I Want to Go Home!

I miss the Little Cat. And the scary old "Portrait of Dorian Cat" toothless bag of bones one, too. (Though he's looking more like the portrait than the preternaturally youthful avatar, I don't discriminate because of looks. He WAS there first, and he honestly can't help being a cranky, needy, pissy old gay man. When he was young and beautiful, he was Rock Hudson in the Doris Day years. So now he's Quentin Crisp, what are you gonna do?)

Um, Didn't We Already Know About That?

Sometimes, an editor just needs to re-read the headline before hitting publish.

Happy Birthday to Me!

Yesterday was my birthday, and Judy decided that there was no way I was going to spend the day alone in Hermosa Beach.

So she whisked me off to Malibu. First stop, the Getty Villa, where we wandered the galleries until art fatigue set in. When it comes to museums, I've got about an hour and half, two hours -- tops -- in me. Then I start wandering aimlessly, woolgathering while gazing with tilted head at carved Roman busts, thinking to myself, "Wow, the Italians were really hot in those days, look at the cheekbones on Caligula!" or while staring into a vitrine holding the treasures from an Egyptian tomb, "I would totally wear those earrings that were buried with that queen, I wonder if they have knockoffs for sale in the gift shop," instead of serious arty thoughts like, "Wow, that is some important archeological shit they dug up."



We had lunch at someplace called the Malibu Country Mart. I was very excited because I thought that I might at last get to sample the local charms of Southern California, and that it might have stalls featuring local artisans. What it turned out to be was a mall. A very expensive mall, but a mall. On the upside, we sat next to Pierce Brosnan at lunch, and yes, he is still gorgeous. On the further upside, how can you not love a man who could have any supermodel on the planet and still chooses his chubby wife? I love that about him.

We drove back down the PCH to Santa Monica, where we had a drink at The Lobster while eavesdropping on a semi-drunk semi-pro named Sylvia (who, I want to know, under the age of 60 is named "Sylvia"? Working girls, I guess) fending off the advances of a horny drunken local while planning another assignation. One side of her loud bar cellphone convo: "Do you want to meet me at my hotel room or here at the bar?" Drunken local removed himself to the other side of the bar, where he proceeded to cast hurt looks in her direction when her "friend," some acne-scarred, Ed Hardy-wearing d-bag showed up. It was all so amusing.

Then it was off to dinner at The Hump.

Ohhhh, The Hump. Where does one begin to describe it? I can't. Except to say it was the best sushi I have ever eaten in my life. And in this funky little restaurant at the SANTA MONICA AIRPORT of all places. I KNOW. If you are ever in Santa Monica, with someone who has an expense account, make them take you to The Hump. Make sure there is an expense account involved, or if you are taking a date, make sure that the lay of a lifetime is guaranteed at the end of the night, because being presented with the bill may make your heart stop for a moment or two, and you want to be sure to get your money's worth. I'm not saying I would automatically put out for someone who took me to The Hump -- oh, well, who am I kidding? Actually, yes, yes I would put out for this sushi.

Greetings from LA (again)

Yes, I'm back in Los Angeles for another 9 days. The weather has been gorgeous since I arrived and I plan on getting in some quality beach time over the weekend.

Today we ate lunch at a venerable old Mexican restaurant located on the fringe of South Central. See photo above.

I don't understand when Angelenos talk about "the 'hood" as we're supposedly driving through it. My rep wanted to avoid the 405 coming back to Hawthorne, and so we drove back through "the 'hood," meaning South Central and Inglewood, which frankly, looked a lot nicer than my crappy neighborhood (Bushwick) in Brooklyn. Everytime she said, "this is the 'hood," I looked out of the car windows expecting to see junkies shooting up on street corners, layabouts trading cash for AK-47's out of the trunks of cars, trash in heaps, and burnt-out cars on the sidewalks. You know, like parts of New York, or Newark. Instead, I saw tidy, well-kept single-family homes (albeit some with bars on the windows), with nice, if not necessarily new, cars parked in front, and working class people going about their business.

I see scarier teenagers outside the Grand Street High School next to my subway stop, fachrissakes. We're talking oversized North Face parkas in July scary, you know what I'm talkin' about?

Is "the 'hood" a state of mind? Or do we have a different reality altogether in New York? Maybe it's all the sunshine.

Sully's Back in the Cockpit

...and did you know that there is now a new mandatory training module for Airbus pilots?