Only In My L.A.

I just can’t get enough of the star sightings. There I was, innocently going to Literati Cafe on my lunch break, and who’s right there beside me?  Marcia Cross.   Apparently I’ve run out of stars to see and now have to repeat celebrities, since I’ve already seen her on Rodeo Drive last year.

I was already alerted to the possibility of a ’supastah’ being inside because of the beautiful extremely expensive car in the parking lot, not to mention the paparazzi swinging from the trees, but still, exciting nonetheless.  I DID want to see a new one though.   Marcia Cross?  Been there, done that.  I don’t like to watch movies over and over again, and my stars are the same way.

She’s very beautiful though.  Very skinny and small. Striking. But. Why does there always have to be a ‘but’?  But there is.  All I’m asking is that can some star any star that I see please be aging gracefully and happily? When I saw Nicollette Sheridian at Taverna Tony’s she was still very pretty, ‘but’ the plastic surgery was just too much. Lips: too much. Lack of wrinkles: too much. It seems Marcia Cross has taken the same route. Why does plastic surgery have to abound?

So here’s a little tip for those just visiting or still new to the LA star scene: When you look at a woman’s face but can’t tell how old she is as there’s nair a wrinkle to be seen, she’s had a lil sum’in sum’in done in the face.

And I take that back what I said earlier. When I saw Courtney Thorne-Smith at the Brentwood Whole Foods, she looked plastic surgery free. So they ARE out there.  Far and few between, but they exist.  Thanks for restoring the faith Courtney, thank you.

Even once in a while, something amazing comes out of LA that makes me proud be an Angeleno.

John West is one of those things.

Even though we got him from Louisiana, he’s ours now.

That’s right, ladies and gentlemen. I pulled in a big one last weekend when I saw Derek Zoolander himself doing running sprints on a hiking trail in the Hollywood Hills.

By far, it was the best star sighting I’ve accomplished in a long, long time. He was sporting sunglasses, a Walkman, (I mean an iPod, no reason to needlessly show my age now is there?), and a baseball hat, and I still managed to pull it off.

He was running toward my friend and I, and I basically pushed my friend out of the way in order to give him a thumbs up. I know, I know. A cheesy-a*s thumbs up?   Not my best work, that’s all I can say. Afterward (of course), I realized the perfect thing to do would have been to run by him in fake-Zoolander fashion with a model look on my face. That way he could have seen what a great modelizer I am. He might be the best eugooglizer (you know, someone who gives eugooglies), but I take it home in the modelizing department.

Oh well, what’s done is done. It was the best I could come up with on such short notice. I shouldn’t blame myself. My friend didn’t do much better either with her “Heyy there” in a very “Hey you” type of voice. He replied with a quick out-of-breath “Hey”, which we were still quite impressed with. I mean, the man was doing running drills, and he still answered like a totally normal person.

As if the original corniness wasn’t enough, Ben turned around in the drill and caught my friend and I re-enacting the whole moment. I had my thumb out and everything. Nice.

Still, it was a shining moment. Only in my LA.

So I recognized a familiar face when I went to the Urth Cafe on Melrose Friday night. Mrs. Paltrow. Gwenyth’s mom. Blythe Danner to be exact. Just casually having a spo’ of tea with a girlfriend. Which is exactly what I was doing, only it seems much more acceptable for a 60-something woman to be partaking in that activity than a 30-ish young thing like myself. But that’s beside the point.

To add to the rush that I always get anytime I see a star, Blythe Danner was staring at me! How exciting. A famous person staring at me like I’m the one who’s famous. I guess she switched the rules in her head as to who should be staring at who. Got a little mixed up, did we? I think it was the red glasses I was sporting. They’re ‘differn’, as my friend from Minnesota pronounces the word ‘different’. And ‘differn’ is always new and exciting.

Apparently at The Urth Cafe there’s an “unspoken rule” (an unposted rule too, I might add), that you have to order your food and get a number before you can sit down. Which I learned the hard way while saving a table as my friend ordered for us. A couple walked over to me and the woman said nastily, “I saw this table while I was in line.” I was like “And…..”. (Because, I’m sorry, but there had better be more to it than that, of that much I’m sure.)

I’m a very non-confrontational person, but even I draw the line somewhere. You can’t “call the table in your head” and expect me to adhere to that. She basically “called shotgun for life” like Will Farell in Blades of Glory. The nerve. The rules of “Dibs” clearly state otherwise. I wanted to refer her to Wikipedia. Because the Wiki is always right. And the Wiki clearly states that “the system of Dibs operates mostly on a first-come, first-serve basis”. There you have it lady. You snooze, you lose.

What shocks me just as much though, is that someone actually wrote entire pages for Wikipedia on “Dibs” and “Calling Shotgun“. With an encyclopedic eye no less. Thanks to the Information Superhighway, we now have written words to refer to when questions about “Dibs” and “Calling Shotgun” occur. For the first time in our history. Who says we as a people aren’t advancing?

So I saw Zoe Saldana at the Juan Luis Guerra concert last night.

I think it’s a Dominican thing; she was representing for her people.

Kind of like “Dios te bendiga” is another “Dominican thing”. Its literal translation is “God Bless You”, but the Dominican men have artfully turned it into a pickup line.

or ?

Last night we were talking about celebrity couples where one of them is much more attractive than the other. We were talking about Pamela Anderson & Kid Rock, and one of my friends said, “Pamela Anderson? Is that the one who died?”

No. No bunny, it’s not.

At first I thought we might have to revoke her LA membership privileges, seeing as we eat sleep & breathe stars in LA and there’s no excuse for a mistake like that.   That’s like not knowing who Maddox and Suri are.  And if you don’t know that plus their hyphenated last names,  you have some serious catching up to do.

But then I realized I might be being a bit harsh. Just look at the pictures. I can see where the mistake was made.

You might find it strange that to find a picture of a New York star on a blatantly Los Angeles blog. But at least hear me out. Lil Kim has had so much plastic surgery that I think she should be an honorary LA Celebrity. We should open the books for her on that reason alone. Hey, we did it for Patrick Swayze and Sylvester Stallone, and do we really want to be accused of discriminating against the ladies?

Apparently I see a new star pretty much every day now. I'm definitely on a roll.

The latest was Boris Kodjoe walking past me as I was having Saturday brunch after yoga. If you live in LA, you're gonna be doing some yoga. It's pretty much a requirement. You'll also be having brunch afterward, unless of course you're going to a Farmer's Market instead. That's an acceptable excuse.

And if you're having brunch, you're really going to want to have Boris Kodjoe stroll by right in front of your table. Trust me, it’s a treat. This is something to write home about. He’s really really really really ridiculously good-looking. (You’ll have to forgive me; I just watched Zoolander this weekend and have been saying that an average of 10 times a day since. You should try it; it’s actually really really really really fun.)

Perhaps you’re not sure who Boris Kodjoe is. Which is perfectly understandable since the name doesn’t really match the beautiful face. Or the body. Let’s not forget about that work of art.

But “Boris?” What were his parents thinking? Come on people. I know you can do better than that. So if you don’t know who he is, just look at the above picture. And please stop staring I know it’s hard.

Anyway, he walked by holding his little baby girl’s hand. Awwwwww. Does it get any cuter than that?

So now I’ve officially seen both members of the Picture Perfect couple; the wife and the Doctah himself. I saw his wife about 2 months ago at the Beverly Center, and today I saw Crazy I mean Dr. Ray on Rodeo Drive. He looked younger than he looks on TV, but then I remembered that of course he does. He’s a plastic surgeon for Pete’s sake! You know he’s dabbled here and there. He’s basically like a kid in a candy store. It’s inevitable. Kind of like aging, right Dr. Ray?