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The 59th annual Emmy Awards were underway out here - Sunday, September 16, down at the Shrine Auditorium on the edge of the USC campus. The Shrine is where they used to hold the Oscars, before they got their own theater on Hollywood Boulevard. Those awards are for the movies. The Emmys are for television and are a more recent thing – the first Emmy Awards were presented on January 25, 1949, at the old Hollywood Athletic Club (6525 Sunset Boulevard), where Johnny Weissmuller trained in the pool for his "Tarzan" films, Cornel Wilde started out as a fencing instructor, and where Jean Harlow once showed up wearing only a fur coat, after she was stood up by Errol Flynn. That's now Social, for a time the hottest club in Hollywood, but what's "hot" is always changing. The Sunday action, however, was down at the Shire. The Los Angeles Times publishes this tabloid thing covering "the industry" out here called "The Envelope" – and you can click on their Emmy coverage if that sort of thing interests you.
For contrarians out here it was a day it was a day to avoid certain parts of Hollywood and the Sunset Strip – streets were blocked here and there for the "after" parties at this club or that, and down at the Pacific Design Center, where the MTV folks were having a big bash. There were signs all over reading "Limos Only" and that sort of thing. So, mindful that the Emmy Awards trophies are currently made by a private company with a manufacturing site at the maximum security El Dorado Correctional Facility, in El Dorado, Kansas, it seemed best to find some Emmy afternoon anti-glamour. That was to be found at the intersection of Melrose Avenue and Orange Drive, across the street from a union hall, Stagehands and Utility Workers or some such thing, with a homeless guy sleeping on the steps.
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