City of Stars

Though I try to blog every evening, before I turn off the light, there are occasionally good reasons why I don’t.  Sometimes, there’s no internet connection (and that might happen in the coming days) but just once in a while, we’ve been out on the razzle and it’s simply too late.

Guess which box I ticked last night?

We woke to an altogether clearer day, with blue skies and a view.  You know what we were looking for?

So here we were, with another day in the City of Stars to look forward to!

First things first: breakfast!

Canters has always been a favourite and with no plans for the morning beyond an 11am meeting to make last minute arrangements for tomorrow, it was an easy decision to make.

Portions are…HUGE!  But the corned beef hash fan was more than satisfied and the Challah French Toast girl did her best to do it justice.

Well, we have to try, don’t we?  Perhaps it wasn’t as fancy as yesterday’s, but my goodness, it tasted great!

As we paid the bill at the counter, we spotted that we’re not the only ones who drop in.

I believe we even sat in those seats, too.

Driving back along Fairfax, we meandered through the roadworks and wondered what that building is (The Petersen Automotive Museum) – maybe one on the list for our next visit?

Back at the hotel, business done and all arrangements for tomorrow sorted, we hopped back in the car and headed out towards Mary’s.  Instead of the freeway, we took the Beverly Glen route, taking that same old sharp intake of breath as we hit Sunset!  (it never fails!)   Our plan was to meet Mary and Diana in Sherman Oaks, because they had made plans.

Strangely, in the twenty or so years we’ve been coming here, we’ve never done a “real” Studio Tour.  We’ve been to the theme parks and seen mock up studios, but the real thing?  Never! 

Diana works just a step from here, so had got us all tickets and with passports in hand and closed-toe-shoes, we checked in as instructed.

Whilst we waited, we scanned the posters: Just what programmes do Warner Bros make?  (The answer was the RIGHT ONE!)

with our chariot awaiting and guide Mark (not my hero!) off we went.

(I know that in my photographs, it looks like we had the place to ourselves.  We didn’t!  It was actually a bit of a zoo, but we’ll blank out that bit and pretend, shall we?  After all, the whole place is a bit of make believe!)

We drove through backlots, simple frontages built of lightweight materials with nothing behind them and mostly, empty shells inside too.  Having said that, some of these streets have been standing for many years and have featured in many movies.  As we drove, Mark listed them, but not being any kind of film afficionado, I’m afraid I couldn’t begin to tell you what they were!

But as soon as we reached the “New England Town Square” I knew immediately that we were in Stars Hollow!  Just one thing was missing: the gazebo.

That’s because it’s on wheels and it was parked in a spot marked “Gazebo parking only”.

At this point, Mark invited us inside one of the structures on the square, to show the empty shell and for us to see some of the sets in context.  The Music Man scene 76 Trombones had been filmed here too, but judging from the reaction of our group, we were all after just one thing:

Where is Luke’s Diner?  Doose’s store? 

There!  Luke’s on the corner, Doose’s on the next one, back there.  And yes, when we watched The Music Man, sure enough, the marching band are coming out of Stars Hollow High School and marching past Luke’s Diner and through the square.  Hmm.  Takes the magic away, doesn’t it!?

We wandered around, spotting familiar settings, though of course, everything looked very bleak and empty without all the dressing that brings it to life.

I mean, Rory’s “thinking tree” from Yale?  Again, one for the GG fans, but who would have recognised it? (We’ll watch again when we are home and try to see how it was all staged)

Anyway, as we drove around the lot, we made short stops here and there, including a few minutes at the archive, where there were several of the comic book characters and some Harry Potter artefacts.

I’m not really familiar with any of that, but I did find these shoes from Suicide Squad rather curious.

and my attention was grabbed by the folded map from Harry Potter.

A little further along, our tour took us inside a sound stage, where we had to put cameras away and agree not to share any details, for current sitcom scenes are being filmed here and any hint of them on social media creates havoc.  We saw the sets of The Big Bang Theory which could have meant more to me if I watched it!  It was all fascinating, but by now, we were flagging a little, finding the little transporter cart tricky to get in and out of and getting increasingly irritated my Mark’s constant “you guys” in his commentary.

Thankfully the next stop grabbed our attention and brought us back in line.  It was the prop store – not called that, I think, but that’s what this enormous four storey warehouse contained.

Everything is bar coded and tracked and when a set designer comes in to choose items for a show or a movie, they tag the item they wish to use.

Here were a variety of collections of everything imaginable.

need a phone?

or a phone?  Better get the era right, because you know how those eagle eyed viewers spot every anachronism!

Next time we need a replica of the White House, we know where there’s a desk for hire – complete with stiletto heel bruises from Lady Gaga dancing on it in a music video.

Some items are of limited use.

Others could never be used again in quite the same way.

with one last short stop in the Batman vehicle collection, our tour was over.  It was at least a couple of hours since we’d set out and actually, all four of us were a little overwhelmed.

So when we were dropped off at the area where we could see the process of making a movie, from script to screen, we wished that we had started here instead.  This was a really fascinating area and not really one to rush through.

I really enjoyed seeing the storyboards

the original drawings

and the awards won by some of the people who work here.

Some of the film stars were here too, including my favourite Emmet Brickowski.  Leaving through the gift shop, wishing we’d had longer but knowing we’d also had long enough, we were headed for “the real thing”.

City of Stars… next stop, Hollywood Boulevard! 

Just time for a quick, pre-theatre bite to eat.

Though we are all too familiar with the marvellous Shake Shack, it’s pretty new here and causing quite a stir.

Diana snagged us a table and before long, our little buzzer was flashing and buzzing and jumping around the table to tell us our order was ready.

We made it in good time for her to collect tickets for tonight’s hot show, The King and I.

The Pantages Theatre is something to behold!  Even the foyer is spectacular, though the interior is altogether in a different time and age.  This is most certainly the Hollywood we imagine.

Diana, a season ticket holder here, had managed to get us four great seats in the auditorium and for almost three hours, we sat and enjoyed spectacular singing and dancing in this most lavish setting.

Wow.

There could be no better way to close the first part of our adventure here in the city of stars.  This morning, we are packed and our luggage is ready to be transported to the next stage of our journey.

We’ll see you there!

Along the Freeway

Before we hit the road this morning, I thought I’d share last night’s TV viewing: The Great American Baking Show   (apparently someone else owns the right to the “bake off” name).  Right from the start, it was uncannily familiar and yet, not the same at all.  The title sequence with the raspberries was almost but not quite identical and the set was very familiar indeed.  My Hero decided to google it, to find out if they’d cloned the tent and all the trimmings but discovered that it had been filmed in the same location as the original British show.  It made for interesting viewing and led us to think that Love Productions are indeed making a fortune from that show.  Nevertheless, it really was nothing without Mel and Sue, even though Mary Berry was doing her best to keep it together.

Still on the topic of TV, we always enjoy the huge billboards around LA and along the perimeter of Fox studios, adjacent to our hotel there’s a series including this one, definitely new to me!

We were heading out to meet Mary at her new apartment before going out for breakfast.  The 405 freeway was pretty busy at this time of the day so we lost no time in getting across four or five lanes of traffic to reach the HOV lane.

European friends will love this facility as much as we do – if there are just 2 or more people in the vehicle, then you’re allowed to sweep past all the traffic by driving in the dedicated lane.  What’s more shocking: the fact that this lane is almost empty or the fact that all those lanes of slow moving vehicles contain only one person each?!  Anyway, we were soon past the Getty Museum high on the rocky outcrop and in no time at all, were turning into the San Fernando Valley and Mary’s parking garage.

Her new place is simply lovely but delighted as we were to take a look around, we were ravenous.  Thankfully it’s only a step to one of the best breakfast cafes in the area: The Blu Jam cafe whose speciality is my favourite breakfast, french toast!  Yes, it was as delicious as it appears – and the portion size was as huge.  So, could I manage all of that?  You bet!

Suitably fortified, we jumped in our car and headed along Ventura, making a couple of short stops before driving towards our destination for today.

The Richard Nixon Presidential Museum and Library.

Regular blog readers will know that we love to visit such places. Politics aside, we find we learn an immense amount of American history, get an inside view of events of which we have only the sketchiest knowledge and of course, learn a little about the man himself.  Previous Presidential Libraries have been variable in quality: the best have offered an objective view, warts and all.   The least successful was superficial and lacked rigour and objectivity.  How would we feel about this one, we wondered?

There’s a striking image in the foyer; that familiar portrait and an absolutely enormous Presidential seal set in the floor.  We went straight inside and watched the video presentation as an introduction, being plunged straight away into the Watergate scandal – this was going to pull no punches, it seemed.

The docent who had barked at us to “use our swivel heads” was there in the replica Oval Office, inviting us to sit at the desk and have photographs taken.  Declining politely (I always feel that an Englishwoman has no place in that seat!) I nevertheless appreciated a view of the contents of the President’s desk drawer, contrasting it with that of another Oval Office desks I’d seen recently.  This was definitely that of a more serious, thoughtful man.

The reason we’d been told to “swivel our heads” was that there was a helicopter in the next display, telling the story of Vietnam.  It took over where we’d left off on our visit to LBJ’s library and was well explained and the information was effectively presented.

The interpretation seemed fair to me, a foreigner with no underpinning knowledge of the circumstances.  I found the detail interesting, especially the piles and piles of letters sent to the President following his invitation to “the silent majority”.

I recalled the hundreds of index cards on which Ronald Reagan had written notes when viewing the hundreds of yellow lined notepads on which Richard Nixon scribbled his thoughts.  Being a scribbler of thoughts myself, I found these intriguing if somewhat illegible.

I also found it interesting that the President’s meeting with Elvis was given a fairly prominent place in the story when, according to the daily record of activity, the meeting lasted no more than 30 minutes at the most.

And of course, the section on Nixon in China was fascinating.

But of course, there had been an elephant in the room all along.  The story we’d all heard of and yet about which I knew very little.

I think the details were well displayed – a timeline on one side, with accurate records of what happened when and actual artefacts and photographs opposite.  The “missing five minutes” of tape recording was an important part of the story and seeing two telephones with an invitation to listen into “those missing minutes”, Mary and I picked up the receivers and put them to our ears.  What did we hear?  Well not much at all, of course!  How silly we were…what did we think we’d hear?!  Actually, there were nine clicks and pops, each one registered and heavily investigated – but otherwise, no secrets to hear.

Reaching the end of the Watergate story, we seemed to be at the end of the President’s story too, but actually it went a little further.  A couple more rooms gave details of his childhood and of his romance with his wife, Pat.  Another outlined the challenges he faced having stepped down from the Presidency.

Sorry, a bit blurry, but “no reason to live, no cause to fight for” sums it up well.  What does a man who had spent almost his entire adult life in public office do?  Well, it appears to have not been easy at all for the Nixons and it took a decade or more for him to begin to find his niche again.

A display of popular culture prompted Mary to recall how she’d enjoyed the movie Elvis and Nixon and my hero to remember that he had enjoyed Frost and Nixon as well.  We made mental notes to seek them out and watch once again, with the added knowledge gained from our visit here.

We ended our visit with a quick look at Richard Nixon’s boyhood home.  A small, simple wooden house which still stands  in the original location in the garden of the library.

Just to the side of the small house are the graves of the former President and his wife who died within a year of one another.  It seemed a good place to finish our visit.

As we left, we walked through the well tended gardens, one of which was planted with winter cabbages.  Each one had a single drop of water in the centre, glistening like a diamond in the sunshine. 

Of course, we each had our own opinions on what we’d learned and we shared them as we walked.  How different those times were, though, with cassette tapes and a paper trail of notes to follow.  It all seemed so unsophisticated and at times, rather amateurish.  Surely it couldn’t happen again today with more effective security controls in place?

Or?

La La Land

Oh, Albert Hammond, you have set the theme for these few days!

Our sweet friends had made note of the weather forecast this morning and soon, Plan B was swung into action.  That’s the Rainy Day plan, by the way and shortly after 10 this morning, we were driving through pretty heavy rain towards Thousand Oaks and a very spiffy cinema.

Even though we didn’t have far to go between the car and the cinema, we still got soaked.  Not what we’d imagined, though thankfully, we did wear our raincoats!

Going to the cinema here is a comfortable experience, especially when our sweet cinema-going friends book the super-duper theatre for us.  The slightly reclining seats were large, plush and yes, there were still bits of popcorn everywhere!

We were there to see the film we’d wanted to see since we first heard of it. 

La La Land. 

How appropriate!  We settled into our seats and as soon as the opening scene began, we knew we were in for a treat.  So many familiar locations, such sweet characters and the music…oh well, Albert Hammond’s little earworm was immediately overwritten as we began to hum or whistle a new, equally insistent tune.

We loved it!

It was a great way to close the first half of the first part of our adventure.  Whilst my hero went to pick up our rental car, Ellis and I listened to the soundtrack again, mulling over what we loved about the movie and thinking what a brilliant idea it had been to watch it whilst we are here.

Saying a temporary ‘bye to Ellis and Mary (we’ll see them again soon), my hero and I headed for the freeway and with an ever-changing sky above us, made our way into Los Angeles.

Turning onto Santa Monica Boulevard, we were on familiar territory again and we smiled as we spotted landmarks from previous visits.  Have I said how we love it here?

In little more than five minutes, those skies had darkened again and threatened more rain. 

But thankfully, the rain held off and we reached our hotel on Avenue of the Stars in the dry.  From the balcony of our suite on the 5th floor, we have a fine view of downtown and an ever-changing arrangement of clouds which I love to watch.

We’d arranged to meet Mary and Diana to go for supper tonight and as we arrived in the hotel lobby, there they were.  We sat in a couple of plush sofas to catch up a while and decide who was going to drive, which car we’d take and so on and as we did, a couple walked past, doing a double-take as they did.

“Gill and Mark Thomas!”  

Good grief.  There we were, sitting in a Los Angeles hotel lobby and someone recognises us!?  What?!  

It didn’t take long for us to recognise them too.  We’d met Sue and Don from Iowa when we were in South America last year and sure enough, their travel plans for Sunday bear an uncanny resemblance to ours    How lovely to seen them again!

Our dinner plans were focused on an LA institution: The Apple Pan.  We snagged four seats at the counter and placed our orders for Hickoryburgers and fries.  We made sure we left room for dessert – Mary went for a slice of pecan pie and my hero couldn’t resist his favourite apple pie, but Diana and I had to share a pecan slice and ice cream between us.  Delicious!

We’ve had such a great couple of days and as we returned to the hotel, we reflected on how lovely it is to have such sweet friends.  What lucky ducks we are!

We love it here

Ah, California.  It rained most of the night and was still wet when we put our noses out of the door this morning.  But slowly, very slowly, the clouds cleared and by the time we were out and about the sky was turning blue and the air was clearing.

You are never far from a film set around here and sure enough, there on the street, a new Disney movie Magic Camp was being filmed.

There around the corner was the actors’ trailer park – not quite as glamorous as it often appears.

We were heading out of town, driving northwards through interesting landscape with lush vegetation like these pepper trees, laden with berries.

Orange groves with heavily laden branches dripping with fruit.  Ah yes, California.

The Sunkist lemon groves were on both sides of the road, interspersed with fields of kale, broccoli and strawberry plants.

We made a stop at Mary’s favourite Nut House and came away with a few treats.

Bulls Eye candy.  Yum!

Back then onto the road through the fruit farms.

As the clouds parted, a lovely landscape opened up.  I’d think those lemons are ready to harvest, wouldn’t you say?

Soon we could see the ocean and our destination was within reach.

We were heading for Santa Barbara, approaching it through the smart town of Montecito, one of the most desirable places to live in the USA and home to many celebrities. 

 

Having parked the car, we were reminded of one such celebrity and of the time we saw his show live in Las Vegas, some years ago.  Yes, he’s still going strong!

Our first stop in Santa Barbara was a small gallery with a current selling exhibition of 100 small works of art.  They were beautifully displayed.

Almost all were sold, too.

Outside the Santa Barbara Art Museum, our main destination, were rather older works: a series of murals by the artist David Alfaro Siqueras, protected by an overhang and looking really good as a result.

No photographs permitted inside, so I’ll simply share the link and highlight the Judith Shea’s Mid Life Venus and Christian Marclay’s  Telephones as immediate hightlights for me.   We’d seen – and been enchanted by – Marclay’s work before, when we saw his Clocks in the New York Metropolitan Boston Institute of Fine Art and this collection of film clips was equally fascinating.  As we began our look around, one of the docents offered us a brief guided tour of five main exhibits, an offer which we accepted gladly.  Irene’s enthusiasm and extensive knowledge made our visit really special and by focusing on just a few lovely pieces we gained a great deal from it.

Before setting off home, we took a look at the Mission, one of many such places in this part of California.  Set amongst cacti with a backdrop of mountains, it was most attractive – though those clouds were starting to look rather ominous.

But as is often the way in such places, our attention was caught by the slightly odd sight of a man wheeling a trolley of saints across the plaza.

It could have been a scene from many a comedy show – just what was going on do you think?

(Thank you, Crisy, for giving me the answer in the comments below - now, why on earth did I not think of that, especially since there were other clues about the nativity scene which had been there right in front of us!)

Rather than watch saints being wheeled about though, we thought it was probably time to head for somewhere dry.

We made it back down the coast and got home just as it started to rain.  Sorry about the reflection!

What a lovely day we’ve had.  This evening, sitting around a table with a group of friends, we all counted our blessings –how lucky we are to be in such a great part of the world!

He took his tie off somewhere over Greenland

It’s been a funny old day. 

We began at LHR Terminal 5, making our way through the various stages which precede boarding flight BA 283 to Los Angeles.

It’s always interesting flying to this, one of our favourite destinations, for our fellow passengers are frequently of the, lets say, more colourful variety.  This time, the young man attracting my attention (and who ended up sitting just in front of me on board) was dressed head to toe in camel coloured jersey and had sunglasses with emerald green lenses.  I wonder what the world looks like through them?  Yes, green, I suppose

Our 747 awaited us, our favourite seats booked and ready.  We had a mere 10 hours 50 minutes to spend doing not very much, so I took my time and did all three sudoku puzzles in the paper before even thinking about switching the TV on. 

Strangely, Sudoku puzzles are so much easier after a glass of champagne.  Of perhaps, its only after a glass of champagne that the Super Fiendish ones can be completed?  I mean, does anyone ever check those answers?!

After lunch I began by watching First Date; a programme I’d heard friends discussing but had never seen before.  By that time I was feeling a little sleepy, so I put on Desert Island Discs and fell asleep to Jilly Cooper, only waking up again when a scientist whose name I don’t remember chose “Wind Beneath my Wings” for his wife – not my favourite anyway but a cliched and patronising thought, in my opinion.

My hero had pointed out one of the video selections – a two hour concert by my favourite Hunkentenor Jonas Kaufmann, which I decided to watch next.  The concert was from La Scala Milan and had been recorded in 2015 with a programme of works by Puccini.

Wow.

We were somewhere over Greenland when he took his tie off and brought the house down with Nessun Dorma, stumbling over the words on one section, much to the amusement of the audience.  What a grand way to pass the time crossing the Atlantic, eh?

Fortified by that, the remainder of the flight passed without incident.  I watched Bridget Jones Baby (cute ending) and Me Before You (surprisingly touching), finishing off with one of George Clarke’s renovation projects as we made our approach for landing.

Tonight, we are comfortably snooked into the Casita at our friends’ Hilltop Hacienda just north of LA, having been gathered up from our flight and driven here in super quick time through heavy rain showers.  The clock reads 9.06pm, this laptop says it’s 07.03am and my body hasn’t a clue what day of the week it is, let alone what the time might be.  All I know is that it’s a long long time since I got up this morning.

Our adventure awaits – but first, zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz