After the Bonaventure, Since it was still only midnight, and I felt wide awake, I figured I might as well try to knock another thing off the big list of things to do in Los Angeles!
So, I stopped off at The Standard.
I’m not super into bars, and I barely ever drink. So, it felt a little weird to me to be knocking off two bars in one night.
However, the Bonaventure was more like a chill restaurant. And I went to this one because it had an interesting neon ping-pong room. So, these seemed like worthwhile bars to at least check out.
I went into the neon ping-pong room and it looks super cool. It is loud. (After all, it is a bar.) So, keep that in mind when deciding if you want to go.
It was pretty dead when I went out. I talked to the bartender for a bit. Then a second bartender came in to talk about possibly shutting the room down for the night. I was just about to walk out when a group of people walked in. Some guy asked if I was up for ping-pong, so we played. (He was pretty good. I was pretty not good.)
We got to talking and it turned out he was there for a private VMA party on the roof. (It was the night of the MTV Video Music Awards.) He asked if I wanted to go. Uhhhh, yeah.
So he took me over to this special table place outside and got the security person to give me a wristband too. Then we got to go up the closely-monitored-by-burly-men elevators (due to our super special bands).
You might be expecting this story to take a crazy turn where I dance the night away with Miley or something. That didn’t happen.
This seemed to be a party more for the behind-the-scenes people who made the show happen. It was still wildy cool.
A movie was being projected onto a building across the street. How interesting huh? Go up to The Standard rooftop, lunge by the pool, and watch a movie across the street.
(I wonder if they do that all the time. I also wonder how well you can hear it, or if you can at all… I mainly only saw the credits rolling…)
There are also these waterbed pods on the roof. And there’s Foosball in some side little bar/restaurant-looking place, which is cool.
We mainly spent the night dancing by the DJs. My understanding is that on most weekends, anybody can go up there. This is kind of a cool place too. Props to the 100 Things To Do in LA Before You Die book, where I found both of these ideas!
On my walk home, I thought about how weirdly surreal the night was. I get so used to living in Los Angeles that sometimes I forget, how many places could I live where I can just walk around at night and then happen into a party for an award show? Oh, Los Angeles.