By Dana Miller

It honestly seems like I have done nothing but play this past month. I've been to Disneyland twice and Universal Studios twice! (The "snow" at Disneyland on Main Street is amazing and I have fallen hard for The Mummy roller coaster ride at Universal.) That, coupled with office parties and house parties, I likely should swiftly spirit myself away to the Betty Ford Center. I hear they have an opening for a bartender there. My favorite party of the season is always the same, Roy Eddleman's. Roy lives in a grand manse in Bel Air next to Michael Eisner and Bob Newhart. His wonderful home was forged as Joan Crawford's in Mommie Dearest. For what seems like 100 years Roy has thrown great parties. Well, truly, his trusty gal Friday Narada throws great parties, but it always seems polite to credit Roy. Roy came up with the legendary AIDS fund-raiser Labor Day L.A. a lifetime ago and a Sunday brunch at his place became an end-of-summer ritual. His holiday party traditionally was a fund-raiser for Labor Day L.A.; now we use it as an excuse to level his wine cellar. There is a warmth and innocence to Roy Eddleman. He founded a successful company years ago called Spectrum laboratories. He is an inventor, an analytical biochemist, and one of the largest collectors in the world of alchemical art. You would never know it -- he's just so damned down to earth. Not long ago he took Ryan and me on a tour of museums in Washington, D.C., and the locks and dams of Virginia. He was like a kid. The awe he had and respect he showed for the smallest detail was beyond charming. The evening following his bash Roy and I found ourselves at the same birthday party chatting away. I'd spent the better part of that day thinking about Roy's affair and why, as always, it worked so well. Was there a secret? Of course, indeed there was. Like you, I have tried over the years to comprehend something that is totally incomprehensible: AIDS. Is there any joy to be found in the sorrow? Any good to come out of such dark black bad? And standing next to Roy that evening after his party, it hit me. An epiphany of sorts. It's all about the unusual, unlikely mix of people. And we have AIDS to thank for it. Sounds so damned stupid ,but it's so very so. Before AIDS drove us to cuddle one another en masse it was all about niche groups. The old dinner party crowd in the hills never hung with twinks or those chaps in Silverlake or on Selma or Santa Monica with the yellow, brown, paisley, gold, black, or blue handkerchiefs in their left or right back pockets (discounting Numbers next to Greenblatt's Deli of course, Brad's Buddies, -- another column -- or late night at the baths where you grunted rather than talked). The leather queens and the daddies didn't mix. Teens, jocks, bears, drag queens, exhibitionists, not to mention lesbians, all stuck to themselves. Those folks into scat just stuck to each other. The bottom line is we were a minority with a million subsets of minorities until AIDS united us. Credit Rock Hudson, Ryan White, Arthur Ashe, Elizabeth Taylor, the founders of APLA, hell, maybe your next-door neighbor, with bringing us together out of frightful fear, some collective self-loathing and paralyzing panic. We united to fight. And we discovered we were not all that different. We discovered we liked each other. We also discovered a war needs an army. That's what Roy's parties mean to me. An annual collection of misfits with little in common but cocks. But 25 years ago and every year since with annual new additions who have no clue they are walking into a pretty petri dish, relationships borne out of a plague come together to cry, fight, and, yes, occasionally party. It's all about the mix baby -- that mix of people.

That said, over the holidays I do tend to run into a few unseemly and unpleasant folks I am somehow able to avoid 11 months a year. You know the type -- evil, bitchy cads who the lord just decided to make miserable. No class, no soul, no real empathy -- no gawd damn heart. If I found them floating in my pool, I'd punish my dog. Anyway times up. Don't need to see them for 11 more months now. Granted, they are few and far between, yet they are not thankfully and happily part of the mix!

Another party I hit was the annual bash held by my attorneys at Morton's at Melrose and Robertson. The law firm does it up every year and I love getting the new associates liquored up. It reminds me of living on the row at USC back in the day. You know they're straight, they know they're straight, but it's a damned fun dance. I've been out so long that when my Mom looking over the paper one morning mentioned that I "kept better hours when I was straight," I wasn't totally shocked. But when she out of nowhere asked if I "put penises in my mouth" I answered, "On a good night." Clever, but I was kinda shaken. She quickly quipped, "Don't ever complain about my cooking again." So I've been to this dance before and generally have a blast. It's all about the game and having fun with folks who generally don't. But there I was at Morton's bitching about a legal issue with my attorney who only wanted to toss down another Cosmo and flee from me top speed with his hot blond bimbo as a party isn't billable to clients, when I was approached by a familiar face. The former governor of California started chatting me up. Gray Davis was playing my game on me and I was stunned. I could not get away and I tried. Now look, I make no assumptions here, nor should anyone else. I had an amazing 30-minute conversation with this pretty brilliant, totally savvy guy, yet it was strange. Three hundred young lawyers and their babes partying on the firm's dime and former Gov. Davis only wants to jaw with me! He is a partner in their firm and he's hangin' with the fag. I held my own, was totally perplexed and fascinated. Thirty minutes in, he hands me his card, says, "call me" and is out the door. I have absolutely no ending to this story, but what a strange damn trip this is. Guess that's why these gents at IN grant me a column. It truly is the musings of an idiot.

Strange stuff just happens to me all the time. I'm on a treadmill at the gym and Dick Van Dyke climbs on the one next to me. We are both watching the Today show with headsets on and Mary Tyler Moore is suddenly the guest. Out of the corner of my eye I'm watching Dick Van Dyke giggle at Mary Tyler Moore on television. A totally surreal moment.

My Toy Box Party was once again a huge success and I can't thank you enough. Biggest crowd ever. Record number of toys collected for both APLA and Aid for AIDS. What a great, elegant, classy, and generous turnout. The folks at Eat on Sunset were terrific and so very, very cool. Leslie Barclay and her booze kept us warm. I love her. The high-class Jim Murphy and Clear Channel crew covered expenses. My boyfriend Ryan did an awesome job on décor. Cooley and the Abbey came through with mixers and, as always, I'm blessed to watch the passion and commitment of volunteers. I well up when I think of the various acts of generosity involved with this little tiny grassroots event that creates so much joy that day and tons more in the weeks after. If you couldn't make it this year, please make it a point to be involved next. It will warm your cockles. We can all use that occasionally.

After Toy Box Party a bunch of us hit Chris and Wayne's Mark's Restaurant and fell by accident into a Christmas edition of a cabaret show called Upright. It was a total ball and blast. Good guys Christopher Isaacson and Shane Scheel produce it and it harkens back to the Rose Tattoo here in WeHo below Studio One (now the Factory), or Don't Tell Mama's in Manhattan. Next year it's on the second Friday of every month. Check it out Friday, Jan. 13 at 10 p.m. If you love cabarets or piano bars with real talent, this is perfect for you. See ya there!

My old buddy Steven Guy prodded me via incessant evites into going to a book signing by his friend Bob Kasunic the other night. Bob is a former ad guy who has written a book titled, Welcome to (310) under the pseudonym Rob Kass. It's all about the silly crap I tend to write about as well; "A" jobs, "B" jobs, nose, and boob jobs. With great humor he writes of life on the inside as seen by someone on the outside. It's a quick, funny read available at Different Light Bookstore. If you even tolerate my crap, you'll love Bob's stuff.

2006 is here and I can't believe it. I always try and make a point of doing it personally, but I wanted to use this forum to thank all of you who write to me about these musings of mine during the year. I seem to piss off a ton of folks and others seem to get my take. My favorite review of the year? "A hack writer who would have been considered fourth rate in Europe, who tried out a few of the old proven 'sure-fire' literary skeletons with sufficient local color to intrigue the superficial and the lazy." It's pleasant to have fans. Whatever the case, I'm totally thrilled to get any reaction at all. I really do wish you and yours a wonderful new year. My simple goal is to be a better person and improve the crap I write. Happy Holidaze!

Contact me at: Malibudana@aol.com.

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