Large measures

Gin toddies, large measures

Gin toddies

I was back in LA, my final stop in the US before I headed across the vast Pacific to New Zealand. I had two gays lined up for the few days that I was back. The first was Matt, who I hadn’t met before but had emailed a few times while planning my trip after a mutual friend and colleague had put us in touch. Matt still worked for the company I used to work for and had agreed to be one of my hosts way back in March, three months before I had even set off on my travels. When he had first contacted me I had looked him up on the internal directory at work and chuckled at his email address. The norm for our work email addresses was first initial and surname before the @ sign. Someone had beaten Matt to that so instead of being “mryder” he was “maryder”. I couldn’t help but think of him as “Mary Der” and had referred to him as Mary when I had been discussing my hosts with Ricey. I hoped I didn’t accidentally call him Mary.

I gave him a call to let him know that I was downtown and only a block away from his. He said he would come down to meet me in the lobby of his building. I arrived in the lobby as Matt was leaving the elevator. He walked across to me and I held out my hand to shake his. He gave me a hug, telling me he was a hugger. I hugged back. We headed up to his and he gave me a little tour of his apartment. He had laid out a towel, some toiletries and a cookie for me, which was really welcoming. He asked me what I fancied doing that evening and that he had thought we could do dinner downtown followed by drinks in West Hollywood with a couple of his friends. I said that it sounded like a grand plan so had a quick shower and changed ready to head out.

I hadn’t spent much time in downtown LA so as we walked along to the restaurant Matt pointed out a few landmarks to me, including his office. Matt suggested a place called Bottega Louie for dinner. The place was buzzing when we got there and we had a drink at the bar while waiting for our table. We were soon shown to our table and the waitress handed us our menus and went through the specials. Matt had been a few times before so told me what on the menu he thought was especially good. We went with some calamari, Portobello mushroom fries and a pizza to share between the two of us. The candlelit table for two, the shared food and the conversation of two people who had never met getting to know each other made me feel like I was on a date. It felt very strange, as I knew I wasn’t on a date. I’m normally not very good at dating so I decided the best thing to do was to view it as practice for when I get home from my travels and end up, hopefully (eventually), on a proper date.

Large measures

Dinner was great – the recommendations from Matt were spot on and I could have easily eaten bowl after bowl of the Portobello fries. We walked back to Matt’s through a busy downtown. It was Downtown LA Art Walk – a monthly event where galleries, bars and restaurants open their doors and display various artists’ works. It made for a very mixed and interesting crowd being out on the streets. From Matt’s we headed to West Hollywood with a friend of his, Michael, for a drink or two. I had asked where we were headed and thought Matt had said that the place was called “Sewer”. I asked him to repeat it a couple of times. I said “Sewer” didn’t sound like a great name for a bar and restaurant. He clarified by spelling it – we were headed to a place called Sur. The place was owned by Lisa Vanderpump (some woman off the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills) and she sometimes frequented the place. I had no idea who she was or what she looked like.  There was also a rumour going round that Paula Abdul was somewhere on the premises though and we did a scout round trying to find her but to no avail.

The place felt (at least to me, an outsider) very LA. There were a lot of really well dressed, attractive people who seemed to be there to be seen. Some of the outfits they had on virtually guaranteed that they would be seen. The venue was a great place for drinks, despite the barman doing his best to make it otherwise. The first issue was he didn’t have change for my $20, which actually meant he didn’t have enough $1 bills to give me five of them in order to make sure I had plenty to give him a tip. He also didn’t know that Hendrick’s should have cucumber in it and seemed to take great offence at me removing the piece of lime (despite me telling him not to put lime in it). He also had to take a break every couple of minutes, seemingly to stand and pout. I figured he was one of the slash people (barman-slash-actor, waiter-slash-singer) and his heart wasn’t really in bartending. I still left a dollar tip for him though. I blame my English manners that I left a tip despite the poor service.

While at Sur one of Matt’s friends called him Mary which gave me a chance to tell him that I had been calling him that to other people for months. He said it happened a lot and he often got emails address to Mary Der or Ms Der. I also told him that in a fit of boredom at work I had scoured the work directory looking for other people who had funny email addresses as a result of the combination of their initial and surname. The funniest one I found was someone in the same office as Matt whose email address started “munter@”. Matt looked at me with a blank expression. We were two people separated by a common language. I explained what a munter was.

After Sur we went to The Abbey for a nightcap. I was told (repeatedly) that The Abbey had been voted the Best Gay Bar in the World. I wasn’t sure by whom and wondered if it was one of those self-aggrandizing American things like the World Series. To give it credit though it had the best go-go boys of any venue that I had been to on my travels, the barman got my drink right (a whole lot of gin with the merest hint of tonic) and the music was danceable to. If I was local then I figured it would be a regular haunt for me. We only stayed for one drink and a quick dance as Matt had to be at work in the morning. A rather scary taxi ride home (I think the driver had got his driving skills from playing Grand Theft Auto) rounded off a fun first evening with Number 34.

“Gin toddies, large measures” 
Lyrics from It’s a Fine Life from the musical Oliver!