Entering the Twilight Zone

 

Day two in Los Angeles and we decide to take a distinctively tourist approach. When searching for extra patience with crowds in Bar Harbor in summer I have to remind myself that we’re all tourists someplace. It’s easy to talk about, but today we’re doing something about it.

Between closures and COVID most studio tours are not running today. Universal Studios is but the tour of the actual movie-making sites is just a one-hour “attraction” of a gigantic theme park with roller coasters and other thrill rides based on their most popular movies. Admission costs more than a day’s pay and besides, we’re had plenty of being tossed from side to side getting here by train.

Instead, we opt for one of those open-side van tours that takes you around Hollywood and Beverly Hills for a couple hours. When we arrive the vans themselves, the storefront office (which had to be unlocked from behind an anti-riot grate) and the staff all seem tired and in need of a buff and shine. We hop in with folks from Boston, Texas, the District of Columbia, and the country of Columbia. The driver speeds us past the distinctive Capitol Records building and out to Mulholland Drive where we are shown the homes of the rich, famous and formerly famous.

It’s like Cooksey Drive in Seal Harbor with palm trees, broken bottles and trash, minus the ghost of Steve McQueen in his Jaguar or James Dean racing his Porsche at night without the headlights on.

We stop to see the famous Hollywood sign (used to advertise the “Hollywood Land” subdivision in 1923) but the only good vantage is miles away so the shots aren’t great.

We hear a lot about where Katy Perry lives and see the house owned by Gwen Stefanie and Blake Shelton, along with the end of Quinton Tarrantino’s impressive driveway. But our youthful driver skips some of the best stories that might appeal to those who acquired their musical taste in the 60’s. I notice when we pass the road to Laurel Canyon, home to Mama Cass, Joni Mitchell, Graham Nash, Carole King, Frank Zappa, and others. The ghosts of the songs they wrote here inhabit these hills as well.

In so many places, multi-million dollar homes cantilever out over the dusty, broken rock cliffs like spindly diving boards over a concrete pool long devoid of water. Considering the area’s propensity for earthquakes, unstoppable brush fires, and mud slides, it just goes to show you that people anywhere can have more luck and money than brains. Taste, of course, is all in the eyes of the beholder. There’s no shortage of houses that look like they were designed by the late comedian Phyllis Diller’s haberdasher.

Like stars you bump into in the grocery store and almost don’t recognize because they haven’t gotten all gussied up first, you realize that before these mansions can appear on camera, or in the pages of “Architectural Digest,” it requires the same extensive preparation. We’re talking the residential equivalent of hair, makeup, wardrobe and a stiff cup of coffee before the show can go on. That’s probably why leaf blowing appears to be the national pastime here.

After a quick ride down renown Rodeo Drive, we thank our driver who actually did a pretty good job, and jump off early to stroll Hollywood Boulevard to check out some of the more than 2,500 names on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The street is a blend of tourist shops, tattoo parlors, small restaurants and the occasional XXX theater or two. Apparently no one is responsible for picking up litter and Los Angeles’ homeless problem is inescapable here.

At one point we watch crews setting up for a premier at the TLC Theater and pass the El Capitan Theatre where Jimmy Kimmel Live will be broadcast from tonight.

We see the stars of Clayton Moore (the Lone Ranger), Marlo Thomas, Kermit the Frog and Marilyn Monroe. I stop to get a photo of the star for the “Twilight Zone’s” Rod Serling. If ever there was a place where it felt like you’ve entered, as only Serling could say, “another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land of imagination,” Hollywood is it.

One surprising star we spot is that of Donald Trump, immortalized in 2007 for his work on television’s “Celebrity Apprentice.” Apparently this is the third one to be placed on this spot, the first two being vandalized, including once by someone dressed up like the Incredible Hulk who destroyed it with a pickaxe. Trump’s star has also been defaced with swastikas and covered with Gay Pride event stickers. From time to time it is despoiled with dog poop. Apparently, folks in Los Angeles have better taste than I thought. 

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