Dare I mention him again? Here’s Big Loo hiding out in an curio shop in Japan.

Mom was in town for the Mother’s Day weekend, so we were out doing some fun touristy stuff; among them, a visit to Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum in Hollywood! Enjoy the show!

I’ve written about Big Loo before – one of my most memorable Christmas gifts ever.

I was just cruising the ‘Net this afternoon and stumbled across this image – looks like he got himself a date!

Merry Christmas, everyone – I hope you each get your fondest wish this year.

My RP Rhonda and I had the good fortune to join a sold-out crowd at the Hollywood Bowl for the Sing-A-Long Sound Of Music on Saturday Sept. 26. I have some pictures to share with you of this fantastic event. Read more…

This picture isn’t blurry – that’s what I looked like at 5:07 AM
on Easter Sunday morning!

I suppose I should start by saying that I’m a member of the Los Robles Master Chorale, directed by Lesley Leighton. Ms. Leighton was recruited to direct the mass choir for the 88th annual Hollywood Bowl Easter Sunrise Service. She arranged to have members of the LRMC serve as the core of the 240-voice mass choir. After two rehearsals at the Hollywood Women’s Club, the day finally arrived for the dress rehearsal at the Bowl on Saturday, April 11. What follows is my story of my first time at the Hollywood Bowl.

Read more…

It’s time for our fifth annual appearance of this priceless gallery of kids who are terrified of Jolly Old Saint Nick.

I direct your attention to a wonderful 82-picture slideshow released by the Obama campaign of candid shots of the Obamas as election night rolled on – in their hotel suite watching the returns, and headed for Grant Park for the acceptance speech. Brought tears to my eyes!

Barack Obama’s slideshow on Flickr

I’ve really been enjoying ‘The Three Stooges Collections’ from Sony Pictures. They’ve released four DVD volumes so far, from their very first short released in 1934, to the most recent release this month which takes them to 1945. Sony now owns Columbia Pictures, who ‘owned’ the Stooges while they made the 190 film shorts that will ultimately be released on DVD. Sony has remastered every film in high definition, and is releasing them in chronological order. They filmed their final short at the end of 1957, so there are several volumes to come.

But I digress.

One of the shorts I watched recently was ‘An Ache In Every Stake’, released in August of 1941. Most Stooge fans (and even a few people who aren’t) will remember this episode where the knuckleheads are delivering huge chunks of ice to a woman at the top of a seemingly endless flight of outdoor stairs. So recently I decided to take a little field trip to where this classic was filmed.

I had learned the location of the staircase, in Silver Lake, just east of Hollywood. I programmed the address into my car’s navigation system and soon I was on my way. The nav system was a little bit flummoxed, though, and I had to drive a little outside its directions until I got to within a block or two of the stairs. The streets were very narrow and steep, so I decided to park and walk up the street to my destination. And just getting to the foot of the stairs was STEEP! My calves complained for several days afterward, but I finally arrived.

The first thing that struck me was how overgrown the hillside had become in the intervening 67 years. As you can see in the picture below, the vegetation on the hillside was pretty low. See the woman way up at the top?

Now, though, the vegetation is lush and rampant, including a eucalyptus tree on the left that proved to be problematic:

The bottom of the stairs, however, was just about exactly the same as in this picture from the film:

Note the sewer cover at the bottom – I do believe it is the exact same one as in the shot above. The railing is the same, everything! To think that I climbed the same steps as Moe and Curly!

Once Curly got to the top of the staircase, his block of ice was a mere cube of itself. Note the little cul-de-sac that’s seen to his right.

This is where that eucalyptus came into play – when I climbed to the top of the staircase (147 steps, by the way), the tree completely blocked the view. So I had to settle for a shot from a landing a flight or two down from the top. You can still get the idea, and the view of the cul-de-sac is still there.

The staircase is itself at the end of a cul-de-sac, which is not really evident in the film, so the end of the road where the staircase is may have been altered over the years for some reason or another.

In any case, things like this give me a real sense of Hollywood history. I happened across Larry’s final resting place when exploring Forest Lawn cemetary when I first moved here, and maybe I’ll pay my respects to Moe (who’s buried in the same Jewish cemetary as Al Jolson, by the way) and Curly, maybe even Shemp. In the meantime, I’ll continue to enjoy The Three Stooges in digital perfection from the comfort of my own couch. Soitenly!

Scenes from a woman’s apartment – and this is one of the tamer shots,

Now I don’t feel so bad about my place…

How can anyone live like this? (pics)

Damage from Ike in the Galveston TX area is estimated to be between 8 and 18 BILLION dollars.

These images are incredible: The short – but eventful – life of Ike – The Big Picture – Boston.com