Oscar..... Traffic?

It's a funny thing, traffic. With each passing month the number of cars on the road out here increase at an exponential rate, and "rush hour" is actually about four hours on each end. Then there are those special occasions when traffic is especially horrendous. The first day of school in the fall, right around the winter holidays, bad weather, and if you live in Hollywood....the Oscars!!

That's right here in LA where post-modernism is less a state of mind and more a reality of life, the Academy Awards cause wide spread havoc for Hollywood. If you're going anywhere east of La Cienega Blvd.(a major north/south street in the city) you can't help but notice the gridlock traffic spilling out from the epicenter of the Kodak Theatre.

There are all sorts of rumors and falsehoods that run rampant around this time about just why the Oscars cause traffic. And here, once and for all I'm going to set the record straight.

1) The stars are all here getting ready for the big night! Back from thier exotic shooting locales, they're rushing around picking up their dresses from the dry cleaners and buying new shoes!

FALSE - As glamorous as it might be to think that you're stuck in bumper to bumper between Charlize Theron and Steven Spielberg, the reality is most of them live in Los Angeles anyway. Besides they wouldn't be getting ready for the big night themselves; their assistants would be getting ready on their behalf. Hell, I'm sure a star would send their assistant to their hair appointment if they could.

2) Tourism in Los Angeles is especially high during the Oscar season.

TRUE - As a matter a fact many people vacation in Los Angeles when the Oscars take place, hungry to get a glimpse of someone exciting through a tinted limousine window. Others hope to be lucky enough to win a ticket in the raffle they hold for the bleacher seats, that flank the red carpet.

3) They close a crapload of streets around the Kodak Theatre. (which happens to be less than a mile away from where I live)

TRUE - Yes, they do close a crapload of streets, including Hollywood and Highland, which is a major intersection and also leads to one of LA's crucial freeways.

Oh yeah, that and the fact that we're still recovering from the extreme rains and flooding of a few days ago, is just the right ingredient to turn our city streets into a total F---ing nightmare.

And so I leave you with this uh...appropriate quote from the film Who Framed Roger Rabbit:

"Who needs a car in LA? We've got the best public transportation system in the world."