Happy Birthday Paddy...

my toast from last night's dinner...

Dear Paddy

Since the day you came into my life, I have known that I would be good as long as I had you by my side.

From the opening declaration that we were best friends since High School and our first cocktail at The Blue Room, Yahtzee! And two cheeseburgers from Mc Donald’s, it was a declaration predicated in truth.

I have always been only as good as you’ve believed in me. My career would be nowhere without your guidance and recommendations from the time you ran into George Clooney at the Smoke House and told him how much he would love working with me to Mimi and Joan- two women I will always honor working with and without your involvement may have never happened.

You have impacted my musical tastes as I can’t hear a Dixie Chicks, Barenaked Ladies, Alanis and now Jill Sobule song without thinking of you. All of these musicians make my heart smile and my world right just by listening to their music. I often believe it is because you become present in my mind as they sing.

You are my phone call when I am scared. You are my phone call when I am elated. You are my phone call when I am filled with questions. You are my phone call when I am full up on answers. You are my best date. You are a person I have shared myself so unconditionally with and have never been given me a reason to not. You will never know how much your blossoming relationship with George and Heidi means to me and how much I love having you in every crevice of my life.

Dalt’s Chicken Fingers with Honey Mustard, the dice game at Lake Arrowhead, our trips to Santa Barbara, your Pot Roast, Rummikub, Spy Girl Run, reheated decaffeinated coffee, gloating Fijian post cards, blue cheese dip, David Sedaris, your taco salad, Lillith Fairs, and my eyes glimmer just from the thought as I prepare to type the Palace Grill’s Bread Pudding with Whiskey Cream Sauce. Was the food really that good or is it that being in my favorite city on the planet with one of my favorite people on earth overwhelms my happiness senses into such a state of euphoria that liver and onions would have been as delicious? This is a question I never want answered.

And then there are the friendships that are the foundation of my life that I would be lost without. Clara, Erica, Jo and Peter, the Trents, Barbie, Kristie, Kim, the list goes on and on. I wouldn’t know any of them if it weren’t for you. Without them I would be another awkward struggling lost soul in Hollywood. Instead, I am a blessed and confident man who has the ability to believe. All of this because of you. You deliver me gifts at every turn without even knowing it.

You are my queen, you are my calm.
You are my treasure, you are my gift.
You are my light, you are my rock.
You are my confidence, you are my conscience.
You are my vitality, you are my compassion.

I wish you could see you as I do. Someone so pure. So beautiful. So radiant. So smart. So kind. So generous. So lovely. So aware. So participative. So strong. So knowing. So brave.

I am humbled by your humble nature. I am awed by your selfless generosity. I am spellbound by your magnificence and frustrated by your inability to see it. I can only hope that as I continue to need and rely on you as my touchstone, I can spend everyday helping you to see and recognize your beautiful brilliance and how any time in my life without you in it is a time not worth living.

Happy birthday my beloved…

Pics from last night's dinner...

The evening started out with delicious sushi and smiles, until the cameras were turned to the men...

Brady and I put on our tough faces...

So Tiff and Paddy followed suit with their snarls...

Tiffani bought Paddy the most delicious and GORGEOUS cake I have ever seen. And yes, everything but the ribbon is edible...

Two of my favorite things, Paddy and cake... Paddycake, Paddycake, Baker's man!

And so it begins, the reading of my toast...

Now we have added champagne to the mix. Is it my birthday? Because seriously, I am now in a room with all of my favorite things. If Tiffani had sent us home with a gift bag, my head may have popped off!

Post toast hug...

Finally digging into the cake. I wouldn't normally post such a ridiculous photo of myself, but it seems appropriate as I continue to prove my point that I love cake (that and my head was one gift bag away from exploding off my shoulders)!