Monday, September 27, 2004
Faded glamour
Six dollars for an hour's worth of internet. Sputter. I wouldn't pay more than a pound back home, if I could help it.
Oh yeah. It's not my home anymore. doh.
Anyway, perhaps I should have been more explicit in my last post.
Hollywood is not a dump. It's clean, and the buildings have fresh coats of paint. Well most of them, anyhow. It has the edge on London there.
The thing about Hollywood, and Sunset blvd which I find incredibly depressing is summed up neatly in the visitors guide to California which I cleverly purchased before flying here (yay me) - "faded glory". I can't put a finger on it, but the whole of Hollywood, despite being a huge tourist trap and all is... tired. Perhaps it's just all the expectations I built up in my head of somewhere brand new, and teeming with vivacity and life. And so it should feel, what with the vociferous (raucous) Lucille Balle impersonators and the very credible Batman wandering the street. (Zorro with his plastic rapiers was a tad tacky, and the strange black-bedecked kid (only his eyes showing) pretending to be a ninja was downright sad. I had an impulse to wrench the wooden swords out of his hands and give him a right drubbing just to show him how it was really done, but there were too many coppers around bugger it. Yet, despite all the... actors wandering the streets, the place feels distinctly like a has-been. Still, I shoulda got a room here dammit. Safety first. Back in Alvadaro... well actually for some reason I'm not sticking out that much. People keep trying to talk to me in spanish. I suppose with my new and still darkening tan I have a... ? slight mexican look to me? Shrug.
The endless walk of fame doesn't really... work for me. It's just a lot of names stuck in a black ? marble sidewalk with white flecks in it. Maybe there's too many of them, or maybe it's not done quite right... maybe there should be gold-leaf on the ground, and lining the buildings... heh. Or maybe it's because it's the height of summer and all the palm trees are wilting and burnt to a crisp. Somehow it reminds me of a woman slightly past her prime, wearing a faded dress that must have been quite glamourous once. And that, I suppose, is truly the story of Hollywood.
Reading the "historical stop" signs put up by the municipality (first bank in hollywood! first printing press! First public toilet!!!) I can't help but laugh at their choices of words... words like... glamourous facade... imposing... extravagent... impressive... art deco etc. To me, they all look "nice." I've probably gone all posh, mebbe I've just lived in london for too long... but Hollywood is so NOT the place to go to appreciate architecture. Mind you, it is quaint enough. lots of stuff that looks like it came off a film-noir set, and paramount pictures has some very impressive stuff somewhere in their studio, judging from the roofs I can make out peeking over the heavy security walls they've erected all around their massive twenty acre compound.
So right now I've got an hour to kill before my trip to disneyland (yay me) and having walked all of hollywood and most of the sunset blvd I've decided to plop myself down in front of a computer and ramble. That and the rather unpleasant mist that's draped over most of LA this morning - you know how when it's just chilly enough to make you want to put on a jacket, but just warm enough to make you regret it almost immediately when you break into a gentle sweat? Yeah, that's LA today.
The trolley tour of Hollywood was a bit of an eye-opener, the second the driver swerved off the main street into residential areas to give us dang tourists a chance at a decent shot of the Hollywood Sign. A little bit of peace away from the madding crowd. They were nice enough little houses, neat and clean (and apparently very expensive) and some of the houses I really fancied seeing close up were set high on the hillside, probably cost a mini fortune, and were extremely off limits to the public.
One thing that's struck me about the board that governs LA is that they have no real concept of capitalising on tourists. I suppose the celebrity residents must put up a fair fight against intrusions into their privacy, but in another country that sign would be accessible (Although extremely secure, with handrails, electrified fences, and snipers poised to take out would-be jumpers, starlets or otherwise), and there would be trains to beverly hills, and the beaches at Malibu and Santa Monica. Increased commuter transport would make for bigger revenues, and more teeming waterfronts. I suppose that's the reason they don't do it.
Bus services are impossible to fathom, for the simple reason that they all go along the same roads but stop at different points. What's with that?? Why even have a different bus number if the only difference is which stops the bus makes. Why not just have a single bus that stops at all the stops, running more frequently? Probably something to do with journey time.
I forgot to mention the boston leg of my trip, which was fabulous. Lobster appears to be the new wheat in Boston, and I must say it was extremely enjoyable. Boston was also filled with roadside history... the sort you wander by and wonder about, and if you're really feeling rich (ie not skint like me) you ask someone, or buy a guide and learn all about it. I hate museums for the simple reason that it's all cooped in and stuffy, but I suppose the truth is that I quite enjoy history. And scenary. Boston was very much the place for that, strange as it sounds. During my two days of wandering on foot I covered pretty much all of it except the north-west side where Mass Gen (and not much else) was. Didn't really feel inclined to mix work with pleasure. Places visited (quickly fading from mind now) were :
1) freedom trail (duh) including a view of the USS constitution (no real interest in stepping aboard) and some stupid WW2 destroyer moored at the docks. Apparently once the flagship of the US navy. Hate to say this but the HMS wossname moored on the thames is a helluva lot bigger and more heavily armed. Belfast I think it was.
2) southside - chinatown ($2.99 noodles, priced at $3.99 and increasing to a still very credible $4.20 after tax, and absolutely scrumptious), floating children's hospital (couldn't help myself), the site of the tea party ship (now conspicuously missing) where ? Bush's motorcade passed and completely ruined my pedestrian experience (I'm sorry sir, you cannot pass - instant images of Gandalf dressed as a traffic cop. Then, because i didn't comply the microsecond he said it - BACK OFF SIR. STEP BACK. Geez louise, I need some time for the thoughts to get from my brain to my legs okay??) And some chinese ghetto village... bugger it the name escapes me at the moment... Tung Fung village? Tung Lao? Something like that. Very quaint and quite nice really, in an oppressed, underpriviledged kind of way.
3) central - Boston common (watched some guy either teaching his girlfriend how to fence poorly with a baseball bat, or how to use a baseball bat as a... baseball bat... badly) and the memorial park immediately adjacent to that. Nice.
4) West side. Err. Buildings. More buildings. Borders!! (chai yum. Same as Borders chai anywhere in the world. My five minutes of heaven) Yet more buildings. En route to the North side there's a few extremely nice open-air mall thingummies teeming with very good buskers and restaurants, a cheers! bar thingie (franchised?) and.. lotsa stuff. Got quizzed by someone in Mcdonald's if I was from the UK - that was impressive, all I'd said was "thanks" when he held a door for me. I mean, how the hell do you pick up an accent from a single word??
5) North side - Little (big) Italy, authentic wine shops. Moscato Asti on sale!! Fantastic little restaurants scattered every two feet. Food, food and more food, and Italiano waitors scattered all through it looking suspiciously like characters from The Godfather.
6) More North side - by the waterfront there's a nice little skating rink overlooking the water which I would have killed to skate in, except that it was summer and not in service. Tennis courts by the water, nice.
And that was pretty much it for me.
I'll skip the bits K and his wifey brought me to see (Salem, gimmicky witch tourist- trap country. quaint enough, I guess. Kinda cute. And some of the T shirt slogans were hilarious... but slip my mind now as well. Damn BSE) and "fine dining" at the numero uno restaurant in Boston, which... well I suppose was good enough. I'd give it a rating of rather good back hom... err back in London.
Tomorrow's my last day in LA. Torn between a stroll down malibu / santa monica / venice (yeah andrew, was already considering that) and going to universal studios, which according to T, I have to go to. tough call.
Oh yeah. It's not my home anymore. doh.
Anyway, perhaps I should have been more explicit in my last post.
Hollywood is not a dump. It's clean, and the buildings have fresh coats of paint. Well most of them, anyhow. It has the edge on London there.
The thing about Hollywood, and Sunset blvd which I find incredibly depressing is summed up neatly in the visitors guide to California which I cleverly purchased before flying here (yay me) - "faded glory". I can't put a finger on it, but the whole of Hollywood, despite being a huge tourist trap and all is... tired. Perhaps it's just all the expectations I built up in my head of somewhere brand new, and teeming with vivacity and life. And so it should feel, what with the vociferous (raucous) Lucille Balle impersonators and the very credible Batman wandering the street. (Zorro with his plastic rapiers was a tad tacky, and the strange black-bedecked kid (only his eyes showing) pretending to be a ninja was downright sad. I had an impulse to wrench the wooden swords out of his hands and give him a right drubbing just to show him how it was really done, but there were too many coppers around bugger it. Yet, despite all the... actors wandering the streets, the place feels distinctly like a has-been. Still, I shoulda got a room here dammit. Safety first. Back in Alvadaro... well actually for some reason I'm not sticking out that much. People keep trying to talk to me in spanish. I suppose with my new and still darkening tan I have a... ? slight mexican look to me? Shrug.
The endless walk of fame doesn't really... work for me. It's just a lot of names stuck in a black ? marble sidewalk with white flecks in it. Maybe there's too many of them, or maybe it's not done quite right... maybe there should be gold-leaf on the ground, and lining the buildings... heh. Or maybe it's because it's the height of summer and all the palm trees are wilting and burnt to a crisp. Somehow it reminds me of a woman slightly past her prime, wearing a faded dress that must have been quite glamourous once. And that, I suppose, is truly the story of Hollywood.
Reading the "historical stop" signs put up by the municipality (first bank in hollywood! first printing press! First public toilet!!!) I can't help but laugh at their choices of words... words like... glamourous facade... imposing... extravagent... impressive... art deco etc. To me, they all look "nice." I've probably gone all posh, mebbe I've just lived in london for too long... but Hollywood is so NOT the place to go to appreciate architecture. Mind you, it is quaint enough. lots of stuff that looks like it came off a film-noir set, and paramount pictures has some very impressive stuff somewhere in their studio, judging from the roofs I can make out peeking over the heavy security walls they've erected all around their massive twenty acre compound.
So right now I've got an hour to kill before my trip to disneyland (yay me) and having walked all of hollywood and most of the sunset blvd I've decided to plop myself down in front of a computer and ramble. That and the rather unpleasant mist that's draped over most of LA this morning - you know how when it's just chilly enough to make you want to put on a jacket, but just warm enough to make you regret it almost immediately when you break into a gentle sweat? Yeah, that's LA today.
The trolley tour of Hollywood was a bit of an eye-opener, the second the driver swerved off the main street into residential areas to give us dang tourists a chance at a decent shot of the Hollywood Sign. A little bit of peace away from the madding crowd. They were nice enough little houses, neat and clean (and apparently very expensive) and some of the houses I really fancied seeing close up were set high on the hillside, probably cost a mini fortune, and were extremely off limits to the public.
One thing that's struck me about the board that governs LA is that they have no real concept of capitalising on tourists. I suppose the celebrity residents must put up a fair fight against intrusions into their privacy, but in another country that sign would be accessible (Although extremely secure, with handrails, electrified fences, and snipers poised to take out would-be jumpers, starlets or otherwise), and there would be trains to beverly hills, and the beaches at Malibu and Santa Monica. Increased commuter transport would make for bigger revenues, and more teeming waterfronts. I suppose that's the reason they don't do it.
Bus services are impossible to fathom, for the simple reason that they all go along the same roads but stop at different points. What's with that?? Why even have a different bus number if the only difference is which stops the bus makes. Why not just have a single bus that stops at all the stops, running more frequently? Probably something to do with journey time.
I forgot to mention the boston leg of my trip, which was fabulous. Lobster appears to be the new wheat in Boston, and I must say it was extremely enjoyable. Boston was also filled with roadside history... the sort you wander by and wonder about, and if you're really feeling rich (ie not skint like me) you ask someone, or buy a guide and learn all about it. I hate museums for the simple reason that it's all cooped in and stuffy, but I suppose the truth is that I quite enjoy history. And scenary. Boston was very much the place for that, strange as it sounds. During my two days of wandering on foot I covered pretty much all of it except the north-west side where Mass Gen (and not much else) was. Didn't really feel inclined to mix work with pleasure. Places visited (quickly fading from mind now) were :
1) freedom trail (duh) including a view of the USS constitution (no real interest in stepping aboard) and some stupid WW2 destroyer moored at the docks. Apparently once the flagship of the US navy. Hate to say this but the HMS wossname moored on the thames is a helluva lot bigger and more heavily armed. Belfast I think it was.
2) southside - chinatown ($2.99 noodles, priced at $3.99 and increasing to a still very credible $4.20 after tax, and absolutely scrumptious), floating children's hospital (couldn't help myself), the site of the tea party ship (now conspicuously missing) where ? Bush's motorcade passed and completely ruined my pedestrian experience (I'm sorry sir, you cannot pass - instant images of Gandalf dressed as a traffic cop. Then, because i didn't comply the microsecond he said it - BACK OFF SIR. STEP BACK. Geez louise, I need some time for the thoughts to get from my brain to my legs okay??) And some chinese ghetto village... bugger it the name escapes me at the moment... Tung Fung village? Tung Lao? Something like that. Very quaint and quite nice really, in an oppressed, underpriviledged kind of way.
3) central - Boston common (watched some guy either teaching his girlfriend how to fence poorly with a baseball bat, or how to use a baseball bat as a... baseball bat... badly) and the memorial park immediately adjacent to that. Nice.
4) West side. Err. Buildings. More buildings. Borders!! (chai yum. Same as Borders chai anywhere in the world. My five minutes of heaven) Yet more buildings. En route to the North side there's a few extremely nice open-air mall thingummies teeming with very good buskers and restaurants, a cheers! bar thingie (franchised?) and.. lotsa stuff. Got quizzed by someone in Mcdonald's if I was from the UK - that was impressive, all I'd said was "thanks" when he held a door for me. I mean, how the hell do you pick up an accent from a single word??
5) North side - Little (big) Italy, authentic wine shops. Moscato Asti on sale!! Fantastic little restaurants scattered every two feet. Food, food and more food, and Italiano waitors scattered all through it looking suspiciously like characters from The Godfather.
6) More North side - by the waterfront there's a nice little skating rink overlooking the water which I would have killed to skate in, except that it was summer and not in service. Tennis courts by the water, nice.
And that was pretty much it for me.
I'll skip the bits K and his wifey brought me to see (Salem, gimmicky witch tourist- trap country. quaint enough, I guess. Kinda cute. And some of the T shirt slogans were hilarious... but slip my mind now as well. Damn BSE) and "fine dining" at the numero uno restaurant in Boston, which... well I suppose was good enough. I'd give it a rating of rather good back hom... err back in London.
Tomorrow's my last day in LA. Torn between a stroll down malibu / santa monica / venice (yeah andrew, was already considering that) and going to universal studios, which according to T, I have to go to. tough call.
