If you love Harpo Marx, you're going to have a great time prowling around a new Harpo Site, kind of an online museum being operated by Harpo's son, Bill. Bill's a great guy and this is a great website and stop reading this message and go look around.
And if you don't love Harpo Marx...well, I really don't want to know you then and don't care what you do.
My friends in Los Angeles need to be aware of this. You know how if you parked at a parking meter and the meter turned out to be broken, you didn't have to pay? Well, you may not have known that but it doesn't matter. That's not how it works anymore. They're installing new, solar-powered meters and if you park at one and you can't put a coin in, you'll get a ticket. That's going to be real annoying.
I don't know how often this has happened: I'm going somewhere, fretting I'll be tardy for an important appointment...and there's no place to park. Around and around I drive, the level of fret increasing...
And then I spot an empty parking space!
I pull in, probably doing one of those time-consuming parallel jobs. I turn off my engine, unbuckle the old seat belt, gather what I need to gather, get out, head for the meter with coins in hand —
— and the meter's busted.
Now, I knew that in L.A. you didn't have to pay then but sometimes this happens in an outlying area like Santa Monica...and I'm not certain it's not different there. Sometimes also, I can't see why the meter isn't working and I fear it'll be fine once I leave my car there and go off...and I'll return to a ticket. Once in a while, I'll get back in the car and go off to find another space...and I realize that the reason that space was empty was because someone else either thought like I did or didn't know that it's ever legal to park at a busted meter.
Well, now it's not. So what's going to happen is that those spaces will be vacant and we'll all pull our cars into them, turn off our engines, unbuckle our seat belts, etc. — and then find out that the meter's broken and we can't park there. Like I said, that's going to be real annoying.
It's been a while since I've mentioned Big Daddy here. Big Daddy was a local (L.A.) band I followed for a number of years...a group of fine musicians who had a great gimmick. They'd take contemporary rock hits — the stuff that was then on the charts — and redo those songs in the style of the fifties...you know, kind of like, "What if Michael Jackson's latest record had been recorded in 1958 by the Platters?" That kind of thing. They were very clever and funny...and I liked their versions of some songs better than the hit versions. Alas, they no longer perform or record and most of their albums and CDs are outta print...though you can buy or download this one.
I linked to a couple of videos of their work here, here, here, here, here, here and even here. Today's video is someone's home movie from back when Big Daddy worked at Disneyland. They'd start each set by playing real fifties music and then segue over to their anachronistic delights. My thanks to Brighton Roc for telling me about this one...
September 8, 2010
