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| For Immediate Release |
The Good, the Bad and the Hungry
Hollywood Milieu ©2004
Written by
Denny Dormody
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| It smells like heaven. That's if your idea of heaven
is a sweaty hot dog smothered in chili. Come Earthquake or after-shock
the huddled masses pick up the scent of the frying onions and Chicago-bred
dogs and converge like pilgrims bound for the Promised Land.. |
| This is Pink's on La Brea Avenue and the frankfurter
faithful are out early. I mean early. This is about as L.A. as you
can get, as it's only a short tramp down the street from Chaplin's
old film studio. In Casablanca, everybody went to Rick's; in Hollywood
everybody goes to Pink's. |
| In the old Hollywood, you would have seen
Orson Welles at Pink's with a script in one hand and a chilidog in
the other. Nowadays reading the hand scrawled menu are the likes of
Keanu Reeves and Jack Nicholson, hungry players in the new Hollywood.
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| Manning the open-air food furnaces, rain and always
shine, are some of the heartiest babes this side of a Palm tree heat
stroke. Blanca, Esmeralda, Julie and Sally and the two ladies that
signed on board yesterday. Actresses I think. They stoke the altar
fires of the best of the best, in budget dining here in the City of
Angels. Sheer poetry. |
| Waiting for the honeymoon, the patient suitors include
movie moguls, UPS drivers, secretaries, suits, starlets, hookers and
homeless: the good, the bad and the hungry of L.A. |
| The hot dog and bread lines that began in the early
morning smog are still slowly moving well past Midnight. A ton of
chili has been dished out. The bread truck has come and gone. Three
times. |
| 8x10 movie star glossies litter the walls. The ghosts
of chilidogs past and present hang in the air like the foggy humidity
in a damp laundromat. This is a claustrophobia Ellis Island never
knew. This is the epicenter. And a lowly dog with chili and Diet-anything
only sets you back about $1.89. Ain't nobody going hungry 'no more'
in L.A. |
| Even if you're down to your last two bucks, there's
always Pink's. Always been. Always will be. That's something to remember,
when you Go Hollywood. |
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