Wild Side Walk: Pt 5.
(Unexpurgated) 1982: Report from the astronaut
photo: Hollywood Roosevelt (dye-transfer image)
©1982 www.stuartpage.com
The music that carries around Hollywood via the portable 'boxes' is up-tempo disco-funk and electronic reggae; rhythmic stuff that is great to walk to if you're in a hurry and feel like bouncing along. There's no real important lyrics from what I can make out, but combinations of sounds like steam escaping staccato fashion from tiny valves, and lots of on-off beat bass like the echo of dancing down hollow staircases, knitted together with fairly minimal dribbles and jabs of Casio syntho-sounds.
Every now and again some longhaired relics can be found sprawled out on lace painted and airbrushed choppers or shaggin' wagons with Plexiglas dome windows and large-breasted women sprayed on the side. These dudes are into stuff like the Doors, Hendrix and getting high whenever possible. I'm surprised how many Black Americans, Mexicans and South Americans I see. The blacks are very classy dressers, and the better-off ones wear pointy Italian shoes and bright, shiny, synthetic clothes. Very sporty clothes are popular, and there are a lot of very healthy looking people hanging around, as well as some really wiped out winos and homeless people collecting trash in supermarket wagons.
These are only the local street people. Just as many people again drive past in white walled limos staring at the sidewalk spectacle, which stares back through equally dilated pupils. Keeping an eye on all this are some of the friendliest and meanest cops ever, depending on where you are, and when. The neighbourhood cop who walks around amongst the people is likely to give you directions and suggestions during the day, but the plain-clothes carloads are likely to try and book you-for talking to the girls on Sunset Boulevard, I found out. Not to mention the black leather-suited Harley-Davidson slug I saw warming his hands on two pearl-handled magnums in cowboy holsters. Yeah, the Western sheriff's horse replaced by the one-ton chrome and white appliance-laden Harley. Best to not even notice that guy. Not only does he look heavy, but with torch, baton, walky-talky, guns and book hanging from his belt, he is heavy, ready for any situation that might arouse him.
So much litter all around, and it's all cellophane and shiny DuPont metallic plastic wrappers that sparkle and reflect the streetlights at night. It looks fine to me, more so than the death and sex images that fill the magazine racks down the sidewalk, and the billboards overhead. Any kind of titillation seems available, in the flesh or over the phone via Visa, or dream about it in the masturbation manuals. If you PAY. Booze is cheap, and available anytime on every street, consequently there's lots of drunks and alcoholics, all asking for a dime for the next bottle. Other people bare resemblance to comic characters and film-star characters from the locally made Hollywood B's. I swear I saw Elvis Presley, James Dean and Marlon Brando-when-young replicas, Jim Morrisons, and then the helpless camouflaged Vets, some who seem to be constantly focused at infinity and seem oblivious to everyone and everything.
(To be continued).
Stumble It!
photo: Hollywood Roosevelt (dye-transfer image) ©1982 www.stuartpage.com
The music that carries around Hollywood via the portable 'boxes' is up-tempo disco-funk and electronic reggae; rhythmic stuff that is great to walk to if you're in a hurry and feel like bouncing along. There's no real important lyrics from what I can make out, but combinations of sounds like steam escaping staccato fashion from tiny valves, and lots of on-off beat bass like the echo of dancing down hollow staircases, knitted together with fairly minimal dribbles and jabs of Casio syntho-sounds.
Every now and again some longhaired relics can be found sprawled out on lace painted and airbrushed choppers or shaggin' wagons with Plexiglas dome windows and large-breasted women sprayed on the side. These dudes are into stuff like the Doors, Hendrix and getting high whenever possible. I'm surprised how many Black Americans, Mexicans and South Americans I see. The blacks are very classy dressers, and the better-off ones wear pointy Italian shoes and bright, shiny, synthetic clothes. Very sporty clothes are popular, and there are a lot of very healthy looking people hanging around, as well as some really wiped out winos and homeless people collecting trash in supermarket wagons.
These are only the local street people. Just as many people again drive past in white walled limos staring at the sidewalk spectacle, which stares back through equally dilated pupils. Keeping an eye on all this are some of the friendliest and meanest cops ever, depending on where you are, and when. The neighbourhood cop who walks around amongst the people is likely to give you directions and suggestions during the day, but the plain-clothes carloads are likely to try and book you-for talking to the girls on Sunset Boulevard, I found out. Not to mention the black leather-suited Harley-Davidson slug I saw warming his hands on two pearl-handled magnums in cowboy holsters. Yeah, the Western sheriff's horse replaced by the one-ton chrome and white appliance-laden Harley. Best to not even notice that guy. Not only does he look heavy, but with torch, baton, walky-talky, guns and book hanging from his belt, he is heavy, ready for any situation that might arouse him.
So much litter all around, and it's all cellophane and shiny DuPont metallic plastic wrappers that sparkle and reflect the streetlights at night. It looks fine to me, more so than the death and sex images that fill the magazine racks down the sidewalk, and the billboards overhead. Any kind of titillation seems available, in the flesh or over the phone via Visa, or dream about it in the masturbation manuals. If you PAY. Booze is cheap, and available anytime on every street, consequently there's lots of drunks and alcoholics, all asking for a dime for the next bottle. Other people bare resemblance to comic characters and film-star characters from the locally made Hollywood B's. I swear I saw Elvis Presley, James Dean and Marlon Brando-when-young replicas, Jim Morrisons, and then the helpless camouflaged Vets, some who seem to be constantly focused at infinity and seem oblivious to everyone and everything.
(To be continued).
Stumble It!
posted by Stuart Page at Tuesday, October 30, 2007
2 Comments:
of course stu you have seem elvis, jim morrison and maybe even jimmy hendrix, in that L.A gene pool there are plenty of cousins of famous people walking around, chris o met Donavans cousin in japan. trace
Yeah true... for instance, I met Anthony Ciccone (Madonna's brother) in 1994 - he cooked dinner for me and three German women at my little Venice Beach hideaway, then I met one of Marlon Brando's illegitimate sons; he shopped for WWII antique jewellery at Alpine Town in Long Beach, they had jewellery that allegedly belonged to Himmler, Göring etc there. Last year, just after arriving in LA, was seated at a table next to Al Pacino and his Dad for lunch at Rose Cafe in Venice Beach. LA is that kind of place.
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