lkwdblds
Crusader
A restaurant and musical experience.
Restaurant review - I chanced to dine with a friend the other night at a sort of a cabaret in Hollywood. The place is near Sunset Blvd. and Vine St. and offers gourmet dinners of very high quality at reasonable prices, around $15, and features tremendous entertainment. They feature a jazz trio of musicians in house, a fine jazz pianist, a string bass player and an acoustic guitar player and then the singers come from two sources. They have professional level acts which they book who do singing or join their little combo with instrumental solos. Then the trio takes a break for about 25 minutes so that you can talk with your friends and then the trio comes back from break and certain people in the audience sing. These are not random singers but the management of the cabaret knows them and they are regulars.
The first hour of performances was to my mind, "world class" A lovely young woman of 19 was the first singer. She was very tall, at least 6' and then wore perhaps 3" heels as well along with a mini skirt, quite an imposing sight and then she sang like an angel and specialized in hits from the late 1920's. The first song was very familiar to me, I think it is called "Heartbreaker", not the Elvis song but the 1929 version. The girl was a bit nervious but never missed a beat. Her voice is very beautiful and with her height and good looks, she could go very far. Her second song I believe is called something like, "Ya gotta do right by me." It is very famous from the late 1920's and was made a top recording by a famous black female singer of the era, Bessy Smith I believe her name was. The opening lyrics are, "You made a lotta money 1922, but let some fluzzy make a fool of you." It states, "you gotta do better, you gotta do right by me."
They had a sax player do a great Sax solo and improvisation with the trio on the song "Autumn Leaves." and then his wife, a singer with a powerful voice joined him for an encore of singing a jazz version of Autumn Leaves. A young man of Lebanese heritage sang a fantastic song he composed with extremely original lyrics. The lyrics had a lot to do with the meanings of life and smacked of being inspired by Eastern Religions. I thought he was excellent. For you Old Timers, he reminded me very much of "Poetry by Candlelight" which they had everynight a CCLA in the 1970's.There was also a largest group of Japenese young people there who sang. They were all enteraining.
I arrived early to meet my friend and there is a nearby Starbucks where about 3 chess games, using chess clocks, were going on with crowds of 6 or 8 people watching each game. I watched a chess game for about 5 minutes and also heard some very stimulating conversations taking place while sipping a cup of coffee.
Tucked away in suburban Orange County, I don't get up to the big City of L.A. much but there is a lot of life going on up in L.A., especially places like Hollywood, the Sunset Strip and Fairfax Blvd. Being in that restaurant was was like a time and space warp to me, it felt like being in New York City, perhaps in the early 1970's. When the tall, young singer was singing, the time shifted to the 1920's and another of the top singers created the look and sounds of the 1940's. Oh yes, another slice of life, two young Latino girls were in the parking lot, trying to get people to sign petitions for the next ballot in California to keep school tuition low and to not cut college services. They were around 18 years old and were students at Los Angeles City College which is a huge 2 year community college. The papers they wanted me to sign were for only L.A. County residents so I told then I could not sign. No problem, they started a new page for Orange County residents. I told them that Orange County was noted for being conservative and voting for Republicans. They rolled their eyes in amazement and then said, well you have go to be for not cutting school services, you just have to be for that. I said, I would tend to be for that but I would have to hear the other side before I signed anything. They looked disappointed, so I said that I wanted this to go on the ballot for the voters to deicde even though I don't know how I would vote yet so I will sign to put this on the ballot. I signed and made them happy. I told them I took two courses at L.A. City College and they were amazed and asked how long ago and I told them I took German there in 1967 in night school. They were probably born in 1991 or 1992 so to them 1967 represented a real, real long time ago. They asked why I took German and not Spanish and I told them I already knew a lot of Spanish and they asked me to prove it so I started talking in my limited Spanish about my job. They started laughing and then left me looking for new sign ups.
Its amazing how much life is going on in the heart of a big metropolitan City like L.A.. In Orange County, the cities are more sterile and up until recently the beach towns were the only places with night life. Now, with the rise of these new lofts being built in all the City Centres with a shop below and perhaps 4 to 6 floors above seriving as loft type apartments, the centers of many Orange County cities are starting to have night life. Downtown Fullerton (population 135,000) in O.C. is about a 1 mile square area and they now have 65 restaurants and bars there and an outdoor promenade. On even the week nights, the area is packed with night life. The City of Santa Ana, the County Seat of O.C., can save you a lot of driving, if you feel like driving down to Tijuana, Mexico. Santa Ana is a fairly large city of about 340,000 and being in their downtown is virtually equivalent to being in Tijuana. I don't think any English is spoken down on 4th St.. Everything is in Spanish, the signs included. If you go into a store and talk English, they all know it and you can get by but you hear very little English down there. They have the guys pushing the same ice cream carts which they have in Mexico, the same taco and tamale vendors, everything. If one was taken blindfolded and left down there, they would swear they were in Mexico.
Lakey
Restaurant review - I chanced to dine with a friend the other night at a sort of a cabaret in Hollywood. The place is near Sunset Blvd. and Vine St. and offers gourmet dinners of very high quality at reasonable prices, around $15, and features tremendous entertainment. They feature a jazz trio of musicians in house, a fine jazz pianist, a string bass player and an acoustic guitar player and then the singers come from two sources. They have professional level acts which they book who do singing or join their little combo with instrumental solos. Then the trio takes a break for about 25 minutes so that you can talk with your friends and then the trio comes back from break and certain people in the audience sing. These are not random singers but the management of the cabaret knows them and they are regulars.
The first hour of performances was to my mind, "world class" A lovely young woman of 19 was the first singer. She was very tall, at least 6' and then wore perhaps 3" heels as well along with a mini skirt, quite an imposing sight and then she sang like an angel and specialized in hits from the late 1920's. The first song was very familiar to me, I think it is called "Heartbreaker", not the Elvis song but the 1929 version. The girl was a bit nervious but never missed a beat. Her voice is very beautiful and with her height and good looks, she could go very far. Her second song I believe is called something like, "Ya gotta do right by me." It is very famous from the late 1920's and was made a top recording by a famous black female singer of the era, Bessy Smith I believe her name was. The opening lyrics are, "You made a lotta money 1922, but let some fluzzy make a fool of you." It states, "you gotta do better, you gotta do right by me."
They had a sax player do a great Sax solo and improvisation with the trio on the song "Autumn Leaves." and then his wife, a singer with a powerful voice joined him for an encore of singing a jazz version of Autumn Leaves. A young man of Lebanese heritage sang a fantastic song he composed with extremely original lyrics. The lyrics had a lot to do with the meanings of life and smacked of being inspired by Eastern Religions. I thought he was excellent. For you Old Timers, he reminded me very much of "Poetry by Candlelight" which they had everynight a CCLA in the 1970's.There was also a largest group of Japenese young people there who sang. They were all enteraining.
I arrived early to meet my friend and there is a nearby Starbucks where about 3 chess games, using chess clocks, were going on with crowds of 6 or 8 people watching each game. I watched a chess game for about 5 minutes and also heard some very stimulating conversations taking place while sipping a cup of coffee.
Tucked away in suburban Orange County, I don't get up to the big City of L.A. much but there is a lot of life going on up in L.A., especially places like Hollywood, the Sunset Strip and Fairfax Blvd. Being in that restaurant was was like a time and space warp to me, it felt like being in New York City, perhaps in the early 1970's. When the tall, young singer was singing, the time shifted to the 1920's and another of the top singers created the look and sounds of the 1940's. Oh yes, another slice of life, two young Latino girls were in the parking lot, trying to get people to sign petitions for the next ballot in California to keep school tuition low and to not cut college services. They were around 18 years old and were students at Los Angeles City College which is a huge 2 year community college. The papers they wanted me to sign were for only L.A. County residents so I told then I could not sign. No problem, they started a new page for Orange County residents. I told them that Orange County was noted for being conservative and voting for Republicans. They rolled their eyes in amazement and then said, well you have go to be for not cutting school services, you just have to be for that. I said, I would tend to be for that but I would have to hear the other side before I signed anything. They looked disappointed, so I said that I wanted this to go on the ballot for the voters to deicde even though I don't know how I would vote yet so I will sign to put this on the ballot. I signed and made them happy. I told them I took two courses at L.A. City College and they were amazed and asked how long ago and I told them I took German there in 1967 in night school. They were probably born in 1991 or 1992 so to them 1967 represented a real, real long time ago. They asked why I took German and not Spanish and I told them I already knew a lot of Spanish and they asked me to prove it so I started talking in my limited Spanish about my job. They started laughing and then left me looking for new sign ups.
Its amazing how much life is going on in the heart of a big metropolitan City like L.A.. In Orange County, the cities are more sterile and up until recently the beach towns were the only places with night life. Now, with the rise of these new lofts being built in all the City Centres with a shop below and perhaps 4 to 6 floors above seriving as loft type apartments, the centers of many Orange County cities are starting to have night life. Downtown Fullerton (population 135,000) in O.C. is about a 1 mile square area and they now have 65 restaurants and bars there and an outdoor promenade. On even the week nights, the area is packed with night life. The City of Santa Ana, the County Seat of O.C., can save you a lot of driving, if you feel like driving down to Tijuana, Mexico. Santa Ana is a fairly large city of about 340,000 and being in their downtown is virtually equivalent to being in Tijuana. I don't think any English is spoken down on 4th St.. Everything is in Spanish, the signs included. If you go into a store and talk English, they all know it and you can get by but you hear very little English down there. They have the guys pushing the same ice cream carts which they have in Mexico, the same taco and tamale vendors, everything. If one was taken blindfolded and left down there, they would swear they were in Mexico.
Lakey
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Do more!
Lakey, don't you think our friend KV could benefit from this as well?
