Is it silly to take interest in a property just because one of your favorite celebrities is selling it? Perhaps. But, as you know, we are fascinated with Charlie Sheen here at the lounge and now that his house is on the market we can’t help but take a few moments to ogle the pictures.

It’s a 1927 Mediterranean style house in Los Feliz, California. Sheen and his wife have spent the last year or so restoring the property. They need to move out of the 4 bedroom house because their family has simply out grown it.

Now, shelling out $3 mil or so for a house just because The Sheen used to live there might be a little lame but c’mon, who wouldn’t want to be able to say, “Did you know that Charlie Sheen used to live here?”

Here in the lounge we have the upmost respect for people who work in food service. There is nothing fun about the work and anyone who can pull it off with grace and aplomb is aces in our book. Servers are at the top of that list – having to deal with often testy customers while sloshing their food and drinks back and forth in an incredibly tense work environment is worthy of anyone’s respect.

Excuse me for a moment, my drink is empty. Where the hell is that damn waiter?

Anyway, what was I talking about? Oh, right, servers and food service workers. Given our undying respect for them if they declare one of their customers to be cool then who are we to argue? Such is the case with Mohammaed A. Sekhani, a waiter at Gibsons Steakhouse in Chicago, and Johnny Depp.

Last week Depp and crew stopped in at Gibsons for a late meal. After spending around $4K on a meal Depp doubled that with the tip. Yep, Sekhani received a $4K tip. When asked about it later Sekhani said that Depp has been in Gibsons a lot recently. He said that, while he’s served other celebrities, Depp is his favorite and a ‘cool dude.’ Can’t argue with that.

But to take this one step further, we here at the lounge must extrapolate that Sekhani is pretty cool himself. One doesn’t get a $4K tip for being a crappy waiter.

Father’s Day isn’t fair. Mother’s day is the real holiday – it’s in the spring when the weather is nice and the flowers are blooming. Dad gets stuck with some Sunday in June when the miserable summer heat has just started to really kick in. And, since it’s summer, he’s generally expect to go outside and grill something. He’s got to work on his day? Wrong! (Okay, okay, most Dad’s secretly love to grill but let’s leave that inconvenient fact out of this.)

You know what Dad wants? A drink. It’s true; a Dad with a drink is a happy Dad. Now, here in the Lounge our hands-down favorite drink is, what else, the classic martini. We have to say classic these days ’cause the fruity vodka crowd have almost succeeded in ruining this pinnacle of cocktail goodness. No mango key lime vodka martinis are served in the Lounge. Don’t bother asking.

So why don’t you whip up a martini for Dad today? No doubt it will be the highlight of his Father’s Day. Here’s a nice recipe for this exceedingly simple yet elegant (read cool) drink. Oh, and don’t you dare shake it, spy-movie fans. That just chips the ice and waters down the drink!

Gather:
- 2 1/2 oz gin
- 1/2 oz dry vermouth
- 1 green olive

Do this:
1. Fill a mixing glass with ice cubes.
2. Add the gin and vermouth.
4. Stir for about half a minute.
5. Strain into a chilled martini glass
6. Drop the olive in.
7. Place in Dad’s hand.

Here’s a headline that really sent up the uncool flag for those of us hanging out here in The Lounge: “FREE Bowling for Kids All Summer.” Brrrr!

Now, first let me say, we have nothing against the theory of children. It’s how most of us started out and many cool people have collected one or two of their own. We can even dig families going bowling together – good bonding, time away from the TV, showing the kids that Wii didn’t invent the game – it’s all good.

But the idea of bowling alleys being overrun by out of control short people from now until September is just wrong and, yes, uncool. But before we indict let’s take a look at the details. First, it’s a program that the California police have come up with to keep kids out of trouble while Mom and Dad are working and the teachers are off to exotic locales for their annual three month vacation. (What? That is what teachers do during the summer, isn’t it?) Second, the free bowling only lasts until 5pm everyday. So the tykes will be cleared out by the time adults are looking to kill a few frames after work.

Okay, so it’s not totally uncool. We’re not prepared to go all the way to cool on this one but we’ll cut it some slack. But we’re keeping an eye on it!

What does casual wear mean for the ol’ man? Ratty tee shirts? Socks and sandals? Plaid shorts? (Two out of those three things are completely uncool. I’ll leave it to you to figure this one out.)

How about sprucing up Dad’s look this year for father’s day? Whether casual means a ten year old tee shirt that expired seven years ago or a type “A” personality style polo shirt, creased and ironed, Dad’s look could probably do with an overhaul, right? Check out these totally cool bowling shirts. Oh, sure, it just so happens that they’re being sold by the Lounge’s mother-site, Bowling Concepts, but that doesn’t mean that we don’t also think that they’re completely cool. (We do.)

What, you don’t want to pay through the nose for two day shipping so you can get it in time for Father’s Day this weekend? Well you shouldn’t have waited until the last minute then, should you? That was totally uncool of you, by the way.

Do yourself and your dad and favor. Check out these shirts. Maybe, finally, he’ll stop scaring the neighborhood kids when he wanders out into the backyard in what he thinks is his cool casual wear.

Anyone who’s turned on TV set during the last three decades or so knows who Betty White is. Recently she appeared on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. During her appearance she wound up – as have many other women guests apparently – playing beer pong with Fallon. This scored her many cool points here in The Lounge.

Now, we’re a little ambivalent about Fallon’s coolness. Beer pong is definitely cool even if it does still retain a little bit of the frat house basement stink about it. But Betty White agreeing to fling ping pong balls and chug beer is most definitely cool! You go, girl! (By the way, we’re completely aware that it is totally uncool to use the phrase ‘you go, girl’ but what else could we say?)

We love darts here in The Lounge. Any sport that so seamlessly combines drinking, deadly projectiles and pub life has got to be good, right?

So we naturally take note that the Greatest Darts Player Ever was named this week. With his victory at the UK Open this weekend Phil Taylor can now claim to have won 50 major tournaments. Upon winning the 14-time world champion made a puzzling declaration: “I’m more famous than William Tell.”

Taylor went on to explain that WT is known for hitting an apple once with a crossbow while he, Taylor, has been successfully hitting a peanut-sized target repeatedly for years. This might make him more skillful than WT but more famous than? I don’t think so.

In the first place, anytime anyone declares that he is more famous than Historical Figure X the statement itself is self-defeating. It instantly sets up Historical Figure X as the standard. This necessarily makes it impossible to be beat X at his game.

More importantly William Tell has an opera. A freaking opera! Orchestras have been playing its famous overture for years. Sorry, Taylor, an opera trumps a darts trophy every time.

Check back in with us when a composer or poet has immortalized you. Until then keep flinging those darts. We have to admit that’s pretty cool!

Did I mention that we are obsessed with Charlie Sheen at The Lounge? We’re really not sure why but we are. Perhaps it’s because as the self-described definers of cool we are completely baffled by the Sheen. Some things about him are totally cool and some things totally not. He has us stumped and we are therefore fascinated by him.

Whether Charlie is cool or not, we are certain that his recent dinner with his wife, Brooke Mueller, ex, Denise Richards, and children was not cool. All participants might have shown a bit of coolness in actually going through with it but the event was in no way cool. I can speak from personal experience having been in Mueller’s place – the current spouse in a triangle of exes and kids. I once attended a very long weekend for a wedding in that company.

So good on Mueller for sitting through what must have been an awkward evening. But Charlie? Sorry, buddy, this is a going to have to be a mark against you.

This definitely falls in the not cool category. Oh, sure, we’re supposed to think it’s cool. Ooo, look how the celebrities can laugh at themselves! But come on. They are playing on their rightly earned reputations for being whiny divas. So when they fake that then turn to us all and giggle the only buffoons in the house are them.

Case in point – the M&M/Bruno dust-up from the MTV award show the other night. M&M’s career would have been over years ago if it weren’t for his biannual celebrity spats. So when the headline showed up on Yahoo news the morning after I didn’t watch the MTV awards show I wasn’t surprised. In fact I barely noticed it – never heard of Bruno (He’s another of Sacha Baron Cohen’s characters) and don’t care about M&M. But now we learn it was a fake fight and, apparently we’re all supposed to be laughing along.

Perhaps instead of showing us what a good sense of humor he has M&M should focus on not having any more fights with hand puppets and vegan DJs.

By the way, the article refers to a post on Scott Aukerman’s blog that spilled these beans. Don’t bother looking for it. For some reason, and without comment, that entry has been deleted from his blog. If you’re clever with the google you might be able to dig up the cached version; it’s pretty interesting.