The TMZ crowd was out in force last Monday for the latest Anecdotal event. About 80 people gathered in West Hollywood’s swank Monroe’s Bar for a couple of cocktails and bit of lit.
On this special occasion, I busted out a chapter I hadn’t read from publicly before, one which features San Franciscans verbally ripping Los Angeles and its residents to shreds. As a recent transplant from San Francisco to Los Angeles, I must say that the chapter in question was in fact meant to parody the jealous San Franciscans, who believe well-stocked wine racks to be the only form of cultural sophistication and sometimes actually stoop to taking various forms of mass transit. Please! “THE City,” indeed.
I wanted to thank Courtney Fine, Beth Lemberger, Craig Phillips, Burton Roberts and Levi Shapiro for hosting the event and bringing such a stellar group of people to Monroe’s. Also, thanks to Tyler Cormney, who sold tons of books, Sharon Feder, who took tons of pictures and Warren Lam, who shot miles of footage. Ryan Bailey and the folks at Monroe’s provided the perfect venue.
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Monday’s event featured a huge and most welcome surprise.
Many people have asked about the model for Michael Walsh’s original oil painting that graces the cover of Anecdotal. Well, on Monday night, the fellow who had to pose in the near-buff for six painting sessions totaling 18 hours joined us for the festivities. Marco von Hapsburg Riviera-Cortez, the
renowned Austrian-Venezuelan male supermodel and mixed martial arts champion, was able to jet in after his photo shoot and title bout in Dar es Salaam. Even though he told me he might be coming, I
didn’t get my hopes up. Marco had planned on coming to previous events for Anecdotal, but his commitments in Davos and a longer-than-expected stint on Brazil’s version of “Dancing with the Stars” interfered with his schedule.
Marco, it was wonderful to see you. Good luck at the upcoming events in Pnom Penh and Fort Wayne!
Dar es Salaam did wonders for his skintone! Not the pasty white I remember from the long hours of posing...
Posted by: Michael Walsh | 15 May 2007 at 11:02 PM