#39: Richard Simmons Fitness Class

I've always felt that people throw around the phrase "LA's best-kept secret" a little too freely. One week it's a new sushi restaurant, the next is a gym with a great boot camp. But these things come and go. And though I am an avid LA tourist AND local, I gave this a lot of thought before I decided to proclaim the "Richard Simmons Sweat!" class as one of LA's BEST best-kept secrets.

Everyone seems to know who Richard Simmons is. He's an iconic celebrity, known for his glittery work-out clothes (always including ridiculously short shorts), his over-the-top personality, and his love of fitness . But something I did not know about him, is that he practices what he preaches when it comes to fitness. What a refreshing idea! He has been successful for over 40 years, and could have easily retired to his mansion while making occasional speaking engagements and raking in even more money. Instead, when he is in town, he teaches his signature "Sweat" class at his fitness center three days a week.

The second part of this secret though, is that this class is open to the public. For $12 (which.. admittedly, is a bit expensive for a fitness class, but is fairly cheap compared to other items on my list) anyone can take this class. So not only do you get to exercise in the fabulously 70's-retro Slimmons Studio in Beverly Hills, but you also get to be personally greeted, coached by, and later take a picture with THE Richard Simmons. Sign. Me. Up.

I only heard about this revelation a few weeks ago while at lunch with coworkers, so I cheated and took something off my list to make room for this. I wasn't all that excited about eating at the Ivy anyway... that place is soooo 2006. My friend Meaghan and her roommate (and my new friend) Jessica came with me.

By the way, when I told my friend who lives in Northern CA that I was going to do this, she said "You are so LA." Why, thank you!!

The website said to arrive an hour early, since there are no reservations and the classes usually fill up. We got there in plenty of time, staked out a corner for our bags, and had plenty of time to take lots of staged pictures. My friend Meaghan is photo OBSESSED, and we took no less than about 20 work-out themed pictures (see below). I had the bright idea for us all to wear sweatbands, since the class does promise that we'll sweat!

Once our pictures were taken, we began to actually stretch. I was bending over to touch my toes (barely) and when I stood up, there he was. Complete with fringed spandex shorts, a red Michael Jackson-esque leather jacket, aviators, and that hair. He walked in the room, as skinny as ever, and immediately came right over to the three of us. We were beaming, he gave us each a hug and a kiss on the cheek, thanked us for coming, and said that we BETTER not keep our fine asses in that back corner of the room!

We thought we were special, but then he literally spent the next 10 minutes going around to every single person in the room, giving them a hug and a kiss, and thanking them for coming. Way to give people their money's worth!

Then the room filled, and the beat to Michael Jackson's "Beat It" came on. I can appreciate that he themed the music to his outfit choice, or maybe it was the other way around. Either way, we began our warm up. Lots of basic aerobics moves, toe taps, knee lifts, grapevines and the like. Every few minutes he would stop the record (yes, he uses a record player) to shout out motivations to us.

"YOU KNOW WHAT YOU NEED TO DO TO YOUR FAT?? YOU NEED TO BEAT IT!!!"

"LIFT THOSE LEGS! HIGHER! I KNOW YOU CAN, I SAW YOU LAST WEEKEND!!"

"LOOK IN THE MIRROR! LOOK HOW GOOD YOU LOOK EXERCISING!! THIS IS HOW YOU FIND A MAN!!"

He eventually shed the red jacket, revealing a black shredding tank covered in rhinestones. In between shouting at us, he pranced (can't think of a better word to describe his movements) around the room, encouraging us, helping our form, and making faces. He is flamboyant fabulosity personified. Mixed in to our aerobics moves were shimmies, shakes, hair flips, and other fantastic little moves that kept it fun. I can see why this man is famous.

He also kept the class personal. He would stop the music, and shout out to someone in the mirror. He threatened to take scissors to a woman's overly large tee-shirt ("You are beautiful! Show off your body, don't hide it!"), chastised a very fit, very good looking athlete type for having a "disgusting" body ("I mean REALLY, you should do something about it, you look awful!!") and even called out a guy in the group for having two large hickeys on his neck ("Where did you get those hickeys, you HUSSY! I didn't know they were letting TRAMPS in my class!! By the way.. where did you get them? I need to get some of my own!!"). He was hilarious, charming, and ridiculously over the top.

About half-way through the class, he had us all take a water break and then stand in a circle around the room. He then pulled in certain people from the group to lead a 30-second or so routine with him. First person he called is the afore-mentioned athlete, and before he had even entered the middle, Richard had taken his shirt off. Thanks Richard!!! He was a good sport, and after about a minute, Richard turned around and headed to our section, and pulled first Meaghan, then Jessica, then me into the middle, for a little bit of what I like to call "Bucket List Extra Credit" (like winning drag queen bingo and participating in a Magic Castle show). The three of us then led a short routine that my uncoordinated self took a few extra steps to get the hang of. But hey... who can say they led a group of 100 people side-by-side with Richard Simmons?! I can, now.

After the cardio portion was done, we grabbed hand weights and did about 20 minutes of lifting and "toning" as he called it. He was very good about walking us through how to hold the weights. I knew what I was doing (again, barely) but since the class really is for all levels, I appreciated that he made sure even people that may have never stepped foot in a gym before knew what to do so they wouldn't get hurt. We then did some mat work, with sit ups and push ups, which are my least favorite exercise to do ever. I was trying to cheat on my push-ups, but he then came and stood right next to me, making sure I did them right. I was a little peeved at the time, but my sore pecs this morning are thanking him for making me do the exercise.

When our mat work was finished, he took a few minutes and gave a quick motivational speech. He talked about how we choose how we feel, how we act, and how we react. He told us to never approach a day or an event with negativity, and to remember that you are given a gift of another day every time you wake up, and you should make the best of it. That is the mantra that I live by, and it was great hearing it from him with his perspective.

After the class was over, he stuck around and took pictures with anyone who wanted them. We took group shots, as well as individual shots. He was totally game to do crazy poses, much to Meaghan's delight, and it was actually HIM that dictated that he kiss my neck in my picture. He got all up in there too.

Overall, it was an amazing experience. And truly, the best part about it was I got to exercise! I always say that living this fun and fabulous life doesn't leave room for much gym time, so I was happy to combine them both for once! If I ever have friends visiting in town when he's teaching a class, I will most definitely take them to this. Best $12 I've spend in a long time!

Meaghan and me being... buff?

Jessica, me and Meaghan posing till it hurts

"On the count of three, POSE for the camera! Pose girls!"

Yes, this happened.

#34: Comedy shows at Upright Citizens Brigade and the Groundlings

I've never been a big fan of comedy clubs. I've been to a total of two comedy shows in my life, both coincidentally at Cobbs Comedy Club in San Francisco. The first show was an absolutely crude, vile woman talking about how she "pleases her man" to put it lightly (ew) and the second show was Tracy Morgan doing stand-up. Though I'm a huge fan of his work on TV (Brian Fellows skits on SNL, Tracy Jordan on 30 Rock) his stand-up was crude and vile as well. I found myself laughing more out of shock than actual humor. So when my friends suggested going to some of LA's famous comedy clubs as part of my 2011 list, I did my very best to think of something else to do instead.

But then, around Christmas time last year, I found myself reading Kathy Griffin's memoir. Besides being an absolutely hilarious book, she talked about her years as a student and member of the Groundlings theater. Immediately, I knew the improv theaters of LA would be very different from the comedy clubs of SF.

The Groundlings and the Upright Citizens Brigade are both improv schools, where part of the curriculum is to perform nightly in front of a live audience. There are different themes to the shows, and a few are actually scripted. Even though sometimes they may have famous guests, for the most part it's unknown young actors in the shows. Both theaters boast impressive alumni lists (Groundlings: Kathy Griffin, Phil Hartman, Lisa Kudrow, John Lovitz, Ray Romano, etc; UCB: Will Ferrell, Tina Fey, Amy Pohler, Aziz Ansari, Sarah Silverman, etc) and both offer cheap, sometimes even free, shows for the public.

Part One: Upright Citizens Brigade

UCB has several shows every night of the week. As I was looking at the calendar trying to decide which show to see, one popped out at me that I absolutely HAD HAD HAD to see. I would have gone alone if no one wanted to go with me. It was called "The Realest Real Housewives" and featured 7 women re-enacting unedited, unabridged scenes from different episodes from the Real Housewives franchise. I am ob-sessed with the Real Housewives (Beverly Hills, Atlanta, NY and NJ) and I know first-hand how ridiculous and hilarious these shows are, so the comedy re-telling would be pure gold. I got together my other Housewives fans, Jannine, Tracy, Joey and Josh, and brought Ronny along as well.

We got to the theater about 30 minutes before showtime, and waited in line on the sidewalk outside. When they started letting people in, we filed down a narrow hallway and into the theater. It is very, very small, only about 80 seats, so even though we sat in technically the back row, we were about 20 feet from the stage.

The show started with the ladies all singing their own rendition of "Tardy for the Party." The narrator then introduced the seven ladies, one of whom I recognized as a feature player on SNL. There was also one man in the cast, who played all the husband/gay hairstylist parts in the show. They then went city by city, reenacting all the best scenes. There was Bethenny and Kelly's "I'm up here, you're down there" scene from NY, the famous wig-pull between Sheree, NeNe and Kim from Atlanta, the incredibly awkward dinner scene with Camille Grammar and her electonic-cigarette-smoking psychic friend from Beverly Hills, and OF COURSE the now infamous table flipping scene from New Jersey. Among many other scenes from those cities as well as Orange County, DC and Miami. It. Was. Hilarious.

And the best part... my boyfriend, who has never seen one episode of The Real Housewives and rolls his eyes whenever I mention a recent episode, was laughing the loudest and hardest of anyone.

The show was only 1 hour, and definitely left us wanting more! Afterwards we went right next door to a pizzeria for dinner, where we practically ran into Jack McBrayer (Kenneth from 30 Rock!) who is a UCB Alumni. I am looking forward to going back to UCB for sure. I can't think of many other things you can do in this city that are this fun, and that cheap!

Part Two: The Groundlings

My friend Kaio used to take classes at the Groundlings, and has been telling me about it for a while. So when he found a show he wanted to see, I was happy to accompany him and his girlfriend Regina. The show was called "Black Version," which is an improv show where an all-black cast takes classic films and makes "black versions" of the movie. In past shows, they have re-enacted Top Gun, Titanic, The Godfather, Gone with the Wind, etc. The most recent one they had done was Silence of the Lambs, renamed to "Bitch, Why You Eatin' People?!?" We were in for a good show.

The moderator started with asking the audience for ideas of which movie to parody. I wanted them to do Zoolander, but apparently that wasn't "classic" enough. Oh well. They ended up choosing Star Wars, which was promptly renamed to "Space Fight," complete with an improv theme song set to the tone of Boyz II Men's "End of the Road."

They began to tell the classic take of Pookie Lowrider's quest to leave his job as a VCR repairman ("This just isn't for me!! I don't even know when it's fixed or broke, cuz no one has no VHS tapes anymore!!!") to find his greater calling in life. He then meets Shaft, a wise man that knows secrets of Pookie's past, and who trains him in the ways of the force using xbox ("You'd THINK they'd have a Wii up in this shit!") Along the way they find Lashawn Double to pilot an airplane ("Yo yo yo, watch this! Imma bout to put the hydraulics AND anti-gravity on at the same time!!") so they can all go save Lil' Princess ("Shaft! We need yo help up in here!") from the evil clutches of Cocoa Butter.

All the classic scenes, spun into a ridiculous black comedy (complete with outtakes and DVD commentary!) I think it goes without saying that the show was HILARIOUS. They are doing another Black Version show in July, and I will most definitely be there.

This show was a little more expensive, $15 compared to UCB's $10. However, it was a 2 hour show (instead of 1) and it was equally as funny. I don't think one could say one comedy club was better than another, because they are both so different and successful. There is definitely room for both in Los Angeles! I am so happy that I went to both clubs, and already have plans to return!

#28: Burlesque show on the Sunset Strip

My friend Barbara insisted last year that we see the movie "Burlesque." I knew it was going to be a hot sequined mess of a movie, but I still went just to see what kinds of songs they would have Christina Aguilera singing. I was right-on with my assessment of the movie (it was basically a low-budget version of "Chicago") but regardless, the music numbers were fun and flirty, and it got me thinking. The whole movie centered around this down-on-its-luck burlesque club on the Sunset Strip. But inside the club looked glitzy and expensive, and I wondered, do clubs like this actually exist? I thought it might actually be pretty fun to see a strip-tease burlesque show, complete with feathers, sequins, and maybe even a bit of T&A.

Fast forward to a few weeks ago, when I was at home sick and finally catching up on the dozen Chelsea Lately episodes in my DVR. The first show I watched had guest Dita von Teese. For those of you who don't know who she is, she is probably the world's most famous burlesque performer (certainly the only one I know by name). She splits her time between Los Angeles and Paris, but only does a few shows a year in LA. I thought it was a pipe dream to ever see her perform, but here she was, on Chelsea Lately, announcing TWO shows at the Roxy Theater on the Sunset Strip in mid-May. Bingo!

I immediately texted Barbara, my burlesque partner-in-crime, and told her we we going.

When the night of the show finally arrived, we made our way down Sunset Blvd over to the Roxy. I've heard about this club several times, along with the other clubs nearby like the Troubadour, Whiskey-A-Go-Go, the Viper Room, Rainbow Room, etc etc. I've never been to any of them, nor have I ever wanted to, because when I read the Motley Crue autobiography years ago, they went into detail about how dirty and dingy these clubs are, and I have it on good authority that none of them have really changed.

There was already a line forming outside for the 7pm show, so we got our tickets from will-call and hopped in line. When we made it into the club we got drinks, carved out a good spot to stand, and waited. We thought the show would start at 7, apparently the show actually started at 8:30. I was so glad I had worn flats! (I learned a long time ago to NEVER wear heels to a general-admission show, I don't care how fancy the place is, the pain is never worth it!).

When the lights finally went down, the gender-ambiguous host came out, got the crowd excited, and introduced Dita von Teese. It was immediately apparent to me why this woman is the world's most well-known burlesque performer. She was captivating, mesmerizing, and very, very good at what she does. For her first number she did her famous martini-glass performance. She started in a full suit (complete with top hat!), while dancing and lip-syncing to a 40s-esque song about liking a man who takes his time. She slowly revealed more and more skin, eventually ending up in a corset. Dita is a very thin woman, but after years of wearing corsets, she can get her waist in a corset down to 16 inches. 16 inches!!! It's a sight to see for sure. After the corset came off, she climbed into the big martini glass and squeezed a big sponge full of water all over herself. Yowza.

The crowd went wild.

Then we saw several other performances. We watched a Russian girl named Lada from the Crazy Horse is Paris do acrobatics on a huge heart-shaped apparatus, a spicy Latina named La Cholita shimmy like her life depended on it in a hot pink chiquita-banana outfit, and an Elvis-inspired number. Then Dita came on again!

This number was another one of her "signature" dances, where she is on-pointe in ballet shoes, dancing in and around a 8-foot tall makeup compact. She started out in a big fluffy tutu that mimicked the pad for the compact, and ended up practically naked covered in a cloud of powder. Obviously, my favorite performance of the night.

Then we saw more acts. Another from the Russian, then one from a full-figured black woman who jumped in the air and landed in the splits (how do people DO that!?) and then an audience-participation dance-off. The host pulled none other than PRINCE POPPYCOCK from the audience (anyone who saw last season's America's Got Talent knows who I'm talking about) who actually won 2nd place with his flamboyant outfit and moves. The guy who won first was drunk out of his mind and took his pants off... but I don't think this is the kind of contest one wants to win.

We were then treated to a performance by Raja, drag-queen extraordinaire and winner of the most recent season of Ru Paul's Drag Race (my guiltiest of all guilty pleasure reality show obsessions). She lip-synced FOR HER LIFE to that song "whatever Lola wants, Lola gets" and pranced around with a 2-foot tall bright yellow showgirl headdress.

As my feet started to ache, Dita came on for the grand finale. She came out housed in a stage-sized pagoda, and danced seductively around with a giant fan. She twirled from ropes inside the pagoda, did splits in the air, and by the end of the show there wasn't any person in that audience that wasn't a little bit in love with and in awe of her.

Some of you may be wondering about the level of nudity in the show. Though there was definitely a LOT of skin, the women always wore sparkly panties and pasties. Even without the full nudity, the tassels, teases and seductive moving were more than enough to make this R-rated and very, very sensual. In other words, it was awesome.

I really look forward to seeing her perform again. It was honestly one of the best Wednesday nights I've had lately (right up there with my Drag Queen Bingo Wednesday night!). I loved that even though I paid to see one performer, I saw about 10 different burlesque acts all performing their own take on the style. It was very much like the movie that inspired this bucket-list item, but way, way better (and way more scandalous) in real-life. I would highly recommend a show like this to anyone who has an open mind, doesn't mind seeing girls take off their clothes, and is willing to surrender their current girl-crush over to Dita von Teese.

I always use will-call to get real tickets!

My favorite performance of the night!

Me and Barb getting our burlesque on!

#10: Wholesale Flower Market in Downtown

When my friend Hillary got engaged, she got a fairly large, good quality diamond for only $800. Say whaaa?? All thanks to the Downtown jewelry district, a place where wholesale jewelers display their diamonds and other gems for fancier retailers to pick up, mark up, and sell for 10 times (or more) the wholesale price. There are several sections of the Wholesale District, and the best part is that they are all open to the public! As long as you can wade through the foot traffic, (and successfully navigate AWAY from Skid Row) you too can buy diamonds, or clothes (from the fashion/garment district) or rugs and fabric (from the textile district), or seafood (from the warehouse district), or toys (from what else, the toy district), or, for the case of this post, FLOWERS from the flower district, all at wholesale prices!

I have always wanted to go to the flower district, but it's just one of those things you never really "get around" to doing. For one, it is only open till noon on Saturdays (and closed Sundays) so it's something you have to plan for, wake up for in time, and get there before all the "good" flowers are gone. I knew that if I didn't put this on my list, I would probably never go, for one reason or another. But quite unexpectedly, I had a VERY good reason to go last weekend.

2011 is a big year in my family, mostly because it's the year that I turn 25 (hah hah) but also because both of my parents turned 60 this year. And seeing as this was the first "milestone" birthday for them where my brother, David, and I weren't starving and selfish college students, we decided that in addition to getting them presents, we (including our significant others) would each get them 60 of something.

After a few days of having NO idea what to get my mom (my dad was easy, I got him 60 Boeing airplane paper clips) I decided to try to get my mom 60 flowers. She has always loved flowers, as every woman does, so I thought it would be neat to get her 60 different stems. And where better to get them than the wholesale flower district in downtown!?

So, on the Saturday morning in April when Ronny and I were going to drive to my parent's house, we got up at 7:00AM (the horror!) and drove into downtown. It was a lovely morning with blue skies and no traffic, and we were able to easily find metered parking for $3 for an hour.. unfortunately, in my worldview that's reasonable.

Ironically enough, it's worth noting that the flower district is on Wall Street. In New York, it's high-powered fraud machines who brought down the world economy, but in Los Angeles, it's pretty flowers! I'll take LA over NY any day for that reason alone.

After paying the $1 entrance fee, we entered the market, which is really a large warehouse filled with dozens of booths for each of the local growers. Flowers were EVERYWHERE. We decided to do a lap around all the booths, to see what our options were. I very quickly realized that I would not be able to get 60 different types of flowers for my mom, so instead decided to get her as many different bunches as I could. I hemmed and hawed a lot, and I'm sure I REALLY tried Ronny's patience, but after our first lap, I had decided on which flowers I wanted to buy my mom.

I got her:
-Irises
-White snapdragons
-Red gladiolas
-Mini sunflowers
-Pink tulips
-White calla lilies
-Peach roses
-Greens

For a total of 63 stems plus greens, we paid just over $40. That's about the price of a dozen roses with baby's breath from a florist! The most expensive bunch we bought was the 2 dozen peach roses for, wait for it... $11. All the other bunches cost between $3-$5, and I think the dozen tulips were $8.

But most importantly, my mom was absolutely THRILLED with her gift. We bought enough flowers to make her 5 arrangements, which she then spread out around the house, and even took one into work.

I was very happy with the whole flower district experience, and definitely want to go back again. I probably won't drag Ronny the next time, because even though he was such a trooper and carried all the flowers for me as I pranced around the warehouse, I could tell he just really, really wanted to go back to sleep. Next time I will bring a wagon and let Ronny sleep!

From the outside

Inside the flower market warehouse


Me with all the bunches we bought. I must say, this is not a very representative picture because Ronny carried them the WHOLE time, and I only held them for the photo-op

The finished arrangements

Oh, and just in case you guys were curious, here's what everyone else brought 60 of:
David brought them each iPods with the top 60 songs from 1969, the year they graduated high school
My brother's girlfriend Stephanie brought my dad 60 golf tees (just enough for one round, in his words) and my mom a jar of 60 different buttons for crafting
Ronny, besides putting in pretty much ALL the effort for my mom's flowers, also brought my dad 60 mini Snickers bars

#30: Thai Town

One time I was looking for an antiques shop on Hollywood Blvd, and very quickly realized that I had missed it somehow. But instead of turning around I decided to keep going, just to see what the famed street would turn into after the "walk of fame" part ended. I soon found myself driving through Little Armenia, and then a few blocks later, Thai Town. Who knew?

I've eaten Thai food a few times, but for the most part I've stayed close to the "Americanized" pad thai's and the like. But since I want to travel to Thailand in the future, I decided that I should try some real, authentic Thai food. And where else to go, besides the neighborhood with the highest concentration of Thai people in the world, outside of Thailand?

The only problem was, as any Angeleno would know, is that the further east you drive... the more sketchy it is. Thai Town was no exception. We parked in a well-lit Ralphs parking lot and walked past the "Thai Town" sign (photo op) and headed to our restaurant. On the way:

Me: Ronny, are you prepared to beat off any guys that might attack me?

Ronny: Um... no, I'm not going to beat off anyone.

Me: WHAT? You won't protect me??

Ronny: ....

Me: Hehe... oh.

Yeah, that happened.

We walked to a small shopping center that was full of different Thai restaurants, and just looked in the windows to pick which one we wanted to eat at. We weighed crowd, menu, grade in the window (no B's please!) and decided on Red Corner Asia. It looked contemporary, but authentic without being dirty, and had a good mixed crowd of people inside.

After looking over the menu for a few minutes, I realized that every single dish had a chili pepper symbol next to it. Basically meaning that every single thing on the menu was spicy. As many of you may know, I cannot eat spicy food. And it's not that I don't WANT to enjoy it, but eating spicy food literally makes me feel like I want to die. I asked the very pretty, very Thai-looking waitress if the "mild" version was still spicy. She very emphatically nodded her head yes. Great.

I decided to order giant shrimp topped with coconut curry sauce, and Ronny got the "red door special" which was a full fried fish. I also insisted on an order of crispy spring rolls and coconut sticky rice, just in case I couldn't eat my entree due to spiciness.

The rolls and the coconut rice were delicious. The coconut rice could easily have been (and probably was) a dessert, which I was happy to eat before dinner. When our food arrived, Ronny immediately dug into his fish, but was unimpressed. I struggled with the shrimp, simply because they served it to me whole and I couldn't get the meat out. So yes, I had to pass it over to my more skilled boyfriend, who cut it up for me (and stole quite a few bites for himself). The sauce was a yellow curry, with coconut milk drizzled on top, and it wasn't really all that spicy. The shrimp were cooked well and was enough food for two, and we walked away full.

After we finished dinner, we were going to walk around a bit to see if there was anything worth seeing in Thai Town. There was the "Thailand Plaza" (but with the burned out neon lights it just said "and Plaza") but most of the Thai markets inside the plaza were already closed. There wasn't really much else to see, and it is obvious that Thai Town is not a "tourist" destination. But I did learn that it isn't far from where I work in Hollywood and I wouldn't mind going back.

Even though we went to Thai Town and had "authentic" food, I question how authentic it is to actually get "mildly" spicy things when actually in Thailand. If I ever go there, I will prepare myself to eat lots of rice and vegetables, which probably wouldn't be a bad thing!

Street sign announcing Thai Town on Hollywood Blvd.

My jumbo shrimp swimming in yellow curry sauce with coconut milk drizzled on top. Yum!

#19: The Price is Right

"YOU'VE JUST WON.... A NNEEEEWWWW CAAAARRRRRR!!!!!"

Psh... I wish. But that was the hope, anyway!

For my first day off in 2011, I decided that instead of sleeping in and relaxing, I wanted to get up earlier than I do when I go to work, drive to CBS Studios and sign up to see a taping of The Price is Right. Ronny, ever the good sport, took the day off with me to participate.

I have always heard that seeing a taping of The Price is Right is something that you "must" do if you are in LA. Maybe it's just one of those things that out-of-towners think is glamorous and "cool," because I never really saw the appeal. But, I figured that I should see for myself what all the hype is about!

On the days that they tape TPIR, they have two tapings a day. One is at 12pm, the other at 4pm. In order to get into the noon show, you have to show up (no joke) no later than 6am. Since there was no way in hell we would get up that early for pretty much anything, we signed up for the 4pm show. CBS suggests you get there at noon. A few Google searches of other people's experiences recommends you show up at 8am.

Ugh.

So before we even showed up, we knew we were in store to wait a minimum of 7 hours before the taping would even start. We groggily showed up at 9am and received little pieces of paper that represented our spots in line (even at 9am we were 91 and 92. The guy who was first in line got there at 6am... crazy!!) We were then told to come back at noon. So luckily that gave us time to go to brunch. We went to Blu Jam, which I have always heard good things about but have always avoided because it's always SO crowded on weekends. I figured this sunny Monday morning was perfect. We had a lovely brunch, and Ronny gave it a 4-star Yelp review.

Our bellies full, we headed back to the Grove where we had to park. I convinced Ronny to let me go to Anthropologie for a bit, which he obliged to but I think it was only because Mario Lopez was just outside Anthro taping for that night's "Extra" episode. (Ronny's justification: "Who would pass up an opportunity to see AC Slater in person??!"). We watched him talk for a bit about how Charlie Sheen had bombed his first show on his comedy tour... ironically enough, Mario messed up a bunch of times himself and they had to keep re-doing it.

Around noon we headed back over to CBS (which is walking distance from the Grove shopping center). We then sat for about hour. Then they started lining us up, putting us in order of which we first arrived. After we were all in order, we each had to fill out a form with our names and social security numbers (to claim prizes I guess) and then wait in ANOTHER line to get our name tags. We were then shepherded to another long row of benches where we waited to get interviewed. We waited there for about an hour (it's now around 2:00 pm) before our group of about 15 people was called up to be "interviewed" by the show's producer. All this interview consists of is the producer going down the line, and saying "Hi Susan! What do you do?" and pretty much the crazier and louder you are, the more likely you are to get chosen as a contenstant. Obviously, Ronny and I weren't CRAZY enough, and neither was anyone from our group.

After that, we are herded around a corner to wait in ANOTHER line to then check our cameras, phones, all other electronic devices, and go through a metal detector. These security guards should be employed by the TSA - they caught EVERYTHING. I have never seen a more thorough bag search! I guess they have a lot to lose if someone uses their phone to look up the prices of bleach and dog biscuits.

Our only source of entertainment gone, we now had to sit on ANOTHER row of benches with nothing but a CBS magazine to entertain us. I read some of the articles (obviously, focused only on CBS shows) and I think Ronny was trying to count his eyelashes or something. Since we were in the 90s, of over 300 people, we waited for about 45 minutes before everyone filed in. THEN the TVs around us turned on, and we were able to watch a recent episode of TPIR, plus a short video about crazy contestants. That was another hour.

When we were finally herded into the actual studio, I got a kick out of how it is soooo obvious the studio hasn't been updated since the '70s. I mean... pastel rainbow curtains on either side of the stage. Flower-power flowers galore. It was fantastic. When we were directed to our seats, Ronny and I were excited to see that we were sitting 2 rows behind the "winners row" where people make their initial bids to get on stage. We thought it was cool, but soon realized how EXHAUSTING it would be, since we were constantly on camera, we had to be cheering and shouting out numbers constantly as well.

Unfortunately, my Bucket List good luck ran out and neither of us got called down. But either way, the actual taping of the show was a lot of fun. Drew Carey was really funny and personable, and told us long jokes and talked to the audience a lot when they were on commercial breaks. From the few times I've seen shows tape, the hosts usually completely ignore the audience when the cameras aren't rolling (I'm looking at you, Nick Cannon!) so it was actually quite nice . The energy in the room was crazy, though I'm sure it was mostly fueled by a lot of jealousy of people that came from all over the country hoping to get called down, and didn't.

Some of the prizes were totally ridiculous. One girl won an RV trailer, another won a dictionary set.

The girl that won the Showcase Showdown was really sweet. She had just gotten married, and they had just bought a house, so winning a new car and $10,000 plus some trips was really life changing for her. Her excitement was infectious and I was happy for her! (and laughed a little... I mean I'll take the 10k but really, who wants a Dodge Charger?).

And then, just like that... 70 minutes later it was over. Time to go wait in line to get our cell phones, and go home.

So like I said, the taping was a lot of fun, but the ridiculous amount of waiting

and waiting

and waiting

and waiting involved with getting into the taping was hardly worth it. If you were retired and had as much time in the world as you wanted, I would say HECK YES go see a taping (but try not to sit where you will be on camera a lot, or you might wear yourself out!). But if you're like me, and taking the 1 day off led to almost 100 emails in my inbox on Tuesday.. it's not the best use of time. But I'm really glad I did it! Now I can check it off and move on with my list. :)

Look Mom, I'm on TV!!

#35: The Magic Castle

Magical.

I know that's the one word I shouldn't use to describe my experience at the Magic Castle, but that's really all that comes to mind. But start to finish, the whole experience was down right, freaking MAGICAL. The fact that I even got in, magical. Participating in a show with my boyfriend, magical. Grilled salmon over lemon risotto... not quite magical, but certainly good enough!

Hopefully this means I have all my "magicals" out of my system, so now I can get on with telling you about my... AWESOME... evening at the Magic Castle in Hollywood.

The Magic Castle is an exclusive magic and supper club, pledging to "encourage and promote public interest in the art of magic with particular emphasis on preserving its history as an art form, entertainment medium, and hobby." However, they aren't so keen on letting just "anyone" from the public come in and enjoy the magical arts. To even get into the building, you must have a personal invite from a "member" of the castle. And to be a member, you have to be affiliated with the Academy of Magical Arts (aka be a magician), or be able to afford a $1000-a-year membership. So for the most part, I really thought that this was the most unattainable goal on my entire list. I don't know anyone involved in "the magical arts" and I certainly can't afford the membership fees.

But luckily for me, I am blessed with a really amazing network of friends. I was at coffee one Sunday morning with my old office manager and dear friend Chanon, and was telling her enthusiastically about my list. She has lived in LA forever and knows everyone, and was delighted to tell me that one of her friends is a member at the Magic Castle. She said she would see if he could get me an invite. I had the invitation (good for me + 7 people) in my inbox Monday morning!

I first had to decide on a guest list... which was tough because I have so many friends that I wanted to share the experience with. Obviously, I invited my bf Ronny, who had never heard of the Magic Castle but was more than interested once he looked it up on Yelp and heard great things about their lamb dish. Next was my friend Kaio, who was actually the first person to ever tell me about the castle and had been wanting to go forever, and his lovely girlfriend Regina. I had to include List regulars Meaghan and Tracy, since they are always game for new stuff, and rounding out the bunch was my roommate Jannine and her good friend Erika.

When I called to make the dinner reservation (required if you want to see the shows) they had me on hold for 10 minutes. Which wouldn't have been all that bad if I could have listened to music or something, but instead I had to listen to a voice recite the dress code to me over, and over, and over, and over. So by the time they actually picked up my call, I knew the very strict dress code by heart. Formal attire, no denim, no jackets with zippers (?), men must wear a tie, but an ascot or "jeweled collar" (??) would be acceptable. Hollywood is weird sometimes.

I was so excited that I had a reservation at the Magic Castle (!!!) I called my mom to tell her all about it. I guess when she was at lunch the next day, she mentioned it to one of her coworkers, who just so HAPPENS to be a life member of the MC! So random but unbelievable! As soon as she heard that I was going, she was giving my mom lots of tips to tell me, like how to dress (she was once sent home for being dressed too casually and didn't want that to happen to me!) as well as menu options, etc. She also gave my mom a VIP pass, which would waive the $25 door fee for me and Ronny. So now I have $50 to spend on another thing from my list. Thanks Judy!!

When the date of our magical (sorry) evening arrived, we all dressed in our fancy best and carpooled up to the castle. Our dinner reservation wasn't until almost 10:00pm, but we arrived around 8:00 to catch a few shows. In order to enter the club from the lobby, we had to whisper "open sesame" to a bookcase, which then opened into a door. Pretty cool. The castle is set up in a maze-like way, with twisted hallways and steep staircases and secret doors. There are several bars, which on a busier night I can just imagine being filled with glamorous looking people whose fancy shoes are too uncomfortable to stand in for very long. We ordered a round of drinks from the main bar and got in line for our first show.

Also, it's worth noting that the week we went was the "Magic of Spain" week, and most of the performers that week were from Spain (with a few from Portugal). So all of our magicians had pretty thick accents and were very charming.

The first show we saw was in the "close-up" gallery, which is mostly sleight-of-hand card tricks. And I must preface it by saying, if this was the only show we had seen, I would still feel like it was worth my time, money, and effort to get into the castle. The things we saw in this show, were straight up, jaw-on-the-floor, your-logical-mind-is-trying-to-explain-it-but-you-just-have-to-resign-to-calling-it-magic AMAZING. The magician sat at a table, with about 20 people sitting in front of him, and proceeded to pretty much blow our minds. Mind you, we were sitting less than 10 feet away. There were tricks where someone picked a random card (a king) and then the next 3 cards the magician flipped over were the other 3 kings. Or when he waved a 7 of spades and it literally turned into a 3 of hearts in front of our eyes. WTF!!?!! But the best, the very best trick, was what he called "oil and water" where he had about 8 cards in his hand, mixed red and black, and he would snap his fingers, and when he turned over the 8 cards they were sorted into all blacks, all reds. Then he did the same thing with 4 cards. Then, he tapped the top of the rest of the deck, turned it over and the entire deck was sorted. He hadn't even touched the deck in almost 5 minutes! I just know my words aren't doing justice here, but when we walked out of that room we were all completely speechless.

The next show we saw was a bigger show, with maybe 50 people in the room, and one magician on a small stage in front. He started off the show asking for a "bill" but with his thick Spanish accent, not many people understood him. Ronny understood him and pulled out a dollar bill and waved it. The magician asked him to give it to his lady friend (he pointed to Tracy, who is Filipino, because obviously the 2 Asians would be the ones dating) but of course Ronny gave me the dollar to take down to the magician. The magician then asked me if I would participate in his next trick. HELL YEAH!

First, he handed me a scarf, which had a green border and was plain white in the middle. He then asked me to fold, fold, fold the scarf, and when it was small enough to fit in my fist, to put a rubber band around it and hold it tightly in my right fist. He then asked me to call down another participant from the audience, and was debating which of my friends to call down, when Ronny gave me a big ol' wink from the audience. It was so cheesy and cute, so of course I called him down to help. The magician then presented Ronny with a deck of cards, asked him to shuffle and then pick a card. The card was a queen of hearts. He then had Ronny wave his hands around the queen, then told me to open my fist. The green-bordered scarf was still there (I had been holding onto it the whole time) but when he asked me to unfold it, I started unfolding, and instead of being plain white in the middle, a queen of hearts was now printed on the silk. WTF?!?!! I was RIGHT THERE and I still don't know how he did it. Amazing.

For the magicians next trick, my friend Kaio got called down, and blah blah blah ended up pulling an 8 of clubs out of an orange. The card had a corner torn off of it, and that corner piece perfectly matched a scrap that had been in Kaio's hand since the beginning of the trick. Pre-tty crazy.

After that we headed to dinner, and as you can see by my below post about Matsuhisa, I'm not very good at reviewing restaurants. But I can say that I had a very enjoyable dinner. The restaurant part of the club is in the middle of the second floor, but seemed very intimate and fancy. The food was a bit expensive, but the grilled salmon over lemon risotto that I ordered was really good. Ronny loved his lamb, and Regina and Meaghan both were loving the butternut squash ravioli. We did have a very interesting appetizer called "Portabello fries" which I immediately said no thanks to, since I gave up french fries for lent. But it turns out these were actually grilled Portabello mushrooms, which were then rolled in beer batter and fried. Deelish.

Our food took quite a while to come out, so by the time we were actually eating we were already late for our scheduled show (with a dinner reservation, you are guaranteed 1 show, all the other ones are first-come-first-served). Since we were guaranteed that show, the entire show had to be delayed so we could finish our meal. Which is fine, it's what we paid for, but it was a little annoying having the wait staff breathe down our necks to finish.

The third show, which is supposed to be the "spectacle" show, is so flashy and Vegas-y, and was truly just so, so cheesy! Sleight-of-hand to me is just so much more fascinating and requires more skill. But these flashy shows are all the trick contraptions, and loud music, and the "hot" magicians assistant (but this one was pretty busted, honestly). I guess I will just never look at those kinds of magic shows the same again after seeing Gob on Arrested Development swing his hands in the air and create "illusions" with "Final Countdown" blaring in the background. This show was slightly more refined, but I still would have rather just sat in the close-up gallery instead.

After the big show, we tried to catch one more show before leaving. This show was a bit different, in that instead of a designated start and stop time, its just a room where you can take a seat, order a drink, and every couple minutes a different magician will come out, and they rotate all night. But when we went to that lounge, it was already full and the people there weren't budging. So we called it a night.

When we were waiting for valet to bring around our cars, our heads were just swimming! Kaio and I were still trying to explain how the queen of hearts showed up on my scarf, and he thinks he knows how the 8 of clubs ended up inside the fresh orange (I call BS) but it was a lot of fun to digest the whole experience.

If anyone ever has the opportunity to go to the Magic Castle, I would question why they would hesitate for even a second. Yes, it's a bit expensive with the mandatory dinner and the $25 door fee, but it was WORTH. EVERY. PENNY to be entertained and see things in a way you can't really see many other places. The Magic Castle is world-renowned in the magician community, and it is considered a crowning achievement of ones career to perform there. So these performers are truly the best of the best. I hadn't even left the place when I was already thinking how I was going to ask Judy (Mom's coworker) for another pass!! Highly, highly recommend!!!

All of us in front of the "open sesame" bookcase.