Today was the biggest day of the show for us. As we do at most of these big shows, we held an interesting focus group with readers. We always get great feedback about things we haven’t thought about, and we often improve the magazine based on what readers tell us. (Any other suggestions for the magazine, drop us a line.)
After doing the show floor for much of the afternoon (again at the two booths), I headed back to my room at the Omni and freshened up. At the PDC two years ago, we stayed at the Westin Bonaventure. That place was a dump. The elevators induced vertigo. They left room service trays in the hallway overnight. There were hookers in the hotel bar – and not the classy Julia Roberts kind, either. The ones here looked like Diana Ross female impersonators. I knew it was time to go home when I used the restroom in the lobby, looked down at the finely polished floors, and saw a reflection of a hotel worker in a stall, wiping himself. There’s just no excuse for my just having recounted that incident except to point out that the Omni is a nice quiet place to stay on business.
Anyway, after a few minutes back in my hotel room, listening to Isles-Devils on streaming audio (thanks, NHL.com!), I headed over to the VIP party for PDC sponsors at Café Pinot. There was an interesting and eclectic group of sponsors this year, including Oracle and IBM. We magazine folk mingled for a bit, then hopped in a cab for our party. Great cab, too – we should’ve paid the extra $5 to get the shocks and struts turned on. After collecting our missing spinal discs, we headed into the party (which was well hidden behind a nondescript door on Vine Street in Hollywood).
The party was somewhat more subdued than many of our recent shindigs. We (me, Kerry, some of the Junkies) had a bit of fondue, sat around in the make-out lounge upstairs, and chatted about the world for a while. A few of our favorite authors (Matt Pietrek, John Robbins) came by for a while. Things wound down after midnight, and as we walked out to the street, the bar manager locked the door behind us. We (Michele, Kerry, Karen, Matt) packed into Kerry’s rental and I drove us back to town. (I get to drive because I’m a lightweight who doesn’t drink. Everyone else seemed to regret the choice.) Once again, we ended up at The Standard.
When you’re an old guy, it starts to feel weird knowing that you’ve just stayed up until you normally arise. (2:30 AM PST, 5:30 AM EST) The bars in Los Angeles close down for some weird reason at 2 AM. How is it going to become a world-class city if it shuts down so early? Even the Fashion Weekers were looking for minibars.
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