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3/4/2002 9:30:00 PM
Boulder Creek, CA
In the Santa Cruz mountains and the redwood forrest

Roberts 2002 Grammy Report

I am sitting on my flight back home to 'real' life and San Jose and I am day dreaming ... but I thought I give you a 'special edition' of TheSchmids monthly letter

I am sitting on my flight back home to 'real' life and San Jose and I am day dreaming ... but I thought I give you a 'special edition' of TheSchmids monthly letters, a Grammy report.

Couple notes to start. Sorry for all the Austrians and Germans out there, but this follows the concept of 'lowest denominator' and it will be in English only ... Karin some practice ... :-) Also, if you want to get a female view of the events, this won't be it; sorry for any 'macho-like' remarks, all punishment will come through Niki I am sure. Also, if you want insider music info, read Rolling Stone, if you want celeb gossip, you need to get the National Enquirer, here you will get what VIPs do.

THE RED CARPET NOT "Pull your left ear when you are on camera for your team ..., dedicate the Grammy to me..., say hi into the camera ... " Well I got a lot of pre-instructions of what you would like me to do when I walk down the red carpet and the people from E! will interview, film and whatever else they do ... well we had our special VIP entrance, but no red carpet ... :-( I supposedly brushed an actress Scott, my 'date' (I didn't say it too often, I promise, but WE ARE NOT TOGETHER), has seen in 3 movies, I never saw it. And there was Pamela Andersen with Kid Rock right when we walked in ... I missed it looking for the red carpet rolled out for me, the 'VIP' (really the ticket stated that very clearly) and the stars, right! Nevertheless, there was a glass wall when we walked in where the 'regular' people (=no VIP pass) were standing and ogling, but at what!? We were just the VIPs.

THE SUITE CLOSE-UP We walked to our suite in the Staples center, the place the Lakers and Clippers (basketball) and the Kings (ice hockey) play, cool place, brand new (3 years old) with 3 levels of suites!!! We were at the top and the first to arrive in our suite. Instead of raiding the food there right there and then, I had to fight for the last 3 king prawns later on. Gotta say the hosts wife had it all figure out when I was still wondering why she ate first and by herself. Our suite was at the top of the 3 levels, with a good but far view to the 3 stages they used to record the show. The center stage was used to introduce artists and announce the Grammy's, the ones to the right and left were used for the performances. Cool place, a bit far away, but there were monitors showing last years Grammy, so I was confident they would broadcast them right on there for us VIPs ... how again did I deserve this title ... oh forgot a company bought expensive tickets for their customers and I got a hold of a 'bronze' ticket ... remember this, we will have to work very hard later that night due to our 'status'.

OGLING MORE - A COUPLES EVENT Well, being a VIP must mean I will get to see some famous people!? So I made Scott join me and we walked back down to the red carpet trying to meet / see someone famous, remember so far I was so close and then so far and I didn't even know. Surrounded by other 'VIPs', we looked and there was plenty to see ... a dress made out of lace, yes she was wearing panties, no she was not wearing ... guys with sun glasses in the dark (yes me too), men are doing ridiculous things to show off ... shoes or what's left after they are called sandals ... some people shouldn't NOT show their toes, trust me (right Karin!?) ... facelifts and other misc improvements that look best in clothes ... In summary, this was a couple event, all people were hanging on to a partner, date, one night stand, but people were it seemed desperate not to be alone .... I had Scott!? ... have I said it already or not, WE ARE NOT TOGETHER ... I admit, it would have been much more fun and more gossip to tell, if Niki would have been around!!! I said it, I did and it is true!

5-4-3-2-1 The Grammy's, the biggest music event here in LA every year, started sharp at 5pm PST. U2 played first, the music all night was just awesome. Both Niki and I have a pretty well defined music taste, or in other words, it hasn't changed in years (almost decades now, pretty sad) and it is pretty narrow. But at the Grammy's, I got to hear a lot of different music and it was great, rock, bluegrass, R&B, soul, gospel ... oh and what is Bob Dylan's type called now 20 years later, he really should have stayed with what he was good at ... just my humble opinion! So here was the flow, the speaker goes on "we are on in 30 .... 5-4-3-2-1", the MC gets on makes a half hearted joke, introduces the artist who perform, and guess what they play. The other version goes, " ... 5-4-3-2-1", the MC gets on makes a half hearted joke, introduces the people who announce the Grammy, the stars with the envelope come on and we up in the VIP suite on the 3rd level could not understand a word they were saying. Matthew Perry is on, with Brittney Spears, they are pretty funny and I really wanna see Britney up-close ... Now that's what the monitors were for right; I mean at the end of the day, we are VIPs!!! ... the monitor shows Jennifer Lopez in her fabulous green dress from 2 years ago ... I guess we ain't that VIP after all and the monitors kept showing all night old grammys ... :-) To close the story on the flow, there are a LOT OF COMMERCIAL BREAKS!!! Now this is where I would like to whine and complain about our MC, he did not entertain us!!! But since there was no food left I roamed the halls, saw some people who looked familiar, but obviously entertainment under-educated Robert couldn't cough any names. Oh, and remember I was going by myself and all other people hang on to some arms, I was suspicious to anybody and everybody, so NO INTERACTION, just ogling. Forgot to mention I shed Scott, or better said Scott shed me doing business in the suite; this was what they all paid for so I wasn't gonna destroy that. I was just happy to NOT have to do business and just enjoy myself.

WE HAVE THANKED THE LORD ENOUGH FOR AT LEAST A DAY I hope this doesn't upset anybody, but how many times can you thank the lord in one day!? If I hear Alicia Keys one more time within the next month thank him on TV, I will ban that station ... that will make a difference to CBS! You get the hang, Alicia talked way to much and said way too little and when you get 5 of those golden statues, you have a lot of air time! U2 were funny I thought, especially Bono. They have been around for a long time and they still looked very fresh and energized. They performed and the reaction of the crowd was big. At the end of the show, I have to say the thing I enjoyed the most was the music and the performing artist. All the talk and breaks in-between were a bit too long, interesting to hear how you on the TV have perceived it.

THE 'VIP' TICKETS THAT GET US INTO ALL THE PARTIES With that in mind we were off for the Biltmore Hotel, supposedly the place with the most stars and the best party. The place was a zoo, limo after limo lined on the side street to the side hotel entrance transformed into the main party entrance. The whole street was blocked off on both sides, at least 10 metal detectors but as a 'VIP' no problem. Proudly Scott and I walk up to the guy checking the tickets, actually I should probably mention that we walking right next to the big stars ... Survivor winners Tina and Ethan (for a change a treat for the women reader ... he has grown the 5 day beard again!!!!). Showing our wonderful 'VIP' bronze tickets, we had to find out that we weren't that VERY IMPORTANT after all. Actually only the platinum class people / tickets had a party piece on it ... Robert and Scott got directed into the looser line to the left, where they had at least another 20 people standing and wondering how to get in .. A CHALLENGE! Now anybody who knows me somewhat or had the unfortunate luck to work with me, knows challenges do something weird to me ... NOW I HAD TO GET IN! First we talked to anybody that looked like they had tickets left over, then Scott talked about bribing the guys who checked the tickets (not sure if he ever did or not), but that seemed hopeless since there were actually 3 (listen THREE) checkpoints; that could have become expensive. We actually looked official enough that 2 girls from Seattle started hitting on us for tickets. When they found out we didn't have any, they started hitting on the next target ... funny scene and what people do for tickets. How low were we gonna go!? A few more lines, Scott and I tried: "Lost my ticket, my friend is already inside, came all the way from Vienna, ...", they had heard them all. The tight security had us struggling for over an hour. Then we tried the MAIN hotel entrance, remember the party FRONT entrance was only the hotel SIDE entrance. And we got lucky ... even though at the MAIN party entrance they didn't let people reenter, at the hotel MAIN entrance = party SIDE entrance, they needed to let hotel guest through. Begging at least 20 or more people for their tickets when they left, we finally talked a really nice couple into giving us theirs. Hocus Pocus, Scott and Robert were at the party ...  By the way, we have no proof for this, but we saw Silas, another Survivor looser in this case, also come in through the hotel lobby; our hunch is HE had to sneak in too like us 'VIPs'. That's pretty funny, isn't it.

FREE LIVE MUSIC, ALCOHOL AND FOOD - A SINGLE EVENT This place was like a circus. There were 5 large rooms with live music, everything from Salsa to Country, and a DJ. Let me say it now, so you have something to laugh, I DID dance. I might have looked like Eileen from Seinfeld, but man I had fun! In addition to music, there was free food all over the place, sushi, steak, sweets, ... ohh right and there were 'small' amounts of alcohol; we had some catch-up to do ... up to the bar!

Now by then I hadn't quite apprehended the fact that there were at least 10% more women then man, but at the bar I knew. The 2 girls in front of us (I will call them all girls today as a complement and due to the lack of light to make a better judgment), and before I knew, I was talking German to one of them who had a Swiss mom or was she German, who cares, it is 10:30pm and I am at THE party. Scott made me roam the whole place, my feet hurt but I had met some woman in each room, yes at the bar, and no I was not always the one to start the conversation ... a 9 or 10 in front of me at another bar: "I had blond hair like you last summer; looks cute ... do you dance salsa ...?" ... strokes the ego, I have to admit, even though I don't dance salsa. Let me just say, we were good boys who did too much drinking, but nothing else; or in other words, we were just talk.

The number one question I got asked. WHO DID YOU SEE? Well, really just a bunch of unimportant VIPs like us, but we did see Ethan again with some good looking girls, and we saw Silas again, by himself. I almost walked up to him since he looked sooooo lonely, kind of sad. My take is the celeb parties are REALLY PRIVATE and we weren't in enough, even though I felt pretty hip in my tuxedo and shiny shoes.

In regards to fashion and looks, I think LA has redeemed itself for me. I saw the most amazing dresses, if that's what its called, the biggest fake mountains, beautiful bodies, very few 10s though, but quite a few 9s. Just so you know, I decided in the Olympic spirit, fake ones got an automatic 2 point deduction, which took the average down by at least one (read every 2nd was fake).

We hang out until the DJ shut us down at around 1:30. Beside all the ogling, I did more dancing then I have probably done in the last 10 years together and that's probably the thing Niki will be most upset about! She always wants to go dancing, but you know the people there didn't know me so, no harm in making a fool of myself; I want Niki to stay around for a while longer.

By the time the party was over, Scott and I had a pretty good buzz. I had admitted to Scott that Niki and I were professionals in sneaking into parties and Viennese balls for free, sometimes 5 a night when we 19 and 20 ... he called me a 'Scheister' ... Scott went and got the party gift, a purse, yes a purse (remember Seinfeld) stuffed with presents, claiming to have lost his ... who is the 'Scheister' here now ... it was time to call it a night.

We went back to our hotel room, we shared and before I forget, WE ARE NOT TOGETHER, and fell asleep. Actually Scott fell asleep before me. An unusual feeling for someone who has a wife who takes at least 15 mins to even be close to being asleep and fall asleep instantaneous. But I was still dreaming about dark hair dyed blond and Scott went silent on me. Niki, there is revenge in life, little at least.

We had a great night, if I get reinvited, I will come back again for a day to watch the LA circus again. At the end though, it felt right to go home again, NOT be a VIP but be a Dad and husband. Thanks Niki for letting me go on a long leach once in a while.

Bussi Robert

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