I’m working on a project in Hollywood (it’s going badly, which is one reason I’ve been so inattentive to the blog, thank you for asking), and yesterday left the building and headed up Argyle to the Hollywood freeway when a pink Corvette pulled up in front of me, with the iconic “ANGLYNE” license plate, and a bubble of frizzled blonde hair visible over the driver’s headrest.

If you’re not an Angelino, you may not know about Angelyne, a weird local phenomenon – a huge-breasted woman of no known talent who managed to take some mildly provocative photos of herself on billboards around town and build it into a weird kind of celebrity.

It’s a pretty odd phenomenon.

But somehow, sitting on my bike in traffic, seeing her car in front of me was strangely reassuring. When I moved back to Los Angeles in 1981, her billboards were all over Sunset Strip and she was a kind of a local legend. It’s nice to know that she’s still around – whoever and whatever she may be. She’s managed to insinuate herself into the fabric of the place and become a part of the city that I love.

I watched her drive away toward Franklin and as I turned onto the freeway and throttled up, felt kind of like Jim Carroll, waving fondly at Salvador Dali after Dali had stolen his cab…

I just raised my hand, with half-parted lips, and waved “Bonjour, Monseiur Dali,” I muttered. “Bonjour et adieu.”