More Sightings

I saw Nicole Richie and Joel Madden shopping on our block. She is tiny and he has a ton of tattoos but actually looks sort of buff. I was on the phone with my mom when I saw them and she responded with "She is just ghastly, why are you looking at those weirdos?"

Andre 3000 was sitting a couple of couches away from us at the Tropicana Bar at the Roosevelt last night. His manager was a douche, and it was the first time I have felt grossed out by LA people. The manager was barely 5'5 and about 50 years old. First he hit on my friend, then he said he wanted to set her up with his son, then he asked if she was going to do coke and could he come. What a creep.

Are these boring yet?

RIP... GOULET

Robert Goulet passed away at 73 today. He will be missed.

Tricks of the Trade

Trick or Treat! Yea, we have all been hearing that phrase a lot the last week. But what about it's Forgotten Stepchild Catchphrase; Tricks of the Trade? Inside pointers that help you succeed in a certain situation aka Tricks of the Trade may not have it's own holiday, but it is still an important catch-phrase none the less. To commemorate this very important catch phrase I am going to share with you a few "tricks of the trade" to spotting celebrities.

Tricks of the Trade to spotting Celebrities:
1)Live your life like an "out of work" celebrity
Many celebrities live off money they make from syndication. They are not currently filming anything but they probably toss movie/t.v ideas around with their friends. I am currently working about an hour/two hours a day. Not by choice. Like most celebrities I would like to work more. Except in my case I would panic in front of a camera at work. Because at my job it would be a "nanny cam." I do however have a little income and toss around sketch/stand-up ideas around with my friends. Since most of my day is free I have taken to running pointless errands around town, brunching in the middle of the week, and staying out late on the weeknights. Every time I have done one of these things I have run into a celebrity. Just this morning Julia and I were having brunch with a friend and we sat next to Mila Kunis, the voice of Meg on "Family Guy", as well as one of the girls on "That 70's Show". I also sat near Minnie Driver while having brunch a couple of weeks ago with some girlfriends of mine from high school. Just last week I was behind Kevin Smith in line at Target, and later that day when I was driving to get my car cleaned I drove by a taping of "The Hills." I never would have seen David Spade if I hadn't thought getting drunk on a Wednesday night was a good idea. Its quite simple, the less money you make, the more celebrities you will see. Besides everyone knows a good celebrity sighting is like money in the bank.

2) Work constantly to afford going to swanky places
Now I haven't tried this out yet. But I have been passed this information as an excellent trick of the trade. If you can afford a table or bottle service at a swanky club in LA you will most likely see or interact with a celebrity who is trying to get into the tabloids therefore probably working, and probably a douche. Personally I try to steer clear of any place with a guest list or a line so I'm fine with my out of work celebrities to accompany my out of work self, they are usually nicer anyway. Perspective is a wonderful thing!

3) Be REALLY lucky or a HUGE stalker
A good celebrity sighting is often luck. Or stalking. It's 50/50 really. Anyone can read about a celebrities interests and then frequent places you know they would enjoy. But just as often you could be out having a good time with your friends, or walking your dog, or fake shopping (thats looking at clothes but not buying them, because you don't have a job) and see your favorite star of yesterday or today.

So, dear readers, just follow these simple tricks of the trade and watch the celebrity sightings roll in. You're welcome.

Celebrity Sightings 5, 6, 7

Dear readers, you might have been asking yourselves "Cissy and Julia live in Hollywood now, why are they not hanging out with celebrities left and right?" Well maybe we are! And maybe we're not. Either way here are my celebrity sightings from the past month.

Sighting One

Driving down Robertson Blvd, where normally you can expect to see female celebrities out shopping between drug overdoses, I saw Oscar from the office. Needless to say I was more excited to see him because he is a brilliant improviser and has been on two of my favorite t.v shows, the office, and Reno 911.

Sighting Two

Today I went on a little shopping excursion to target. Anyone who has ever shopped at Target knows that the check out situation can be a bit of a cluster-fuck. I only had two small items I was buying so I searched for the shortest line possible. I noticed a man who seemed to only have bags and bags of M&Ms that he was buying so I made a bee-line to get behind him in line. My first thought was that the man in front of me with a rampant sugar addiction looked like our downstairs neighbor. Then I realized it was non other then Silent Bob himself, Kevin Smith. His very tall and thin wife popped up as he was signing the credit card receipt, she looked miserable.

Sighting 3

Last night Julia and I were supposed to have improv class. However, due to power outages class was cancelled after we had all arrived. As a class we decided to go get drinks and hang out so it wasn't a wasted evening. We ended up at a very large Mexican Bar/Restaurant near our house. This particular establishment had about 200 televisions everywhere you looked all playing the World Series. Our class ended up at a long table in the corner. I noticed that not even 10 feet from us was a private room that looked like a board room, with about 8 flat screens. The long board room table in the middle, but instead of normal office chairs there were special "Mexican Restaurant VIP room office chairs." Low and behold who should be sitting at the head of the table was "Riiiiiicccchhhhhaaaarrrddd" himself, David Spade. I love David Spade. Sometimes he gives me the douche chills because he is such a "celebrity" comedian but Tommy Boy is one of my all time favorites, so I feel a loyalty to him. Julia noticed him first, and said that they made eye contact and he immediately shut the curtains closing off the room. As soon as the game ended he got up and left, creating a scene eerily like the above picture. David Spade in all is 5 ft. glory with a tall thin blond catering to him. This sparked the always original conversation about why celebrities go out in the first place if they are just going to lock themselves up and be weird about being in public. For the record I did not see one person go up to him the entire time. If you are so against seeing other people, why not just stay home?

Some of Us Root for the Underdog

***UPDATE***
For those of you who have read this entry it is now updated. Ebon Moss-Bachrach is out. I still enjoy him in movies, however, information about him as a person that I received from a very credible source has led me to remove him from my personal list of heartthrobs. Paul Schneider is now #1, top of the list. I will work on finding a new #2, and a real #3.

Tonight I attended my first book club meeting.
That's not what this blog entry is about. This blog entry is about the road I took, when the two roads diverged in the woods (a.k.a, vis-a-vi) (my brain) and I had to choose between road A- which is a book club entry orrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr (blatant So I Married an Axe Murderer reference) road B- telling you who my favorite Hollywood dreamboats are. I choose road B (with a tiny bit of A, basically I'm on road B but I can still see A....ok?!! Yaaay. I thought about this tonight because tonight at the end of book club (see, here we are looking at road A) we decided when we were going to meet next. Someone suggested the date Nov 11th and Julia without pause screamed out THAT'S LEONARDO DICAPRIO'S BIRTHDAY!!!!
Now since this blog entry is not about book club I wont go into details about everyone else's reactions, however, I will share mine. Which is, I don't care much for Leonardo Dicaprio, and for that matter I don't care much for Brad, or Matt, or Hugh, or Ryan, or Ben, or John, or Jacob, or Jinggleheimerorshmidt. These men are, of course, good looking men, but they are not my men. These men do not get my heart racing when I see them on screen or in magazines. In fact they kind of give me the douche chills.

Crush # 1: Paul Schneider

I first fell for Paul Schneider while watching "The Family Stone" he just played that hometown, stoner, yet still an EMT, good guy next door character so well. I firmly believe that he had the best laugh in the whole movie, the whole movie full of family angst, and cancer, a deaf gay son, and a sibling love quad-mix-up weird switcheroo thing, basically a laugh riot... I recently saw The Assassination of Jesse James at the Arclight with Julia. Paul played a member of The James Gang. I was thrilled to introduce Julia to Paul, via the big screen. I'm not quite sure she understood my obsession, (which I like, I don't want to compete over my heartthrobs....unlike some people...Nov 11th...) but she did see his appeal. Some say appeal, some say second greatest living actor around today. Thanks to Jake, I have now seen "All the Real Girls" This movie is what promted me to oficially move Paul into the #1 spot.

Crush # 3: Thomas Mapother Like I said...I don't like to compete over my heartthrobs.

What do Wes Anderson and National Geographic have in Common?

They both hired Alec Baldwin to do narration work.

Alternate Title: The Baldwin Comeback?

I believe we have a bonafied Baldwin comeback on our hands. Then again have the Baldwins really been missing? Lately I have had Baldwin overload, in the last 48 hours I feel like majority of what I have watched has had a Baldwin starring, co -starring, or narrating.
Like I said before I have been watching a lot of television and movies. When you watch as much as I do now, you know that 3 out of 4 Baldwin brothers have been seeing major face time recently. Anyway, the 4th brother doesn't count because, lets be honest, he was only ever famous for having famous brothers. Alec Baldwin can be seen on 30 Rock, and various gossip sites for calling his ex-wife and daughter a variety of harsh names, and his younger brother William (Billy) Baldwin (of Backdraft fame) is on the new ABC show "Dirty Sexy Money," and Stephen Baldwin absolutely has some major films coming out. One might immediately think...BALDWIN COMEBACK! I know I did....but then I realized, hasn't a Baldwin always been a staple, sometimes unexpectedly?


Now its a lot easier to identify a Baldwins face then their voices. They all look very similar with there impossibly dark hair, mysterious grins, and blue slanty eyes nestled below thick, almost, Peter Gallagheresque eyebrows. However, if you listen closely you will hear a Baldwin in the most obscure places. Just tonight as Julia and I were watching Planet Carnivore on National Geographic (yes, that's right, we watch Planet Carnivore on Saturday nights if we want.) I kept getting distracted from the thrashing sharks by the husky voice that explained their eating habits. Instead of processing the information and improving my knowledge of sharks and other sea life they come into contact with I couldn't help but think of the opening scene of the Wes Anderson directed, The Royal Tenenbaums. Watching the birds on National Geographic swooping low over the ocean, barely above the sharks, I kept picturing Mordecai, faithful hawk belonging to Richie soaring above the Tenenbaum home to "Hey Jude" with Alec Baldwin as the narrator describing the family. I instantly thought "I KNOW THAT VOICE!" It was the narrator, it was Jack on 30 Rock making fun of Tina Fey, it was eerily similar to the voices of main characters in "Dirty Sexy Money", "Three of Hearts" and "Threesome"....it was Alec Baldwin!

Clearly Alec is the most famous of the Baldwins and is working the most these days, however, let us not count out that aside from once being the star of the second "sex" movie I ever watched ("Threesome"...natch) brother Stephen can be found starring in "The Flyboys" and "Sharks in Venice." Two films, I will admit I haven't gotten the chance to watch yet, but they just scream artistic integrity and they are at the top of my que. Brother Billy once star of the first and I think third "sex" movie I ever watched ("Backdraft " and "Three of Hearts"...respectively) will also soon be seen in the upcoming film "Sakura: The Blue Eyed Samurai" Now I dont know about you but when I hear that title I immediately picture blue eyed, dark haired, mysterious, sexy slanty eyed, Billy.

So to end this I Salute the Baldwins, and let us always remember the knowledge we gained from watching or hearing them. They truly are members of my personal television and movie "old guard."

"The Right Now! Show"

On Wednesday night, we went to the pilot taping of "The Right Now! Show," a sketch comedy production that will possibly air on Fox. Having arrived two hours early on foot (cars are for wusses), we got front-of-the-line status and secured a prime perch for people-watching. Within 15 minutes of standing in line, we saw a couple that looked very familiar, but we couldn't figure out how we knew them. After much deliberation, it hit us: That's the couple that was sitting next to us at Baja Fresh twenty minutes ago. Small world! Then we saw some homeless people. And then a guy walking on the adjacent sidewalk screamed "SKETCH COMEDY SUCKS!" We didn't know how to respond to that. Yes, sometimes sketch comedy does suck, you're right. But occasionally it doesn't, but I'm not gonna have this argument over 5 lanes of traffic, Sir.

Basically what I'm trying to say is that the evening was star-studded.

After an hour of waiting in line, we had our second celebrity siting since we moved to LA. There in his baseball hat, thick glasses, and goatee was the Analrapist himself, David Cross. Talking, breathing, blinking-- right in front of our faces! Not much for celebrity subtlety (I once followed Scarlett Johansson for 5 blocks in the West Village, allowing only 6 inches between us), we stared. Ok, I stared. I figured the harder I looked at him, the more likely he'd be to walk up to me and say "hey there, want some money?!"

When we filed into the theater, guess who was sitting RIGHT behind us? Yup, a douchebag with an annoying voice on an annoying date with an annoying girl. The combination of their annoying conversation and annoying laughter was interfering with my ability to listen to David Cross, who was sitting RIGHT behind them. It was annoying. Then, who comes over and joins Tobias but Bob Odenkirk. Surely they were talking serious comedy, planning their next collaboration, and debating whether to call the cops on the curly headed lipstick-smeared pyscho and her head-banded friend sitting and staring two rows away. I'll explain the lipstick situation in a later post.

So, these were my two celeb sightings. I have no idea about that third guy Cissy was talking about. But I presume he's famous. I have no recollection of seeing him. I was too busy making excuses to turn around and stare/laugh at the rows behind me.

Celebrity Sightings 2, 3, and 4 (An no, they were not on stage)

Wonderful Weekend in Pacific Palisades Featuring Montel Jordan and Total

First Celebrity sighting

In the car driving to Joy Allen's improv show at IO west we had our first celebrity sighting. We pull up to what appears to be some sort of street movie shoot, a big limo outside with a bunch of film trucks. Then who should run in front of our car but the "Hot Chick" himself, Rob Schneider.
Replay of the sighting
Cissy: (in the passenger seat, looks over, pauses) Deuce?
Julia: (driving, looks over briefly) Rob Schneider?
Joy: (in the back seat, looks over) Yea that's him (continues her story without pause)

Scientology

Cissy has been fooled twice about Scientology:

Episode 1
Cissy: Scientology is weird
Friend #1: My DAD is a Scientologist
[Cissy looks at Julia]
[Dead silence]

Episode 2
Friend #2: Will Smith is a Scientologist
Cissy: Scientology is weird
Friend #2: Andy is a Scientologist.
[Cissy looks at Andy, then at Julia]
[Dead silence]