There wasn't a single item last week about my love life. However did you survive?On Saturday, I took the boy I was engaged to for a day six months ago to a gala benefit at the Bowers Museum of Cultural Art for the grand opening of “Treasures From the Royal Tombs of Ur.” I really can't tell you how the exhibit is until after I go back again to see it: I was more concerned with getting back to the champagne I had to leave outside the gallery than with examining the artifacts. I did manage to notice the human mannequins modeling furs and a silent auction that included a primitive (and quite uncomfortable-looking) penis sheath that was about 11 -feet long. Dinner was an amazingly tender filet mignon topped with medallions of lobster, and best of all, I didn't even have to pay for it! My new best friends are public-relations wondergirl Jennifer Schamberger and curator Janet Baker, who shook her maracas (no, really! She shook real maracas) all night and who speaks Chinese. God, they're cool! And I stared in wonder at Wayne Foster Music: there were more than 20 people onstage, led by a man on piano who seemed to have escaped from the Liberace Museum and Mental Hospital for the weekend. There was one terrific-looking black guy with Milli Vanilli dreds whose job was to a) lift women onto the stage to dance to numbers like “Pretty Woman” and “Brown Eyed Girl” and b) smile. Later, he did a bunch of backflips. It would be really easy to make fun of the band for the rest of this column (there were three girl singers whose job was to switch costumes a lot, and I'm not sure who thought it would be a good idea to wear poodle skirts for the Rolling Stones medley). However, they had an entire three-hour show mapped out with medleys and choreography and costume changes, and they worked really hard. So I'm only going to make fun of them a little bit. Like this: during the Village People medley (in which rich, old married guys were dancing their booties off to “In the Navy”), they threw sailor caps, cop hats and hardhats into the crowd-not to mention the Indian-chief headdresses. And people wore them! For the rest of the night! In fact, people loved them! I am confused and dismayed. But I did manage to avoid my erstwhile fiance for most of the evening and flirt with the lighting guy instead, whom I had met at the Michael McDonald show a few weeks ago. Oh, happy coincidence!Two Thursdays ago, I got to preview the terrific Clay Pigeons. Did you know Vince Vaughn was so funny and charming? Well, I didn't. It's one creepy little film. While waiting for the show, I got to listen to the hateful little punk rock college student behind me go on about a girl she hates! in one of her classes. “[sneer] She has the most disgusting pimples all over her neck,” the girl said. “[sneer] I thought at first I liked her, but she is so! [sneer] annoying!” It seems the girl in question has the gall! to contribute to class discussions-and we all know the kind of pimply, gross jerks who like to do that. That Friday (I know; I'm gonna have to stop relying on the club to make my week), I was at Linda's Doll Hut for my friends Blazing Haley from Santa Barbara. The drummer is one of my favorite old boyfriends from college, and the singer claims I made out with him one night seven years ago in the DJ booth at State Street mainstay Zelo, but I really don't remember it. Whatever. I'd gone to see Blazing Haley at the hip LA club The Garage many months ago, and-how to put it?-they were not good. But they were tearing up Linda's with their 'tude-less psychobilly, and I was thrilled to hear people ranting about how much they rocked. (They'll be playing lots of Thursdays at Linda's.) James Intveld was good, too.On Sunday, I trotted over to the very pleasant Blue Cafe for Bourbon Jones, whom my favorite Orange County Register reporter raves about. I ended up getting asked out by a man who turned out to be a friend of my father's-and even after we realized that, he still asked me out. Ewww! The yowling, testifying band are a perfect Sunday-and the guy on harp once hit himself in the stomach with a sledgehammer on a bet! It's too bad I've decided to never have another secret crush on anyone as long as I live because he'd be one hell of a candidate.I went to Garbage at the Palladium on Monday. It was a bit, um, ambient for my tastes (who knew Garbage was so repetitive?). And how come you can understand Scot Shirley Manson when she sings, but when she talks, she might as well be speaking Romulan? But I did run into Rock & Roll High Schooler Sivan and the singer from kung-fu fightin' Tex Twil (he's written a children's book about an alien puppy's first day at school, and I can't fuckin' wait!). So I commandeered a place at their table, and they rescued me from my lonely little life. My world crashed right down again, however, when I was walking to my car and a guy on a bike asked if I was “working.” Thursday, Oct. 1, was the most hideous night out of all time-ever! We started at the grand opening of Spa Gregorie's in Fashion Island. The spa looks incredibly bitchen and wonderful, and if I had a spare $750 lying around, I, too, would sign up for the full-body humdinger. However, the catering was not good (there was one fatty little thing that seemed to be a lardy, day-old Egg McMuffin). But they were giving out cigars, so what the hell! We traveled to the Irvine Improv to see the very intelligent Dana Gould and the guy opening for him. From what we could hear, they were quite clever. The opener seemed to be talking about tag as a spectator sport, with the announcer proclaiming portentously that a player had “invoked the no-tag-back rule!” But right next to us, there was a loaded party of 20 who yammered loudly across the table to one another. They were just chatting, and they were driving me nuts. The manager finally got them to shut up; it was very impressive, and if I had secret crushes on people, I might have one on him, too. He also took care of our tab, and I just love that in a comedy-club manager! We then went on to my favorite bar, the Swallow's Inn in San Juan Capistrano, where a drunk Apache lifted up my dress, the band was lame, and not one person asked me to dance! My sister Sarah laughed and laughed, but I dreamed the other night that she had a tiny little baby penis instead of a vagina, so I guess the joke's on her!On Friday, it was back to Linda's (I really ought to just build a little shed there), and things were looking up. The High Fives from Berkeley were absolutely darling in their little Mod suits and Monkees haircuts (one guy looked exactly like Mike Nesmith, except attractive), and the poppy, Beatles-on-meth tunes were as infectious as syph. They're one of those rare cute-boy bands that would be just as good even if they looked like Meatloaf. And here's how good the Mr. T Experience was (especially when they play the theme from Spiderman or introduce a song-as they introduced every song-with “This is a song about a girl”): I bought their CD, and I'm the cheapest lady in the land. Please send money.
