March 22 - LA
Trip Start
Mar 14, 2000
1
2
24
Trip End
Apr 30, 2000
Los Angeles, California, United States
Wednesday, March 22, 2000
For someone as supposedly tired as I as I didn't sleep very well, waking up many times during the night. I eventually woke up at about 6.20am when the guy in the bunk above me let off a loud and protracted fart in lieu of an alarm clock. The other chap in my room is named Kotoro and is from Japan. He asked me what I knew about Japan and I couldn't think of anything, so I said "Sony" and he seemed quite happy. Today I am going to the taping of the Tonight Show with Jay Leno. I'm not actually going with Jay Leno, that's the name of the show.
Because I was up so early I was out and about before anyone else in Hollywood. I walked past Mann's Chinese Theatre and took a few photos. The tourist centre opened a bit late but I got some free bumf about things to do in LA. I posted a couple of postcards and then caught the bus to NBC. Lots of the TV companies have their studios out this way, including NBC, Warner Brothers and CBS. I paid the $7 to go on the NBC studios tour, along with about 10 other people. It took us through the studios of shows such as 'Days of Our Lives' and 'The Tonight Show' as well as the props and wardrobe departments. We saw Jay Leno's car (he has about 50 of them) and the technology they use to do the weather. It was probably not $7 worth but it killed some time before the taping.
The tour finished at 12.15 and the taping wasn't until 5pm but they recommend that you get in line early. I had an Indian Indian meal over the road and by the time I got to the queue for the show at about 1.30pm, there were already about 10 people in line. I got chatting to a couple of guys from Milwaukee, down here for Spring Break. This is so American! They had been to the pilot of a new sitcom yesterday. I learned that the first 30 people in line get to sit up front and chat to Jay before the show. That's me, yay! We finally got in after a security check, etc. and we got really good comfy seats up front. The studio is quite flash but not tacky, and holds about 350 people. Suddenly, Jay wandered out and started having a chat to us. He asked if anyone had any questions and the two lads I was with leapt up and asked for a photo. Several other people got photos too.
Then some other joker came on and tried to make us laugh and get all excited. Being an American audience, it didn't take much to work them into a passionate frenzy. Before I knew it everyone was whooping and clapping and dancing around. I think this bloke may have struggled a bit more in England or NZ.
Jay came back on for the show itself and did his monologue, most of the jokes were local references that I didn't get. Jennifer Love-Hewitt from "I Know What You Did Last Summer" was the main guest. During the break she signed some autographs and shook hands with fans. The next guests were some clowns called the "Wazzup Guys". These blokes are on Budweiser ads and all they do is say "Wazzup!" continuously. It is reminiscent of The Simpsons episode where Bart says "I didn't do it" and gets his 15 minutes of fame. Only in America would four guys become super-famous for saying "Wazzup!"
The final guest was jazz singer Diana Krall, who is very good and did a version of "East of the Sun and West of the Moon". And that was about it. I enjoyed the show and it was pretty much as I expected. Americans are so enthusiastic about everything, with an extraordinary capacity for whooping.
I caught the world's slowest bus back to Hollywood and had another stroll around. I was looking for somewhere to get a quiet drink and wandered off the main drag a bit. I met a guy on the street named Bobby, a slightly shifty looking old black guy. Against my better instincts I walked around with him for a while, as he said he was going for a drink too and would show me a good bar. He led me through some very dodgy-looking back streets and alleys. All the while I kept expecting to be guided into a trap where a bunch of thugs would mug and beat me and leave me for dead in a Dumpster. Fortunately I had misread Bobby and he turned out to be a decent guy, if a little strange. We were heading for a place he recommended called the Lava Lounge, which sounded quite cool, but he suddenly changed his mind and decided to buy a beer from the liquor store instead. Despite Bobby's apparent harmlessness, I couldn't help thinking that he must have some evil motivation for showing me around like this. My pessimism got the better of me so I made my excuses and headed back to the hostel.
