Encore post: Bowled over

I'm sure you've heard by now this year's season at the Hollywood Bowl has been cancelled due to COVID-19. Not the band, the virus.

Four years ago I wrote this piece about the bowl. Having grown up in Los Angeles, it holds a special place in my heart for a few of the reasons you'll read about here. It makes me sad I won't be going there until at least next year.

But they made the right decision. Because when I go, the only thing I want to worry about is how good the seats are, not how fast the ambulance can get up the hill.

Anyway, I suggest you read this out on your porch or backyard patio, under the night sky just to set the mood.

Shhhh! The lights are going down, and the post is about to start. Please to enjoy.

I've played the Hollywood Bowl.

Ok, not exactly played. I've walked across the stage in front of an audience. My high school graduation was held at the Hollywood Bowl, and it might've been the most awesome part of high school except for the time I talked my Consumer Law and Economics teacher Mr. Blackman into thinking he'd lost my final term paper (if my kids are reading this, don't even think about it). He gave me an A, but I still feel bad about it.

Having grown up an L.A. kid, I've seen plenty of concerts at the Bowl, so many I can't remember them all.

I saw The Eagles take it easy. If you could read my mind you'd know I also saw Gordon Lightfoot. When school was out for summer I saw Alice Cooper.

I've seen Bruce Springsteen and Jackson Browne perform together (I know, I'm as shocked as you are) for Survival Sunday 4, an anti-nuke benefit concert.

It's getting to the point I remember Crosby Stills and Nash belting out Suite: Judy Blue Eyes. I can absolutely confirm the Go-Go's got the beat. I saw Laurie Andersen do whatever the hell it was she was doing. I've seen Steve Martin getting wild and crazy with Edie Brickell while fireworks were going off in the sky.

There have been many, many more, but you get my drift.

Not all my memories are happy ones. There was the night my pal David Weitz and I were driving in my 1965 Plymouth Fury. Highland Avenue was jammed because of the show at the Bowl, so we turned up into the surrounding hills to see if we could find a shortcut around it. Out of nowhere, a police car appeared behind us, lights flashing. The officers told us through the speakers to get out of the car slowly with our hands up. We were young, but we weren't stupid. We knew this was serious.

Once we were out of the car, hands up, they got out of their car with guns drawn and pointed right at us. They told me to open the trunk, which I did slowly and with my hands in sight at all times. They didn't find whatever they were looking for, and after checking our I.D.'s, they let us go. Apparently we fit the description of two guys who'd been robbing the hillside homes recently. I figured the description was brutally handsome and incredibly funny.

Anyway, the reason my mind's on the Bowl is because a week from tonight, I'll be there again, not on stage, but watching the first J.J. Abrams' Star Trek with the Los Angeles Philharmonic playing the score alongside the movie. It should be a great night.

If you've never been there, or it's been awhile, you owe it to yourself to go. It truly is one of the greatest venues, in one of the most beautiful settings, you'll ever see a show at.

Even if you don't get a diploma at the end of it.

Goodbye Kobe

I was never a sports guy or the sports dad. Even though I was born and raised in L.A., I've only been to a handful of Dodger games and even fewer Laker games. But sports guy or not, I couldn't help but love Kobe Bryant.

His fierce competitiveness, his contributions to the city, his appreciation of the arts, and, as a dad, his love of his daughters were all qualities that I respected and resonated with me.

The last time I saw Kobe was a couple years ago at John Williams night at the Hollywood Bowl. Williams had composed the score for an animated film called Dear Basketball, based on a poem Kobe had written. He introduced him and brought him onstage to narrate his film live. When Kobe walked out, the roar was deafening. His celebrity transcended the court. He belonged to that audience. He belonged to the city.

Pete Andress, an art director partner of mine I worked with used to say we hang by a thread. We never know when it's going to be closing time, as Kobe's family and the other families of passengers who were on that helicopter know all too well today.

I've been unable to stop myself from crying about it all afternoon, and it goes way beyond just the sadness of a public figure passing. It feels like more than that. It feels like family.

Kobe was ours. And now he belongs to the ages. Rest in peace.

Bowled over

I've played the Hollywood Bowl.

Ok, not exactly played. I've walked across the stage in front of an audience. My high school graduation was held at the Hollywood Bowl, and it might've been the most awesome part of high school except for the time I talked my Consumer Law and Economics teacher Mr. Blackman into thinking he'd lost my final term paper (if my kids are reading this, don't even think about it). He gave me an A, but I still feel bad about it.

Having grown up an L.A. kid, I've seen plenty of concerts at the Bowl, so many I can't remember them all.

I saw The Eagles take it easy. If you could read my mind you'd know I also saw Gordon Lightfoot. When school was out for summer I saw Alice Cooper.

I've seen Bruce Springsteen and Jackson Browne perform together (I know, I'm as shocked as you are) for Survival Sunday 4, an anti-nuke benefit concert.

It's getting to the point I remember Crosby Stills and Nash belting out Suite: Judy Blue Eyes. I can absolutely confirm the Go-Go's got the beat. I saw Laurie Andersen do whatever the hell it was she was doing. I've seen Steve Martin getting wild and crazy with Edie Brickell while fireworks were going off in the sky.

There have been many, many more, but you get my drift.

Not all my memories are happy ones. There was the night my pal David Weitz and I were driving in my 1965 Plymouth Fury. Highland Avenue was jammed because of the show at the Bowl, so we turned up into the surrounding hills to see if we could find a shortcut around it. Out of nowhere, a police car appeared behind us, lights flashing. The officers told us through the speakers to get out of the car slowly with our hands up. We were young, but we weren't stupid. We knew this was serious.

Once we were out of the car, hands up, they got out of their car with guns drawn and pointed right at us. They told me to open the trunk, which I did slowly and with my hands in sight at all times. They didn't find whatever they were looking for, and after checking our I.D.'s, they let us go. Apparently we fit the description of two guys who'd been robbing the hillside homes recently. I figured the description was brutally handsome and incredibly funny.

Anyway, the reason my mind's on the Bowl is because a week from tonight, I'll be there again, not on stage, but watching the first J.J. Abrams' Star Trek with the Los Angeles Philharmonic playing the score alongside the movie. It should be a great night.

If you've never been there, or it's been awhile, you owe it to yourself to go. It truly is one of the greatest venues, in one of the most beautiful settings, you'll ever see a show at.

Even if you don't get a diploma at the end of it.

Happy birthday America

America is 238 years old today. And I didn't even get her a card.

Still, I'm happy to celebrate it by doing all the usual things you'd expect on the 4th of July: Fireworks. Block party. Barbeque. Eating myself stupid. Maybe a beer.

But the other thing I do, and not to wax patriotic here, is take more than a few moments out of the day to remember the sacrifices made by our men and women in the armed forces to get the country this far. It ain't perfect, but it ain't Baghdad or North Korea either.

I was at the Hollywood Bowl July 4th Fireworks concert last night. It was great, but perhaps the most moving part was the Air Force honor guard that marched out on stage at the beginning of the evening, and lead the sold out crowd of 17,376 people in the Star Spangled Banner. Genuinely stirring.

Just for today, I'm going to forget the discriminatory, misogynistic decisions a partisan Supreme Court makes. A Republican congress who's job isn't to serve the people, but to obstruct any form of progress. The idiotic things that Rick Perry, Sean Hannity and Ann Coulter say on an hourly basis. And all the other things that ratchet my blood pressure up thirty points on a daily basis.

Today, I'll be glad I'm in a country where we can have the debates, say what we think, write and produce what we want - even if it is another Transformers movie (how much freedom do we need?) - and appreciate the men and women who sacrifice so much to keep it that way.

Where the hell's that beer?

Keep it safe and sane. Happy 4th of July.