June 2008 Archives

Saturday night. It's 89 degrees in the shadows and traffic on the West Side has come to a near standstill.

On one avenue, fire engines scream at the gridlock, demanding to be let through to douse a burning building and snatch the people trapped in it.

Farther south, a battalion of taxi drivers slams their horns in frustration as police reroute all cars that dare approach with late evening revelers beginning a night out.

Everywhere people venture forth looking for the R&R the angry sun, the smothering humidity stole from them during the day.

The evening begins at Highline in the no longer fashionable but still-frequented Meatpacking District. Highline, with its ground and lower levels, is described as a "Cornell bar." (If you can't get into Harvard, Yale or Princeton, you go to Cornell.)

From there, it takes a detour to Alphabet City before going to "some place near the bridge" on the Lower East Side. The names no longer matter. What's important is the scene.

But the scene tonight is slightly off kilter. On the first night after the first day of what will be an extended heat wave, DJs are off their groove and the bartenders are off their mark. One drink served tastes like too-sweet cough syrup laced with the bitter kick of bile, warning of what's to come.

"You'll be sick if you finish that."

"No wounded soldiers."

Machismo and indifference at its finest.

By 3:30 in the morning, the river of traffic has reversed its flow, running uptown instead of down and having a much easier time of it.

The magic hour approaches...

I watched a soundstage blaze devour nearly two city blocks worth of the Universal Studios backlot today. It was hard being so far away from the place where I'd spent my first significant gig in Los Angeles.

I found myself trying to identify the buildings, trying to remember every street and every highlight of the tour I used to give seven times a day, up to five days a week (it was a part-time job).

As the fire broke out, there was little information available online. I was tempted to call the fire station on the lot as I dug through my memory, trying desperately to recall the facts, routes and history I'd crammed into my head during tour guide training so many years ago.

Photos from the L.A. Fire Department Flickr feed.

It was no use. I helplessly watched the blaze take out facades I'd walked past and buildings I'd walked through. I worried that Stage 28, where Lon Chaney's "Phantom of the Opera" was filmed, and where my friends and I spent an evening as "atmosphere" for a Hollywood mogul's birthday party, might burn down too.

As futile as it might have been, and has maligned as the backlot might be, I couldn't help but think: I should have been there.

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