Tag: Marilyn Monroe

I’d been thinking about doing the Hollywood & Highland Superhero thing ever since the night that a Charlie Chaplin named Ponytails jumped on the Venice bus around two in the morning and talked up the ease of the hustle and magnitude of the money the whole way to Culver City. He was pretty good as the Chaplins went – painted his face like a black & white movie and the hat, suit & cane were all high quality as opposed to the cheap costume store stuff. I don’t know how he navigated the other half of his life with what was essentially a Hitler mustache but he clearly made it work.

I spent a couple of days with Steve, Badger and Bubba when they lived at Hollywood & Orange and were making a go of things with Gamelonian LX Cruise Ship some time in 2002. It must have been early in the year because I only remember seeing Christopher Dennis as Superman and the Batman I would later learn was named Jay among the Marilyns and Chaplins. In May of that year the first Spider-Man movie would ring in the era of the Twenty First Century Super Hero Blockbuster Movie and explode the number of costume characters that could be found working the block at any point in time.

A series of events as random and disparate as the adventures that brought an immortal mutant to a Top Secret Canadian bio-weapons program would result in my own transformation to Wolverine. First I cut off my long hair and threw it into the fire during a Mojave Rave performance that was inspired by the dark magic cult from the Clive Barker film Lord of Illusions. Next came the hit-and-run bicycle incident that destroyed my Library of Congress tape player: after being knocked on my back I discovered that the only thing that seemed to alleviate the new pain and discomfort at the base of my spine was hula hooping.

I was inspired by Aaron Hibbs from Sword Heaven and his recent feat of setting a Guinness World Record by hooping for over 74 consecutive hours. I figured that if he could go that long I should at least be able to hoop non-stop for a single hour and started biking to Venice Beach to borrow a hoop from the friendly proprietors of an oxygen bar and put in my daily hour. Before this point I’d never managed to keep a hoop up for even thirty seconds but never underestimate the power of positive role models and light competition. Then I left to tour the United States as part of the Trapped in Reality tour and started adding daily Insanity (from the creators of P90X) workouts with Rain.

All of this put me in the best physical shape of my life and while I was still fairly scrawny I did have enough muscle definition to do a convincing take of Hugh Jackman’s popular version of the character. I’d spent the majority of my adult life wearing long hair, makeup and shopping from the Women’s department as much, if not more, than the Men’s department of Thrift Stores. After chopping my hair off I decided to lean into the “masculine drag” thing and was dressing as butch as possible. I was also shaving regularly but because I’m lazy I let my mutton chop sideburns grow to epic proportions in order to reduce the necessary shaving area.

All of this meant more and more people on the street had been calling me “Wolverine” or just “X-Man” throughout my many tours and travels that Summer and early Autumn and I pretty much knew that once I was back in Los Angeles I would be taking a serious shot at it. The final piece of the puzzle was beginning to cohabitate with my future wife and the love of my life who ended up having the know-how to help me with the gravity defying signature hair style.

I already had black leather pants from my time in a band called Black Light Jim Morrison, I bought myself a value pack of white “wifebeaters” and my friend Eric Landmark gave me his old padded black motorcycle jacket. I was trying to devise some kind of high quality metal claw until I learned that the cops on the block would harass you for anything but plastic. The costume shop on Hollywood Boulevard had a set of clawed gloves for the blue and yellow costume – I cut a space for the claws in the back of some black gloves I could wear on top so it wouldn’t clash with the rest of the getup.

I had already tried a little bit of busking while still in High School when I became obsessed with the Jim Rose Circus Sideshow after my friend Sean loaned me the book and some videos. I quickly taught myself the human blockhead (hammering a nail directly into the sinus cavity) and the trick where you suck a condom into your nose and pull it out of your mouth. I took my act down to Mission Beach but soon ran into a problem – while people happily held their children up for the hammer and nail routine the moment I pulled out a condom they’d cover the kid’s eyes and storm off in anger.

It perfectly encapsulated the hypocritical nature of America’s seemingly contradictory attitudes towards sex and violence. Nobody saw an issue with their children watching me do something that would probably end with injury or death if they tried to imitate me at home but the moment I pulled out an object that could potentially save their lives, entirely removed from any sexual context I might add, the act became too “extreme”.

It was making me miss out on potential tips so I tried substituting one of the balloons that clowns use to make animals. While the condoms automatically inflate upon reaching the mouth the balloon seemed to have just disappeared. I reached in and found it bunched up at the back of my throat – I’m lucky I didn’t accidentally choke on it. That idea was off the table but my act in its original form did bring in a little bit of money which was exciting at that age as I’d never really had any.

What this experience prepared me for was the always difficult first moment of showing up and announcing yourself as potential entertainment instead of just another pedestrian or spectator. In this case my costume was doing most of the heavy lifting but I did need to announce myself as a costumed super hero worth paying to take souvenir photos with and at least pretend like I believed it. It’s always hardest until you make that first dollar, from then on it’s kind of like coasting downhill except for the fact that it’s still a nonstop grind.

I quickly learned the ins and outs of the business as it was in Hollywood in the Winter of 2012. Every character on the Boulevard does it a little differently and the distinctions are a bit like alignments in Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. First you’ve got your boy scouts who are Lawful Good – they don’t put too much pressure on tourists to take photos, they don’t suggest a tip amount and they carefully avoid anything that might be construed as intimidation while collecting tips.

With the exception of the dudes who build amazing Autobot costumes that light up and transform into car form the Lawful Goods make no money whatsoever and eventually shift toward Lawful Neutral, True Neutral or even Chaotic Neutral. That last one is probably where I would have placed myself: do anything short of physically grabbing folks to get a photo, flash a five dollar bill as suggestion when requesting a tip and stand close until you get it. There are lots of little nuances like whether or not you flash the five a second or even third time when the tourist proffers a single dollar but I’m not going to get into all of them.

The Chaotic Evils are the no-fucks-given total assholes. They put an arm around a tourist’s shoulder and don’t give up until the photo happens, flash a twenty then full on surround the tourist until the mark ends up shelling out a full twenty for each of the three to four characters in the photo or they are at least satisfied they took them for as much as possible. Another aspect of the Chaotic Evils is that there are locations which are considered high value – mostly in front of the Mann’s Chinese Theater and they physically intimidate the other characters to restrict access to these spots. For reasons I am about to get into they always wear a mask, sunglasses or both.

I quickly learned that the easiest way to make money is to either be a Spider-Man, which I wasn’t going to do, or work with at least one Spider-Man. The nicer part of this equation is the costume recognition: blue and red in combination are extremely visually conspicuous, the costume design is iconic and in 2012 it was the most successful franchise in recent Super Hero films and popular with every demographic of tourists – especially children.

The less nice part of the equation is the mask: when you can’t see a person’s facial expression it creates a certain amount of ambiguity where you can’t tell if they are just asking for a “no pressure” tip or threatening unpleasant consequences if you don’t give them the largest tip possible. This ambiguity creates discomfort and the quickest way out of it is to just give them money. Once out of the situation you will second guess yourself as to whether you were actually being intimidated or it was all in your head. If someone does decide that it was the former or the Spider-Man was being particularly obvious about it even with a photo there are six to a dozen Spider-Mans on the block at all times and they can always say it wasn’t them.

For all of these reasons and the additional fact that a morph suit makes for a cheap costume there was always a surplus of Spider-Mans around. This led to a few random failed gimmicks like the Spider-Man that carried a ‘50s Sci-Fi looking ray gun that only served to lose him photos as it has nothing whatsoever to do with the character and the Spider-Man that threw himself in the garbage in case anybody wanted a comedic photo with a Spider-Man in the garbage. (nobody did). This second one always had weird stubble nearly an inch long that poked out through his mask and his costume was extremely filthy.

Just as there were lots of Spider-Mans there were different types of Spider-Mans. I never worked with one but there must have been at least one Lawful Good Spider-Man. The mask is a fundamental part of the costume and you can’t say with certainty that somebody picked the character for the intimidation factor until you see their body language and behavior. Sunglasses are another matter entirely. None of the Super Heroes had dark sunglasses as an essential part of their costume so when a Hero wears them they are doing it deliberately for the intimidation factor and are probably some degree of asshole.

There were a few lone wolves and some female characters with “sexy” themed costumes that always worked in the same pairs but most of us worked in groups of three to four with whoever was around that we thought would help us make the most money. Three was ideal money wise – tourists are used to getting gouged and shelling out fifteen dollars for a souvenir photo with street performers probably sat comfortably on the better side of the acceptable/ridiculous margin. With four characters it started to seem excessive.

I worked with a lot of Spider-Mans when I started. There was a good looking French one that always lifted his mask up and winked because he was trying to find acting work and pick up women. He was okay but my other two Spider-Mans both wore the black symbiote alien costume and started to show signs of “moral drift”. Every character on the Boulevard had their own story arc with “moral drift” – the ideals that you start with versus the realities you end up with when you figure out how to make money.

They were okay individually but seemed to bring out the worst in each other. One day we took a photo with a Japanese kid, maybe 13 years old, and one of the Spider-Mans got him to give a twenty to each of us. He seemed scared, confused and like he maybe didn’t understand American money that well yet. That was a breaking point for me – I kept the twenty but I didn’t like how the whole thing made me feel and I went back to working with the “Boy Scout” types. Maybe one or both of them felt bad too but I kind of doubt it based on who they ended up working with.

Although the hustle in question was pretty “broke ass” and geeky this was the only period of time I’ve ever spent as part of a hustler subculture. Unless you think selling drugs counts, then it would just be the first time. This was the time that I learned to carry my cash folded in a certain way and hold it a certain way and count it a certain way and spend it a certain way.

I lived like I didn’t have a bank account. When the rose sellers showed up at night I would buy my wife roses to surprise her with. I’m not sure if I’m conveying what I want to say – what I mean is that there is a kind of masculine swagger subculture that centers around the precise ways you handle the cash proceeds from hustling and I am grateful that for a short period of time I got to live in that reality.

There are a lot of stories that I could tell and characters I could talk about but for now let’s talk about Christopher Dennis and Carmelita. Dennis is the original, he started coming out as Superman in the ‘90s when there were no other characters and was always Lawful Good, in character at least. There was a story that he believed that Christopher Reeves was his actual biological father. When I started he didn’t come out much but evidently ran a flophouse for other characters in his place on Orange.

Dennis was going through a divorce and constantly partying on meth around this time from what I heard. There was a Spanish girl named Carmelita and I can’t remember if she actually lived in Dennis’ apartment or just hung around but she started doing the female sidekick thing. She got a Supergirl costume and teamed up with Dennis’s Superman who was spending more time out in costume as a kind of mentoring favor. He evidently wanted favors as well: he thought she should be expressing gratitude by having sex with him.

Carmelita wasn’t interested so she got a Batgirl costume and started working with another housemate named Jay. Jay is the best Batman on the Boulevard, his costume is really well made and he does look intimidating – but in a “better not start crime in Gotham” kind of way as opposed to the “better tip me twenty bucks for a photo” style. I heard some stuff about him getting in fist fights with other characters but never saw it first hand. Same thing on the meth – never heard explicitly that he did it. He absolutely did do the try to get Carmelita to fuck him part though.

She wasn’t having that either and was Supergirl again but in the market for another mentor. I feel like Jay or Dennis were maybe walking around looking for somebody to shunt her off on. I had just walked away from the Spider-Mans and was finding myself working with this sort of annoying head trauma type Captain America who was also from Spain a lot. I suggested that they work together but he wasn’t interested. Supergirl and Wolverine doesn’t make much sense continuity wise but I was ready enough for a change to try anything at this point.

She turned out to kinda be dead weight. She wasn’t exactly hard on the eyes: blonde hair, mini skirt, reasonably thin. I mean her teeth were a little weird but that was it. Her energy was just off. It was low confidence and self doubt, when she asked people if they wanted to get a photo she gave off the vibe that she expected they probably wouldn’t. I had to pull in all our shots. She wanted to keep working with me because I was wifed up and there was no danger of me trying to fuck her, or at least if she didn’t continue the sidekick curse by switching to Jubilee. (little joke there, I never would have expected that or treated her that way). As much as I empathized with her situation I needed a partner that helped bring in money.

I was wondering whatever happened to Christopher Dennis so I looked it up. He got worse with the meth, ended up homeless and died in 2019 by hitting his head falling into a clothing donation bin while in meth psychosis. Any character on the block will tell you he had an absurd amount of support and second/third/nth chances. At least two documentaries, lots of help from Kimmel, he still found a way to fuck it all up.

I ended up living in Santa Monica so I tried the boardwalk. The Super Hero thing was not it there. I tried hula hooping but didn’t really have an act. I moved on to other hustles. I want to mention a pair of other incidents: My friend Billy from Monster Party cast replica quality Xenomorph bodysuits from Alien. One day he suited up and we tried it out. I had to line up our shots as he couldn’t see out of the suit. It was surprisingly unpopular but one Japanese tourist wanted a picture of the Xenomorph holding his infant son.

That kid would be ten years old now. I hope he likes the picture.

The Black actor with achondroplasia (dwarfism) from Gummo would come out in a Mr. T getup. Apparently he was an awful alcoholic for years but managed to get sober. He never made much money but I think he came out to people watch and have something to do. There were a couple of other smaller guys who came from the Lucha Libre world. They did things like Smurfs and Puss in Boots – the costumes were always really nicely sewn especially the wrestling boots. I wonder if they made their own.

They had no interest in working with Mr. T.

One day the whole Boulevard was slow and me and him teamed up by the wax museum. We were playing a game of shouting out sales pitches that riffed on his stature. We started with the obvious:

“Get a picture with Mr. T – Half Off!”

“How about a little tea?”

“Get a picture, we won’t short change you!”

We went on like this for a while. I think we were doing it for our own amusement – nobody seemed to notice us and we weren’t really directing it at anyone. Eventually I started coming up with ones that kind of offended him, or maybe he was joking about that too, I couldn’t even tell. I can’t remember the more offensive ones.

I don’t think we ended up taking a single picture.

I only ever saw Ponytails, my Charlie Chaplin mentor, one or two times. He would show up late and get drunk big spenders from the bar crowd. He claimed twenty was standard but once he got a hundred. Everyone out there seemed to always talk about that “one big tip”. Maybe it never even happened but was something to dream about night after night of only bringing home a few fives and a handful of ones. It’s kind of how it is for gambling addicts – that one big jackpot keeps them coming back.

I never came back.

When I was a homeless drug addict and needed money I learned that flying a sign worked better for me than most people. I looked a bit like Jesus and that always puts Christians in a charitable mood. My sign always said the same thing – feel free to use it:

“Homeless – Hungry – God Bless”

Every word was true.