THE RETURN TO B&B

Before this night, only Bucky the Bull had the distinction of a repeat visit, but I went back to Bourbon & Branch with Mofo and her friend El (who for some strange, bizarre reason has decided to move to LA from SF), and let me tell you: this place still rocks.

I had a drink called "a drink with no name". After 3 of them, I had a hard time remembering my own.

I think I'm turning into Karen from Will & Grace.

AND THE FASHION AWARD GOES TO...

CaGa outside the Red Room

CaGa matches her purse to the decor outside the place we're going. Wow. Who else that I know could then ever deserve the IMOL fashion award besides CaGa?!

That's right. And... you'll be pressed to find better company than she for places as red as the Red Room @ the Commodore Hotel.

Did I mention she's my stylist? Oh, well, yes, I may have... but that has nothing to do with the results, I swear.

LA REVE (THE DREAM)

So... I'm watching a movie that takes place in Vegas (Black 13 came up on the roullette table*), and I was reading the news about the Picasso painting which got a hole poked in it by Steve Wynn. The painting is called La Reve, as is the Cirque-du-Soleilish water show at the Wynn hotel (I stayed at the Wynn while in Vegas last, but I did not see the show as I was too busy winning money on the craps and roullette tables). What's really freaking me out right now is that a print of La Reve is looking out at me from the wall next to the TV which is situated across from where I am sitting.

Nora Ephron happened to be there to witness the Picasso painting poking event. Apparently, Steve has a depth perception problem and a skill for increasing a painting's worth overnight. I'm not a proponent of conspiracy propoganda, but... all I'm saying is how lucky we are to have a skilled writer of Ms. Ephron's caliber there to chronicle the event.

I'm sorry, but I'm a little suspicious. Though, I am amazed at how damaging something might potentially increase its worth with the mere act of creating an interesting back story for the artwork. Call me cynical, call me pale... I've spent six nights drinking ale. The best conclusions I've reached so far are spend more time outside and don't trust anything you read. Except the words that you see here.

Picasso was overrated. The phallic symbol in the subject painting (above) is so obvious, it's almost laughably offensive. Gives new meaning to the term "dickhead". Head & Shoulders, Johnson & Johnson. As I cocked my head, pondering my last statements, I sit satisfied knowing my critique of Pablo will someday be accepted by the rest of the art world.

*The Pick-up Artist, with Robert Downey, Jr. and Molly Ringwald, also contains a scene in Vegas involving betting Black 13 in roullette. It was on TV the next day after the Reve newsday. The movie I was half-watching that day starred John Cleese, Alicia Silverstone and Woody Harrelson but I never figured out its name, and it wasn't good for me to bother looking it up. All I'm saying is the signs are definitely all around us... I just have no clue what they all mean.

OLD ROOMMATES REVISITED

photo with AlCo from my last birthday party

Funny thing I learned this summer... no matter how quickly things change, your old roommates stay the same. So much radical change has occured in my life over the last few months. Mostly positive. Some negative, true, but easily handled.

The freedom from the grind I feel now outweighs the benefit of having a steady, paying job...

The people with whom I share my time now have different faces from before, I miss the ones from before, true, but I simply adore the ones that I now know (sorry just watched Breakfast at Tiffany's again for the Xteenth time, and the diction from the movie's dialogue sticks in my head).

I can also move back to the city now that my beautiful old treehouse of a home is being sold...

When I lived in the city last, I worked on the 10th floor of the Tiffany's building in Union Square for a talent management company. I ended up going out for an audition myself and started performing with an improv comedy troupe called Drunken Monkey. Then I hurt my ankle playing basketball and had to get an office job again. Fast forward - after four years working at a family law firm, I have become a domestic man of leisure with aspirations of going international. Today I'm playing basketball, watching movies, and listening to the Monkees as well as the Police's Synchronicity CD.

I think my digressions are trying to establish some kind of theme...

I was talking about old roommates and how they never change even though everything else around here does. AlCo was a roommate of mine for a long while. We had some good times... and some bad ones, too. I saw her a fair bit this week, and I realized something:

You can fix something that's broken, but not somebody. They have to fix themselves.

FRIDAY THE 13th

More synchronicity for you. 13 is my favorite number. If you read about the Vegas Adventures then you know it's also my lucky number. My oldest brother is exactly 13 years older than me [to the day], and he's come to visit SF from PA, and we watched the 13th Warrior. I also had 13 shots and can't remember what else I wanted to say about that... except that the De Matteo's scare me with their enthusiasm for the 13th Warrior [see link].

Double segue to... Top Drink of the Week goes to DiMaggio's for their chocolate-strawberry martini concoctions. Granted, I am partial to chocolate and strawberries for dessert, but add some alcohol to that and we've got a party in our mouths... mmmm, that sounds dirty for some reason.

Either everything is inter-connected like a masterly designed web of order and symmetry or I've become delusional from those shots.

Kevin Bacon has now done enough movies that 6 degrees are no longer necessary. I can now connect him with any actor, actress, or actron in 5 degrees or less! I guess the earth will keep shrinking as long people keep copulating and making bad movies.

The Census Bureau also says that on Monday morning at 7:46 a.m. ET we will have 300,000 million people in the U.S.A.* That means if each citizen and every immigrant donate just $1 to this blogger community... we can all go to Monte Carlo in the spring.

*The Census Bureau bases its statement on approximations and past trends and admits that the 7:46 a.m. landmark is just a further pile of government crap.

A WEEK IN THE LIFE OF IMOL

The Lookers.

The Rockers.

The Mockers and the Shockers.

The drinkers without wireless.

The thinkers and the fearless.

Cutenessextreme. And in the end... a stream of dreams.

... AND IMOL'S HIGHEST HONOR GOES TO: BOURBON & BRANCH!

The Knight of the Night has fulfilled his quest. And it was only fitting that MoFo was there. With her camera, of course. She does weddings, birthdays and other assorted parties if you need. So do I. I can even officiate a marriage thanks to the wonderful world of the wide web and the Church of the Spiritual Humanists. I started a radical sect within the church because of my objection to the terms "humanism". Not only is it difficult to say when you've had several too many cocktails, it's offensive to animals, all creatures - big and small.

Speaking of several too many cocktails... Bourbon & Branch rocked. Honestly, if I were an alcoholic, this place is heaven. I felt like I died. The menu was nothing short of exceptionally extraordinary.

Blood and Sand. The personal potable pick. It looks like blood. And it looks like sand. There's a bourbon taste to it. But that's what makes it Heaven, baby!

[It's now one week later and I've just been released escaped from a "spa" (with no internet!). Something about bourbon and scotch ruling the world when all I had actually said was that the Bourbons (of France) had ruled over the world of the Brits and Scots (but not the Irish!) for a time. A misunderstanding of 3's Company caliber as you can see. Now that internet has been restored, I can continue with these Chronicles of Nonsense.]

CLIMATE BEST BY GOVERNMENT TEST

The thing about Emerald Hills is this: it has an energy about it similar to what Austin Powers faced during his encounter with the femme-bots... cross-mojozination kinda feeling, if you know what I mean. If you don't then let me pull out an even more obscure reference to serve as an analogy: Emerald Hills is a cross between Wizard of Oz and a U2 song, or maybe rather a synthesis of sight and sound but not time, or even better - it's a Shire thing. Starring John Cusack and that desperate housewife, Talia... with a bunch of hobbits.

Okay, someone handed me the wrong cup of tea apparently. Fucking Californians can be so careless sometimes.

MO BETTER BLUE

The Blue Chalk Cafe. I have known this restuarant/bar since I first moved to California in '94. It's located in normally sunny Palo Alto - this weekend the clouds forced us to keep our layers on. The big news was that MoFo blessed the Peninsula with her presence - thing is, I had enticed her away from chilly San Francisco with promises of warmth and sunshine, but the only warmth I could provide were drinks from the Blue Chalk.

VeGa and MoFo also met for the first time. Which was interesting to me for several reasons. I have been spending the majority of my time with these two lovely lasses lately - and it's amazing they haven't met previously... but what occupied my mind while there was the fact this place was the site of a monumental evening for me - twelve years ago.

U. The one that got away. HeFe. My longest relationship (3 1/2 years). One night, HeFe and I met up with U at Blue Chalk for dinner. That's when I found out that U was moving in with some Colombian guy (an obvious surrogate for me, of course), whom she would eventually end up marrying. That same night, I ended up kissing HeFe right outside Blue Chalk. Realization. My record relationship with HeFe was really just a rebound from U. And a dozen years later, I'm finding it interesting that my life should in a way come together at the very place where it had splintered.

Sounds like a cause for celebration to me. Who's buying?