Current mood: breezy

Hi Everyone,

Remember that song? Anyway, I can't help hearing it dinging around my brain as I think about my friend...he MUST remain anonymous since he is extremely embarrassed and a well, a bonafide celebrity to boot. Let's call him Mook.
He was talked into auctioning himself on Ebay for charity. The rules were clear. Whoever won the auction, which entailed a three hour evening with him, would pick the time, the activity and in somewhere in the small print it read: This is not a sex date.
Now Mook did this with good intentions. Highest bidder would be giving money charity AND covering all expenses on the date. Mook started to panic a week ago and called me.
"Not one woman has entered the contest. They're all gay guys! No offense A.J, but I do not want to go on a date with a guy!"
I believe somewhere along the line a female or two bid for his er...affections, but a wealthy man in Malibu won the contest and last night they were schedule to go on their dinner date. Yep, dinner. That was it. the millionaire was checked and vetted by the program moderators who were relieved the credit card was legitimate and that reservations had been made at a swanky beach side restaurant.
Mook, who'd feared dinner a deux in the guy's leaky dungeon still freaked.
He took a couple of slugs of whiskey and called me from his hall closet an hour before blast off last night.
"Time to jump out of the closet, dude," I joked.
Mook hung up on me. Five minutes later he called back. "I'm sending a limo round to your house Llewellyn. You better be ready."
"But I'm doing book edits," I squawked.
He shrieked, "Fuck edits!" which assured me he meant business.
My Australian/Hawaiian friend Tony who has been going back and forth between Vegas Baby and my place in L.A. on business meetings, decided he just had to come to dinner too.
"Don't bring that crazy friend of yours," Mook warned down the phone.
Crazy friend? Which one? They're all crazy. He should have been more specific.
Tony and I downloaded the menu for Ivy By the Shore from the Internet and drooled over our choices as we sipped champagne in the back seat of the limo, cruising down Malibu Canyon. It was my second time ever in a limo (boy am I not livin' large) and I have yet to fulfill my fantasy of sex in the back seat of a limo...
But I digress. We arrived at the restaurant and found Mook in the bar, trying to take an apple slice out of his Appletini with his tongue. It landed on his nose just as his date arrived.
"Last time Kiefer Sutherland was in here, he made a bracelet out of drinking straws," a woman sitting next to me said.
The Winner arrived. he oozed money. If I had to describe him I'd say he's exactly the type I'd be petrified to date. Tall, balding, dressed impeccably, piercing eyes and with the sort of confidence an otherwise not especially handsome man has because he knows he's disgustingly wealthy.
If The Winner was surprised to see the date of his dreams with an entourage, he didn't show it. Maybe he expected it, since Hollywood celebs are supposed to have entourages.
"I think I'm in love," my Am-I-gay-or-am-I-not pal Tony whispered to me.
"No, you are not," I retorted. "You're in love with his black Amex card."
"Yeah, I think you're right. He doesn't give me wood unless he's holding it. That's telling, eh?"
Geez, Louise.
Mook sat glum and petrified through most of the meal. It didn't help that his date would take a forkful of something, then lick each tine suggestively, whilst gazing heavy-lidded at him. He also had a ghastly habit of helping himself to everybody else's meals...until you felt the urge to hide your plate under the table.
Still, about mid way through the meal, Mook spotted a girl across the restaurant and assured the night wouldn't be a total loss, roused himself out of his torpor and entertained his big-spending winner with funny anecdotes about his last movie. Most of them involved him and loose women in Vancouver on the set of a TV show he did...his intention clear: I am straight, buddy.
Tony and The Winner struck up a decent conversation on business and The Winner even engaged me in fairly decent repartee on the state of publishing.
Mook found some common ground too and by the end of the evening, we were all positively chummy.
Tony, who debated going off to have a night cap with him declined in the end, because as he told me, "I am most certainly going to find his dick in my arse at some point and I don't think I'm ready for that" and came home in the limo with me.
The Winner sent us home with chocolate cake, gave Mook a hearty hug and as Mook took off with his new girl toy, The Winner walked out to the valet and handed in his ticket.
"How was your evening, sir?" the valet guy asked him politely.
The Winner, not knowing Tony and I were right behind him, sighed.
"I never get lucky on those celebrity date things. My friends at the gym all swore Mook was gay. Why do guys b.s. so much?"
The valet guy looked frightened at the prospect of having to play amateur psychologist and took off running for The Winner's car.
Tony held me back, so The Winner wouldn't see us. "Let's give him some dignity," he whispered, which I thought was very kind. We watched him drive off in his Rolls and Tony shook his head.
"Guys do b.s. a lot don't they?" Before I could respond, he said, "And I thought women were hard bloody work."

Aloha oe,
A.J.

Currently listening : Flesh + Blood By Roxy Music Release date: 2000-03-14