The Beermuda Triangle

The evening of the Fourth was spent at a party up in Whitley Heights, an area that looks like a valley in Mediterranean Europe. At dusk it is quite beautiful, a quality less commonly seen in Los Angeles as we keep her these days. Up in a large 20s Spanish style estate, the festivities were hosted by a 50-something music producer, who looked like someone who might have run around with the cast of My Best Fiend. He was like a gene-spliced hybridized love/hate child of Werner Herzog and Klaus Kinski. To be fair, he was maybe something less dark and more akin to Christopher Lloyd, as the professor-inventor type with crazy hair and totally outer limits.

RPP was kind of freaking out over the massive table load of pyrotechnic charges on display in the dining room. She's worked in the ER, and has seen the consequences of explosions on the human form; the effects are decimal. Having expressed her concern to the white-maned host, he replied, "YEAH! I've got to get really DRUNK, so we can set those off!"

Meantime, we four nestled into the couch-lined terrace. The air was balmy, and we had a view in the direction of the Hollywood Bowl, where the big show takes place. There really weren't very many people there, so the traffic was light, which can be a relief when you are tired at a party.

Still, for whatever reason, and maybe it's just that they were all drunker than I thought, every two to three minutes someone knocked over or dropped a beer bottle or glass in that 15 x 15 space. It was uncanny. I've been to plenty of parties with plenty of mishap, but I have never seen so much toppling with the tippling. It was like the necks were greased and the bottoms rounded. Laws of gravity were more strictly enforced in this zone. The constant clamor of thick glass on terra cotta tile gave me an idea for a drinking game, but one I was not rambunctious enough to instigate that particualr night, and at a stranger's house.

What if you took all the sandbagged beers (in college, that's what we always called it when people left the half-drunk and remnant bottles sitting around, 'sandbagging'), arranged them in pyramids, and did a little beer bowling? What's not fun about THAT? Somehow I think our host would have been up for it, but I'd already had a Stella Artois douse my white halter dress, and I wasn't in the mood for sticky feet, any more than I was up for tripping over that ottoman or having my flip-flop break as we were headed back down the hill.

One last thing. Think of this as a caveat to fumbling boys - do not use, "Don't I know you from somewhere?" as a pick up line. Furthermore, when it becomes clear that no amount of "where could I know you from," "did you work on this project," and "what school did you attend," is going to resolve the matter, LET IT GO. Because, face it Buddy, you HAVEN'T MET THE GIRL BEFORE. And no amount of wanting to know her is going to rewind history. Best to look forward and find something to actually talk about, so that some sort of bond can be formed. Devices don't work on all women, particularly when the conceit is so cleanly laid bare as deceit. So it doesn't really matter that you are a very good-looking twenty-something Director, if you haven't a speck of charm. At least, not to this one.