When Halloween is on a Friday, it makes for a very long weekend. After surviving several assassination attempts on Friday night, I headed up to Oxnard to photograph Claudio, Ryan, Julia and Susan’s transformation into Abba! Ryan made the boy’s outfits, and he really outdid himself.
The GRAND entrance….Take a chance on them…They even did better than me!!
Luckily, the Sarah Palin at the party on Saturday night came with her own moose, so she didn’t have to shoot me!
More dancing, featuring The Spice Girls, Abba, Sarah Palin & friends, performing
such classics as Xanadu, Dancing Queen, It’s Raining Men and more.
Claudio & Ryan’s new home is a few steps closer to earning the coveted “Fornia” moniker. Thanks to Bassam getting the wireless network working, blogging can now be done from there! (An important step towards Fornia accreditation…I refuse to be tethered.) And Sunday night, it was transformed into a Brazilian steakhouse (churrascaria). Ryan worked all day to get the spa in working order and the kids had a blast. The evening was capped with the all the children telling Uncle Carey jokes by the fire pit. As the video attests, hilarity ensued!
Claudio’s brother Cris and his wife Valesca are visiting with their two kids Victor & Isabella, so we drove up to Santa Barbara to meet up with Eva (who just returned from Bine’s wedding) and Bassam. It was a rare rainy day in Southern California, and at first the kids were a little hesitant on the beach. But soon, the clouds dissipated and it ended up being a gorgeous day!
Little child, be not afraid The rain pounds harsh against the glass Like an unwanted stranger There is no danger I am here tonight
Little child Be not afraid Though thunder explodes And lightning flash Illuminates your tearstained face I am here tonight
And someday you’ll know That nature is so This same rain that draws you near me Falls on rivers and land And forests and sand Makes the beautiful world that you see In the morning
Little child Be not afraid The storm clouds mask your beloved moon And its candlelight beams Still keep pleasant dreams I am here tonight
Little child Be not afraid The wind makes creatures of our trees And the branches to hands They’re not real, understand And I am here tonight
And someday you’ll know That nature is so This same rain that draws you near me Falls on rivers and land And forest and sand Makes the beautiful world that you see In the morning
For you know, once even I Was a little child And I was afraid But a gentle someone always came To dry all my tears Trade sweet sleep for fears And to give a kiss goodnight
Well, now I am grown And these days have shown Rain’s a part of how life goes But it’s dark and it’s late So I’ll hold you and wait ’til your frightened eyes do close
And I hope that you’ll know That nature is so This same rain that draws you near me Falls on rivers and land And forests and sand Makes the beautiful world that you see In the morning
Everything’s fine in the morning The rain will be gone in the morning But I’ll still be here in the morning
After Friday’s Sound of Music extravaganza, the Hotel Careyfornia prepared for its next wave of visitors. Emmy weekend is always a busy one at the H.C. and this weekend was no exception. Adam & Lorenzo flew in from Washington DC. Sadly their luggage didn’t arrive until 3 AM this morning, but that didn’t stop them from painting the town pink.
Before heading out for the evening, Claudio cooked up his famous Angel Hair Brasil, named appropriately enough after his own wispy, thin, angel like hair.
After dinner it was time to try out the Hotel Careyfornia’s newest amenity, luxurious custom towels!!
Body not included.
And lest you think these boys come by their looks naturally, you should know it takes a LOT of preparation!!
No, it’s not Halloween!
Not to mention costume changes:
Ryan looks good in my $400 shirt. Don’t you think? LOL
The H.C. even offers complimentary butt massages, if you’re under the weight limit!
This morning we had breakfast, and then Claudio and Ryan headed to a pool party, while Adam and I explored the sites of West Hollywood:
We ran into these guys walking down Santa Monica Blvd. If you need a haircut, call Alexander Stabler at 310-652-0830. He’s on the right. LOL
Since the Emmy’s were downtown tonight, we decided to stay in and not deal with the traffic. I thought there would be an after party at the Mondrian next door, but it was over at Morton’s and they keep the paparazzi across the street, so it’s hard to get any decent photos. I’m heading out again tomorrow for the week. Have a good week everyone!
Labor Day Weekend, 2001. Claudio and I celebrated our birthdays in Chicago, as we had many times before. It was a beautiful weekend…one of the last good ones of summer. After that I flew to New York for a few days, and then to Portland, Oregon on September 10, 2001.
I was going through some old papers from work the other day, and found this. It was posted in the elevator of my hotel in Portland on the morning of September 11th.
The following year, I returned to New York City for the one year anniversary. I spent the morning alone, in Times Square and in Battery Park taking
pictures. It was a bittersweet anniversary. On one hand the city was
still grieving immensely. On the other, they had reached the one year
mark and survived. Everyone was on edge though. Diane, Hugo and I
were having lunch outside at Cafe St. Bart’s. It was an extremely
windy day. At one point, the wind picked up a huge pile of pamphlets
from an open window of a fairly tall building and they went flying through the air like shrapnel. A few people in the
crowded cafe started screaming and that’s all it took to start pandemonium. People began
running and leaping under tables. It only lasted a few seconds, but it still
gives me goose bumps to think about. Imagine….simple paper flying through
the air! Later that afternoon Cindy and I tried to keep it light by
attending a matinee of Hairspray. After the show, Harvey Fierstein and
the rest of the cast related their stories about that day. There were
many notables in the audience (Larry King and his wife were directly in
front of us), and suddenly this huge Broadway theater filled with
strangers, some famous, some not, became an intimate storytelling
venue. It connected us all. The images from that day were moving:
I took the center photo in the summer of 1997 while sailing around the island of Manhattan in my boss’s boat. It was a picture perfect New York day. One I’ll never forget.
On a cheerier note, tonight we went to see another musical. This time it was the preview of 9 to 5 before it heads to Broadway. It starred Allison Janney (from The West Wing) in the Lily Tomlin role, and while she was pretty good, the show itself needs work before it opens in New York. (Funny coincidence. I saw Hairspray in NYC on 9/11/02 and few years later, saw it with Mike & Marcelo in LA, and Bradley Whitford from the West Wing was there.) The gal who played Doralee was the spitting image of Dolly Parton, both in looks and voice. It was almost too much of an imitation though. There was nothing really original in any of the performances aside from a few modern cultural references for humor. I was a bit disappointed overall, but I got special tickets for only $20 and it was worth seeing for that price. (Plus it was Vivek’s first musical!!) The acoustics were terrible and they had some technical problems and had to close the curtain for ten minutes. (The same thing happened on opening night I read, but that night Dolly Parton was there, and got up and gave an impromptu concert!) The dialogue was very difficult to hear, and the cast needed work on their staging. The set was pretty cool though. There were definitely a few standout songs, but I wish I could have heard the words better. In addition, the girl next to us was SO drunk (or worse) that she really ruined the whole first act for me. At one point, she needed to leave because she was going to be sick. She got up on her chair, hiked her skirt up to her underwear and climbed over the seats! A real class act. (Whoever said LA isn’t a theater town? LOL.) It kind of put me in a bad mood for the remainder of the show (even though she missed half the first act!). Here are a few photos from tonight, and a video of the title song from the closing number, “9 to 5“. Sorry for the poor video quality. We were up in the nosebleed section !
Note the applause at about 1:10 when the actors are describing their characters lives 30 years in the future and Doralee calls George W. Bush, a sexist, egotistical, lying hypocrite (just like Franklin Hart).
The long holiday weekend began with Claudio and Ryan arriving Friday evening, and us heading to Hollywood & Highland for the Jimmy Kimmel Live show to celebrate Claudio’s big 4-0. I somehow managed to smuggle my camera into the studio despite the metal detectors and three security guards. When they caught me taking photos however, they confiscated my camera until the end of the show. At least I got one decent shot of Jimmy.
The guests that night were pretty lame. Lauren Conrad (sorry Christine, she was SO dumb), Tyrese Gibson, (who invited the entire audience to his movie Death Race, that was playing across the street at Grauman’s Chinese Theater. The movie looked really bad. Even the clip he brought for the show, sucked. We opted out!) and former Beach Boy and “Rhinestone Cowboy“, Glenn Campbell, who appeared drunk and flubbed his words. Still, we had a good time, and celebrated Claudio’s birthday afterwards with a great dinner before we had to get him back to his nursing home!
Saturday we headed to Disneyland but I’ll blog about that later in the week, as this entry is going to already be too bandwidth intensive. On Sunday we drove up to Santa Barbara to enjoy the beautiful coastline and visit Bassam, who’s been in Amman, Jordan for the past two months. It was great to catch up with Bassam and last night’s sunset was picture perfect, as was all of the local scenery in the American Riviera.
Tonight we ordered pizza and hunkered down for the Closing Ceremony in Beijing, just as we did 17 nights ago for the Opening Ceremony. When American gold medal decathlete (and by tradition world’s greatest athlete), Bryan Clay, won the other night, I sent him a message on Facebook, as I’m one of his “friends”. Imagine my surprise at this text I received tonight from Bryan. Ain’t technology wonderful? For him to take the time to send this message shows he’s a real class act. He sent this as he was preparing to leave Beijing and return to his quiet life here in Los Angeles. I have a feeling his life won’t be quite so quiet anymore.
We went to Claudio & Ryan’s for dinner last night and then went to see a charming little movie called Bottle Shock, which was based on the true story of how California beat the French in a blind wine tasting contest in 1976. Claudio sneaked wine into the movie, and about halfway through, I smelled it and thought the movie was in Smell-O-Vision.
I had Vivek take these pictures out the window on the way up to Oxnard. It was a pretty sunset, but as we got further north it got quite cloudy and cool. On the way home at 1 AM we went through fog as thick as pea soup.
On our way there we made an embarrassing video “rocking out” to Abba and Mamma Mia. Suffice it to say, the Oscar or Grammy people won’t be calling. LOL
Ryan’s sister Renea and her friends Laura and Kristen took a road trip from Missouri to California this week, getting their kicks on Route 66. It’s the first time in the Golden State for all of these Midwestern beauties, and of course they made their way to the Hotel Careyfornia!
Last night though, Claudio & Ryan invited us to their new home. It was the first time Vivek ever went to a barbecue! He liked it a lot, and enjoyed visiting with other college students his own age. LOL.
I set my camera on the tripod and took 3 group shots:
As you can see, Claudio looked quite fabulous in the first shot. But he soon invoked his classic sneer in the second shot, and a new and wacky persona I’d never met before, for the third picture:
In the classic film, “The Three Faces of Eve“, Eve White is a quiet, self-effacing wife and mother who has headaches and occasional blackouts. Eventually she is sent to see psychiatrist Dr. Luther, and while under hypnosis her “alter personality”, wild, fun-loving Eve Black, discloses herself. With Eve Black on the loose, Eve White’s husband leaves her and abandons their daughter. Under continued therapy, a third personality appears, the relatively stable Jane.
Update: I got my car back (again). Next week will be the 5 month anniversary of the accident. Here’s hoping that I won’t be paying any more visits to the Honda of Hollywood Body Shop. Turns out, it was the key. It needed a new microchip. It also finally passed the electrical portion of the smog test. I drove down to Irvine yesterday, and it drove fine. I also went to have a delicious spaghetti dinner with my aunt and uncle:
Thank you to Darron at Honda of Hollywood for doing the right thing, and to Peter for being a nice guy throughout this whole thing. It’s a good thing I got the car back when I did, because Claudio and Ryan came back from Brazil on Wednesday and took their car back:
I took this with my cell phone. They look pretty good for just having gotten off a 20 hour flight! At lunch, we were sitting next to these two drunk Korean girls who were drinking Champagne (at noon on a Wednesday) and talking about how the “chinks” and “gooks” stole the Olympics from the Americans. (??WTF??) We couldn’t believe our ears. I actually took a video of them secretly with my phone, but it’s too vile to post. They were trashed, racist bitches.
It’s summer, and the busy season at the Hotel Careyfornia is in full swing. Daniel & Tori are coming next weekend, and possibly Donna too. Claudio & Ryan were nice enough to pay us a visit this past weekend. Tomorrow they’re leaving for Brazil for a month in hopes that Claudio will get his visa to teach at the University of California in the fall. They will be leaving their car here (apparently the Valet Parking rates at the Hotel Careyfornia are a bit cheaper than LAX), so if Claudio doesn’t get a visa, I guess I’ll finally have a car. I hope he gets it though; I would hate to see him end up like poor little Elian Gonzalez!
The trademark Claudio sneer that he developed in the early 90′s as we traveled through Europe together and I constantly asked him to pose for pictures. It has since become legend!
My “footprints” (that show who came to my site) had two rather odd Google searches this week (actually one was Yahoo) that returned my blog as a hit. Someone from Singapore was searching for “sperm + toilet” and was directed to my entry from August 3, 2007 entitled:
Considering the “woman” in the “picture” in that post was one on the most repulsive I’ve ever seen, Yahoo probably didn’t do much to foster Iranian/American relations. LOL.
On the way home from the airport tonight, we saw this obnoxious Hollywood wombat, driving with her foot out the window, while smoking a cigarette and talking on the phone! Are you fu**ing kidding me!!?? She barely noticed my flash going offas I took the picture and gave her the most disgusted look I couldmuster. This girl symbolizes nearly everything I hate in life! And yes, I know I’m being sexist, but let’s face it, would you ever see a man doing this? I thought not.
I hope he gets it though; I would hate to see him end up like poor little 
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And yes, I know I’m being sexist, but let’s face it, would you ever see a man doing this? I thought not.
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