Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
158
A Typical Day in L.A.
As if having a 45-minute conversation with a stranger about Brazilian wax jobs
wasn't peculiar enough f or one da y, there I am sitting b y myself at the lobb y
bar of the St. Reg is Hotel at 10pm on a Satur day night, nursing an absur dly
overpriced vodka rocks, when a w omen sits nex t to me and sa ys, “Isn't music
just the most w onderful thing?” She nods t oward at her debonair par tner,
who's playing impromptu Gershwin tunes on the bar's baby grand piano. “Yes.
He's quite talented,” I politely reply as I sift through my stack of mind-numbing
hotel press kits.
Now, I'm probably the w orst person in L os Angeles at r ecognizing celebri-
ties, but this w omen sure looks like Roseanne Barr , and she sur e sounds like
Roseanne Barr, and the diamond-studded “R” hang ing fr om her neck lace is
probably a sur e g iveaway t o most people; ho wever, it wasn 't until the bar-
tender said, “Can I get you another drink, Roseanne?,” that it finally occurred to
me that I'm sitting next to Rosanne Barr.
But b y the time I figur e out who I' m ha ving a c onversation with, w e're
already hip deep in a c onversation about the dubious futur e of mank ind (her
companion has already left the scene at this point). She 's hammering away at
me with somewhat log ical arguments as t o our inevitably swif t demise as a
species, but as fat e w ould ha ve it, I had just finished r eading Bill Br yson's
enlightening tome,
“A Short History of Nearly Everything,”
and Jennifer Eveland's
excellent essay on
“The Buddha in Thailand”
(from
Frommer's Thailand
), so I was
primed for just this sort of tête-à-tête.
Two hours and several cocktails later we're still locking horns on the subject.
Meanwhile, the bar tender (t ypical of L.A. wait staff , he's a charismatic bloke
who was a f ormer Israeli soldier and a talent ed musician) is lec turing us both
on current political philosophies pertaining to global confrontations. If I didn't
have to pee so badly, I'm sure I would have had them both in the crushing grip
of reason. But nature called and I had to say goodbye, knowing that all I would
return to was a bill I couldn't afford.
And that, my friends, is a t ypically unpredictable day in L.A. You can spend
weeks visiting L.A.'s “in” venues and never even glimpse a celebrity. Then when
you least expect it, someone as charming, introspective, and sociable as Rose-
anne Barr will sit nex t to you at an empt y hotel bar and strike up the most
memorable of conversations.
7
is van Gogh's
Irises,
one of the museum 's finest and most popular holdings. Trivia buffs
will enjoy knowing that the museum spent $53.9 million to acquir e this painting; it 's
displayed in a complex that cost r oughly $1
billion
to construct.
A new addition to the G etty Center is the F ran and Ray S tark Sculpture Collection.
This collection of 28 modern and contemporar y outdoor sculptures from the collection
of the late legendary film producer Ray Stark and his wife Fran was donated to the Getty
Museum and features many of the 20th centur y's greatest sculptors, including works by
Roy Lichtenstein, Joan Miró, and Isamu Noguchi.
