Sometimes I have what I guess are unusual ideas. Nicci was telling me a few days ago that when she’s not working, she gets bored. In trying to be a good partner, I quickly rattled off a list of things one could do that would instantly cure their boredom. I told her she could choose a random friend and follow them around for a day (you know, like spying?) to see what they’re up to. I told her to think of a place she wanted to go (like a bookstore or a music store) and then use the Internet to find one she hadn’t been to that’s at least twenty miles away from the closest location. I told her she should dress up like a tourist and go to Hollywood and Highland, but instead of doing touristy things she should just snap photographs of the real tourists. Then I thought — what a minute, that’s a fucking incredible idea — I want to be a part of it. Yesterday we both had the day off from work, so we decided to go through with the plan.

The preparation was simple. I put on a pair of ten-year-old Abercrombie & Fitch khaki shorts (which were originally packed with my belongings in an attempt to appease my mother, who said I couldn’t move to L.A. without a pair of shorts), a collared t-shirt, and sandals. I removed my glasses, as they are a pure “L.A.-er” giveaway. I tried to style my hair, but there isn’t really much I can do with it. Nicci wore her own pair of touristy shorts, a plain green t-shirt, and styled her hair into some sort of hairspray-enriched “Midwestern sorority girl” coif. We created names and backgrounds for ourselves. She was “Kourtney” and I was “Christopher”, and we were from Evansville, Indiana. We met at at fraternity/sorority function at Indiana University. I beat her sometimes. The hardest part was trying to perfect our dialect. I wanted to speak like a sixty-five-year-old dock worker from Chicago, which she said was “too much”. Try as I might, I sounded like a fucking retard, saying things like “yous”, and using D’s instead of T’s in words like “this” and “that”. I tried to tone it down, but she thought I still sounded like a jackass. Having taken classes in speech and accents and dialects before, Kourtney had the Midwest dialect down (bland, soft vowels), but I think she was still afraid to use it.

Our first stop was Pink’s Hot Dog Stand (La Brea & Melrose), because that’s where all the tourists go for lunch. Unfortunately for us, I hadn’t been there before, so I was a bit too excited about the hot dog to worry about photographing our compatriots in line. Although, I think I learned a lot from the married couple standing next to us, as the husband (who was wearing the best “tourist” pants ever) and wife spent the entire time bickering. I tried to use it for my character, but instead I just wound up saying things to Kourtney like, “I swear to God, I’m going to punch you in the face.” Then she’d smile and say, “Oh, Christ-a-pher” and kiss me. Being a douchebag frat boy is awesome.

It took almost an hour to weave our way through the line, but the horrible family in front of us and the two East Coast muscle-head assholes behind us provided enough giggles as we whispered to one another in character. Finally we reached the end of the line, and placed our orders. Honestly, I can’t remember if Kourtney ordered in character or not, but I forgot. She ate a Lord Of The “Rings” hot dog (onion rings and barbecue sauce), and I had a Nacho Cheese Chili Dog with bacon. Sweet, sweet bacon. After spending an hour in line, we ate our hot dogs and were back on the road in less than ten minutes.

The next stop was Hollywood/Highland. The epicenter of the tourist universe. The Chinese Theater is there. The Walk Of Fame runs through it. The Kodak Theater. People trying to make a buck dressed as famous celebrities, movie characters, and completely useless, unidentifiable dolts. The tourists arrived in great numbers. There were Asians everywhere, as well as contemplative Red State-ers, and skanky bitches who wanted to pretend they were L.A. natives. Our techniques for obtaining quality photographs varied. Sometimes I would say, “Get a picture of me here!” while standing in front of a particularly awesome-looking tourist. Then Kourtney would shoot over my shoulder. Other times, we pretended to look at already-taken pictures, while actually framing and shooting new pictures. Sometimes, we boldly just aimed the camera and fired away at people without care. And yes, we snapped photographs of people snapping photographs, just to be meta. We had to take fifty or more photographs, but here are some of the best:

You can always spot a tourist by their camera, which has an obnoxiously-long lens (or by their backpacks). You can spot a young Jewish girl because she’s trying to look like Natalie Portman in Garden State. Also, tourists always try and see if their hands are bigger than their favorite celebrities.

Children are an easy way to target tourists. They run like the wind, and always come with a set of parents (unless one died prematurely or cheated on the other). Tourist children dress in an understated, “please don’t abduct me” fashion.

He’s trying to fit in by wearing a USC baseball cap, but look closely and you’ll see that this gentleman is stepping off a StarLine “tour the homes of the stars” bus. Total giveaway that he’s a tourist.

You can always tell a tourist by the way they try to look like they’ve lived in Los Angeles their entire lives, or by the luggage they are dragging behind them.

Although he might look like the contestant from next season’s “American Idol” who is too old to be competing, but eventually turns into a fan favorite, this guy is actually just another tourist coming out of the Virgin Megastore. What’s in his man purse, you ask? Why, it’s the new Dave Cook CD! Speaking of the Virgin Megastore, we stopped in for a few minutes so that I could pose with a copy of “The Hipster Handbook” (turns out I’m not a hipster — phew!), and model off the new Paris Hilton clothing line.

Plain and simple: black people love Elmo, fat Latino children love McFlurry.

This series is called “The Fight”. It captures a boyfriend and a girlfriend trying to solve a problem (it’s probably sexual — I think I heard her say something about dating a white penis is supposed to feel better than dating an Asian). To best capture these three photographs, we utilized the “Aye, Kourtney, take a picture of me standing here” routine. You can see perfectly over my shoulder as the struggling tourist couple solves their problem (I think I heard her say something about his agreeing to penis-elongation surgery).

This douchebag has the complete package. He’s got the collared shirt, the greasy hair, the khaki shorts, and he’s texting somebody on his phone. The giveaway that he’s a tourist? It’s either the clean white shoes, or the fact that he’s positioned himself right next to a parking cone that is almost as tall as he is. A Los Angeles native would ever diminish their stature like that, because we all know the basics of art direction and production design.

When a tourist sees that there is a television program filming live, they are always quick to document their experience “on set”. Ooh, look at me, I’m talking like a real TV industry insider! (Note: Nicci and I were asked to be a part of the program “10 Years Younger”, but while she wanted to, I declined the offer. Do I regret not agreeing to be on television while dressed like an asshole, and speaking with a horrible accent? No.

Look! She’s just like us! Even Marilyn Monroe takes the bus back to Reseda after a hard day’s work.

Holy shit are lesbian tourists an easy one to spot.

Hmm…tourist, or Angelino? It’s hard to tell. His sunglass-wearing, open-shirt “just don’t give a fuck” attitude says Angelino, but if you look very closely, you’ll see that his leathery-faced wife is holding a shopping bag alongside her purse. No Los Angeles native would ever be caught dead shopping at Hollywood/Highland, so this couple are definitely TOURISTS.

These gays came to Los Angeles expecting round-the-clock parties, great E, and maybe a sexy closet-case white boy to add to their Latin sandwich. Unfortunately, all they found was a case of the sleepies! Look at that gay. He’s all tuckered out.

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