LOS1Pt-OdBbiOxgyaVI3gWwr8DPuvlByBz4xiT4ofL2cFi1C1vI_cm47itpk3wI3lEvpkNUUsUJfo0bM3xUOG-W4UAZZ8LJMsgLjvt8Yd1lZKzNiwSqAQH1ljU7wCVdknSc8/s1600/Big+Apple+Kane+in+tent.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="color: #cc6633; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibE95hga7LOS1Pt-OdBbiOxgyaVI3gWwr8DPuvlByBz4xiT4ofL2cFi1C1vI_cm47itpk3wI3lEvpkNUUsUJfo0bM3xUOG-W4UAZZ8LJMsgLjvt8Yd1lZKzNiwSqAQH1ljU7wCVdknSc8/s400/Big+Apple+Kane+in+tent.jpg" style="border: 1px solid rgb(187, 187, 187); margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 4px;" width="400" /></a></div><div style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px; text-align: center;"> <b>Will the man in red have a job next season?</b></div><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><b style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">Pardon me for feeling</b><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;"> okay about the free Market.  I’m all for BAC going on — I’ve gone on record as a fan of the show, but two of the last shows that I saw left a lot to be desired.  The very idea that BAC needs “</span><b style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">another $11.5 million to produce the circus each year</b><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">" is  ludicrous.  How many people did it take, couple of years back, to put on a show that was going to be live-streamed into hundreds of movie houses, nationwide, and fail to have bodies in more than maybe a third of the seats?  How many? All of which promoted my brother Dick, who watched the show in a Utah movie house, with one other person – his wife — to declare, “You’re watching a loser.”   A key issue the</span><i style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">Times</i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;"> story failed to address: Why can’t this show attract larger crowds as once it did?  Maybe it’s the public’s declining taste for circus? Or maybe a bloated and bumbling </span><b style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">Big Apple Circus</b><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">organization, itself perhaps the biggest of all charity cases.  Maybe the</span><i style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">Times</i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;"> will fork over a nice clean $1 mil.  So far, show has raised half a million, and that's not bad.  When it comes to soliciting,</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">they are pros.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><br /><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWVhf-Xp0XbKHFKjHsa0RpYK5W3w_jvGfMTjbm7w0vlmAMM47NSEaKU-kiy_7LOvwfUHbnpPTsFU7o4JCzzpTiwgeot-xnjxgCQ5qkiy64nES-6x-Dy5RsduYei6gv1qfdbJDbnT7VR2E/s1600/1903+circus.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="color: #cc6633; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWVhf-Xp0XbKHFKjHsa0RpYK5W3w_jvGfMTjbm7w0vlmAMM47NSEaKU-kiy_7LOvwfUHbnpPTsFU7o4JCzzpTiwgeot-xnjxgCQ5qkiy64nES-6x-Dy5RsduYei6gv1qfdbJDbnT7VR2E/s400/1903+circus.jpg" style="border: 1px solid rgb(187, 187, 187); margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 4px;" width="400" /></a></div><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><b style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">END RINGERS: </b><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">Boffo early biz for</span><b style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;"> Cirque du Soleil’s  </b><b style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;"><i>Paramour</i> </b><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">down a bit since bum reviews hit the streets. Another new CDS property, </span><i style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;"><b>Tourk</b><b>– The First Flight,</b></i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;"> pulling in tepid notices ...  Historical relief may be on the way!  From </span><b style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">Don Covington</b><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;"> comes  news that </span><b style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">Circus 1903</b><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;"> is promising to "recreate a turn of the twentieth century circus" in a nationally touring theater show.  Premiere set for LA in February. Another reason to go down there again ... </span><b style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">Carson & Barnes,</b><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;"> without admitting wrongdoing, agreed to fork up a $16, 000 fine for putting its elephants in dangerous proximity to  customers ...  Lastly, on the passing of </span><b style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">Pete Cristiani,</b><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;"> I once worked for the man  (and for the lovely </span><b style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">Norma</b><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">), but only for six weeks on </span><b style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">Wallace Bros.</b><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">, too thin-skinned to be truly “with it and for it.” I would forever after think of Pete as the </span><b style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">Robert Mitchum</b><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;"> of the big Top.  Once, while passing me on the midway during set up with a sledgehammer in my hand (if you can believe that), he called me Snow Cone.  Okay, maybe a job description upgrade from Hot Dog?</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">I feel very sad posting this. In my boyhood, when the Clyde Beatty Circus came to town, I got to climb up into one of the bed reg wagons, to help hoist seating parts over the edge and down onto the ground.  And to help raise the sidewall.  I was given a ticket that got me into the sideshow, and into both performances of the big show that day.  Sat on hard planks and thrilled to the wonder of it all.  Gone are those days we once so easily enjoyed.  </span>

Big Tops on the Brink: Ringling Puts Circus on Ice ... Big Apple Passes the Hat ... Cole on a Slow Roll to the Bitter End?

Show to go out as King Cole in July, opening in Jacksonville NC and offering more rides, food and pre-show activities in a "fun zone....

Getting Denied, Turned Away, Trapped in Traffic, Stood Up and Let Down and Pissed Off in the City of Angels: I Vowed Never to Return, and then --- Something Magic Happened

Qesh Me Lot 0 06:00

<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">Have you ever made travel plans, only to see them fall apart, one by one, once you reach your destination?  Here is my story.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><br /><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEid0y99UAiIXiHT_Epi2U6ddgMN93ueBAiYJNBClJy0fMpVugwKBpp9sC1aFdX0t0kD4xZKFvUZ_99BfGF5k4GUAnSW9K_ya7G684AwbY_i5y3Lw8bTF2KylMQltXEu18qXHq5icdciHk8/s1600/LA+union+statin+street+llines+trees.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="color: #cc6633; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEid0y99UAiIXiHT_Epi2U6ddgMN93ueBAiYJNBClJy0fMpVugwKBpp9sC1aFdX0t0kD4xZKFvUZ_99BfGF5k4GUAnSW9K_ya7G684AwbY_i5y3Lw8bTF2KylMQltXEu18qXHq5icdciHk8/s400/LA+union+statin+street+llines+trees.JPG" style="border: 1px solid rgb(187, 187, 187); margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 4px;" width="400" /></a></div><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">Okay, so it's clear I like Union Station. Always the best way to enter the ugly sprawl that is the Los Angeles so hated by so many people.  I understand their disdain.  For me, though, it's what you'll find amidst all of the mind-numbing vastness that draws me down there time and time again.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><br /><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtSZPaD7-HE9RqOK00hI6W7SlZgQZ6tQuKBRyOjA9z7Z8UpUeVHY9BdYSllz3VwwkquhzH5tK6r0Mvkg29OvJfiFKkgYcDFTGkL4F3Z0GZqiY8-z2hX_mVcbNeui91d81r49FDmaiHLco/s1600/LA+union+station+tile.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="color: #cc6633; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtSZPaD7-HE9RqOK00hI6W7SlZgQZ6tQuKBRyOjA9z7Z8UpUeVHY9BdYSllz3VwwkquhzH5tK6r0Mvkg29OvJfiFKkgYcDFTGkL4F3Z0GZqiY8-z2hX_mVcbNeui91d81r49FDmaiHLco/s400/LA+union+station+tile.JPG" style="border: 1px solid rgb(187, 187, 187); margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 4px;" width="400" /></a></div><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">Is there a more beautiful train station in the country?  In the world?  </span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><br /><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7dbjVbMMBqA9XPS3AqnzcP8_yQoffg-u4YfTg5ic2_UmwP__Wtj1_HGKPXvPKuIWcEQxE4X2BrEViTEkhOMpsRlDBXkZ_zz81B95eTpMZWPOCFjzRr0B3NhZtg6F6HD2MqGaEFebX_bw/s1600/LA+union+tunnel+panoramas.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="color: #cc6633; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7dbjVbMMBqA9XPS3AqnzcP8_yQoffg-u4YfTg5ic2_UmwP__Wtj1_HGKPXvPKuIWcEQxE4X2BrEViTEkhOMpsRlDBXkZ_zz81B95eTpMZWPOCFjzRr0B3NhZtg6F6HD2MqGaEFebX_bw/s400/LA+union+tunnel+panoramas.JPG" style="border: 1px solid rgb(187, 187, 187); margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 4px;" width="400" /></a></div><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">The tunnel to the trains, once a barren walk through, has been greatly upgraded with with uplifting  panoramas.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><br /><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCY5opar9I2f3Ug9nnpayFAp18bEITGbxzSj-qkz4m27f7TZQI4aUNa6lNlCdCBAitBV02X86YfuYYx7BDKq8J-MZBmrzisG-zmFG8VXaLTwXuAw306XvIRM6sv6YUJfS0280SlR41idQ/s1600/LA+union+station+tunnel+walkers+against.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="color: #cc6633; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCY5opar9I2f3Ug9nnpayFAp18bEITGbxzSj-qkz4m27f7TZQI4aUNa6lNlCdCBAitBV02X86YfuYYx7BDKq8J-MZBmrzisG-zmFG8VXaLTwXuAw306XvIRM6sv6YUJfS0280SlR41idQ/s400/LA+union+station+tunnel+walkers+against.JPG" style="border: 1px solid rgb(187, 187, 187); margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 4px;" width="400" /></a></div><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><br /><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgn2syoQcbO9apagaUoz0JVzpdlZawQItpwBa29xnigtJPIK1EMI34BFL0ehDzL6h-bUsxBucyvKSQhSJ97vJeeDszY95nWcGlsS4I55yVJhyphenhyphen3rvJ1RNkSQqDFMZhJkvWph7HMvwx-YXIQ/s1600/LA+peppe.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="color: #cc6633; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgn2syoQcbO9apagaUoz0JVzpdlZawQItpwBa29xnigtJPIK1EMI34BFL0ehDzL6h-bUsxBucyvKSQhSJ97vJeeDszY95nWcGlsS4I55yVJhyphenhyphen3rvJ1RNkSQqDFMZhJkvWph7HMvwx-YXIQ/s400/LA+peppe.JPG" style="border: 1px solid rgb(187, 187, 187); margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 4px;" width="400" /></a></div><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">Charmer on a bus:  There's Peppy, whom I sat next to on the 780 out to Glendale.  I touched the frosty top of his nose, and he smiled back.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><br /><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3wo7lDPObtNQf75SiU7oxhNz3eHzDuFJgLtocxJq75r0VqGRhyphenhyphenfIKL7OfQf1ijARqLLhyZzl0Cg6DeiwjXPLZ8nBGuMNAEnPcINFPo9xw0yR0rzzp3R4W75LAQzSu1um6qzga1KUdUlk/s1600/dominic+at+the+organ..jpg" imageanchor="1" style="color: #cc6633; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="293" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3wo7lDPObtNQf75SiU7oxhNz3eHzDuFJgLtocxJq75r0VqGRhyphenhyphenfIKL7OfQf1ijARqLLhyZzl0Cg6DeiwjXPLZ8nBGuMNAEnPcINFPo9xw0yR0rzzp3R4W75LAQzSu1um6qzga1KUdUlk/s400/dominic+at+the+organ..jpg" style="border: 1px solid rgb(187, 187, 187); margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 4px;" width="400" /></a></div><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">First big let down: Had the streets not been so clogged with traffic, I would have arrived at my first destination of choice, Moonlight Rollerway in Glendale. Rink owner Dominic, above, is one of the best dance music organists ever, having put out dozens of tunes set to regulated metronome dance tempos (fox trot,tango, waltz, etc.)  We are friends, and I wanted to to say hello   </span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><br /><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjn7YhuN8vSv1ihLC-KdLdPMQ5cKpUGc6Fgfd7tAN96mJJJEbd4a619V1f8WU0Ld61oiijDrPRHgo-63iOD3iXVwi6WHRN_BifwhnqjFDeHBiSTAzSx5V___H8XE_tSfK8mSbaTXRI2IDM/s1600/HH+MoonlightRollerway+skaters+on+floor+fair.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="color: #cc6633; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjn7YhuN8vSv1ihLC-KdLdPMQ5cKpUGc6Fgfd7tAN96mJJJEbd4a619V1f8WU0Ld61oiijDrPRHgo-63iOD3iXVwi6WHRN_BifwhnqjFDeHBiSTAzSx5V___H8XE_tSfK8mSbaTXRI2IDM/s400/HH+MoonlightRollerway+skaters+on+floor+fair.jpg" style="border: 1px solid rgb(187, 187, 187); margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 4px;" width="400" /></a></div><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">Had I arrived in good time, I would have spent an hour or so simply listening to Dominc's pulsing music, which takes me back to my boyhood in roller rinks.  You may recognize Dominic's rink in movies and TV shows, many filmed there    </span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">BUT, my bus into Glendale was so late, to have walked the rest of the way, as I planed, would have not given me enough time to make an early exit. A bummer.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">Next morning, on foot to another let down ...</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><br /><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAsAIjN1FbNeu1-Fno2rp1kH6YFTk7tXWhMWtEyD4YDLsPexI8r2ONPx0tHUvsJPMHHeKHTwOIXBJCZDXqpJcfWVpX0l4UBJoKfJDoh8SZDfabfFT_mkZeBG4QEubrgf7jaAvTIdl2f4A/s1600/LA+shoe+over+cement.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="color: #cc6633; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAsAIjN1FbNeu1-Fno2rp1kH6YFTk7tXWhMWtEyD4YDLsPexI8r2ONPx0tHUvsJPMHHeKHTwOIXBJCZDXqpJcfWVpX0l4UBJoKfJDoh8SZDfabfFT_mkZeBG4QEubrgf7jaAvTIdl2f4A/s400/LA+shoe+over+cement.JPG" style="border: 1px solid rgb(187, 187, 187); margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 4px;" width="300" /></a></div><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRF2sS8D9DXJ_5jPXcYBjRHfDOpWncvZfVYLiIuAry1Y_lQj6_p4Q8rQ-a3U1CKfSectGzfl_loTUag67OTOP584L5hPqNffDveP33yEVTX0fkmHJLMn6d6IAE2DUFt5nYMC-HaOJOaQc/s1600/LA+glasses+on+ledge.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="color: #cc6633; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRF2sS8D9DXJ_5jPXcYBjRHfDOpWncvZfVYLiIuAry1Y_lQj6_p4Q8rQ-a3U1CKfSectGzfl_loTUag67OTOP584L5hPqNffDveP33yEVTX0fkmHJLMn6d6IAE2DUFt5nYMC-HaOJOaQc/s400/LA+glasses+on+ledge.JPG" style="border: 1px solid rgb(187, 187, 187); margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 4px;" width="400" /></a></div><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">Setting out for the new Broad Art Museum downtown, I took a familiar walk down a dreary stretch of Vermont.  Full disclosure: Urban decay fascinates me.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><br /><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCBPcyngy1pOHvhT3So_xw1nhiqlBY1dTS24h3m0mVIiqreA9_ugzc6Jpvz3ORsGQ0r9sH7yemVsFg9BmXi5QI4Gx0NkPjsg7a-PBgMPqPTXG8p1VJ1Eh4MA90pycDtLRwSNd9OZVT7hc/s1600/la+pay+phone+dead.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="color: #cc6633; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCBPcyngy1pOHvhT3So_xw1nhiqlBY1dTS24h3m0mVIiqreA9_ugzc6Jpvz3ORsGQ0r9sH7yemVsFg9BmXi5QI4Gx0NkPjsg7a-PBgMPqPTXG8p1VJ1Eh4MA90pycDtLRwSNd9OZVT7hc/s320/la+pay+phone+dead.JPG" style="border: 1px solid rgb(187, 187, 187); margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 4px;" width="240" /></a></div><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">Once upon a time, so vital.  Now, they hang around like abandoned skeletons.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">. </span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><b style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">Biggest dream buster of all</b><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">:  I went the stunning new Broad Modern Art Museum, hoping not to find a long line. Last time, the waiting line, just for a chance to maybe get in, was so long that I gave up.  Yes, I hate waiting.  You can book a free ticket on-line, but two or three months ahead. And, still, I assumed that with the museum now open for nearly a year, there would no longer be a line.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><br /><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-qDsuXyTwUOi9J9YRHAyAHfM5onm02s7XMH_d9_Pjq7kwQY6w_BFyhSXLpgRRLNeTRSFkM9j9aCyfsimbHorChhiSTx3xIUlI75JnHvVWRDCuo2fpaKaEJtxvQU0OxFDhQqRAgzGI9jk/s1600/LA15+Broad+museum.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="color: #cc6633; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-qDsuXyTwUOi9J9YRHAyAHfM5onm02s7XMH_d9_Pjq7kwQY6w_BFyhSXLpgRRLNeTRSFkM9j9aCyfsimbHorChhiSTx3xIUlI75JnHvVWRDCuo2fpaKaEJtxvQU0OxFDhQqRAgzGI9jk/s400/LA15+Broad+museum.JPG" style="border: 1px solid rgb(187, 187, 187); margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 4px;" width="400" /></a></div><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px; text-align: center;"></div><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">How wrong I was.  That damn long line was still there. I am now officially suspicious of a sly promotional stunt by Mr. Broad, going Barnum on us, to create the illusion of  his venue being still (and maybe forever, if enough people will put up with his cynical charade) the HOTTEST ticket in town.  After a half hour, I walked to the front to ask a staff member what were my chances. She said quite good, but once I got a ticket, I would be waiting in another line for around one or two hours!    XX*!!xx+|{"{{##@!!!!!</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">I refuse to be a pawn for Mr. Broad, who, I'll bet, loves the image of perpetual lines clamoring to get into his spectacular galleries. I walked off.  Never again. The Getty on the Hill?  Free, too, and I've always walked up, only waiting a few minutes for the next train up the hill.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><b style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">Glorious Restoration</b><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">:  Curtain up on the reopening of the famed Clifton's Cafeteria on Broadway. A must-see item on my list.   I took a dash down there.  Love those dashing little buses that feel like private drawing rooms on wheels.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><br /><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrawkHUDJj5_aSxWOVOk1mhLWK55WKfDjtSVre_2xkAT_11Z-bHkDatpwa1d0JIWbvoPgfmjGr79RO-CaBMGe9sOOsEuhKY8IkRsoYp-N5Uu-bZg_k66nXE2Q4BM71Wce0ZYQEq7ND2ic/s1600/LA+Cliftons+exterior+left.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="color: #cc6633; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrawkHUDJj5_aSxWOVOk1mhLWK55WKfDjtSVre_2xkAT_11Z-bHkDatpwa1d0JIWbvoPgfmjGr79RO-CaBMGe9sOOsEuhKY8IkRsoYp-N5Uu-bZg_k66nXE2Q4BM71Wce0ZYQEq7ND2ic/s400/LA+Cliftons+exterior+left.JPG" style="border: 1px solid rgb(187, 187, 187); margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 4px;" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">Thus multi-storied architectural extravaganza, bathed in moody lighting, offers a dazzling variety of settings, including cozy little alcoves.   You keep climbing up stairs to yet more options.  I wondered if in its early days, a higher floor offered adult pleasures. Well, study the decor!</div><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjw_sF9uIZhAVxED2p5p1o2JEe7XHTayjG0Yhyphenhyphen0mNJ5N8eSjYYDcZSh2p021uBuTFyp5Z6Q58bPnl6Tc4lo48FIB6JpASnA-w7ZDWn4nwrr5FlHu24P3u4FbCwbrjf47Tz9QIabdgO07Mw/s1600/LA+cliftons+stwo+at+table.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="color: #cc6633; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjw_sF9uIZhAVxED2p5p1o2JEe7XHTayjG0Yhyphenhyphen0mNJ5N8eSjYYDcZSh2p021uBuTFyp5Z6Q58bPnl6Tc4lo48FIB6JpASnA-w7ZDWn4nwrr5FlHu24P3u4FbCwbrjf47Tz9QIabdgO07Mw/s400/LA+cliftons+stwo+at+table.JPG" style="border: 1px solid rgb(187, 187, 187); margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 4px;" width="400" /></a></div><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">People sit in all kinds of places.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><br /><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGvmv-sZNlsm6RN6jxtmjCTI60zTZwlrtukIaP__zatuV3ADCdbTWHkK_A_XoKc7qU3dT149_BD6QpcnX54ofV_QRUj3HFN_oBeEyOvENl2V22I2_1_nUougGHFQl3roJyzBbzU95-i0M/s1600/LA+cliftons+pond+and+flower.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="color: #cc6633; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGvmv-sZNlsm6RN6jxtmjCTI60zTZwlrtukIaP__zatuV3ADCdbTWHkK_A_XoKc7qU3dT149_BD6QpcnX54ofV_QRUj3HFN_oBeEyOvENl2V22I2_1_nUougGHFQl3roJyzBbzU95-i0M/s400/LA+cliftons+pond+and+flower.JPG" style="border: 1px solid rgb(187, 187, 187); margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 4px;" width="400" /></a></div><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><br /><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixf1rDEWbRMjLYQ5-k4mYSSzD5q9Hh9wvU7C7b0WheMTEutX6LG0QKPjrQ3oZM4ZLXIFE0qS8iA_Q2UKtXPOWOcnFGCIXCkEEnE7t2eHuz0YnkP9v6GxsYWhrtIic8OPyBDw7YqYYeJio/s1600/LA+cliftons+bar.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="color: #cc6633; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixf1rDEWbRMjLYQ5-k4mYSSzD5q9Hh9wvU7C7b0WheMTEutX6LG0QKPjrQ3oZM4ZLXIFE0qS8iA_Q2UKtXPOWOcnFGCIXCkEEnE7t2eHuz0YnkP9v6GxsYWhrtIic8OPyBDw7YqYYeJio/s400/LA+cliftons+bar.JPG" style="border: 1px solid rgb(187, 187, 187); margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 4px;" width="400" /></a></div><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px; text-align: center;"></div><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgedj2dPF3zn4riI2BZk8_JTj0oWSIxE1GYxV0nXd-SwATB0lQ7HJUTuFMaBvxBWnYg64YlUAnSqB5mkQLrIHRjqgRIe8L-DrtURkgFRpVOy9m2skw5XDpeAPCro1290Irumyz1_t8rF1U/s1600/LA+cliftons+lion+in+room.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="color: #cc6633; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgedj2dPF3zn4riI2BZk8_JTj0oWSIxE1GYxV0nXd-SwATB0lQ7HJUTuFMaBvxBWnYg64YlUAnSqB5mkQLrIHRjqgRIe8L-DrtURkgFRpVOy9m2skw5XDpeAPCro1290Irumyz1_t8rF1U/s400/LA+cliftons+lion+in+room.JPG" style="border: 1px solid rgb(187, 187, 187); margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 4px;" width="400" /></a></div><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">But, I did  not dine at Clifton's.  My heart that day belonged to Traxx at Union Station, where I usually entertain one meal during each visit.   I enjoy sitting at a table out in the lobby.  This time, all were taken, so I opted for the restful courtyard. </span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><br /><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNCWqboaSdUbZGpoUhmISD5gPNrINBQIkkkeuvi8xukQGABr-QjUDgWoZsN_otEh0F-x2ZnutIIhbQBb3S8FfLdchUuI2daCEpKavz9gXWewdlbAbnnf6vZ08khew4h5vitZO_MylVl3Q/s1600/LA+Traax+meal+outdoors.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="color: #cc6633; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNCWqboaSdUbZGpoUhmISD5gPNrINBQIkkkeuvi8xukQGABr-QjUDgWoZsN_otEh0F-x2ZnutIIhbQBb3S8FfLdchUuI2daCEpKavz9gXWewdlbAbnnf6vZ08khew4h5vitZO_MylVl3Q/s400/LA+Traax+meal+outdoors.JPG" style="border: 1px solid rgb(187, 187, 187); margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 4px;" width="300" /></a></div><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiclB486pMdgLQvlalWJ-pA1z076cwoGJMsq1CIWKJxiSq8P13zTiTUp9IZcStnpqFydKeMUXzdVTUfwFmFPFlvI55Zdw49_HwVd8QtK99OCbajP0Bka9XR4D0nEahaOSlAmm8PTwSTHnc/s1600/LA+trax+menu.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="color: #cc6633; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiclB486pMdgLQvlalWJ-pA1z076cwoGJMsq1CIWKJxiSq8P13zTiTUp9IZcStnpqFydKeMUXzdVTUfwFmFPFlvI55Zdw49_HwVd8QtK99OCbajP0Bka9XR4D0nEahaOSlAmm8PTwSTHnc/s400/LA+trax+menu.JPG" style="border: 1px solid rgb(187, 187, 187); margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 4px;" width="400" /></a></div><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><b style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">Not stood up, simply left a little wanting. </b><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">I would like to have raved about mt seared wild Salmon  Trouble was, the skin was too stiff to cut into, so I easily pushed it away, as if it were detachable.  Do salmon wear topees?  </span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><br /><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjk1xgYTQ3ifKwqc_rIuuRUCQ1vx95mVbT-4JyTcLqC_YMrRim50EyFMwp9GC8BYhdXt3T3E9tRd0p_EoBisOA3LOb3k0OawWCiXTuICRRMZIiu7pusLx2rcal8feyfdb-iesJmCOibM4g/s1600/LA+los+angeles+theatre.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="color: #cc6633; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjk1xgYTQ3ifKwqc_rIuuRUCQ1vx95mVbT-4JyTcLqC_YMrRim50EyFMwp9GC8BYhdXt3T3E9tRd0p_EoBisOA3LOb3k0OawWCiXTuICRRMZIiu7pusLx2rcal8feyfdb-iesJmCOibM4g/s400/LA+los+angeles+theatre.JPG" style="border: 1px solid rgb(187, 187, 187); margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 4px;" width="300" /></a></div><b style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">Another big let down</b><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">:  Since they've been talking up a glorious renaissance underway for a number of grand old  movies palaces on Broadway, I wanted to check out the scene.  Not what I expected.  The theaters seem fairly lost in a very pedestrian street, far more Tijuana than Hollywood.  Who would want to come down here?  Totally unsold on the idea.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><br /><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0WyumL8fUrCk2e9nsvUCkPUmEniWqhwg_cnF-AcTZLuRT1Dbrv2Twq7tCmsQ5J-pEI7Z7_7ac0PdJUbveydoRULO5lr8XFTAeZbuxT7KEDh4LYKFdOfCBranmhWEMNCtMVskXRxmuGOE/s1600/LA+Tower+theatre.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="color: #cc6633; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0WyumL8fUrCk2e9nsvUCkPUmEniWqhwg_cnF-AcTZLuRT1Dbrv2Twq7tCmsQ5J-pEI7Z7_7ac0PdJUbveydoRULO5lr8XFTAeZbuxT7KEDh4LYKFdOfCBranmhWEMNCtMVskXRxmuGOE/s400/LA+Tower+theatre.JPG" style="border: 1px solid rgb(187, 187, 187); margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 4px;" width="300" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px; text-align: center;"></div><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><b style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">Redeeming serenity</b><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">:  Next goal, I took a long bus ride out West Adams to the Peace Awareness Labyrinth and Gardens.   You need to reserve a free ticket on line to be admitted.  Even for the same day.  They put you through some hurdles. </span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><br /><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8XSh1vLDQCiLqAnd2mgctuNqqd-XpydqvL0ed9PHhzvhj_cltkepuhmunqkoJ9r53iUaDTWzf__6AWin8JmcAmI_AhvMqMGmdcGpvfhONquNaUOOY_vKxUqiyc70rAHoLzVRPFhPPu1w/s1600/LA+peace+garden+trees.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="color: #cc6633; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8XSh1vLDQCiLqAnd2mgctuNqqd-XpydqvL0ed9PHhzvhj_cltkepuhmunqkoJ9r53iUaDTWzf__6AWin8JmcAmI_AhvMqMGmdcGpvfhONquNaUOOY_vKxUqiyc70rAHoLzVRPFhPPu1w/s400/LA+peace+garden+trees.JPG" style="border: 1px solid rgb(187, 187, 187); margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 4px;" width="400" /></a></div><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">Surprisingly confined to a rather small space, there is s section of descending walking paths through  lush exotic vegetation, and one can find a comforting respite from the humdrum city.  </span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><br /><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAA4LPLfTLYosMME352zyh6oJYeYUKjE4aBlwVlgMYQpIzXdhcT7h3rEc5nsiyq2o5owVWTW_lxcOx1Wb2l8Vnj59Fh51zshxxK8jCf1-bdPZrgcIk0KeGtZ0QV7p6BZ17YrkuIlye-vs/s1600/LA+peace+garden+various.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="color: #cc6633; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAA4LPLfTLYosMME352zyh6oJYeYUKjE4aBlwVlgMYQpIzXdhcT7h3rEc5nsiyq2o5owVWTW_lxcOx1Wb2l8Vnj59Fh51zshxxK8jCf1-bdPZrgcIk0KeGtZ0QV7p6BZ17YrkuIlye-vs/s400/LA+peace+garden+various.JPG" style="border: 1px solid rgb(187, 187, 187); margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 4px;" width="300" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px; text-align: center;"></div><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">Here on the circle of something to do with working out one's problems, you are suppose to follow an intricate circular path while working out your issue, in stages. The path pulls you deeper into the middle, and then it takes you out in a  less arduous walk. Can't remember what my "problem" or "issue" was.  The heat that afternoon wilted my inner Plato. I dispensed with the challenge as if it were an "E" ticket in the original Disneyland. (Please don't tell them; they are lovely people.)</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><br /><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGVN0KSPEpW4GxocwyaI5qzUX0yQvlOcWsOGzci1DbadMLqFb1AN15p5RYvk9EEo3TLzdsZkyUqcgFzBZ75Juaa_J8wUXIq-vGuCulDXqBezMHWDRzBt2sw44meqI4BhOWFKxNHQPwdSk/s1600/LA+peace+circle.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="color: #cc6633; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGVN0KSPEpW4GxocwyaI5qzUX0yQvlOcWsOGzci1DbadMLqFb1AN15p5RYvk9EEo3TLzdsZkyUqcgFzBZ75Juaa_J8wUXIq-vGuCulDXqBezMHWDRzBt2sw44meqI4BhOWFKxNHQPwdSk/s400/LA+peace+circle.JPG" style="border: 1px solid rgb(187, 187, 187); margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 4px;" width="400" /></a></div><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">Sorry to report, a semi-let down:  Website photos lend the appearance of a vast and deep landscape, the very opposite of  what I found.  But I did enjoy walking the intimate paths, and sitting on chairs. </span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><br /><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjEo1PnqCFJdw0Kkg27CRmhx4rAdLlSj9js5CIVuOAaA6KaNDXRgvjPVvRibPft-95_KE8stPzmaQLiFoO5Oc5B4yD8scw5O-rcNcTgaAk3HpwGbeuj99nUORiyc7tdHg54A7ZaaidRdc/s1600/LA+expo+line+drab.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="color: #cc6633; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjEo1PnqCFJdw0Kkg27CRmhx4rAdLlSj9js5CIVuOAaA6KaNDXRgvjPVvRibPft-95_KE8stPzmaQLiFoO5Oc5B4yD8scw5O-rcNcTgaAk3HpwGbeuj99nUORiyc7tdHg54A7ZaaidRdc/s400/LA+expo+line+drab.JPG" style="border: 1px solid rgb(187, 187, 187); margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 4px;" width="400" /></a></div><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><b style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">Back to being let down:</b><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">  I had to take a ride on the heralded new new Expo Blue Line. And it made me blue.  Far too many stops make the journey an ordeal.  Whatever scenic elements are worth taking in (hardly any)  they are fairly obscured by  the stern utilitarian barriers, which make the ride feel like being shuttled through a high security zone.  </span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">From what I heard, I expected a lot more. This is nothing like the rather entrancing Gold line from Union Station  to Pasadena and points beyond, the latter, I think, over track running parallel to one of LA's ever delightful freeways.  Get OFF at Pasadena.   </span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><br /><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitnRBFveyp1Gl9dKuUAr26qaIHiwq_uXAsoJ0KWlO6zOziWhuxwhfYzNpukvePjLxPQyVcrEKE3KQzVX8DWcKe9ZLLRozszl24tnwoGMo2Ulem6tl2qc1pxNFJyJ_HWKhnK_2SRx7nnC4/s1600/LA+S+M+pier+gloom+sky.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="color: #cc6633; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitnRBFveyp1Gl9dKuUAr26qaIHiwq_uXAsoJ0KWlO6zOziWhuxwhfYzNpukvePjLxPQyVcrEKE3KQzVX8DWcKe9ZLLRozszl24tnwoGMo2Ulem6tl2qc1pxNFJyJ_HWKhnK_2SRx7nnC4/s400/LA+S+M+pier+gloom+sky.JPG" style="border: 1px solid rgb(187, 187, 187); margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 4px;" width="400" /></a></div><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">Crap!  Even the Santa Monica beach scene stood me up! Can you find any sun in this picture?</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><br /><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px; text-align: center;"></div><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjA18RRm4CudUa1Jh86mzKQBHDcOHSOTUQ-t5ZiNSPl1Yy5C1AHXe-wpXo50jX3bI9sPVyImgv1975_Q-9DiZqZA2iapsoO_TJRjUUm-sIi3nDnhg-Z9JbsoLazRptELTUxXfxuu-3Gm-o/s1600/LA+S+M+cars+trees+against+sky.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="color: #cc6633; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjA18RRm4CudUa1Jh86mzKQBHDcOHSOTUQ-t5ZiNSPl1Yy5C1AHXe-wpXo50jX3bI9sPVyImgv1975_Q-9DiZqZA2iapsoO_TJRjUUm-sIi3nDnhg-Z9JbsoLazRptELTUxXfxuu-3Gm-o/s400/LA+S+M+cars+trees+against+sky.JPG" style="border: 1px solid rgb(187, 187, 187); margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 4px;" width="400" /></a></div><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><b style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">Bus ride into Hollywood Hell</b><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">Onto one last chance: My spirits down to near zero, I was wondering, why do I come to this city?  I had little desire to return.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">I had wanted to save the trip by catching a performance of a new musical, I Only Have Eyes For You, playing that night at the Montalban in Hollywood.  More than enough time to get there.  At 5:40, I boarded a Number 4 in Santa Monica for Hollywood.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">Moved at a good clip, then slowed down to a  crawl. In  Hollywood near Fairfax, traffic came to a near halt, and the bus had to follow a bypass.  All around were automobiles stalled in a sea of vehicular hell.  The end of the world, it looked to me.  I hate this city.  I'm never coming back!  But then, back on Hollywood Boulevard, traffic thinned out, and then a rush of wheels beneath me!</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">We might make it!   Two hours had passed.  Still had ten minutes to get there.  The bus coasted like a breeze, and put me off at Vine, eight minutes before curtain. </span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><br /><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidBWRnQH7bN0aWjSIXfhBo6QlMo6XkqfD87R5bA6aoLXY8qrydLLMJIXRaYX1AoQZQlpHiJS0yaPO5vMjdnjlX_8D8pFFQ106fT36YN8VUrGfprSOW9s5UDfGkL84i4dS7FbU3Ws-W_U8/s1600/LA+MontalbanFrontview.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="color: #cc6633; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="297" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidBWRnQH7bN0aWjSIXfhBo6QlMo6XkqfD87R5bA6aoLXY8qrydLLMJIXRaYX1AoQZQlpHiJS0yaPO5vMjdnjlX_8D8pFFQ106fT36YN8VUrGfprSOW9s5UDfGkL84i4dS7FbU3Ws-W_U8/s400/LA+MontalbanFrontview.jpg" style="border: 1px solid rgb(187, 187, 187); margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 4px;" width="400" /></a></div><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">I ran down to the theatre on wings of joy -- my last night in LA might not be the last.  Settled on one of two lines, At the  window, with my billfold out, I asked the lady on the other side of the glass for an inexpensive seat.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">She looked at me, then she inquired:  Does it matter where you sit?</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">No, anywhere, I answered.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">She picked up a ticket and raised it in her hand.  "I am giving this to you"</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">Front row, orchestra.  I was stunned.  "Free?" I said.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">Yes.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">Well thank you!</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">I could not believe myself.  NEVER have I ever been given a ticket from a theater ticket window seller.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">Had Fate sent her a message: We have one last chance not to lose that guy. It's up to </span><i style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">you</i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">. </span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">The show's songs and production numbers engaged me passionately.  My review of the show can be found here under the subject category "musicals."  </span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><br /><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px; text-align: center;"></div><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYe4X8dHB8WXfT4AQtxqrR0rHPeQCQF44wVA6zC7c07uvoD3HeWBEvUa6NKYniR_OwFCDi3GrSl2EKiwBrP-igssUTC7X6Z-WK8P4EPyP_9I9mgII5zpH6LYbC3Jy1_so2c9d7wu43WNc/s1600/LA++I+Only+Have+Eyes+songwriters.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="color: #cc6633; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYe4X8dHB8WXfT4AQtxqrR0rHPeQCQF44wVA6zC7c07uvoD3HeWBEvUa6NKYniR_OwFCDi3GrSl2EKiwBrP-igssUTC7X6Z-WK8P4EPyP_9I9mgII5zpH6LYbC3Jy1_so2c9d7wu43WNc/s400/LA++I+Only+Have+Eyes+songwriters.jpg" style="border: 1px solid rgb(187, 187, 187); margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 4px;" width="400" /></a></div><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px; text-align: center;"></div><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuvk-aWtsJqP18_PPVOONzua5xgSY8N1HanKfT31D9Wvtl7SI7HeRMu5BLxbmQVsMfTdSMn5UTTiqeQ_pal3SQTOz5eud6XSNgaXCLIr5g4aQU0KaE4m_BkHBf8rDHDYFRb2HT2eLaGyw/s1600/I+only+have+eyes+two+dancers.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="color: #cc6633; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuvk-aWtsJqP18_PPVOONzua5xgSY8N1HanKfT31D9Wvtl7SI7HeRMu5BLxbmQVsMfTdSMn5UTTiqeQ_pal3SQTOz5eud6XSNgaXCLIr5g4aQU0KaE4m_BkHBf8rDHDYFRb2HT2eLaGyw/s400/I+only+have+eyes+two+dancers.jpg" style="border: 1px solid rgb(187, 187, 187); margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 4px;" width="400" /></a></div><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">Next morning, shunning the underground like a death sentence, I took the Sunset #2 downtown, and transferred to a Dash for Union Station. </span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><br /><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWWidFoiFrZahRjLGn0SaLfzE4j1cYQRExO6WXwoNgvuv7c6pgptfEpqJOAldZufBi7t8MNKmIDFx5NUPkXn5D1oB7_87YIpDG0LtulEQKX0PMBLYem-tKsu2tUCzFiruLPbsMdob3Qzc/s1600/LA+cathedral+downtwon.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="color: #cc6633; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWWidFoiFrZahRjLGn0SaLfzE4j1cYQRExO6WXwoNgvuv7c6pgptfEpqJOAldZufBi7t8MNKmIDFx5NUPkXn5D1oB7_87YIpDG0LtulEQKX0PMBLYem-tKsu2tUCzFiruLPbsMdob3Qzc/s400/LA+cathedral+downtwon.JPG" style="border: 1px solid rgb(187, 187, 187); margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 4px;" width="400" /></a></div><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">Back to the starting point.  Okay, LA, you got me again.  How could I ever desert you after the ride that got me to the theatre on time, and  the free ticket handed me by the lady on the other side of the glass?</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;">It may be an urban nightmare, but I gotta tell you, this town has a heart, and it can even feel like a city of angels.</span><br style="background-color: white; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px;" /><br /><div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; font-family: "Trebuchet MS", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12.61px; line-height: 18.915px; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgElq5v-8Cp_J5g3yLGZIQu2HPshogv5CO8oWk3FGKKlJr9aifdtvqQgEOtSYagaPvyqt6DvW4wCHnmFvwxr-JinePbaI-yc5XpM7ZnrChkKhQUz5PdXZuyrdC0lxJPQ6Z1X7zvPKkJO3c/s1600/LA+walk+up+to+Union+Stataion.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="color: #cc6633; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgElq5v-8Cp_J5g3yLGZIQu2HPshogv5CO8oWk3FGKKlJr9aifdtvqQgEOtSYagaPvyqt6DvW4wCHnmFvwxr-JinePbaI-yc5XpM7ZnrChkKhQUz5PdXZuyrdC0lxJPQ6Z1X7zvPKkJO3c/s400/LA+walk+up+to+Union+Stataion.JPG" style="border: 1px solid rgb(187, 187, 187); margin: 0px 0px 5px; padding: 4px;" width="300" /></a></div>

Getting Denied, Turned Away, Trapped in Traffic, Stood Up and Let Down and Pissed Off in the City of Angels: I Vowed Never to Return, and then --- Something Magic Happened

Have you ever made travel plans, only to see them fall apart, one by one, once you reach your destination? Here is my story. Okay, so it...