Sidewalk Superheroes

And today it’s a New Pornographers reference. Don’t worry, the music references will always be relevant to the conversation. Just consider it a free guide to great bands, in addition to the usual entertainment. 🙂

So, today. Today was clear and bright, and the winds that pushed the last storm away from us had finally died down, and it’s supposed to get to the mid-60s now, so I doped up on Sudafed — it’s expired, but it seems to still be okay — and headed out. I didn’t much feel like going, more out of laziness than anything, though my family had been a little worried since they heard about Freddie’s beatdown, but I’m glad I did. It was packed, so much so that I couldn’t really get pictures of anything because the crowds obscured everything. Everything, that is, but this:

tickets to Vader's gun show

Business was great. I wasn’t in every shot, because some people are weird and don’t want girls in their pictures, and a lot of other people either stiffed us or tried to — to the point where Vader insisted that tips be paid up front or else no pictures — but I was out there around 3 1/2 hours and made $50. Sweet! If only it were like that every day… But with big crowds come big problems. Shortly after I showed up it really started to pick up, and Miss Unidentifiable and crap Yoda started hovering, sniping people from the edges of our crowd. Now Vader and Storm Trooper are friends with the guy who does Optimus Prime, another big draw, and they always work next to each other. It’s pretty much two big crowds mixed into one, since space is limited and a lot of times Transformers fans are also Star Wars fans. A golden opportunity for vultures, apparently. We’d had problems with Miss U and Yoda before, and Storm Trooper had gone over right away and nicely asked them not to poach our business, and they always leave, then come back in an hour or so, like they have the memory of a goldfish. Today, though, Miss Unidentifiable must have been in a bad mood, because she started to give Storm Trooper lip.

Vader and I didn’t notice right away, but after about five minutes and a few photos we wondered where he’d gone. She’s animatedly talking, and we can never really tell what’s going on with him because of the helmet. Finally he waves her off and comes back to us, and Vader said, “Is she giving you shit?”
“Yeah,” Storm Trooper said exasperatedly. “She knows better, but once in a while, man.” While no one can say, “You’re in my spot” or, “This is my territory,” it’s courtesy and common sense to give everyone their space. There’s plenty of room on that block, but those few characters live to just pick off undecided or slow tourists to steal business away from more popular characters. Miss U came up at that point, all fury.
“I have witnesses, lots of witness, that know you humiliate me,” she said in her broken English, stabbing a finger at Storm Trooper.
“That’s great,” Vader said cheerfully. “You fucking deserve it.” She brushed him off and started to walk away.
“Get out of here, fucking loser!” Optimus Prime chimed in. He’d overheard the good bits. She turned and gestured at him. “Go back to your homeless shelter, you fucking retard!” he yelled, and a small boy stared up at him, shocked. Vader and I snorted behind our hands, and Miss U walked away to find Yoda.
“She was just talking shit today, man,” Storm Trooper said, shaking his head. “Most people know that you don’t do your business in front of someone else, it’s common sense,” he added.
“She’s just doing it to steal business,” Vader said. “Let her try that again and I’ll beat her ass. The helmet’ll come off.”
“Watch out!” I chimed in. Vader never takes his helmet off on the boulevard.
“That’s right. If I take my helmet off, someone’s getting the smackdown. I’ll fuckin’ knock her out,” he said.
Miss Unidentifiable and Yoda reappeared at the fringe of our large crowd about 20 minutes later, deep in conversation, but we were all watching them, and they skulked away.

While we were very busy today, there was the occasional five or ten minutes of down time, and during that time we talked. More details came out about Freddie Kreuger’s beating the other day — some characters said it was Christmas Day, others said Christmas Eve, and Denim said it was the 23rd, so I don’t know when exactly it happened now. Anyway, Vader and Storm Trooper were there and apparently saw some of it, and from what Storm Trooper said, Freddie sort of stepped into it. He seemed to have been defending someone and chased some gang banger down the street, and the guy turned back with a group of equally thuggy friends and beat the holy crap out of the poor guy. They knocked him unconscious, then kicked him in the head, and it sounds like he won’t be back for a while. How awful. Maybe in response, but more likely because they were bored, our cop duo babysat us for about two hours today. It consisted of pulling up to bust the cabs sitting at the curb, then sitting in the squad car telling people over the PA to walk on the sidewalk. Then the woman cop got out to tell us to step forward so people could walk behind us (which seemed to make things worse, as we had people stopping behind us to see what was going on). After Anakin showed up, a newer guy I’m still not terribly familiar with but who’s really nice, and had been there for around an hour with R2D2 and a case for his nice lightsabers, the guy cop told Anakin to pack it all up because it was blocking foot traffic. I bet the woman cop put him up to it. She’s mean.

I found out something funny during our talking time, too. Storm Trooper is in a Kiss tribute band when he’s not on the boulevard, and I mentioned looking up a Beatles tribute band I used to know back in the day.
“Oh yeah? Which one?” he asked, suddenly interested.
“The Fab Four,” I said.
“Oh yeah, I know them!” he said excitedly, and started talking about the old gang. He had apparently gone to school with the John Lennon, my favourite (and the one I was closest to), and still called up the Paul impersonator to talk and occasionally get tickets to their shows. We talked about going to a show in January, an all request show, since those are the good ones. They have a stock show that I’ve seen honestly hundreds of times and could probably still recite from memory if I tried, but once in a great while they’ll do a request show, and then all of the B-sides and rarities come out, which is worth seeing. So maybe I’ll go because someone I know will be there, because I haven’t been to a show in about four years and most of the old crowd hates me, if they’re still around. (Funny how people always hate the ones who have what they want, instead of trying to get it for themselves — I came at a good time and baked the guys brownies and cookies, so we became friends, and those who came after just saw special treatment for a young cute thing and assumed they were all tapping this. Hence the hate.) It’s funny to know that I’m sure to have seen Storm Trooper back in the day at shows and never would have guessed that we’d end up working together in Star Wars costumes on Hollywood Boulevard. Funny how things work out.

Anyway, Anakin’s a nice guy, and the two of us worked together for a bit while Vader and Storm Trooper worked together nearby, and split up like that, we seemed to keep the vultures away, which was good. Anakin’s girlfriend came with him, and today she was dressed as Supergirl. She’s very cute, and I had recognized her from the last time he’d come, when she had been Sleeping Beauty and a friend of hers had been Snow White.
“Wasn’t your girlfriend Sleeping Beauty last time?” I asked, just for clarification.
“Yeah,” he said, surprised that I’d remembered. They hadn’t stayed too long, apparently.
“Her dress was really great,” I said.
“It should be, it’s Disney’s,” he laughed. Apparently, she sometimes works for the Mouse and he does too, and they’ll swipe costumes for a day. They have to watch their backs, literally, when they do, because the El Capitan is just behind us across the street and their people have been known to come over and read characters the riot act if they see what looks like one of their costumes out there. I said I was worried, since I wanted to make a Belle costume, and he reassured me that there was nothing they could really do if I’d made it. They could only really do something if it was Disney property, so I’m safe.

Well, that seems to be about it. I didn’t walk around at all, so unless someone passed by me and stopped to talk, I don’t know who was working at all. MJ stopped by to say hello and hug me when he came on shortly after I did, and kept coming around to squeeze me. He stopped by once when I was bending over (of course) to slip money into my boot and sang “You knock me off my feet, girl.” Davy walked by and said Merry Christmas and mussed my hair with his lobster claw, but that was it. I guess quietly pulling back and not giving him cookies cooled things off, which is fine. I’m not trying to be mean, but I can’t keep having my attempts at friendliness be mistaken for something else. I want to treat all of the guys the same, but if some are going to take it too far, then they lose privileges. So there’s that.