Oh, did I tell you we just got back from England and Scotland? Because - well, there it is.
We had a fantastic time. First was London, where we met up with my brother Mark, sister Suzi, niece and niece's friend (both named Lindsay) and basically made happy Yankee idiots of ourselves all through town. My brother hadn't been back to England for 28 years, and he was in ecstasy - hopping a fence along Queen's Walk to baptize his feet in the Thames (we're so glad his feet are all he put in there - pathogens do not make for good souvenirs), and doing front handsprings on the lawn of Westminster Abbey. The girls had never been to England either - oh, the shopping that was done, despite the poor exchange rate. Primark, H&M, M&S - we love you too much.
Norwich, where my mom's from, was a riot. More shopping, and concentrated doses of family time. The family reunion on Saturday was about 12 hours shorter than I'd have wanted it to be - so many people to catch up with, and so little time! - but I loved every second. I've posted massive piles of pictures on Flickr (link at right), and I haven't even gotten to Scotland yet... More on that later.
Alright, catching up a bit, here's a recap of our trip to L.A. to see Eddie Izzard's show...
Traffic was unspeakably bad most of the way up (I've noticed that weekends on the major highways are starting to become as bad as weekday rush hours. One trend, size ugly). We were running later than hoped and had become a little stressed about our timeline; by the time we checked into the Radisson, got ready and left for the show, there was just enough time to find a place to eat dinner. Our hotel was only a half-mile straight down the street from the theater, easy walking distance; stupidly, though, I'd worn shoes that were cute but dysfunctional. Halfway there my feet began filing strident complaints with management. The stress from earlier began insinuating itself back into our evening, and I felt guilty for inviting it to rejoin us via my unwise choice of footwear.
Luckily, however, we passed a sushi place. Since we'd eaten a late lunch and weren't starving, we decided sushi would be just the thing to tide us over. Despite the ominous "B" rating from the health department hanging on the wall, the food was surprisingly good, and the atmosphere was one of a nice neighborhood place, so we enjoyed the meal and were able to relax and regain our enthusiasm for the show. (Beer and sake helped, too).
We made it to the theater with plenty of time to spare. The Wiltern is a lovely venue – built in the 1930's, it has a gorgeous Art Deco motif, and was apparently reopened just within the past year following a full restoration/upgrade. The lobby is round with a vaulted ceiling and a balcony encircling the upper level. We procured cocktails at the lobby bar and settled along the wall to get our bearings and look around.
We figured there was a good chance of seeing some well-known faces at the show, and we weren't wrong (although the first people I recognized, Pamie and Stee, posted an entry about their own sightings, which informed us as to how inobservant we really were). We decided to walk up to the upper level, and as we approached the stairs, we noted Jim Carrey, standing smack-dab in front of the stairway with a friend, looking thin and tall and mop-haired and expectant. It seemed to us that by standing in the most prominent spot in the lobby, he was kind of trolling for attention, and yet no one was (overtly, at least) paying much to him. He seemed kind of taken aback, his gaze darting about the room as he chatted with his companion. We claimed a spot on the balcony to observe him for a couple of minutes, then visited the balcony bar to refresh our refreshments before the show started (possibly a bad idea, but we're getting to that).
As we paid for our drinks, I noticed a familiar face next to me at the bar – an older, distinctly British-looking guy in a dark snakeskin jacket. The gears in my now-pleasantly-tipsy mind clicked, and as we walked away I hissed to Bill, "Isn't that the guy from Monty Python – Eric Idle?" Bill immediately about-faced and took a look, and confirmed that it was indeed. He went over to him and shook hands, telling him quickly how much he admired his work and thanking him for it. I was standing behind Bill but popped my head around from one side and said, "Don't want to intrude on your evening, but it's a pleasure to see you." Idle was gracious, and we went on our way, as tickled as Elmo.
Our seats in the "loge level" were good, and we were able to see Eddie quite clearly when he came out. He was wearing a lavender blouse, a sparkly black full-length skirt slit up to his waist, exposing the entire length of one surprisingly shapely leg, and stilettos. Oh, and breasts. His opening bit was all about the strangely natural-looking bags of silicone strapped onto his torso. This is about the only portion of the show I remember with full clarity. The combination of a too-light dinner, several stoutly-poured cocktails, and no water had begun to work an evil spell on my blood chemistry and my long-term memory. (Yes, I most certainly should know better by this point in my life, but there it is...). In the mean time, the audience was roaring with laughter at Eddie's slightest gesture or muttering; they were so, so ready for him to be hilarious that it was sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy. I wonder if that's at all strange for a comedian, to get laughs for which you don't really even have to work all that hard. That's not to say, mind you, that his show was anything less than really clever and good. However, between the constant overly-eager howling of the audience, the unadvantageous placement of the speakers, and his own impaired hearing in one ear, poor Bill was having trouble hearing anything at all. I began to repeat funny bits to him, but that only pissed off the people around us.
After the intermission (another cocktail purchased; poor decision), one of our neighbors politely mentioned the annoyance of my running commentary, and I apologized and promised to be quiet. Things get a little indistinct for me after that point... We decided to leave about 20 minutes before the show ended – between Bill's lack of comprehension and my increasingly ominous blood alcohol level, we thought it was the best course of action.
We found ourselves loose in old L.A., walking down what we thought to be the right street toward the hotel. It was not. We figured this out after a while, but were both just a little too cloudy to figure out which way the correct path back was, and a little nervous about being both looped and lost. So we surrendered and called for a taxi.
As we waited, I sat on a bus stop bench, while Bill stood on the sidewalk some ways behind me, looking for the cab. A scruffy-looking man sat down next to me and began schmoozing me. Being way too prone to indiscriminant chattiness when soused, I was pleasant to him. Having a more clear sense of the guy's intentions, however, in short order Bill walked up behind him and said, "She's my wife. Get the fuck out of here." His tone was both matter-of-fact and menacing, and compliance swiftly ensued. I remember feeling rather proud of Bill for getting all alpha-male on the guy. Geek Wee may be - but he's a hard geek, yo!
The cab arrived, and our sweet old Japanese lady driver was nice enough not to be condescending about the fact that we were so obviously intoxicado. I remember taking a bath, and tithing to a certain deity via means of a round white hole filled with water, and insisting on trying to find and wear a t-shirt which in fact was still at home… and that's about it, until early the next morning when I woke up with a sad, sad head and a toe with a nasty blister.
We got up, got clean, checked out, went in search of food, found an honest-to-God Bob's Big Boy, decided we simply must eat there on sheer principle. The kitsch factor was the place's only selling point; the miasma inside was Greasy Spoon Classic, and the food matched. Afterward we cruised Hollywood proper, considering our options... go see a movie at Mann's Chinese Theater? The movie showing was the one with Kate Beckinsale as a vampire - pass, thanks. Go shopping down on Melrose? Couldn't find a parking spot anywhere close to the range in which our hungover asses were willing to walk. Finally, after a half-hour or so of cruising around, we decided that we'd seen enough of the freakshow that is Hollywood from the comfort and safety of our car, and really just wanted to go back to sweet home San Diego. So we did, and happily I remembered that it was Emmy night, so of course I watched them. But that's another entry. =)
All in all, we had a good adventure in Smell-A, got out intact and earned some funny memories. All's well that ends well!
So this weekend Wee and I loaded the pup into the back of our shiny new 4Runner and hit the road for Addulam Lodge, the family's cabin in the Mogollon Rim area of central Arizona, about a half-hour north of Payson. Traffic was, predictably, heavy, but we were comfortable in our new rig and happy to be getting out of town.
As we approached Phoenix we saw one of my favorite landmarks – the abandoned Phoenix Trotting Park. Viewed from I-10, the huge abandoned grandstand has a funky art-deco style that makes it look like a set piece for an alien locale from some 60's sci-fi show – one can just imagine the seats filled with bumpy-faced spectators beholding a loin-cloth clad Captain Kirk posturing his way through a gladiator-style battle against their baddest warrior. Here are some pics of it from the fascinating website Lost America (check out Gallery 3, sixth item down), and here is a history of the site taken from the Arizona League website:
Trotting Park, west of Litchfield Road, opened in 1962 and is highly visible from I-10. Briefly after opening a 100 year flood occurred, washing out bridges across the Agua Fria River.
Flooding made it impossible for people to reach events and subsequently the organizers went bankrupt and the site was donated to Grand Canyon University with the stipulation that the site be operated as a rodeo grounds for 2 years. After 2 years the park was placed up for sale.
About 5+ years ago the site was used as a movie set for an explosion scene**. Despite efforts to get all the birds and pigeons out of the structure approx. 500 pigeons were killed as a result of the explosion. Naturally, there was an outcry from animal lovers. Roles Inn later bought the site (date unknown) and is currently converting the old trotting park into a horse motel and RV park.
I have an inexplicable love for this place, albeit that I've only seen it from a distance. The architecture is just so whimsical and odd in a nostalgic retro way, and its desolation only serves to add to its sense of intrigue. I like the plan that these Roles Inn folks came up with for the place, but I've seen little evidence of renovation so far. If I ever became ridiculously wealthy somehow, I swear I would buy the place and turn it into… something. A bed and breakfast? The world's largest cyber-pub? Or just a kick-ass desert mansion – turn the enclosed grandstand into a huge greenhouse and create my own Garden of Eden. A girl can dream…
Anyway, we had a good time hanging out with Wee's mom, brothers Mickey and Shawn, and Shawn's wife Lauren at the cabin – the weather was hot hot hot, unusually so for a location with an elevation of over 7,000 feet, so we didn't venture out as much as I'd have liked. We didn't really even ride the quads much – I rode one around the back field a little to refamiliarize myself with how it worked, and Wee and his mom went zooming around on the roads a little (yeah, his mom rides ATV's – how cool is she?), but that was about it. It was still a great change of scene, though. The cabin is backed by national forest, so looking out back you don't see any other cabins, just field and forest and sky. We saw a small herd of female elk in the woods near the road up and a coyote slinking down the hill behind the cabin. At night you can step out on the back deck and see the Milky Way spilling across the darkness and the shimmering stars - a rare and wonderful sight for the city-dweller I've become. Being there reminds me of being in Oregon. I really love that place, and we're going to do our best to support keeping it in the family for as long as possible.
So here we are, home again, the 4Runner wearing the red dust of Arizona like a Little League uniform with its first grass stain – proud proof that it's in the game now. I miss having not seen fireworks this year, sparkly-things slut that I am, but being at the cabin was great too. I'm already looking forward to our next vacation from this daily grind…
Over the past 18 days, I have been in six different states - that's U.S. states, mind you, not mental ones - specifically: California, Arizona, Colorado, Nebraska, Nevada, and Oregon. All of the travel was family-related - three weekends ago I was working on my mother-in-law's new Second Look store; the following weekend I was at Crawford family reunion (reference my previous post); and this weekend I was in Klamath Falls to see my brother Thom and his wife and son, along with Suzi, Pete, Andy and my folks. I feel like my new title should be Family Goodwill Ambassador. Mind you, I've been quite happy to have face-time with the fellow swimmers in my gene-pool… but I'm ready to be a hermit again for a while.
Of course, before that happens, I do have one last familial bonding session ahead of me - I’m going to Vegas in mid-August with Mom-in-law Judy and all three of my Rhodes sister-in-laws to attend the ASD Trade Show. I'm really looking forward to this one, for several reasons: to bond with the other Rhodes girls a little; to enjoy fine Sin City accomodations and not have to pay for them (the trip is Judy's birthday present to all the girls, and a fine one it is; we're staying at the Venetian, hi-ho!); and to see the glory of the ASD show - 1,000+ booths' worth of screaming purveyors of "variety and general retail merchandise" pitching their wares in a veritable madhouse of bargain wholesale shopping. Judy has decided to make all of us her associate buyers in a sort of contest. We all have a certain budget, and she will track the merchandise each of us buys - each of us will receive 5% of the profits from our purchases, and whoever's merchandise makes the most profit for the store by the end of the year will get a $100 bonus. I figure all of us have our own strengths going into it: Mandy has the biggest advantage from having managed the store and knowing what sells, as well as being very in-tune with fashion trends; Lauren also works at the store and sees what sells; Christine has a good eye for fashion and is a veteran shopper; I myself am the only professional buyer in the group, although my retail experience is rusty. I'll be curious to see how it all pans out!
Between now and then, however, I’m looking forward to holing up in my house for a while and getting some equilibrium back. A loner chick like me can take only so much socializing before the craving for one's own space and free time becomes damned near pathological…
Wee and I attended the 2nd Crawford Family Reunion last weekend, once again held at the surprisingly lovely, lodge-like Lied Conference Center in Nebraska City, NE. The Crawford clan is by and large a warm, friendly, jovial group of people, so seeing them all again was really pretty enjoyable. Bill bore up like a trooper under the onslaught of hugging and small talk, and (mostly) good-natured teasing about our tendency toward being the last to show up at any given time. Our immediate branch of the family has gotten a rep among certain of the more uptight elements among the Heartland contingent for being boozers - basically because we didn't bother hiding from the teetotalor aunties the fact that we had a couple of cocktails in the evenings (and even the late afternoon - but it WAS 5:00 where we lived...) - our intake was completely moderate, and we weren't the only cousins drinking. Being from the West Coast, however, I think there was a preconceived notion of what our lifestyle would be, so our imbibing probably just reinforced the mild suspicions of deviancy that were sowed in parochial Midwestern brains by what they read and saw on TV, or stories they'd heard from others who'd braved a trip to the Wild West and survived to serve up accounts of strange Left Coast ways. Still, it was easy enough to decide to be oblivious to any such nonsense, and it did give the cluckers something a little juicy to peck at, so it's all good. The crew of cousins we hung out with in the evenings were funny, personable and totally unpretentious - we enjoyed their company a lot.
Anyway, I had fun chatting and catching up - and now know way more than I ever expected to about things like worm farming and the CRP subsidy program. Thinking about it afterward, though, I wish I'd made more of an effort to drag some "good old days" stories out of the older members of the family. Dad's always been pretty parsimonious with his stories about his life growing up, and I wish I'd thought to drag him into a conversation with some of his sisters and the older cousins and really get the scoop on history. I may still try to pull out some of the little tidbits I did glean, though, and see if he'll elaborate on them sometime… like the time he purt-near blew cousin Bill's face off with an M-80 rocket in a ditch, or the fact that his mom never had indoor plumbing till the day she died. Good times!
On Saturday night, I went firefly hunting in the stand of oak and hickory trees down behind the lodge with my cousin Mike, his sweet wife Lori, and their two smart and adorable boys, David and Danny. The glowbug population was more scarce than my last visit, probably due to the heat. The boys had no luck snagging any bounty, which I'd have felt worse about if they didn't have fireflies aplenty in their own backyard at home. They didn't seem too devastated about it; I think the thrill of the chase in the dark was excitement enough. I, however, did manage to snag a slow-moving keeper in my little boullion jar (which the boys had kindly brought for me, knowing I'd be up for a hunt). His little LED belly blinked furiously for me as we wandered around in the night-clad orchard. I wasn't sure he'd perform once we got back to our room, but once Bill turned off the TV and we settled down to sleep the green flash of Glowbug once again began flickering in earnest. Bill's tipoff to this was when I started giggling in the dark. I confess that I lost a foolish amount of sleep to firefly-gazing - I just hated to let the performance go to waste. In the morning I let it go - it freaked out like a tiny vampire at being exposed to the sun, but once it scrabbled its way into a patch of shade under some bark it seemed to be OK.
We ended up at the airport about 6 hours early, and found that the terminal had no lockers in which to stash our stuff, we couldn't check it until another several hours, and the airport had very little in the way of comfortable lounging establishments. So, in order to preserve our sanity, we decided to rent a car and tour the town. This may have been a better idea had the weather not been so nasty as to pretty much kill any notions of visiting one of the many parks dotting the city. However, we did behold the majesty of the Mutual of Omaha corporate HQ; we saw an big ornate building on top of a hill and drove up to take a look - it turned out, somewhat anti-climactically, to be Central High School; behind it was the Museum of Art (which we pondered visiting before deciding we weren't in the mood for art appreciation). After listlessly cruising the empty streets of downtown for a while, we decided our best option was to head to the university area and see what we found. This lead us to the Crossroads mall, where we bought a small pile of books from Barnes and Noble and hung out the rest of the afternoon. OK, hanging out at the mall isn't the most culturally enlightening thing to do when visiting a new city. Sightseeing in Omaha was more of an act of avoiding airport limbo rather than a bona-fide tourist impulse anyway, though, and the Crossroads met our three major requirements: air conditioning; decent food and beverage selection; someplace comfy to sit and read. Besides, what better place than the mall to observe the native populace and their culture? We noted that the fluffy-perm look, with optional high-rise bangs and crispy texture via liberal application of hair-styling products, is still as popular a look for today's Omaha maiden as it was for everyone else in the late 80's; ditto for pastel frost eyeshadow. Among the menfolk, mullets have not lost their appeal, although the dominant haircut is a short, neat, completely untrendy cut reminiscent of military barbering - probably very comfortable under ball caps and guaranteed not to earn you any disapproving looks in church. NASCAR and sports-related apparel is as hot as hot can be. Go Huskers!
At any rate, I'm glad we went - it was a change of scenery, a chance to spend some time with a group of nice people with whom I share genes, and an opportunity to make my dad really happy just by our being there. Even when set in the Hell-spawned sauna of south-eastern Nebraska in midsummer, all told it was a fine way to spend a weekend.
The city of Avalon on Catalina Island is one of the best places I've ever vacationed. Bill and I went there for our first wedding anniversary, and this past weekend my excellent husband made all the travel arrangements for us to return for my birthday. We caught a boat out of Dana Point just north of Camp Pendleton, which is a lot quicker than driving all the way up to Long Beach. The weather was beautiful. We played with Bill's GPS on the way over and watched the water fooming off the hull in bright white sprays.
After we arrived and got checked into our hotel, we rented a golf cart - that's the main form of transport for locals on the island, as well as tourists - and cruised on up on the "scenic route" in the hills above the harbor. We managed to take a wrong turn up a street that we weren't supposed to be on and almost got creamed by a tourist bus, but we survived… It was a hell of a lot of fun to zip around on the cart, check out the expensive houses at the top of the island, and look out over the harbor and the sea.
We also stopped by the Casino, Catalina's main large-event locale - a large multi-levelled cylinder with a tile roof and some of the most gorgeous art-deco murals and décor I've ever seen. The murals on the outside wall - stylized underwater scenes - are exactly the style of art I would make if I had sufficient imagination and talent. Being at the Casino reminds me of being in Norwich Cathedral. I can't find words to describe that feeling without sounding trite and Hallmarky - there's just a strange sense of peace I get from both places. After we returned the cart, we applied ourselves enthusiastically to marinating our livers via tropical libations at a couple of different bars on the waterfront; I sorta remember getting back to the hotel.
The next day found us up early, but with fairly significant hangovers. Troopers that we are, however, we rallied and scouted up breakfast, then walked down to the rentals pier and bought tickets for an underwater "semi-submarine" fish-watching tour. The sub was cool - you sit about 5 feet underwater, and look through huge convex portholes with red "torpedo" buttons which, for $1.00 a pop, you could press to shoot little food pellets into the water to attract more fish to your window. Enticements weren't really necessary, though - I guess the fish learn pretty quickly that the boat is a mobile snack machine, because they swarm it consistently. There were hundreds of them - smelts that looked like monster versions of the neons I used to keep in a tank; dinner-plate sized gray fish called opal-eyes; spiky, ugly (but probably tasty) calico bass; and a smattering of the bright marigold-colored garabaldis the island is renowned for. They all live in the giant kelp forests that stretch up 40 feet or more from the ocean floor - great bursting plumes of sunlit silver-speckled green fronds, wafting gently in the tide. (The next time I need a moment of Zen, that's the scene that I'll be calling up from the mental archives). At one point, as if on cue, a sea lion swam past our windows, and he seemed to grin at us as he oscillated by (yeah, I know their faces always look that way - but I don't guess he'd mind the characterization). After the tour, we decided to rent a peddleboat and tool around the harbor. It was cool to be out on the water, but we got hot and tuckered out pretty quickly (reference hangover comment from above).
After lunch we bought a couple of books and basically hung out like lazy lumps on the pier for the rest of the afternoon, reading or just watching the people and boats and birds. Our boat home left an hour before sunset. As we waited to board, we noticed two sea lions swimming in the water right in front of us. Then, to everyone's amazement, they began scaring up flying fish - and damned if those fish don't actually fly in the air with those whizzing fins of theirs, in some cases 100 feet or more before they dive back in the water. They don't seem to have much directional control, though - they just go straight until they can't go any farther. One of them hit the dock with a resounding thunk - I suspect he became sea lion chow shortly thereafter. Adding to the last-minute wildlife exhibition, about a half-hour into the trip, Bill noticed something in the waves - we realized it was fins, then a dolphin came leaping up out of a wave; a pod of them had seen the boat and come over to check us out. I'd never seen dolphins in the sea before. We passed them all too quickly, but I looked back to see them leaping around in our wake, seeming to find it amusing. You can't make this kind of shit up without it sounding hokey; but in real life it was a cool finale for a most excellent weekend.
Quiz: Who was backstage at the Kid Rock show at the Universal Amphitheatre in Hollywood this past Saturday night?
a.) Ron Jeremy, pr0n star extraordinaire
b.) A variety pack of Hollywood's music industry hangers-on
c.) Tess
d.) All of the above
If you guessed "d", give yourself a gold star, smiley face and/or a hearty "Well done!" for your cleverness. Yes, friends, this weekend I partied like� well, if not a rock star, then certainly the groupie of one.
I drove up to L.A. to meet up with some old friends from high school (Nicole, Lucas and Kristina). Nicole and Lucas, incidentally, have their own links to fame - Nicole is a personal assistant to Robert Goulet and his wife, and Lucas is an aspiring screenwriter with a script in development in Ireland (so far they've apparently signed the lead singer from "The Commitments" for a major role, and are courting the roommate from "Notting Hill" for another), and has been talking to Tim Russ, aka Tuvok on Voyager, about developing another one. Kristina, as it turns out, works for the House of Blues corporate offices, and thus is able to get passes for pretty much any show playing at one of their many venues. Therefore, she graciously offered up the evening's entertainment in the form of backstage passes to the Kid Rock show. Am I a Kid Rock fan? Well, no. I could accurately identify maybe a couple of his songs if they came on the radio (most reliably, the one where he screams "My name is Kid! Rock! Rock!"); mostly I�m aware of his existence via the press he gets for being Pamela Anderson's squeeze. But hell - the people-watching opportunities were more than sufficient for me to check it out, and so we did.
I have to admit that there's just something very satisfying about having a pass stuck to your chest that lets you go places that other people only wish they could go. As we stood watching the show itself (which actually wasn't bad - the Kid is a pretty energetic performer, and there were pyrotechnics, which is always a good thing), several people came up to us and tried to wheedle a pass from us. One of them almost got away with it - it was dark, the music was loud, and when he approached me in his red sweatshirt I thought he was one of the many security folks who come up and make sure you're kosher to be where you are - so I nudged Lucas and asked him to hand me the paper pass we had as additional authorization; but as I did, the kid blew it by saying "Man, I have to get backstage at a show before I leave on Wednesday�" at which point I wised up and informed him that there was nothing I could do for him. Poor sucka.
Anyway, after watching a couple of songs' worth of the show, we decided to head on back. "Backstage" consisted of an open-air pavilion, partially covered with a canopy, where people milled around, drank free beer and wine, and checked each other out. At one end was a table laid out with a veritable mountain of tortilla chips, salsa and veggies, which mostly went ignored. We grabbed drinks and settled in to watch and to chat with Kristina's many associates. (That girl knows how to network - she seemed to be chummy with everyone, even the guards at the various gates. Backstage she flitted about like a bee with pigtail braids in place of antennae, pollinating her prospects and buzzing back periodically to make sure we were cool. She was just the kind of host I like, really; casually attentive with minimal stress). I'd dressed very low-key - my hipster faded flare-leg jeans, black sandals, and a silky long-sleeved maroon shirt (which one rockabilly dude really liked - he touched my sleeve and said the material felt exactly like rose petals - which it does, actually. Plus, its color completely masked red wine spills, which turned out to be a handy feature in the jostling crowd). Sadly, the true celebrities kept to the more exclusive backstage area and did not emerge to mingle with civilians, and we had neither the credentials nor the bravado to try to enter that zone. Kristina had gotten Nick back there to meet Duran Duran once, but since none of us were rabid Kid Rock fans, there didn't seem to be any point in pushing it. The closest thing to a celebrity sighting we had was that of the illustrious Mr. Jeremy, who appeared near the periphery and held minor court there. He was a short, fat, vaguely greasy looking older guy in an aloha shirt with spooky blue eyes and a bushy mustache.
Despite the lack of stargazing, though, the scene was still rich with people-watching potential. As you would expect, there was a wide array of fashions and freakshows on display... Kid and Pam wanna-bes - stringy-haired men in wife-beaters and fedoras and skanky, lacquered women in patent leather microminis; fashionista groupie chicks in low-slung hot pants and prefab tits, casting calculating glares at each other and hopeful glances at the passageway to the celebrity section; a smattering of classic leather-and-chain punks; a contingent of strutting gangsta boys, all attitude and gold chains; and a fair number of just regular folks like us, probably mostly employees like Kristina and their guests. No one hassled us, and we were pretty much content to be extras.
Anyway, after it became apparent that the crowd was thinning and no luminaries were to be forthcoming, we decided to move on. We drove down to Kristina's office building on Sunset Boulevard. There was a party on the 22nd floor in an office that seemed more like a rich boys' frat house - pool table, big screen TV with couch, a well-stocked snack area with copious liquor in the glass-front fridge�. We ended up wandering back to an dark office at the end of the hall with a black leather couch, a bank of expensive monitors, and a wall of windows with a spectacular vista of the flat glowing grid of Hollywood. As we sat there admiring the view, and passing around a certain something, a guy walked in - we said hi, and he said "Welcome to my office." We apologized for intruding and polluting his office, but he was completely cool with it, and sat down and hung out with us. His name was "Speaks" - the business card he gave us confirmed that he was strictly a one-namer - and he said he did visual effects and editing for all the major television production companies, rattling off a laundry list of shows and commercials that his team had worked on, the details of which escape me (reference the free wine mentioned earlier, etc.). Anyway, we hung out there for quite a while - Speaks was enthusiastic about passing out cards when we left and saying he hoped to see us again, which was a sweet albeit probably transient gesture. Eventually we descended to the 11th floor for a quick look at the House of Blues office where Kristina worked - very groovy d�cor - and then down to ground level, where we walked to a nearby after-hours nightclub. The name and details of this place elude me, except that it had industrial-looking black on black d�cor and lots of carefully hip people angling for a last-minute hookup. We got back to Kristina's place just before dawn and collapsed gratefully.
So that was my big night out amidst the Hollywood music scene. I saw Kid Rock shake his money-maker, met some cool folks, got reacquainted with great old friends, maintained a very optimal buzz throughout the evening, and somehow managed to dodge any sort of bad news... even if I didn't get to have a heart-to-heart with Pammie Anderson, it was still a rocking good time. And I get to mark "go backstage at a rock show" off my list of things to do before I die. W00t!
P.S. Where was Bill during all of this? In Phoenix, chatting with America's Toughest Sheriff and Congressional candidate Sal DiCiccio at a fundraiser hosted by my in-laws. (Stay posted to Bill's blog for details of that evening). Yes, hobnobbing with minor celebrities seems to be our bag lately...
Last weekend Bill and I, with our friends Todd and Wyoming, took a whirlwind trip to Vegas. We stayed at the Luxor, which was a surprisingly nice experience - surely a hell of a lot better than the Stinkycana - I mean, Tropicana, where we stayed last time. I also really liked that they had a corridor linking them to the Mandalay Bay, which is a beautiful casino that we could not afford to stay in.
Mandalay Bay holds good memories for us because of the brush with celebrity we had there; we were playing blackjack when one of our group looked over to the table next to ours, and whispered, "Hey, isn't that Helen Hunt over there?" Sure enough, it was, along with her then-husband Hank Azaria, and someone who we thought to be Will Farrell from SNL. The kicker was the guy we didn't notice until a bit later, who was sitting back to back with Bill, in a black coat and black baseball hat - Kevin Spacey. Their table was making a lot of noise - fine with us, but Bill used it as an opportunity to interact with fame in his own unique way... by tapping Spacey on the shoulder, and, when he turned, asking him very politely and seriously if they wouldn't mind keeping it down at the table, since he was trying to concentrate on his cards. Spacey said, "Who are you talking to?", not aggressively, but as if just mildly perplexed that a regular guy would dare to ask HIM something like that, especially when he wasn't one of the loud ones. Bill repeated his request, then when faced with a blank look, laughed and said he was just kidding, and turned back around. No gushing, "I love your movies you're my favorite actor ever can I have an autograph" type of fan spiel - just typical Billish dry humor. Gotta dig that. =) Turned out they were there to film that regrettable movie, "Pay It Forward"; but no one had even heard of the movie then, so we got a bit of a scoop there. Should have sold the story to some gossip magazine for their "Celebrity Sightings" section.
But I digress. The highlight of our latest trip was getting another opportunity to see The Blue Man Group - who, conveniently, were also at the Luxor. Bill and I are ridiculously fond of The Blue Man Group (you may recognize them from the Intel commercials they did a while back). I'm not sure what exactly it is about the show that gets us. It's really funny, and the effects are very well done... like the neon desert scene, with leaping stick figures that suddenly pop out from the screen and begin to walk across the stage. Visually, the show is stunningly colorful and wonderfully messy. Then there's the music they make with their battery of invented instruments, made from things like PVC pipes and 55 gallon drums. It's unique, energetic and stirring - the vibrating bass tones thump you square in the chest as if the music is pushing itself into you, and the frenetic rhythms pounded out by their troop of dancing Day-Glo skeleton drummers mainline right into the part of your brain stem hard- wired to dig tribal beats. The show is relentlessly interactive, from the music, to the various written message displays, to the unwitting audience guest-stars (one of whom was our own Toddler - his mouth pried open by the blue trio and a little tubular camera placed so as to display the up-close glory of his tonsils on the large TV screen above the stage), to the tidal wave of crepe paper the audience pulls down from the back of the seating area in endless swaths until everyone is engulfed in a sea of undulating white waves (my favorite part of the show).
Beyond all this, though, there's just something compelling about the contrasts found in the Blue Men themselves... Their glossy blue alien skin and proletariat matte black pajamas; their odd blend of impassivity and intense curiousity; the strange innocence of their wide-eyed fascination with the audience, each other, and the results of their own strange actions. Wordless and ingenuous, with a fondness for sweet junk foods (you'd have to be there), they're like genius children raised by housepets - the bug-eyed expressionless faces of geckos, the energetic attentiveness of dogs, and the capricious curiousity of cats. They're completely delightful.
Anyway, I could spew adjectives all day trying to describe what is essentially undescribable; instead I just strongly suggest that you go and see them if you ever have a chance.
Other than Blue Man, the rest of the weekend was fun enough - we went down to the Strip and saw the Fremont St. light show. We taxied over to the Hilton to see the Star Trek section; we didn't do the ride 'cause it was expensive, but we had fruity galactic cocktails in Quark's Bar - an experience nearly ruined for Bill in his disappointment that the Klingon chick was MIA (don't ask). Wy, the non-geek in the group, was generously tolerant of the geekfest. =) Drank lots of cocktails, did some good ol' gambling. The others played roulette with a few hands of blackjack; I mostly stuck to the cards instead. Rather unsocial of me, but I was just really into playing blackjack for some reason. The dealers were capricious, but in the end I came out only down about $15 for the weekend - which, considering I was $170 down earlier in the evening and another $45 down the night before, was pretty damned lucky. So I have yet another reason to like the Mandalay Bay. All in all, it was a nice break from reality. Vegas is good