Trip to LA LA Land

We spent last weekend in L.A., for the 2005 Gadugi Celebration. It was a blast. Unfortunately, I was unable to make good on the bet since James Cromwell was unable to attend. That sucked because I was already to follow him thru the buffet line, waiting for him to take a second piece of fried bread and yell out "That'll do, pig! That'll do!".
The fact was that none of the listed chair members showed. Instead we had a large part of the cast from Into The West, including the famous Cherokee actor Gary Busey. What? You didn't realize that Buddy Holly was played by a native? I don't think anyone else did either, since it seemed like the words I heard most that night was "Is Gary Busey native?". Either way he donated to The College Fund, and his presence added a real edge to the event. You never knew when he was going to stand up and correct the Emcee Wes Studi about some minor detail, or when his girlfriend Katari(?) was going to storm the stage looking for the book she had won.
Lorrie along with most of the women there were more impressed that Wes Studi was Emceeing the event. He is one of those actors that I've seen in a ton of films but never seem to remember him. Not that he is a bad performer, it's just that his roles vary so much. He was the lead in Geronemo, played a cop in Heat and was "The Sphinx" in Mystery Men. Lorrie wanted to get a picture with him, but was never able to get the nerve up enough to approach him.
I'm still kicking myself that I didn't get my picture taken with Busey, but everytime I got around him he reminded me of my high school gym coach. So instead Lorrie and I got our picture taken with R. Carlos Nakai. He played solo for about 20 minutes for our little group of 100 people. Explaining the history of each flute before he played it. With the help of a little digital effects he was able to make a small bronze bone whistle sound like it was part of the wind in a desert canyon. It was pretty impressive.
The featured speaker was The Honorable Wilma P. Mankiller. How would you like to got to court, and find out that the judge handling your case had the last name of Mankiller? She was cool. She refused to give her speech from behind the podium on stage, instead having the mic moved to the floor. Not a long speech, and she was straight to the point "give us the money".
They also had three sets of dancers. Eagle Spirit Dancers, Apache Crown Dancers, & Hopi Eagle Dancers. All were amazing, but I liked the Hopi Hoop Dancer best.
I can't thank Nicole enough for inviting us to this event

The rest of our time was spent doing the tourist thing on Hollywood Blvd and Venice Beach.