Something fun we did in Hollywood

I've never posted a video before & hope it works.

We got a Groupon 50% off for this fun night.

We had SUCH a good time.

The show was presented in an old brick building. Mental Head Circus is what the show is called. The Hollywood showroom is called King King....don't ask why. They have various visiting entertainers, most of which wouldn't hold any interest for us.

The location is only 1 1/4 mile from our house but my knees just didn't want to chance walking it. We're lucky to have a bus just 2 doors from us on Hollywood Blvd so we jumped on for $.25 each (one way, senior off hour rate...HEY...gotta have something good about being an old fart, eh)

Inside King King was just like being in The Village (NY) in some underground jazz showroom/bar; or a loft with very high ceilings; or even like being @ the Moulin Rouge in Paris (only way smaller, darker & less touristy)

It was a smokey atmosphere (without smoke), had very low lighting (read "dark") & only about 12 cocktail tables & booths in total. There was a long bar where the people that had purchased "standing-room-only" tickets were gathered. (We did NOT buy THAT kind of ticket at half the price).

Cabaret-ish ,Cirque-ish- costumed people wandered the floor, Some serving drinks but most just adding to the mood. The costumes were a combination of a Cirque du Soleil with that of a turn-of-the-century brothel and a bit of Mardi Gras. Lots of eye candy for both men and women. You'll see it in the video link.

I wondered how the small stage was going to be able to put on the bawdy extravaganza of a show that was advertised. Once we looked UP we saw all kinds of apparatus hanging from the high ceiling. (Every bit of it was used in the show) So now we know!

The performers were VERY talented & seemed professionally trained in every aspect.

Oh one other thing we loved. Part of the dressing "room" was an area at our side of the stage (I'm glad we were on that side) .....with feathers, mirrors, corsets, headdresses, 2 dressing tables, hall trees & wall hooks with all kinds of colorful costume items hanging. Behind one of the hall trees was an iron circular staircase which let up to a platform that was also used in the show.

All in all it was not only entertaining but so appealed to our appreciation of theater, costuming , make-up, music, staging and most of all INTIMACY ! ( the intimacy was similar to one particular Cirque du Soleil show, "Zumanity")

Bottom line: We WOULD go back in a heartbeat....well, at least when Groupon offers another deal.

We got out about 11:30 & only needed to wait about 5 minutes for a bus to take us home.

With the kids in Alpharetta GA

We spent 16 nights with the “kids” in Alpharetta, Ga, ; a northern suburb of Atlanta.

It was wonderful spending time with family like that. Being an only child myself it’s a little foreign to me but much enjoyed. It was nice not feeling the need or desire to “go” anywhere & “do” something. Just hangin’ was really a lovely thing.

The oldest grandson, Cameron, had a project for school which Joey had fun “helping” with. He was like a kid himself. It took two days to do.

Joey bought an iPad & Jake (son-in-law) helped in getting it set up. I thought anything

APPLE was supposed to be easy…..not! Without Jake helping out we’d be fooling with it for ever ….I know! Example: my Iphone I’ve had for just over a year, well, the photo downloading using iTune is still a problem for me because my laptop I use when traveling is running out of hard disk space & it appears that every time I connect the iPhone to the laptop things get duplicated in the laptop taking up unnecessary disk space. As a result I haven’t even been connecting the iPhone to the laptop….I’m going to try again soon so I can add photos to this blog. Actually, it’s the videos that take up so much space. I use my iPhone a lot for videos too. There are still some in there from last year’s Mexico trip. Typical procrastinator that I am.. To be more truthful: I'm a scaredy cat.

We’ve found lots of fun Apps for the iPad & we’re both having fun with it.

While we were in Alpharetta Joey helped the kids paint some walls. He loves keeping busy & being useful so it was a win/win for all.

Our favorite food being Indian we went back to our favorite restaurant twice & even better than that…..Jamel & Jake’s next door neighbors are Pakistani & they had us over for dinner again. (they did last year as well) That was very special. We had interesting discussions about many things. Cultures, religions, families, life in general. It was quite enjoyable. Nice people

Joey & Jake went to play racket ball. Joey hadn’t done that in YEARS. Joey was sore the next day but said it was worth it & wish he’d had been able to do it again.

Anyway, here, I hope will be my first video transfer. It's of Joey & youngest grandson, Oliver playing a game on the new iPad:

Nashville,Tn to Alpharetta, GA via Jack Daniel's

It's only 250 miles but we spent the night in northern Georgia after driving only about 175 miles.

For one thing, I had forgotten about loosing one hour going from Tennessee into Georgia & that would have put us into Alpharetta after the Public Storage place for the trailer was closed.

Also, Thanks to daughter Jamel's suggestion, we spent about 1.5 hours in Lynchburg, Tn @ the Jack Daniel's Distillery. It was so very interesting. No tasting...it's a dry county!......BUT they got special permission in 1995 to sell "it" but not allow drinking it there. Due to the fact they got their license way back in 1866

& it's grandfathered-in they are allowed to continue to produce it there.

About half of the tour is outside & it was raining cats and dogs! Luckily, we had umbrellas & clogs so we fared pretty well. They always take a group photo outside but ours needed to be inside due to the rain:

It was a fascinating free tour. Nice free parking with room for the trailer too. Some people "blow-off" the freebies by buying the whiskey. They offered 5 varieties of Jack Daniel's Whiskey for sale. Each type had been explained to us on the tour about each. Don't ask!

If one buys all 5 types offered the cost is $216. The three that we bought are only distributed in Tennessee....thought that wise because we'd never be able to buy them anywhere else. Brilliant!

Anyway, the three came to about $126. I wish they had a handout with the explanations of each. They didn't so now I need to do some online research, I guess.

http://www.jackdaniels.com/

The three we bought are: d Old No. 7, Gentleman Jack and Jack Daniel's Single Barrel

What I knew about whiskey is only the spelling & that the Jack Daniel brand is a bit pricey & from their own website:

Is Jack Daniel's a bourbon?

Jack Daniel's is not a bourbon - it's a Tennessee Whiskey. Jack Daniel's is dripped slowly - drop-by-drop - through ten feet of firmly packed charcoal (made from hard sugar maple) before going into new charred oak barrels for aging. This special process gives Jack Daniel's Tennessee Whiskey its rare smoothness. It's this extra step - charcoal mellowing – that makes Jack Daniel's a Tennessee Whiskey.

Wikipedia has it wrong & calls it a bourbon whiskey. All Greek to me. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Daniel's an interesting story about Jack Daniel , the man & what killed him.

Why JD is NOT a bourbon: Jack Daniels is a Tennessee whiskey, which is a different style than what can legally be called "bourbon."

By definition, bourbon must be

1) produced in the US,

2) made from at least 51% corn,

3) aged in brand new, charred oak barrels, and

4) be distilled at no more than 160 proof.

Jack Daniels takes its aged whiskey out of the barrel and filters it through charcoal to "soften" it (this is where the definition of "Tennessee whiskey" came from.) You can't alter bourbon from the barrel to the bottle in any way, so JD loses the chance to call it bourbon legally, even if it met the four points above.

On a side note, Lynchburg, TN (which is where Jack Daniel's distillery is located) is located in a "dry" county - you can't drink any JD at the distillery, or legally buy it anywhere in the vicinity.

Well, now, ENOUGH IS ENOUGH.

Tornado! Say WHAT?

Well a big storm is coming into the Nashville area & we leave tomorrow morning. There are even tornado warnings just south of us here. It looks as if we'll be driving in rain most of our 250 mile drive from Nashville to Atlanta tomorrow.

At this moment, following the current storm is the only thing on almost all of the TV channels here right now....cannot get 60 Minutes on CBS. Oh well, following this storm is interesting. We have big rain sounds on our roof . I like that...no hail please.

We did go to the Grand Ole Opry for a second show, Saturday night. Some of it was exactly as on Friday. The good thing was that they inducted a new member, Blake Shelton. It was presented to Blake by his good friend Trace Adkins, another country singer. However, one night of the Opry would have been sufficient!

Earlier today we spent some time dumping the tanks so we wouldn't need to do it in the rain tomorrow when we're ready to leave here. Our site didn't have the sewer hookup so we needed hook up & drive to the main dump in the camp.

Once we had the trailer back into our campsite we disconnected the car again & drove off to the Lane Auto Museum. http://lanemotormuseum.org/

They have he largest Czechoslovakian collection outside Europe plus lots other European beautiful old cars

On the way back to camp we stopped to eat. There WAS a geocache near the parking lot of the restaurant but it was dark when we finished eating so we skipped it.

When we got back to camp we got the car all hooked up to the trailer. In the morning all we need to do is disconnect our electrical cord, slide in the popout & go.

As I type the local news is still following the storm. Tornado spottings, lightning strikes are up to 660 ....not a typing error. I guest I'd better get offline ....byeeee