La Vida L.A: Diamond Dogs, There’s No Place Like Home

As a Los Angeleno for just over a year, I sometimes feel adrift here in this sunny, endlessly summertime city. Where are the freaks and the geeks, the people who don’t give a flying F about impressing a studio executive, the people who don’t care about Paris or the latest celebutard, the people who don’t think writing a screenplay is all there is to life in L.A.? Where are the rough boys, the bad girls, the trannies, the rockers, the goths, the cool kids, the nerds? Turns out they were all at Diamond Dogs last Thursday night, and from the looks of it (see full gallery), likely to be there every Thursday night from here until infinity.

Only in Los Angeles would the next-best thing be held in a club that is essentially part of a mall. H. Wood, formerly the Stork, sits in the shadow of the Kodiak Theatre, where the world’s most glamorous event, the Oscars, are held every year. The crowd at Diamond Dogs aimed for their own version of glamour. Spanning the decades, they borrowed from 70s glam, 80s new wave, 90s techno, and the post-modern aughts. They had pink hair, and wore glittery tops, and bared lots of cleavage, and donned Russian-style fur caps, and, always wore lots and lots of makeup.

As is often the case at these types of parties, the nobodies are just as fabulous, if not more so, than the somebodies—of which there were plenty: Rose McGowan and Dita Von Teese, Mischa Barton, Frank Infante and Clem Burke of Blondie, Adam Levine and James Valentine of Maroon 5, Rancid’s Tim Armstrong, and many more.

Bryan Rabin, promoter/mastermind of the affair, got into the glam act, too. He stood at the door greeting his people wearing a white bejeweled Bob Mackie tux that would have made Fat Elvis very very jealous, and he explained that he was coming to direct the circus and needed to dress the part of the ringmaster.

The crowd also spanned the decades age-wise. There were lots of exclamations of “Oh my God! I haven’t seen you in soooo long!” as we made our way through the dark, crowded hallways.

I am not sure I’ve ever seen a party built for both the young’uns and the older-and-wiser types. The last time I saw 20-year-olds mingle with 60-year-olds (yes, there was one much older gentleman with a shock of white hair wearing a dapper scarf around his neck, walking around with a cane) was a David Mancuso Loft party in New York.

Indeed, the whole evening was very “New York”—the place, as well as the feeling. I felt very much at ease, as if I was attending a Motherfucker for the 30-something set. It was a perfect mix of gay and straight—my friend dubbed the crowd “medium gay,” which means it’s just about right, like the Three Little Bears’ porridge.

Of course, that homey, sleazy East Village feeling that you can’t even get in the East Village anymore was partially made possible by all the former and current New Yorkers in the crowd. I ran into G-Spot, known to many East Villagers as the hot man behind the bar at the Cock; he was with Heather Liteer, who is still a New Yorker, but was visiting. Squeezebox mastermind Michael Schmidt was in attendance, and everywhere you looked, there were references to a long-gone era in a once-interesting city. Even the window panes of the club (designed by Amanda Scheer-Demme) were supposedly grafted from Warhol’s Loft. DJ Kelly Cole spun Fischerspooner, the Breeders, Joan Jett, Girls v. Boys, L7. Images of Leigh Bowery flashed overhead. Go-go dancers flashed flesh and rhinestones. We weren’t just in Hollywood, or in a facsimile of long-ago eras in New York or London. We were in that eternal Downtown. We were home.

Week 2 of Diamond Dogs is tonight and forever and ever again. Lucky you.

http://www.blackbookmag.com/article/la-vida-la-diamond-dogs-theres-no-place-like-home/7191