Culture Club

Who says LA doesn't have any culture? It's laden with culture: harlot-starlet culture, motion- picture culture, gang-banger culture. Kidding aside, there is plenty to keep one satiated in this town and even enlightened.

Last night I spent the evening in Hollywood at the King King Theater. Friends of friends were producing a one night only gig called "The Medicine Show". It was billed as modern day vaudeville. The theater is hip and ambient - warehouse ceilings, exposed exterior walls, wet-bar, kickass DJ spinning sassy records, all comfortably occupied with a diverse crowd of thrill-seekers. The show opens with a so-so band while pliant burlesque aerialists twirl on swings and rings above head. The line-up included a fantastic magician who often works The Magic Castle here in LA. He chose me to be his assistant. I didn't want to be a spoil sport so I went along and jumped up on stage wearing a form-fitting dress. (This is a germane detail.) The skit was great and we had a lot of fun.

It was a multi-cultural affair - the talent and audience were of every hue and ethnicity. Much of the comic agenda was based in stereotypes and begged audience participation. After a moderately funny hispanic comedian and a very funny hispanic m.c., enter the final comedian, a black man. He launches his segment by applauding me and my "bubble butt" and carries on for 5 minutes about my backside. I was half-mortified but let him take the piss out of me anyway. It was a great night.

Tonight, I finally made it down to Exposition Park to the California Science Center to view the Body Worlds exhibit. I am so fascinated by this process of preservation by plastination. It is really a feat to have figured a way to inject liquid plastic into the tiniest capillaries and then strip away the fibers to reveal a tangible specimen. This year the exhibit features the heart including veins, arteries and capillaries. I loved how organs, healthy and diseased, were displayed side by side with their corresponding vascular web. I think I'm going to donate my body to plastination science in death. Not only is it a way to live forever but then everyone will get to enjoy my bubble butt.