Tom Waits made a 1979 appearance on Australia’s ‘The Don Lane Show’. Starts at about 1:30.
Look familiar?
Before Angelenos pledged their undying love to cars, we were a city connected by trolleys, buses, streetcars, and light rails. And how did people get from their houses in the hills to transit lines, schools or the local market? Stairs! Lots and lots of stairs. About 450 hidden historic stairways, built mostly in the 1920s, wind through LA’s steep hillside neighborhoods, many of them forgotten. Whether you enjoy a bit of cardio with your history or just fancy blazing a steep path where few have known to tread, the following is a small sampling of LA’s historic hidden staircases well worth the climb. =more=
(via CBS Los Angeles)
Dear Dana, my brother,
You’re my hero, and have been so since the early nineties. I consider you the funniest man to have ever walked the face of the earth. You’re responsible for my most violent laughs over the years, made available to me by way of your Saturday Night Live classics like The Church Lady, Garth Algar, Lyle the Effeminate Heterosexual, Hans and Frans, George Bush Sr., Ross Perot, Johnny Carson, Bob Dylan, Keith Richards, and countless others. The list goes on. Nobody is a bigger fan of Dana Carvey than me. Bellissima!
You’ve been off the grid for some time now, nearly 20 years. I clearly recall your last stint on SNL, where you played the tampon of Princess Diana, which as I recall was back in around 1993. After that episode, it was suddenly announced that you’d officially made your exodus from the show. I was shocked. Yet while heartbroken, I respected the stealthness of it. You went out at the top of your game.
Lots has happened in the world since 1993, and you’ve been waaaay off the radar. I’ve occasionally wondered where you’ve been, what you’ve been thinking, and what you’ve had to tell this over the years through your delicious comedy. Just this year, an election year, 2012, I was telling others that we could use a recap from your Grumpy Old Man, giving us his opinion on the state of affairs. Just imagine what he’d have to say. IT’S THE WAY IT WAS AND WE LLLIKED IT!!! WE LLLOVED IT!!!
I have MISSED you, man.
A few weeks ago I heard you were doing a club tour, and would be gracing the local Canyon Club in Agoura Hills with your presence. AWESOME. I immediately nabbed tickets for me and my wife, springing for VIP passes. Not cheap, but worth it. The idea of finally getting to see you perform live for us after all these years was an opportunity not to be missed.
We got to the gig early tonight in Agoura Hills, ready to rock. Ready to see you, brother. Ready to laugh in ways that could only be inspired by you. I even slipped the security person a bill to get us down near the front; we shared a table with another couple who are also longtime Dana fans. The house informed us that you would be on for 90 minutes, starting at 9PM, going until 10:30. Killer. Bring on the Guinness, right?
At 9PM, you took the stage as scheduled. You launched into a set of material that was arguably re-hash, but, hey, you know, we were in it for the haul. I trusted you had something special for us down the stretch. Lots can be done in 90 minutes.
Just as we were getting warmed up, at the 55 minute mark of your set, you got into a bit of a sideline argument with some tool situated down near the front of the stage. Moments after that, you called it quits, bidding the house goodnight, ending your set. You hadn’t even been on for an hour. If this were a movie, we hadn’t even hit Act Three.
Confused, blue-balled, I conferred with the couple who shared our table. More perceptive than I, they’d observed that the miff you experienced with the tool in front caused you to reactively throw in the towel for the show. I’m not sure what it was all about, but it had something to do with his comments, and your opinion on how he was treating his server.
Bummer.
I will always celebrate your work. I consider you the funniest man in the world, and have always wanted to see you do your stuff in front of me, live. I’M FIRST IN LINE. Now, in 2012, you’ve finally come out of the shadows and decided to give us some Dana Carvey. And we happily paid good dough for it. But after tonight, with you rolling over like that, I’ve gotta say this:
You suck. If you want to go out and do dates today in 2012, you’ve gotta ball up and figure out how to take control of your own stage. YOU’RE A FUCKING PERFORMER. And if some asshole pisses you off? Push back. Don’t just roll over and let some jerk off ruin it for everybody else. IT’S YOUR GODDAMN SHOW. Take control of it. Don’t be such a pussy.
I love you. But when we pay a couple hundred bucks to come out to see you? And you can’t bring it? You can’t throw down when the lights come on? It’s better you just stay home, dude.
Stay the fuck home.
A biopic film of Steve Jobs’ life will premiere at Sundance on January 27. It’s called ‘jOBS’, and stars Ashton Kutcher. =more=
