Chris Erskine: Postcard from L.A.: At Del Mar, partiers and protesters

We're down at Del Mar Thoroughbred Club, where Champagne is the "soup of the day" and the nearby surf sprinkles you with its briny perfume. Not that it needs to. The cool air itself soothes the skin here in North County. Like cotton sheets in the ridiculously expensive seaside inns.

Here in the Turf Club, there is seersucker and silly hats, sweaty beverages and expensive sauces. Scenes like this always make me a little twitchy. Too much frat-boy bonhomie sets off my alarms, squeezes the adrenals.

Horse racing is a strange passion, all right, followed by some exceedingly strange