Hollywood is Dead

Today (we'll pretend this isn't backdated) we ventured 70 miles North to the famed Hollywood in LA. Getting there was easy...finding a parking spot wasn't bad...fighting the thousands of tourists and making sure I didn't loose my purse in the process was another story.

All of the "nice" Hollywood stuff is all in this ONE area. When you venture away it's all very run down and dirty. I'm sure if you're a native or you know you're way around you see it a completely different way. But as an outsider coming in knowing nothing of Hollywood, it was kinda disappointing. Wish we could have seen it back in the day when it was booming.

We did get to see the Kodak theater which is lovely, and we did get to see the footprints at the Chinese theater and we got to walk along the stars on the Walk of Fame. It was nice and we had Lincoln there to protect us from all of the crazy people who were talking to themselves or yelling at strangers.

I watch way too many episodes of Gangland and in every episode there is some cop saying that when someone asks you "where you're from" it's called "calling you out" and they're really asking what gang you're associated with. So the entire time we were walking around I was terrified someone was going to "call us out." We even wore green as a neutral color (a little extravagant, I know.) We went to the Ripley's believe it or not museum and had a nice time roaming around and then we headed for our car. It had been an uneventful day thus far....and then this guy on the corner trying to sell tours asks Lincoln "where you guys from?" I about lost it...my heart started racing and I thought I was about to get shot. I'm sure the guy was asking a completely innocent question in a tourist saturated environment where everyone was from somewhere other than Orange County but at the moment my mind was going nuts.

Lincoln was very level headed, knew I was freaking out, so he told the guy we were from around LA, lived in the Orange County area. The guy started talking about random stuff that didn't really make much sense and after "accusing" Lincoln of being from somewhere else and Lincoln told him we were from California he just said "alright, well have a nice day" and we were on our way.

I was panicked...ridiculously so. Even thought this guy that had been ease dropping on the conversation was following us. I told Lincoln I wanted to go in a store and calm down a second before we walked down some sketchy street to our car.

Once back in our car I wanted nothing more than to see our beautiful little town again, but alas, we took a wrong turn and ended up driving through straight up East LA where all the Gangland episodes are based...SUPER! AND we caught every stop light...even better! Once we made it to the highway we drove right past Skid Row and passed the exit where The Soloist was based.

Anyway...we made it home and nobody followed us or burned our apartment down in our sleep so I assume we're going to be okay.

I'm glad we went but I'm glad we left. That is all.