La La Land

Its true what they sat about Los Angeles, there is a sense of unreality here, that really doesn't exist elsewhere. The emphasis is entirely on entertainment, and the "stars"; who you know and what you know about US centered contemporary culture, with the occasional mention of an obscure foreign cultural star, film or act, just to show that you are "in" and not totally La La. We arrived in LA at midday. Dave picked us up, and drove us back to their house in Santa Monica.

At 2.50 pm Teresa's boss rang to tell her that Michael Jackson had died. In typical Hollywood style news of his death got round quickly - he died at 2.26. Most TV channels (CNN included) didn't report it 'til gone 3.

He was staying in a house a couple of miles from where we are, and her boss had rung because she knew that Laird (Teresa's son) was to appear in a video along with Michael Jackson (and 300 other kids) on Sunday, in preparation for his big comeback in London later this year.

I sat and watched the live transmission later of the removal by helicopter from the hospital to the Coroners office. His body, wrapped in a white cloth, was transferred from the Helicopter to the Coroner's van, and it looked very lonely, no family, just a few officials.

Farah Fawcett also died, and also pretty young at 62.

But its ok, there's arugla in the supermarkets. The Michael Jackson jokes had started within 3 hours.....

Bohemian Caverns, Bohemian music, Bohemian times

“YEA!”

“THADDEUS”

“WO!”

He was louder than his canary yellow shorts, elasticated band slightly higher than is really necessary or respectable, dress shoes and long socks, lilly white legs between.

He asked me the name of the trumpet player - Thad Wilson, I told him.

I wish I had told him the wrong name, just for fun...

“YO!”

“THADDEUS WILSON”

“THE FIVE OF YA!’

He shouted at the jazz players. Others looked around nervously, in the dim candlelight of the basement club, tables seating 2-4; the perfect jazz club, in fact. The Bohemian Cavern, where Thad Wilson and friends were playing is on U Street, where Duke Ellington came from, and had played in this very same club, in this now up and coming area, but former deprived black neighbourhood of Washington. A lot of Barack Obama’s young guns allegedly hang out around here. The jazz was, well, exactly how jazz should be. The African American group were superb, playing in a way that captures everything that jazz is. They even played Louis Armstrong’s “When the Saints”. And the Margarita cocktail was just perfect. All that was missing was the smoky atmosphere.

We were there until gone midnight, and returned by metro.

On the way there earlier we walked from the apartment. Outside on our street the cars and floats for the Capital Pride parade were getting ready. Two red volkswagens had harnesses attached to the front, and 6 guys had straps around them, ready to haul the cars. 15 men walked by in leather thongs and boots, and not much else, Cross dressed Dames (Not the pantomine type, I think) in Elton John frills and wigs, high heels, and barrel like shapes that gave their true sex away. They seemed to be mostly middled aged men, but not all, some were stunning, and you had to look carefully, but didn't really want to stare, 'cause you weren't sure.

We walked out of the apartment and I tried to act normally, but I think our clothes were too normal to be normal in the weirdness and bohemian nature of our surroundings, so I hung on to Anji for safety.

We walked up to Du Pont Circle along New Hampshire Avenue and watched part of the parade pass us, the crowds around us screamed loudly as free gifts were thrown out, such as bright beaded necklaces grabbed by the men mostly.

(Girls, and those boys so inclined, click on the picture if you can't see enough...)

Yamomanem

1, 2, and 1, 2, 3, 4 ....

The guitarist's finger's stumbled over the fret board.

The Trombone player wiggled through his part.

The Sousaphone ( a large tuba) marched up and down, tapping the tambourine, leaning back with the weight of the instrument.

The saxophonist sashayed in her mini-skirt, as she played her solo,

and the drummer rolled through his part, with a sailors hat on his head at a jaunty angle.

The clarinet player was the best, slightly portly, shirt tight round his middle, grey beard and sailor hat, held sway over the band, called Yamomanem, part of the Duke Ellington Jazz Festival’s New Orleans on the Potomac

Outside the JFK Center for Performing Arts, a storm played, thunder rolled and lightening struck, and the rain poured down.

Click on Yamomanem, and then on "past performance", to see them play.

D Days

6th June 2009

“I am from Hamburg, where are you from? Did you see the commemorations of the D Day landing in Normandy? Didn’t Prince Charles look small!”

The shop owner was friendly, as she served us in her small fashion shop in Fredericksburg, Virgnia, 146 years after the US Civil War. She seemed really pleased to see some fellow Europeans.

We were in Fredericksburg, about 1 hour south of Washington DC, and we had just finished a short tour of the Fredericksburg Civil War battlefield.

On the road between Washington DC and the Confederate capital, Richmond, it was at a strategic crossing point of the Rappahannock River. One of four bloody, and mostly indecisive battles at the end of 1863 and into 1864 in this area, Abraham Lincoln and the Union army was loosing, and desperately needed victory. He hadn’t yet found a General to bring him the victory needed to turn the war (Ulysses S Grant), and this was not going to give him one either. The Union General in charge hadn’t realized the importance of Geography yet; the key commanders had used 2 different, out of date maps, and the lay of the land was against them as well. The Union army came out of the town, and up the slopes, crossing 200 yards of open ground, with only a small dip for cover - the dip can still be seen if the cars are parked along the residential street that crosses the same ground - the tyres of the cars are hidden below the dip. Confederates lined up behind the wall, and shot the Union soldiers dead, one after the other. The small, quaint wooden house still had the bullet holes. Over 100,000 people died in the four battles.

65 years since D Day. Fighting for freedom.


We walked around the town, and admired the classic cars lined along the street for a local competition, and finished off at the local Irish pub “The Blarney Stone”, before being driven back by our friends Larry and Christine, to DC, past the Marine’s Museum, the memorial to the Air Force, Arlington Cemetery (with its tomb of the unknown soldier), and the Statue that commemorates the raising of the US flag at Iwo Jima.