HOLLYWOOD

As Mr. Bang-His-Head and Coach Rick crashed in the hotel room in Anaheim after the 7 a.m. game, Larisa, Keeve and I ventured off to Hollywood.   We have never been there despite our many trips to L.A.  Can I just say that if you’re looking for weirdos….. they’re in Hollywood… particularly at Starbucks on Hollywood Blvd. just East of the Chinese Theater.  WEIR-DO!  Oh, my goodness.  I didn’t bother telling the kids to stop staring with their mouths gaping open because I was busy staring with my mouth gaping open.  Our favorite, hands down, was a little shriveled up man with long dyed-black hair looking rather spookily like Howard Stern in his 90s.  He had a little too much black eye liner on… and he accidentally used the black eyeliner on his lips too.  But I could tell he had realized his mistake because he tried to correct it with shiny silver eyeliner outlining his black lips.  Remarkably creepy.

Anyway, we were the typical tourists walking slowly down the street of the stars and reading all the names aloud, whether we knew them or not.  I just made it sound like I was excited to find each and every one.  Larisa finally figured out that I didn’t know who half the people were.  The only star we were in pursuit of was Elvis, for Rick of course.  Well, they have moved Elvis’ star three times and we finally asked enough people and were pointed in the same general direction about four times when we came upon the king of rock n roll’s star.  It’s by itself and the Beatles’ star in a large median, so as not to get too many people stopping up traffic in front of the junk souvenir shops.

We got sucked into a souvenir shop and bought the $7 map showing the homes of the stars.  So off we drove to see if we could find any famous people’s houses.  The one that I got most excited about was the Brady Bunch house.  So cool.  Just like the show!  Except it’s orange now, not olive green anymore.  The ordinary people who live in it must be sick of people like us in minivans holding the $7 map and taking pictures of their home because their house number was nowhere to be seen.  Larisa said, “I can’t tell which house it is because there’s no number on this one!”  I didn’t need a house number.  I grew up watching that house.

Keeve asked if we could see Ben Stiller’s house, so off Hollywood Blvd. we drove to Ben’s place.  Well after Larisa has successfully navigated me up these winding, narrow, falling-apart roads we find the house number and Larisa says, “Oh, …..this is Drew Barrymore’s house.”  So we enjoyed her amazing view for a few moments before finding the correct house for Keeve.  And keeping up with our tradition of saving one famous line for posterity from each of our family vacations, the rest of the trip we kept saying, “Oh, this is Drew Barrymore’s house,” when we pulled into Taco Bell, Huntington Beach, Free Chapel, Chevron, our hotel, etc.

Tags: Beatles, Ben Stiller, Brady Bunch, Drew Barrymore, Elvis, family vacation, Hollywood, L.A., mom, road trip, Starbucks, Street of the Stars, vacation