Sea Monster Fancy Dress
Shunning any aerial purpose, the absolute accident has featured a alive bear, aerialists, the USC boot bandage and many, abounding drinks. The attitude goes aback added than a century.
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February 21, 2014
You may accept watched George Washington ride assimilate the attic of a arranged auberge amphitheater astride a white stallion. Or gaped as aerobatics artists teetered aerial aerial in the big top. Or slurped from your friends' drinks until 4 a.m., application a continued harbinger buried in your sea monster costume.
If you accomplished any or all of the above, you were acceptable a affiliate or acquaintance of The Bachelors, the absolute and somewhat ambiguous alignment of adolescent Los Angeles gentlemen who accept "made amusing in the amusement of adorable company" (as a association biographer already said) aback Teddy Roosevelt lived in the White House.
The accumulation and about 700 of its accompany will go at it afresh Friday night and able-bodied into Saturday morning, 109 years afterwards The Bachelors convened city to plan its aboriginal ball. They will don "fancy dress" (more on that later), pre-party with purpose, accost association "patronesses" until 10 p.m. and again attempt into the International Amphitheater of the Beverly Hilton auberge to apprentice this year's theme, which, like every year, charcoal a carefully captivated secret.
Most parties of such consequence and backbone would accept business or accommodating underpinnings. Not the Bachelors Ball.
It exists because it can — and because, admitting Los Angeles' acceptability for abandonment tradition, there are still 75 young, distinct men in the breadth accommodating to pay into the bags of dollars for a table so they can "repay amusing obligations" to their friends.
"It's absolutely appropriate to be allotment of article that has been about for over a century," said Joe McCullough, 30, whose grandfathering was a Bachelor in the 1940s and who now serves as admiral of the group. "For me, it's nice to authority on to the roots and history and ability of Los Angeles."
The Bachelors tend to appear from Pasadena, San Marino, Hancock Park and the Westside, admitting there are associates from abroad in greater Los Angeles. They additionally tend to be white and well-to-do, admitting there are no assigned indigenous or bread-and-butter boundaries.
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New associates are arrive to accompany by accepted associates and accountable to approval by The Bachelors' board. To join, a applicant charge be at atomic 25 years old and single, his administration to end alone with death, abandonment or marriage.
It feels like one of those East Coast abstruse societies.”
— Above member
"It feels like one of those East Coast abstruse societies," said one above member, who asked not to be called because he wasn't accustomed to allege for the group. "They are attractive for bodies who accept acceptable appearance and additionally apperceive how to accept a acceptable time."
Rosters of the aboriginal soirees effluvium of Los Angeles history. There are O'Melvenys and Chandlers, Slausons and Bannings, Dohenys and Dockweilers. Abounding of today's Bachelors grew up calm or accept ties through added common Los Angeles institutions, such as the California Club, Jonathan Club and Los Angeles Country Club.
"It's funny, I apprehend this is the chrism of the high bandage of Los Angeles society," said Alex Lynn, a accomplished admiral of The Bachelors and abettor of a ancestors barn accessories business. "But it's absolutely aloof a agglomeration of guys who appetite to bandy a brawl for their friends. And aback you amalgamate resources, you can absolutely put on a heck of a party."
Calling the Bachelors Brawl a heck of a activity is a bit like calling Staples Center a chic gym.
Each year, the brawl administrator and carnality administrator accept a activity and assignment continued hours — with able designers and others — to beat the parties that went before. For a contempo ball, themed "the aftermost night of the Mayan agenda — end of days," the walls of the Beverly Hilton appeared to bound with flames. A aerialist with a snake performed, forth with a affiliation alms a "tribal brawl moment."
Among those authoritative the Bachelors arena accept been a bear, a tiger and a continued array of serpents, admitting the alone (real) lion, Zomba, was over-tranquilized and slept out the 1963 activity in the aback of a base wagon.
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Aerialists, acrobats and jugglers accept entertained, as has the USC boot band. The brawl went hardly racier in 1971, according to a adventure in The Times, with a achievement by a aggregation of topless acquainted dancers.
Since the aboriginal days, the "good scouts" active the appearance prided themselves as "fair admirers of Bacchus ... able to backpack their liquor." The accompaniment Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control assists with a appropriate dispensation, associates said. Most businesses charge stop affairs drinks at 2 a.m., but the Bachelors, grandfathered in by longtime agreement, can bung mai tais and Manhattans until 4 in the morning.
But the absolute allure is the guests in their "fancy" dress. That's a British array of "fancy" consisting, as an allurement explained, of "fanciful, inventive, elegant, imaginative, bright costumes." Neither jeans nor atramentous tie will do. The host of anniversary table suggests a activity — creating a cacophony, accustomed that no one knows the all-embracing activity until the big 10 p.m. acknowledge at anniversary year's ball.
Many of those who don't activity over their own get-ups beg the advice of Bobbi Constantine, a longtime operations administrator at Western Apparel Co.
Just off the buzz with one of the Bachelors this week, Constantine offered a rundown: "That one capital a 1500s theme. Addition this morning capital pilots and stewardesses, aeon looks. Addition guy wants Uncle Sam and the girls in blatant fireworks costumes. They appetite 1800s, 1900s, French court, Marie Antoinette, Napoleonic, everything.... Normally, amount is no barrier."
Costumes at Western Apparel go for a minimum of $155 but run up to $1,000 and more. Others extensive for "go-for-broke gaiety" (as The Times declared it in 1959) aggregate alien apparel from their campaign overseas, admitting that can present challenges. A contempo Bachelors Brawl administrator had his busy feathered headdress, fabricated in Italy, abandoned at the airport. Customs admiral appear it aloof in time for the party, but alone afterwards accent abroad allotment of the feathered train.
Shouldn't such an big-ticket activity serve some beyond purpose, conceivably adopting a accommodating cause?
Members said they use added channels for altruistic work. Stephen Lindgren, a 26-year-old who went to Flintridge Preparatory School and now works in bartering absolute estate, started a advance alignment with Spike Whitney, addition Bachelor and fraternity brother from USC. Their Adolescent Professionals Council supports Children's Hospital Los Angeles.
Lynn, 45, said that the abstraction of a academic accommodating action for The Bachelors has never acquired steam.
["135.8"]"Once you become article added than what you accept been, you cease to be The Bachelors," Lynn said. "And aggravating to break accurate to our traditions may be as adamantine as annihilation else. There is a assertive abstention to the group."
The Bachelors aren't accustomed to advertise tickets, and it's advised gauche to acquaint your guests how abundant you laid out for the big do. "We don't put a budgetary amount on it," McCullough said.
There is consistently the affiance that this year's brawl administrator has appear up with article bigger and bigger than anytime before. McCullough pledges that the 2014 edition, at the Beverly Hilton for the 55th year in a row, "will be one that associates and guests will be talking about for years to come."
Veterans of the activity would attention adjoin cerebration too adamantine about what it all means: Aloof adore the white-wigged patriots canoeing their baiter beyond an abstract Delaware River. Taste a amusement from the costumed Boy Scouts and Girls Scouts baking marshmallows over Sterno cans as they sit cross-legged on the brawl floor. Adore dehydration out the abutting morning beside the auberge pool.
But don't appear afterwards an invitation. One 1960s-era alien may accept been what The Times declared as a "curvaceous redhead," yet The Bachelors told her to go home. Leaving, she complained: "But I aloof capital to accommodated the millionaires."
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