The Chateau Marmont is a beautiful, tranquil place located a surprisingly few feet off the notorious Sunset Strip.  It has the look of an old European inn, with weathered brick and ivy-covered walls.  The grounds were handsomely maintained and a bubbling fountain trickled peacefully off to one side of the courtyard.  Of course, it's also the place where John Belushi accepted his final speedball (in bungalow #2), causing his heart to explode like a dropped bag of ripe fruit.  I liked Belushi, and seeing this beautiful place where he bought it caused a wave of melancholy to wash over me.  I told Mark that the dead comedians were really getting to me.  He suggested, unaffected, that we take a break to soak up some caffeine.

So we chose a trendy little coffee house in Hollywood and spread out our maps and notebooks on the sidewalk table.  Beautiful people younger than us were cheerfully hopping out of Jaguars and Mercedes and bopping into the coffee shop as we plotted our next assault on the taxing world of gore.  A group of record industry people (I know they were record weasels because they were talking about "projects" ready to be "taken to the next level" and because of the turkey-necked woman in their party who was too old to be wearing a Propellarheads t-shirt) were sitting behind us with their dust mop-like yapping dogs, smirking at us like we were tourists from Michigan, the nation's heartland.  I wanted to tell them to go fuck themselves, but my pathetic cowardice prevented it.  We decided on our next few destinations, sat back, and let the coffee do its work.  Then we hit the mean streets again.

The Viper Room, of course, is where River Phoenix did his final performance.  And from all accounts, he gave it his all.  After a night of partying in the trendy night spot, the young actor stumbled outside and fell to the sidewalk where he eventually cashed the proverbial check.  Later, it was confirmed that the strict vegetarian had apparently visited an all-you-can-eat illegal drug buffet earlier that evening.  The club had its front door boarded up and everything was painted black.  A little sign said "Please enter through back door."  People were gawking at us from cars in the slow-moving traffic on Sunset Boulevard as Mark and I took pictures of each other in front of this famous death spot.  "What's next?" I asked as we walked back to the truck, suddenly brimming with inexplicable enthusiasm.

When we drove by Rebecca Schaeffer's place, looking for a place to park, we noticed that somebody was having a yard sale in front of her building.  "I'm not doing this," Mark said, "This is in bad taste.  Linette will kill me."  I then delivered my most heart-felt speech explaining that this thing is bigger than just the two of us.  "We can't penalize the Bottle Village because of something as subjective as bad taste!" I pleaded.  He eventually relented, but was clearly hesitant about the whole thing.  He thought this death spot was especially sad.  Rebecca Schaeffer was the young actress from the sitcom My Sister Sam, who was stalked and ultimately shot to death by an obsessed fan in the doorway of her apartment building -- the same apartment  building where we were going to do a little shopping. 

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