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by Allan Hurst - allanh[at]myrealbox.com – Last updated 7/23/1999
Converted to HTML with minor revisions 8/4/03
The
1999 IAGSDC Convention was held in Los Angeles, and was entitled “Lights,
Camera, Linear Action!” (abbreviated “LCLA”).
The
LCLA Fun Badge Tour took place the Monday immediately following Convention, and
featured some amazing stops. Having
been through the Fun Badge Tours for the San Francisco, Las Vegas, and Portland
Conventions, as well as the tours for San Diego’s and Los Angeles’ respective
fly-ins, I consider myself at least a minimally hardened veteran.
Each
Fun Badge Tour seems to consist of four to six stops, composed of the
following:
one “really cool” stop –
typically something public that’s been closed off just for the tour,
one “boring” (“quiet”) stop –
for eating,
one “historically important”
spot – to provide background on the hosting club’s area,
one “waterfront” stop –to ogle
luscious bodies at the beach
one “fountain” stop – just so
people can get wet dancing
In
1996, San Francisco set a very high standard for “really cool” stop when they
closed off half of Castro Street.
In
1997, Las Vegas, didn’t have a waterfront spot; so they made up for it with the
“Ethel M” candy factory, which featured a lush oasis. It wasn’t as visually attractive as a beach stop, but it sure
smelled and tasted great! (I wish more
convention committees would include “chocolate stops” on their Fun Badge
Tours.)
I
can’t imagine anyone ever besting Portland in 1998 for “best fountain stop”! To this day, I still see pictures of people
racing through the middle of the Rose Garden’s computerized fountain!
San
Diego’s “Pass The Sea” fly-in always seems to find a gorgeous museum to dance
in front of! (How DO they do it year after year?)
Los
Angeles’ 1999 fly-in had a terrific set of stops showing off the historic
downtown district. (Yes, there really
IS a downtown LA, with some gorgeous older buildings and architecture.)
I
couldn’t figure out what Los Angeles could do later that year at their
Convention to top it, especially since we were told none of the LCLA FBT stops
would duplicate the fly-in’s stops!
I’m
pleased to report that the LCLA Fun Badge Tour exceeded my expectations and
raised the bar on some of the above standards for future conventions and
fly-ins.
The
tour started out at 8:00 AM with seven buses, each bus named after one of the
Seven Dwarves. (There may have been
eight buses; I only recall the first seven due to the nomenclature; my
apologies to the LCLA FBT committee if I’m mistaken.) I chose a bus more or less at random, and was delighted to
discover that our Bus Host[ess] was none other than Ben-Andy Hein, who wrote
this year’s FBT script! The tour
actually departed the Bonaventure about 8:30 … more than reasonable,
historically.
Our
first stop – the Santa Monica Beach, right on Highway 1, the Pacific Coast
Highway! A few out of towners wondered
where all the muscleboys were (“No, dear, that’s VENICE Beach.”), but the weather
was delightful, and the beach nearly deserted at that ghast—uh, early –
hour. (I’m not a morning person.) We danced a couple of tips with the famous
Santa Monica Amusement Pier clearly visible just a few blocks away, then got
back into the buses for our next stop.
(Yes, this qualified as the required “Waterfront Stop”.)
For
the second stop, we ended up having a lovely catered meal in the middle of the
Quad at UCLA’s main campus. There were
some glitches in terms of moving people through the food line quickly, but the
dancing was lively, and the food delicious.
In
between stops, Ben-Andy gave us a terrific overview of the histories of the
areas we were seeing and traveling through, as well as some of the dirt on
which sites DIDN’T get selected, and why.
(Note to FBT virgins; if you like good dish, make certain to pick the
bus run by the script writer! This is
also a good way to find out what logistics were involved in putting the tour
together!) Andy also filled us in on a
number of fascinating and funny stories regarding West Hollywood as we passed
through on the way to our next stop.
In
Las Vegas, the FBT took over Fremont Street.
In San Francisco, it was Castro Street.
Los Angeles raised the “Close Off The Street Stop” bar several notches
by plopping us down squarely in the middle of Hollywood Boulevard, right in
front of the famous Chinese Theatre!
Half
the street (the half closest to the theatre, naturally) was closed off, and it
was difficult to tell who was having a better time, the FBT dancers, or the
huge crowds of tourists gawking from the sidelines.
“Are
you filming a movie?” one woman asked us.
“Is this a publicity stunt for a new picture?” another tourist
inquired.
Paul
Waters, who called the entire tour, told the crowds of watching people that
this was the IAGSDC’s annual convention of gay and lesbian square dancers, and
solemnly assured the onlookers that we closed down Hollywood Boulevard EVERY
Monday morning do this, every single week.
When
we were done dancing and back on the bus, everyone figured that Hollywood
Boulevard was the high point of the FBT, and that the remaining stops would
both be of the “historically important” or “boring stop” genre.
We
were wrong.
As
our bus ascended the hills surrounding Universal Studios, we became certain
that we were going to dance inside the Universal Studios Tour.
We
were even more wrong.
We
ended up winding through a series what appeared to be different studio
installations, before passing through a guarded gate to … Warner Brothers, and
directly into one of their working Western backlot sets! This was WAY better than a public studio
tour. We danced in the dusty streets of
the Old West. Some people took a moment
to rest in the shade, up on the wooden sidewalks, some explored the interiors
of some of the sets, but most of us danced in the middle of the street, and it
wasn’t difficult to squint your eyes just a bit and imagine we were making a
real movie!
(As
it turned out, there was a video crew taping the entire FBT, including a remote
crew on our bus, for inclusion in the convention memory video package.)
After
the dusty streets of the backlot, we drove back to downtown Los Angeles, and
ended up at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, where we danced in and around the
famous fountain that’s been seen on oh, so many Academy Awards broadcasts. (Keeping up the tradition of the obligatory
“FBT Fountain Spot”.) I was a little
disappointed in this particular stop, as it was a repeat from the LA fly-in’s
Fun Badge Tour just five months previous.
However, the sparkling waters of the fountain were a refreshing and
invigorating way to wash off the Dust Of The Old West!
We
made it back to the hotel a little after 12:30 PM, none the worse for wear, and
ready for Mr. DeMille to take our close-ups!
[end]
Allan
Hurst lives, dances, and calls in the San Francisco Bay Area, with semi regular
visits to Chicago. He is a member of El Camino Reelers, Foggy City Dancers,
Midnight Squares, Squares Across the Border, and Chi-Town Squares. He can be contacted via email at “allanh
[at] supportnet.com”