My Walk of Fame Adventure

On my recent visit to Burbank, CA, I arranged to connect with one of my long time friends from Michigan who'd moved to the Portland, OR area a few years ago. We wanted to catch up and decided to have some fun being tourists too.

We booked an overpriced bus tour of the stars' homes, which amounted to "If you look way up there, that's so-and-so's house," and "That's the front gate to the driveway of the cousin of someone famous," and I kid you not, my favorite was "Sorry folks, they're filming something so we're going on a detour--and there's the garbage cans behind the world famous Chinese Theater."

Okay, we did stop for pics of the Hollywood sign and the Beverly Hills sign, but otherwise, meh. I mean, I recommend doing it once, just to say you did it. 

HOWEVER, here's my big piece of advice to avoid say, MURDER or perhaps a teensy contact high. Tour the area at lunch time. Meaning, finish your tour no later than 2 pm. 

I swear to all that's holy, we were dropped off from the tour at 4-ish, and the sidewalk traffic was so strikingly different that my friend thought we'd been dropped off at a different place! Families with young children? Gone. Souvenir shops? Closing. It felt like "The Lost Boys" meets "Pretty Woman" and not in any cute kind of way.

I was on a mission to find a few specific stars on the walk, especially Lucille Ball and Betty White, so we started walking. By the time we found Betty's star, the sun was setting, my phone was on 1%, and we were feeling vulnerable, so our Lyft couldn't arrive fast enough. Then the worst thing yet happened--our driver was a plain White guy in glasses, with an indistinct American accent. 

He perfectly fit the profile of a serial killer. And he was dropping us at our hotel.

Not only that, but I'd accidentally booked the wrong hotel and let's just say I was already convinced that the elevator smelled like death. Our door didn't lock properly and was obscured by a gigantic palm tree, so that when he did return to chop us into pieces, no one would see him arrive. I was already debating switching our hotel to the place I intended to stay, but getting in his death mobile was the absolute clincher. Yes, I actually switched hotels, because, well, writer brain.

A couple days later, I met with my screenwriting colleagues and our group leader asked, "Has everyone been having a good week so far?" I answered, "Well, I've avoided murder a couple of times, so that's something."

I'd make a terrible tour guide, right?