HOLLYWOOD, Calif.--There's a certain Los Angeles feeling. Some people are immune to it. Others pretend to be. It's the feeling you get on a warm day when the traffic's moving, the music is playing and the air is rushing through the window. The palm-lined streets have names like Sunset, La Cienega and Beverly Drive, and the feeling comes that you're almost there, in that Los Angeles place, that Hollywood place inside your head. It's a feeling of almost feeling it, almost touching it.

Recently, I went to Hollywood and had that feeling for three days running. I was there to check out the Hollywood renaissance, the revitalization that I'd been reading about.

There have always been two ...