The L.A. Chapter, Part Three
Some of you are probably bored with this blog right now. "Fucking hypocrite, he's just listing down the crap he did on his vacation. How dare he bitch about our lists!"
You know what though, it's my own damn blog and I'll post whatever the hell I want. Thing is, I know my memory sucks, and sometimes when things are worth remembering, I wanna be able to find them written down somewhere other than in the shifting sands of my mind. I took down notes during the trip for a reason, and that reason is what you're reading now.
But on to the record.
Friday 25 March 2005
We took a bus from Arielle's to Hollywood Boulevard. It wasn't as difficult as I thought, once you waded through the disorganized muck that was the MTA's website and schedule. The Boulevard was crawling with tourists by the time we got there, about 11 am.
Yes, I do think it's rather apt and funny that the Church of Scientology sign is looming behind the Hollywood Boulevard one.
It wasn't anything very exciting, what we did. Basically walked down the street, looking at the stars on the Walk of Fame, going into tacky souvenir stores and feeling very touristy. I never realized there were so many fucking stars. They covered both sides of the street, and sometimes even branched out into the side streets, going on for blocks and blocks on end without any end in sight. We eventually gave up and worshipped at the Shrine of Popeye's Chicken. We were so cheap we got the Family Bucket and saved some for later.
But hey, no matter what, we were still pretty psyched, walking down the street and going to all the landmarks. And somehow, it felt rather nice, actually being in Hollywood. Nice, but also kinda dirty.
But back to the touristy stuff. Found some people he liked, found some people I liked. Aghast at some of the "stars" represented. Did you know Big Bird has a star? I mean, this is a fucking man in a huge bird costume, for crying out loud. No one even knows who's in the damn suit. And he's such a drama queen too. I always hated him. Or her. Or it. Does anyone even know? Anyone even care? I didn't think so.
I think it's pretty sweet that Dr. Seuss has a star though.
The Kodak Theatre, Home of the Oscars, was suitable marble-covered and slick. It was also pretty soulless. The main entrance was lined with lit columns on both sides that listed every single Best Picture throughout the history of the Academy Awards. They even had Million Dollar Baby up already.
The hand and footprints in the concrete in front of Graumann's Chinese Theatre were swarming with tourists. Everyone seemed to be doing the exact same lame thing - putting their hands into the handprints and grinning like a moron as their picture was taken.
This was taken partly because Jack Nicholson is cool, and partly because he left his mark on my birthday. Well, technically I wasn't born yet, but it's still pretty awesome.
There were also people walking around dressed in costumes, who would take pictures with tourists for a fee. Representatives included Lucy from I Love Lucy, Homer Simpson, Spongebob Squarepants, and more than a few sad-looking superheroes. Somehow Spider-Man doesn't seem quite as cool when he's perched on top of a trash can.
Truly one of the more bizarre pictures I've taken
It wasn't until we'd almost left the Boulevard that we realized we never got to take a picture of the famous "Hollywood" sign. We'd just never found a good point to take it from. That was going to turn out to be a major headache later. Eventually we found out from Arielle that most people shoot it from a viewing point at the Kodak Theatre, and we kicked ourselves for not finding it.
We left a little later than planned, and picked up our rental car from Enterprise. Bless them, they always try to give renters the best price possible, and their service is second to none. Hey, they even pick you up. The only thing I can gripe about is that they seemed understaffed and we waited for quite a while. After getting Mapquest directions, we set off for Disneyland with Arielle, after making her bring us to the roof of her building to take a picture of The Sign (it turned out tiny and shitty).
Apparently Cameron, John Ross and Kevin Welch were already almost there, and we were running real late. Unfortunately because we left late, we ran into the infamous L.A. rush hour traffic. Rush hour starts at 3 pm here, unlike most of the world. It's unbelievable, and annoying as hell, just a gridlock of vehicles emitting poison from their asses and lined up bumper to bumper.
After two hours (I think), we finally arrived at Disneyland. If not for the fucking traffic, it would've been less than an hour's journey from L.A. to Anaheim. But there are already too many pictures here, and I don't want to make this post too long, so that'll be a separate post.
You know what though, it's my own damn blog and I'll post whatever the hell I want. Thing is, I know my memory sucks, and sometimes when things are worth remembering, I wanna be able to find them written down somewhere other than in the shifting sands of my mind. I took down notes during the trip for a reason, and that reason is what you're reading now.
But on to the record.
Friday 25 March 2005
We took a bus from Arielle's to Hollywood Boulevard. It wasn't as difficult as I thought, once you waded through the disorganized muck that was the MTA's website and schedule. The Boulevard was crawling with tourists by the time we got there, about 11 am.
Yes, I do think it's rather apt and funny that the Church of Scientology sign is looming behind the Hollywood Boulevard one.
It wasn't anything very exciting, what we did. Basically walked down the street, looking at the stars on the Walk of Fame, going into tacky souvenir stores and feeling very touristy. I never realized there were so many fucking stars. They covered both sides of the street, and sometimes even branched out into the side streets, going on for blocks and blocks on end without any end in sight. We eventually gave up and worshipped at the Shrine of Popeye's Chicken. We were so cheap we got the Family Bucket and saved some for later.
But hey, no matter what, we were still pretty psyched, walking down the street and going to all the landmarks. And somehow, it felt rather nice, actually being in Hollywood. Nice, but also kinda dirty.
But back to the touristy stuff. Found some people he liked, found some people I liked. Aghast at some of the "stars" represented. Did you know Big Bird has a star? I mean, this is a fucking man in a huge bird costume, for crying out loud. No one even knows who's in the damn suit. And he's such a drama queen too. I always hated him. Or her. Or it. Does anyone even know? Anyone even care? I didn't think so.
I think it's pretty sweet that Dr. Seuss has a star though.
The Kodak Theatre, Home of the Oscars, was suitable marble-covered and slick. It was also pretty soulless. The main entrance was lined with lit columns on both sides that listed every single Best Picture throughout the history of the Academy Awards. They even had Million Dollar Baby up already.
The hand and footprints in the concrete in front of Graumann's Chinese Theatre were swarming with tourists. Everyone seemed to be doing the exact same lame thing - putting their hands into the handprints and grinning like a moron as their picture was taken.
This was taken partly because Jack Nicholson is cool, and partly because he left his mark on my birthday. Well, technically I wasn't born yet, but it's still pretty awesome.
There were also people walking around dressed in costumes, who would take pictures with tourists for a fee. Representatives included Lucy from I Love Lucy, Homer Simpson, Spongebob Squarepants, and more than a few sad-looking superheroes. Somehow Spider-Man doesn't seem quite as cool when he's perched on top of a trash can.
Truly one of the more bizarre pictures I've taken
It wasn't until we'd almost left the Boulevard that we realized we never got to take a picture of the famous "Hollywood" sign. We'd just never found a good point to take it from. That was going to turn out to be a major headache later. Eventually we found out from Arielle that most people shoot it from a viewing point at the Kodak Theatre, and we kicked ourselves for not finding it.
We left a little later than planned, and picked up our rental car from Enterprise. Bless them, they always try to give renters the best price possible, and their service is second to none. Hey, they even pick you up. The only thing I can gripe about is that they seemed understaffed and we waited for quite a while. After getting Mapquest directions, we set off for Disneyland with Arielle, after making her bring us to the roof of her building to take a picture of The Sign (it turned out tiny and shitty).
Apparently Cameron, John Ross and Kevin Welch were already almost there, and we were running real late. Unfortunately because we left late, we ran into the infamous L.A. rush hour traffic. Rush hour starts at 3 pm here, unlike most of the world. It's unbelievable, and annoying as hell, just a gridlock of vehicles emitting poison from their asses and lined up bumper to bumper.
After two hours (I think), we finally arrived at Disneyland. If not for the fucking traffic, it would've been less than an hour's journey from L.A. to Anaheim. But there are already too many pictures here, and I don't want to make this post too long, so that'll be a separate post.
posted by cinewhore @ 9:25 AM
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gimme some mindfuckery
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