It's a beautiful southern California day, The sun is out. The temperature is a moderate 70 degrees or so with a gentle breeze and all the local folks and tourists are wandering the streets in their shorts, mini skirts, tee shirts and tanktops. Of course, there is a pretty steady stream of traffic.
I'm sitting in front of the Tiago Coffee Shop next to the Emerson Theater at the corner of Hollywood Blvd. and La Brea. The sidewalk in front of the coffee shop is part of the Hollywood Walk of Fame with the stars honoring those entertainers who've earned the privilege of being so recognized.
A few blocks down Hollywood Blvd. is the famed corner of Hollywood & Vine. During the mid-1970's my Washington, DC business, Audio-Video Cooncepts, Inc., aka AVCon, had made arrangements with a Hollywood audio production business located on one of the corners of Hollywood & Vine, to use their address as AVCon's Hollywood branch office. Those were pretty heady days for the aggressive, young, 20 something, recording entrepreneur I was back in those days. It's interesting how time mellows us.
About five or six years ago I visited Hollywood for what I called my "Final Hollywood Tour" to see what was still around from my days here in the 70's and 80's. To be perfectly honest, I was never enamored of this town. The same is true of New York City. My favorite recordiing center was then and still is Nashville. I was disapointed to find that while most of the major structures were still evident, other than the iconic Capitol Tower (home of Capitol Records), I could only find about two other studios still in operation from the "Golden Age" of my youthful days. Even the building we used for our Hollywood address at Hollywood & Vine had been razed and was a hole in the ground.
So, here I sit, one more time, about 40 minutes from my son's abode in a place that is still bustling, but seems to have changed quite a bit over the years, but doesn't everything?
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