WeHo Weekend

Last weekend E said he had the best birthday weekend ever. We had a get-away-weekend to West Hollywood. Neither one of us had been there before but it met our three most important travel criteria: It’s got to be Gay, Cultural and have opportunities for Shopping!

We flew to LA on Friday night and rented a bargain of a car. Drove to WeHo to the place we picked out on the internet: the gay, San Vicente Inn-Resort. The place wasn’t quite as lush as the webpage makes it but the location was perfect and the bed was comfortable.
Their marketing materials boast the following amenities:

• 20 Man Steam Room (reality is that it can hold 6 sitting, 3 standing)
• Redwood Sun Decks (true)
• Clothing Optional (true)
• 10 Man Hot Tub (8 would be more than cozy)
• Heated Pool (Not. It was clean, functioning and unheated)
• Workout Area (true but it is the size of a small walk-in closet)
• Conference Room (didn’t see or look for it)
• Lush Tropical Private Gardens (true)
• Yoga Studio (didn’t see or look for it)

Nevertheless, we would try staying at the place again. Next time we would request a room not on the street and visit during a warm spell. The weather was cool with occasional showers.

After checking in, we checked out the gayborhood. We ended up having drinks and dinner at The Abbey. We were surprised how good the meal was.
Later that evening and into the early hours of Saturday morning, we found ourselves at Micky’s bar on Santa Monica Blvd. We watched the many go-go boys dance for dollars on three stages. Later we spent a couple hours dancing on the dance floor having a great time. It was such a blast; we did it again late Saturday evening. By then we worked up enough courage to ask our favorite go-go boy (man!) to have a commemorative birthday picture and hug.

We saw two fantastic shows while in LA.

Saturday night we attended Rise and Fall of The City of Mahagonny (pronounced ma-ha-GONE-nee). It is an opera by Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht performed by the Los Angeles Opera. It featured Broadway divas Audra McDonald and Patti LuPone. Directed by John Doyle who recently did the revivals of Company and Sweeney Todd on Broadway. Synopsis: “Old West boomtown rises from the desert to become a razzle-dazzle mecca for lust, liberty, and the pursuit of pleasure. Cash is king, sin is "in", love is always on sale, poverty is punishable by death, and anything worth doing is worth overdoing.” It is very easy to see the influence this show from the early 1930’s had on Kander and Ebb’s musicals of Chicago and Cabaret.

The other show we saw was Confessions of a Mormon Boy. It is a one-man autobiographical confessional of Steven Fales, a former Mormon who came out after marrying and fathering two children. Both E and I identified with many parts of his story. It was funny, moving and inspirational.


We also walked from West Hollywood to Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills and back. A pretty 5 ½ mile stroll. In addition we spent a couple hours touring the La Brea Tar Pits and Page Museum. We packed a lot of activities into two days.