VILNIUS - Hundreds of new bars, restaurants and nightclubs have opened in the Baltics over the last few years. You can easily imagine how their owners sat around a dimly lit table at night, drinking, smoking, jotting down notes and feverishly talking about how their new venture would be the best, boldest, trendiest, most epoch-making thing around.
Many of these places are constructed around a theme, such as the recently opened Paparazzi in Vilnius. But, as it so often turns out, the theme is not so much a theme, as a thematic muddle, unless that's the theme, in which case that's another story.
Paparrazi attracted a lot of press when it opened because a lot of famous people went and hung out there, which was probably exactly what the owners had hoped, when they finally stubbed out their cigarettes, downed the last of their drinks and decided to go with the name Paparazzi.
It's supposed to be a glitzy place, which is why the walls are lined with portraits of Hollywood legends, to use the correct terminology.
Monroe, Di Niro, Pacino, Nicholson, Depp, Pitt, the whole family is there, including Princess Diana, or The Princess Formerly Known As Diana, or whatever her job title was after she got divorced from Charles, and before she got killed by, oops, the paparazzi.
Did the owners have that little fact in mind as they sat around their dimly lit table trying to choose which pictures of which famous people should adorn their walls? Perhaps they did and they were just trying to make an ironic statement about people's prurient fascination with fame, and how tragic this illusory relationship is. But probably not.
On the night that I went along to Paparazzi, it was totally full, every last table and barstool of it. Lithuanians are not exactly the most accomplished posers in the world (although they do aloof with great aplomb), and they were wobbling a bit on their barstools as they kept compulsively glancing around to check who was looking at them looking at them looking at them.
But I didn't discover Paparazzi'a crown jewels until I paid a visit to the restroom. Hanging on the walls was a large framed montage of pictures taken from a hidden Webcam inside a toilet cubicle. The pictures offer an intimate peek at the secret life of the beautiful people as they take a break from the pressures of socializing, and hide out in the sanctuary of the toilet cubicle.
One picture showed a couple having sex. Another showed a woman giving a man a blowjob. Several other pictures showed people snorting cocaine. Others showed people smoking a joint. Others kissed. Others vomited. Others slumped passed out on the toilet seat. No one used the toilet.
I wondered if only those visiting the men's restroom were privy to this most intimate glimpse of the life of the beautiful people, and so out of curiosity, I went to check out the women's restroom, and found the exact same picture hanging there. After that I couldn't wait to get out of the place.
Few people who go to Paparazzi probably know where the word comes from, or what it really means, which is why, after all, it's the ideal name for the place, and those who live out la dolce vita in its toilet cubicles.
