Last Weekend - Part Two

THE GRAND SOIREE

Well we arrived downtown a wee bit early, so naturally we stopped at the closest watering hole for a drink. We had an interesting Chardonnay (at least I think it was a Chardonnay), what made it interesting was the bouquet. It was reminiscent of Feta cheese, but actually was quite nice on the palate. I cannot stand Feta cheese, but really love Chardonnay; it was an interesting dichotomy hard on the nose, pleasant on the tongue. I managed.
We met the remainder of our party of 10 at the bar, finished our drinks and moseyed on up to the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion.

A little background: This event was an annual fundraiser for St. Joseph’s Center, an organization providing services to needy families and individuals; you can read more about them here. This soiree was in fact their annual fundraiser, so prior to assembling at our table we took a pre-auction tour. Conveniently, there was a wine/beer bar located strategically throughout the silent auction area, so glass in hand we took a stroll through the stuff. There were a lot of travel items, most well beyond our price range, others places we had no interest in going to. We did find a “Sideways” tour that looked promising, which La bid on and eventually won. I had my sites on the iPod, starting bid at $160.00, I placed my bid and would wander back from time to time to see if I had been out bid yet. For the first 30 minutes or so, everything looked good, but we were early and as the crowd increased, I noticed that I had been out bid by a large margin. Oh well. We also, bid on a couple of art pieces – one a photograph taken on Venice Beach, the other an abstract painting in tones of silver, a quiet ethereal piece. I have no idea how much we paid for them, I suppose I’ll find out when I receive the AMEX bill.

The agenda for the night’s festivities was dinner, speeches and awards during dinner, auctioning off the cool stuff, and dancing.

Dinner was really quite good, filet mignon and … to tell you the truth I can’t remember what came with it. The dessert was pretty good too.

Now the award was kind of surreal. It was for lack of a better description – The Most Improved This Year award. It was given to a 57 year old gentleman who just happened to have a 7 year old son. No mention of a “Missus”, I’ll go out on a limb here and state the child was born out of wedlock. They showed a short video of this gentlemen being interviewed by one of their caseworkers, he stated things were going pretty well, although after he got his first job he injured his back two weeks into it and was now on Worker’s Compensation. He hopes to be off disability soon so he can get back to work and care for his son.

I’m staring at the screen incredulous.

After the video, there was resounding applause and the MC, who is this lady:

Asks him to come up to receive his award, at which point he trundles up the stairs (with his kid if I remember correctly), says a little speech and afterwards receives a standing O from a significant chunk of the audience.

You know I used to defend Los Angelenos, as I was raised in LA, but it really says something about their mindset and/or expectations when a old man who has fathered a child, goes to work only to get injured in his first two weeks, then goes on state disability to receive a most improved award.

The soft bigotry of low expectations.

So we got that out of the way, now it was time for the cut throat stuff – the auction. The auctioneer was a trollish, balding sort of a fella who I must say to his credit had a good auctioneering cadence to his voice. Being short, he had stringers throughout the party to alert him that someone raised their paddle.

I’ve never been to an auction before and it was fun to watch. I wasn’t about to bid on anything but I must say I admired Lady Voldemorts courage and tenacity. There were several times when she bid and I looked over and I thought – “are you out of your mind?” Only later, at the Après Soiree did I learn she was just trying to up the bid. See I would NEVER do that. You know why? Because I’d be the hapless schmuck to get stuck with the bid, that’s why.

The highlight of the auction was an eight person trip to Idaho in a private Leer jet, kindly donated by LA’s last mayor with a pronounceable name – Richard Riordan. As a matter of fact it was his house. I’m not sure where bidding started, but the Lady raised her little paddle at 14K, and I gave her another one of those looks… But hoping she’d win in case maybe La and I got an invitation. Alas, it was not to be over at the other side of the room another paddle went up for a bid of 16K.

Going once. Going Twice. Going Threeeeeeeee Times….

Sooooooooollllld to the man in the lovely tuxedo at table 16!

Much later in the evening, I noticed the gentlemen from table 16 having a confab with the Lady. It turns out he’s the Director of St. Joe’s, and the ex-Mayor had placed a condition of his donation, namely that he’d match the bid amount on anything over 20K. So the gentleman in the tux from table 16 was trying to up the bid!

Hah! Now he’s the hapless schmuck who got stuck with it! I hope St. Joe’s pays well.

I kinda doubt it.

One thought on the Grand Dame – the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, it’s been around a good long time, the last time I was there I was fifteen or so to see George M starring Joel Grey. I say this because today the Pavilion has a quality much like Gloria Swanson in Sunset Blvd. I don’t mean to say as has been or washed up or anything like that, more that its grandeur is recognizable but under a patina of old age and perhaps neglect. In the back bar, you can tell the Hollywood glitterati of old used to gather there for Manhattans and cigarettes. The art on the walls are oddly anachronistic – on one wall an early Frank Stella, on another a rustic three dimensional fishing village scene that appears to made of driftwood. Strange, Romantic and Melancholy all rolled into one.

Our group in typical fashion was the last to leave. We bundled up our stuff we bid on and tumbled down to street level like a bunch of well dressed puppies to await our limo. It turned up in good time, we all piled in and from somewhere out of the blue a bottle of wine appeared. Life’s good.

La and I would like to publicly thank the Lord and Lady for their immense generosity. They paid for the table and the limo. It was truly a wonderful evening!

Next: Le Après Soiree.