Only in LA ... and the Hollywood Post Office

"Lick the stamp, Pam! Lick the stamp!" shouted the photographer at retro blonde bombshell Pamela Anderson. This classic "only in LA" moment occurred at the Hollywood Post Office (where else?), a magnificent monument to art deco at 1615 N. Wilcox Avenue. The former Baywatch Babe, along with former game-show host Bob Barker, were "on location" to promote US postage stamps featuring famous vegetarians (which include Mohandas Gandhi, Leonardo da Vinci -- and, um, Natalie Portman). The project, a limited-edition sheet of twenty 44-cent stamps, is the brainchild of the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) which will produce and sell them. At least it's all for a good cause. However, LA Times readers will encounter disappointment if they were seeking the backstory of these famous vegetarians. The Times thought it was far more important to report that Ms. Anderson "wore a smoky blue-gray sleeveless dress that reached mid-thigh and revealed cleavage and lacy, peach bra — as well as the barbed-wire tattoo on her left arm." But I digress. To paraphrase a few lines from Joan Didion's "Notes from a Native Daughter,” it is very easy to stand in front of the famous post office at 1615 N. Wilcox Avenue and share in the perverse delusion that Hollywood is only hours from the East Coast by air. The truth is that the famous post office at 1615 N. Wilcox Avenue is only hours from the East Coast by air. Hollywood (and my beloved LA) is somewhere else.

(Photo credit: Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times)