2001-01-07 - Evening
Sorry I haven�t written in a few days. I�ve been giving culture shock to a gal from South Dakota.
I need more vacations like this--vacations where I don�t hassle with going anywhere, but just hang back and let the friends and frivolity come to me. Where I get to play tour guide and do all the tacky shit that locals normally avoid. Where I drink mango margaritas that are as big as my head, eat stomach-busting chicken enchiladas smothered in mole sauce, and don�t have to worry about needing to use the bathroom on the long flight back.
Highlights:
1) Took V--the aforementioned South Dakotan--to a Cajun restaurant in the Gaslamp that has jazz on Thursday nights, followed by a dance club in the back that a friend-of-a-friend deejays at. Broke in the new leather jacket that I bought with some of my Christmas money--it makes me look like what my Buffy the Vampire Slayer Evil-Willow�s-parallel-universe vampire self would probably look like. Ran into about a dozen people I know. (This happens every time I go out in public in San Diego, and it boggles my mind. I lived in L.A. for 30-plus years and hardly ever had random encounters with acquaintances. The place is just too spread out--if you wanted to, you could live out your entire life in L.A. and never run into the same person twice. But San Diego still thinks it�s a small town. I go out here and before an hour�s gone by, without fail, I will run into someone I know. In a city of two million people.) Showed all those poseurish club-kidz what "break dancing" really is. Quote of the night: "Guys just don�t dance by themselves in Sioux Falls."
2) Went to dinner at the Hotel Del Coronado. (I can hardly afford even to lick the plates there, but hey, that�s what plastic is for.) Relearned why Murphy-Goode 1998 Reserve fume blanc is one of my Favorite Wines Ever.
3) Went to Old Town. Browsed aisle after aisle of Olvera Street-y Mexican-style kitsch. Attempted an impromptu performance of Mr. Creosote Goes to a Mexican Restaurant but left out the vomiting-and-exploding part. Barely.
Now, back to work.
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Writing about L.A. got me thinking about celebrity encounters. Life in L.A. can be anonymous and lonely, but although you can walk the streets all day and never see a friend, chances are you�ll see at least a couple of celebs, near-celebs, used-to-be-celebs, or might-be-but-you-can�t-remember-where-you-saw-them-celebs. Examples from my own stint there:
* Saw Erik Estrada (not the "ChiPs"-era Erik, but the fat, old and gray telenovela-star Erik) at a faux-�50s diner in Beverly Hills. He was with a young woman, and it looked like they were having a fight, but my table was too far away to hear them. I wish I had a funny story about it, but I don�t--he mostly just looked pathetic and sad.
* Spotted Mel Torme on a British Airways flight from London to LAX. I was a big fan of "Night Court" at the time so this was a minor thrill for me.
* Ran into LaWanda Page (Aunt Esther on "Sanford and Son"), again at LAX. She was in bad shape--she was in a wheelchair and looked as if she�d recently had a stroke--but she stopped me in the terminal, gave me an autographed picture, and said she�d pray for me. Um, OK.
* Got stuck sitting a couple of rows behind Abraham Benrubi (the fat goateed clerk guy on "ER"--wasn�t he in "Parker Lewis Can�t Lose" too?) at the Star Wars premier at Mann�s Chinese Theater. He himself seemed cool enough, but his friend--some little dweeb who used to be in all those unfunny promos on Comedy Central--had a toy light-saber, wouldn�t stop waving it all night, and was basically a complete dickhead. I wanted to see if shoving the light-saber up his ass would make his nostrils glow.
* Got flipped off by Dana Delany after I cut her off on the Hollywood Freeway. That pretty much ended the crush I had on her at the time.
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Only five more days till the Rocket From the Crypt show. I�d better take my wheelchair in to make sure all the rotating knives are good and sharp.
***
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