File under #QuestionableChoices. A new-and-improved Viper Room (the legendary club on LA’s Sunset Strip), is back and being billed in publicity material as “an adult playground for young musicians, Hollywood’s elite, and industry insiders.”
The club, of course, was were Hollywood heartthrob River Phoenix died after accidentally overdosing on a cocaine-heroin speedball on Halloween night in 1993. To commemerate that event, the club is offering of a drink called “the Phoenix,” named after River Phoenix, which a publicist says is basically a Moscow mule made with tequila by Casamigos, the company co-owned by George Clooney. How… touching?
Also, as you enter the club, there’s a big “R.I.P. River Phoenix” on the ceiling by street artist/Keith Haring acolyte Louis Carreon.
The club’s publicist and a representative for the artist both say the “tribute” was Carreon’s idea.
Says LA Weekly:
Publicity material describes the art as “a one of a kind mural, paying homage to the Viper Room’s glory days … ”
We’re just surprised there’s not a chalk outline of the place where Phoenix’s body was scooped up by the paramedics who took him to Cedars Sinai Medical Center, where he was formally pronounced.
The club could start a new tourist destination — the Walk of Shame.
We just hope they don’t start selling “River Died Here” T-shirts.
The post The Viper Room Is Back – Now with Tasteless River Phoenix Tributes! appeared first on World of Wonder.