Hollywood Blvd (minus the "characters"): A Classic Best Thing

Peter Bart wrote this very interesting article which I read in yesterday's Variety.  It brought back floods of memories from the three and a half years I lived behind "the Blvd":

• The first time I saw the block being prepped for the Oscars (so exciting!)
• The first time I saw the title & posters of a movie I worked on plastered all over the marquee at the El Capitan (also so exciting!)
• Working & attending premieres & parties at Gauman's, El Cap and The Roosevelt Hotel
• Altering my plans/driving routes to avoid the traffic clusterf*%&s caused by those premieres
• Realizing that the Santa/Christmas play area was actually a Scientology recruitment area
• Shlepping coolers of snacks and wine through the madness, up Highland, to the Bowl
• Hiding beverages in the bushes of the Roosevelt before going inside (and then maybe or maybe not retrieving them later)
• Getting pizza at 2 am with my neighbor (and now roomie) on the walk home from the clubs
• Finding a fly baked into my cone at the gelato shop (why do so many of my memories involve food?)
• Free concerts thanks to Jimmy Kimmel's outdoor musical segments
• Dodging tourists
• Dodging street performers
• Dodging those annoying/terrifying characters (seriously - Spiderman would climb on the scaffolding in order to be more in-your-face).  If you don't believe me READ THIS!

I could go on and on. 

As I'm guessing all transplants with Hollywood dreams do, I felt excited and inspired when I first visited the Walk of Fame.  Seeing the names/stars of all my Hollywood "idols" and believing it would be me one day was just so super cool.  Sadly it lost its luster as time wore on and I started to feel a little bit of pity for the tourists who came there expecting...  well, something more.  But I am very glad to hear that "Iris" is having a positive effect on the area.  I hope the renovations bring new life & energy to Grauman's, and I will definitely head back that way to catch the promised documentary.  In the meantime, here's a couple old pictures from The Blvd that I managed to dig up:

my very first time on The Blvd (with an In-N-Out beverage of course) - posing with Marty Scorcese's star on the Walk of Fame and avoiding the Storm Trooper a few feet away

aforementioned Oscar prep

Maybe one day someone will blog a photo of themselves posing w/my star....................  ;-)