Am I Blue?

On October 20, 2017, various buildings and fountains throughout Los Angeles were bathed in blue light in honor of the Los Angeles Dodgers being in the World Series (first time since 1988).

The Dodger ultimately lost to the Houston Astros, but for a time the City of Angels was feeling Blue

Los Angeles City Hall

Downtown Fountains

Celebrity Sightings

Even a she-beast has to watch her figure.
The Bride of Frankenstein considers her healthy food options at a Fresh and Easy market in Hollywood

Off-season Santa Claus abandons the cold of the North Pole and settles into a modest home in Hollywood. The newly installed satellite dish assures of an entertainment-filled downtime until December 25th!

Flipper: The Retirement Years

Lady Liberty's shorter (about 30 ft), fatter sister, lives in El Monte, California and can usually be seen outside of the city's Civic Center. If the weather is good.

One of the stars from ABC's hit 2011 TV show "Pan Am" was so excited at the show's unexpected leap in ratings, she literally jumped out of her costume. That moment is commemorated in this bus shelter ad in West Hollywood, Ca,

After the flop release of their debut film "Doctor Dolittle" in 1968, beloved Hollywood power-couple, The Pushmi-Pullyu, soon divorced. Here is Pushmi (or Pullyu) at his retirement home in Chowchilla, Ca.

You Actually CAN Stop The Music

Billboard on Sunset Blvd in Los Angeles, CA promoting the film, "Can't Stop The Music" 1980

This billboard, promoting the Village People disco-musical "Can't Stop the Music" graced Sunset Blvd near the corner of Laurel Canyon. The billboard itself actually had a traffic-stopping, star-studded, red-carpet, unveiling ceremony on  "Can't Stop The Music Day" (Thank you, mayor Tom Bradley). The red carpet extended from the billboard all the way to the door of the famous Schwab's drugstore.
Long after the movie  - a monumental flop -  had disappeared from theaters, this billboard was still up.
For more info on the making of this memorably bad film, check out the book "Party Animals: A Hollywood Tale of Sex, Drugs, and Rock & Roll Starring the Fabulous Allan Carr" by Robert Hofler

What We Have Have Made Is Real: We Are In Xanadu

Back in 2002, at a Santa Monica, California exercise studio, dancer Ken Anderson held a "Xanadu-Weekend" of special classes and events in celebration of the iconically camp 1980 movie starring Olivia Newton-John and Gene Kelly. Here is the entrance to the studio, retrofitted and created exclusively by Bruce Zwinge to capture the look and feel of the roller disco in the movie. The huge "Xanadu" sign is plywood and the terrific Pan Pacific Auditorium "fins" that grace the doorway are ingeniously crafted out of cardboard.

Bruce Zwinge & Ken Anderson

Bruce Zwinge's construction of the famous Pan Pacific Streamline Moderne fins in various states of completion.
Hard to believe that one man was responsible for transforming the old Voight fitness studio into a real-life Xanadu for this special event. His work is nothing short of AMAZING!

Workshop Close up of Bruce Zwinge's construction of the enormous ELO logo that graced the wall of the studio for the Xanadu Weekend classes (pic of final result, below)

Bruce Zwinge made 6 "Xanadu Flags" to adorn the interior of the studio. Each flag has an airbrushed "X" on it in the familiar Xanadu font. Photo is of the flags in his workshop. Hard to get a sense of scale here, but the flagpoles were well over 6 feet tall and the flags themselves were the size of three king-sized sheets

For more info about that special weekend, check out this link: http://www.xanadu-fitness.com/news.html

HOLLYWOOD CHRISTMAS PARADE

  

The 2010 Hollywood Christmas Parade.

First presented in 1928 when it was known as

The Santa Clause Lane Parade, this fun tradition has had an increasingly troubled history.

Though local kids love it, local celebrities find little publicity value in it and the parade struggles to find celebrities younger than Mickey Rooney to appear in it each year.

77 year-old Larry King was 2010's Grand Marshall. Enuf said.

Personally, I think it would be great if the parade featured Hollywood vets and legends, but the demands of television sponshorship require a young (money spending) viewership, thus making it necessary for the parade to include a plethora of  unrecognizable, interchangable non-stars from music, motion pictures and the Disney Channel clone factory. The parade of young and old /famous and forgotten has the comical effect of having the marching bands nearly drowned out by shouts of  "Who the hell is that?"  echoing along the parade route.

2010 marked the first appearance of Macy's-style balloons, and the newly cleaned-up Hollywood Blvd certainly puts on its best face for the event.

Go Fly A Kite

Kite Surfers in Long Beach

LET'S GO FLY A KITE

"The Award for Best Intersection Goes To..."

Oscar makes an appearance at Hollywood and Highland

Hollywood, Ca.