Day: January 8, 2012

A Trip to Hollywood Boulevard

Posted onAuthorcahwyguy1 Comment

Today, I took a trip to Hollywood Boulevard to get tickets for some shows at the Pantages. As you may recall, I wrote last week about the odd season ticket policies at the Pantages, where a $8 service charge is added to every ticket online, which for a 12-ticket flex package was $96! There is no service charge at the box office window, so $25 Flex Seating E tickets were $25, and $38.50 Flex Area D tickets were $40, actually saving me money over the Flex package. I got half the tickets (Billy Elliott and Addams Family); I’ll get the other shows in early February (Million Dollar Quartet and Memphis). The service charge? My $3 round-trip metro ticket.

After I got the tickets, I walked down Hollywood Boulevard to La Brea, and then back to the Hollywood/Vine metro station. Here are some observations from that walk:

  • Hollywood Boulevard is nice to walk on a Sunday morning. Most stores are not yet open, but the tourists are still out, and it is fun to watch them.
  • On the Las Vegas Strip, you have people constantly handing you ads for escorts and the like. On Hollywood Boulevard? It it tours. I couldn’t go a half-block without seeing 3-4 people whose job it was to recruit people to go on this tour or that tour. Given that those people are likely being paid, think of how much profit is made by those tour companies.
  • Of course, they are not the only come-on on Hollywood Boulevard. As I walked past a medical marijuana dispensary, someone tried to had me a card to go in and use their services.
  • It is sad to see how many movie theatres that once existed on Hollywood Boulevard have gone dark, been turned into stores, been turned into nightclubs, or turned into large churches. In the stretch between the Pantages and La Brea, I think the only movie theaters that are left are the Chinese (and Chinese 6) and the El Capitan. The Hollywood Pacific is now a church (as is the former Pussycat), the Fox is a performance venue, still another is a nightclub, the Pantages is a Broadway house, the Egyptian only does special engagements, and a few others were obviously churches or attractions.
  • Also sad was to see the costumed characters, clustered in front of Hollywood and Highland and the Chinese. The tourists know these aren’t the characters in the movies–just some out of work actor putting on a costume. I feel sorry for the actor, living off of tips and not being able to use their craft. I feel sorry for the tourist who takes pictures with these folks. Some of the sights I saw included a Catwoman with a handy spray bottle of mace on her belt, the midget dressed up as Mr. T. getting off of Metrorail, the 3 or 4 Capt. Sparrows (both male and female), and numerous folks dress from various forgotten movies.
  • The battle between the wax museums is heating up. This was written up in mid-December in the LA Times, but I got to see it in action. There was nothing for the Hollywood Wax Museum, but boy was Madame Tussauds really pimping their wares: signs everywhere, statues placed to attract and point people.
  • Hollywood is an interesting mix of glamour and old-Times Square. Much as the movie business is emphasizes, what is seemingly being sold is sex. Between Highland and Vine there are numerous stores focused on the sale of “dancers clothes” — in other words, sexy lingerie (think Fredericks of Hollywood, but sluttier). There are also numerous stores selling drug paraphenalia, but not calling it that (they are hookah stores).
  • The Walk of Fame is nice, but do you realize most people have no idea who most of the people are these days. I went by the star for Bob Arthur and Ken Minyard, and realized most tourists would have no idea who those folks are.

Music: Stoned Soul Picnic: The Best Of Laura Nyro (Laura Nyro): New York Tendaberry

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Musings on “Everyone’s a Little Bit Racist”

Posted onAuthorcahwyguy

In the musical “Avenue Q“, the characters sing the song “Everyone’s a Little Bit Racist“, expressing the opinion that everyone has a little bit of racism inside of them–that everyone, as some level, makes judgements based on race. A number of incidents in the news of late, plus programs I have seen and discussions I have had, have gotten me wondering how pervasive this really is. How much is our fear of the other affecting the decisions that we make?

The primary prompting factor for this was an article about Papa Johns, where a fast food worker refered to a customer on a receipt as “Lady Chink Eyes”. Papa Johns immediately apologized and the employee was fired. This comes on the heels of an incident where workers at a Chik-Fil-A in Irvine referred to Asian customers as “Ching” and “Chong”. They, too, were fired and the corporation issued an apology. Although not racism, there was also a recent incident where a Burger King employee was pocketing the change from a mentally impared customer. This employee was also fired after the incident came to light, and the company apologized.

My question is why these things are happening. Some believe it is encouraged by a pervasive attitude with certain corporations. That certainly is possible with Chick-Fil-A, which is known to take an anti-Gay stance. I’m not aware of recent similar stories about Papa Johns, although there was at least one pizza chain whose owner was anti-abortion. However, I’m not sure whether statistically this would be borne out, or whether employee training is silent on the subject.

What I’m wondering more is whether these are examples of the claimed low-level racism mentioned in the Avenue Q song leaking out, especially in the hands of lower-skilled and often lighter-educated fast-food workers? How pervasive is this low-level racism?

This is where something I watched recently comes in. Shotime recently has begun broadcasting Freakanomics, and one of the segments on the show looked at the effect of how we name our children on their future lives. The conclusion of the authors was that it was more socionomic upbringing and education that affects a future life (as opposed to the name), but one segment does show the effect of a name. They took an identical resume, differing only in the name (i.e., a white-male sounding name vs. a black-male sounding name), and sent it to a large number of companies. More callbacks came from the white-sounding name, although everything else was the same. Why?

As with many things in life, the starting point for a solution is awareness and transparency. We need to realize that we have these attitudes if we want to correct them. Many years ago, when I was working at SDC, we had mandated “Ethics” training in response to a number of defense contractor lapses. The instructor started out by saying (I paraphrase): “I can’t teach you ethics. You are either ethical or you are. But I can teach you what the law is.”

We may all have a little bit of racism in us. This may come from the fear of the stranger or the fear of the new. We might not be able to change that. What we can change is how we behave. These fast-food incidents demonstrate that more training is required regarding how we must behave in our interactions with others. A number of customer service companies have demonstrated that such training can work.  That’s something that all customer service companies should consider.

As for the rest of us? We should increase our sensitivity, but we also need to find that fine line between sensitivity and hyper-sensitivity. It’s a hard line to find, for our experiences and background do shape our sensitivity on this issue–this is why many people today often don’t see racist or sexist actions everywhere, even though they may be there. Further, it is still worth noting the unintentional racist or sexist action, for it can be a good teaching instance for where instinctual racism leaks out. But still, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, and an action isn’t based on something racist or sexist.  Being able to draw that line is difficult.

Music: What’d I Say (Ray Charles): That’s Enough

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