The centerpiece around which the whole weekend celebration in Los Angeles took place was the Way Out West Tent’s 40th Anniversary Banquet which occurred Saturday evening, July 28, 2007 at the Westin Los Angeles Airport Hotel. Following our bus tour of Culver City, there was just a dab of time to check into our room and relax a bit. It was decided just hours before that I would be splitting a room at the Westin with my pal David so we got into our room, changed into our dress garb, and prepared for an exciting night with our Sons of the Desert friends.
Before the banquet itself began, David and I assisted in doling out programs onto the dining tables and setting up some perimeter tables while Bob watched from one of the other tables whilst chatting with Ed Greim. At 6:00 there was a cocktail hour in the foyer in front of the banquet room. There I saw my good pal Rick Greene and we exchanged some power pop CD’s. He gave me some selections from The Tories. Since Jimmy was wrapped up in trying to get things prepared for the evenings show, David and I were pretty much left to entertain ourselves. We also got lassoed into helping Bob Duncan and Stan Taffel carry some display items down from their room.
I tried to get Ed Greim to pose on Bob’s lap, but neither were having any of that
So I showed them how to loosen up
Transporting a (rather fresh) statue of Stan to the banquet room
As I was rather exhausted from the days events, I mostly just kicked back and enjoyed the proceedings which began at 7:00 without taking lots of photos or running around like a chicken with my head cut off talking to everyone. I was called upon, along with all of the other tent Grand Sheiks past or present, to sing the traditional Sons of the Desert song. Bob Duncan gave the toasts with the theme of the number ’40’. Not sure if they lasted quite 40 minutes or not…but they came close.
Stan Laurel’s heirs: Cassidy, Tommy, and Lucy toast their grandfather
The entertainment of the evening consisted of Rogers & Evans (not Roy and Dale) performing a couple of numbers while galloping around the stage, L&H impersonators Chuck McCann and Jim MacGeorge performing some routines (Chuck had some trouble remembering his punchline so he had his wife come up on stage and bail him out), an awards presentation with the winners being people’s choice clips from various L&H films, and the highlight…my pal Jimmy’s entertaining video presentation about the history of the Way Out West Tent. He gave me a copy of the full video documentary afterwards and I must say he is quite talented. Especially in light of all of the demands placed on him in getting ready for the evening and the unappreciative nature of at least one individual who was lucky not to get decapitated with a fork.
Jim and Chucker
The dinner was good, the company was fine, and the entertainment was entertaining. At the end of the evening, I escorted Stan Laurel’s great-grandaughters Cassidy and Cherry – along with Cassidy’s twins Lucy and Tommy – to their car where they passed on a package of stuff collected by their Grandma Lois to give to me. After the excitement had died down, David and I helped Jimmy and the others clean up the room and move stuff to their cars and back to the Jimmys’ office right around the corner. As exhausted as we were, it was fun to help – even though David was still inexplicably carrying around a flower in a vase.
Me with the lovely Cherry and Cassidy and the great-great grandchildren Lucy and Tommy
Dave and the flowers
Dave and I finally retired to the room and stayed up for a while doing impressions and giggling like schoolchildren.
See Jim MacGeorge here…
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