Burbank Bounty: Matt Parkman

My suspicions yesterday were correct: Burbank is a hotbed of Heroes posters. I found this one of Matt on Alameda, just east of NBC.

Sure enough, in the blocks around NBC, Heroes has a stranglehold on the bus shelters, often with two back-to-back posters at a single bus stop.

I could have spared myself yesterday's walk, because I saw probably close to ten Sylars today, including this one back-to-back with Mohinder (to take this, I had to stand in the middle of Magnolia with traffic bearing down on me. Hence the half-assed framing).



I saw every single character poster in Burbank today, most multiple times.

Well, almost.

You know who I didn't see? Maya.

Does a Maya poster exist? I've been proceeding on faith that one does, just because it would be odd to give the other eleven regular third-season cast members their own individual posters and skip over poor Maya, but there's been no trace of her.

And this is especially vexing: some rat bastard (rat bastards, plural, most likely) has been stealing the Heroes posters from the bus shelters. You know that photo of that Mohinder poster in yesterday's blog post? He's gone--there's nothing but empty space where he used to be. The Claire on Wilshire and the Hiro on Wilshire have also been swiped. On Vermont and Hollywood Boulevard today I spotted maybe a dozen empty spaces where posters had been stolen. No way to be sure those were Heroes posters, but why do I think people aren't stealing the Beverly Hills Chihuahua posters?

Anyway, this was today's route: since I've done Wilshire to death, I took the bus down Wilshire to Vermont to save myself the walk (I spotted the missing posters from the bus). I walked up Vermont to Hollywood and then west on Hollywood Boulevard to Highland. Hopped the subway through the hills to North Hollywood. Headed west on Magnolia into Burbank. Walked all around Burbank, on Magnolia and Hollywood and Buena Vista and Olive and Alameda.

Burbank is lovely. I like Burbank. It's got plenty of cute bakeries and pretty little restaurants and a great public library, which are the sorts of things that make my soul happy. However, thanks to the way it's nestled in the pretty hills, Burbank also has INSANELY MONSTROUS SCORCHING HEAT in the summer months. Especially today. The heat kind of knocked me on my ass during my aimless wanderings. Unpleasant!

After exhausting Burbank, I headed east on Alameda into Glendale. The intention was to check out the poster situation in downtown Glendale, but I couldn't make it there--I took a shortcut that got me mired in a no-man's-land by the Metrolink tracks, and I was badly faltering in the INSANELY MONSTROUS SCORCHING HEAT, so I caught the first bus out of Glendale and back into Los Angeles. It dropped me off in Chinatown, where I found plenty of Heroes posters... but still no Maya. Wandered through the jewelry district and Pershing Square and Bunker Hill before giving it up and catching a bus home.

So I overdid it today. Feeling pretty crappy right now, actually. The total mileage is hard to figure, what with all the random dithering around, but the first leg of my journey (Vermont/Hollywood) was 5.42 miles, the second leg (North Hollywood/Burbank/Glendale) was 8.8. Add the downtown meaderings to that, and I walked over fifteen miles again today.

I'm done. By now, I've seen every poster multiple times... but no sign of Maya. Until I have proof a poster for Maya exists and I'm not just tilting at windmills, I'm going to stop actively searching for her. Over the past nine days, I've walked over a hundred miles. I've visited the following cities and neighborhoods in search of these damn posters: Los Angeles, West L.A., Westwood, Brentwood, Santa Monica, Hollywood, West Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Rancho Park, Palms, Culver City, Century City, Koreatown, Downtown, Hancock Park, North Hollywood, Burbank, Glendale, Los Feliz, Little Armenia, Thai Town, Little Ethiopia, and Chinatown. I've cut a huge swath through the city.

Plans for tomorrow involve sitting in a cold, dark room and drinking endless glasses of iced tea.