Where to begin? With a near miss of spending time with Fred Savage? With the blanket coverage of Frank Gehry's latest materpiece?

What I'm talking about of course, was the past weekend, which I spent it LA. And not just LA, but Beverly Hills. I was there for Sam's wedding, which was a beautiful affair, from start to finish. And even had some unexpected and painful features, like his hiring a yoga teacher to come to his house and teach a private class for about 15 of us in the living room. That was painful, though it was good to soak in the extremely tasteful pool afterwards, looking up at the fruit trees on the hill behind his house. If that was all you saw of LA, you might like it there.

But alas, I was staying in a hotel right off Rodeo and Wilshire, in the heart of fancy Beverly Hills. There are many things I am bothered by in that neighborhood. The environmental aspect, where people build houses and plant grass as though they are in the English Midlands, rather than having sand lawns with cactus, which is what is indigenous to the region. It doesn't really bother me that they are creating a horrible problem for hundreds of miles around by sucking up all the water. But it bothers me that there is an attitude that underlies it, just like the heater umbrellas. I was also bothered by the hotel staff who seemed incapable of doing anything right. I even changed rooms because the room was unacceptably loud, and they screwed up the room change. Even check out was screwed up. They were very bad. Dont stay at the Mosaic if you ever go to LA.

Then there was walking in the shops on Rodeo, where plenty of people shop with tiny dogs. One even vomited on the floor, though the store clerk played it down, saying it was "mostly water". Aside from every cliche come to life, with incredibly expensive shoes being sold to foreigners who don't know any better, the road was torn up so the actual, not metaphorical sewer was exposed. I find that interesting in light of the fact that all through the city, each street has a kind of sub street behind it, and it reinforces the whole notion of facade, because, say, Hermes, which has an incredibly designed front also has a back door set in a cinderblcok wall for employees. And that caries through to everything, the valets, the restaurants, and of course the aging ladies held together by plastic surgery scars. Speaking of which, one of them told me I looked like adam sandler, which I consider no compliment. Then she said Adam Sandler is hot. Which is essentially her calling me hot.

Only I don't want her to call me hot. Sam, who kind of reminds me of Jeff Goldblum actually ran into Jeff Goldblum when he picked up the wedding bands, which is sort of strange. He also ran into Fred Savage, though I don't really mind not hanging out with those gentlemen. Not Sam. I like him. Sam really put together an incredible wedding, complete with details, like a table with assorted chocolates of every stripe that you could bag yourself, the largest wedding cake I have ever seen, and of course, tons of food, all first rate. Plus there were flowers everywhere and musicians for each segment. Your basic beautiful wedding.

I read that saturday night alone 7 people were shot to death in south LA, which is a pretty typical number. Aside from the Apartheid feel to the place, there is also a sense, at least to me, that the situation can't go on liek this forever, something, mud, earthquake, fire, will change the balance of things. It is also really hot there, maybe not like New York in August, but close enough that I was cranky and hot. I am basically an advocate of cool weather. I'm running out of patience for even talking about LA anymore, but I would just add for closure the thought on Frank Gerhry. I don't like him or his crappy architecture, and they can talk all day about how it puts LA on the cultural map to make an expensive concert hall, but the fact remains that the OC will still define LA, and I don't mean the county, I mean the tv show.