On Friday, October 7, Bob, Jimmy, and I headed from Bob’s place in San Bernardino toward Las Vegas. The main reason: to see the Penn & Teller live show at the Rio, which I covered in a previous posting found here. But while we were in town, Bob wanted to show us around a bit. I thought that this sounded great as it would provide even more great things to do and report in our family Christmas Newsletter. As much as my website helps drive many of the adventures I go on these days, the Christmas Newsletter helped drive events back in 2005.
In fact, this was really the first trip that I took ostensibly for just that reason and was certainly the precursor of my current-day road trips and vacations. But we were nearing the end of the trip as we approached the weekend. Penn & Teller would be that night, and our visit with Jack Hanlon would be on our way into town – and then I’d have only one day left.
Jack Hanlon was one of the former members of the silent Our Gang (Little Rascals) comedies. I previously reported more about Jack in a previous posting highlighting my second meeting with Jack a year and a half later. This particular meeting on October 7, 2005 was my first and I was greatly looking forward to meeting a new Our Gang member.
Portrait of a young Jackie Hanlon
Jack’s on the right in The Glorious Fourth. Pictured with him are Harry Spear, Farina Hoskins, Joe Cobb, Jannie Hoskins, Jay R Smith, and Jackie Condon. Jay R added his signature along with Jack’s
There was no surprise in finding Jack to be an exceptionally kind man as Bob had already told me what a great guy he was. Bob had sort of taken Jack under his wing, often visiting whenever in Vegas, and bringing food for him to his house. I was enchanted by Jack’s stories, humor, and positive outlook on life. He even had the (bad) habit of answering every piece of mail that crosses his path, including the junk mail. It was also a pleasure to sit down to some videotapes of his Our Gang films with him, while he posed for a couple of photos.
Jack watches an old Our Gang silent The Glorious Fourth
Farina and Jack
Jimmy and I had our photo taken together with Jack because at that time, we were still planning on a written Laurel and Hardy publication called The Wax Apple, and one of the articles we were going to include was one I had already written about Jack, based on a tape recorded interview conducted by Bob. After visiting with Jack, we headed out for our evening with Penn & Teller – amply described here.
Jack adds his signature to the many already on the ‘Our Gang’ baseball that Bob gave to me that day
Jack signed this photo during my later visit in 2007
Jack and the future(?) editors
The next morning, Saturday, October 8, we had one final day ahead of us and I was itching to make the most of it. We started out with a huge Vegas-style breakfast buffet at the Royal Hotel and Casino, located right by the Stardust. Then we headed back to the Vegas Strip.
We walked through the Venetian and saw the gondola rides going through the mall area, but didn’t take one. We also passed up Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum, although Bob was trying to talk us into seeing it. We then headed over to the Forum Shops at Caesars and browsed many of the memorabilia shops…and even ran into a couple of celebrities.
Bob, me, and Jimmy roam the Venetian
First was Pete Rose, sitting outside of a baseball card shop big as you please signing autograph for fans. Well…actually it wasn’t quite that simple. You had to pay somewhere in the neighborhood of $75 for a signature and you couldn’t even think about getting a photo with him without buying an autograph. I was disappointed and was hoping to add at least one more celebrity encounter to my trip to include in the newsletter.
Fortunately, not ten shops up on the opposite side of the mall was a memorabilia shop and sitting out front was Margot Kidder, most famous as Lois Lane from Superman. She too was charging for signatures and photo-ops. Since I already had a signed photo of her, I didn’t go for that, but I shelled out the ten bucks to get a photo with her. They actually would print up an 8×10 shot right then and there. You can see my encounter with her right here.
Also while browsing the mall, we were talked into going into a room and previewing the pilot for a new reality show. The show was called Going Hollywood and it featured a group of young wannabe actors going to Hollywood in search of their big break. Kevin Spacey was the only big name who starred in it – and frankly, I expected more out of him. We were asked to turn a dial either right or left, depending on whether our interest was waxing or waning. Mine waned quite a bit. But we did get free popcorn and a souvenir. Naturally I chose a magnet.
For dinner that evening, we ventured to the outskirts of Las Vegas to Amlee’s, a Chinese restaurant recommended by our friend Rick Greene. It was very good, but surprisingly had no crowd there whatsoever, so Bob, Jimmy, and I virtually dined alone.
In search of one final thrill, I talked Bob and Jimmy on ending the evening with a rock concert at the Aladdin. Dennis DeYoung was performing the songs of Styx with the local Philharmonic orchestra, much as he had done back in Dayton at the Fraze Pavillion on August 23, 2002, when I had last seen him. The Alan Parsons Project opened up and the entire show was great, if a little long. I was getting tired and I know Jimmy glanced at his watch once or seventy-twice.
In one final effort to add the ultimate celebrity encounter to my week – and a member of the Big Seven at that – Jimmy and I tried to wait for Dennis DeYoung to come outside after the show. Bob was much too tired to wait around so he showed us where we might find him and then went back to the car to nap. We waited for nearly an hour into the week hours of the morning – and he never made an appearance. It was a disappointing – and rather anticlimactic – way to end the week.
We all went back to our hotel and crashed – Jimmy and I sharing that same stupid bed again. The next morning we had to again get up bright and early in order to get me back to the Ontario airport for my departure flight which was sometime around noon. It always sucked going home. Not only ending the great trip, but facing the long flight and three-hour time loss.
I fully utilized my more than four rolls of film (this was my last trip without using a digital camera), using many of the photos in the 2005 Christmas newsletter, which we will see soon enough – but the first thing I was faced with upon my return were the continuing-to-mount issues between Ashleigh and Carolyn, and Carolyn and me, and Ashleigh and me. The vacation had been a great diversion, but it was back to reality soon enough – and having to ask Carolyn for the cash to buy that Mildred Kornman autograph book, which we will be seeing when we return!
2005 will continue…
Return to the beginning of the trip…
See Penn & Teller here…
See Margot Kidder here…
Yeah, I think you should give me that cash back! 🙂
Carolyn Gelm
August 22nd, 2008
Cool baseball!
Bob
August 25th, 2008