A lot of you have been asking me what my favorite Van Halen songs are.
JUST KIDDING! Nobody gives a shit. But I figured I'd list them since my sons are Van Halen maniacs and maybe someday when they grow up they will discover this and it will answer all of their unanswered questions about their fathers already obvious music taste.
But just for the record, one of the best concerts I've ever been to in my life was the 1993 Van Halen "Right Here, Right Now" tour at Alpine Valley,
I broke them down by lead singer just because I was curious which one had more of my favorite songs. Here they are in no particular order.
DAVID LEE ROTH
Panama
Unchained
Jump
Hot for Teacher
Jamie's Crying
Running with the Devil
Everybody Wants Some
Beautiful Girl
SAMMY HAGAR
Dreams
Top of the World
Right Now
The Dream is Over
Best of Both Worlds
When its Love
Why Cant This Be Love
Poundcake
Summer Nights
Below are some photos and video from our night of Horror-ble comedy at Flappers this past November 15th. Our special guest this month was Erich Anderson from Friday the 13th part 4.
Check out the video below Erich is a great guy and the crowd loved him!
Erich was a natural on stage, he'd be great at stand up comedy.
Me & Erich after the show in the Flappers bar.
Kim Coates from Sons of Anarchy also joined in the fun.
One of the great music videos of the 1980's is "Free Fallin" by Tom Petty. The song is great, and Tom Petty's receding hairline is in full effect! The video is a time capsule of Southern California at its peak. It had skateboarding, Ventura Blvd and most importantly the mall!
Not just any mall, it was an 80's mall. With escalators!
It was miles away from where I grew up in snowy Wisconsin, but MTV played the video so much it felt like a second home. Check out the video below!
The scenes were filmed at the Westside Pavilion Mall in West L.A. It was a new mall at the time. (Built in 1985) And when I moved to Los Angeles in 2003 of course one of the first things I had to do was see this great place in person. So I grabbed my purse wallet and headed to that mall!
It was exactly the same. It still had the same three levels, curved skylight ceiling, and of course those famous escalators! Through the years, whoever I was with, I would always tell them "You know, this is where they filmed "Free Fallin" and I would smile and see their indifference. Then I would offer to show them the video on my phone and they would say "Is that why you wanted to come here?"
Long story short, I dragged my wife and son here the other day and our minds were blown when we saw that this classic location has now become a fricken ghost town! This mall is going out of business people! The mall has been sold and in 2021 it will be turned into office space. There are only like 12 stores left. There's more foot traffic at an amputees house. Its a done deal and there is nothing we can do about it.
Where's Tom Petty when you need him?
I told my 18 month old son about this travesty but he just pointed at a light. (He does that a lot.) So I took some pictures to document the place before it was lost forever.
In all honesty it blows that this place is closing.
Not shown above...customers!
The famous escalators, or as my wife calls them "death traps."
My wife saw me taking these photos and said "You're supposed to be watching our son!" - I said "He's fine, theres no one here to take him!"
"GA!"
The once bustling Food Court now only has 2 stores.
