The past week has been a study in excess, between the parade of well-catered junkets for blockbusters and the visit to a very special exhibit (more on that in a sec).

Apparently, the studios really like to put on show for their summer movies. I now have a lovely “Wolverine”-branded hat and T-shirt ensemble, for the inevitable day this week when I really want to let people at the gym know what’s opening Friday.

For the new “Star Trek,” they even held a reception before the press screening complete with dinner and an open bar. Waiters offered as many “Star Trek” cocktails — piña coladas with green food coloring in martini glasses — as we could drink. Only two-thirds alcohol! And they even let me take my bourbon into the theater. But none of that has any bearing whatsoever on my opinion that the movie is freaking awesome. None at all.

And today I got to learn all about another Big! Summer! Movie! For fear of studio publicity Google alerts, I won’t name names, so let’s just call the director Dr. Boom. He screened some never-before-seen footage of his latest quiet, thoughtful period piece, but only after making sure we knew how much he didn’t want to. “What a coincidence,” one of the European reporters seated near me muttered. “We don’t want to see it.”

But hey, free food.

But perhaps the best — and creepiest/saddest — exploration of excess came last week, when I visited Michael Jackson’s garage sale, an exhibition of possessions that were set to be auctioned off before he came into some money and put a stop to the whole thing. BUT! The auction house still got to put them on display for a little while so that we could all bask in the glory of a man whose tastes range from chintzy antiques to creepy statues of children. Seriously, the light fixtures on the tour bus were even little naked boys. Anyway, here’s just a taste of the chintz:

His garden was filled with lots of frozen frolicking children:

He had original artwork by Macaulay Culkin, who’s not really famous for his artwork:

Hey, look! A People’s Choice Award!

Anyway, you can check out the whole shebang here, if ye dare.

“Drinking in L.A.” is Ned Ehrbar’s look at life as a bleary-eyed East Coast refugee in sunny Southern California. You can see Ned’s other work here, and you’re more than welcome to follow him on Twitter, as awkward as that sounds.