By Abner Galino
Lakers Hall of Fame Kareem Abdul-Jabbar waves to the crowd as the team’s “Every Second Is An Adventure” float rolls along Colorado Boulevard. Photo: Odette Galino
First, the news: Skywriters benefitted from a cloudless blue sky off the scenic town of Pasadena to trash Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. Five planes circled the skies and wrote: America is great. Trump is disgusting. Anybody but Trump.
The letters that formed out of white smoke spewed out from the planes frittered away almost as fast they were written in the sky. But the buzz that was created by the messages lingered in all of social media channels.
It turned out that the skywriters were paid by someone from Alabama who was identified by mainstream news sources as Stan Pate. The same sources disclosed that Pate was actually someone who has a lot of similarities with Trump, among them: he is also a Republican, also a millionaire (or a billionaire), also involved in real estate business, also active in politics and also somewhat raucous.
Apparently, the skywriting was meant for the Iowans – who were from a state that conducts its party candidates’ nominations ahead of the other US states – who flew in to Los Angeles in droves to support their football team known as the Hawkeyes.
The Iowa Hawkeyes were routed by the Stanford Cardinals in a subsequent football showdown in a related event known as the Rose Bowl to a blowout score of 45-16. A lost that was not spared from political intrigues as the social media went awash with innuendoes about the football team supposedly being jinxed by another Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina.
Supporters of Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders pull through one of his effigies along Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena right behind the last float of the 127th Rose Parade. Photo: Odette Galino
Fiorina, a Californian who lost both bids for senator and governor of the state, rooted for the Hawkeyes despite being an alumnus of Stanford University.
“Love my Alma mater, but rooting for a Hawkeyes win today,” Fiorina tweeted.
Her tweet was met with widespread mockery as many saw her words as pandering to Iowan voters who will caucus on February 1.
The skywriters could have not taken anything away from the 127-year tradition called Rose Parade or Tournament of the Roses – aside from the fact that the planes appeared in the sky as soon as the last float left the parade’s staging gate. But apparently, they stole the lights out from the supporters of Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders who marched along Colorado Boulevard behind the parade’s last float.
The supporters of the US senator from Vermont came in huge number and were equipped with attention-grabbing placards and effigies. However, they hardly got attention from the mainstream media and the social media.
But California being a Democratic Party majority state, the supporters of Sanders were able to draw applause from many parade spectators.
All these incidents also combined to somewhat upstage the dramatic effect of the retirement of the parade’s longtime hosts Bob Eubanks and Stephanie Edwards.
Eubanks started hosting the event in 1979 and Edwards joined him three years later. To the loyal fans, the retirement of the duo was arguably a big episode in continuing history of the Rose Parade.
The sidelights
It was somewhere around 40 degrees Fahrenheit when we got to Colorado Boulevard at about 5:30 a.m. I wore three layers of clothes but as soon as I stepped out of the car, I instantly wished I brought a blanket to wrap myself up.
As expected, the sidewalks were already teeming with people – mostly sitting on folding chairs while some were bundled up in blankets and lying right on the concrete. I was told that the temperature dropped to around 35 degrees during the night.
Well, that certainly spelled the difference between watching the Rose Parade on TV and being right there on Colorado Boulevard. Without the roof and the walls to protect you from the elements, enduring 35 degrees and below was an adventure by itself. Or probably, even a life-risking adventure for people like me who lived most his life on tropical weather. Had we camped out like the most of the people here, I might’ve certainly found a personal meaning to this year’s parade theme: Know your Adventure.
A mild wind was blowing and the smell of grilled bacon-wrapped hotdogs cooking with onions permeated the air. There were sporadic bursts of laughter from different directions. People were generally cheerful but noticeably observant of every new person entering their enclave. There were no known threats but the recent tragic mass shooting in San Bernardino prompted organizers to install more security measures and call up more security personnel.
Around 700,000 people come every year to watch the Rose Parade and the Rose Bowl. This year was no different despite a considerable hype over possible terrorist attacks against parade spectators weeks before the event.
There were 44 floats, 18 marching bands and 19 equestrian units in the parade and Colorado Boulevard did not seem as spacious as it usually was. And if you don’t have a paid seat or didn’t camp out to secure a spot on the sidewalks, viewing the parade could be a real challenge. In fact, for about a dozen times that I tried to situate myself by the sidewalks, were as much times I wished I was at least three inches taller. (And I was simply standing behind clusters of women in many of those instances).
The Los Angeles Lakers float, despite a losing record, still drew big applauses from the crowd. The float, titled “Every Second Is An Adventure” carried basketball great Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and pop star Paula Abdul, formerly a member of the Lakers’ cheer squad.
But Disney’s Star Wars-themed float drew the biggest cheer with its white robot-like “storm troopers” and characters from another hit movie “Frozen.”
The so-called “white suiters,” who were actually volunteers wearing the traditional parade white uniform, were also routinely given hoots of laughter and applauses as they marched behind equestrian units with their shovels, brooms and wheeled trash bins. The white suiters gamely returned the audiences’ adoration by vowing or by making other friendly gestures.
Fun, of course, wasn’t an unbroken chain roped throughout Colorado Boulevard. When nature calls, if you have to pee or do the other thing, a trip to portable restrooms would be much like a queue for an MRT ride in Manila.
So, beer drinkers are forewarned.
Persistence could pay off. As in my case, after several attempts, I was able to get close enough as to be able to smell the scent of the flowers as the floats pass by.
Well, that was certainly one of the reasons why people put up with all the troubles of being there from midnight to dawn.