Last night watching the post Oscar telecast, I caught an interview with Elton John about what have now become legendary Oscar parties for his AIDS foundation. He mentioned the place where he first held it, some twenty years ago, at a restaurant in Beverly Hills called Maple Drive. The following excerpt, long buried on my […]
Tag Archives: Elton John
June
02
The Well-Tempered Songbook: #46 Bennie and the Jets, Elton John
posted by Adam Nathan
Warm June applause explodes and sparkles on the brick cobblestone. We are drenched to the bone in liquid helium, but we have not yet floated out of the Columbia University in the City of New York Stadium. * She’s got electric boobs, a Mohawk suit, You know I read it in a magazine… Tony […]
March
04
Elton John’s Maple Drive Oscar Party (3/3)
posted by Adam Nathan
The wait staff, of which I was a member, could tell you the exact ingredients in the dishes. They could explain with words and subtle hand movements how the parts and techniques comprised the sublime culinary whole – gesticulating “smoothing” and “sprinkling” and “gently folding” like auditioning hand models. They could tell you about the rich mineral […]
Elton John’s Maple Drive Oscar Party (2/3)
posted by Adam Nathan
Stage right of the piano there was an oyster bar with handsome young men dressed just as handsomely in white buttoned kitchen jackets. They filled mignonette ramekins, speared lemon wedges with cocktail forks and effortlessly cracked open Kumamotos, tucking them into clean white beds of ice. And all the while they would laugh good-naturedly at […]
