Four For Friday - Oh We Are Going To Party - Part 2

In the lobby, our actor friend asked why I was in town. I told him I had some tickets to a show later that night. He then informed me he was playing in that same show and was sure he could get me better tickets,including to an auction that was happening earlier. When I asked him about the auction he said that even he could barely afford the prices that would be seen. It was a charity gig. The auction items were truly one of a kind celebrity type things and true to his word, most of them started the bidding in the $100K range.

During the day we had lunch together and got caught up before he went to a sound check. He told me to stop by because there was someone special who was going to be there he knew I loved. Sure enough, when I dropped by, there was an old friend there. She had just released her first record about a year or so earlier and was within days of releasing her second record. I had seen her the week before in LA and she never told me she was doing this show. She said it literally came up the day before when someone else dropped out. Her first record went double platinum. Let me check that. Yes, it did. Good memory. Honestly though I couldn't remember the sales of the second record and had to look it up. Barely platinum. She has over a double handful of Grammy wins/nominations and one heck of a name. One thing that sticks out at me about that night is she was introduced to a permanent A+ list musician who loved her work and almost a decade later they worked together based solely on their mutual admiration from that night.

Did I tell you that she enjoys making sure everyone has enough to drink? Yeah, she got that party started for me that night. By the time the auction started I had to go to slow down mode or I would be passed out by the show. The show itself was one of a kind. It literally had every combination of performer, singer and comic you could imagine.

After the show, I went backstage and the first person I saw was someone I had not seen in a long time. A guy well over 7 feet tall who I had a history with when he was much younger. Now, he was passing out shots and telling me to drink. For about two hours after the show, this backstage area had everyone and no one wanted to leave. It was this combination like I said of some very special people and they were enjoying being with each other. I think they were afraid if one left, the spell would be broken. The guy who was kind of leading the charge and keeping everyone together was the one guy who was not drinking anything but bottled water. He was a permanent A+ list comedian/actor/Academy Award winner/nominee. Just one story after the other and each one was more dirty than the last. There was nothing even close to PG about his material, it was closer to NC-17. My actor friend played his straight man for much of it when not sitting at a piano with this foreign born permanent A+ list singer/musician singing song after song. The two played for another foreign born permanent A+ list singer who sang some of his classics before giving way to a Canadian singer who was just making a name for himself and is now an A- lister. A+ list at cheating. One interesting dynamic was the comic actor I mentioned who was best friends with another foreign born permanent A+ list musician who was there. Apparently they even flew together to the show and hung out all the time. A very strange combination. For two hours it was just one big fun singalong party. If it had been recorded it would have been the highest rated variety show ever to air. Guaranteed. Instead, there are a couple of photos and maybe someone took a quick 30 second video here and there, and the rest is lost to memories. When the party started to break up, my actor friend and I and my singing friend all went to dinner together. Just the three of us. That night generally is in my top five celebrity nights of all time.