US here we come

Hi,

We’ve got a few snaps to attach now, which I know you’ll like. We did two tours today. One was of the Chinese Theatre, built by Sid Gauman in the 1920s (a google search brings up some history and photos). It has been kept in beautiful condition and there are currently something like 80 premiers of movies there a year. (In fact there is a permier tomorrow night which we are hoping to go to, though we are also doing the Universal Studio tour tomorrow and we may get back a little late for a good position. We’ll see. It is the premier of the movie Iron Man and there will be stars, directors, etc and invited guests that we can spy on – on their way in.)

The theatre is inspired by Chinese artwork, lush red decorated carpets, chinese scenes and motifs on the walls, a carved statue of Confucius (my mistake – Lao Tzu), a beautiful lantern that carries incense (not today), red velvet seats and a beautiful red curtain that pulls back from the screen. It feels like something a kin to visiting Mecca for movie goers and film buffs to be walking along the pavers out the front of the wonderful theatre. Some of the stars Bette Davis, John Wayne, Joan Crawford, Eddie Cantor, Lana Turner … with more recent, I’m sorry their names escape me, and would you believe Mel Gibson is in there as well, hands and feet with the big stars. There are dozens of other actors that are represented on the footwalk with a star and their name inside but no hands and feet in cement – so Mel’s done good.

The second tour was of the Hollywood houses. The tour guide named Danny, himself a photographer of reknown who was born in Hollywood and often works for private parties of many of the celebrities. As you would imagine we saw loads of big gates and fences but it was really interesting to drive through West Hollywood (were there were loads of restaurants that the stars frequent) and to drive through the streets like Orange Grove. It goes to show with big time money, the streets were really beautiful, with big trees, beautiful gardens, lots of flowers, almost quaint. I guess i must have expected the area to be more brash, gaudy or something, but no, beautiful. Loads of huge houses, but certainly Madonna’s house was amongst the biggest, though there may have been one bigger and that was the home of the executive/director Aaron Spelling who produced loads of successful TV shows. We drove through the shopping area that you always see on the TV where the stars shop and there were paparattzi waiting outside for someone or other to come out. It looked exclusive and there weren’t many people walking along, though I saw one woman with some shorts and sneakers who looked like she was out shopping. Joey found out that Eminem and Snoop Dog lives nearby but we didn’t go to their streets. Joey is pretty sure that he saw Steve (I think it was) from Jackass and the driver told us that some of them live around here and that is was very likely that it was him (so Joey is stoked).

The driver as I said was an interesting character in himself and he told us one story about an Australian Rugby Team and Ossi Osbourne (a short version). The driver of the tour was an old school guide who prided himself in customer service, he went out of his way. One day he had the Australian team and the coach on a tour and they saw Ossi outside the place where they have meetings for alcoholics anonymous and as it happened Ossi’s driver couldn’t pick him up because he’d been in an accident. Well, the driver said he would drive Ossi home as we was going by there on the tour, so Ossi hopped in. Anyhow, when they got to his house Ossi gave the driver $300 for his trouble and then offered $800 or so to pay for the lunch of the players. Then Sharon came out and said, well, why don’t you come in here for lunch and the driver keep the money – but the driver said, oh no, we should keep on with the tour and did so. Well, the team were so pissed off that they gave the driver such a hard time – bad things turned to worse and somehow the driver was said to have pulled a gun on the one or two of the members. The end of the story was that the driver lost his job – so a funny story but certainly a sting in the tail and doesn’t speak all that well of the Auzzie boys?!

well, there you go, the kids are now having a nap and we’re talking about getting ourselves up to West Hollywood to do some star watch.

Have a look at the snaps – and thanks for reading.

take care and best from us, JBHG

PS: have had problems with downloading pics – will keep trying

We finally made it – a safe 13 hour trip from Sydney to LA. The shuttle bus, which we’d booked on-line, was at the LAX curbside, under an orange sign saying “shared vans”, as promised by the company.

When the plane was a couple of hours off the California coast, the sun started to rise. We were above the clouds and they looked stunning, especially when the sun’s rays created a hue over them with all the colours of the rainbow. I quickly plugged in my MP3 player to Miles Davis’ album, “Kinda Blue”. It’s the most perfect piece of music I’ve ever heard and, with a vikew like the one I was observing, I just had to have it as my leit motif. It was a magic moment.

Hollywood is hot – over 40 degrees today. The evening has been very warm – I’m writing this post at midnight on Monday – and so we all went for a walk down to the Boulevarde, Hollywood Boulevarde, that is. It’s just amazing. People everywhere, mostly tourists, but lots of locals cashing in on the attraction of Hollywood: impersonators of Marilyn Monroe, Charlie Chaplin, even a dwarf in a horror mask. Quite surreal. Also lots of street musicians: a Latino band, a black guy beating out rhythms on a range of buckets turned upside down, white folk musician with acoustic guitar.
Grauman’s Chinese Theatre is a remarkable piece of architecture and much bigger than it seems in the tourist brochure images. Joan and Joey and Hannah and I checked out the hand-prints in the cement pavers in front of the theatre. We found the Marx brothers! On the sidewalk outside, we checked out the stars dedicated to leading lights and I was thrilled to find the star in memory of Charles Bronson. It was all so exciting and I reckon one would have to be a total stick in the mud not to be moved by it.

We returned to the hotel and Joey and I couldn’t resist a late night swim under the stars in the hotel’s outdoor swimming pool. The water was warm and the night still. The Magic Castle Hotel, so far, has been better than we expected. It has a Spanish architectural feel, plus a couple of large palm trees in the courtyard.

The Spanish influence is very apparent and, like Australia, Hollywood is multicultural, but with Hispanic and black Americans being prominent minorities.

Some other differences: doors on white-goods over here open backwards compared to Australia’s. Light switches switch up to go on – ours have to be switched downwards. They still use one cent coins over here. Also, the power-points don’t have on-off switches – they’re on all the time.

More later,
Barry

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