Fashionweek shmashionweek

Left home at nearly 10 last night to take the uncharacteristically clear 101 downtown to MOCA, where I met S. at a dopey fashion show. (I just have to stop and crow about how wonderful it was to drive at speeds over 25 mph on the Hollywood Freeway. LA traffic is worth several posts in its own right, but that rant will have to wait. Sorry.) Where was I? Ah. Dopey fashion show. As idiotic as I used to think the music business was, way back when I was wasting my life in it, fashion has music beat hands-down for overall silliness. Of course, there are a lot more pretty girls. And far fewer straight guys to distract them.

I know a guy who started a fashion trade paper in Manhattan 20 years ago for the express purpose of meeting babes. He ended up selling it for a lot of money, rumor has it. Reminds me of Ahmet Ertegun, a Turkish diplomat's son who found himself short of cash in college and started "a small record label" to remedy his impecuniousness. That label? Atlantic Records, the early days of which are re-enacted in last year's "Ray." The weedy guy from "Revenge of the Nerds" played Ertegun in "Ray," appropriately enough.

At one point in the show last night, a live horse was led in circles around a collection of hay bales, old luggage, and fresh faces. He didn't seem very happy about it. The acoustically live warehouse space made the deafening music even boomier and more assaultive. Komar and Melamid escorted a live elephant onstage at the vastly more staid LACMA a few years ago. It was no ordinary elephant, however; this Picasso among pachyderms had learned to paint canvases holding a brush in its trunk.

Perhaps some of last night's featured designers have been subcontracting their work out to Indian elephants. Speaking of Indian elephants, I have to get ready for yoga.