Correspondent Mike Tunison got his first field assignment for With Leather working the Maxim Hot 100 Party in LA last week. (Suck on THAT, Washington Post.) Below is his report.
Being a sports blog that focuses on skateboarders taking face plants and other assorted sexiness, it only stands to reason that we'd be extended an invite to the Maxim Hot 100 party in L.A. last week. The annual party fetes the members of the magazine's highly scientific list of the hawttest women in the world, many of whom had much better things to do (presumably being sexy) than attending this party. But quite a few random celebrities and regular unfamous hot women were, so starfuckers and drooling pervs like myself had plenty of people to uneasily approach and pretend to talk with.
We, that is myself and a band of mostly PR people representing Axe (Ed. Note: Buy their outstanding men's products!), arrived in a limo around nine at Paramount Studios, where the party was set in a four-block outdoor set of simulated New York cityscape. The set nearly captures the Big Apple, but it just can't get the self-importance right. The crowd was still fairly thin, so one of the PR guys and I made our way to one of the open bars where they served whatever you wanted, so long as Hennessey was in it. It was there we happened upon Gus Johnson, CBS' resident screamo college basketball announcer.
We have a few minutes of polite convo with Gus, interspersed with him craning his neck at the varied and multitudinous pooners. "There are so many fucking hot women here," he tells us, in a non-yelling tone I don't recognize. I agree then ask what he's up to in the off-season and he replies, "I got a 4-year-old, man." After concluding Gus Johnson is pretty cool and running through the five things I had to ask him, I wander off.
It being an L.A. party, the dance floor is empty and people are mostly talking while scanning the place for famous people. One of them, Bai Ling, kindly obliges the crowd by strutting over to the empty dance floor and proceeds to grind by herself for about 15 minutes, because she's apparently 12 kinds of crazy, not to mention a terrible dancer. I'd had enough drinks to feel the need to film it for a few minutes.
With more insanely hot women about and free drinks to make them approachable enough to ogle at close range, I pressed on. I came across Masi Oka, of Heroes fame, B.J. Novak from The Office (didn't get arrested), Bill Maher (was in fact smug), Robert Horry hanging out following the Spurs' Game 1 loss to the Lakers (didn't sucker punch me), Will.I.Am and Ufford's bete noire, Jeremy Piven, giving a couch full of ladies a sense of the fisting that was to come.
A half dozen Hennessey cocktails moved the evening on apace. Eventually the dance floor filled, not necessarily with people dancing so much as standing at closer quarters and occasionally gyrating. There, I happened upon Shawne Merriman, one of the few people giving the dancing thing a try. Between songs, I introduce myself as a fellow Maryland alum and I ask if Philip Rivers is actually as much of an asshole as he comes across, to which Merriman gives a polite chuckle and thankfully doesn't rape me.
The Axe people want me to talk with Stacy Keibler, who is promoting some new line of something or other for them. She makes friendly and I say something barely intelligible through my drunken haze. A guy with us from Thrillist later says she's not much more than another slightly above average tall blond. In another context, it might be snotty, but in the high seas of hot ass that is the Maxim party, it's hard to fault him.
The party begins dying down around 1:00 and we make our way back to the limo. I hear that I missed Vince Vaughn, who was being a dick, and Jenn Sterger, who was probably being Jenn Sterger. I reach for the bottle of Goose in the limo to keep the party going.
