Sidewalk Superheroes

There are a lot of articles and videos out there this week on the Blvd crackdown. I don’t even know what to say about this except it makes me livid. What’s wrong with simply requiring a permit? But no, the LAPD decided to just go and arrest people for standing on Hollywood Blvd in costume.

I know there are some characters who are pushy. I know that. But the regulars are very polite. It seems to me that the tourists are the ones that are not playing by the rules though. I’ve kept in touch with some characters, after Batgirl and I quit the Blvd, and it seemed to me like people were just not tipping anymore. We didn’t make much. Plenty of people decided to pose for photos and then not give us anything. Nothing we could do about it, but it sure doesn’t feel good giving a service and not being appreciated. You tip your waiter, don’t you? People need a little lesson in tipping. We’re not in France. Well, I am, but YOU aren’t! What is wrong with America…?

So, sorry tourists, you won’t be getting a warm welcome to Hollywood from any of your favourite superheroes anymore, unless you complain a lot to somebody high up. Oh, funny thing is… no one is taking responsibility for this decision, either. Nobody knows where the order came from….

Comics Alliance

NBC Not Even Batman Gets a Pass

Dress up – Go to jail

Well, the boulevard, and the pier, have been quite depressing lately. Unless we go out there and have a really good day soon, this might not last much longer. We barely break even on lunch and gas (and we’re not eating much, I swear! $2.25 pizza!). I don’t know how the other girls out there do it.

I’m almost willing to bet people snipe and decline to tip because they still think someone hires us to be out there. Which really makes no sense. I’ve never thought that. I mean, how would that be possible… have you SEEN some of those costumes? They’re about ready to fall apart. If I was going to hire characters, I’d make sure they weren’t embarrassing me or my business by going out like that. Plus, why would I hire 4 Marilyn Monroes? 3 Jack Sparrows? Doesn’t make any sense.

I love to dress up, and meet other people who love to dress up, and be able to walk around in public in costume… but not when I have bills to pay, credit cards to pay off… traveling to fund… I’ve got to be getting paid for my time. Batgirl too. We aren’t going out there just for the heck of it.

Honestly, I’m just not sure what the next step is. We’ve offered ourselves as models to photographers now, and perhaps that will bring in a little something. We’ve got some amazing costumes in our possession. I’d love to make use of them, and get my money back (seems like my costumes always cost way more than I think they will). I’m supposed to be signing with a new agent soon, but that seems to be taking some time, as well. I’ve had some good auditions, so we’ll see if they lead anywhere.

I AM happy though, because right now I have some free time to sew, and I’ve been wanting to do that for a while. Get creative, sew some new dresses… I want to totally revamp my wardrobe. I’ve been working on that for a while! I sat out by the pool today, and that was relaxing. I need to do that more often, because I worry too much, and work too much on the computer to keep the money coming in.

I’m debating whether or not I want to order a new catsuit. Mine has some issues, and the new one wouldn’t cost that much, but still… I’m wondering how much use it’ll get and if it’ll pay itself back. If money wasn’t an issue, yes, I’d get it. I love costumes and I strive for perfection. We shall see… Back to work now.

Well, we’ve finally made it back out to the boulevard, now that the rain and Oscar-craziness is over. I still want to hear Batgirl’s version of this week’s adventures, but I figured since I just don’t write much, I’d say a little something.

I got word on Wednesday that Captain Jack Sparrow was back in town. so I bounced up and down a little, and then I told him we’d be there the next day. Not because he was there, we had already planned to be there. But we caught up with Jack a bit, admired his new hand-made hat (if you want a Jack Sparrow hat, let me know, I’ll hook you up. He can also get you some gold teeth to complete your look, if you’re serious about it).

That day, we EACH got a $20 tip froma generous tourist. Woohoo! It’s nice to be appreciated. And then later in the evening, the three of us went to enjoy drinks with the Zannel.com crowd. It was interesting to meet some of these people in person. We got some of the cookie guy’s cookies, and the Captain enjoyed a lot of rum.

Fast forward to Friday, Batgirl and I decided to try the evening shift. We met on the boulevard, but I arrived first. The first thing to catch my eye was – a really buff Superman! Immediately I knew this wasn’t Chris. So after walking up and down the boulevard to see if the Captain or Batgirl were around yet, I came back and introduced myself. Turns out he’s a really, really, super-nice guy. (Get it? Super?) We hung out with him, and earned a decent amount for the what, hour and a half we stayed? lol. It gets cold in PVC! And spandex. Superman left before us, but he’d been out for a while. Gosh. We need to think of a nickname for him now… Before he left, we did take some photos with him. He also got a group photo with us and the Jokers, and promised to email it at some point. I look forward to seeing him again. 😀

I don’t think Batgirl has seen this yet… 😉

Catwoman and Batgirl accepting their Oscar

I use the word ‘random’ a lot, huh? This is boulevard related. I’m just up late, and I saw that Superman updated his Myspace photo album, and then I remembered – he got new teeth! Superman has been excited lately, because he found some fake “Hollywood” teeth online, and ordered them. Superman doesn’t have the greatest teeth in the world. There’s a large gap right in the front. So because he wants to be more authentic, and he doesn’t want to spend the money on veneers, he got some fake teeth. They’re like the hill-billy teeth you see in the costume stores – except they’re straight, and white. They don’t look too bad, and you’d probably just think he was wearing Invisalign or something (like me!) unless you knew about it. But if you look close, he’s got two rows of upper teeth. hehe. Like a shark or something. But that is my random thought in the middle of the night. Superman’s fake teeth. Now, I wonder what I’ll dream about tonight…

So this video pretty much catches us up… so it’s time for us to get out there again and film something!! Not quite sure when that will happen though, because of the weather and our schedules. I’m itching to really get some footage of both of us, and not just the other characters… but be patient with us. Neither one of us are documentary film-makers, so I’m sure we’ll get better at this. 😀 I do hope you enjoy this latest installment:

In other news, since it was raining today, I stuck around my neighbourhood, and went to yoga. Soon after I got back, I hear a screeching of tires outside. I have my curtains closed so I don’t see anything. But then I hear more cars. And then yelling. Somehow I didn’t put it all together. I thought “oh! Someone’s being arrested on PCH!” So I ran outside with my camera. As soon as I turn the corner, I see police cars blocking in a pick-up truck (with an ad for WestsideRentals on the side. ha) on my dead end street. The cop sees me and waves me away. They have guns pulled on the guy! They’re yelling at him to get out of his truck. I get a little video from my window by sticking my arm out, and then through my fence. But then I started worrying that I’d get shot. The dude was not listening to them. They did finally get him out of his truck, and sat him on the ground. Then more patrol cars came. Then a fire engine and an ambulance blocked my driveway. lol. But yeah. Excitement. And I was beginning to think that any time anything happened in my neighbourhood, I would be conveniently out of town, like the other times. So… yeah. I’m glad I didn’t miss that. Cause life has been a tad on the boring side lately…

Oh, wait, we’re not actually totally caught up with video. I’m going to make a special episode dedicated to Homeless Boyfriend next.

So I worked alone for about 2 hours yesterday. Wow. Was I lonely. 🙁 Normally I wouldn’t go out alone, but the day before, Superman (or, his wife/secretary) called and asked if I would be interested in dressing up as Wonder Woman at a birthday party on Wednesday. $90. Sure. Sounds good to me. I’ve never done a birthday party before, so some anxiety set in. But I need cash, and how bad could it be?

So I decided to just show up a couple hours early in Hollywood, beat the traffic, maybe get some new footage (didn’t. Boring day, other than the demon creature being out). So 3PM I was out there. I hung out with the Dutch Marilyn until she went on a break. Then I wandered back and forth for a bit. Superman showed up around 4PM, so that helped a bit. I think I made $17 in 2 hours. At 5PM I was shivering, and hungry, so we went to Café Audrey. I couldn’t resist. First of all, I wanted something a bit healthier than french fries, and second, I was curious as to what they might say, if anything. There were two guys I didn’t recognize working the counter, and they seemed friendly . They gave me my 10% character discount, and a cup of water (because I guess Superman doesn’t have water at home??). There was a woman in there that we chatted with while we waited for the sandwich to be (grown, harvested, shipped, cooked…) made who gave me a little Audrey compliment when Superman mentioned that Batgirl and I dressed up like her a while back. She asked how we got into the boulevard work, but about a sentence into my explanation (which I always try to make as short as possible), her food was ready and she apparently didn’t care enough to hear the rest of it, and left. Eh.

So back to Superman’s place, where I met his lovely wife, Bonnie. If you’ve seen Confessions of a Superhero, you’d recognize her. It’s funny, I go in, and say hi like we’ve met before, and then realize that we haven’t! So I do a proper introduction. We all sit in the living room, Superman makes dirty comments about everything and talks about a wonderful song called Frosty the Pervert. We were not amused. We East Coasters (Bonnie and I) get on Superman’s case for thinking New York is not REALLY that cold (she’s from NY and I told her I was just there, and got some shots in my Catwoman costume and was FREEZING). Apparently he was there a couple years ago, in an unusually warm November.

Anyway, fast forward, I left at 6 to go get my car. I was the designated driver for Superman, Marilyn, and myself. We met at Supe’s place and made our way through traffic up to the valley. Snow White arrived a bit after us (we were all a bit late, due to traffic) with her balloons and magic show.

The party wasn’t that bad. Lots and lots of cake and Disney princesses on everything. We stayed a bit late to help clean up, and I came home and almost immediately passed out (after doing some online submissions – gotta get those done!). I have a feeling a couple other people might be calling in the future. Even though I really didn’t do much of anything! lol. Snow White was the busy one.

Well… I’m still kind of waking up right now… I think I covered most of the important points, but if I forgot something I’ll be back. 🙂

Glasses make people look smarter.

A glimpse of what is to come…

Just what the world needs....

Hello, there. Well, I’ve been quite busy lately, and finally have something to show for it. We have a brand new domain for the blog, and eventually instead of having it forward to WordPress, the blog will actually be ON the website. Just need to figure out how to do it. But anyway… welcome to www.SidewalkSuperheroes.com ! Also, I started a YouTube channel specifically for our videos, at http://www.YouTube.com/SidewalkSuperheroes. That way, if you subscribe to the video updates, you won’t end up getting my random audition videos or anything like that. Just Superheroes. Batgirl just re-uploaded the first video to that account, plus a new one! I know I’m a little behind with the videos, but I wanted to do it right, and not rush. Plus I have been encountering a bunch of computer/internet problems. So yes, this is the video of last Wednesday… enjoy. 😀

In other news, as you might have read, we are already planning our warm-weather costumes. I didn’t think we’d have to worry about it so soon but the temperature has been in the 80’s and black vinyl is NOT the most comfortable thing to be standing outside in! So I’ve decided that I’m going to be Wonder Woman. I had a short conversation with Superman about what I should be, and he pointed out that there weren’t many Wonder Women out, and that I would probably do well. So the costume is being put together, photos to follow soon… I know I still need to post my Catwoman photos, but I’m still waiting for them to be retouched. They look awesome as they are, but my friend John is amazing with Photoshop and does all sorts of cool things with the colours…. it’ll be worth the wait.

Well! I guess I could have posted this earlier in the day. But YouTube decided to just keep me hanging and not tell me that it actually uploaded, hours and hours and hours ago. Thank you, YouTube. Anyway! Batgirl and I made our first video on Monday. We’ve got more on the way, don’t worry. So enjoy your first dose of The Adventures of Catwoman and Batgirl! Photos to follow shortly….