Hollywood Bowled Over

 

Summer always officially concludes with the traditional John Williams concert at the Hollywood Bowl during Labor Day Weekend.  Of course, in 2020, summer never really opened so the now-soon-to-be-90 Williams had the year off.   But he and the LA Philharmonic were back strong.   Some in the orchestra wearing masks.  Some in the audience wearing mandatory masks, unless they were "actively eating and drinking."  That would be me.  To keep a mask off for a long duration, I can actively eat and drink with the best of them.

The audience was starved for this concert.   In fact, they lit their light sabres long before the music began.   As for the program, it followed the format of past years. With Williams now up in years, the first half is a potpourri of great old movie music conducted by the legendary David Newman.  Then, John comes out for the second half and may the force be with all of us.   Geeks out of mom's basement for the first time in a year were in eighth heaven.

So this was a grand evening, Len?

Um not so much.   Oh, the concert saved the night.   But the evening was filled by one snafu after another.   Thanks to...

Technology.

Yep, that wide scoping arena which is supposed to be make our lives easier made ours a living Hell.

What mystifies me is that this particular soiree was not my first rodeo at the Bowl this year.   Given a shortened season, I only signed up for three concerts.  And the first two went off seamlessly, except for a reserved parking lot misfire in July.   Indeed, the John Williams fun started when, because of the overflow crowd, cars with ADA placards were put in a lot at the bottom of a hill.   Good luck with anybody sporting conflicted knees.  Like me.

Now the ADA placard also gets me into the ADA entrance, complete with elevator.  And that worked well until I had to show my tickets which, like all venues in the COVID world, were nestled in my phone.

Except the ticket taker with the wand couldn't make magic with mine.  We waited and waited for some sort of connection with the box office gods.   Finally, the kid with the wand (and, yes, he did remind me of Harry Potter) called over his supervisor who is probably entering his junior year in high school.   Hmmm, he said.  We have to confirm that these tickets are real.   So he got my name and location and called the box office guard assigned to this task.   We were finally released to move forward.   Jeez, people are getting through the US southern border with less problems.

The Harry Potter kid said he preferred it when there were paper tickets.   I offered to adopt him.

So, our normal concert customer is then to hit the snack bar offering burgers, grilled cheese sandwiches, etc..   In the past, it has all worked well.  You order, you pay for your food, and, five minutes later, somebody pops out of the kitchen and calls your name.  

Okay, now during this summer, they installed a QR code so that you look at the menu on-line.  Of course, I suppose that means people without cell phones go hungry, but I digress.   Even this "innovation" worked previously.

But not on John Williams Night.   You had to order your food either on your phone or a computer kiosk.   My friends did and even ordered for me.   But neither has a cell phone handy so they used my number.   We received a text message with a confirmation number.   We should go to the counter when we got the text that said our order was ready.

We waited.

And waited.

And WAITED.

I began to wonder if the cheese on my sandwich had been imported and delayed.

From the order going through to that moment, it was already forty minutes.  The counter help, which probably went to the same high school as the ticket takers, kept looking at computer screens and handing out bags.   But not ours.  

The trouble is that we had the audacity to inquire about our order, they looked at us as if we had imprisoned their grandparents in a garage.    Customer service that could be bored into a thimble without spilling a drop.

Eventually they went back to the old method and started calling out names.  We finally got our grub.  And, by the way, it's four days later and I'm still waiting for the text to pick up my food.

But this is life now.   We make it easy for you.   But it really isn't.

Still, once the music started, it was all wonderful again.   Hope next summer is filled with mask-less people and cash transactions at the snack bar.

Dinner last night:  General Ching's Chicken from PF Chang's.

Monday Morning Video Laugh - September 6, 2021

Labor Day always makes me think of Jerry Lewis.   And, like him or not, there are some funny moments on film.   For instance, 1958's "Rock-A-Bye-Baby."

 

Dinner last night:  Leftover tortellini.

The Sunday Memory Drawer - The Labor Day Musing

 

Here's a photo of New York City's Labor Day Parade in 1882.  There was such a celebration?  Did people flock to it?  Was it covered by Bob Eubanks and Stephanie Edwards?

The fact that they were celebrating Labor Day at all is a mystery to me.  Unlike all the other holidays, what the heck was being commemorated with this day?  I remember asking the question of my mother.  Just what is Labor Day?  She went for a response that was definitely feminine-skewed.

"It honors all those pregnant women who have labor pains before giving birth."

Huh?   So, it's a day where women go into labor.

"I guess."

The logic escaped me.  How long could labor be?  I was born in February.

"You ask too many questions."

There I go again.

Now, the mere mention of the first Monday of September would send chills up and down a kid's spine.  After all, in many other subtle ways, we were lamenting the end of summer.

We'd notice that it was a little bit harder to see the ball in our nightly softball contest down at the local lot.

We'd discover that there was more of a chill in the air at night as we would sit on somebody's front stoop yakking up the day's events.

And, while the Good Humor truck was still showing up promptly at 8:47PM each evening, that strawberry sundae on a stick you had been eating in twilight was now being consumed in complete darkness.

It was all so ominous.

We were headed back to school.

And Labor Day was the last straw we had.  For me, school usually began the Wednesday or Thursday afterward.  I'd immediately pull down a calendar to find my first days off.  Since the Mount Vernon, New York public school system was jampacked with Jewish teachers, we'd always get Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur off.  Sometimes, these days would happen as soon as school started.  Bonus days of summer.  My only problem with this concept was that all my friends in the neighborhood went to Catholic school.  I'd have the days off but had little to do but watch the Hollywood Squares with my grandmother.

When Labor Day weekend rolled around, this meant another complete horror for yours truly.  The annual quest for new school clothes.  And I was dragged to Genung's Department Store on Fourth Avenue by my mother.

Now, my mom was always very fashion conscious.  When it came to herself.  But, the outfits she'd suggest for me were, well, odd.   Oh, I was always completely color-coordinated.  But, then again, so was Superfly.

Mom, don't you think this shirt is a little bright?

"Well, you'll be easier to find after school after they turn the clocks back."

I could be easily seen from down the block and perhaps even Venus.

As I got older, the annual Genung's battle got more heated as I began to assert more and more power into my own clothing choice.  No, I don't like cuffs.  No, I don't want to wear a clip-on bowtie.  And white belts are for country clubs in Ohio.

Eventually, Mom gave up.  As all mothers do.

One more signal to the end of summer would be the television commercials on Channel 5 Metromedia in New York heralding the arrival of...

The Jerry Lewis Labor Day Telethon for Muscular Dystrophy.

Back in the day, the Jerry Lewis Telethon was done in New York, as I'm not sure Las Vegas had been invented yet.  And we watched it for all the wrong reasons.  Not because we were devoted to the charity.  Nope, we tuned it because it had all the promise of horrible television with heavy doses of schmaltz blended in.

Would Jerry make his monetary goal as predicted by co-host Ed McMahon in between swigs of some Budweiser?   Could Jerry possibly get through 21 hours on the air without a nap?  Would he break down and sob during his closing number, the ridiculously inappropriate "You'll Never Walk Alone?" 

You knew that, every year, it would be a car crash.  You just had to tune in for the exact moment of impact.

We used to watch along and my mom viewed it all with disdain.  You see, she was no fan of Jerry Lewis.  When I was a kid, his movies dominated the local cinemas and we were his target age group.  My mother wanted nothing to do with taking me to see his latest trash.  That job usually fell to my dad, who would conventiently doze off one reel into "The Errand Boy."

But, then, one Labor Day, there was a miracle...

My mom had just started a job in downtown Manhattan at an accounting firm, which just happened to be the official auditors for Muscular Dystrophy.  One year, she was asked to be part of the accounting staff to work at the telethon.

When she came home, I craved for details.  It's so bad on the screen.  Just how awful is it backstage?

A curveball flew out of my mother's mouth.

"That Jerry Lewis is quite a guy."

Huh?

"He is so devoted to those children.  It's like they're part of his own family."

Say what?

"There's a secret reason why he does this telethon, but he will only tell everybody after there is a cure."

Okay, just what was flowing from those water fountains down at the TV studio?

My mother had been transformed into a Jerry Lewis zealot.  In subsequent years, she watched the telethon with a different fervor.  I couldn't watch it with her again.  Instead, I had to hide in my bedroom with it shining from my black and white portable television.  I could easily giggle with the door closed.

And, for me, Labor Day just never was the same after that.

Dinner last night:  Grilled cheese sandwich at the Hollywood Bowl.

Classic TV Commercial of the Month - September 2021

 So, the 60s TV show, "Hazel" was one of the first TV programs to be done in color.  Why?  Because the sponsor was Ford and they wanted to show off all the new car colors.

Dinner last night:  Tortellini in marinara sauce.

The Labor Day Weekend Mugs - September 2021

 

Don't you just hate days like this???

Pick a hair color, please.

The good news is that she'll be perfect in that prison production of "Hairspray."

Actually, Stupid may have been with Stupider.

Good news, pops.  They don't serve ribs or corn in jail.

Man?  Woman?  Anybody?

Well, there goes one vote in 2012.

And there goes another one...

Wonder what she did to the groom.

Now, was shoplifting that 99 cent lipstick worth it?

Dinner last night:  Lasagna from my freezer.

The Sad State of the Dodger Dog

 

Ah, the memories.  And a reminder that good things don't last forever.

For years and seasons, the Dodger Dog was a delicious staple of going to a baseball game at Chavez Ravine.  With the meat supplied by longtime staple Farmer John, it is as part of Dodger baseball as the late Tommy Lasorda and the still-with-us Vin Scully.   The latter did the commercials for Farmer John, to boot.

Now, there were two versions of the Dodger Dog.   One was the regular, made with a combination of pork, beef, and the usual by-products.   It tended to the salty side. Who am I kidding?   It was the food equivalent of Lot's wife.

But the Super Dodger Dog was all beef and pure heaven.   You would go over to the condiment station and apply your favorite kind of mustard, ketchup (yes..if you mix it with the mustard for a tangy barbecue sauce), relish, and chopped onions.

All through the fan-less 2020 season, I craved the 2021 return to the Stadium and knew that my first Dodger Dog was going to taste so freakin' good.

Not so fast.

Somewhere between 2019 and April 2021, the Dodgers had dropped Farmer John as their hot dog supplier.   They were replaced by a local company named Cantella's and my first bite on Opening Day immediately told me this was something different...and not good.

The all-beef version had a peculiar aftertaste.   Almost bitter.   Over the course of the season, friends would also sample with similar reactions.    

"Metallic."

"Tastes like aluminum."

"This is beef???"

The other problem is that the horrible meat experience can no longer be drowned out by slathering on condiments.   In our COVID world, the condiment stations have been replaced by those annoying little packets you can only rip apart with your teeth and invariably drip onto your clothing.

I gave it one final try last Sunday.

I'm done.

Now I did a little research on Cantella's.   I had mistakenly been told it was Hispanic-owned.   But, apparently, they are Italian and have been around for years.   They are allegedly famous for their Italian sausage.   But, for frankfurters....apparently not.   

When it comes to hot dogs, I think of Wisconsin or Germany or Poland or even the Bronx.   I don't think of Italy.

Farmer John, you are now missed as much as Vin Scully.

Dinner last night:  Salad.

This Date in History - September 1

 

Put the hose down, kid. It's time to go back to school and learn. And you can start this first history lesson of the semester.

462: POSSIBLE START OF FIRST BYZANTINE INDICTION CYCLE.

Historians can't be more specific than that? The possible start? You've had over several centuries to get this right.

1532: LADY ANNE BOLEYN IS MADE MARCHIONESS OF PEMBROKE BY HER FIANCE, KING HENRY VIII OF ENGLAND.

This happened while she was still a head of the game.

1715: KING LOUIS XIV OF FRANCE DIES AFTER A REIGN OF 72 YEARS - THE LONGEST OF ANY MAJOR EUROPEAN MONARCH.

There are postal workers in this country who have been around longer.

1772: MISSION SAN LUIS OBISPO DE TOLOSA FOUNDED IN SAN LUIS OBISPO, CALIFORNIA.

Could they have spent at least a little time on getting more creative with a name?

1804: JUNO, ONE OF THE LARGEST MAIN BEST ASTEROIDS, IS DISCOVERED BY GERMAN ASTRONOMER KARL LUDWIG HARDING.

Later to be a pregnant teenager in a movie with the same name.

1836: NARCISSA WHITMAN, ONE OF THE FIRST ENGLISH-SPEAKING WHITE WOMEN TO SETTLE WEST OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS, ARRIVES AT WALLA WALLA, WASHINGTON.

Also one of the last.

1864: IN THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR, CONFEDERATE GENERAL JOHN BELL HOOD EVACUATES ATLANTA, GEORGIA AFTER A FOUR-MONTH SIEGE BY GENERAL SHERMAN.

Longtime Atlanta Braves manager Bobby Cox was not available for comment.

1870: IN THE FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR, THE BATTLE OF SEDAN IS FOUGHT.

Later to be followed by the Battle of Subcompacts.

1878: AFTER BEING RECRUITED BY ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL, EMMA NUTT BECOMES THE WORLD'S FIRST FEMALE TELEPHONE OPERATOR.

The very, very, very first ringy dingy.

1894: MORE THAN 400 PEOPLE DIE IN THE GREAT HINCKLEY FIRE, A FOREST FIRE IN HINCKLEY, MINNESOTA.

In 1981, the town changes its name to avoid confusion with a Presidential assassin.

1897: THE BOSTON SUBWAY OPENS, BECOMING THE FIRST UNDERGROUND RAPID TRANSIT SYSTEM IN NORTH AMERICA.

And shame on all of us who thought this happened in New York City.

1905: ALBERTA AND SASKATCHEWAN JOIN THE CANADIAN CONFEDERATION.

And, just in the National Hockey League, nobody really gives a shit.

1928: AHMET ZOGU DECLARES ALBANIA TO BE A MONARCHY AND PROCLAIMS HIMSELF KING.

Hey, if he wants that dump, let him have it.

1939: LILY TOMLIN IS BORN.

On the same day as the first female telephone operator. Does she even know this? Who's got her cell phone number?

1939: IN A PRELUDE TO WWII, NAZI GERMANY INVADES POLAND.

Meanwhile, in Washington, FDR poured himself another scotch and tuned into Eddie Cantor on the radio.

1950: DR. PHIL MCGRAW IS BORN.

Also marks the birth of quack psychologists.

1951: THE UNITED STATES, AUSTRALIA, AND NEW ZEALAND SIGN A MUTUAL DEFENSE PACT, CALLED THE ANZUS TREATY.

Thank God it was New Zealand and not Norway.

1969: TRAN THIEN KHIEM BECAME PRIME MINISTER OF SOUTH VIETNAM UNDER PRESIDENT NGUYEN VAN THIEU.

Who gives a flip? The Mets were on their streak towards their first World Championship!

1972: IN REYKJAVIK, ICELAND, AMERICAN BOBBY FISCHER BEATS RUSSIAN BORIS SPASSKY AND BECOMES THE WORLD CHESS CHAMPION.

Almost forty years later and I still don't care.

1985: A JOINT AMERICAN-FRENCH EXPEDITION LOCATES THE WRECKAGE OF THE TITANIC.

And we've been stuck with James Cameron ever since.

2006: NELLIE CONNELLY, WIFE OF TEXAS GOVERNOR JOHN CONNELLY, DIES.

And there goes the last survivor of that limo ride. So, Nellie, you can't say that God was very friendly with you on this day.

2012:  MUSICIAN HAL DAVID DIES.

Now Burt Bacharach is really stumped.

2015:  ACTOR DEAN JONES DIES.

Used Volkswagen for sale.

Dinner last night:  The pre-game buffet at the Dodger Stadium Club.