Amid the shiny and the tarnished tinsel of Hollywood's Walk of Fame, David Rakoff finds that even broken dreams are worth having

Superman has taken the morning off. Although appearing among us in mufti, he is immediately identifiable by his square jaw and the comma of dark hair upon his forehead. He greets with an affable hello the other Hollywood Boulevard regulars who have gathered, along with a small crowd of tourists, outside the classical facade of the former Masonic Temple, now the TV studio where Jimmy Kimmel does his evening talk show. The USC Trojan Marching Band, or at least a skeleton crew thereof, goes through its paces, a casually synchronized, loose-limbed routine in which its members instrumentally exhort us to do a little dance, make a little love, and above all, get down tonight. Superman bops his head, enjoying his moments of freedom. In a while he will have to put on his blue tights and red Speedo and go to work, posing for pictures with the tourists in front of Grauman's Chinese Theatre. Maybe he'll stop on the way at the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, at the corner of Hollywood and Orange. Batman and the Cat in the Hat go there sometimes.

Suddenly, from the doors of the theater, just behind the Trojans, emerges a chubby and cheerful fellow. Completely unconnected to the proceedings on the street, he is dressed in a cheap red satin Satan costume. Dancing in time to the music, he beckons to us, crowing delightedly, "Worship me! Worship me!"

But we are here neither for the Man of Steel nor the Prince of Darkness. We have come this morning to witness the consecration of the newest star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame. The "star" in question on this dull April morning is local radio personality Dan Avey, who will join the 2,000-plus others—from the greats to the somewhat-less-than-greats to the downright obscure—in that characteristic luncheon-meat-pink-against-lustrous-black-terrazzo-and-brass immortality. The Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, the organization that administers the Walk, has set up a steel barrier to separate those with a personal stake in the ceremony from the gawkers and hoi polloi. It is a hopeful gesture.

"It's almost like going to your own funeral," says Avey, after the brief tributes from fellow radio announcers. The star is unveiled. Avey's friends and family applaud. A local crazy snaps photos, his straw fedora banded with a braid of blue and white balloons—the kind birthday clowns twist into animal and flower shapes—and his ears sporting very large cubic zirconiums. He is trying to get a knot of puzzled German tourists to move out of the way, but he doesn't speak so much as squeak out high-pitched gibberish, which seems only to increase his frustration, as the Germans simply stare at him. Perplexed Northern Europeans—hereafter PNEs—turn out to be just one of the mainstays of the area, along with leafleting evangelicals, sex workers, harmless ambulant schizophrenics, and beat cops.

There are some places where an intrinsic melancholy might be reason enough to stay away, I suppose, although I can't think of any. I love Miss Havisham places, where a bloodied-but-unbowed nobility valiantly tries to maintain itself in the face of reality. See? they seem to be saying, I wasn't always like this! Even though Hollywood Boulevard recently underwent a major urban renewal—a charge led by the building of the Kodak Theatre Complex, current home to the Oscars and the American Idol finals—the neighborhood's dilapidated, honky-tonk charms are legion. They lie in the vestiges of its storied past, which endure obstinately: Grauman's Egyptian Theatre, currently the home of the American Cinematheque, with its sandstone forecourt and hieroglyphics, looking like something straight out of the Valley of the Kings; the polychrome plaster opulence of the El Capitan Theatre, restored and now owned by Disney; the affronted yet intact dignity of Marlene Dietrich's star, which sits perhaps for eternity in front of Greco's New York Pizzeria; similarly the star of June Havoc, baby sister to Gypsy Rose Lee, which welcomes shoppers to the rubber and fetish extravaganza of Pleasure's Treasures. Only a heartless ogre would fail to be touched by a protective affection for the weary imprecision of the store that announces, "Almost Everything $15 or Less." Hollywood Boulevard makes you want to take care of it.