|
“Scaramouche!” growled Aap, with vaudevillian
flair. “This place is preposterous. Did someone
nuke a time machine?”
We were standing on a balcony overlooking the epic
courtyard of Hollywood & Highland, alleged spearhead
of the Boulevard’s renaissance. This poorly named,
fiercely hyped, corpulent new ‘upscale’
development is on the corner of… well, guess.
The courtyard’s style is Egyptian, unless you
count the two rearing thirty-foot Hindu elephant-gods,
on pedestals that look like the spawn of mushroom and
butt plug. Or the black terrazzo ‘carpets’
with Islamic motif. Or the Corinthian accents. Or the
Sleeping Beauty turret on one side of a humongo ‘decorative’
wall, there mainly to block (unsuccessfully) a screamin’
seventies airport-worthy hotel.
Your Favorite Stars meander right here en route to
the Kodak Theatre for the Academy Awards, so it must
be unspeakably glamorous. Yet, if you squint your eyes,
the place looks like a Big House, with its cheap plaster
railed tiers surrounding the concrete ‘yard.’
Retail/restaurants clog these tiers, but they could
be converted easily to cellblocks. It was night and
the lights were indeed prison strength.
“Doesn’t anyone value beauty in this God
forsaken town?” Aap barked, straining his neck.
Of course not. What an ignorant question. You’ll
have to forgive Aap. He is Afrikaans, and after six
years in L.A., our local customs still confound him.
These foreigners really should assimilate.
Our next stop was the Grauman’s Chinese Theater;
connected to H&H by stairs I haven’t seen
the likes of since a documentary on dangerous urban
public schools. This pains me, because the Grauman’s
is totally cool. It was a highlight of my sepia toned
childhood.
The Grauman’s, Chinese by way of mescaline, was
built with the same wild-terrain-of-the-brain, high
genius vibe that seized the minds of those superb old
animators, designers and choreographers. It’s
a fine place to see a movie, if you, you know, subtract
the movie.
As mesmerizing are the dead movie stars’ hand
and footprints in the famous court outside. They are
absolutely haunted. And very tiny. People were bitty
back then.
This struck me earlier when I paid a call to the Frederick’s
of Hollywood Celebrity Lingerie Hall of Fame (closed
at night). Marilyn Monroe’s bra was no more than
a B cup. Damn. There goes that yappy life lesson again:
Everything Is Relative.
The Hall of Fame was quite abbreviated, but mighty
entertaining. I especially enjoyed Milton Berle’s
drag peignoir. I wonder if the voluminous chiffon was
designed to hide his fabled foot-long frank.
I once helped Miltie find his car in a hospital garage.
I still hate myself for being too lame to ask.
The Hall of Fame is inside the original Frederick’s
of Hollywood store. Unlike Victoria’s Secret,
Frederick’s don’t put on them airs like
they classy. A tranny favorite, its good, clean sleaze
all the way. And yes, I did buy myself a little something.
Aap and I took leave of the Grauman’s and sauntered
down the ‘Walk of Fame’ to the grand sounding,
tourist guide touted ‘Museum Row’. This
is where the real Hollywood comes alive.
The ‘Walk of Fame’ is a dirty sidewalk
with dingy pink stone stars inlaid with the names of
people you’ve never heard of, or dearly wish that
you hadn’t.
Junkies enjoy lounging on this famous landmark and
the tweakers twitch past them. Schizophrenics greet
passersby. Burnt grease from highly casual dining establishments
lends a lilt of fragrance to the smoggy air.
“This looks like a ghetto without the charm,”
blurt Aap.
Spandex clad hos, professional and amateur, socialize
with bikers and Marines on leave. Stores with names
like For Play offer t-shirts with slogans such as ‘No
Sugar For No Booger.’ Decent, befuddled tourists,
who can’t believe they blew a year’s savings
for this, tug at one’s heartstrings.
Gay Spiderman and Friar Tuck twirled past me’n’Aap
as we reached the Erotic Museum. Their costumes were
highly homemade. I flashed back to a memory of my last
Hollywood apartment:
I’d had a bad day writing something really stupid
for TV. I was past deadline. My soul was scorched; life
force leaking. I stuck my head out the window, for nature’s
sweet relief…
Instead, right before me, was Jesus Christ in Saran
Wrap and a crown of thorns. He was nailed to an invisible
cross, which was obviously swaying. I looked at my hands
to make sure I was sober, then called the police.
The Erotic Museum is a bust, but for two items. 1.)
An uncanny portrait of Richard Simmons made entirely
from sex detritus (like condom wrappers and lube jars)
that you view from a mirror above. 2.) An ancient Chinese
sculpture of a happy old man fucking a goose.
Upon reflection, as a student of life, it was worth
the ten bucks for the latter.
We also went to the Wax Museum and the Guinness Book
of World Records Museum. Ugh. The Wax Museum might be
interesting if you’ve ever wondered what David
Hasselhoff would look like if he died in a head-on crash
and the embalmer put his face back best he could for
the open casket viewing.
Hollywood & Vine, once ‘the most famous intersection
in the world’, is now visually dominated by a
windowless, mold green and black piercing studio screaming
obscenely from a corner.
Our last stop — noted in every guidebook —
was 6513. This address was once the beauty shop (before
‘salon’ hit the vernacular) where Marilyn
Monroe first bleached her hair blond. I can’t
imagine who would give a rat’s ass but for some
low I.Q. women and old, wig wearing queens.
Marilyn is weeping in heaven, hell, or, if re-incarnated,
Nicaragua, for 6513 is now an ominous looking ‘Notary
Public’ with scary men inside.
Earlier, as I drove back from Frederick’s, I
decided to cruise through my old neighborhood. Maybe
I shouldn’t have moved.
From one vantage point I could see all of these old
buildings at once: The gaudy Chinese Nirvana apartments,
The Japanese Yamashiro restaurant, the fairy-tale Magic
Castle theatre, some sixties’ ‘Space Age’
condos on stilts and jasmine-clad Spanish bungalows.
All were built back when people had dreams.
The hard truth is that you can no more recreate the
glamour days of Hollywood than you can recreate the
Ming Dynasty. Its over.
And, just between us, enough already.
You
can read an archive of Xanadu's columns by clicking
here.
|
