LP Attends a Broadcast in Hollywood
Or: Why Sleep When You Could Be at the Live with Kelly and Michael After Oscar Show?
My wife likes the morning entertainment programs on ABC TV. She watches The View and The Chew, and starts the day with Live With Regis and Kathie Lee and Kelly and Michael and Sleepy and Grumpy and Dopey. (That’s the Snow White and the Seven Co-hosts edition.) When she heard that free tickets were being offered for Kelly and Michael’s After Oscar Show in Hollywood, she acted swiftly, and the next thing we knew we had received an official invitation to attend.
There’s an old adage: Be careful what you wish for. The excitement of attending the live broadcast of what promised to be a star-studded show was tempered by the instructions that followed. Live really is live– on the East Coast. To make that happen, the program would begin at 6am in Hollywood. Invited guests were admonished that buses would be leaving the designated parking lot at the Hollywood Bowl at 3am. The recommended arrival time was 1:30 am to ensure parking, pickup, and delivery.
Thus we found ourselves, after two hour’s sleep, arriving in downtown Hollywood (well, almost downtown) shortly after 2:00 am. Fortunately the check-in process was a breeze, thanks to the staggering number of cheerful staffers toting clipboards and wearing headsets. Even the buses were clearly marked. (Although you’d be hard pressed to board the wrong bus at the Hollywood Bowl at two o’clock in the morning.)
Wristbands were issued, with the strict injunction that they not be removed or altered. At the time, the colors meant nothing; although later they would be very important, indeed!
Scheduled departure was 3:00 am, and so it was that we departed, like clockwork, shortly before 4:00am. It was a very short trip to the Dolby (formerly Kodak) Theater, and our own special entrance back among the service areas of the Hollywood and Highland Center. As locals, we knew our way around and were not in the least surprised to come around the corner to find the entrance just ahead.