Va-Va-Voom!

I spent the evening in Hollywood, eating tasty Peruvian food at Mario's on Vine, and then heading to the local pub with a friend, where we indulged in a few Guinness. He had just returned from a month long tour of Spain with some stops in Berlin and Krakow, and we were talking about the music scene of Madrid, the scar of Auschwitz, why no one has tried to assasinate Bush... stuff like that. Something else that came up during this conversation was the fact that guys (he believes) shouldn't wear Harley-Davidson shirts unless they actually rode Harleys. Nor should they wear gearhead-ish clothing if they aren't really into cars. Girls are excused because, well, they're girls. (However, I think it's a good thing I wasn't wearing my white wifebeater with the word "Latina" scrawled across the chest in old English style script, because this guy knows my Spanish skills are pretty minimal.)

I did mention we'd had a couple beers? Hence the somewhat pompous conversation. You know.

Anyway, on our way outof the Cat & Fiddle, there was a commotion on the street. We were right on Sunset Boulevard, and we noticed that a whole lot of motorcycles were zipping by. Like lots of them - noisy, revving their engines, spewing smoke - literally hundreds of them. We watched them race by for a good 10 minutes or so. They all seemed to be what I call crotch rockets: those brightly colored bikes built in such a way that you have to lean over them, head practically nestled between the handlebars... There were loads of them, steaming up the intersections when they were stopped, and racing around any poor car that happened to be there.

My friend and I were a bit awestruck. What was going on? Was there some sort of motorcycle critical mass movement going on here? In a few moments, the police cars came. They roared onto the street from several different areas, lots of them, some heading in the same direction as the hoarde of motorcycles, others in the opposite direction. Part of me thinks something was going on, but the other part of me is pretty certain it was just another night in Hollywood. Hell, there's always some sort of show, right?