Life isn't the pits: It's Talking Saul

I seem to have fallen behind in a couple of blog posts. Well, that's what happens when one is having fun...and getting back to the hotel late! Let's see, what did I do? Oh, yes! Because it's continued to be very hot in Los Angeles, I've stuck to indoor activities. Two days ago, I visited the La Brea Tar Pits and Page Museum. 

I went there about five years ago, and it really hasn't changed all that much, but I still find it fascinating. Because the bones and other fossils are excavated from tar pits rather than stone, they are perfectly preserved and in excellent condition. The tar pits are still there, right in the middle of modern day L.A. They have some life sized models of mammoths next to the main Lake Pit, and you can see gases bubbling up from below the surface. 

The Page Museum has displays of mounted full-sized skeletons of animals found in the tar pits.  Most of them are early versions of animals that exist today...and some that haven't seemed to change much at all. The American mastodon and the Columbian mammoth are the ancestors of our modern day elephants. 

The ground sloth is obviously so much bigger than the tree sloths we know of today. It doesn't even seem they might be related. Then, there's the dire wolf with a skeletal makeup similar to wolves and coyotes. 

Probably the most popular extinct animal is the saber toothed cat. There are not currently any members of the feline family that has canine teeth that big, which is probably a good thing! I was surprised to find out they actually replace those teeth at least once in their lifetime. 

They are currently still excavating the tar pits, and continuing to analyze and research what they find there. Here is a photo of their main examination site and fossil crates still waiting to be looked at. 

They haven't found much evidence of human activity around the tar pits, but they haven't come up empty. There are examples of tools and manmade objects which utilized tar and natural asphalt from the pits.  

In the evening, I reported to CBS Television City in Los Angeles for the live taping of the show Talking Saul. This show was scheduled after the season finale of the awesome TV series, Better Call Saul. Talking Saul has the same format as the show, Talking Dead, which comes on after The Walking Dead. Host Chris Hardwick leads a discussion with a panel of guests, with at least one of them closely associated with the TV show.  Studio regulations prohibited the use of cameras and cell phones, so I don't have any photos other than the one I took of the CBS building.

As I filed into the building with the other lucky ticket holders, we passed by Chris Hardwick who looked shorter than I imagined him to be. The guest panel consisted of Better Call Saul creators Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould, and actor Jonathan Banks, whose excellent portrayal of the character Mike Ehrmantraut is one of the reasons the show is so great. I had been hoping series star Bob Odenkirk would be there, but the commentary more than made up for his absence. First, we watched the final episode an hour before the East Coast, then Talking Saul went on live an hour afterward. It was the first time I've ever been a part of a live broadcast. Chris Hardwick was his usual funny self, but Mr. Banks was a laugh riot, too. Since we were live, the show only took an hour to tape. After it was over, we were suddenly treated to an appearance of Bob Odenkirk himself! We came out to thank everyone for watching the show and seemed genuinely thrilled that viewers loved his character Jimmy McGill. In fact, he explained how they tried to make Jimmy's brother Chuck a better person, but people still hated him and loved Jimmy, despite his sometimes unethical behavior. I was happy to see Mr. Odenkirk, but if that wasn't enough, everyone who attended got free swag! An official Better Call Saul t-shirt and a book, too! 

You ask, what is a Hoboken Squat Cobbler? Well, if you don't watch the show, let's just say it's a fetish thing that involves men sitting on pies. I will certainly be proud to wear that shirt! OK, one blog post down, two more to go....