Funky One Night, Jazzed the Next

Man, I hit 17 clubs in seven days. Let’s just say, I started off in platforms and ended up in platform slippers, which suited the Beauty Bar just fine. On Sunday’s new Ultrasheen night, hip-hop deejay Evil E had me dancing the funky chicken till my funk frotheth over. Oh yeah, we need the funk. . . . Oh, and the Beauty Bar boys are opening a new bar on Hollywood Boulevard in early summer, and all I can say is: It’s tailored for this town. . . . Had the bejesus scared out of me at Dragonfly by Otep, a bomb new band featuring the bravest performance I’ve seen by a woman since New Year’s Eve of ‘98, when Texas Terri saved my soul with rock ‘n’ roll. Otep--the singer’s name--reaches deep. . . . Got in a fight with a grizzly old bear in a wheelchair at what otherwise was a sublime k.d. lang performance at Muriel’s Supper Club in Palm Springs. After dining on frog legs and watching a show that was so intimate--it felt like I was witnessing a jazz great at her loosest hour--I repaired to the powder room, only to be lured back by the strains of “Miss Chatelaine.” While searching for tickets to get back to my seat, I got poked not once, but twice, in the back with a cane. Its owner gruffly waved at me to step aside. I turned to the man and said, “Sir, if you poke me again, I’ll poke you back!” Surprisingly, onlookers applauded my performance. Apparently, he’d been torturing people all evening.

Favorite new doorman: Steve at Cyrano, which has a jumpin’ new Thursday co-hosted by Gregg Wadley and DJ AM. Steve’s got game. . . . The sold-out Al’s Bar on Saturday was testament to this town’s love for PopDefect, which played its last L.A. show that night and is calling it quits after two decades. R.I.P. . . . Danny Nordahl and Ricky Vodka’s Ramones cover band, Viva Ramones (with Motorcycle Boy’s Eden on guitar), leaves a trail of smoke blacker than New York asphalt. . . . Hottest stocking stuffer is Burgundy Room doorman Torrance Jackson’s cassette of a cappella Christmas songs. . . . Dozens of people in Hollywood applauded a besotted bloke as he loaded himself into a cab on Saturday. Even he seemed relieved.