The most vulgar excesses of empire manifest themselves only when the empire in question is in decline. A number of historians and historical sociologists have made this observation with respect to social systems as varied as the Roman Empire and the Antebellum South. I thought of them last night at Katsuya in Hollywood. I know that sounds weird. Have you heard of Katsuya? I believe they have restaurants all over the world - Tokyo, New York, London, Berlin...even Palm Springs. The best way I can describe the place is as a Japanese restaurant that feels "very NBA." It's the kind of place, in other words, at which I could picture LeBron James arriving with his posse in a black stretch Hummer. As the doors to the limo fly open, the bass from some hellish Lil Wayne jam rattles the windows outside and a dozen or so flashbulbs pop, lighting up another round of celebrity worship. Katsuya is a place for those for whom money is no object, a place that takes the Japanese emphasis on respect and hospitality to new levels of servility and decadence...as long as they have your Visa Platinum number keeping a tab. Just keep the Cristal flowing and put it on my tab. Another three bottles of sake, please, and put it on my tab. Can we get another few plates of the yellow tail with crispy rice, and throw in a few kobe beef platters while you're at it, and put it on my tab... The wait staff is comprised of genetically perfect looking Japanese guys and dolls, and they tabulate your charges with digital pads that feed the orders back to some central nerve center that then forwards the order to the low-wage Mexican workers who assemble the food and who remain completely hidden from view throughout the entire evening. ...At one point, I ambled from our table to the Men's room, ambient techno buzzing in my ears. 
The women standing at the bar were all young, but not so young as to not evince a slight hint of desperation, with their their thigh-highs and low-cut-sweater-mini-dress thingamajigs. It's been unseasonably warm here in Los Angeles, but these women seem to sense that it's cold outside. They outnumber the men at Katsuya by something on the order of three-to-one. ...Katsuya strikes me as a protective bubble for the very rich, shielding them from the harshness of today's world. The weird thing is, though, that it all seems so flimsy and cheap at the same time. The marble in the bathroom isn't real marble. The walls are all adorned with artistic photographs, but look closely and you see that they're photocopies, not the real thing. The dark lighting in the place can't completely hide the fact that the fabric covering the booths is frayed and worn out. It's a teetering house of cards, a decaying, flim-flam moument to a decaying, flim-flam era. Just up the block, a few streets north of Hollywood Blvd, there are protective bubbles of a decidedly different kind, a grouping of tents that together make up a homeless encampment. The tents are also frayed and worn out, but for different reasons. Still, make no mistake about it: There is a causal relationship between the two bubbles, but the bubbles themselves help keep the relationship hidden. A relationship between people takes on the appearance of a non-relationship between things......I don't wanna make it seem like I didn't have a good time at Katsuya. I did. I ate. I drank. I laughed and I enjoyed myself. I tried not to think about the grossness of it all, knowing what I know, or at least what I think I know. I tried and largely succeeded to not be a downer, a dark cloud, a buzzkill. It was hard. Sometimes - maybe most times - it's better not to know.
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