Sidewalk Superheroes

Yesterday . . . *sigh* As far as I’m concerned, yesterday was my last day on Hollywood Boulevard. The day started out good enough: it was a cool Sunday afternoon with good crowds. There were a lot of people out, but everyone seemed in a good mood. Loads of characters, a lot of them new, but Catwoman and I were doing good business. $15 for the first hour, and that’s including a couple of stiffs. It looked to be a good day. If you read my last entry, then you’ll remember Storm Trooper’s Kiss feud with the old Kiss guy, and you’ll be as pleased as I was to see this:

That’s Storm Trooper as Gene Simmons! And a friend as Peter Criss (though he’s in a different Kiss tribute band). Of course, I had to get in on the action:

You can see crazy Balloon Princess off to the right. I think she just really likes talking to Storm Trooper for some reason. Oh, also, Vader was just off to the left, and I guess he did cave in and let Lara Croft wear his slave Leia costume. Though she spent the whole day hiding under his cape shivering. Save it for summer, honey.

Anyway, so we wander around and say hi to everyone and start working. Whenever it started to drop off, we’d just wander over to another area fifty feet away and get going again. At one point we did really well in front of the Virgin store (we had a line and everything!), and some 20somethings were hanging out near a double decker bus and jumped into some of our pictures. There was a guy filming the whole thing. The family didn’t say anything so I thought they all knew each other, but apparently not. Weird. So we kept working for an hour or so, just talking, goofing off and enjoying the day. It looked like it would be good, like it was around the holidays when we could pull in $15-20 per hour (just assuming we each got $1 per picture). That’s not bad for us. I’m sure for some of the guys that’s a bad day, but not for us.

Anyway, at some point after 2:30 we were walking past the spot we had worked earlier with the double decker, and the same group of 20somethings were on the upper level of the bus. The started calling out for us to come up to them. Denim was already up there and nodded, signaling that it was cool.
“I guess they want us to come up there?” Catwoman said.
“I guess so. Well, we can take some pictures and then keep going,” I said. Sounded like a plan, so we stepped into the bus and made for the stairs.
“You need a ticket,” the bus driver said.
“We’re just going to take some pictures,” I explained, pointing up to the rowdy group.
“We don’t want to go on the tour,” Catwoman added.
“They asked us up,” I added. Someone came down the stairs and said that we were cool, they had in fact asked us to come up.
“You gonna pay for their tickets?” the bus driver asked.
“Yeah, sure, we got ’em,” the guy said, and led us up. Catwoman and I exchanged looks. We didn’t want a damn tour, we just wanted to get some tips.

The crowd cheered when we came up. Denim was nestled in a front seat with a brunette and further back was The Other Joker (Joker’s arch rival, brought out by Team Sexy Cop). The guy who had vouched for us to the Star Line driver led us to an empty seat and told us to sit there (behind TOJoker). Um, okay. We did, and just sat around watching the group eat pizza and dick around in general. A few minutes later the bus starts up.
“I don’t want to go on this stupid tour!” Catwoman hisses. A guy sitting nearby must have heard her.
“It’s cool, just chill with us. You’ll get a good tip at the end of the tour.”
“Well, okay,” she shrugged. It would have been nice if they’d, you know, asked us if we wanted to go on a tour with them. And told us how long said tour was. We pulled out our cameras to record what was going on — like we really knew — and watched as the group cheered a cowboy that I’ll call Cowboy Bill into joining the fray. He came up and a moment later he was handed a tour ticket.
“Where’s our tickets?” I wondered aloud. But the bus started off, and we shrugged it off. As long as someone had paid for us, that’s all that matters.

Before we had even hit the first stoplight, their backpacks were opened and alcohol came pouring out. Beer, beer and more beer, and at some point a giant jug of rum and three bottles of champagne came out as well.
“I’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to have open containers of alcohol in a moving vehicle,” I said uncomfortably. Catwoman laughed nervously. We don’t know all of the alcohol and car laws because we really don’t drink and drive, so maybe double deckers were different, or they had a permit, something. Either way, we sat there in the back of the bus watching what was going on around us, and as more time went by the more nervous and uncomfortable we got. They were doing things that the cops would have been mighty interested to investigate, and we already knew that the cops didn’t really like the costumed characters. Most of us were good, but the Scream guy had just been arrested a few days ago for aggressive begging and someone else was cited, and there were more beggars out there than ever. It just wasn’t a good feeling.

We stayed back and stayed quiet, sometimes filming the more rowdy bits.
“This is going to be a crazy video,” Catwoman said. I nodded. But more and more we were afraid that the bus would get pulled over, that we’d be arrested just for sitting in the middle of all this stuff. We made it through Beverly Hills and them screaming at shoppers on Rodeo Drive, then past the La Brea Tar Pits. At this point everyone was good and drunk, Denim was feeling up his brunette quite openly, and we had to pee. One girl and two different guys had already been peeing on the bus and the bus driver had pulled over twice to yell at the group for throwing a beer can over the side of the bus. The second time she stopped was because a guy had filled up a Heineken bottle with his pee, then dumped it off the side of the bus at the Farmer’s Market. Onto the sidewalk. What the hell?!?

I wanted off so badly. I was genuinely feeling that I wouldn’t make it home that night, that we would all get busted. Catwoman and I weren’t having it. She went to the lower deck to ask if a stop could be made so we could use a restroom somewhere, and on her way back to our seat she stopped and talked to Denim. I guess it was at that point that he told her they had paid him $100 in advance to take this tour with them, so we were going to expect the same. And they had paid his tour ticket, of course.

The bus stopped at Melrose and Highland and four of us ran across the street to a gas station to use the restroom: some guy, Denim, Catwoman and I. The random guy went first, and Denim busted in to pee in the sink while the other guy was still peeing. After they came out Catwoman went in (it was only fair, since she’d had to pee longer, and she was the one who asked for the bathroom break), then me. While we were in the vestibule zipping up our catsuits, though, the gas station owner pounded on the adjoining wall.
You guys still in there?” he called out. I stepped outside so he could see me.
“Your bus left, they just left without you,” he said, and pointed off in the direction they had driven off.
“WHAT?!?” Catwoman nearly screamed. In disbelief we ran to the curb and watched as, yes, the red bus faded off down the street. I feel bad, not thanking the gas station guy for letting us use the loo and for telling us about the bus, but I hope he understands why we instead just took off. We didn’t know where we were, really, and we had very little chance of catching up to the bus at this point. Luckily we knew Highland Ave, and I knew we had to go north from there. So, pissed as hell, we set off to get back on Hollywood & Highland and hopefully catch the bus as it came back. We figured the bus had left at 3 and would return at 5, since it was a two hour tour (or we’d been told that).

I just looked it up on Google Maps, and we walked 1.3 miles yesterday. In our costumes, in those stupid boots, getting honked at and yelled at. I was so mad I started yelling, “Why don’t you offer us a ride?” We tried texting and calling everyone we knew who could maybe pick us up, but no dice. We even called Denim multiple times but he didn’t answer his phone, and I left him a very angry message including “I hope Paris Hilton fucks you in your sleep, you get herpes and die,” because he was right there with us and still left us behind. He was supposed to be a friend, the guy we trusted. We made good time and walked very fast, and while we’re both in good shape, those costumes weren’t made for power walks. Finally, at 5 pm, sweaty, dirty, disheveled and severely pissed off, we were back on Hollywood Boulevard. We saw the bus we had taken being cleaned and got over there as fast as we could. We blew off everyone we knew, who looked worried because we were messes and obviously steaming mad at something, and went straight to the bus. The driver and her friend were sitting there talking. We asked if they’d seen which way the group went, and quickly explained that we had been left behind and walked back. They looked appalled, appropriately, and said they had no idea, and pointed us further down Hollywood. That’s where the group had been headed. So we set off.

We went another three or four blocks before giving up. It’s hard to miss 15 drunken idiots with a pro cameraman, and we couldn’t spot them anywhere down the street. Heading back, we looked for the other characters who had been on the bus but couldn’t find any of them. We were just walking off to get our parking validated and go home when Denim sauntered up. I kept walking because I was thoroughly pissed at him. He and I have never really been friends, he’s more Catwoman’s friend. But because she likes and trusts him, I do too, and I thought he would have our backs. He usually seems very gentlemanly and I hoped he would have waited outside the bathroom for us, or at least not let the bus leave until we were back on. Are we really that hard to miss visually? But Catwoman stopped to talk and I stopped to wait for her, and Denim told his story. He never noticed we were gone, but at Vine St. his hat blew off and he got off the bus to get it. The bus left and when he went to tip the homeless guy who grabbed it off the street for him, Denim realized that his money was gone. He had already made $200 that day before the drunken group had tipped him $100, and it was all gone. He said looking back they had sat the brunette with him and while he had gotten drunk on rum, she hadn’t touched a drop. Every time they goaded him into grabbing her breasts or otherwise groping her, she might have been swiping his money, he thought.

So we recorded all of this and went our separate ways. Catwoman and I got a piece of chocolate each, and while sitting slumped over at a cafe table eating, we figured out what our next move was going to be. We were still mad, and not only had we been abandoned and stiffed, but Star Line was now after us to pay for our tour tickets. Those asshats had never paid for our tickets! This is legal action now. So we strategized and made plans, then went home.

Right when I was walking in the door at home, though, Denim called me.
“Is this Batgirl?” he asked.
“Um, yeees,” I said. Why was he calling? Turns out it was because he had just gotten all our angry messages we had left on our long walk, and had called just to yell at me and hang up without letting me say anything. Real charming and adult. We hadn’t known that he was getting robbed at that point, and frankly, his bitching about having to walk from Vine is bollocks. He was too busy being a drunken ass and getting his rocks off with that girl to watch out for his friend Catwoman. He fancies himself so in love with her and thinks he has a chance, but he’ll go off and do something boneheaded like that in front of her, then ditch her at a gas station because he wants to run back up and fondle some more tits? Right. I’m glad he had to walk, and it was only half the distance we had to walk — and yes, I looked it up. That’s twice he’s gotten drunk and fucked up with us, which is two times too many for me (I didn’t tell about the first instance because he was Catwoman’s friend and I didn’t want to be nasty, but he’s lost my respect). I will never say I’m glad he lost his money, because that is never right and I’m still going to help him get it back, even though we’re through and I have nothing more to say to him. I just won’t keep trying to be friendly to a man who’s talked to me and known me since November and can never be bothered to even remember my name, let alone treat me as an equal. There are people I hardly talk to out there that know me better than him, and treat me better too. We went on that damned bus because he gave us the okay and we trusted him, and he was not a good friend to Catwoman. I’m actually more mad for her than me. I know he wouldn’t give me the time of day, but he should have done better by her.

Still, after all that, I’m really done with the boulevard. It’s been getting more sinister since we started and I should have listened to that feeling I’ve been having lately, the cloud over it all that makes me think bad things are going to happen. We at least have another alternative, a better one, and other things to keep us busy. There will be some people I’ll really miss out there, and we had some good times, but there’s just too much bullshit now to make it worthwhile.

A video of yesterday, and this is the one without (really) any nudity and swearing:

And for the record, we eventually found out from a tourist on the bus that this group is for a band called Lights Over Paris. Google them if you want to find out more, because I’m sure as hell not going to help them out. And they haven’t heard the last from us two . . .