Only In My L.A.

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.

The Republic ain’t no AREA. Now that’s a club.

The Republic should change its name to RepubliCAN’T. Because I CAN’T do it. Ever again. It’s not, and let’s get this straight once and for all, anywhere near Area’s level in terms of good Hollywood clubs. It’s sloppy seconds. On a ‘feeling generous’ day.

The Republic is basically where you go when you can’t get into Area. It’s the obvious choice when you’ve already paid the $20 valet parking fee at Area and for one reason or another the annoying bouncer girl who’s everywhere these days won’t let you in. There’s no better idea than to run across La Cienega and pop into The Republic, right?

WRONG.

The Republic, (and I’m not talking about the Dominican), is a total waste of time. “I wish I had four thumbs, so I could give it four thumbs down!!” (Sorry; the Dave Chapelle-isms still live on in my mind, even if he did turn crazy and run away to Africa.)

I can’t put my finger exactly on why The Republic is so bad either. But let’s try:

1. No cute boys.
2. Not even any cute girls to get inspirational future club outfit ideas from.
3. The music is bad. “Trying to be old school but instead just old” bad.
4. It’s pitch dark upstairs, but still light enough to see that the man hitting on you isn’t cute in any way, shape or form.
5. There’s a teeny tiny opening in the roof downstairs, so people think they’re “outside” and thus able to smoke.
6. The bathrooms are unisex. Which takes away our private girl time to primp and discuss. We have meetings in the ladies’ room, guys. Duh. It’s not just a song you know. We have important decisions to make on the fly. “Is he cute? Or am I just ti’sy?” We simply don’t have time for interruptions if we want to cover every topic on the agenda.

So there you have it. Reasons why The Republic is on my list of “I’ll never go there again”, right in between Chapter 8 (a bad club far far far deep into the Valley), and Jean Pierre. Once is more than enough. And if you’re ever in Area and your friends want to “try someplace new for a sec across the street”, don’t do it. Hold on to the bar at Area and make them drag you kicking & screaming.  Learn from my mistakes.   Knowledge is power.

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?

I went out last night to Winston’s, a cute little bar in West Hollywood, often shortened to West Ho. I just realized what an appropriate abbreviation that is too. Not that I mean to be stereotypical or homophobic or anything. It’s just that I’ve heard from the horses’ mouths themselves that men who love men generally put out. They don’t have time to play hard to get like us girls sometimes do. There’s wives & kids to get home to! (Sorry, I just read “On The Down Low”, and it’s obviously still affecting me.)

Anyway, this former Boystown hotspot has now become the latest ““urban hipster” bar. (I don’t really know what that means, but it’s per www.la.com, and they know what they’re talking about.)

So I’m officially recommending Winston’s. And that’s kind of like a big deal. :0)

I saw this sign promoting a flower store on my way home from work today that said “Get Your Sexy Artificial Flowers”.

“Sexy” artificial flowers? I’m sorry? Come again?

It was the perfect “only in my LA” moment. I mean seriously, are you ever going to see that sign anywhere else in the whole entire world? Nope. Only in my LA.

Us Angelenos have officially taken the obsession with all things sexy to the next level. Our little five year old girls run around with their fake purses having fake relationships with their 3rd grade boyfriends and talking on their cell phones. “He’s a lot older, so I don’t have to deal with all the BS, you know what I mean? I just don’t have the patience for that anymore.”

Not everything has to be sexy Los Angeles. It’s okay if the flowers are not sexy. Really.

Could artificial flowers be any less sexy anyway? Maybe if they were real, they might have a natural appeal that could maybe be construed as some sort of unintended sexiness, but fake dusty waxed cloth things doubling as bounty from our Earth? Not so much.

Think it through carefully my LA. If we keep overusing the term “sexy”, it could begin to lose its meaning. Remember what happened to has-beens like “rad”, “bitchen” & “dude”? We don’t want a repeat of those fiascos. Like, “sexy”, like totally can’t go out like that.

My co-workers and I had such the LA conversation during our lunch break today. Had we been on the East Coast, we would have been discussing politics or the war in Iraq. But not in LaLa Land. No Siree Bob. Auras, chakras & energies were on the plate today.

Our conversation felt so good too. Sometimes you just have to “go with the flow” and “feel the vibes” of wherever the words takes you. Let them be free. And please don’t judge me on my choice of terms either; I’m just a product of my environment.

It was a nice break from the usual lunchtime topics anyway: TV shows, celebrities, losing weight, etc. You know, important stuff. Gotta mix it up every now & then. Keep the energy flowin.

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?