They Love It In Pomona

When I was a kid savoring every page of Rolling Stone magazine, and marveling at “Rebel Without A Cause,” the Capitol Records building and Griffith Observatory seemed about as foreign and glamourous as you could get.

This morning, both are in the shadow of the Hollywood sign right outside my window.

Duran Duran was on Capitol. Likewise Foo Fighters, and The Strokes. Of course, the building was sold to a Japanese trading company years ago.

Likewise, the skies above Hollywood have long been too smog-choked for actual stars. They all moved to Beverly Hills anyway.

I’m in Los Angeles on business. I arrived at noon. I will be on the ground approximately 56 hours.

Kyra Sedgwick was on my flight. I didn’t know this until I got to baggage claim and noticed her standing next to me. This occurance makes me, it should be noted, just one degree from Kevin Bacon.

Also on said flight, I read well over 100 pages of Thomas E. Ricks “Fiasco,” a blow-by-blow account of the escalation to, execution and failure of the war in Iraq. This while surrounded by Oscar-bound publicists and stylists vapidly flipping through Us and Star.

I have been to Los Angeles at least twenty-five times, but this is the first that I’ve found myself at Highland Hights, the city’s equivilent of Times Square. Joe Gillis lived a few blocks from here. That whole walk of fame thing isn’t just downstairs. Likewise the Oscar red carpet. It’s literally right around the corner.

In fact, there’s a Joan and Melissa Rivers billboard just outside my window, right above a Donut Stop and next to Highland Liqors and Paradise Dry Cleaners. “Fair & Fshionable,” it reads.

So glamourous.