Laurel and Hardy Locations Tour November 13

Above, Billy Gilbert, Oliver Hardy and Stan Laurel in the classic "The Music Box." "The Music Box" stairs are a part of the tour.

The "Way Out West" Tent (Los Angeles) of the Sons of the Desert (the Laurel and Hardy fan organization) will be conducting a tour of Laurel and Hardy locations throughout the Los Angeles area.

I went on this tour twice (back in the 1980s) and they were a lot of fun.

The "Way Out West" Tent sent the following information:

Details on our upcoming tour of Laurel & Hardy film locations are now available. Buses will depart Media Park in downtown Culver City at 9 a.m., on Saturday November 13. The tour will last over 6 hours and will include locations from over 10 different films.

Registration forms are available starting today at:
http://www.wayoutwest.org/tour/2010tour.pdf

Prices are $40 per person, and include:
_ lunch, beverages, and snacks
- souvenir tour program with "then" photos of all the locations we visit
- one seat on a small, air conditioned bus with good views for all
- video clips from the films when we visit each location

We will visit popular locations from the following films:
- Berth Marks
- Hats Off
- The Hoose-Gow
- Hog Wild (two sites)
- Liberty
- The Lucky Dog
- Men O’ War
- The Music Box
- The Second Hundred Years
- Towed in a Hole
Plus:
- Oliver Hardy’s grave.
- Stan Laurel’s grave.

Media Park is located between Venice Boulevard and Culver Boulevard, in Culver City. We will meet on the Culver Boulevard side of the park. Parking is available on the opposite side of Culver Boulevard, in the Ince Parking Structure. Parking will be $1 per hour, with the first two hours free.

Additional information about the tour can be found online at:
http://www.wayoutwest.org/tour/

I highly recommend taking this tour!

Christine Nguyen, A Real Sweetheart!

Photo courtesy of Christine Nguyen.

A funny thing happened the other night.

I was about an hour and a half away from going off-duty in my "parachute" job as a security patrol officer when I stopped at the guard shack at one of the gated communities I patrol in Malibu.

Inside, the guard had on television the Poorman's Bikini Beach show. The show was about ten minutes away from ending and they played a teaser (just before a commercial break) of their hotline segment with a panel of three bikini-clad lovelies who would answer callers' questions. One of them was very familiar to me, but I wasn't sure as the teaser whisked by.

After the commercial break, segment came on and one of the panelists was Christine Nguyen! Hot damn! (Ahem.) It truly is a small world.

I told the guard of Christine and he was very impressed with her. He hadn't heard of her before, and he comes from a show-biz family (his uncle was comedian Billy Gilbert from the Hal Roach Laurel & Hardy comedies (see "The Music Box" or "County Hospital") and his mother acted in many Gene Autry westerns) He also has acted and is a card-carrying SAG member. I sent Christine a text message telling her that we just saw her on the show.

Minutes later (around midnight) she text her thanks. Tom, the guard I was with, speculated that she may have been up watching too.

The next day, I followed up by telling Christine the circumstances on how we happened to see her on the show. I won't post what she said in our exchanges (at one point she did say I made her "blush"), but Christine is one real sweet lady! (I knew this before, as she was the first to send me a condolence message the morning of my mother's passing.)

It is Christine's natural sweetness and humor that comes through in her acting and model work. One cannot avoid being drawn to her. That shouldn't be too difficult to understand: she's an Aquarius! Christine and I both were born on February 4.

Besides being a fan, it is an honor for me to also be a friend of Christine Nguyen. She's a real sweetheart!