It sounded fun. Really. No, really. The “Cabana Beauty Buffet” where LA’s best and brightest Hollywood Stars and Stars-To-Be come for a day of free beauty treatments and complimentary products. One is held before the Oscars and the other is held, well, now - the two days before the MTV Movie Awards.

Sarah (my friend and adopted little sister who has started a soft drink company, Lolli’s Pop) had secured a “booth” at the event to hand out bottles of LP, t-shirts and other paraphernalia to promote her company. I went Wednesday to help her set up and the first day of the two-day event to support her. This Cabana was held at a swanky (expensive) Hollywood Mansion complete with indoor pool and breathtaking view of the city. I eventually learned the House had a limitless number of roommates and was bought by a young man who’d struck it big during the dot.com boom.

When we arrived on Set-Up Day, I can safely say I was the oldest person there. The girls were all wearing little skirts and bikini tops while the guys lounged about shirtless in surfer shorts. Everyone was frantic. Correction: the girls were all frantic while the guys were drinking beer and jumping in the pool. It was like a MTV Spring Break House without the wild dancing. Our refrigerator didn’t arrive and there wasn’t much to do other than mill about and scope what was being given out. One also had to avoid the Evil Chick in Charge (isn’t there always one) who was, to be blunt, a cunt. Eventually part of mingling with the other vendors included trashing the Evil Chick and trading stories about how heinous she was. It was High School redux with cheerleaders from Hell bossing around everyone they could.

The next day I arrived and at the entrance I was given a bracelet which separated me into one of three categories. Orange was for press, yellow for guests and lavender for celebrity. I was, of course, yellow and would later discover how vital the bracelets actually were. Basically they were meant to be clues as to how nice to be to someone, the assumption being purples and oranges were more deserving of your attention. The sole other purpose was an ongoing game of “Who was that?” as in someone with a purple wristband coming over to us and walking away and I got to ask everyone “Who was that?” Mostly everyone looked like Teens from WB Dramas.

Some of the purples had photographers hovering around them and flackies carrying their loot which must have meant something. Some of them seemed vaguely familiar although after awhile Super Skinny Blond Chicks all look alike. There were actually only a few actors I recognized : the actress who played the First Lady on 24, Tom Hank’s son who starred in the flick Orange County, Chris Klein from American Pie and Roseanne Arquette who looked old, old, old and who got a rep for being a cunt amongst the Booths. When I saw her, she was splayed on a lounge chair getting a pedicure while shooting evil rays out of her pussy but of course I didn’t stare. There were “Playboy Models” walking around in minute bathing suits and spike heels who looked like the aliens from the end of A.I. minus all the curves. I heard from other vendors stories of “stars (*cough* RosanneArquette *cough*) walking up and demanding they be given whatever they wanted. Fortunately I missed these displays.

One guy I’d talked to for, like, ten seconds the day before walked over to me and held out his fist to do some Secret LA Guy Handshake thing. I could have been his father. Literally.

GUY: Hey Dude.

ME: (Surprised yet too stoned to care) Hey. What’s up?

GUY: Man, I’m wiped. We went to Dharma last night and that place was a drag.

ME: (Having no idea what “Dharma” is - a restaurant? a club?) I heard it’s like that on Wednesday.

GUY: OH MAN! Fuck.

The Evil Chick In Charge told us only press could take pictures and we were forbidden to take photos under threat of banishment. Therefore all of these pictures were taken “on the sly” with me holding my camera nonchalantly near my leg. I figured if caught I could claim senility.

Here is Sarah and me and Polly at Sarah’s booth. Polly was very popular and everyone exclaimed how cute and mellow she was.


Here is our friend “Alexis”. He’s actually a costume designer for several award-winning TV shows and this outfit was made expressly for the Beauty Cabana. We spent a large amount of time dishing the poorly chosen outfits of the attendees. I don’t know where young women in LA get their fashion inspiration but my guess is somewhere between Maxim magazine and Porn. Pants hang around 10” below their belly buttons and the shoe of choice was 6” mules. Alexis looked prettier than 90% of the women there.


This is some rock singer. I have no idea who. He had a British accent and told us that in Thailand they put Opium in Red Bull. I bet.


Here is another Rock Singer. I think his band is called Crowded House or maybe Crazy Horse. It was a C word and an H word. Believe it or not, the only people carrying these Japanese Umbrellas were guys with lots of tattoos.


This is Chris Klein, the actor from American Pie. I did not see the movie.


This is Tom Hank’s son. Didn’t see his movie either.


This is the two of them posing for a picture together which is what those people do.


I left with two cool t-shirts, one of which says “Whiteboy” on the back. The other is from the Sea Monkeys booth. Yes, like those little brine shrimp Sea Monkeys. I think the idea was supposed to be Nostalgic Camp which made me feel fossilized. I also left with two candles, one shaped like the head of Buddha with a wick coming out of his skull. I gave my Sea Monkey Executive Kit to Alexis and also a tank top I’d been given. I gave Sarah a mesh trucker hat which is a popular youthful fad also falling in the general area of Nostalgic Camp. I gave each of them a bottle of nail polish I’d gotten from a company named Hard Candy.

It’s exhausting fighting Evil, even when evil looks like young pushy girls and B-list actors. It’s exhausting to watch youngsters acting foolish and to realize you probably acted the same way at one time. It’s exhausting to step into someone else’s psychodrama and relax in order to avoid being sucked down into the quicksand.

I spent some time talking to a reporter from LA Magazine, a charming woman who had also lived in NYC and was in my general age group. It turns out we knew several people in common and spent a few minutes reminiscing about Manhattan and absorbing the scene around us. She finally turned to me and asked, “Who are these people?”

I don’t think anyone has the vaguest clue.


2:05:28 PM    sro home /