Monday, August 01, 2005

Shadow Tourist


Shadow, originally uploaded by laurajswisher.

Spent much of this weekend doing tourist-y things with out of towners. There's always a lot of pressure to come up with stuff to do, and I consider myself a horrible guide because I never think of LA as being a particularly interesting place to visit. Hollywood Boulevard is a series of cheap t-shirt and postcard shops next to Pizza-by-the-slice eateries next to your Hooters. It used to be incredibly seedy and now is very commercial with a healthy sprinkling of sleaze.

So yesterday we did dim sum in Chinatown for brunch at Empress Pavilion. That's always a treat, if you can forget the hour wait for a table. Then I drove through downtown, through the fashion district and ended up in Hollywood. We walked around Hollywood & Vine, Grauman's Chinese and...well, that's pretty much it. Any given day you'll find a host of your favorite characters hanging out on the boulevard taking pics with tourists for money. There's Darth Vader, a Stormtrooper, Lucille Ball, Charlie sans Chocolate Factory and, my favorite, Spiderman.

Yesterday Spiderman was hanging out with Wonder Woman. It sounded like he was complaining to her about people not tipping very well. I decided not to take a picture of him because I knew I wouldn't tip either. Here's why I love Spiderman: Yesterday, as he was getting his picture taken with some German girl, I noticed his nipples protruding from his Spidey suit. Then I noticed that his Spidey package was stuffed to the left. Holy horror! Whatever suspension of disbelief I had was lost upon that observation. No one's attention should ever be drawn to that region. You would think there'd be some kind of super hero athletic cup these actors could wear. I took a page from The Comeback's Valerie Plame [sic]: "Note to self. I don't want to SEE that."

Spidey's suit is getting a little old. It's lost some of its elasticity so it sags a big in the caboose, and the colors aren't vibrant anymore.

Oh, I also went to see "Must Love Dogs" last night. If this post prevents even one person from seeing this movie, it will have been worth it. This movie was AWFUL. Granted, most of you probably figured that out just from watching the trailer. I, on the other hand, needed to discover for myself. I like both Diane Lane and John Cusack so of course I wanted to see a movie with both of them in it. I'm now less inclined to feel that way. Note to Cusack: Stop channeling Lloyd Dobler. It's no longer cute.

All for now. Off to another day of site seeing.

3 comments:

VagabondLoafer said...

It looks like you and E.T. just stepped out of a flying saucer. Greetings people of Earth.
That sun looks intense. Nice pic.

Butternut said...

Thank you for the heads up on "Must Love Dogs". On Friday I was having a conversation with a friend that if you get stuck watching a romantic comedy at least if John Cusack is in it you will like the main character and the movie probably won't suck. "Serendipity" came to mind.

For tourists, I'd take them to places that are in the movies like the Santa Monica pier, Hollyweird, maybe West Hollywood, and a hot Hollywood bar. I hear the Getty Center is nice too. Haven't been there yet.

Holy cow, I wrote a serious post. Um.... I don't want to see Charlie's chocolate factory, or Spiderman's. There that's better.

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