Well, Tuesday was a busy day.
Before going to Westwood for the premiere of "The Simpsons Movie," the man friend and I planned to go by KROQ to pick up the rest of my fabulous prize package.
We left my house at about 2 p.m. and headed up the 405. We got off in Culver City to have some lunch and decided to go to Ford's Filling Station. It is a newish restaurant owned by Harrison Ford's son. I guess he is a chef.
MF had a grilled sandwich of this yummy smoked ham with arugula and cheese on flatbread.
I had what is called the Pub Burger. It was a awesome burger with Point Reyes blue cheese and caramelized onions all over it. Wow.
After that we went to KROQ and I got my DVD set. I guess they were randomly giving out different seasons. I got the eighth season.
Sadly the donut-shaped, donut-smelling soundtracks were not in yet. They said they would mail it to me.
Then we were off to Westwood via surface streets.
On the way there, we found a 7-11 that had been converted to a Kwik-E-Mart. It was totally by chance, so of course we had to stop.
The place was packed. There was even a wait to get into the parking lot.
They had stacks and stacks of pink donuts. They looked so gross and melty.
MF ate one. He said it was about the nastiest donut he has ever had.
There were people everywhere: getting Squishees, buying donuts, perusing the toys and movie-related odds and ends.
We left there and made our way to Westwood via some of the nice residential neighborhoods around UCLA.
The info from KROQ said to check in at will call by 5, but the guy at the table said they didn't begin check in until 5 and there was already a line building.
It was so hot and there was not a bit of shade. Since we had about 45 minutes to kill, we found a restaurant and had some beers.
After getting our tickets, we were allowed to go into the bleachers to watch the "yellow carpet" arrivals. What we didn't know was that we would wait at least another hour for the arrivals.
If I ever have the chance to go to an event like this again, I will skip the arrivals and just hit the movie and the party.
Even though I got some good pictures of the movie's stars arriving, it was kind of a waste of time for me. And we both got all hot and sweaty in the sun.
We ducked out of that as soon as the of the people who do the main voices in the show had gone through the line.
They were screening the movie at four different theaters, and ours was about 4 blocks away.
We walked down there and of course there was a line. It started up pretty quickly though and moved fast.
The theater was huge, with a seating capacity of about 1,000 people. The screen was enormous and it was a good way to see the movie.
As for the movie... It was pretty good. There seemed to be a continuous stream of laughter from the whole crowd.
There were a couple parts that dragged, but overall it was fun.
I know some people say the TV show has slipped the past few years, but I think the movie had a lot of what made the older TV episodes good.
There were tons of zany characters, there were a lot of great one-liners and there was a totally impossible story.
The animation was also a little different than what you get with the TV show. It had the same colors and basic look, but it was not as two-dimensional as it is on TV.
There seemed to be more depth and perspective to it.
I don't want to give away "plot" or anything, so I will stay away from what happens with the story.
What I will say is that if you are even the slightest "Simpsons" fan, you probably will find the movie funny.
You don't have to have watched any of the TV episodes to enjoy it, but with all the characters, it probably will help.
Anyway, after the movie we walked back to the car and headed over to the after party.
It was at the Veterans' Administration complex just on the other side of the freeway from Westwood Village. The complex is huge and rambling with all these old buildings and really poor lighting.
It looked quite creepy at night.
But the party area was quite different.
There were several large domes set up with different things inside including bars, dance floors, tables with all yellow candy...
Outside small yellow, orange and white tables dotted the grounds.
There were food stations all over the place serving all sorts of things... salads, chicken skewers, roast beef, corn on the cob, tamales, tacos, nachos, all sorts of sweets... We didn't even get to most of it.
We had a little food when we first got there and we did partake of the bar situation.
There were several bars, the largest of which was round and made to look like a giant pink donut. The booze was free and it was flowing. And it was not the cheap booze either. One bar was serving Marge-a-ritas made with Silver Patrol tequila. Nice...
We took a couple laps around the party. There were so many people there. There easily were a couple thousand people there easy.
I was just floored at the size of the event and could not even comprehend how much it must have cost.
We didn't really see any "stars" there, though Dan Castellaneta was sitting at a table with his family having some food. It was nice to see that people were generally leaving him alone. He looked quite happy and it looked like his kids were having fun.
We probably stayed about an hour, just wandering around looking at the people, the food, the decorations. It was insane.
On the way out we stopped at a stand that advertised "Fresh, Hot Mini-Donuts." They were frying (yes, I know, bad) these puffy little dough balls to order. So we got a couple little bags. They had about three dough puffs with a sprinkling of powdered sugar.
Instantly I thought of the beignets in New Orleans. They were so damn good.
It was the perfect cap to our "Simpsons" party experience.
(Oh yeah, we didn't get back to my house until about 1 a.m. Looooong day!)
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