Shadow Puppet Storyteller

Mr. Celophane

I am easily amused, yet I have done very little on my own lately to encourage the giggler-within. Last night I got a strong dose of glee. Trust me, it is a much better thing when I find joy in my own excursions. Otherwise, you might just encounter a Waffle Man. Just trust me, relying on a friend or family member to point out the excitement around the corner can end up...well, embarassing. But, this is leading me off track if I relate the story of The Waffle Man, right now, so you'll just have to prompt me another day if you're curious.

An adventure of my own making, that what I was in for. The night out was only one part of a birthday gift I had solicited from my dad months in advance - tickets to the Hollywood Bowl. NOTE TO SELF: I need to apply my negotiating tact to career advancement since I've found it works in the much tougher area of wish fulfillment. Just laid the idea out there: I deserved to attend a part of this season at the Hollywood Bowl. Despite having been born and raised in the L.A. area, I'd never been to a performance there. Dad made it happen. I'll be saying this many times: Thanks, Dad!

I kept applauding myself for choosing a birthday present which encompassed two of my fondest pleasures: music and movies, and two driving motivations: history and celebrity. Plus, I was going back onto the wonderful Julia Cameron plan from The Artist's Way by having a whole set of "artist's dates" now at my disposal. Technically, those do not need to be costly, overly planned-out affairs, either. It helps to have something like this occassionally, however, when you are the mother/writer/bread-winner/negotiator and all of the above all at the same time on most days. "Crazymakers" the norm at every station. Read her books if you're curious.

I did have misgivings by midday, eventhough I'd been looking forward to this first performance for months. I was going alone. I leave my family every weeknight to support us while my husband chips away at earning a degree. It can be a struggle to justify more time away - even when I need it desperately.

Really simple living stretches you, but it also feels quite unfair at times. School or a DVD from the library has to be my husband's reTREAT just like some nights at work when I'm filling the lulls with reviewing or entries are sometimes my reTREAT. The children have the same struggle when they get the opportunities to retreat for a week to Grandma's, or board a bus for a sponsored field trip. The leaving part is both exciting and anxious, but the routine is just as easily welcome to each when they return.

So I said it already, this trip to the Hollywood Bowl was my first. I had to add that statement to most conversations with people I met that night too. "This is my first time here!" Wisely and foolishly I got myself on the road four hours before performance time. You never know anymore how many layers of security, freeway boneheadedness, or other types of ignorance will affect a trip - even a short drive through or just past downtown. Encountering traffic in L.A. that has you in a brain-numbing holding pattern can scar you for life. This particular Saturday, I encountered almost no traffic on the route I took. I ended up with plenty of time to dispose of in my own fashion.

That giddiness from exploring a new place can be a little overpowering for me. I mentally remind myself that I'm just a little too jazzed for walking through the parking lot. But, hey, I'm in Hollywood, in an especially historic, architecturally profound, downright historic place, part of me notes definitively. I approach the box office plaza, almost bypassing the museum.

"Three hours to showtime," I note, "I wonder if the museum is open?"

(Internal Composure has its own irritated voice: "You already checked that on the website, Bozo. You know it is!")

"Yes, but, I may want to eat first, find out where my seat is first...."

("Snacks in your hip bag; money only if you really need to spend above that. And you already viewed the shot from your seat on that internet site. That museum is the mission objective for this hour, Soldier!")

I'm not talking back to perfectly good logic like that. This was when I knew I could start laughing at myself. Once I figured out that I'm on a balcony level above the museum's main entrance, I located the elevator and walk right in to the Hollywood Bowl museum. Stereo headphone stations and DVD players were part of the modern components to an exhibit based on letters written by many decades worth of patrons in the cozy gallery. I added a note of gratitude into a open guest book. Upstairs I awkwardly played the musical forms that are installed there, designed for children to understand the types of instruments in an orchestra. And when I say awkwardly, I do not mean I was embarassed, they were angled and foreshortened for the small fries.

Now I've gone on and on in this description and haven't even gotten you the reader to my ultimate enjoyment of the spectacularly entertaining performances. My reference by titling the entry, "Mr. Celophane," is due to the great surprise of seeing Joel Grey perform that number from the musical, Chicago, as well as several from what he is best remembered for: Cabaret. This wasn't on my ticket - "The Roaring Twenties, John Mauceri conducts the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra," that's all I knew. Now I've checked the next Saturday performance I'm going to - and how exciting, Natalie Cole will be performing that night. Again, I say Thank You, Daddy...I do not want to sound the least bit ungrateful by not even knowing what treasure is in my posession. I guess it has been a while since I last looked at the tickets.

I was crafty, and turned in the earliest ticket for the series so that my husband could spend the night with me for the John William's concert Labor Day weekend. This one is the concert I was fixated on when I decided I wanted to have tickets to go to the Hollywood Bowl in the first place. By then, I'll feel like an old pro with three visits to this most famous American amphitheatre under the stars.