Flashing lights.

Most of you know that I am more than passingly interested in Los Angeles history. As such, I read lots o'blogs about this stuff with some irregularity. I RSSfeed Dear Old Hollywood (what are the grammar rules involving blogs? I am going to assume they are italicized and individual posts are put in quotation marks and not look this up) and "Hollywood's Earl Carroll Theatre" turned out to be really swell, although not as much because of the post as because of one of the comments.

The Earl Carroll Theatre also had a clever way of displaying their neon sign at night - the THEATRE part would flash EAT, then AT, then THE, then THEATRE.

Get it? I love that. Thanks, "Matt." By the way, the theater is now Nickelodeon's studio in Hollywood.

really Star Trek weekend.

Brent Spiner in Man of La Mancha at Freud on Saturday (didn't recognize him, my dad had to tell me who he was) and Leonard Nimoy in audience at Royce on Sunday (definitely recognized him. Leonard Nimoy!!!)

Good Medicine

Celebz galore yesterday at the Good Medicine benefit for the Solidarity Fund, which was created by the WGA to aid crews who were hurt by the WGA strike, at Royce. Well, most of the celebz were on stage and not in the audience (actually, there were very few celebz in the audience, I saw only three who aren't really celebz but are on Grey's Anatomy). But anyways, on the stage were most of the casts of Grey's Anatomy and Private Practice. Ones I actually saw close up or interacted with at all were Sandra Oh, Katherine Heigl, Justin Chambers, TR Knight, James Pickens Jr, Sara Ramirez, Eric Dane, Brooke Smith, Loretta Divine, Tim Daly, Audra McDonald, Paul Adelstein, Taye Diggs, and Chris Lowell.

Apparently a ton of them are Tony award-winning folks. And they can actually sing, it's true. Those who couldn't sing did pretty un-funny little skits in between. Shonda Rhimes, the creater of the shows, said a lot of uninteresting stuff, too. Most of them that could sing did Broadway musical theatre stuff, but Amy Brenneman, Chris Lowell, Paul Adelstein, and Tim Daly did "California Stars," my favorite song from Wilco and Billy Bragg's album of unrecorded Woody Guthrie lyrics, "Mermaid Avenue," and it was spectacular. Tim Daly, who I totally thought was super good looking when I was a young gal watching Wings (haha), is still pretty good looking and plays bass pretty well. Adelstein also is excellent on the keys (although he kinda butchered his earlier solo number of Slip Slidin' Away on guitar). Lowell was kinda whatever the one time I watched the pilot of Private Practice, but in real life he is very good looking and wore a swell hat--and plays a mean harmonica. haha. Brenneman was beyond adorable in a beautiful cocktail dress and flats, singing the song and shaking a tambourine. The rest of the songs I wasn't too interested in.

Sandra Oh once sat at a neighboring table to me at a show at the Largo. She was with some people, one of which had the most annoying laugh ever that drove me crazy. I didn't talk to her yesterday. Katherine Heigl is actually very pretty in real life and seemed very charming, although apparently is a chain smoker. Justin Chambers is also a nicotine fiend, although he was polite and put the cigarettes out on the bottom of his shoe and threw them away instead of littering (at least the one time I was around). TR Knight is so little! The Chief (James Pickens Jr) was really nice and did a silly James Brown lip-syncing thing. His real wife, who also performed, has an amazing voice. Eric Dane just looks so greasy. yeech.

Then in the audience were some people with small roles of Grey's: the guy who played Joe the bartender, the woman who plays the nurse who gave somebody an STD (I can't remember), and some guy who plays one of the interns who joined the show after I stopped watching it.

Take Me Out of the Ballgame. Not You, Mike Logan.

If you were planning on seeing Reprise's production of Damn Yankees at UCLA's Freud Theater, don't. Boo, Jason Alexander; you are a bad director.

1. Fine, you want to update the play. Then why update it to the 1980s? Doesn't make much sense. The '80s is not a decade that makes people particularly nostalgic.

2. If you are going to change things, you gotta get the details right. It's the little inaccuracies that detach the audience from the play. Frank McCourt wasn't the owner in the 80's; even I know that.

3. You shouldn't describe a player as "6'2", 195 lbs" when he is only around 5'9" and 150 lbs.

4. Fire your costume designer. All the women looked like they gained ten pounds since their measurements were taken. Every item of clothing they wore was just a little too tight, making for awkward tugging and gaping of fabric. All I could focus on during the first half was how ugly they all were made to look.

However, Jackee (Jackay!) Harry is awesome. In case you don't know who she is (I didn't just by her name, either), she played Lisa Landry on the fab television programme "Sister Sister." And, coincidentally, plays a character named "Sister" in Damn Yankees.

On a side note, in reference to the very helpful comment on the previous point, I hate Det. Mike Logan's partners. Every single one of them. Also, Mike Logan a.k.a Chris Noth creeps me out because I cannot think of him as anything other than either Mr. Big or supercreepster of the pretty eh movie, Searching for Paradise.