Geek Love at Skybar

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

The epicenter of trendy LA is Skybar. Every somebody and wannabe in town has traversed the wooden floors of this stylish outdoor bar at the Mondrian Hotel on the Sunset Strip. There are lot of attractive women in LA. Occasionally, though, I’ll meet a woman so beautiful I find myself just staring.

Our waitress was like that- thin, blonde, stunning good looks with the whitest teeth I’ve ever seen. And charm. She laughed at our bad jokes. She complimented my suspenders. An actress, she told us stories about her recent picture, a low budget horror flick.

After a few minutes, she moved on to other customers. She became the hot topic of conversation among the industry wannabes at my table.

“She’s perfect for me,” one Armani clad poseur in our group exclaimed. “I’m going to make a move,” he said. “I’ll get her number. I’ll take her out on my boat.”

“Get in line,” a black clad trendoid countered. “I’ll take her to San Francisco for the weekend,” he said between sips of his Dewars and water. “We’ll go up to Napa and fall in love,” he predicted.

Wow- if she only knew what everyone had planned for her. Maybe she did know. Beautiful women must get propositions like that all the time.

As the bull got deeper, I watched the object of our affection taking orders from a table in the corner. I saw one of the customers remove something from his pocket. She pulled something from her pocket as well. Suddenly their faces lit up, bathed in the bright light of their Sony Clie’s, a Palm Pilot clone. She was beaming him her phone number. As Palm nerds know, you can send your electronic “business card” via an infrared link from one Palm to another.

Whaddyaknow. Our supermodel waitress has geek tendencies.

“Bowling. I’m going to take her bowling,” I said to no one in particular.

The table sat in silence, staring at my less-than-trendy white Brooks Brothers button-down and rep tie. Did Mr. Midwest here just say he would take her bowling?

“Then what, back to the double-wide for some Pabst Blue Ribbon?” the Armani poseur said, laughing behind the yellow-shaded sunglasses he only wears at night. The whole table joined in.

“Maybe,” I said brightly, as she returned to our table.

All attention was riveted on her. I pulled my Sony Clie from my pocket.

“Beam me?” I asked, smiling.

“Sure, I’ll beam you,” she laughed as we pointed the gadgets at each other.

“RECEIVED” said my Clie screen- her name, cell phone, home phone, and birthday appeared on my screen.

“Do you like bowling?” I asked.

She yelled, “I love bowling!”

Of course you do.