On this early Halloween Eve in the Hollywood Hills, I say, I wish more people (men in particular) would dress up. No, I’m not condoning this once fun kids’ holiday that has been co-opted by bored workaday weekend warrior types in search of a way to blow off steam–i.e. jocks in masculine drag, and women with the vain version of attention-deficit disorder sporting the sluttiest outfits this side of the West Valley. I’m saying that men in Los Angeles need to wear suits more often (and it happens to be Halloween so what better “costume” to sport?). They do it in New York. So, hey, since everyone in LA’s got a little “New York envy,” why not follow the leader?

I’ve been feeling this way for a while but a recent event solidified my position. This week I attended a fundraiser for Planned Parenthood at the Magic Castle in Hollywood. I’ll digress by saying that going to the Castle has always been a childhood dream of mine. I was obsessed with becoming a magician when I was in the single-digits, and also had an odd fixation with the occult (I owned a crystal ball). I sent away for an application to be a member of the Magic Castle but my enthusiasm disappeared (ha-ha, magicians’ joke) when I received it in the mail and noticed that I had to be a professional magician AND fork over a lot more than a piggy bank’s worth of loot for membership. How I would have loved to have yelled requests at Irma the “ghost”/”invisible” piano player only to have “her” play them for me, on-cue. How I dreamed of saying, “open sesame” and having that Magic Castle bookcase part before my eyes. But such dreams would remain unfulfilled until this week.

Back on track, the Magic Castle enforces a rather strict dress code (in the context of laidback, flip-flopville, L.A.). Men must sport suits and ties and women must don cocktail dresses, skirt suits or pant suits. What a splendid idea, I thought. For once the ‘Gilligan-meets-stoned-Cabin Boy‘ man-boys in this town have to abandon their backwards baseball caps, ratty jeans, sporty vibrant Nikes and ironic band shirts for, gasp, flattering clothing befitting of men their age. And for once all those pink Juicy Couture sweat suit wearing bimbs have to create some semblance of a “classy” ensemble.

Naturally, I was overjoyed by the dress parameters outlined on the invite and leapt at the opportunity to dive into my Sonia Rykiel, black sequined dress and a pair of point Dolce heels. But, in my humble opinion, I wasn’t the cat’s meow…the men were…all spiffed up in their nice dinner jackets and smart ties. They looked quite dashing…an adjective that is rarely in use nowadays, not just because it’s old-fashioned but because tattooed men addicted to Playstation who wear high tops into their forties, are well, pretty much the opposite of dashing. I’m, in fact, dashing, in the opposite direction when I see them.

I apologize if I’m being too harsh. What red-blooded American woman wouldn’t want a touk-wearing middle-aged guy whose loose-fitting pants reveal his plumber’s crack? Ladies, if you were ever dying to have a kid, here’s your chance. Don’t get me wrong, I adore the laidback look of a pristine white wifebeater on a well developed chest, draped with a flannel–on the weekend. But what happened to making some attempt to “clean up nice” at least during the week?

So, all you caj dudes, when you’ve finished watching The Simpsons tonight and get ready to go out to this function or that, don’t put on your “Bart” costume…dress to kill.

Happy Halloween, boys.

Image: Bill Clinton - Pres. of Pop

Last week in an editorial post I wrote for The Huffington Post entitled “Going Hillywood,” I talked about how, unlike Mr. Media Mojo, Sen. Barack Obama, early presidential frontrunner Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton hasn’t packed a pop punch and catered in any way to the often young, creative, urban, “hipster” (for lack of better terms) base as hubby Bill did. I’m a fan of Sen. Clinton’s and I just want to see her succeed (in a world where influencers on the Left and Right Coasts are the invisible hand that plays with the middle of the country through subversive media trends, etc.).

Obama, who is always being criticized for his lack of experience is diving right into the freshman stereotype, swiveling his hips on “Ellen,” and posing for GQ. Unfortunately, it does little to disprove his detractors’ perceptions of him as inexperienced and a bit too slick and well, GQ. Clinton, a superb debator and candidate of substance (like her, or hate her), who is viewed as too serious and “hard” could gain a lot from adding some light-hearted, addictive-like-fructose pop to her campaign.

In any case, it’s not really my intent to repeat my whole Huf Post blog editorial, but to add that I received an email commenting on said post from the smart and broad-thinking economist, urban studies theorist and author Richard Florida (who wrote “The Rise of the Creative Class”). I was naturally happy to hear that he agreed with my hypothesis. He added his own experience which I think is worth sharing, in his own words:

“They don’t get it…not a single one…only Mike Huckabee is talking about this. But mayors do: it got John Hickenlooper elected mayor of Denver. I wrote a post about this. Why do all the prez candidates shy away from cities and the creative class? It’s not just a political morass…it will cost us dearly economically. But they are getting it in Ireland, across Scandinavia, and even in my new home, Canadialand (is I think how Perez Hilton puts it)..“

Right on, Richard–and love the pop reference to the chubby online muckraker–how very pop

Apparently it’s up to ‘broad view’ people - be they authors, economists, journalists or your average cup o’ Joe at Starbucks to spread the word. And of course we don’t do this by directly campaigning. Ours is a more subversive path. We embed “the word” in your popular culture, and then ‘you never saw it coming.’

Since my last online A.P.B. (in search of a friend of mine from Spain) worked almost immediately, I’m giving it another go. I’m looking for an old friend named Katrina Burns who lived in Los Angeles, in the Brentwood/Palisades area and went to Marymount. The last I heard from her in the mid-90’s she was getting married and moving to South America. If you have any info on how to get in touch with her please email me.

I’m at least 45 minutes from any of the So. Cal blazes (an hour and a half from most) but check out this smokey view from my back deck in the Hollywood Hills. The air is dense. Bad news for asthmatics…cough.

Politics is the new punk rock, or rather, politics has always been “punk rock.” Try throwing a controversial topic out there at a cocktail party, like a woman’s right to choose or the death penalty, and watch the Democrats and Republicans create a conversational “slam pit.” Such was the case, on Friday night’s “Real Time with Bill Maher” when four hooligans (yes, I am like 80 years old) disrupted his live HBO show for five minutes, yelling at him from the audience until he kicked them out (with minor assistance from his shamed security team). The loudmouths escorted off premises were in fact members of a protest community called “911 Truthers,” which, frankly sounds a bit “Moral Majority,” and “Pro-Life”-ish to me. The idea that anyone has the exclusive on truth…anyway, I digress.

Giving you a bit of back-history: Maher had hosted one of his worst panels ever, consisting of the esteemed and cool Professor Cornell West and the straight-out incoherant and loony rapper Mos Def. It was clear to me that “Def” was purposely needling at Maher, trying to really get his feathers ruffled, for whatever reason. Maher had been respectful to his stony-eyed guest until Mr. Def claimed that 911 was orchestrated by the government, and Maher lost it. After this insufferable episode (made so predominantly by the headache-inducing Mos Def lunacy) many people on the boards and blogs pledged to stop watching the show–or at least, the show’s intellectual demographic did so.

I’m sure this did not go unnoticed by Maher or his HBO cohorts. The following week he included a “New Rule” in that section of the show, that put down 911 conspiracy theorists and dubbed them essentially insane. His diatribe seemed–at least to me–clearly pointed at Mos Def. And I gave kudos to him for standing up to the unpleasant panelist. However, this would be the “war cry” moment for the “truthers.”

What I find fascinating is that the viewing audience at home had one perspective of the episode, while the panel had another. I was actually kind of scared for Bill. I wondered if the crazies might be waiting around for him outside in the parking lot after the show. I hardly caught a glimpse of the one he kicked out. Yet, briefly chatting with LA Times columnist and Time magazine contributor Joel Stein today on the phone (he was one of the guests on the “truthers episode” panel), I heard the other side. He said the protestors looked pretty much harmless and even kind of “nerdy.” So much for the Big Bad Wolf (or in radical politicalspeak, Panther).

The episode was shocking for sure–it was, after all LIVE TV and how often do you get to catch those sorts of impromptu Springer-like antics live? HOwever, more jarring was its depiction of the state of people’s minds under a regime of corruption and lies. Like “Three Days of the Condor” showed, governments that lie to their people create paranoid people. But are they really paranoid or are these conspiracies true? It’s an utter mind-fuck. In the case of 911, many believe that the government was well aware of a coming disaster but acted slowly for its own purposes. But to think that the government actually plotted this–wow that’s some mindblown stuff.

Back to Real Time…The fact is that show had sadly been going downhill, with technical glitches, and weak and low-grade panels (at times with two, rather than three guests) dominating the season. Word in the blogosphere was that it was “jump shark” time. Then suddenly these disruptive so-called “truthers” came on and essentially made Bill Maher a hero. His viewing audience, including me, concluded that he had proven he was the ballsy, on-the-spot-thinking political comedian we had all known and loved. Hmmm, but was he really a tough guy, or did he actually orchestrate the so-called protest of his show so that he could appear to be? An interesting and likely conspiracy that we should all contemplate heavily…NOT.

They should pay me to do this…hint hint

I already had the idea to write about the ‘Freaks and Geeks of LA’ when I caught this week’s episode of “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” centered around Larry David’s gift purchase of a book on freaks for Ted Danson. And that settled it…Larry found it amusing so, it was meant to be the topic du-jour or more appropriately “freak of the week.”

I began noticing a preponderance of an odd breed of LA freaks and geeks at my gym, years back. However, what began as an odd fringe trend (see above image of LA’s oldest freak, Angelyne–and refer to Dennis Woodruff, actor) has mushroomed into a full-blown mini-movement (”they’re here….”).

The early adopters were the “old bimbos” crew (famous sueptegenarian nobody Angelyne may well be their goddess). Think “the pink ladies” from Grease, about 50 years later and in headbands, leotards, platform shoes and makeup. ”Rizzo, you’re looking fine.” Carrying their faded “aesthetique plastique” like a badge of honor, or a patina’d AVN Award they bust moves right out of an Olivia Newton John video in front of the mirror with a twinkle in their eye that begs acknowledgment, recognition, or a crisp 100 for a GMILF handy in the locker room. I shouldn’t even joke. It’s LA; I’m sure Linda Lovelace went to my gym at some point.

Then there are the crooners. They look normal–with the exception of a Hamiltonian “tan” but then when as many people as possible are around they belt out lyrics to seemingly made up Survivor-style songs at the top of their lungs (think “The Ear of the Donkey”). I caught one crooner, clad in tight, religion-confirming shorts on one of the elipticals singing and then doing the odd snap, clap and head pivot, at alotted intervals. It sounds like I’m making this up but I swear; my imagination doesn’t stretch this far (and neither do their spandex bikers’ shorts…eeeuww). And there are more than one in each category making it appear to be, as mentioned above, a movement of sorts.

The freakiest of the gym freakies by far has to be this guy who looks like a mid-western dad–nicely trimmed mustache and wire-rim glasses. He wears ballet school shirts and stands in front of the mirror undulating his hips like a belly dancer in some frighteningly lewd movement for what feels like hours. It’s probably just a few minutes but it’s so cringe-worthy that it seems to go by at a snail’s pace. What IS HE DOING????? A Santeria ritual? A sollipsistic, West Hollywood mating dance? I’m so confused and disturbed.

Of course beyond the gym, at the odd local art opening or two, I’ve seen another breed of F&G that resembles a wizard (”Nobody Beats the Wiz”). With their long Billy Gibbons beards (which often hold in the smell of unfiltered cigarettes) blowing in the wind, they tell some strange yarns. They look like they’ve just been panning for gold, not hitting the galleries. Alas, this particular breed is slightly nostalgic for me. I loved the “ghost town” episode of the Brady Bunch.

But what I found most surprising this weekend was that some of these freaks and geeks or their rustic F&G cousins were in attendance at a posh restaurant opening over in West Hollywood. The decadent and ornate La Boheme restaurant re-opened its doors to much, and I really mean very much pagentry. Pleasant setting and tapas aside, this venue may well have been serving as “their” home base on Saturday evening. As a waxed-to-an-inch-of-his-life circus stud twirled around a hoop suspended above the eatery, onlookers with big hair and shiny brass clothing oohed and ahhd. Broadway singers “from Wicked,” I was informed by one of the more soberly clad middle aged gay couples, were the night’s entertainment.

But in all actuality, the Laughlin, Nevada slot machine moms were the real entertainment (of the f&g variety). I know, I need to get out of state more often if flamboyant gambling addicts seems exotic and freaky to me but, they do…There they were looking like Gina Gershon in Showgirls 2040, The Reunion, with their sequined cowboy hats and overly tarted up faces. ”We’re all whores, dahrlin’.” The music, the odd guests, the mix of shiny things and dizzying patterns; it all felt a bit like a convention of Bedazzler owners.  

Alas, live and let live. Clearly, I’m outnumbered and this movement is here to stay–a prescient glimpse into the future “look” of Britney Spears, when everything sags and she goes back to her roots.