The firm I work for owns a classic building (it was on office building from 1929 to 2003) at the corner of Hollywood and Vine that we have converted to residential lofts. You can see the building at a website created by a company we hired to manage the development process, Palisades Development Group. If it doesn't come up right away, click on the last picture, a classic shot of the building from the 1930's.

I have worked on this building since we acquired it 1999 and it has been an interesting ride.

Recently, we leased our rooftop to Patron, my favorite tequila company, for a giant spectacular neon sign that is seen by 300K+ people per day on the Hollywood Freeway.

To celebrate the completion of the sign, Patron had a party at our building last night, and Holly and I were invited and attended. (Cool wife, it was our 8th wedding anniversary and Holly was good with going to Patron event.) Anyway, it was one of those parties with lots of big men in black wearing "secret service" earpieces and talking discretely into their lapels, and with attractive women in short skirts handing out the free-flowing Patron.

I'm not sure what the security fuss was all about, but they sure looked cool. We had a City Council member there who spoke to the guests, and the CEO of Patron also spoke. During his remarks, the CEO was looking right at me when he said "I had to take a pay cut to pay for the monthly rent on this sign!"

It's remotely possible that the security was there for the celebrities, but some might argue that the celebrities there barely qualified as such. Gene Simmons (formerly of KISS) inexplicably was the "guest of honor" type who flipped the switch to turn the sign on. Some actor from Beverly Hills 90210 was there, as well as a guy from "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy." None of these folks, including Mr. Simmons, even count as name dropping, imho...so don't accuse me of it for this entry, please. ;)

Also inexplicably, Patron gave a pair of high-end sunglasses to every person in attendance, but I am not complaining. (Thanks, Patron!)

As I write this, I am just realizing that the presence of Mr. Simmons is perhaps explicable after all. Among other things, the neon sign says "Rock Star - Movie Star" and "Some perfection is debatable, some is not" (the Patron tag line). The only problem was that there was no movie star last night, only a rock star. And the sunglasses just became a little more explicable as well...(duh, Jay) since a rock star or a movie star might wear sunglasses when they are around something as bright as the giant neon sign on our roof. So I am a little slow on the uptake...but admitting it is more fun that revising what I just wrote. At the end of the event, we rode the elevator down with Mr. Simmons and part of his entourage, and I thanked him for coming. He was very polite.

All in all, it was a successful event--Patron was poured, celebrities were sighted, speeches were made, and the neon sign was the star, with supporting roles nicely filled by our building and Hollywood itself.

Salud!