Dear Morning Highland Ave. Morning Pedestrians

Dear Pedestrians:

In general, the foot traffic you see in Los Angeles is fairly eccentric, as most of the city's more normative residents have the good sense to stay in their damn cars if they're going anywhere.  Emerging from their underground parking structures already be-vehicled and exiting only to scuttle from the valet stand to the shade of the covered awning of whatever restaurant they're popping into for a $20 salad, layers of German and Japanese glass and metal generally incubate Angelenos from the outside as they pass through the alternately majestic and depressing cityscape around them; their cars rolling, incubated bubbles of willingly suspended disbelief punctured only by traffic lights and sewer construction backups.

Occasionally, however, you encounter some pedestrians... Of which there were a noteworthily inordinate amount morning in the Highland Avenue corridor in Hollywood.  Positively inordinate.

First off, some trannies.  Trannies!  So early in the morning:

Now, for some reason, LaBrea to Highland between Santa Monica and Fountain is universally accepted as LA's tranny corridor.   After conducting an informal poll, I have determined that this is known and acknowledged as a truth in the city of Los Angeles through a combination of perpetuated myth and actual observation.  I have no idea why this otherwise unremarkable section of Hollywood is a Mecca for trannies, what they're doing there, and where they live in what is actually a fairly industrial neighborhood, but, as this morning's 8:32am sighting would seem to confirm, that this indeed their hood:

Without getting into an in-depth gender studies/queer theory analysis of the sexual politics and identities of low-income urban transgendered individuals, suffice it to say, these trannies looked pretty busted.

Then, immediately across the street, there was this fellow:

Why the suit?  Why the walking stick?  Was it just for foppish affect, or was there an actual physical impediment at work?  Or was he on his way to a Charlie Chaplin lookalike contest, and his top hat was just blown off by a passing taco truck?  Or was it just dress-up day across the street at Fal Sal's?  (Which is, incidentally, a deli co-owned by Jerry Ferrara - of "Turtle" from ENTOURAGE fame - see next photo.)  What's disconcerting here is how smugly, eerily happy he looks:

Perhaps the secret to life is trolling the streets of Hollywood on weekday mornings in a suit with a walking stick.  Perhaps this gentleman knows this.  Perhaps the joke isn't on him, but, in fact, on us.

Then back across the street, this Lovely under-Rita, emptying the neighborhood parking meters of their winnings... a job increasingly irrelevant with the advent of parking meters that take credit cards:

I wonder if he's afraid of getting mugged, wheeling his strong box of loose change through some questionable neighborhoods?  Does he live in fear of a THE TOWN-type heist, writ small?  Clearly he can put his fears to rest on this block, however, as the trannies would no doubt jump to his defense if any malfeasance befell him.  Some of them looked pretty burly.


On the next corner, I encountered multiple long-haired bass players:

... a duo not so out of the ordinary in Hollywood.  But, upon closer inspection, I realized one of these gentlemen too had a cane!

Was there some sort of cane convention in Hollywood this morning?  It seemed unlikely to so organically encounter two young, unlikely candidates for cane possession so close upon one another's (potentially very slow-moving) heels.



A couple blocks north, I encountered these three women, who, while somewhat distinctive in and of themselves, were especially so as a trio as in no way could I decide what their unifying thread was:

They weren't of the same age, or dressed as though they were on their way to the same destination.  Other than the large bags, (and, suffice it to say, lower halves) and their seemingly apparent and actually quite charming breezy camaraderie, it was unclear what these three ladies's common bond.

All this diversity, all in a morning's quarter mile.  Welcome to Hollywood.  While some might see great beauty in this rainbow of eccentricity - a vital (if potentially handicapped), diverse, cross-section of humanity enriching one of America's largest megalopolises, I choose to invoke the sentiments of some of society's early cartographers, and label everything outside with a "there be dragons."  While it's all very nice to behold, I think I'll leave my bubble un-punctured, and stay in the car.


Sincerely,
Dear Crabby

Dear Mythological History of Los Angeles

Dear Mythology of LA:

Los Angeles is a city that wouldn't exist if it weren't for the entertainment industry. Well, it might exist, but what would it be? Phoenix with orange groves? Bakersfield with an ocean? Or worse yet, the canned cultural wasteland that is San Diego - a city whose lamps in their eponymous district are as filled with gas as are the rectums of the many frat boys who troll it? Hopefully not.

Los Angeles is a city built on and perpetuated by a singular, unifying myth; that of the silver screen. This acts as a wide-reaching siren call penetrating the subconscious of even the farthest flung hamlet across the country, and, indeed the world. This summons makes for a hugely variegated populace, sophistication and trash often marching hand in hand with a surprisingly egalitarian presence and ballyhoo. And while the silver screen myth lies at the core of the Los Angeles narrative, as a relatively recent phenomenon, the city of Los Angeles itself is still trying to figure out how to honor its history. Its architecture is only beginning to be preserved - countless midcentury homes designed by influential architects are becoming increasingly protected by concerned citizens - and its landmarks, oftentimes barely old enough to be considered such, are under the jurisdiction of the city's Office of Historic Resources which was only established in 2006. In essence, Los Angeles in all its vast splendor (and grimness) is still figuring out what to make of itself.

It is universally understood, however, that the city's movies remain at the center of its historic narrative. Even Los Angeles, with its rag-tag patchwork of disjointed civic imperatives, cannot ignore its movies - the very phenomena that made it what it is, and does its best to pay appropriate homage, in whatever way it knows how. On the Fox lot the other day, I was reminded of this fact:

Julie Andrews, may you live in infamy in the hearts and minds of movie-goers around the world... and on the side of a parking garage in Century City. Better there than in San Diego.

Sincerely,
Dear Crabby