Holiday Hollywood Death Cab

Rolled through the streets backwards yesterday. Yup, back at the Hollywood Death Cab Tour. Had holly sprigs hanging from the bumper. Holiday attendance in Hollywood, they needed the newbies to give the tour. Magic. Magic, it was. Hadn't been there in a month and a half, was worried the hour(+) jammed in my brain had gone on holiday.

For the most part I went to the cupboard and the information was there, and I had fine fun with the tourists. Had a group of Froggies in my front seat, sussed out their Paris accent, based on the "wheys" (that's how Parisian's say Yes), and threw in little french references here and there. The little boy looked at me with a moon face, hadn't learned to hide his feelings, and just smiled so happy at me, laughing at every joke. People got off all three rides (I only had to do three, it was a short day), and complimented me each and every time. Getting paid to make folks happy and doing it to their satisfaction. Makes the McWages lose their sting. Of course, if no one fills out a comment card that goes to my boss, all these compliments are lossed like tears in rain.

We even got to go down a Beverly Hills street normally closed off: Rose Bush Boulevard, the street of the current hit: Slutty Soccer Moms. The show has taken off in the ratings, and it's fun to have the peeps get to see something from a current TV show that they recognize, even though they just use the street in the opening credits.

The star of Slutty Soccer Moms heard through minions we were identifying her by her ONE hit before this show. Otherwise, no one knows anything this lady has done. So, when we were told we couldn't mention that older show and her in the same sentence, I got on IMDB (the internet movie database) and found the movie where she has been topless. That's now the movie I broadcast as her sole credit, each time we go by Rose Bush Boulevard. We also can't mention that the famous director, Stanley Shpongeysteiner, is doing a remake of Citizen Kane in the mansion where Joe Birney killed himself. So, while we go right by this elaborate house of Sloppy Joe's mansion, film detrius everywhere, we have to tell our guests there's nothing there ... I simply tell them repeatedly to look the other way when we go by (nudge, nudge, wink, wink) and then say if they do see anything it's an hologram, a computer generated effect commonly used in movies.

I tried to give hints to these two guys after the tour who wondered what it was. I kept saying Orson Wells, but they didn't get it. Oh and we got a memo to push a new store on the Hollywood Boulevard that sells shooting scripts from the movies. At the end of the movie, everyone is supposed to turn in their marked-up scripts. Most do, and thus, a new memorbilia item for hawking. We are supposed to announce this when we talk about dead screenwriters. We also have to do a paid announcment that Schwinn paid us to do about bicyles, because of the many bicycles you see on the backlot of Worldwide (the one studio we can drive by fairly close enuff to look in), grips lugging around equipment on their back, while pedaling furiously. And we have to push the new shows of our parent operating company, Trinity Broadcasting. We also have to push any new movies that Trinity's film arm may have, and one producer insisted we play FIVE minute clips of his film. The tour is tightly scripted, there's no way to play this clip, unless you get stuck somewhere. This is the same producer who pastes his ear to the window of his bunaglow (Feeb Marker was shot dead here), making sure we play the clip with him in it. Sheez. I fear it will only grow worse, until we are one giant commercial masquerading as a tour, forgetting the tour, and thus forgetting the facts that built the business.