MEAT AND GREET

Was that Highland Park’s hottest holographer, VANCE DeGREY, we spotted trading carnivorous confessions with skydiving hair stylist and recent father TROY HEARST, freelance cellistes-du-soir DWAYNE HAINES and REMARK OSWALD, caddy STANLEY PUDDING, and the Gaberdine Wilson Ensemble‘s twin-sister vocalists TINA and EMMA MA at our favorite new all-night gawk-carnival, THE RED DUCK CLUB? RDC’s carousing co-proprietor RUBeN PILLSBURY, also among DeGrey‘s impromptu entourage, flabbergasted onlisteners with an exhilarating 10-minute demi-philippic of breakfast meats’ unpredictable effects on circadian syncopation, ending, finally, with “For example, I ate bacon and eggs this morning, and I‘m really tired right now. But sometimes I’m not.” The occasion for such elaborations from our local royalty? A fund-raiser for the BLAUGHANVAGARY FOUNDATION, a truly swell nonprofit organization that provides assistance to needy agnostic and atheist families by removing Bibles from hotel rooms.

SNIFT AND LIFT

Afterward, GORDON BLAUGHAN, the foundation‘s co-director, gave us a lift across town to the tony CHAIRMAN SCOTCH CLUB, where we soon joined in on a gang-eavesdrop as outspoken fetishwear designer and self-proclaimed “transsexual crack-ho-of-the-year” BEVERLY JAMES CAMERON whispered unconfirmed tantalizing tidbits about MADONNA, MORRISSEY, GALLAGHER, STING, CHER, PRINCE, FABIO, HAMMER and token polynomial GEORGE W. BUSH with interior-lighting shaman TEDD BLUMe of Blume Lumine and Textworks and Blume’s fiancee, JUDY NARIKAZZI, who, having returned just that afternoon from lecturing at Sweden‘s UNIVERSITY OF UMEA on the creation of a universal visual language based on a mixture of Asian, Arabic and African characters, was nursing her jet lag by chain-swallowing snifter after snifter of SPRINGBANK CASK-STRENGTH single-malt scotch (distilled 1966, bottled 1996). Affably mealy-mouthed crooner HECTOR STEINBERG, himself an aficionado of PITTYVAICH 11 CASK (distilled 1977, bottled 1989), took the stage to ruin a few old-time faves with house band Pandora Doorplan, joined shortly thereafter by well-lubed visiting tromboner AMIR BACCHUS-RIGBY, RARE Camembert’s bongo beater DENNIS CHAIN and all-around townie EARLINE MARQUEZ. Also seen lifting glasses and ashtrays: YTV sitcom-jingle composer lyle CZAJKOWSKI; co-jingler Benjamin DeJO and his power-bim spouse ANNADYNE SPADFURST; longtime friends and neighbors graham cherrington and lElah caruso; interchangeable modeling pals CHENNIE GAZZEN and CHRIS THADBROOK; and vaginal-rejuvenation therapist MARCIA TYLEUR.

SWING AND KA-CHING

Unit Swing, Unit Swing, Unit Swing! We kept hearing about this latest dancehall craze, but until last night‘s bash at CLUB CHEESEWOOD, we hadn’t actually experienced it. Or we hadn‘t known that we’d already experienced it. DJ KELP, whose Unit Swing techniques have been publicly revered by everyone from CHUCK MANGIONE to BRITNEY SPEARS, explained: “Part of the whole Unit Swing mystique is the music‘s ability to, you know, pervade with great subtlety, you know, to the point where the listener is not aware that he’s been . . . uh, listening. Once the listener‘s level of awareness is such that he’s able to perpetuate, you know, perceive Unit Swing at all, he‘ll begin to hear it everywhere.” As Kelp filled the room with the promised sound, everswaying betty ford clinic debutante-scenestress emeritus and occasional Weekly scribe TINA FEZ, dubbed “SoCal’s First Lady of Unit Swing” by USA Today in 1999, offered a less angular angle: “In a very literal sense, Unit Swing is Los Angeles.” Also on hand, swinging their units for all of Cheesewoodland: passionate and palindromic wordboy ELIOT TOILE, whose most recent book, Courtesy Flush, was recently baptized with a RUPERT MURDOCH AWARD — a bright, shiny new gold-dollar coin! — for prepublication sales; singer-songwriter PAULINE MILLER and mystery escort; galaboutown and Pomo Times gossipeuse CHIA WAINWRIGHT; former Nielsen family THE SCHECHNERS; and political performance artist OLIVER NORTH.

While mainstream, international mayhem is still best gleaned from the likes of The New York Times or CNN, nothing beats small-town papers for in-depth quips, profiles and petty crimes of and by all the people whom you‘ve never heard of and never hope to meet — which is exactly what makes them so fascinating. Recommended online readings: the Bozeman (Montana) Daily Chronicle (www.gomontana.comNewsnews.html); the Dixon (California) Independent Voice (www.independentvoice.commain.html); the Marietta (Ohio) Leader (www.mariettaleader.com); the Ellsworth (Maine) Weekly (http:w2.downeast.netweekly); and, especially, the Kingstree (South Carolina) News (www.kingstreenews.com), third-place winner in the 1996 South Carolina Press Association awards for Best Newspaper Web Site.

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