For this weekend's adventure Julie and I went to the Hollywood Bowl to see Pink Martini, this century's lounge band extraordinaire. It was fan-freakin'-tastic. Sold out crowd, gorgeous night, the band was just amazing. I like them even more now after hearing about where they find the music they choose to play. One song was from an Egyptian musical and the band consulted Arabic professors to make sure they pronounced everything right. At the end the orchestra played Bolero and they set off fireworks and huge plumes of flame over the Bowl. Great stuff.And Carol Channing was there! No kidding! At first I thought it strange to see her not talking to muppets, but from the moment she started talking she had all 17 thousand-plus people in that place wrapped around her little finger. It's like she breathes stage presence and she's 85 years old.
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See, there's just no way to really do Carol Channing justice. You can say she's amazing, and you can watch her on video, but seeing her live, I really feel like we witnessed such a rare and totally memorable experience. I doubt we'll have much longer to catch her live, period, but I'd recommend trying to see her, if at all possible.
OK, no exaggeration, watching her was tantamount to this experience I had in Indonesia in the rain forest. I was like, "Dude! This is so for real! When have I ever been in a for REAL jungle? When will it ever happen again? Look, a monkey! Holy crap! I never thought I'd see this except in movies."
It's that outstanding--you just can't believe someone could own the stage like she does.
So that's my attempt to capture the essence of it--but I don't think hyperbole can match experience in this case.
And speaking of things that were fantastic, the fireworks made me feel like I was six years old. I tend to not get excited about fireworks anymore, but I'm sure I had such a stupid grin on my face the entire time we were watching those.
Um, to clarify, I don't think Carol Channing is anything like a monkey.
What I mean is that those once in a lifetime experiences where you say, "That kicked ass!!!" are so rare. So jungle was one, and Carol Channing another.
Oh, and getting back together with Octo was another one!!!
That's funny because she was just in the news recently after her famous dress was stolen. It has since been recovered.
I thought she died long ago.
She mentioned that! Gave big props to the LAPD for finding it within 48 hours. She also said the dress was so heavy that if you took a bow while wearing it you'd chip your teeth.
Here I do all this bitching and then am out of the whole blog for days...
Sorry, bro! Excellent posts. I was going to comment on the whole dress thing w/carol channing, and then things got too crazy again.
Seems like you're living the LA lifestyle! I remember seeing James Brown there. The audience was just as fantastic as the show! TONS of gold teeth!!
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