From KCRW and KCRW.com, I'm Bob Carlson, and this is Unfictional.

Unfictional is KCRW's program of stories and original documentaries. It's part of KCRW's program of Stories and Original Documentaries.

It's part of KCRW's Independent Producer Project,

kind of a laboratory for independent radio producers, writers, and performers.

And today on the program, we take a ride on the metro 180 bus

with a man who just can't stay awake.

Imagine if you go a night or two without sleep, like let's see your baby keeps you up or

You know the neighbors talk is driving you crazy or something you know and you're wanting to sleep and you can't

Well imagine having no sleep or very little sleep from weeks on end or

months on end and you're going to turn into a real cranky dude. He couldn't drive a car, so Carl Kislavsky dependent on the buses and trains that make

their way through this otherwise car-obsessed city. And one of these bus lines cuts a path through the crucial underbelly of the Los Angeles Entertainment

world.

My name is Esmerle de Mitchum and I drive the line 180.

It starts in Hollywood at Hollywood and Vine Red Line Station and then it travels through Hollywood through

Griffin Park. It goes up Los Felis through Glendale through Eagle Rock

passed the high school, it turns left on Lake in Pasadena and goes up to Altadina and then it circles back around and comes back down

back to Hollywood and Vine. It's a one-way trip, it's like an hour and a half, one way, and I'm out there till I start

at four in the morning and I get off at 1.

What is it, 102?

Yeah.

I've been doing it so long, it just comes natural.

The 180 passes through some key neighborhoods

...