As bad as I talk about this town, it did provide us boys some influential figures. Guys that we tried very, very hard to become. And, when you grow up in Oklahoma, you’re on the bottom of the list for entry into the zeitgeist of cool – if you don’t believe me, check the sales last year for Hypercolor t-shirts.

So, when a film like Rebel Without A Cause came out, it made the rest of us cooler. There’s nothing I can write about James Dean that hasn’t already been written, so just go ahead and insert that first memory of seeing his gorgeous face on the screen, or, in my case, drive-in movie theater screen.

As stated, I was late to the whole film world and up until hearing Jim Stark’s opinions on chickie runs, or roses and sunshine, I only had The Karate Kid to follow after.

And now that I found myself in Los Angeles, I decided to visit the location of the best scene from that picture.

And no one can argue- it would have to be the famous knife fight that took place at The Griffith Observatory. Perched high above the smog that somehow filters out self-confidence, from a distance it looks romantic. White domes placed against a rock terrain and a windy road that leads up to it.

If you happen to be reading this and considering a drive up there, I’ll go ahead and let you know that taking Vermont is the best way. Along the way, you’ll be able to see a number of gorgeous homes, some of them occupied a few times a year by their rich owners. A lot of people end up hiking this entire thing and if you find yourself silly enough, then you can be one of them. It snakes up and around the small hill it’s on until you reach the top and once you’re there, you get a great taste of true Hollywood smoke-and-mirrors.

See, in the film, it’s secluded, a perfect place for a switchblade encounter – but in true form, it’s one of the most visited places in Tinseltown. You can take a chance of driving to the top and circling around the congested parking lot waiting on a space, or you can park on the road that leads up to it. Either way you’re afforded a decent view of the ‘Hollywood’ sign, as well as 10 other guys on the grass who charge $5 to look through their telescope for what they say is ‘the Sun’ or ‘the Moon’, when in all actuality, every person there seemed to be peeking in the windows of the mansions that surround the place.

There’s a nice plaque of Dean to your right, en route to the area they filmed the altercation.

In all honesty, there’s not a lot to see – movie wise – from here, the little corner where the extras cheered him on being the only thing that tells you you’re in the right place…oh, and the James Dean lookalike who will gladly pull a cigarette from under his rolled-up t-shirt and pose with you…for $10.

The observatory itself is great, if it’s a clear day in Los Angeles, which it rarely is, so you might be relying more on Photoshop than the GPS that came with your rental car.

But you don’t go there for the view, nor for the drive.

You go there to stand in the same spot he did when you watched him. When you realized what was cool.

And that makes you cool.

And that’s what vacations are all about.

All photos are mine. And they’re good. And I have more.