Even though I don’t believe in God, I’m inclined to agree with the postulate that everyone likes presents, Santa, peace on earth and all the things that come with Christmas and the holiday season. I mean, what’s not to like? My office Christmas party was today and we had a Secret Santa gift exchange. The person whose name I drew, is an staunch Orange County Republican who thinks Sarah Palin is “hot”.
As a gag gift, I gave him the book “Going Rouge – An American Nightmare” which is the bitingly real expose of the most dangerous woman on the planet, Sarah Palin. (I also gave him a real gift, and the gift receipt to exchange the book for something he really wanted!) The person who drew my name in the gift exchange had a similar idea, and gave me the book, “Going Rogue”, the fictional work of a delusional demagogue by Pontius Palin – The Bobbleheaded Beauty Queen herself. Delicious irony, right? In a way, the gifts canceled each other out. Ah, the magic of Christmas!
Magic aside, Christmas in California is a lot different than Christmas in Chicago where I grew up. I don’t have a whole lot of very fond childhood memories, aside from those spent with my aunt, but Christmas was usually pretty nice:
Me, my Dad & Mom in happier times and my brother, circa 1970
My brother (L) and me, circa 1969. I was 4, and stylin!
Fast forward 40 years to the warm weather of California and Christmastime with my family here:
It was a busy weekend at The Hotel Careyfornia. Since Ryan and Chazz are out of town, Claudio and I decided to spend some “quality time” together. It rained all day Saturday though, and the traffic was a nightmare. No one knows what to do in L.A. when it rains, as witnessed by this truck that got stuck in my driveway yesterday morning. So we just ordered Chinese food and watched movies all night. It was nice. Today was beautiful, and after an alleged Lady Gaga sighting, we walked to Tender Greens for lunch and then I drove down to my aunt’s for our pre-Christmas spaghetti dinner. ‘Tis the season!
Andy entertained us with some Christmas Carols…which you can hear better after Grandma stops talking about her pills! LOL
My mortgage was sold to Chase Bank last month. This month I got this email notification that my payment had been made:
Carey Anthony
Your home loan payment alert from Chase 1 message
From: Chase Manhattan
Sun, Dec 6, 2009 at 6:44 PM
To: Carey
For your account ending in 0950: Thank you for your recent payment of ($ USD) 46,008.02.
This Alert was sent according to your settings.
Excuse me!!!??? I mean, I know The Hotel Careyfornia is one of the finest boutique luxury hotels in Southern California, but if my mortgage payment is $46,008.02 per month, I’m going to need to raise our room rates!!
A day later, they sent this message. Not a great way to start a business relationship Chase!! FIGURE IT OUT!! You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry!
Dear Valued Customer:
We’re writing to let you know you received an Account Alert on 12/06/09 that contained inaccurate information about your mortgage payment. Please disregard the Alert, and accept our sincere apologies for any inconvenience it may have caused.
If you have any questions about this message or your mortgage account, feel free to call us at 1-800-848-9136. Our service representatives are available to help you Monday through Friday, from 8 AM to 9 PM Eastern time, and on Saturday from 8 AM to 5 PM Eastern time.
Thank you for your business. We look forward to continuing to serve you.
Sincerely,
Alexander Krantz Senior Vice President Customer Care
Speaking of Chase, people in West Hollywood were chasing rainbows yesterday all over town (how cliche, in a gay city)! This one was snapped from my rooftop and it ended right at Ryan Seacrest’s office on Sunset Blvd.. Damn that Seacrest. Does he really need more gold?
It doesn’t storm very often here in Southern California, but when it does, I head to my roof to take photos as the sky is usually beautiful. The first 13 photos in this video and are all from last night between 4:30 and 5 PM. The rest are from other storms we’ve had the past two years.
It was a hot Halloween in West Hollywood this year. The temperature reached 93° (34° C). This morning I walked to Pavilions to buy my balloon for my costume. Claudio, Ryan & Chazz showed up later and I took Chazz up to the roof for sunset. There was almost a full moon and the sky was beautiful:
Chazz on the roof with downtown LA as a backdrop
Lisa sent this picture of Andy in his costume. Cute huh?
On Halloween night every year, West Hollywood stages perhaps the most extravagant Halloween party anywhere. The City of West Hollywood calls the Costume Carnaval the largest adult outdoor Halloween event in the world. Santa Monica Boulevard, one of the busies streets in Los Angeles, is converted into a pedestrian only zone between Doheny and La Cienega Boulevards.
So, when it got dark, it was time to hit Santa Monica Blvd. where 500,000 costumed revelers flooded the streets for the Annual Halloween Carnaval. I took some “before” pictures this morning, to compare to what it looked like tonight:
Me, as Balloon Boy’s Dad amidst a sea of balloons. And yes, I’m holding a Tupperware barf bucket for the Balloon Boy(s) to puke in, just like he did on national TV!I’m also wearing ABC Wife Swap credentials!
Yesterday, my TV in the living room died. It was 7 years old and huge! I bought it right before flat screens started becoming affordable, so it was about time for a new one. So today I went to Best Buy and got a 40 inch Sony Bravia. Chazz really likes it! This is the second TV I’ve had to buy in a month. The one in the bedroom went out a few weeks ago before Daniel & David arrived. I replaced that one with a cheap used TV from craigslist.
Chazz and his new flat screen…and the view of the accident from The Hotel Careyfornia Terrace!
So while I’m setting it up, all of a sudden I hear a loud screech and tires squealing. Fearing the worst, I ran to the patio and watched as this woman backed her car into a concrete wall then plowed up the sidewalk, then backed into the wall again, and then went head first into a tree…airbag deployed!! Sadly, this is an all too common occurrence in front of the Hotel Careyfornia. First there was the dumb wombat who pulled the garage door off with her truck. Then there was the Bulgarian woman who crashed into my front yard and got yelled at by her husband. And who could forget the Porsche vs. the Garage Door? Now this. (There have been a few other pre-blog accidents on this street too.) These crashes were ALL CAUSED BY WOMEN DRIVERS !! Women do not belong behind the wheel in West Hollywood!! Stay home women!
Had she been parked on the other side of the street, her car would be in my living room!
The paramedics carried the poor woman away. I thing she was OK though…just in shock.
You can see how she crashed the back and the front!
In case you guys have no idea what to do the first weekend in July (yes, I realize that Carey might actually be the only person to think so far ahead but I am still giving it a try), I have an idea what you could do:
Alan and I always talked about having a wedding party later on and this is what is going to happen. A friend of mine has a house in Tuscany, which we can use. So in case you want to join us for this event (3/4/5th of July) then you all are more than welcome. Massi told me that the house is 50 min. away by train from Rome.
The house has 5 bedrooms one bathroom (there is always the sea) and lots of floors. Massi also told me that there should be more or less cheap accommodation close by. So, as soon as you have any idea if you can make it, let us know.
Please remember: We expect a significant amount of people to be there during the weekend, so please bring sleeping bags and sleeping mats as we are for sure going to run out of beds or just don’t sleep, which might be an option, too. Everybody arriving from Europe: If you can bring a tent, too!
Looking forward to seeing you guys in Bella Italia!
Bine & Alan
Here’s where we’ll be staying. I’m not sure where we’re all going to sleep. About 25 have already RSVP’d!! Hooray for Frequent Flyer Miles!
Carey Anthony
Your E-Mail Confirmation from United 1 message
From: United Airlines
Sun, Jan 25, 2009 at 9:16 AM
To: Carey Anthony
Travel itinerary
Confirmation no.: ******
Passenger information
Number in party: 1
Name:
CAREY A MR
Travel itinerary
Confirmation no.: *****
LOS ANGELES to WASH/DULLES departing Thursday, July 2
UNITED 946
Depart: LOS ANGELES 7:55 AM Arrive: WASH/DULLES 3:46 PM Seat(s): 1A
NONSTOP Equip: 777 MP miles: 2288
UNITED FIRST In-Flight services: Meal: BREAKFAST
WASH/DULLES to ROME/FIUMICINO departing Thursday, July 2
UNITED 966
Depart: WASH/DULLES 6:18 PM Arrive: ROME/FIUMICINO 8:50 AM Seat(s): 11B
NONSTOP Equip: 777 MP miles: 4505
UNITED BUSINESS In-Flight services: MOVIE Meal: DINNER, SNACK
ROME/FIUMICINO to LOS ANGELES departing Tuesday, July 14
UNITED 967
Depart: ROME/FIUMICINO 11:20 AM Arrive: LOS ANGELES 7:08 PM Seat(s): 8D/ 1B
STOPOVER Equip: PLANE CHANGE AT IAD MP miles: 6354
UNITED BUSINESS In-Flight services: MOVIE, MOVIE Meal: LUNCH, SNACK
And from the “Only in West Hollywood” Department, comes this story:
Monday, January 19, 2009 – By Ryan Gierach, West Hollywood
West Hollywood, California (January 19, 2009) – West Hollywood firemen doused an apartment fire that destroyed one unit and made five others unlivable Sunday, reviving two lifeless pets in the aftermath.
A plugged in laptop left on a carpet while the tenant walked her dog exploded into flames at 1169 Orange Grove Avenue in WeHo around 5:00 pm Sunday evening, said Station 7 Captain Ric Brandelli. He told WeHo News that his men located a yellow lab and black tabby on their secondary search of the premises, both apparently overcome with smoke inhalation.
After removing the pair to the street, paramedics began what seemed, initially, to be futile efforts to revive them. “We worked on them for quite a while, and it didn’t look like they would make it” said Capt. Brandelli, “and then the cat began breathing on its own and ran away.”
He said his cohort turned its attentions to the dog, a 16-yr old, again with no results to show for precious minutes.Then, to everyone’s relief, “the dog started breathing on its own and stood up to walk around,” he said. The cat and dog resided with the woman whose laptop began the conflagration. Capt. Brandelli said that she was not present for the cat’s resuscitation, but witnessed the dog’s.
911 Dispatcher: 911 What is your emergency? Me: Yes, I’m at the corner of Fountain & Olive in West Hollywood and a woman crashed her car into my front yard.
911 Dispatcher: Is anyone hurt? Me: I’m not sure. I think she’s OK, but she doesn’t speak English and she’s very upset. A West Hollywood Parking Attendant called you 15 minutes ago to report the accident and there’s still no one here. The woman is crying and we don’t know what she’s saying. Can you please send an officer who speaks Bulgarian or Russian? 911 Dispatcher: We have no report of an accident at that address. Me: Well you do now. Can you send someone? She’s very upset. 911 Dispatcher: Is the other driver there? Me: There was no other driver. As far as I can tell she was pulling out of a parking spot and didn’t realize her car was in reverse. She floored it to go up the hill, but went backwards and knocked down a metal sign pole and ended up in my front yard. 911 Dispatcher: What kind of car is she driving? Me: A burgundy Mitsubishi and the other car is an Escalade. 911 Dispatcher: What other car? Me: Oh, she did some damage to as Escalade as she was backing up. 911 Dispatcher: Is that driver there? Me: No, the Escalade was parked. I don’t know who owns it. Can you please send someone quickly. This woman is very upset. Her hands are shaking so bad, she couldn’t even dial 911. I finally helped her call her husband. He’s on his way. We’ve been waiting about 20 minutes now. 911 Dispatcher: We have units on the way. Will you stay with her? Me: Yes 911 Dispatcher: OK, they will be there soon.
The West Hollywood parking attendant calling 911 the first time
In the meantime I went to a Russian couple’s house in the neighborhood to see if they could help. I figured since Russian and Bulgarian are both Slavic languages, maybe my neighbor could help calm the woman’s nerves (plus the woman did communicate that she spoke some Russian). Unfortunately, of my two neighbors only the wife speaks English. Her husband didn’t understand what I was saying and I gathered that his wife wasn’t home. When I went back outside the police still weren’t there!
This sign she ran over is what kept her from crashing in to my living room!
8 minutes later…28 minutes after the crash
911 Dispatcher: 911 what is your emergency? Me: Yeah, I called 8 minutes ago about an accident that happened a half an hour ago and the police still aren’t here. 911 Dispatcher: Yes, I just talked to you 5 minutes ago, they are on there way. Me: It was 8 minutes ago, and they’re not here. This is ridiculous. 911 Dispatcher: Sir don’t argue with me. Me: I’m not arguing with you. I’m stating facts. 911 Dispatcher: You know this call is being recorded? Me: I don’t care if it’s being recorded. I’m a taxpayer who’s just trying to be a good Samaritan. This woman doesn’t speak English. I have no idea if she’s hurt or not. We’ve been standing out here for 1/2 an hour…. 911 Dispatcher: Sir….(She speaks over me and I have no idea what she’s saying.) Me: Don’t interrupt me, I’m speaking. 911 Dispatcher: / Sure we have other emergencies…CLICK
The phone goes dead. 911 hung up on me!!!
Just then the woman’s husband drives up. He gets out of his car and speaks to her in Bulgarian. He seemed upset with her, so I started taking some video with my camera. Sorry about the quality, I was trying to be discreet. Does anyone understand Bulgarian? It seems he’s being pretty hard on her, but I don’t know what he’s saying:
Finally the police showed up. I let the woman’s husband explain what happened, even though he wasn’t there. Then I told them what I knew: I was sitting at my desk working and I heard a loud crash. At first I thought it was an earthquake, and when I saw what had happened I ran outside to see if I could help. I told them about the 911 calls and that I was upset that the 911 operator hung up on me. They said I shouldn’t have called from my cell phone because they don’t automatically know where I am. (They don’t???) Whatever. So much for trying to help. I went inside and made dinner. Since my patio doors were open, I heard everything that happened after I went inside. Apparently the Bulgarian woman is a nanny for a girl who lives across the street from me and she was leaving work when she crashed her car. Then the woman who owned the Escalade came out. She was remarkably nice about the whole thing and tried to comfort the Bulgarian woman. I’m not sure I would have been so forgiving had it been my car she hit. I guess that’s a lesson in compassion for me. Actually there was remarkably little damage to the Escalade:
The whole situation really pissed me off. I live in a supposedly affluent city with top rate police and fire protection. I would like to think that had the woman been injured they would have been there immediately, but have you ever heard of a 911 operator hanging up on someone? Crazy. I felt bad for the driver. She was so confused. It kind of reminded me of another woman driver I blogged about on July 1st, 2007. This one however, I had NO sympathy for:
This morning I’m having breakfast on my patio and I hear this loud horrible boom. I look across the street and this is what I saw. I ran and got my camera and shot this video. I wish I’d gotten the video of this dumb broad getting out of her car and looking up at the garage wondering what happened. It was if she had no concept of what she’d just done. She was tilting her head, like a dog tilts his head when you ask if he wants to go for a walk. LOL. After getting unstuck, she drove away…but I had my camera set on high resolution, so I have her license plate clear as day. Damn women drivers!!
The building is FUGLY anyway. Maybe they’ll repaint it. It’s filled with vapid commercial actresses who are always letting their dogs shit in my yard and not picking it up. I wish she have done more structural damage!
So…never a dull moment around here! My bad mood eased a little however, when I came in and saw this on the news:
From the mouths of babes! These kids are so adorable. This really made me smile and suddenly forget about Bulgarian women drivers who almost crashed in to my living room!
So, as long as the Bulgarian mafia doesn’t try to kill me for taking that video, I’m going to bask in my Obama glow. It’s a new day!
Tonight we’re heading to Seth & Jessica’s to watch the awards. Most of the parties are at the Beverly Hilton and it’s hard to get to, so I doubt I’ll get any pictures tonight after the ceremony. Here are my predictions:
UPDATE: I got 17 out of 21 predictions right!
Not Shown: Best Supporting Actor/Actress: Heath Ledger & Kate Winslet
As a single guy who lives alone, I go out to eat a lot because I don’t really like cooking for just myself. When I do buy things to eat here, they often go bad and sit in my refrigerator or cupboard for months….sometimes years. The other morning Ryan made some pancakes and wondered why they didn’t taste as good as normal. When he looked at the box of pancake mix, he saw that it had expired over 2 years ago. The same thing happened all weekend; with salad dressing, olive oil, vinegar, jam, mayonnaise and more. ALL expired; some much more than two years ago. My standard response every time they asked how old something was:
“____________ never goes bad!”
Apparently pancake mix does. Oh, and fresh eggs aren’t so fresh in December if you bought them before Halloween. Who knew? (In my defense I didn’t even know they were back there! LOL) So last night we ordered Thai food from Sunset Thai. I had an old takeout menu of theirs from 2002. When they delivered the food, the bill was $60 for the three of us, which I was sure was a mistake. Apparently though, the prices at Sunset Thai have gone bad too:
A 92% price rise in 6 years?
We also went to see Frost/Nixon at The Grove. The performances were good, but I thought the movie took too much dramatic license with the fact. As the grandson of a History, English & Latin teacher (who sat me down to watch when Nixon resigned), I felt the movie treated Nixon a bit too sympathetically and messed with the actual interview facts too much. If you’re interested; this article by Elizabeth Drew sums it up pretty well.
ON THE LIGHTER SIDE “Everyone is in the holiday spirit [in New York]. Coming to work today, I saw two strangers sharing a cab. One took the tires, one took the radio.” — David Letterman
Andrew Sullivan wrote this on his blog today, and it’s worth clicking through to read the whole thing:
Heart-breaking news this morning: a terribly close vote has stripped gay couples in California of their right to marry. The geographic balance shows that the inland parts of California voted for the Proposition and the coast and urban areas voted against it.
Yes, it is heart-breaking: it is always hard to be in a tiny minority whose rights and dignity are removed by a majority. It’s a brutal rebuke to the state supreme court, and enshrinement in California’s constitution that gay couples are now second-class citizens and second class human beings. Massively funded by the Mormon church, a religious majority finally managed to put gay people in the back of the bus in the biggest state of the union. The refusal of Schwarzenegger to really oppose the measure and Obama’s luke-warm opposition didn’t help. And cruelly, a very hefty black turnout, as feared, was one of the factors that defeated us, according to the exit poll. Today this is one of the solaces to a hard right and a Republican party that sees gay people as the least real of Americans. Read more…
I received emails about this all day long from friends all over the world. They were shocked and dismayed that this could happen on such an otherwise historic day in America. Tonight however, the citizens of Los Angeles decided to march. I’m dog-sitting for Garbo & Ruby this week, and since the march was right outside my home, I decided to let the dogs witness a little history!
WEST HOLLYWOOD, Calif. (CNS) — The Los Angeles Police Department declared a tactical alert Wednesday night in an attempt to handle opponents of Proposition 8, who marched from West Hollywood to Hollywood to protest the passage of the initiative defining marriage as between one man and one woman. Read more…
Here’s a short video I took as I marched with the dogs down the middle of a closed off Santa Monica Boulevard:
And some of my photos:
The intersection of Santa Monica Blvd. and La Cienega. One of the busiest in the city.
Even though I don’t believe in God, I’m inclined to agree with the postulate that everyone likes presents, Santa, peace on earth and all the things that come with Christmas and the holiday season. I mean, what’s not to like? My office Christmas party was today and we had a Secret Santa gift exchange. The person whose name I drew, is an staunch Orange County Republican who thinks Sarah Palin is “hot”. 
911 Dispatcher
My standard response every time they asked how old something was:
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