A Personal Amateur Photography Blog
It’s the 4th of July in Columbus, which means….Doo Dah!
This years motto is Slaying Political Dragons with Satire Since Dark Ages of 1984 (The Official Flyer is below)
This can mean one thing – the fun, silly, strange, weird and wonderful people of Columbus are marching in the streets. With the same bad national joke for the last 2.5 years the political satire was less, but still lots of photo ops were there for the taking.
Saturday Night Live has been coming to you from New York for 40 years, so it makes no sense why the SNL Experience would be in downtown Chicago, but it is.
With an hour and a half before closing we decided to pay the $25 each and check it out. We got our tickets and went up stairs where we we herded into a small room for the preview video – which fortunately was only a few minutes long.
We then made our way in. The exhibits gave a brief history of the show’s start, followed by how the week of preparation leads up to Saturday night.
The highlights of the exhibit were the costumes and props collected over the years.
The Land Shark
Bill Murray’s Nick the Lounge Singer’s jacket.
Party on Wayne – Party on Garth
One of the more interesting areas was makeup, including the Coneheads.
A large area of costumes.
As well as a collection of the fake products
The upper level had a mock up of the control room, where we were once again grouped together.
This lead us to a replica of the stage where they presented a video to make us feel like we were there (sort of)
The costumes and props are cool to see, but you can likely watch all the videos at home on Youtube. It was cool, but not worth $25 each.
We did however get an additional floor for the Radio and TV Museum. This focused primarily on Chicago TV and Radio, but had some interesting items like Jack Benny’s violin (old school – look it up).
In a section on advertising they had a Crash Test Dummy
The very famous Nixon- Kennedy debate took place in Chicago in 1960. This is the camera used that many say swayed the election to Kennedy.
Meet The Press has been a Sunday morning news program for decades. The museum has one of the sets used.
Finally in the way back machine – Charlie McCarthy (another look it up moment for many)
July 4th in Columbus can only mean one thing – It’s Doo Dah time again – let’s have a parade.
As usual there is some political satire.
Some play on words (read the sign)
Characters
Apparently now since Mexico is off limits we now get our weed from Canada
The block party was going full tilt.
More characters
Primed for the parade.
The toaster car lady in a moment of reflection.
Clearly the saddest thing this country has recently done is the separation of children at the border – you knew this would be called out today.
More characters.
The wrestlers are here every year, but always welcome.
For some it was just too much.
The Grand Marshal.
An eclectic band.
I think we missed her at the washboard music festival a few weeks back.
One of the ‘art cars’
Miss Liberty made an appearance.
An alien made it across the border to join the band.
Even more characters.
Mixing sci-fi and political satire.
Mixing middle aged hula dancers with zombies.
The neighborhood (Short North) is undergoing tremendous growth where they are tearing down 2 floor buildings along High Street and replacing them with 8-12 floor buildings. All of the construction is causing much chaos in the area, and making just walking around tough with all of the closed sidewalks.
Not really sure.
The whole stupid MAGA thing has spawned a number of parodies.
They may protest but they are as patriotic as the rest of the country – they just believe it could be better for all.
A dancer from the Rocky Horror Picture Show burlesque group.
Even the Swing Dancers of Columbus were making statements this year.
And with that the zombies headed home and the parade was done.
Our final stop was the Museum of American History, also known as America’s attic. There is so much to see starting with – Children’s TV icons…
A shirtless George Washington?
A tribute to Ella Fitzgerald.
Early computers.
Early money.
Commercial advertising standards.
Batman’s ride.
A collection of model ships.
Washington DC streetcar.
In the transportation hall they had a couple of displays of life in the 1950s.
And a feature of the growth of the suburbs.
Julia Child’s kitchen.
And her awards.
Early telegraph.
The random eagle.
A section about Latino’s in America included this cool Statue of Liberty only featuring a Latino woman holding tomatoes.
There was a section about democracy in America, including a stunning presentation on voting in America, and how often people have tried to control who can vote so they can stay in power – it sadly continues to this day.
Presidential election tchotchkes.
A 1940s voting machine.
A collection of protest signs.
Another room housed mechanical items – an early sweeper.
Finally in the presidential section was a collection of street signs named after presidents. The Museum of American History is a sensory overload – in my opinion it is second to Air & Space for museums in DC.
With the orange man in office the annual satirical 4th of July parade in Columbus took on an entirely new level – it was Making Parades Great Again, The Hugest, and all the other stupid comments that have been recently made were lampooned to the fullest.
Superman on a mini bike
A band
The Orange Man’s wall
Legalize smoking kale apparently
What world are we in
Hula Ladies
Swing Dancers
Plenty of Zombies
More political satire
Tweet Tweet
Jugglers
Still some patriotic look
Even with the burlesque ladies
That is one large drink umbrella
A few furries made it over from Pittsburgh
Throughout Germany on the Monday before Lent they celebrate Rose Monday, Rosenmontag. We were fortunate enough in 2006 to be in Trier, Germany for the Rosenmontag Parade.
Hands down the best parade ever, for hours floats went by with people celebration/lampooning politicians, cultures and everything else. The highlight was the fact that not only do they throw candy to the children, they all had ‘adult beverages’ that when you held out your little plastic cup, it was filled!
The 2006 Trier, Germany Rosenmontag Parade:
RDZ Photography 