In Los Angeles you are what you drive, it is an old story but still true. I suppose that makes me someone who has a ding in his butt and needs an oil change. Nonetheless, one of the major considerations when planning an evening out in LA is parking, especially on a weekend night.

Hollywood has gone through a major revamp at the corner of Hollywood and Highland Blvd. It is sort of the new Hollywood and Vine. It has been turned into an entertainment complex that includes the El Capitan theatre, Manns Chinese theatre, with all the concrete footprints, restaurants, multilevel shops and the Kodak theatre where they hold the Oscars ceremony every year. 

The complex has underground parking that would seem to be easy. The escalators come right up into the heart of the activity. The problem is getting out of the parking lot. With shows in three theatres ending about the same time there are thousands of cars exiting all at once. The jam is bumper to bumper twisting up various parking levels at the speed of flowing tar. It is boring and stressful and when it takes 55 minutes to exit three levels, the gas wasted by engines idling is a carbon footprint that makes BigFoot look dainty.

So last Saturday night we have tickets to see Eddie Izzard. I like to support anyone who gave me a Tony on live television. Like he needs our support. We bought the tickets six months ago and the best available seating was the last row of the upper balcony. Watching Eddie Izzard at that distance is like using Google Earth without the zoom. Anyway, the parking issue was a factor. That is when we remembered that the Metro Subway makes a stop right at Highland and Hollywood.

The LA subway has only been open a few years. I vowed I would never ride it. When they built it they dug through the Hollywood hills only to find out they were digging through two active earthquake fault lines. The Hollywood freeway sank 12 inches and they hit ground water that dried up a creek that feeds Lake Hollywood.  But, hey, the 6 billion was worth it.  There are 5 stops.

So, to do our part against global warming and $5.00 a gallon gasoline Sandi and I decided to drive to the Universal City stop, park and take the subway (of Death!) to the see Eddie. (I call him Eddie because he once gave me a Tony award on live television, did I mention that?)

Well, the stations are as clean as the London tube stations.  There were only a few people riding the trains.  However, I am sure that these trains come from the factory with pre-scratched grafitti on the windows. I don't know how else it would get there is such a short time.  How can vandals get organized that quickly. "Hey, there is a new train car they put in service yesterday... want to go over and scratch 'viva' on the glass?" Don't they have drug deals and gang wars to attend?  

The next stop from Universal City is Hollywood and Highland, but you have to go through the active faults and tread water.  It only takes 10 minutes.   We immediately run into friends who are taking the train to the Hollywood bowl.  Because the Hollywood bowl has something called piggy back parking, that is cars parked one behind the other, you can be stuck in your car for hours waiting for the people in front to leave.

When you exit the Hollywood station it is like suddenly being transported to New York. The street is filled with people.  There are about 30 Amish in a clutch singing hymns and handing out literature.  They are dressed in their outfits: Black hats, black suits with no tie and facial hair for the men; long black dresses with long sleeves, long hair pulled up in a bun and no makeup for the women. They look like they are right out of central casting.  The fact that they are standing next to Jack Sparrow and Darth Vader look a likes only heightens suspicions that this Amish thing is just a tourist attraction. Almost drowning out "Jesus Love Me" is a group of break dancers spinning on their heads to explicitly lyrical rap songs.  A street artist is doing charactures , and there is a guy selling tee shirts that say... "Obama, yo Mama".  We assumed he was from the DNC. 

We make our way into the Kodak Theatre which is really lovely and very Oscar friendly.  Pictures of the awards adorn the walls, trophies on display in the lobby.  There are little replica Oscars for sale, and you can have your picture taken against a back drop that puts  you right in the middle of the "red carpet".  On every pillar of the lobby are iron cast dates with the name of the movie that won best Picture that year, dating back to the first Oscar.  There are blank pillars with dates through 2039 waiting for the name of future movies.  They obviously insisted on a very long lease.

Eddie is great.  Much smaller than we thought based upon where we are sitting.  Eddie did not mention the Tony's at all during his show. Bitch. They are selling DVD's of his performance in the lobby for those who would like to actually see the show up close.  I'm not sure why but the audience, at least our section, was per capita the fattest, largest group of people I have ever seen. Really, it was odd.  Like there was an orchestra, balcony and whale beaching section to the theatre. 

We were out of the theatre, on the train and back at Universal in 20 minutes.  Most of the audience had not even located their cars by then. Except for the anxious moments of considering our fate if the big one hits while we are in the tunnel, it was a pleasant time.

There are three more stops on the train that I have yet to experience.  Perhaps soon I will get the courage to attempt the adventure.  I doubt that LA will ever change from "you are what you drive" to "you are what you ride".  However, based on the average weight of the people sitting around us at Eddie's show.... a train car could work as an image.

As you were,

Jay