Comedy lovers in the Chicago area have a chance to see a couple of bright young performers in their first live original sketch show, when my daughter, Emilia Barrosse and her friend and collaborator, Maggie Fish, present “We’re All People Here, Right” at Studio Be across the street from The Vic Theatre at 3110 N. Sheffield Avenue.
Emilia and Maggie met at Northwestern University, where they teamed up to shoot their own comic videos as Snickerdoodlin’ Productions. (I have no idea how a daughter of mine ever got the notion to perform original comedy with her NU classmates.)
You can check out Emilia and Maggie’s Snickerdoodlin’ videos on YouTube – or follow what they’re doing on Facebook.
And you can watch a very nice interview with Emilia and Maggie by clicking here.
“We’re All People Here, Right?” will be presented on three consecutive Monday nights: November 25th, December 2nd & December 9th at 10:00 pm. Tickets are $5 and the proceeds go to charity.
A couple of my favorite Snickerdoodlin’ videos are “Welcome to Sunny High”…
Ah, The Louvre! Arguably the world’s most famous museum! Home to the Mona Lisa, Winged Victory, The Code of Hammurabi and Napoleon III’s apartments. A building filled with more history and knowledge than even the world’s greatest geniuses could consume. But here’s the catch: it’s all in French.
I didn’t notice this until I walked into my first exhibit: a room filled with gorgeous scultpures. I realized when I was at the free museums in Liverpool just how much I love sculptures and reading the plaques that come with them so I get a sense of what each statue is thinking and living through. But when I went to understand the sculptures better in The Louvre, I was met with French descriptions.
At first, I was a bit disappointed—all these incredible pieces of art, and I didn’t know what they meant? But then I remembered an old mantra: art is…
When I arrived on the ground in Cork, Ireland, I immediately felt a strange attachment to the place. It was uncanny and uncalled for, especially because I’d only been there 15 minutes and was just walking down a street carrying all my luggage with no specific experiences yet made. But I felt a connection, and now I know why. It’s because Cork, Ireland, ISHobbiton. Let me explain.
I am a huge Lord of the Rings fan. I won’t go in to serious detail, but I’ve seen every movie/special feature at least 4 times (not exaggerating), I’ve probably watched the Helm’s Deep battle scene upwards of 15 times, and I’m certainly not done watching them. I’ve only just begun. Anyways, Hobbiton has always been my favorite location from the LOTR films. Yes, Rivendell is beautiful and serene, Mordor is eerie and mysterious, Gondor is magnificent—but Hobbiton (within…
It’s evening. Around 8 pm. The sun still hasn’t set. Aleah and I are sitting in the living room of our next Couchsurfing host, Ciaran (pronounced “Kee—rahn), with his roommates Ronan and Conor and his friends Kieran and O’Shane. There’s a huge music festival—Live at the Marquee—going on outside Ciaran’s house not more than a half-mile (or however many meters that is to them) from his doorstep.
“‘Ey shall we have a listen to the music, then?” asks Ronan, setting down his Heineken and looking around the room.
“Ay,” “Ay,” we hear. Apparently, the big act that night was Z-Z-Top—but clearly, the boys (or “the lads,” as they call themselves) were not going to pay for the full-price ticket. These guys are working class and constantly talk about how much they hate their jobs. But after eavesdropping on several Irish conversations unintentionally (they sometimes talk…
Here is the 5th and final installment of my daughter Emilia’s series of blog posts on her recent trip to Brazil to cover the story of how the government is dealing with the slums of Rio in advance of the Olympics. (It’s also about the need for sunscreen.)
“Inside every adult lurks a graduation speaker dying to get out, some world-weary pundit eager to pontificate on life to young people who’d rather be Rollerblading. Most of us, alas, will never be invited to sow our words of wisdom among an audience of caps and gowns, but there’s no reason we can’t entertain ourselves by composing a Guide to Life for Graduates.
I encourage anyone over 26 to try this and thank you for indulging my attempt.Ladies and gentlemen of the class of ’97:
Wear sunscreen.”
I would like to take this moment to inform my e-audience that, before I went to Brazil, I’d read that speech. Several times. I thought it was funny. Now I know it was serious.
After 5 whole days in Brazil, and only three left, Roshan and I finally made it to the beach—we made a day of it. We’d go to both…
Won’t you come with me?Down the Mississippi?We’ll take a trip to the land of dreamsGoing down the river, down to New Orleans
From the time that I was old enough to understand it was my father’s birthplace, New Orleans has always held a special place in my heart and my imagination.
Before I ever set foot in the Crescent City – or even knew it was called “the Crescent City” — my grandmother’s annual Mardi Gras packages aroused a fascination with my dad’s exotic hometown. Grandma’s annual package included three essential items: her homemade fudge (maple and chocolate), Mardi Gras beads and doubloons, and a couple weeks worth of Times Picayune front pages.
Incredibly, I still haven’t been to New Orleans during Mardi Gras.
I was somewhere around 6 or 8-years old when we made our first family pilgrimage from Cleveland to New Orleans to visit Grandma Barrosse and the rest of my dad’s family. We went by train. It was the biggest adventure of my young life – and the moist summer evening heat, the scent of magnolia and honeysuckle, the little Confederate flag some relative gave me, and my terror of voodoo queen Marie Laveau are still among my most cherished childhood memories.
I was around 12-years old when we returned to New Orleans – this time by car. I remember that trip in sharper focus because I was old enough to appreciate taking in the wonders of the French Quarter, City Park and the Chalmette Battlefield, site of the 1815 Battle of New Orleans.
That second trip was also memorable because of my determination to capture green anole lizards (the dime store chameleons of my youth) in my Grandma’s backyard. I captured more than a dozen of them among the honeysuckle vines before my grasping hand, plunging into the vines after my prey — got stung by three wasps at once. Though they laid me low for a full day, I survived those stings – and most of my lizards survived the drive home to Cleveland.
Ross Salinger, the author, and John Goodrich at the Renn Faire in Metairie (1984)
A couple decades later, I returned to New Orleans for two years in a row to perform at a Renaissance faire in the suburb of Metairie.
Those two working trips to the Big Easy were a chance to reconnect with my nonagenarian grandmother, my aunts and uncles, and my father’s amazing hometown with its unique history, music, food and culture.
(Left) Doing the Sturdy Beggars Mud Show. (Center) The author and Ross Salinger in the French Quarter. (Right) John Goodrich relaxes in the courtyard of Napoleon House. (1984)
With Victoria at Napoleon House waiting for a Pimms Cup.
On the second trip, in 1985, Victoria (now my wife) joined me to work at the Renaissance Faire, meet the Barrosse clan, and enjoy the pleasures of the French Quarter.
But, until this year, I’d never taken any of my three daughters to New Orleans.
Well, I wish I was in New Orleans,I can see it in my dreamsArm-in-arm down Burgundy,a bottle and my friends and me
Tom Waits
My youngest daughter, Evangeline (a good Louisiana name) applied to Tulane University in New Orleans – and this spring, we were delighted when she was accepted with an academic scholarship. So, a 3-day father-daughter trip to my dad’s hometown was in order. The choice was between UCLA and Tulane – and this trip would help her decide.
Eva is a songwriter – and New Orleans is a musical melting pot unlike any other, where jazz, blues, big band, marching band, rock and roll, Zydeco, and all the rhythms of the Caribbean and Mississippi Delta come together in the streets, restaurants and bars.
On the day we arrived in town, we were delighted to discover that the last day of the French Quarter Festival was still underway and the Quarter was jammed with musicians and bands on nearly every corner — including this dynamic face-off between brass bands on Decatur Street.
We also went to Preservation Hall. My daughters had seen the Preservation Hall Jazz Band in concert at The Gainey Vineyard in Southern California’s Santa Ynez Valley – but to see these wonderful musicians playing their hearts out as we sat on the worn wooden floor of that modest, intimate musical temple in the French Quarter is a whole different experience.
There’s music on just about every block of the Vieux Carre.
And then there’s the food. Nobody should visit New Orleans on a diet. Our first restaurant experience called out to us from its sign: Evangeline.
The food at Evangeline was superb.
Here’s just a sample of the many spicy and tasty delights we consumed at Evangeline and at other French Quarter eateries, including The Gumbo Shop, during our visit…
Jambalaya at Evangeline. Perfectly wonderful.
Gumbo at — where else? — The Gumbo Shop.
Eva enjoyed her muffaletta on Decatur Street.
And, of course, we had to have our beignets at Cafe Du Monde.
So long mom.So long pop.I’m goin’ to New Orleans or elseI’ll drop deadDown in New OrleansYou know I love it thereAnd I ain’t been there yet.
The Rockme Foundation
The second day of our trip was the reason we were in New Orleans in the first place: my daughter’s visit to Tulane University.
Tulane is a beautiful place.
I could imagine Eva attending class among the spreading trees, draped with Mardi Gras beads.
Perhaps she could even take James Carville’s political science class someday.
On weekends, she could take the St. Charles street car to the French Quarter and soak in music and culture that would inform her songs.
After our visit to Tulane we hopped that street car and returned to the French Quarter. The streets weren’t as crowded as they’d been the day before for the French Quarter Festival — but the the mood was still celebratory and the music was still playing.
Here, Eva is caught up in the New Orleans blues and the fancy steps of a veteran swing dancing devotee.
Dad and daughter at UCLA.
Ultimately, my daughter Eva chose to attend UCLA instead of Tulane. (Go, Bruins!) She’s a California girl — and we’re perfectly happy with her choice.
But on our father-daughter trip she fell in love with New Orleans.
And my love affair with my dad’s city was renewed.
We’ll be back in the Big Easy, the Crescent City, the Land of Dreams.
And New Orleans – as it has for centuries – will be waiting to fascinate and delight.
What follows is a photo essay to further celebrate the wonders of my father’s wondrous, historic, culturally resplendent hometown…
Dad poses across the street from our temporary home, The St. James Hotel on Magazine Street.
Dad gazes upward toward Jackson Square in the French Quarter.
Magnificent trees rise above the artwork hanging on the Jackson Square fence.
The street scene on the east side of Jackson Square.
Local legend has it that Napoleon Bonaparte’s friends provided this house for his exile.
Eva in the courtyard of Napoleon House. Her dad’s Pimm’s Cup is on the way.
The aforementioned Pimm’s Cup. I already ate the traditional cucumber slice.
Classic, lovely New Orleans decay in the Napoleon House courtyard.
Eva in front of the house where William Faulkner lived and wrote while in New Orleans.
You’re not allowed to take photos at Preservation Hall. So, I don’t know what this is…
Eva poses in the gaudy costume of a Mardi Gras Indian.
The French Quarter House with the famous cornstalk gate.
The cornstalk gate.
The Andrew Jackson Hotel — where Victoria and I stayed in 1985.
A French Quarter door.
Typical French Quarter architecture and porch gardening.
Evangeline looks at home in the Vieux Carre.
One gorgeous building after another…
New Orleans is a taste of Old Europe in the New World.
Once again, if you take anything with you from this blog, it should be this: When traveling in a place you’ve never been before, ALWAYS. HANG. WITH. LOCALS. Seeing a city with alongside a person who understands it and has lived in it opens the city for you in a way it never would if you’d stayed behind the plexiglass barrier that is being only a tourist. Because we made a point to run with as many Brazilians as possible, Roshan and I understood more truly than ever, what a Brazilian life means.
As it turns out, what does it mean to be a Brazilian?: To enjoy yourself.
Rio de Janeiro is a throbbing city—and when I say throbbing, I mean it in all the senses of the word. Rio is like a throbbing, open wound, a throbbing heart, a throbbing headache, a throbbing longing, a throbbing reverberation of music…
One of the glories of life in Southern California is the ability to quickly escape to the wilderness – whether it’s the ocean, the desert, or the mountains.
From our home at the southwestern end of the San Fernando Valley, we can reach the beach in less than a half hour, the high desert in a little more than that. And in about fifteen minutes, my family and I can be exploring the Santa Monica Mountains at Malibu Creek State Park.
We’ve been coming to Malibu Creek since we moved to Woodland Hills twenty years ago. We go several times a year, and we’ve enjoyed it in all seasons. Each season has its own beauty — but of all the seasons, Malibu Creek shows itself best in the spring.
Located just south of the junction of Las Virgenes Road and Mulholland Highway, the place is a nearby paradise. After you paid the $12 vehicle fee and parked the car — within minutes you can hike to vistas where it’s impossible to tell whether you’re anywhere near civilization. You can almost imagine what the Chumash saw when they settled among these live oaks and sycamores 5,000 to 10,000 years ago.
When we first brought our daughters to Malibu Creek State Park, the length of our family hikes were largely determined by our little girls’ enthusiasm for the expedition. We had to carry them along the trail sometimes, but eventually they became just as excited as their parents about spending some quality time at Malibu Creek.
The chaparral-covered mountains that dominate the park are green in the spring and golden by fall – and have been coveted by Hollywood for decades: 4,000 acres of beautiful scenery within an hour of downtown Los Angeles.
They’ve been shooting movies at Malibu Creek since the silent film era — and in 1946, 20th Century Fox bought 2,000 acres of what’s now the park to shoot movies like How Green Was My Valley, Love Me Tender, Viva Zapata, and Planet of the Apes.
But the production for which the park is most famous was shot for the small screen. And that is why, the Barrosse family sets off along the trail to the M*A*S*H site: where from 1972 to 1983, the Santa Monica Mountains stood in for Korea on the classic sitcom, starring Alan Alda. When the girls were young, a couple of rusting Army vehicles were all that indicated you’d reached your destination.
Father Mulcahy at the reunion.
But once you arrived at the M*A*S*H site, if of a certain age, you could easily recognize the jagged hills through which the helicopters passed and the plateau where they landed. You could even see the path that Captain Hawkeye Pierce climbed to meet the incoming wounded.
Since former cast and crew celebrated the 25th anniversary of the series’ last episode in 2008, the M*A*S*H site has gotten a facelift.
There are now signs that explain various features of the site, markers that lay out where the tents and buildings stood – and a freshly painted vintage ambulance offered up to the ravages of nature.
Along the trail to and from the M*A*S*H site, my wife Victoria, daughter and I were delighted to see the wildflowers starting to bloom. And we kept our eyes and ears alert for wildlife.
These geese weren’t that hard to track down. In fact, they just swam right up to Eva as though they were expecting her.
Can you see the well-camouflaged critter in the photo below?
And do you know what this nasty-looking insect is?
It’s a Jerusalem cricket. They’re not really crickets, and they’re not from the Holy Land, but you might find one at Malibu Creek State Park.
Yuck.
Quick. Let’s have another pretty picture.
And another. Love those wildflowers. (That reminds me: I’ve got make sure to get out to Lancaster to see the poppies this spring.)
Malibu Creek State Park is a large slice of heaven waiting just next door. I’m already looking forward to my next visit.
Damon Runyon would have loved it: a splendid day at Santa Anita, the crown jewel of So Cal horse racing.
Of course, Runyon was a New City habitué, following the ponies at Aqueduct rather than the historic track at the foot of the mountains in Arcadia, California.
But the guys and dolls who gathered at The Turf Club to mark our great friend Jim Newton’s 50th birthday were the kind of colorful characters that Runyon would have loved to populate his classic stories.
It’s fitting that Runyon was a newspaperman, because “Gentleman Jim” Newton — and so many of our dear friends who joined us at Santa Anita Park on Saturday, February 16th — are journalists who have toiled at The Los Angeles Times.
It felt a bit like a scene from Sorrowful Jones or The Lemon Drop Kidas this Pulitzer Prize-winning group of writers and reporters were soon turned into a bunch of rabid horseracing railbirds.
My wife Victoria, daughter and I were attending Santa Anita Park for the first time – nearly eight decades after the oldest racetrack in Southern California opened on Christmas Day 1934. Movie producer Hal Roach – the guy who brought us Laurel & Hardy and The Little Rascals – helped to open The Turf Club: the very same swanky section of the park that we gathered to celebrate Jim’s birthday.
We were all dressed appropriately for the venue — and ready for an afternoon of adventure at the track.
Carol “Lucky Lady” Stogsdill peruses the racing form in search of a winner.
Henry “The Horse” Weinstein makes notes on his next wager.
In its glory days, Santa Anita attracted Hollywood luminaries including Betty Grable, Lana Turner, Jane Russell and Cary Grant. Bing Crosby and Al Jolson were among the stockholders. Spencer Tracy, Errol Flynn, and “Jeopardy” host Alex Trebek have owned horses that raced at Santa Anita. (One of horses racing the day we were there is owned by pro golf great, Greg Norman.) Santa Anita was the place where, in 1940, the legendary racehorse Seabiscuit won the Santa Anita Handicap in his last start.
Of course, historian Jim Newton was quick to inform me that from 1942 to 1944, Santa Anita Park was used by the U.S. government as a transport center for nearly 20,000 Japanese-Americans bound for internment camps like Manzanar in California’s Owens Valley.
Unlike those unfortunate internees during that infamous episode in Santa Anita’s history, we came to the racetrack voluntarily – and once we beheld the glorious view from the grandstand, gazing out across the exquisitely groomed grounds to that mountainous backdrop – it was hard to understand why, after more than 20 years of life in Los Angeles, we’d never been to Santa Anita before.
Spending the day at The Turf Club made our Santa Anita experience even more special. You can’t find a better place to people-watch between races.
Ordering a drink at the luxurious Turf Club bar or placing your bets at the club’s private wagering windows, it’s easy to conjure the excitement and glamour of Santa Anita’s heyday.
With its dress code strictly enforced and its aura of opulence and classic, old school charm, the Turf Club is a bastion of civilization in a rapidly changing time.
And then there are the horses.
Over the course of the 10 races that day, Victoria and I placed our wagers on thoroughbreds with names like God Of War, Smil’n From Above, Great Hot (an 8-1 shot that earned Victoria $80 on a $10 bet), Camille C, Jubilant Girl, Jesse’s Giacomo and Hard Buns.
I should have bet on Judy In Disguise to win in the 8th race. My rock & roll instincts told me to go with the filly named after the 1968 hit song by John Fred and his Playboy Band (also covered by Gary Lewis & The Playboys later that same year) – but I second-guessed myself. Judy in Disguise won the race going away.
One of the horses was named Ghost of a Chance. C’mon. Really? How can you put your money down on a horse his owner calls a Ghost of a Chance?
By the time the last horse crossed the finish line, Victoria and I broke even betting on the ponies – but our day at races was a clear winner.
And here’s a sure bet.
It won’t be another two decades before we pay our next visit to Santa Anita Park.
Birthday boy “Gentleman Jim” Newton celebrates a winner!
Our photographer friend, Steve “Shutter Bug” Stroud, at The Turf Club.
Our hosts, Jim & Karlene: the First Couple of Cool.
I was just a young, working class Cleveland boy — two months shy of my 6th birthday — and what happened on this day, 49 years ago, at 8:00 pm ET on Sunday February 9, 1964 became an unforgettable moment in my life.
On that incredible, magical, epochal day, The Beatles – Paul McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr — made their first live appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show in New York City. There were just three TV channels in those days – and most televisions in America had their rabbit ears tuned in to the Sunday night broadcast that marked the U.S. debut of the rock n’ roll band that would soon transform international pop culture.
Upon their arrival in New York and in the months to follow, I was besotted by The Beatles. My older brother Peter and I would hang out beneath our neighbor Dino Zaccardelli’s bedroom window on West 33rd Street, listening to the glorious, transformative album that Dino’s mom had just bought for him: Meet the Beatles.
I vividly remember how Peter and I listened to that thrilling album over and over, playing passionately along on badminton rackets posing as guitars. Unfortunately, we rocked out while standing on his older brother’s car – and that got is in trouble. (We left a lot of jubilant, rocking footprints on his hood and fenders.)
At the time, I had no clue that Meet the Beatles was actually the second Beatles’ album released in the United States. Ten days before the release of Meet the Beatles, Chicago’s Vee-Jay Records released the Beatles’ first U.S. album, Introducing…The Beatles.
As far as my brother Peter, Dino and I were concerned, Meet the Beatles was where it all began – and The Ed Sullivan Show on CBS 49 years ago was our introduction to full blown Beatlemania.
From those indelible days in February 1964, my life was changed in ways I am still learning to appreciate. To have grown up during Beatlemania is a formative, fundamental blessing that subsequent generations cannot possibly understand or fully appreciate. (Because they take rock & roll for granted.)
Comedy lovers in the Chicago area have a chance to see a couple of bright young performers in their first live original sketch show, when my daughter, Emilia Barrosse and her friend and collaborator, Maggie Fish, present “We’re All People Here, Right” at Studio Be across the street from The Vic Theatre at 3110 N. Sheffield Avenue.
Emilia and Maggie met at Northwestern University, where they teamed up to shoot their own comic videos as Snickerdoodlin’ Productions. (I have no idea how a daughter of mine ever got the notion to perform original comedy with her NU classmates.)
You can check out Emilia and Maggie’s Snickerdoodlin’ videos on YouTube – or follow what they’re doing on Facebook.
And you can watch a very nice interview with Emilia and Maggie by clicking here.
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Paul's Voyage of Discovery & Etc. 
