visiting dignitary from chicago

Angel Abcede came to town this past week. Every other person I meet from Chicago or New York knows Angel from The Semen Tree (his one-man show about growing up gaysian), his column for Gay Chicago Magazine, Sex Police (the now-defunct AIDs awareness performance group he founded), or from being one of Chicago's Joel Hall Dancers for 17 years. However you may know him, Angel is a lot of fun to hang out with. I was excited to hear that Angel is working on his new show and plans to bring it to the west coast.

The last time Angel came to visit I had introduced him to Score, the best gay Latino bar on 4th Street ever, and he had a blast. So on Monday night, while I was watching a double bill of House of Flying Daggers (genius) and Once Upon A Time In China (shit) at the New Beverly Cinema, and minutes after Angel's plane landed at LAX, he made a beeline for Score with Michael (fellow Chicago actor now based in LA). I'll say it again, I love my neighborhood.

It was overcast when we walked from the penthouse to a late lunch at Banquette - Angel, Michael, and me. I was already a little loopy from the muscle relaxant and painkiller cocktails, but after several bottles of the house red, I was trashed. News of Angel's arrival had spread and our group grew larger. Then the skies opened up and poured rain, but the people kept coming. We had no umbrellas so we ordered more wine and waited for the rain to stop. I love that I can get trashed at lunch on a Tuesday. Our group grew drunker, as well as in numbers. We were gawked at by a large group taking Hal Bastian's downtown loft tour and I'm sure we drove away a lot of Banquette regulars who were looking for a quiet place to take their coffee/wine break. So damn the rain, we decided to run and skip back to the penthouse and consume whatever alcohol we had there.

My jet-set roommate, who was in Burma the week before, just got back from Jackson Hole, Wyoming to find our boisterous group dancing in the living room. More roommates arrived and our large group went off to dinner and then to Club L for karaoke. Yes, karaoke. I figured we'd go somewhere in Koreatown for karaoke, but Michael swore by this place on Lankershim. As a general rule, I don't do 818, but I thought I'd roll with it (how bad could it be?) and I'm so glad I did.

I felt like a freakin' prom queen at Club L. I couldn't hold my own with the amazing talent taking their turns to rock the mic, but I was too drunk and medicated to care. Not everyone who got up to sing had perfect pitch, but the crowd was incredibly supportive - even if you sounded less like Stevie Wonder and more like Biz Markie. If you weren't singing, you were either on the dance floor, shooting pool, or making out at the bar. I almost forgot that I was in excruciating pain from my car accident. I finally hit the sack at 4AM and my feet felt like bloody stumps, but it was worth it. I can't believe I'm admitting to having a good time in the Valley, much less planning on returning. Maybe it had something to do with the cute guy who gave me his digits that night.