It's no secret to anyone living in LA for more than 32 minutes that the Walk of Stars does not, literally, have "stars" hanging out on the corner, waiting around to have a boring, gasping conversation with you.  George Clooney does not hang out at the Starbucks on Hollywood Blvd. like we’ve read in those "You know you're in LA when…" emails.  In fact, the only time I've ever seen ANY celebrities on the Blvd. is when there’s an armed security brigade surrounding the red carpet in front of the Chinese Theatre. And even then, only from my car.

People come here and think that there's a good chance they'll get noticed on the street by some big wig agent who wields his power of God to make them the next up-and-coming…  Or maybe they think if they get dressed up enough and go to the places they read about in US Weekly, they'll get noticed by a starlet and become her beau for the night.  Or maybe I'm wrong and it was just me who thought that when I first moved to LA I would see famous people everywhere, like the zoo.

Still, I find most tourists endearing, except when they're driving, and then I hate them.  I admit that the assignment of going into the throng of people in front of the Grauman’s Chinese Theatre threw me into a slight panic. My problem is that I generally don't enjoy talking to strangers. I get awkward, even though I've found most strangers, and especially tourists, to be approachable and even good old fashioned friendly.  If anyone who didn’t know my mother came up to her and started a conversation, they'd better have a good 10-30 minute window to talk, and be ready to spill the latest gossip on who's gay and who's a druggie and hear about how her daughter lives in LA and sees movie stars all the time. It's just--I don't know how to do it. 

Outside of briefly considering yelling something about a stick-up to the customers in line while waiting for my iced latte, oh, and asking an entire blonde family dressed in Ohio State Buckeyes gear if they were from Ohio, I was at a loss.

Technically I did talk to another human being (more than one, actually!) so… but no, my assignment was definitely incomplete.

I walked past people slinging celebrity homes bus tours, free movie tickets, TV show audience participation thingies, homeless people, the occasional gutter punk who will ruthlessly harass anyone for money, to the point of grabbing your leg and calling you a "fucking rich bitch." Is that considered having a conversation?

So I ended up at the Tourist Trap Museum, the one where you walk by and see a gorilla climbing a rope for a bunch of bananas in the entrance way.

The Ripley's Believe It or Not Museum.  What sold me? Standing outside the front contemplating who the hell I was going to talk to when a cute Asian woman strolled past, saw the gorilla and screamed,  literally screamed, then asked her (tour guide?) friend, "Is it true?" I don't know where she was from, but I do know that in some Asian countries they sell underwear in vending machines. That seems way scarier than a fake gorilla, in my opinion.

The clerk at Ripley's was floppy haired and bored looking.  I asked him how much to get in, and got option 1) just the Ripley's for $14.99, or the Deluxe Package, getting me into Ripley's, the Wax Museum and some other place for $26.00. I took option 1), then figured I may as well talk to the kid, since we were already conducting business and assumed he was used to tourists asking mundane questions, so they know they're getting their money's worth.

"So, uh, what's your name?"

He pointed at his nametag. "Jeremy." He didn’t say it with a sneer, he was actually really polite.

"Oh, cool, where are you from? Are you from here?" 

"No, I'm from Raleigh."

Oh cool, a transplant! He's almost a tourist himself! "Oh, cool, you mean Nor…"

"Not North Carolina though. There's a Raleigh in California, just a couple hours from here. That's where I'm from."

"Oh, cool. So you work here, huh?  That must be weird, dealing with tourists all day…”

"Uh, yeah."

"Oh, I'm not a tourist or anything. I actually live in West Hollywood. I'm just here because I thought it would be fun."

"Oh, yeah, West Hollywood is cool. It's weird here, yeah, but it's ok. People are nice."

Wow. This was really going nowhere.  I mean, Jeremy was really sweet and everything, just not what I'd call a Master Conversationalist.  Or maybe it was just me.

I don’t know what I expected from him. Socio-political analyses?  Discourse on the state of the economy?  He deals with tourists all day. Tourists that want to see weird shit at Ripley's.

Having never been to any sort of "Hollywood" Museum, I was fascinated when I walked past the front gate.  In a glass case was a "mermaid" that Ol' Ripley found and sold as real as part of his circus show. It was a bass with a monkey head fused to it. But we are suckers, see? In 1908, that was a bona fide mermaid! Next to it, having nothing apparent to do with the mermaid, was a bikini made entirely out of human hair. Human hair! Who thinks of these things? Apparently, Bill Black in St. Louis, MO thought of it in 1992.  He must be bald. 

Around the corner I heard the theme music from Pee Wee's Big Adventure and saw stairs leading down into a dark looking basement. Sweet.

Highlight: A Collection of Torture Devices on Other Horrible Shit!

1. Snake in a Cooler
   

I've already ruined the joke, but there's an old fashioned soda cooler with the sign "One Per Customer" on top, and you open the cooler and there's a rattle snake (stuffed, of course) but terrifying, laying in wait to scare the shit out of you.  I jumped and screamed when I opened the cooler, and the woman behind me screamed too. I scared her. She was from Kansas.

1. The Human Salamander
   

This man used to take raw meat into a walk-through oven and come out unscathed with a fully cooked steak. Bizarre!

1. Pictures of People with Drills and Various Paraphernalia Jammed through their Heads
   

One tough guy with a steel beam right through his chest!

1. The Human Trap
   

This device is just like a bear trap, only bigger, for catching trespassers. What kind of person did you have to be to own a "human trap?"  Someone who's a little over protective, I'd say.

1. Iron Chastity Belt
   

The poor woman that wore that thing was lugging an extra 25 pounds around her nether region. Looked pretty uncomfortable. The funny thing about the chastity belt? The "vagina" had teeth, the kind some parking lots employ with signs warning not to back up or you'll get severe tire damage. No teeth around the other hole, though, which really doesn’t seem fair.

There is even an oddity in the women's room. There are two stalls and a covered toilet seat hanging on the wall.  Naturally, being a curious type of girl, I lifted the toilet seat on the wall to see what gem of knowledge lay beneath. I expected to learn something about John Crapper, inventor of the flushable toilet. Instead, it farted at me.

I'm not kidding. The toilet seat let out a series of huge rips and I cracked up until I realized there was already a woman in one of the stalls, that I wasn’t alone. She MUST have lifted the seat too, right? She knew it couldn’t possibly have been me making sounds like that, right? And then laughing about it? I hid in the empty stall until she left, horrified.

1. Torture Chamber
   

The executioner with the big axe, yep.  Thumbscrews. The Italian Pear of Agony. (This little ditty went into the offender's mouth and forced criminals' mouths open until their jaws broke.) And this coffin thing that Bangkok prisoners used to be kept in, you know, for punishment. Only their head and one arm saw light, and they stayed in that box until they died. Fucking creepy, man.  I forget where, but you could get a hole screwed into your head for stealing a pig. Seems a tad severe.

1. Shrunken Head
   

On the way out I read the "how to." The trick is magic and special herbs. 

"Pretty cool shrunken head."

Jeremy had snuck up behind me and I jumped, because I still hadn’t shaken off the whole torture chamber ickiness. I played it cool. "Oh, yeah, I wonder where they got the head?"

"There are tribes that still do it. They take their enemies' heads and do this ritual, and then they get all the power off their enemy. It makes them more fierce in battle."

"Oh, I thought they just hung these on their rear view mirrors."

"Yeah. So are you an artist or something? What do you do besides, uh, this?" 

"I'm a sculptor.  I'm just looking for some inspiration." 

"Pretty weird place for inspiration. I mean, unless you're into that kind of thing.”

"Yeah, well, inspiration comes from odd places. So, anyway, thanks for everything! Have a good rest of the weekend!"

Back into the throng and walking towards our checkpoint, in front of me an older man in a t-shirt with a silhouette of a solider with a gigantic gun, and the motto "We Don't Aim to Please."

BB

TRAP

by Aimee Willis