Two Weekends in Hollywood and Berkeley

Two weekends ago I had the pleasure of attending Elton John's Academy Awards Dinner in support of his AIDS Foundation (EJAF).  This meant I also had the pleasure to hear Sir Elton perform Tiny Dancer, certainly worth the price of admission.  As I got dressed and made up for the big night, I realised that Hollywood is really no different than any other company town.  Residents of Hollywood, Washington DC, Stanford and Berkeley need to make a living.  They need places to eat and entertain themselves.  They need health care and lawyers and agents (agents are crawling all over the campuses to get athletes and let's not think about DC). We sometimes get mesmerised by the glamour of Hollywood, the way some of us used to get mesmerised by the power of DC.  Don't get me started.  I know a lot of diva professors at Stanford and Berkeley who probably wished they had agents.  The last time I checked, at university campuses, agents were reserved for athletes.  But back to Hollywood.

Here Is Elton John playing Tiny Dancer.  

Sir Elton's dinner had a big British crowd, so naturally they were rooting for Bohemian Rhapsody and The Favourite.  I must be honest:  for the first time ever, I actually saw most of the pictures nominated.  I liked If Beale Street Could Talk, Bohemian Rhapsody, The Favourite, Green Book and A Star Is Born the best.  Not that it matters in the least.  Our party went berserk when Rami Malek won Best Actor for his portrayal of Freddy Mercury, and almost as berserk when Olivia Coleman won best actress for The Favourite.  Then Elton brought out The Killers. What a great band, and they love to remind you that they hail from Las Vegas.  It's easy to forget how many great songs they've done.  I used to think that if I had a really big blowout I'd try to hire Santana (only if Carlos would play). Now I think I might think of hiring The Killers.  These guys rock!

Anyway, with winners, come losers.  As Shelley Winters so poignantly demonstrated in The Poseidon Adventure, "There Has To Be A Morning After".

The morning after in Hollywood.  What in the hell was I doing up at that hour?

No problem.  I chilled by my hotel pool like you're supposed to do in Hollywood.

OK, enough of Hollywood.  The following weekend was my birthday weekend.  Bruce took me to Berkeley, where a friend who shares my birthday was having an anniversary of her 30th birthday in a nearby suburb.

Rasputin Music on Telegraph Avenue.  This is definitely not Hollywood.

Here's Little Missy standing next to a tulip tree on the Berkeley campus.  Yes, that's a Burberry umbrella, a Saint Laurent sweater, a Rodarte jacket and an Alaia handbag.  What do you take me for anyway?

For my birthday breakfast we went to the Lilac Bakery in North Berkeley.  Note the yellow Beetle.

It was delicious but not exactly gluten free.

Berkeley's beautiful in the morning.  It was overcast. The soundtrack would be Simon and Garfunkel's great song "Cloudy" which contains the unbelievable lines:

My thoughts are scattered and they're cloudy, they have no borders, no boundaries. They echo and they swell from Tolstoi to Tinker Bell. Down from Berkeley to Carmel.

I'm not making any judgement calls here.  I was however sort of formed by this kind of music, even if it appeared in the very Hollywood movie, "The Graduate".

I was born in LA and I have lived in Palo Alto most of my life.  I'm just glad I live in California and I can have the best of two very different worlds!