The Rose Parade is something I’ve looked forward to seeing every year since I moved to Pasadena. Before we bought a house, we actually lived half a block from the parade route, so we could swing down to the street to see the floats and the marching bands with our neighbors, coffee mugs in hand and our kid still young enough to ride on our shoulders. Good times! I still miss that, even though I’m incredibly proud that she’s just graduated early from university. Something to celebrate, even though it’s shaping up to be another touch-and-go winter. We have a chance to turn things around and do better if we only will.
This year’s parade is the first since the pandemic began, and the weather turned sunny after a week of unusually hard rains. A good sign, generally. This one is not the best I ever saw (that would be the year our Jet Propulsion Lab had its own towering, animated “Rocketman” float à la Elton John; I think that year also featured a band costumed as Star Wars stormtroopers, but I’d have to dig back through my old photos to be sure). I haven’t gotten down to Colorado Boulevard to see things in person this time; maybe tomorrow I’ll walk down to the float display at Victory Park if it’s not too crowded for safety. But the point is this parade still brings a little hope. In the meantime, these pictures are just stills I snipped from KTLA-5‘s coverage, which you can see in its entirety at ktla.com or on its YouTube channel. Because there are still things I heartily approve:
First, speaking of Elton, obviously, is the AIDS Foundation’s new emphasis on vaccinating the world against COVID-19 and getting vaccines to less-wealthy nations to end this thing. Two years into it, already, do we really want to see out a third full year? No. A message from a group that reminds us just how long pandemic threats can stick around if they’re politicized, profiteered and mismanaged to the degree this one has been.
But lip service and floats are not enough.
It would have been nice if more of the crowd and float attendees had also been wearing masks, but at least the parade’s Rose Court all were.
Third, entertainment. Grand Marshal LeVar Burton, looking sharp, and (temporarily) unmasked singer Dionne Warwick waving from the Masked Singer float. The two of them were a more welcome sight to me than any of the featured singing acts, all of whom seemed a bit weak on both amperes and content by comparison to the legends.
The marching bands, on the other hand, were pretty good–two of them, count ’em, two, played slightly starched 4:4 marching-band arrangements of Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing,” but another one delivered more swing by breaking into song in the middle of Margaret Cobb and Bruce Channel’s “Hey Baby, Will You Be My Girl,” and for one smalltown band, the whole thing was even more of an adventure–about 75% of its members had never flown before they came here.
There was also baton-twirling involved; it’s becoming a lost art except at PCC, whose campus is right on the parade route and whose band and dancers always deliver. Oh–and in a few outposts in Ohio; one of their drum majors did a nifty and improbable baton throw through his legs.
And there was a lariat-wielding equestrian troupe whose name Leeza Gibbons butchered completely–a shame; they were good. And really, after how many years on national TV, and she still can’t pronounce anything in Spanish? Sigh.
Fourth, conservation, in honor of my daughter’s shiny new degree–the San Diego Zoo’s Wildlife Alliance put on a float with terrific puppeteers steering a lion, rhino, and giraffes alongside the float and going into occasional flamingo attack mode to amuse and wake up the crowd.
Finally, there is good nutrition. Yes.
This was one of my favorites. Not only is our dragon blowing smoke at the presumptuous knight and his horse, but her face and wings are resplendent in fresh brussels sprouts (and assorted other vegetation and flora, but really, the sprouts hath it.)
Gorgeous, stylish and in good taste!
So–I wish everyone a better 2022, and will do my best to celebrate the new year with you, aiming for better health, better times and of course more vegetabalia!
Filed under: Vegetabalia | Tagged: entertainment, food, health, humor, New Year's Parade, vegetables |
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