Welcome to the tourist safari.
4.7 miles.
Pooks and Ruth--another online friend who is staying with Pooks for the week--came to the house this morning. After announcing that they were moving in, they immediately started redecorating and asking when I expected to be fully moved out. No, not really. I showed them around, we took pix in the backyard (including with the digital camera; give me a few moments to figure out how to attach it to the full-size Mac I've got here), and then went off to breakfast.
Of course, I'm such a pig that despite already having breakfast I took them to Du-Par's and munched on a half order of the French toast for a bit. We had a long chat about the types of people there are in this business and the costs and benefits of doing favors for friends.
A mutual acquaintance of ours has pretty much gone over to the Dark Side: he thinks that if you mention someone else's script to a third party, you should attach yourself as producer. Always. No concept of just doing a favor for someone. It's made Pooks crazy, who doesn't want to get into that shit--she just likes telling people she talks to about good scripts that friends of hers have written. It's a nightmare.
But you run into the people you expect to deal with, and how you interact with them says a lot about you. As Pooks puts it, she won't deal with someone who would be that underhanded (as to attach themselves as producer instead of just doing a favor). You have to have standards.
Ruth paid for breakfast--I'm not sure why and Pooks was sort of put off by it. But I said, "Look at it this way. Either the gesture is sincerely meant, in which case you should be grateful, or they're expecting you to fight for the cheque, in which case you will cure them of a bad habit." Pooks laughed; we thanked Ruth for breakfast.
Then we drove over the hill to look for the Hollywood sign.
Which I had never seen.
Yes, I've lived here for 2 years and I've never seen the most famous symbol of Hollywood.
I'm told that the Hollywood sign is visible from the 101 freeway--which I only drove twice a day for two years, but I never saw it. I didn't even know where to go looking for it, other than above (natch) Hollywood. I must never have seen it because I'm usually the driver and I keep my eyes on the road. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
We drove down Hollywood Boulevard and I spotted it but Pooks and Ruth didn't--too busy checking out the hookers, I guess. I kept driving up and around in the hills
Finally, we called Max.
POOKS
We can't find the Hollywood sign.
MAX
Wow. The smog must be really
bad today.
Max and I chatted for a bit--given that I knew the geography and Pooks and Ruth hadn't a clue--and she said that we were too close, we weren't going to find the sign because we were probably right under it. I needed to go south, head into the city, and we would be able to see the sign from a lower vantage point.
Okay, I said, and I pulled off onto Gower to head south.
DIANE glances in the rear-view mirror.
DIANE
Turn around now.
Yup, there it was, directly behind us. Pooks and Ruth cooed and I drove around Hollywood some more. Of course, after we'd finally found it we couldn't get rid of it--no matter where we went, there it was. It became a big joke: hookers, great old architecture, sweeping vista of downtown...the Hollywood sign.
I drove over Mulholland Drive (named for the man who brought the water to Los Angeles). Pooks loved it--she kept referring to an old-time Bob Cummings show whose name escapes me at the moment--but Ruth got carsick from all the twisty turns. I love driving Mulholland so much I'd never noticed how windy it can be for passengers before.
So I drove us back home and we sat around the living room for a while, talking. Pooks told a very funny story about a vibrator shaped like a beaver on a log (and named the Eager Beaver) that a woman she knew passed around at dinner one night, and how it only dawned on her later that the woman probably actually used the thing.
I realize now that I have no idea how we got on the subject of vibrators.
Pooks and Ruth took off (most likely to go to the Psychic Eye, so that Pooks could get a psychic reading) and I picked up my Michael Connelly novel. Within minutes, however, I could tell that the day's hilarity had done me in--I fell asleep as soon as I lay down.
After waking up I finished the Michael Connelly (The Black Echo) and picked up the next one (The Black Ice). I also turned on 84 Charing Cross Road--I know, I promised I'd stop, but intelligent people tend to be obsessive-compulsive, did you know that? I haven't been watching it--I've been in here typing this up.
Darin hasn't called me today. Waaah. He's out having fun, I know it.
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