I have to admit that I came to LA with a lot of pre-conceived notions and, well, let's just call them what they are, prejudices about the left coast, but I gotta tell you, dyed-in-the-wool New Yorker that I am, I don't hate LA the way I thought I would. I'm not ga-ga over it and dying to move here the way I was about the Rocky Mountains, but it totally does not suck.
Now, my rep tells me that I got extremely lucky since it rained buckets on Sunday, but by the time I landed on Sunday night, the rains were finished, and there was a very brisk breeze to keep things moving. It was about 50 degrees, and frankly, it was beautiful. I'm being put up at The Beach House Hotel in Hermosa Beach, and I gotta say, stepping out onto the balcony to look at the Pacific Ocean a hundred yards away isn't too awful, either.
The weather has been beautiful -- I keep comparing it to those gorgeous and clear high country days in Colorado.
Even better, I haven't experienced any of the fabled Los Angeles traffic jams.
LA really put on the party dress for me, I guess she knew that I was coming with a jaundiced eye and needed to have my mind changed a bit.
The work I'm out here for has gone relatively smoothly -- looked at 8 press forms over the course of yesterday's 15-hour marathon press check session (btw, the mailer is going to be guh-huh-horgeous), which meant that I didn't get back to the hotel until after 1:00 a.m. this morning, but it did mean that I got to sleep in.
And let's see, yesterday I was taken to lunch at the Pacific Dining Car, which has that hokey old power-broker feel to it. It felt like the kind of place where Los Angeles politicians might eat rather than celebrities. By the same token, it also had that air of being one of those "special occasion" restaurants, you know, where a family goes to celebrate their first kid being accepted into Harvard. A little bit fuddy-duddy and corny, but a fine meal nonetheless.
And to flip the card over onto its back, today she took me to THE IVY -- yes, the one you see in all the movies, complete with paparazzi flocked out in front waiting for someone famous to come out. I admit to being a little star-struck myself. We got to sit outside in a prime location where we could watch people coming & going, but alas, the celebrity sightings were minimal. Peter Fonda sat alone at a table with his sunglasses on, fiddling with his Blackberry. And celebrity tragedy/train wreck Jeff Conaway was there, looking a hundred, with his chief enabler, that truly terrifying girlfriend who shows up on "Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew." I mean, come onnnn -- Kenickie is a JUNKIE. How sad is that?
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Saturday, February 2, 2008
Did You Know... (Wonder-ful Trivia)
...that Michael Sembello, the same guy responsible for that crappy song "Maniac" from Flashdance, played guitar on FIVE Stevie Wonder albums, including the brilliant Fulfillingness' First Finale and Songs in The Key of Life? He even co-wrote a song on Songs, which by the way ought to be on everyone's Desert Island Disc list.
I KNOW.
...that Stevie wrote "Tears of a Clown" for The Miracles and "Tell Me Something Good" for Rufus & Chaka Khan.
...that some of the background vocals on "Pasttime Paradise" were provided by an actual gospel choir AND real Hare Krishnas?
...that Stevie had 3 Album of the Year awards by the time he was 27 and 25 grammys in all by 2007. Holy blind guy, batman.
Well, that's just a few tidbits. Can you tell I'm in a Wonder-ful mood today?
I'll finish with a little thought that goes like this:
If God is Love
And Love is Blind
And Stevie Wonder is Blind
Isn't Stevie Wonder God?
I KNOW.
...that Stevie wrote "Tears of a Clown" for The Miracles and "Tell Me Something Good" for Rufus & Chaka Khan.
...that some of the background vocals on "Pasttime Paradise" were provided by an actual gospel choir AND real Hare Krishnas?
...that Stevie had 3 Album of the Year awards by the time he was 27 and 25 grammys in all by 2007. Holy blind guy, batman.
Well, that's just a few tidbits. Can you tell I'm in a Wonder-ful mood today?
I'll finish with a little thought that goes like this:
If God is Love
And Love is Blind
And Stevie Wonder is Blind
Isn't Stevie Wonder God?
Scruffy Duffy's Farewell!
Kids, Scruffy Duffy's is CLOSING on February 6th.
I remember when it was just another 8th Avenue bar, way back when 8th Avenue was scary as hell, it was far too scary to even walk in the door. Then Pat and Eileen took it over from their father, renamed it Scruffy Duffy's, and opened their doors. I had a roommate who got a job bartending there, and Scruff's became a regular haunt. Those were the days when you didn't start getting ready to go out until 10 pm, and that was on a Tuesday night. I don't know how I did it, but in those days I consumed my fair share of brown liquor at Scruffy's on lots and lots of school nights and still got up and went to work clear-eyed and sharp. There were peanut shells on the floor, cable spools for tables, and the floor was see-through. We showed up for Karaoke Thursdays anyway.
In the late 90's there was a core group of regulars, your Janey included, who used to camp out at the front of the bar around the pool table. We would lounge in the two park benches at the front of the bar and the front windows and at the front of the bar. I plugged my five dollar bills into the jukebox and played "The Female of the Species (Is More Deadly Than the Male)" nine hundred and forty five times. I thank Alan the bartender for not hating me for making him suffer through it at least twice a night. The Rev used to come in on Ash Wednesday and give ashes. Shelly invented a drink, served in a pint glass. It was 1 shot of Absolut Currant and the rest of the pint was filled with club soda. It became known as the Shelly Cocktail, as in, "What'll you have? A Shelly?" You went to the john a lot, but you never got drunk, just mildly happy, and you could stay all night just cruising at 33,000 feet of buzzed. It was a neighborhood place. Roni and Sean were the most beautiful and in-love couple in the neighborhood, until they weren't.
Joe Pool ran the table almost every night. When he wasn't there, Tom W would take over with his funny break. Everyone followed the house pool rules (Rule #1: Don't be an idiot. Pretty good life advice, too).
There were scandals and hookups and fights and feuds.
The bartenders were part of our little family, Bob, Sean, Alan, Enda, Dermot.
Pat used to take regulars on "outings" -- to the Renaissance Fair, Booze Cruises, and once he even chartered a bus to take us to Great Adventure. We were on a Scruffy's booze cruise one night in August 1997, and we all drank tons of beer and I danced to salsa music until my feet in their strappy black sandals bled. We came off the boat and piled into cabs and didn't believe the cab driver when he told us "Princess Diana! She dead!" For some reason, none of us went back to Scruffy's that night -- we went across the street to JR's instead, where the Irish contingent of our group were all in tears. I remember the fine shine went off the night and I went home.
Pat would turn New Year's Eve into a "members only" night to keep out the bridge and tunnel riff-raff who would try to come in after watching the ball drop.
For my birthday in 1999 I asked Pat to hire Karaoke Dave from the early years, and he did it! I got to have my own private karaoke birthday party at Scruffy Duffy's. As a present, my ex-boyfriend gave me his Levi's denim jacket, perfectly worn in (falling to bits, actually), with the zebra striped collar he had had his grandmother sew onto it. He went home with a girl who wanted to be my friend and never would be after that. I still have that jacket and wear it occasionally.
Over the years, Pat made gradual improvements to Scruffy's, in lockstep with the upscalification of the neighborhood. The crowd got a little more uppish, and pretty soon the regular crowd scattered a bit, finding the crowds of suit-wearing Ogilvy ad guys and the ones from the financial firms that had set up shop in Times Square a little too "duuuuuude" to tolerate. The regulars scattered to other bars, other neighborhoods.
We do still drop in from time to time, and we always get a warm welcome from Pat.
So now, the Scruffy's era is coming to an end, not with a bang but not quite with a whimper, either.
Thanks, Pat. It was fun.
I remember when it was just another 8th Avenue bar, way back when 8th Avenue was scary as hell, it was far too scary to even walk in the door. Then Pat and Eileen took it over from their father, renamed it Scruffy Duffy's, and opened their doors. I had a roommate who got a job bartending there, and Scruff's became a regular haunt. Those were the days when you didn't start getting ready to go out until 10 pm, and that was on a Tuesday night. I don't know how I did it, but in those days I consumed my fair share of brown liquor at Scruffy's on lots and lots of school nights and still got up and went to work clear-eyed and sharp. There were peanut shells on the floor, cable spools for tables, and the floor was see-through. We showed up for Karaoke Thursdays anyway.
In the late 90's there was a core group of regulars, your Janey included, who used to camp out at the front of the bar around the pool table. We would lounge in the two park benches at the front of the bar and the front windows and at the front of the bar. I plugged my five dollar bills into the jukebox and played "The Female of the Species (Is More Deadly Than the Male)" nine hundred and forty five times. I thank Alan the bartender for not hating me for making him suffer through it at least twice a night. The Rev used to come in on Ash Wednesday and give ashes. Shelly invented a drink, served in a pint glass. It was 1 shot of Absolut Currant and the rest of the pint was filled with club soda. It became known as the Shelly Cocktail, as in, "What'll you have? A Shelly?" You went to the john a lot, but you never got drunk, just mildly happy, and you could stay all night just cruising at 33,000 feet of buzzed. It was a neighborhood place. Roni and Sean were the most beautiful and in-love couple in the neighborhood, until they weren't.
Joe Pool ran the table almost every night. When he wasn't there, Tom W would take over with his funny break. Everyone followed the house pool rules (Rule #1: Don't be an idiot. Pretty good life advice, too).
There were scandals and hookups and fights and feuds.
The bartenders were part of our little family, Bob, Sean, Alan, Enda, Dermot.
Pat used to take regulars on "outings" -- to the Renaissance Fair, Booze Cruises, and once he even chartered a bus to take us to Great Adventure. We were on a Scruffy's booze cruise one night in August 1997, and we all drank tons of beer and I danced to salsa music until my feet in their strappy black sandals bled. We came off the boat and piled into cabs and didn't believe the cab driver when he told us "Princess Diana! She dead!" For some reason, none of us went back to Scruffy's that night -- we went across the street to JR's instead, where the Irish contingent of our group were all in tears. I remember the fine shine went off the night and I went home.
Pat would turn New Year's Eve into a "members only" night to keep out the bridge and tunnel riff-raff who would try to come in after watching the ball drop.
For my birthday in 1999 I asked Pat to hire Karaoke Dave from the early years, and he did it! I got to have my own private karaoke birthday party at Scruffy Duffy's. As a present, my ex-boyfriend gave me his Levi's denim jacket, perfectly worn in (falling to bits, actually), with the zebra striped collar he had had his grandmother sew onto it. He went home with a girl who wanted to be my friend and never would be after that. I still have that jacket and wear it occasionally.
Over the years, Pat made gradual improvements to Scruffy's, in lockstep with the upscalification of the neighborhood. The crowd got a little more uppish, and pretty soon the regular crowd scattered a bit, finding the crowds of suit-wearing Ogilvy ad guys and the ones from the financial firms that had set up shop in Times Square a little too "duuuuuude" to tolerate. The regulars scattered to other bars, other neighborhoods.
We do still drop in from time to time, and we always get a warm welcome from Pat.
So now, the Scruffy's era is coming to an end, not with a bang but not quite with a whimper, either.
Thanks, Pat. It was fun.
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Has Anyone Noticed...
...that you never see singer/songwriter Rufus Wainwright and figure skater Johnny Weir in the same room?
I'm just saying.
I'm just saying.
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
What I Did for the Past 30 Days
1. I had a bad birthday. A miserable birthday. Something like 3 people remembered it was my birthday. One of them was my father, who sang his annual "Happy Birthday to youuuuu" into my voice mail. He was calling from the hospital and sounded weak and sick, but still managed to call his Baby Girl on her birthday. I deleted the message at the end of the day, telling myself that I would call him on Sunday, after the morning news shows so we could have one of our talks about the jerks who populate the Republican party.
2. On Sunday morning at approximately 2:00 a.m., Dad died. So I didn't get to call him, after all. Tony Blankley will have to go on being a jerk without Dad to comment on it.
3. On Thursday, we buried him in the new National Cemetery of the Alleghenies (one of the early arrivals at this new cemetery built to accommodate the approximately 325,000 veterans living in Western Pennsylvania.) Quoth my younger brother, "I think this is probably the slowest Dad's ever driven on Clifton Road."
4. I became, at last, a full-time, permanent staffer at the company where I started in August. The wheels of HR turn slowly, slowly, slowly. I attended new-hire orientation. Apparently this company has grown so much and continues to grow that they are doing a weekly orientation with approximately 30 new hires every week.
5. Last week, as I turned the corner from 53rd Street onto Madison Avenue on my way to work, I heard a thump, then screams, and turned my head in time to see two people get hit, then RUN OVER by a speeding yellow taxi, which then, missing me by inches, crashed into a building a foot in front of me. I watched a white-haired gentleman with blood on his head get to his feet and wander away. The woman was not so lucky. Though the police officer to whom I gave my statement said she was alive, she was face down and broken in the gutter. It was the worst thing I've ever seen in person. What I keep seeing is the look of disbelief on her face as she flew by me. What I keep wondering is -- how is she doing now? What happened to that man? And, had I been two or three seconds faster, I would have been crushed against the building by the cab. One down, eight to go.
So you see, it's been an unsettling kind of month for me. So I'm taking a little break.
2. On Sunday morning at approximately 2:00 a.m., Dad died. So I didn't get to call him, after all. Tony Blankley will have to go on being a jerk without Dad to comment on it.
3. On Thursday, we buried him in the new National Cemetery of the Alleghenies (one of the early arrivals at this new cemetery built to accommodate the approximately 325,000 veterans living in Western Pennsylvania.) Quoth my younger brother, "I think this is probably the slowest Dad's ever driven on Clifton Road."
4. I became, at last, a full-time, permanent staffer at the company where I started in August. The wheels of HR turn slowly, slowly, slowly. I attended new-hire orientation. Apparently this company has grown so much and continues to grow that they are doing a weekly orientation with approximately 30 new hires every week.
5. Last week, as I turned the corner from 53rd Street onto Madison Avenue on my way to work, I heard a thump, then screams, and turned my head in time to see two people get hit, then RUN OVER by a speeding yellow taxi, which then, missing me by inches, crashed into a building a foot in front of me. I watched a white-haired gentleman with blood on his head get to his feet and wander away. The woman was not so lucky. Though the police officer to whom I gave my statement said she was alive, she was face down and broken in the gutter. It was the worst thing I've ever seen in person. What I keep seeing is the look of disbelief on her face as she flew by me. What I keep wondering is -- how is she doing now? What happened to that man? And, had I been two or three seconds faster, I would have been crushed against the building by the cab. One down, eight to go.
So you see, it's been an unsettling kind of month for me. So I'm taking a little break.