Why I Need Detox
Next thing I know, we’ve been driven from the five-course meal with gallons of red wine and tons of carbohydrates, in a cab that seems to take pleasure in skirting the very edge of Capri’s massive cliffs, to a club filled with maybe four hundred drunken Italian sailors and a whole bunch of girls who’re probably really Catholic until someone buys them any number of shots from the bar. Our two millionaire hosts may have been nearly 60 years old but apparently have a habit of shutting down bars up and down Italy every night; they tossed a few hundred thousand Euros at the bartender and basically dared him to see if he could push enough drinks across the bar to have everyone babbling in tongues.
All this is how I ended up dancing on a bartop in Capri at four in the morning with a bunch of women while the live band up front sung ribald tales about screwing and the aforementioned sailors sweated and screamed and jumped in unison. The fact that I had to help race a sailboat across the Gulf of Naples the next morning mattered not. The fact that I had spent the entire day interviewing people aboard a futuristic motor-yacht mattered not. The only thought in my mind: I already had everything I needed for the story, so no fucking way was I going to let a pair of 60-something fashion house CEOs drink and/or dance me under the table tonight.
Which they did, of course. Enthusiasm never competes with experience, particularly if the enthusiastic party is a lightweight who ordinarily needs a grand total of four beers before he’s banging his head against the jukebox while howling along with Bruce Springsteen. The place so packed-tight I had to literally crowd-surf towards the door, reeling, ready to forcibly eject maybe eight shots of lemoncello onto the heads of the National Racing Team and their snarling Russian girlfriends. Heading off into twisty Capri streets loud with tourists, two fellow journalists in tow, ears still ringing.
The only problem was, my hotel was not reachable by car – being a tiny hole-in-the-wall 50 yards down a barely-lit path on the back end of Anacapri; a residence with spectacular views of the deep blue sea but lacking in accessibility. Which necessitated, at the end of the night, early birds already chattering in the trees overhead, a climactic sprint through the maze-like twists and turns of footpaths towards a dim light between dark trees. ”No wonder they have so much trouble catching the damn mafia in this country.”
Do not even ask me about the hangover.
Some of the best prose I ever spat out, though, at the end of it all.
Hell-A, Part Deux
Bombing along Sunset Boulevard with the whole crew in tow – photographer, photog assistant, art designer – passing the In-and-Out Burgers and trendy chrome-shiny eateries and the junkies scratching their forearms underneath the palm trees, and someone, with perhaps the dull predictability of young males stuck together in an SUV, brings up the topic of strippers. To wit:
“In Los Angeles, girls in strip clubs can’t actually go topless unless the place doesn’t serve alcohol. But if they serve liquor, they have to stay in a bikini top of whatever.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Nope.”
“What about cabaret? Can they go topless?”
“My mom used to sing cabaret, so fuck you, it’s burlesque, but no – even when it’s burlesque, the tops stay on.”
“So where are we going tonight?”
“In this Puritan burg? Best thing’s to grab a burger and go to bed. Turn in here.”
The Celebrity we're here to interview has a toothache. I’m hoping he’s jacked on Tylenol-3 when it comes time to sit down but you never know with these things – he may very well abort, leaving us to execute our pale imitation of ‘Kiss Kiss Bang Bang’ on an unsuspecting City of Angels. Either that, or sit in the too-trendy rooms of our boutique hotel with the stuffed sheep in the lobby, and watch music videos on YouTube.
But LA is good. Everything is macrobiotic; the sun is warm on your face; the sheets in that boutique hotel thick and white and cool. And point of fact, I needed to detox again, needed a period out here where I could break some of my worst new habits; The Girl leaving back in April led to a period where I was drinking too much, smoking too many cigars, stunt sex, not-eating, running until my knees threatened to crack like cheap white plates, writing until my knuckles cracked and the tips of my fingers reddened. Never losing control, never bottoming out like some bargain-bin Bukowski, but... there comes a point.
All this is how I ended up dancing on a bartop in Capri at four in the morning with a bunch of women while the live band up front sung ribald tales about screwing and the aforementioned sailors sweated and screamed and jumped in unison. The fact that I had to help race a sailboat across the Gulf of Naples the next morning mattered not. The fact that I had spent the entire day interviewing people aboard a futuristic motor-yacht mattered not. The only thought in my mind: I already had everything I needed for the story, so no fucking way was I going to let a pair of 60-something fashion house CEOs drink and/or dance me under the table tonight.
Which they did, of course. Enthusiasm never competes with experience, particularly if the enthusiastic party is a lightweight who ordinarily needs a grand total of four beers before he’s banging his head against the jukebox while howling along with Bruce Springsteen. The place so packed-tight I had to literally crowd-surf towards the door, reeling, ready to forcibly eject maybe eight shots of lemoncello onto the heads of the National Racing Team and their snarling Russian girlfriends. Heading off into twisty Capri streets loud with tourists, two fellow journalists in tow, ears still ringing.
The only problem was, my hotel was not reachable by car – being a tiny hole-in-the-wall 50 yards down a barely-lit path on the back end of Anacapri; a residence with spectacular views of the deep blue sea but lacking in accessibility. Which necessitated, at the end of the night, early birds already chattering in the trees overhead, a climactic sprint through the maze-like twists and turns of footpaths towards a dim light between dark trees. ”No wonder they have so much trouble catching the damn mafia in this country.”
Do not even ask me about the hangover.
Some of the best prose I ever spat out, though, at the end of it all.
Hell-A, Part Deux
Bombing along Sunset Boulevard with the whole crew in tow – photographer, photog assistant, art designer – passing the In-and-Out Burgers and trendy chrome-shiny eateries and the junkies scratching their forearms underneath the palm trees, and someone, with perhaps the dull predictability of young males stuck together in an SUV, brings up the topic of strippers. To wit:
“In Los Angeles, girls in strip clubs can’t actually go topless unless the place doesn’t serve alcohol. But if they serve liquor, they have to stay in a bikini top of whatever.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Nope.”
“What about cabaret? Can they go topless?”
“My mom used to sing cabaret, so fuck you, it’s burlesque, but no – even when it’s burlesque, the tops stay on.”
“So where are we going tonight?”
“In this Puritan burg? Best thing’s to grab a burger and go to bed. Turn in here.”
The Celebrity we're here to interview has a toothache. I’m hoping he’s jacked on Tylenol-3 when it comes time to sit down but you never know with these things – he may very well abort, leaving us to execute our pale imitation of ‘Kiss Kiss Bang Bang’ on an unsuspecting City of Angels. Either that, or sit in the too-trendy rooms of our boutique hotel with the stuffed sheep in the lobby, and watch music videos on YouTube.
But LA is good. Everything is macrobiotic; the sun is warm on your face; the sheets in that boutique hotel thick and white and cool. And point of fact, I needed to detox again, needed a period out here where I could break some of my worst new habits; The Girl leaving back in April led to a period where I was drinking too much, smoking too many cigars, stunt sex, not-eating, running until my knees threatened to crack like cheap white plates, writing until my knuckles cracked and the tips of my fingers reddened. Never losing control, never bottoming out like some bargain-bin Bukowski, but... there comes a point.
posted by NiK @ 5:50 PM
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