redfishingboat

Even though I live in Los Angeles, I’m not very Hollywood. But, even I knew that down on Hollywood Boulevard, there’d be happenings and spectacle around Michael Jackson’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. After some prodding, I grabbed some cameras and jumped on the bus towards the heart of Hollywood, towards The Star.

This was a special occasion, so I brought the mysterious Polaroid Holga with one of my last expired irreplaceable packs of peel-apart film. I brought a digital SLR with a flash and a fisheye lens. Part of me felt guilty, bringing the digital. I don’t know why.

An hour later, I exited the Metro in the midst of a throng of humanity on Hollywood Boulevard, besieged, set-upon, mobbed by street-sellers hawking bootleg Michael Jackson tee-shirts. There was not five or six, there was not a dozen. I’m not exaggerating when I say there were over a hundred people selling shirts, or ribbons, or buttons. Gotta get them dollars. There were people everywhere, all absorbed in private zombie-drama.

I felt agitated, panicky. I felt like a vulture myself. I knew I wouldn’t be able to work the Polaroid in the middle of the crowd, so I broke out the digital. I was good, I brought an spare camera battery. I brought extra flash batteries, too.

Then, Beck walked past me. Yeah, Beck. Looking childlike, making his way anonymously and unrecognized with the throng. I started walking with him. I wanted to get in front of him. I wanted to get the photo of him paying his respects when he made it down the line to Michael’s star. Strange world.

I flicked on the camera.

“No CF Card.”

I froze. Goodbye, Beck. Goodbye, everyone. I pulled off down a side alley. I started pacing like a tiger. I was furious with myself. I didn’t know what to do. I walked in circles. I muttered obscenities.

I gave up.

I walked against the grain back to the Metro stop, against more desperate people trying to get to The Star. “Just get me the fuck out of here,” I thought.

But, I pulled myself together. I found my inner calm. I just needed to walk for a while. I decide to head off towards the other Michael Jackson star. Yeah, there’s two stars for Michael Jackson. I had no idea what was there, but I headed down the Boulevard anyway.

I started to fiddle with the Polaroid. It’s a very temperamental piece. I saw Vin Scully’s star and thought I’d take a pic to get a sense of what the Holga’s flash would do bounced off the sidewalk.

Click.

I carefully pulled the tab, but the film wouldn’t go through the rollers. This was bad. I tried again to get it going. No, I was just pulling slimy shreds of emulsion. I tried my very best to get it going, but the whole pack was ruined.

I blinked.

But, I was in Hollywood. Surely, I could find a compact flash card for sale here in tourist hell. And, there was a camera shop, right across the street! Eureka. But, it looked awfully busy. “Why is there a raucous crowd outside?” I wondered. I crossed the street, and discovered that the tourist camera trap was playing some Michael Jackson concert on a nineteen-inch television in the window, and it had attracted a throng of fans. Clever, except I couldn’t even make it to the entrance of the store. Well, I hadn’t come this far to stop, so I pushed on through and made it inside, brightly lit and devoid of people.

The shopkeep had been watching the concert, but now followed me inside. “I just need a compact flash card,” I tell him.

Him. I recognize the face. I had taken a photograph of this exact man on the street months earlier. Strange fucking world.

He only has one card in the whole place, a sad one gigabyte. I pay him the tourist rate of twenty-five dollars, and thank him for his time, but he was back watching Michael on the small screen.

But, I was back in business with a photographic weapon.

The other Michael Jackson star was down near Hollywood and Vine. Much less crowded, but a lot clubbier. I passed through racks of minidresses and gallons of cologne.

I turned down Vine and saw a scene much smaller in stature. Some candles around the star, hand-written declarations of love and a small Hispanic family keeping vigil. No crowds.

As I took a photograph, passersby taunted that this was the wrong star. A dapper Englishman paused to tell me that this Michael Jackson was a local radio personality. (In fact, the “other” Michael Jackson is English — was that him walking by?) Another man stopped with the randomness of inebriation to discuss of Michael Jackson’s legacy. We spent ten minutes on the subject actually, going back and forth. This man’s name was Frenchie and he said he was a fashion designer. He didn’t want me to take his picture, but I got a card. He told me to call him, and we’d “do some business.”

Strange world, yeah.

So I left the Hispanic family to keep vigil over the wrong Michael Jackson and walked back towards Hollywood and Highland.

As I walked back through the sporadic clubgoers, some LAPD officers on foot stopped a kid who was right next to me. They told him to put his hands behind his back so they could search him. I turned back to look as I passed, and saw one of the officers staring right at me, with my camera. Chilling effects. I left my fellow man to be harassed, as I turned face front and walked away. Damnit.

In minutes, I rejoined the fray. I was back in the throng of cattle. There were security forces deployed to keep the line moving. Slowly, inexorably, we moved like a tar spill. Slowly towards what I didn’t even know. I saw piles of flowers and cards piled like garbage against crowd control barriers. I saw a tribute poster. People were snapping away with their cellphones.

And, then I was right over it: Michael Jackson’s star, in the midst of tribute trash, somehow kept visible. The steel barrier went right over it. This is what thousands of people were happy to endure pushing and shoving to get a one-point-three megapixel image of.

“Take your picture and keep moving,” a security professional shouted at me. I wonder who hired these guys.

I made my way to the end and noticed a couple photographer-photographers on the other side of the barrier, so I went back around with them. I was quickly checked by two uniformed on-duty LAPD officers. “Where’s your pass?” they demanded, before shooing me away. I wondered who I was supposed to get a pass from for something like this? What corporation’s profit were they protecting? I didn’t really care. Photographs were a waste. If there was anything compelling here, I didn’t sense it. I’m not a photographer.

I was done, I took the metro back to North Hollywood. The not-glamorous other Hollywood. I just missed the bus down Chandler. The next one wasn’t for half an hour, so I walked. And, I walked. My feet got sore. It took forever, with every step I recapped the night in my head. Was that really Beck?

It felt like one more thing should happen. I should find something on the walk home that I wouldn’t have seen from the bus. Surely there would be one talisman I’d find that would make the whole night worthwhile. Something to make this story seem like a parable for seizing life. To show me the larger view.

But, there was nothing at all. And, I reached my apartment. Dark and alone. I unlocked the door, fell inside and stumbled straight to the shower. I stood there in the warm water and wept.