Long Beach is bringing the seashore to Pasadena on New Year’s Day.
For the 88th year, a City of Long Beach float will ride down Colorado Boulevard in the Tournament of Roses Parade, and in depicting the parade’s theme, “Celebrate Family,” the city chose A Day at the Beach.”
A giant sand pail acts as the centerpiece of the float. Decorating the pail is Long Beach’s shoreline view, complete with ocean activities against the backdrop of famous landmark buildings and the Queen Mary. Coming out of that pail is a giant cartoon-like crab, whose eyes will move. A sandcastle sits at the front of the float, with children gathered around. At the rear of the float, a larger-than-life pelican perches on the pail’s handle, its mouth moving up and down.
A committee of the Convention & Visitor’s Bureau, which pays for the float through transit occupancy tax, or hotel bed tax, money, came up with the idea for the float. Designer Art Aquirre of Phoenix Decorating, the company that has designed the city’s float for many years, said that once they had a theme for the float, his mind was full of ideas.
The idea to put a crab in the pail was his way of providing something people wouldn’t expect. It’s all about entertaining the crowd, he said.
“To watch people in the audience react, laugh, take pictures, that’s exciting,” said Aquirre, who has been designing floats, mostly for the Rose Parade, since 1959. “This never gets old for me.”
Other elements have since been added to Aquirre’s design. For one, there will be riders.
“We haven’t had people on the float in a couple of years,” said CVB Public Relations Manager Bob Maguglin. “We wanted to represent the family and we’ve chosen Mayor Beverly O’Neill and her grandson to ride on the float.”
Along with the mayor and her grandson will be winners of a youth essay contest through Parks, Recreation & Marine, he added. Details on the contest were not finalized in time for publication.
The other addition to the float, and something Maguglin said the Long Beach float has never had, will be an original song by a Long Beach resident. The song will run in a loop as the float makes its way through the parade.
The songwriter and musician selected for the honor is Gregg Young, who has been performing as Gregg Young and the Second Street Band for 20 years.
“Bob and I were talking at a CVB event and we started talking about the float,” Young recalled. “I told him there’s this song I wrote when my children were younger called “I Like Summertime.'”
The song fit well enough with the theme, but Young thought it could have a stronger Long Beach connection. After some thought, he came up with the idea of adding sounds from Long Beach and immediately thought of animals at the Aquarium of the Pacific and children.
“I’ve never gone out and recorded animals before,” Young said, adding that he never in his wildest dreams thought he would.
With help from the Aquarium staff, Young recorded the bark of several sea lions with relative ease. Getting a good take of the lorikeets was even easier.
Young had worked with children before, although they were older than the second and third grade children at Edison Elementary he enlisted for this new recording. He said they were so cooperative and extremely excited to know their voices would be heard on national television.
Between 40 and 60 children gathered in the auditorium of the downtown school a couple of weeks ago for the recording. All Young wanted them to say was two words, “Long Beach.” He had them say them about a dozen times.
“It’s more of a cheer,” Young said. “We took a number of takes with them saying it in different inflections, some quiet, some long, some very excited. We came out with six or eight takes that were really clean. They were great children, really easy to work with.”
The new “I Like Summertime” song that will debut New Year’s Day begins with water sounds that lead into the lorikeets, followed by the sea lions and then the children’s cheer. The original song then comes in, but now with the newly recorded sounds spliced in.
“In the end, what we have is a new song,” Young said. “The Rose Parade is for people of all ages and that is what this song is all about. I think it also reflects the diversity of Long Beach.”