The Hollywood Laundromat

Once upon a time there was a girl who went to West Hollywood with a dream. That dream was to find a coin-operated laundromat that had a lower crazy people to washing machine ratio than just about anywhere else on that strip. For some inexplicable reason it just made the hour she had to sit there waiting for her clothes to endlessly dry and dry not quite as insufferable as it could have been.

It's 5pm on a Monday afternoon and I'm at a laundromat on Santa Monica Boulevard doing my laundry, much like Marilym Monroe probably did in the 1950s. It's all glitz and glamour, this Hollywood life.

I can just see Marilyn doing her laundry here. She would have perched herself atop one of the washers, purring out stain removal instructions and tips to any man who entered the establishment. It's also probably why none of her clothes ever fitted; they shrank in the dryer. Poor Marilyn.

This laundromat is very typical of what happened to Marilyn in Hollywood. She got spun around, pulled in all directions, and then left out to dry and presumably turned into a spiritually shrunken version of herself. I guess I just compared Marilyn Monroe to a spin cycle.

Marilyn spent a lot of time in this area. My Hollywood Things map tells me she lived here when she met Jo DiMaggio. She lived in another house around here too with a girlfriend and shared everything from minks to men. My map says that.

At another house nearby, Joe DiMaggio had a private investigator break down a door where he thought she was cheating on him. It was the wrong house, but it's just around the corner, thus exciting. And about 200m down the road is where Janis Joplin spent her last night drinking up a storm before ODing at her hotel.

Ho hum, my washing''s done!