Every year people ask why I don’t take the family to the Rose Parade. Well, the Rose Parade is not some quaint little town fun, that’s the Doo Dah parade. The Rose Parade is an industry.
Going to the parade is an all night affair, even if you buy tickets for seats. Dragging my two daughters out for an all night campout surrounded by booze & coffee drinking freaks may be OK in about 10 years, but not now.
Just like in football, the best place to watch the Rose Parade is on my couch with the Tivo remote in hand to fast forward through the boring stuff.
Last night I went out to see a movie with James & Joseph (Paycheck, which was neither great nor bad, but a good movie.) in Old Town Pasadena, at ground zero of the parade. Besides the fact that most of the storefronts were boarded up like a hurricane was about to blow through town, here was the sight everywhere.
So if your living room looks worse than that, you’ll feel right at home on the parade route.
My mother called me yesterday all excited: “Next year I want to come out for the Rose Parade!” I sent her your story.
Response from my mother: “Well, you tell your boss, ‘yes sometimes my mother’s living room looks worse than that…and I would become one of the booze freaks so wouldn’t have to look at them'”
the best place to watch the Rose Parade is on my couch …
Certainly attending the Rose Parade is an ordeal. But merely watching it on the TV can be even more soul-crushing. The talking heads on channel 5 were especially inane-and-yet-offensive this year. I wanted to walk down there just to slap the stupid outta Bob Eubanks mouth.
And what was the deal with all the flags and eagles on the floats this year? The parade theme was music for Bog’s sake. No wonder the terrorists hate us…