Steve Garbarino is Maxim's new editor-at-large and, until one day earlier this week, he was the editor-in-chief of BlackBook. He's since left that position, but his words live on, including in a blog post published today, which might actually be the issue's editor's letter, about that Los Angeles institution for the famous people and their wranglers, André Balazs' Chateau Marmont, otherwise known as the closet where Lindsay Lohan stores her clothes. Including the sometimes stolen ones.

You see, this is where the famous come to eat, drink, sleep, sleep with each other, and generally be creative types. Celebrities like it because, supposedly, their names do not get leaked to gossipy tabloid outlets while they stay there. Except they do. But what's the real draw of this place, tucked away off Sunset Boulevard?

It’s not just that you can be yourself there. Or disappear there. Or blackout there (“it happens to everyone!”). It’s that everyone you need to meet with for work and for play come to you (even if they bitch about the parking). The building begs codependency. But it’s the staff—smart, calm, attractive, funny, seen-it-all—that is the true draw. I don’t know how many times I’ve sat under the garden’s arches interviewing some famous subject, and yearned for the company and conversation of a favorite manager, bartender, waiter, busboy instead.