11 May, 2006 (Thursday) Santa Monica / Hollywood, California

'Every time we return to the car and it hasn't been towed, for me that's a great day!'

Summary: Santa Monica Pier. Insane gridlock traffic. Craig Ferguson Show. Hollywood sights.

Santa Monica
Everybody I have spoken to on my way south has suggested at least a half-day at Santa Monica pier. We arrived at midday, AJ accompanying us for the day. It was overcast, with a grey covering of smog on the horizon. Real LA weather. Walking up from the beach we took in the varoius freaky people - prison-tatted beefcakes working out on the equipment, mid-20 kids playing gladiator on the swinging monkey bars, a few lycra-enhanced roller-bladers.

The pier held echoes of the OC. It's long planks playing host to an arcade, numerous street vendours and a fair ground with Ferris wheel. Another tourist trap. Walking the length we marveled at the number of people fishing off the pier. In fact, every pier in the area seems to have people fishing. I keep on finding myself flinching as another overhead cast sweeps out of my peripheral.

On the walk out we were offered free tickets to some of the TV shows filming in the afternoon. We ended up taking a few, our preference being for The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson. Apparently he's the boss from the Drew Carey Show, and has been making a killing on the late night talk show stakes, ranking 3 after Jay Leno.


Beverly Hills / Craig Ferguson
The traffic over to the CBS studio was killer. Sean did a great job of getting us through, but we were cutting it close as we finally found parking in The Grove (a super-plush shopping complex in central Beverly Hills). Rushing up the gigantic block the security guard turned us away because AJ had brought her bag. We managed to make it back from the car in 10 minutes and drew shuddering breaths on the waiting benches. The show was running half-an-hour behind schedule. We had a respite, but no cameras allowed (so no happy snaps).

The Craig Ferguson studio was smaller than we expected, holding only 110 heads. In our scruffy traveling clothes the three of us were hidden away in the back right hand corner, away from the cameras and spotlights. Some of the girls, dressed up in bright skirts and tiny tops were given seats up the front. Yes, Beverly Hills is for the beautiful people. I was a beautiful person once... Really.

The crowd was warmed up by Chucky B, a down on his luck, self-confessed mediocre comedian. He kept on cracking lame jokes and telling us how important we as an audience were being 'show enhancers'. He kept on throwing that term at us as he psyched us up to laugh hard at anything he said and clap wildly if something was actually funny.

Filming took 2 hours for the half-hour show. Craig Ferguson dashed in to standing ovation and proceeded to do ten-minutes of stand-up. He did this twice, using two different scripts. In my opinion (not that you asked for it), the script on art smashed the one on gas prices. He then followed with a short skit where he interviewed a supposedly roving Hollywood reporter, then went on to do 5-minute interview sessions with an actor from the Da Vinci code - the English guy who plays the bad dude, and a pretty red-headed actress from Gray's Anatomy (sorry Lauren, I can't even remember the name, although we saw her up close as she drove out in a convertible afterwards. I was about to throw myself in front of the car, but she looked like a bit of a lead-foot).


Hollywood
After a greasy burger at a 60s style diner joint we made our way down to the pavement and did the touristy things - Stars on the Pavement, hand and feet imprints at the Chinese Theatre, stared at the few freaks out on a school night. The guy in a devil costume was scary, over 6ft of weirdly tanned skin and huge fangs, wings and claws.

We stayed to the glossy, well-lit part of the boulevard. The place was wider and better kept than I remember from my trip a dozen years ago. Only a few bums on the street, although I probably look more poverty stricken this time around.