In It began as sleet as the sun went down on Christmas Eve. We all went outside and marveled at it, then it turned to freezing rain. Soon everything was glittering with a crust of ice, Christmas lights shining under it. Around eight it began to snow. All evening we huddled around the warmth of the television. KTLA channel 5, our local Hollywood station, had correspondents all over town. We watched their reports to the sound of branches cracking and falling from the weight of snow and ice. At ten the power went out. We broke out the earthquake supplies: lanterns, flashlights, candles, Spam, snakebite kit. Luckily we have gas heat, but we built a roaring blaze in the fireplace anyway and sat around in the dim room drinking hot spiced cider, eating figgy pudding, and singing Christmas carols.
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Oh little town of Hollywood |
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The next morning a foot and a half of the white stuff has
accumulated. Put on the wool socks, the insulated boots, the long
underwear, two pair of pants, two flannel lumberjack shirts, scarf
and muffler, fur hat, earmuffs, gloves, and the Hawaiian anorak with
the hula girls and surfer dudes on it. Broke out the snowblower and
started on the driveway alongside the apartment building. It stopped
working when I was about half done. Well, it doesn't get a lot of
use! Shoveled the rest, and then shoveled out the car. Scraped the
windows, chipped away at the door until I could open it. Chained up,
put the car in gear, remembered it was front wheel drive, unchained,
chained up again. Lee's nose was already red as a fruitcake cherry
when she got in the car, but her cheeks were like roses. We crunched
carefully out the driveway to the street, waiting for a snowplow to
rumble by, then a sand truck, and a truck spreading salt. "City of
Los Angeles Snow Removal" was painted on the sides of the trucks.
They looked pretty old, and very dusty.
The palm trees are bent almost to the ground with the weight of snow. People are driving slowly by in their SUVs—finally, a use for the 4-wheel-drive!—or speeding by on snowmobiles, or schussing along on cross-country skis. "Merry Christmas!" we shout out the windows. "Merry Christmas!" they shout back. We drive a block to Franklin Boulevard, at the bottom of the Hollywood Hills. Banana trees and bird of paradise flowers look like they're made of colored glass.
Nobody is getting down from the hills in their cars, but children are tobogganing the icy streets. Some are building snowmen. This being Hollywood, not just any snowman will do. We spot a Humphrey Bogart snowman in a trench coat, James Dean in a leather jacket, Marilyn Monroe with her skirt blowing up (brrrrr!). Over there is Janet Jackson. Put that away, Janice. We saw it at the Super Bowl! Beside her is brother Michael, looking very pleased. At last he's achieved his life's ambition. He's white! On one Corner is a Mel Gibson snowman, nailed to a cross of ice. That man does like to suffer. And across from him is Tom Cruise in a flying saucer, off to the Planet Xenu to do battle with the Galactic Confederacy. Put a hurtin' on 'em, Tom!
There's one that looks like George Lucas with a light saber. Wait a minute! It is George Lucas! Hi, George! Loved Star Wars. Hated Jar-Jar Binks. Well, the same to you! Merry Christmas anyway!
Our neighborhood is a mix of Thai, Armenian, and Hispanic people, but that doesn't look like a Thai man herding those reindeer. I'd say he's a Lapp. And the reindeer aren't tiny, but the Lapp is lively and quick. There's a man sitting on the roof of his $250,000 Lamborghini calling out to a team of sled dogs roped to the bumper. Mush! Mush!
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On Cujo, on Augie, on Lassie and Asta! |
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The musher cuts off a snowmobile and there is the loud honking of
horns and barking of dogs, but no guns are brandished. Road rage,
and on Christmas day. Ease up, guys, chill, and stay cool.
We turn onto Hollywood Boulevard. Fender-benders everywhere! These Angelenos don't get a lot of experience driving on snow and ice unless they go up to Big Bear or Tahoe. Snowflakes are still drifting lazily down from the gray sky. I steer around fallen limbs, we look in amazement at the number of palm trees lying on the ground and shoved aside by the plows. Cars are buried at curbside.
Nobody is at work in the stores so the sidewalk isn't shoveled. All the names on the Walk of the Stars are covered in snow. We look up in the hills and see the WOOD part of the big sign has fallen over and now it just reads HOLLY. How seasonal!
In front of Grauman's Chinese Theater people are stamping their footprints and handprints in the snow and signing their names. For today, the tourists are the stars. Darth Vader and Spongebob and Superman and Freddy from Elm Street are nowhere to be seen, but people are getting their pictures taken with Frosty, Rudolph, and George Bailey (who doesn't look anything like Jimmy Stewart). There's Ebenezer Scrooge, Bob Cratchit, Tiny Tim, and the Spirit of Christmas Yet to Come.
We drop down to Sunset and head for the Strip. The Chateau Marmont looks like a real Swiss chalet today. There's a snowman of John Belushi, black suit, black fedora, dark glasses ... or is that his ghost? He died there, you know, in a pricey bungalow. Come on, John, favor us with a song! Do Jake Blues singing "Soul Man."
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Comin' to ya, on a snowy road |
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Just down the street, the big tin shack of
Dan Aykroyd's House of Blues.
Christmas on the bayou! In front of the
Whisky a
Go Go is a snowman that looks a lot like
Jim Morrison of
The Doors.
Put that away, Jim! Shame on you.
We are almost to Beverly Hills. We're both eager to see Rodeo Drive. We cross the city line ... and I slam on the brakes. There's no snow here! It's as green as ever, high walls and mansions, very few Christmas lights. There's a man standing on the sidewalk and I realize it's George Lucas again, and that isn't a light saber, it's some sort of high-tech remote control. We get out of the car.
"What's the deal, George?" I ask him.
"CGI," he says. "VR, HDTV, BluRay, Wii, Google, IMAX, iPOD, Photoshop."
"Computer Generated Imagery?" I ask, stunned. "You've created virtual reality in high definition, wide-screen, high-capacity DVDs with visual search engines and gaming programs and photo manipulation, and it's all MP3 downloadable?"
"Isn't that what I just said? Transmitted directly to your brain's sense centers via your cell phone and PDA. Well, gotta go."
"Sorry about that Jar-Jar crack," I said.
"That's okay, I didn't like him, either. I'm off to work on
Episode Seven: Luke, Give Me Your Hot Jedi Monkey Love."
He climbed into an old '56 Chevy pickup which was actually a 2008
Cadillac Escalade. And we heard him exclaim ere he drove out of
sight, "Merry Christmas to all, from Industrial Light!"
... and Magic. We turn around and head back into Hollywood on clear, dry streets. Temperature is 76 with some high, wispy clouds. There are a few people window-shopping along Sunset Plaza, dressed in shirtsleeves and shorts and open sandals. On the radio The Messiah is playing. We sing along. The snow was nice, but the shoveling and scraping wasn't. Ah, Southern California! We return home, walk past the flowering geranium bushes and into the apartment. No fireplace, no snowblower, no longjohns, no figgy pudding to scrape from the bottom of the bowl. That George Lucas is good! Lee makes a bread pudding instead, adding in the pecans leftover from the big bag we bought for Thanksgiving pies.
We didn't buy a turkey for two, so we hop in the car again in the afternoon and drive down to Long Beach. We board the Queen Mary, select one of the three restaurants aboard, and sit down to a Christmas feast. All is merry and bright. Strolling carolers serenade us. Then with a mighty blast of her steam whistle, the great ship leaves the dock and heads for the open sea. Captain Smith moves from table to table wishing us all a Merry Christmas. We move to the bar for another glass of champagne, and mingle with our fellow passengers. There's John Jacob Astor, and Benjamin Guggenheim, and a woman from Denver, Molly Brown, singing up a storm in rather bawdy fashion. There's a few movie stars, too. We spot Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet (look at the size of that rock she's wearing!), Billy Zane, Kathy Bates, and David Warner. What a wonderful trip this will be!
We go out on the promenade deck and watch as other ships sail by. There's the Californian, the Carpathia, the Lusitania, the Bismarck, the Edmund Fitzgerald, and the Andrea Doria. Amelia Earhart flies over and waves to everyone. Now here comes the Flying Dutchman and the Marie Celeste and the Arizona and the Exxon Valdez. Suddenly we strike an iceberg! An iceberg, drifting by Santa Catalina Island ...
Now George, cut that out!
TAKE THREE: Okay, the Queen Mary is set in concrete and surrounded by a stone jetty; she ain't moving anywhere. We did go down there, and we toured the ship, but then we came back home.
For our feast we went instead to Canter's Delicatessen, right in the heart of the Fairfax district, still home to LA's Orthodox and Hasidic communities, and had us a Jewish Christmas. Yeah, right, you say, where's George hiding this time?
No, it's the truth! Canter's has great food, and is the least kosher deli I've ever seen. They serve bacon and ham in their omelets. And they serve a "Holiday feast" 365 days of the year. Turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes, gravy, cranberry sauce, gefilte fish, and chopped liver! Ate half of it and had no room for dessert ... but there's bread pudding with pecans in the fridge. Altogether, a most remarkable Christmas!
Have a happy new year!
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