Summary: Ori & Angela wake up at the glamorous Allegro hotel in Chicago, see the craziest things from the front lines, and show you many photos of this unique event.

This hotel was awesome! So awesome in fact, that I’m going to give it its own entry. We woke up there, so that we could be at this event by 6am, as the document requested. I had volunteered to photograph the Ronald McDonald’s Thanksgiving Day parade. I’ve never had the patience to watch anything like this on TV. In person though, it was quite amazing! I had gotten a white jacket and a press pass. These permitted me to do whatever I felt like. More importantly though, is WHERE they let me do this: The TV Zone. This is an area where all the TV Cameras are, so that I can get the best shots of the best action…. everyone gives their best performance when they are in the TV Zone. Since we were there early, we got to see all the performances twice: once casually, and once in costume (for those that had costumes). Things like Oklahoma, Phantom of The Opera, Plain White Tees, The Ringling & Barnum Brothers Circus, and this other circus called “Cirque” (not to be confused with Cirque Du Soleil). These are just a few of the acts we got to see practice.

I have to admit, I was smiling from ear to ear! This was nothing like seeing it on TV. You could feel the cold (trust me!) — it even started to snow on us! Across from us were the VIP’s, they certainly got good seats, as all the performances were right in front of them… but we were on the opposite side of the streets, got to move around, and had all the performers facing us. It was totally worth facing the cold. I did have to bear a little more cold than usually, in that I was shooting so much, that I filled up 16GB of memory in no time. I was shooting on two cameras, one wide-angle, and one telephoto. I was forced to “juggle” cards… i.e. move one card that had some space on it between the two cameras- depending on the shot I needed… while deleting shots that were not necessarily keepers on the other camera. Oh yeah… I guess I forgot to mention that to juggle, I had taken off my gloves.

I marked this entry in the “Good deeds” category, and here’s why: After the Plain White Tees rehearsed, we got them to call Couch #4, Delilah, and leave her a “Happy Thanksgiving, apparently we wrote a song about you” voicemail. We invited them back to the suite if they wanted to do a photoshoot… sounds a little creepy, but you don’t know if you don’t ask. They were swamped with their schedule. I appreciate life on the road, but then again, I make my own schedule.

I could not stop smiling when the Ringling Brothers circus came out — especially since they did the practice twice, then did the in-costume presentation. I was 2 feet from the back-flipping dogs! I was running through the clown, talking to the ring leader, having some clowns pose for me…. not to mention the show itself was highly entertaining! It was a preview of their live show at the United Center: Bellobration! It’s called that, because the show’s written around the antics of the head clown, Bello Nock (google him, this guy is amazing!). He is not just a clown, and can (and does) perform amazing feats of acrobatics, physical comedy, and much more.

There were clips performed from Phantom of the Opera, Scrooged… er… the movie it was based on (christmas past, etc), the charleston, some singing about Chicago, Soviet dancing, spirit squads, and then there were many other performances performed as floats or marching groups went by… such as poi, and rock-bands. Jessie White’s Tumblers were awesome! I gotta learn how to do the stuff they do!

Here’s some slideshows for you. Just know that we went back to the hotel for a nice hot Jacuzzi session after all that snow!

Since it was the Ronald McDonald Thanksgiving Day Parade, here’s the pics I took of that clown.

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Since they were kind enough to call Delilah and leave a voicemail for me, I’ll give the Plain White Tees their own section. Thanks guys!

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Performances:

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Circus:

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Banners:

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Marchers and interesting people:

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Floats:

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A tiny bit behind the scenes:

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And.. what parade is complete without a crowd?

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