Actually, it's those of us who live and work in the Hollywood community who go through all the trouble. You can imagine how inconvenient it would be to have a major traffic artery closed for a week, but how about every street within a square mile? This picture shows the extent of the street closures today.
The Hollywood & Highland complex is a huge retail/restaurant/entertainment complex (including the Kodak Theater) which encompasses two full city blocks. I live about two miles southwest of this place. Today I avoided dealing with traffic and lack of parking and took the bus as far north as I could get (Sunset) and walked the rest of the way into the seige.
I wish I had taken photos of the police barricades blocking the streets for blocks and blocks. It looked like a preparation for war. There were cop cars and parking enforcement vehicles everywhere and the last few civilian cars quickly got towed away. Helicopters buzzed overhead. Police officers and security personnel were everywhere. It was more security than President Fuckhead gets when he's in town, I can tell you that! Now I know that security was somewhat heightened because of Al Gore's presence. Hell, half of Hollywood is hoping he'll jump back in the ring for 2008.
Finally I made it to the tour office only to realize I hadn't brought my store keys -- attached to the car key, and no need for that today -- and the store was locked. No worries; the boss left a note taped to the door that they were walking the tour route one last time to double check and would be back presently.
The other three guides arrived and we stared in wonder and disdain at the crazy scene on Hollywood Boulevard. A guy dressed like The Rocketeer held an American flag over his head. Now, we're used to seeing people in costume on Hollywood Boulevard. We call them "the characters" and they all earn tips by posing for photos with tourists. That Rocketeer guy is not one of the regulars -- none of us had ever seen him before!
Luckily our tourists arrived on time at the rendezvous down on Sunset. We pulled the three coaches into the In 'n' Out Burger parking lot by Hollywood High School. The 100 or so tour participants piled out of the buses and we made our way back up the hill into the fray. Actually, things were pretty quiet that early. It was pretty quiet inside the secure zone (we passed through security twice along the route).
The tour went OK and even though we couldn't see much of anything, the tour guests had a great time and got into the festive spirit of the occasion. Afterwards, I made my way out through the gathering throngs of people lining up hours early, hoping to get a glimpse of their favorite celebrities arriving at the red carpet.
At home, I enjoyed viewing the show on television -- definitely the best view available -- and I guessed 14 out of 24 awards correctly.
No comments:
Post a Comment