It's The Hollywood Santa Parade!

Yesterday I went to the Hollywood Santa Parade, which I guess is technically different than the Hollywood Christmas Parade, which died last year from hemorrhaging money.

I live about two blocks away from the parade route, and last year I came back from the grocery store and watched high school bands practicing on the little side streets of Fountain and found the whole thing pretty goddamn touching, but didn't go. Then they said that was the last year and I found myself stricken by a sense of loss and failure, which is funny. As though it wasn't worth going to in itself, but if it was my last chance to experience the parade all of a sudden it became critically important.

I went to the parade once before, when I was maybe seven or eight, with my family and my best friend's family. I don't really remember what I thought about it; I remember people shoving and a struggle to see and some confusion.

Anyway, I saw the signs this year and I meant to go and then I forgot, and then I remembered. The parade started at five; I worried about whether to show up early to get a seat and all that. I went to get a late lunch at RoRo's Chicken and I saw people already staking out seats.

So I drifted over there around 4:30; the parade was due to start at 5. There was a lot of space left, and I sat down on the street, and watched the 15 year olds next to me flirt and giggle. But then at 4:45 one of their parents showed up with a whole host of other adult/teenager/family friend types, and the thermos of hot chocolate came out and a six year old was sitting at the very end of their row of chairs, looking, mostly, extremely anxious about the whole thing.

Bob Avakian's Revolutionary party came along, handing out newspapers and selling t-shirts about how the Bush Administration was a terrorist organization and then there were the Jews For Jesus and then people selling candy canes and light up toys.

The Eckankar center was advertising clean bathrooms, and lending out chairs.


People kept running across the street, aka the parade route, and I found myself vaguely anxious about that. The six year old's mother brought him a piece of pizza; she was blowing on it to cool it down for him.

Things started happening. A whole troupe of fire department guys on motorcycles tricked out with lights and tinsel and with lovely ladies on the back came wheeling down the street. Then there was a procession of emergency vehicles, lights and sirens on. The Robocop car was one of them!

The families on either side of me were waving; I felt weird waving. In fact, I felt a little weird being there on my own, plunked down on the asphalt without so much as a blanket or a thermos. I guess maybe I should have bought a light up toy.

One of the six year old's relatives who was maybe 13 himself (although I am now too old to accurately measure age in young people) came over and told the six year old to stand up, that he wanted to see how tall he was. The six year old was reluctantly hauled up. Then the 13 year old took his seat. The six year old looked upset and said, "Give me back my seat." The 13 year old said, "What do you say?" The six year old added please, and was given back his seat.

There was Bob Barker! There were high school bands! There was the mayor, who may have been greeted by cheering up on Hollywood Blvd., which was the pulsating heart of the parade route, but not down on Sunset, almost at the end. I mean, there were a couple of cheers, but nothing so much. He was working the crowd; he shouted "Hollywood in the house!" and asked the cops what district they were from and mentioned the tragic recent death of a cop and then later he asked a family where they were from and shouted "Covina in the house!" There was Rocky Delgadillo. There was Fred Willard, which I was very excited about because I had him confused with David Leisure, who was Joe Isuzu. It is only just now that I learned my mistake, and I feel a little cheated.

Endless amounts of time passed between bands and celebrities. I got antsy. The Marine Corps band from Twentynine Palms played a medley of Christmas carols, including that one that goes peace on earth and mercy mild, and I got all choked up, and then I myself ran across the parade route and went home.

A Night Of Revemption

It is very hot this week in Hollywood, California. I came home one night to find a neighbor in the courtyard, shirtless, smoking, and whirling around a set of nunchucks. This sort of thing, in the wrong frame of mind, can make the world ominous and unpleasant.

Tonight I went to the Valley to watch Cal's first football game. On my way to the subway this guy driving an old woman around rolled down his window to ask me where the Crossroads of the World was. Fortunately, I could tell him.

The game was against Tennessee. Last year Cal lost to Tennessee; this year Cal's coach kept saying "It's not about revenge; it's about redemption." After the first gin and tonic that became revemption. I will not confirm or deny any rumors that Doug Flutie, appearing on the halftime show, was called Doug Cutie. If it happened it would have been wrong and bad.

At the orientation for UC Berkeley I attended many years ago the student leader types kept talking about Cal. This bothered me. I had never heard of such a thing. What the hell is this? I thought. At the time I believed that the institutions of marriage and high-level college athletics had peaked, and would entirely disappear within the next fifteen to twenty years. It turns out I was wrong.

I have some Cal sports fan credentials. In my sophomore year I had season tickets to the basketball team; I can still churn out a credible "grrr rah" kind of noise when the spirit moves me. Just yesterday I saw an Abdur-Rahim jersey and it took me back. I do harbor a genuine distaste for Stanford as an institution. Plus it's easy to fake predictive ability with a Cal sports team. If they are expected to do well they will fall apart in a critical game. I like that.

But am I really a Cal sports fan? I am, inasmuch as I am an admirer of anything, an admirer of the UC system and of Berkeley in particular. It's a nice thing, a genuinely good thing, the public university. And I spent a year in a Big 12 city with a very serious college football obsession, which is a good way to develop a certain enthusiasm for even the least likable of the Pac 10 schools. By the end of my time there the USC students (televised at the football games!) started looking like hippies to me, people ready at any moment to dart up a tree for a sit-in.

And I have kind of a fan-like personality. I like rooting for things. I like watching a team I identify with win. It makes me happy. I'll do some fist-pumping. I hugged strangers during the Lakers run in the playoffs against Phoenix a couple of years back.

But I'm not sure I like Cal as a football powerhouse. I don't like it being nationally ranked. I don't like the idea of alumni who give money to support the team. I don't like the idea that rooting for Cal actually means something. If Cal loses to San Jose State every year, you can split the difference between being a real fan and being a jokey fan. That's not really true these days, at least before the inevitable mid-season collapse.

On the upside, it's the best marching band going, so there's at least that.

Cal won the game. I got a ride back into Hollywood; we passed all the kids lining up for the nightclubs. A different neighbor was standing in the courtyard smoking wearing those pajamas that are flannel and plaid, but shorts and short sleeves.