Happily, it was much better than I expected.
The cool Pathfinder neurosurgery robot was hanging out at the pre-dinner cocktail party and the patient stories were very touching. There was one patient in particular, Hank, who I’ve met a number of times and who spoke and made me so proud of my man!
Then a woman spoke about having a rare disorder that caused her and her two boys (now 5 and 11) to undergo a total of 8 neurosurgeries. I cried. I’m such a wimp.
There were three key honorees.
The first was Michael Phelps, Ph.D. He is famous for inventing positron emission tomography (PET), so I thought he was really cool. PET is a molecular imaging technique that can be used to check out various systems (neurological, cardiovascular, etc.) as well as detect cancer and evaluate a patient’s response to treatment. Anyway, despite his rather boring persona, I was hugely impressed. He is both Norton Simon Professor (what does that mean?) and Chair of the UCLA Department of Molecular and Medical Pharmacology.
The next honoree was Peter Morton. He is one of the founders of the Hard Rock Café and the Hard Rock Hotel. Besides being butt-ass rich, he’s an environmentalist and philanthropist, apparently, as they screwed up and mentioned those two things about 50 times.
Tim Allen received the Rodney Dangerfield “Rodney Respect Award,” which is about the corniest award title I’ve ever heard of. Jamie Lee Curtis was on hand to introduce him, but she ended up introducing Joan Dangerfield, who appeared quite surgically and hair-extension enhanced, despite being clearly decades younger than her late husband, to whom she was married for 11 years. She was surprisingly articulate and seemed genuine as she crumbled to tears when talking about Rodney.
So, Jamie Lee Curtis introduces Joan Dangerfield to introduce Tim Allen, but they actually have a video feed of dead Rodney (well, alive in the feed) introducing Tim.
Now, I have no idea what you receive a Rodney Respect Award for, but Tim Allen is DAMN funny. I know the world knows this, but I’ve never watched Home Improvement or any of the Santa Claus movies in my life. Not only is he funny, but he was so off-the-cuff brilliant and he effortlessly incorporated snippets of the whole night into his little sketch. Fabulous.
On other notes, the food was pretty good at the Four Seasons, despite the size of the crowd. Thelma Houston, former multi-Grammy winner, sang a few songs after Tim left, but the audience was scrambling for the valet parkers by then.
Dr. Neil Martin, bigwig and ultra-boss of my dear lover, had to operate and didn’t show up at the event (borderline giant faux pas) and was missed by all.
Parting gifts included an official Rubix Cube, a Thelma Houston CD and a lovely (stolen) centerpiece (Hey, we're on resident's salaries).
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