Lifestyle
L.A. Affairs: My ex gave me a diamond ring. Was he serious?
As we walked back to our cars after the party, my ex-boyfriend said, “I have something for you,” and dropped an object into the center of my palm.
I unfurled my fingers and was delighted to find a large diamanté cocktail ring. “What’s this?”
He grinned. “Isn’t this what you always wanted? For me to give you a big ring?”
I laughed. His sense of humor was like kryptonite. We hadn’t been together in five years, but once you’ve had it, funny is hard to forget.
“What’s the catch?” I knew there had to be one. I studied the tiny pavé diamonds covering the elaborate flower design. It was lovely, if not exactly my style. But I couldn’t get too lost in the moment. I knew he hadn’t purchased this trinket for me.
“Where did you get it?”
“I found it in the co-ed bathroom,” he said. “Sitting on the sink.”
Suddenly things made a lot more sense. “So do you mean we’ve just run off with someone’s ring?”
“Pretty much,” he said.
The party we’d just left was held after-hours at a high-end retail store on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills. A fashionista had inadvertently left it behind.
“Don’t you think we should return it?”
He shrugged. The store had closed. The ring was my problem now. Maybe he was right about the ring. I didn’t want to give it back — even if it wasn’t rightfully mine. It was thrilling.
I could have trekked back to the store and banged on the window, as a reasonable person would have done. Instead, I slipped it onto my finger and admired it. The thing is, I was raised to want a ring from a man. When I was a kid, my single mother played the song “Diamonds Are Forever” by Shirley Bassey, and we danced around the living room to it. It was basically our theme song.
Diamonds are forever, they are all I need to please me
They can stimulate and tease me
They won’t leave in the night
I’ve no fear that they might desert me …
I never thought much of it, but in retrospect, what was helpful about that messaging? Get the diamond because the man might not stick around? My mother kept an ad from Harry Winston featuring an engagement ring taped to her fridge. For a woman who didn’t care for marriage, she certainly savored the symbolism.
As much as I enjoyed the fantasy of a ring from a man — that is, one purchased with me in mind and not procured from a toilet — experience told me that getting one was often the beginning of a new set of problems instead of the end of them.
Sometimes the ring is the simplest part of a weighty emotional equation. It could become a glamorous placeholder: I like you enough to consider marrying you and I don’t want you going anywhere while I continue to think about it. Or even: This is what society tells us we should do next.
I’d adopted this cynical view because I was used to things not working out. I’d had one divorce in my 30s. Then my four-year betrothal to a handsome, wonderful man had been called off, and I was left considering that I might have deliberately blown it up. Commitment after a certain age was messy and complicated. Perhaps I inherited that ambivalence from my mother.
I still had his beautiful engagement ring, sitting in a box at home. My former fiancé had not asked for it back yet, which gave me hope that we might still find a way to work it out. But then again, I’d heard he was dating.
“Good,” my mother said. “Let him see what else is out there.”
So when my kryptonite ex emailed and invited me last-minute to the party, it sounded better than watching reality TV while my daughter was at her dad’s. “Maybe I’ll stop by,” I casually replied.
An acting teacher of mine once said, “Whenever you’re doing a scene with a former partner, no matter what, you still want them to find you hot.” I thought of that statement as dresses accumulated in a pile at my feet. Why did he want to see me now? There was a lingering connection, some fun history and a flutter in my stomach whenever I saw his name flicker on the screen during a movie’s credits.
It was enough to compel me to drive over to meet him for a quick drink. He was easy to find in a crowd. I typically searched for the most famous person in the room, and he’d be talking to them.
He scooped me into a hug when I found him, and we fell into an easy rapport. I talked about my broken engagement, and he showed me vacation pictures of his lovely (young) girlfriend.
Later as we left, there was a brief moment when we almost kissed in the elevator, and we could have ended the evening the way we’d spent plenty of others. But we didn’t. It was a test. He had a girlfriend, and I was still in love with someone else. Perhaps we needed one last look before moving on.
We hugged goodbye. I had no use for a man whose heart didn’t belong to me, and I certainly didn’t need someone else’s ring. What I longed for was a true connection, to be all-in; the ring was incidental.
In the morning, I called the store and told them I had the ring. They didn’t ask questions, but one of their patrons had been looking for it. I dropped it off and wondered about its owner.
Months later my former fiancé, Rob, came to me and said, “I can’t imagine my life without you in it.” I felt the same. We’ve been married for 12 years now. A surprise I didn’t see coming was that Rob admitted he’d seen the jewelry ad on my mother’s fridge and assumed it was my dream ring. He had that sapphire cut in mind when he designed mine. So in the end, I manifested my mother’s ring — or maybe she manifested it for me.
The author is a freelance writer and screenwriter living in Los Angeles. You can read more of her work at taraellison.com.
L.A. Affairs chronicles the search for romantic love in all its glorious expressions in the L.A. area, and we want to hear your true story. We pay $400 for a published essay. Email LAAffairs@latimes.com. You can find submission guidelines here. You can find past columns here.
Lifestyle
They set out to elevate karaoke in L.A. — and opened a glamorous lounge that pulls out all the stops
Brothers Leo and Oliver Kremer visited karaoke spots around the globe and almost always had the same impression.
“The drinks weren’t always great, the aesthetics weren’t always so glamorous, the sound wasn’t always awesome and the lights were often generic,” says Leo, a former bassist of the band Third Eye Blind.
As devout karaoke fans, they wanted to level up the experience. So they dreamed up Mic Drop, an upscale karaoke lounge in West Hollywood that opens Thursday. It’s located inside the original Larrabee Studios, a historic 1920s building formerly owned by Carole King and her ex-husband, Gerry Goffin — and the spot where King recorded some of her biggest hits. Third Eye Blind band members Stephan Jenkins and Brad Hargreaves are investors of the new venue.
Inside the two-story, 6,300-square-foot venue with 13 private karaoke rooms and an electrifying main stage, you can feel like a rock star in front of a cheering audience. Want to check it out? Here are six things to know.
The Kremer brothers hired sculptor Shawn HibmaCronan to create an 8-foot-tall disco-themed microphone for their karaoke lounge.
1. Take your pick between a private karaoke experience or the main stage
A unique element of Mic Drop is that it offers both private karaoke rooms and a main stage experience for those who wish to sing in front of a crowd. The 13 private rooms range from six- to 45-person capacity. Each of the karaoke rooms are named after a famous recording studio such as Electric Lady, Abbey Road, Shangri La and of course, Larrabee Studios. There is a two-hour minimum on all rentals and hourly rates depend on the room size and day of the week.
But if you’re ready to take the center stage, it’s free to sing — at least technically. All you have to do is pay a $10 fee at the door, which is essentially a token that goes toward your first drink. Then you can put your name on the list with the KJ (karaoke jockey) who keeps the crowd energized throughout the night and even hits the stage at times.
Harrison Baum, left, of Santa Monica, and Amanda Stagner, 27, of Los Angeles, sing in one of the 13 private karaoke rooms.
2. Thumping, high sound quality was a top priority
As someone who toured the world playing bass for Third Eye Blind, top-tier sound was a nonnegotiable for Leo. “Typically with karaoke, the sound is kind of teeny, there’s not a lot of bass and the vocal is super hot and sitting on top too much,” he says. To combat this, he and his brother teamed up with Pineapple Audio, an audio visual company based in Chicago, to design their crisp sound system. They also installed concert-grade speakers and custom subwoofers from a European audio equipment manufacturer called Celto, and bought gold-plated Sennheiser wireless microphones, which they loved so much that they had an 8-foot-tall replica made for their main room. Designed by artist Shawn HibmaCronan, the “macrophone,” as they call it, has roughly 30,000 mirror tiles. “It spins and throws incredible disco light everywhere,” says Leo.
Karaoke jockeys Sophie St. John, 27, second from left, and Cameron Armstrong, 30, right, get the crowd involved with their song picks at Mic Drop.
3. A concert-level performance isn’t complete without good stage lighting and a haze machine
Each karaoke room features a disco ball and dynamic lighting that syncs up with whatever song you’re singing, which makes you feel like you are a professional performer. There’s also a haze machine hidden under the leather seats. Meanwhile, the main stage is concert-ready with additional dancing lasers and spotlights.
Brett Adams, left, of Sherman Oaks, and Patrick Riley of Studio City sing karaoke together inside a private lounge at Mic Drop.
4. The song selection is vast, offering classics and new hits
One of the worst things that can happen when you go to karaoke is not being able to find the song you want to sing. At Mic Drop, the odds of this happening are slim to none. The venue uses a popular karaoke service called KaraFun, which has a catalog of more than 600,000 songs (and adds 400 new tracks every month), according to its website. Take your pick from country, R&B, jazz, rap, pop, love duets and more. (Two newish selections I spotted were Raye’s “Where Is my Husband” and Olivia Dean’s “Man I Need,” which both released late last year.) In the private karaoke rooms, there’s also a fun feature on Karafun called “battle mode,” which allows you and your crew of up to 20 people to compete in real time. KaraFun also has an entertaining music trivia game, which I tested out with the founders and came in second place.
The design inspiration for Mic Drop was 1920s music lounges and 1970s disco culture, says designer Amy Morris.
5. The interiors are inspired by 1920s music lounges mixed with ‘70s disco vibes
A disco ball hangs from the ceiling.
If you took the sophisticated aesthetic of 1920s music lounges and mixed it with the vibrant and playful era of 1970s disco culture, you’d find Mic Drop.
When you walk into the lounge, the first thing you’ll see is a bright red check-in desk that resembles a performer’s dressing room with vanity lights, several mirrors and a range of wigs. “So much of karaoke is about getting into character and letting go of the day, so we had the idea to sell the wigs,” says Oliver. As you continue into the lounge, the focal point is the stage, which is adorned with zebra-printed carpet and dramatic, red velvet curtains. For seating, slide into the red velvet banquettes or plop onto a gold tiger velvet stool. Upstairs, you’ll find the intimate karaoke studios, which are decorated with red velvet walls and brass, curved doorways that echo the building’s deco arches, says Mic Drop’s interior designer, Amy Morris of the Morris Project.
Sarah Rothman, center, of Oakland, and friend Rachel Bernstein, left, of Los Angeles, wait at the bar.
6. You can order nontraditional karaoke bites as you wait for your turn to sing
While Mic Drop offers some of the food you’d typically find at a karaoke lounge such as tater tots, truffle popcorn and pizza, the venue has some surprising options as well. For example, a 57 gram caviar service (served with chips, crème fraîche and chives) and shrimp cocktail from Santa Monica Seafood. For their pizza program, the Kremer brothers teamed up with Avalou’s Italian Pizza Company, which is run by Louis Lombardi who starred in “The Sopranos.” He’s the brainchild behind my favorite dish, the Fuhgeddaboudit pizza, which is made with pastrami, pickles and mustard. It might sound repulsive, but trust me.
As for the cheeky cocktails, they are all named after famous musicians and songs such as the Pink Pony Club (a tart cherry pomegranate drink with vodka named after Chappell Roan), Green Eyes (a sake sour with kiwi and melon named after Green Day) and Megroni Thee Stallion (an elevated negroni named after Megan Thee Stallion).
When John Lantigua, a retired journalist in Miami Beach, checked his email one recent morning, he was glad to see an invitation.
“It was like, ‘Come and share an evening with me. Click here for details,’” Mr. Lantigua said.
It appeared to be a Paperless Post invitation from someone he once worked with at The Palm Beach Post, a man who had left Florida for Mississippi and liked to arrange dinners when he was back in town.
Mr. Lantigua, 78, clicked the link. It didn’t open.
He clicked a second time. Still nothing.
He didn’t realize what was going on until a mutual friend who had received the same email told him it wasn’t an invitation at all. It was a scam.
Phishing scams have long tried to frighten people into clicking on links with emails claiming that their bank accounts have been hacked, or that they owe thousands of dollars in fines, or that their pornography viewing habits have been tracked.
The invitation scam is a little more subtle: It preys on the all-too-human desire to be included in social gatherings.
The phishy invitations mimic emails from Paperless Post, Evite and Punchbowl. What appears to be a friendly overture from someone you know is really a digital Trojan horse that gives scammers access to your personal information.
“I thought it was diabolical that they would choose somebody who has sent me a legitimate invitation before,” Mr. Lantigua said. “He’s a friend of mine. If he’s coming to town, I want to see him.”
Rachel Tobac, the chief executive of SocialProof Security, a cybersecurity firm, said she noticed the scam last holiday season.
“Phishing emails are not a new thing,” Ms. Tobac said, “but every six months, we get a new lure that hijacks our amygdala in new ways. There’s such a desire for folks to get together that this lure is interesting to people. They want to go to a party.”
Phishing scams involve “two distinct paths,” Ms. Tobac added. In one, the recipient is served a link that turns out to be dead, or so it seems. A click activates malware that runs silently as it gleans passwords and other bits of personal information. In all likelihood, this is what happened when Mr. Lantigua clicked on the ersatz invitation link.
Another scam offers a working link. Potential victims who click on it are asked to provide a password. Those who take that next step are a boon to hackers.
“They have complete control of your email and, in turn, your entire digital life,” Ms. Tobac said. “They can reset your password for your dog’s Instagram account. They can take over your bank account. Change your health insurance.”
Digital invitation platforms are trying to combat the scam by publishing guides on how to spot fake invitations. Paperless Post has also set up an email account — phishing@paperlesspost.com — for users to submit messages for verification. The company sends suspicious links to the Anti-Phishing Working Group, a nonprofit that maintains a database monitored by cybersecurity firms. Flagged links are rendered ineffective.
The scammers’ new strategy of exploiting the desire for connection is infuriating, said Alexa Hirschfeld, a founder of Paperless Post. “Life can be isolating,” Ms. Hirschfeld said. “When it looks like you’re getting an invitation from someone you know, your first instinct is excitement, not skepticism.”
Olivia Pollock, the vice president of brand for Evite, said that fake invitations tended to be generic, promising a birthday party or a celebration of life. Most invitations these days tend to have a specific focus — mahjong gatherings or book club talks, for instance. “The devil is in the details,” Ms. Pollock said.
Because scammers don’t know how close you are with the people in your contact list, fake invitations may also seem random. “They could be from your business school roommate you haven’t spoken to in 10 years,” Ms. Hirschfeld said.
Alyssa Williamson, who works in public relations in New York, was leaving a yoga class recently when she checked her phone and saw an invitation from a college classmate.
“I assumed it was an alumni event,” Ms. Williamson, 30, said. “I clicked on it, and it was like, ‘Enter your email.’ I didn’t even think about it.”
Later that day, she received texts from friends asking her about the party invitation she had just sent out. Her response: What party?
“The thing is, I host a lot of events,” she said. “Some knew it was fake. Others were like, ‘What’s this? I can’t open it.’”
Andrew Smith, a graduate student in finance who lives in Manhattan, received what looked like a Punchbowl invitation to “a memory making celebration.” It appeared to have come from a woman he had dated in college. He received it when he was having drinks at a bar on a Friday night — “a pretty insidious piece of timing,” he said.
“The choice of sender was super clever,” Mr. Smith, 29, noted. “This was somebody that would probably get a reaction from me.”
Mr. Smith seized on the phrase “memory making celebration” and filled in the blanks. He imagined that someone in his ex-girlfriend’s immediate family had died. Perhaps she wanted to restart contact at this difficult moment.
Something saved him when he clicked a link and tried to tap out his personal information — his inability to remember the password to his email account. The next day, he reached out to his ex, who confirmed that the invitation was fake.
“It didn’t trigger any alarm bells,” Mr. Smith said. “I went right for the click. I went completely animal brain.”
The new scam comes with an unfortunate side effect, a suspicion of invitations altogether. It’s enough to make a person antisocial.
“Don’t invite me to anything,” Mr. Lantigua, the retired journalist, said, only half-joking. “I’m not coming.”
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They set out to elevate karaoke in L.A. — and opened a glamorous lounge that pulls out all the stops