Thursday, June 29, 2006

Hollywood freaks on the Hollywood scene

Last weekend was my 2nd annual birthday/bachelor party trip. For those of you who haven't heard me mention this annual spectacle before, it's basically a bachelor party which happens to coincide with my birthday. In 2005 it was Las Vegas. This year: Los Angeles. And by Los Angeles, I mean Hollywood. What a bunch of freaks.

We started by driving down I-5 at the convenient hour of 6:30 pm because the bachelor, Cory, had a tough time getting off work in time to start drinking in the car. We picked him up from the Fruitvale BART station where we had a half-rack of Heineken mini-kegs waiting. I felt like a commando in the passenger seat handing out cans like I was loading ammunition into imaginary machine guns (our non-toned bellies, really); handing a fresh silver mini-keg to the back seat when they would hand me an empty shell.

It's never a good idea to drink in the car on a road trip unless you don't mind stopping every few yards to piss. Especially with 3 guys whose bladders aren't in sync. LLMB Reader #6 was driving, not drinking, so he didn't have the bladder issues the rest of us were having. But he was kind enough to oblige us our piss stops. That is until we reached Los Angeles. His patience having worn thin, he started pushing the bathroom stops to the exit AFTER we'd said we gotta go NOW.

Okay, enough with the pissing stories. For the actual bachelor party, we stayed at The Standard in West Hollywood. Hipster central. When we pulled up to valet park the car, the guy who took the keys looked like straight out of the Sabotage (Beastie Boys) video, complete with 70's moustache, shaggy hair and cop sunglasses. I thought it was a costume, but I soon realized I'm not hip enough to understand the fashion in Hollywood.

We went out for sushi at Miyagi's which included several sake bombs, more sake and more beer. Then more beer and beer. Our local Hollywood tourguide Luke met up with us and took us to Cahuenga, where we bludgeoned Cory with shots of Tequila, Jack Daniels ,and Jaegermeister (pause to vomit here). He ended up having to leave our second bar and wound up puking in the cab while his 22-year old brother tried to cover up the puking sounds with chit-chat about where to go for fun in LA.

LLMB Reader #9 and I got into a fight using the rubberbands that two hired hotties were handing out to promote some new phone service. I earned a pretty intense laceration on my upper arm that made me look like an S&M aficionado, while he managed a series of welts up and down his arm that he's probably having a fun time explaining to the clients he's in town to see this week.

After tucking the bachelor in his bed of pillows next to the toilet, the rest of us went to the lounge in The Standard. It was like a visit to India in there. I inadvertently told some women that it was my birthday and we got into the "how old are you/how old do you think I am" game. I wound up telling one of them I thought she was 34. She was 30. Ouch. I suck at that game.

We spent most of the next day hanging out by the pool. The real freaks started filing in at around 2 pm. A couple of guys looked like they were trying to sport Beck's hairstyle. One guy was bold enough to have a look that reminded you of Michael Jackson. Lots of kids drinking champagne. The buffed look is definitely out. You absolutely must look like a rockstar, moviestar, pornstar, or a hollywood player to hang by the pool at The Standard. If you look like you're gonna swim in the pool, you're invisible.

I won't get into the details of the rest of that evening, but I'll leave it to your imagination as to what goes on at a bachelor party.

To top off the weekend, at Sunday breakfast I had my most hugest star sighting ever: Cameron Diaz and Justin Timberlake snuggling over toast and eggs. How cool is that? I guess the Justin part isn't so cool. I should have shown him the moves I learned a while back from his boy band's music video while working as assistant editor with LLMB Reader #1. Well hopefully next year I won't see anybody from a boy band anywhere near my birthday. That is, if I'm lucky enough to have another friend get married next year. If you know anybody who intends on having their bachelor party the fourth weekend of June 2007, send 'em my way. Third time's the charm.

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