November 17, 2000

Through a series of events I don't fully understand, I spent part of a recent afternoon at Skybar, the ultra-trendy watering hole in West Hollywood.  This is the place where hot young celebrities come to indulge their addictions and be fawned over by their entourages.

So, y'know, I fit right in.

Just walking into the hotel that houses Skybar pegged my admittedly low-calibrated intimidation meter.  Out front are a whole gaggle of either incredibly enormous bellhops or incredibly helpful bouncers.  To get to the bar, you've got to make your way though a lobby designed for style rather than navigation.  And the question of where the hotel ends and Skybar begins is something that apparently has yet to be decided.

The bar itself is a raised, fifty-by-fifty, roofed-over deck, with the drinks against one wall, an incredible view of Los Angeles against another and beautiful people filling out the other two.  The waitresses all wore sarongs and smallish tops and I hope to hell that they get gym memberships as part of their employee package, because abs seem to be a job requirement.

Just below the bar is a pool, cut low into the ground and edged with wooden-grated splash-overs.  Surrounding the pool are... beds, I guess.  There were these enormous mattresses, with pillows and/or attractive people tossed willy-nilly over them.  It had a very last-days-of-Rome feel, with people lounging about, drinking drinks, laying in the sun or each other's laps.  Throw in some lead utensils and invading Visigoths and the image would be complete.

 I'm not even going to bring up the $3 Coke.

But for everything, for the bouncers, for the poolside beds, for the view, for the beautiful people, both working and not, everybody was really, really nice -- utterly and completely attitude-free.  They helped me when I asked for help and made great recommendations when I asked for great recommendations and were engaging and funny and polite and solicitous and everything that people at a trendy, West Hollywood hot-spot are simply not supposed to be.

Which makes me wonder who they mistook me for.

 



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