Today was a travel day. I flew direct from Sea-tac to
Burbank. Of course, Southwest Airlines thinks direct involves a long stopover in Oakland.
The flight was OK. Nothing stellar. Flight crew was grumpy. Full flight. Talked to a nice guy at the airport who just underwent carpal tunnel surgery and was flying back home to recuperate.
Picked up my rental car at Budget, which was a very quick and friendly experience.
Even got the free upgrade to the Mitsubishi Eclipse. Vroom, vroom, baby. I
was rolling in LA in a fast mofo of a car. Fun to drive. Drove over to my Uncle’s
house, my base of operations for the week.
We then picked up my folks at the SAME airport a few hours later. This time
we went straight to dinner and then to the Hollywood
Bowl to check out the
Hollywod Bowl Orchestra and Cachao’s Mambo All-Stars. The first half was the
orchestra playing mostly Cuban-style tunes from composers, but not any authentic
Cuban stuff. The 10,000+ people in attendance wanted more, and we got it after
intermission. The Cachao Mambo All-Stars came out and just tore it up, then
were joined by the hottest salsa dancers I’ve every seen.
The movie-related
part of the evening was proud acknowledgment of the film industry, music, and
history in Hollywood, by conductor, Thomas Wilkins. No shame, embarassment,
etc. People there love that they live there, I must say, I loved that too.
10K people listening to Cuban Mambo is a nice way to spend the evening, outdoor,
in nice weather.
